I’m always wary of technology for technology’s sake, but not only is this a fantastic technical feat and a high quality image, it’s also delivered via a rather slick interface …

Gigapixel image of Paris from http://www.paris-26-gigapixels.com

Paris 26 Gigapixels – Interactive virtual tour of the most beautiful monuments of Paris.

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Google today have a Doodle for Kew Gardens’ 250th birthday, and the Queen is paying a visit.

Kew's Google Doodle celebrating its 250th anniversary

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Whilst I still work in an organisation with science at its core, I don’t often regret having left my first role as an actual, real, bona fide scientist. But when I read someone like Charlie Brooker standing up for scientists (Science is like a good friend: sometimes it tells you things you don’t want to hear) in an impassioned and forthright way I am tempted, just that little bit, to return to the folds of those people who he describes as “fellow human beings who’ve actually bothered getting off their arses to work this shit out”.

Great piece, worth a read.

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Introducing www.WhatsThatPicture.com….

My personal interest in vintage photographs has inspired me to conceive a new website, called “What’s That Picture?”

In my own rather random collections I have been struck by how many photographs simply have no provenance, yet look as though someone, somewhere, should certainly know where or perhaps when they were taken, or what or who they are of.

This new site is intended as a community site where people can post their vintage photos and have other members and casual visitors pass comment and help to identify them. Of course this then gives the photo increased historical value.

Membership is free, and when you sign up you get your own image gallery to put things in (just 1MB of space for free membership – about ten typical images – but with the potential to upgrade to premium membership and get 50 times as much space).

You will find the site at www.whatsthatpicture.com

At this point I am just at the point of extending circulating details from a limited number of friends and contacts to a slightly wider but still focused group of people I think may be interested. But even so I’ve already got a dozen or more members, from as far afield as New Zealand, Canada and across the UK.

I’d be grateful to anyone who could take a quick look and make constructive comments.

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So, Time Magazine has named ‘You’, or is that ‘Us’, as person of the year. Is there a cash prize?

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I’ve just discovered that Google has launched its own blog search. Not quite sure how they determine what a blog is to get their data, but I gave up worrying when I rather vainly checked and found that catchingtherain was indexed. For a sample search i also had a look to see who has been blogging about Chinglish and you’ll see there are plenty out there.

Positively seconds of fun to be had.

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As a collector of silly signs the BBC piece Beijing stamps out poor English struck a chord and gave me much amusement. The Chinglish photo pool on Flickr is a real ‘must see’. And if you wondered where the tile of this post came from, see this one.

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Blimey, these are hard!

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I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

First the laughter:

Flickr has recently launched a fully integrated mapping tool (as opposed to a few other sites which had been doing it via tags and the Flickr API) and it’s flippin’ clever.

As an example go to the Kew Gardens Group map – a map which, not surprisingly, displays all the pictures that have been added to the Kew Gardens group. First thing to do is click the ‘Hybrid’ link top-right so you get the satellite image.

Then zoom in to get more detail, and click on the pink dots to see actual photos.

Also try using the Search Box and the Filters tab at the bottom (e.g. just type ‘alpine’ into the search and press ‘Go’ and you’ll just see pictures of alpines or the Alpine House)

And if you have a Flickr account then login and it just gets better. One of the most amazing things is how they have set up the interface so you can ‘place’ (or geotag) your photos just by dragging and dropping them onto a map. Which probably explains why there are so many pictures that have already been given a location.

Flippin amazing. The only downside is how rubbish some users are at putting things in the right place on the map (there are Kew pictures at Barnes and in Richmond Park!).

Now the crying:

My efforts to create the ‘Where in the world’ map of blog posts and pictures now appear somewhat in vain, and indeed in this world of Blogspot, Flickr, MySpace etc I have serious doubts about whether the effort to create and maintain a blog and photo gallery on your own domain/hosting is really worth the effort. Answers on a postcard….

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London Bloggers is a seemingly simple site which allows people to list and promote their London-based blogs. Nothing remarkable there, but the real beauty is the way they have structured the site, based on the London tube map. If you’ve seen previous posts on this blog, or browsed through some of the photo galleries, you’ll have a fair idea that I’m based in West London – Hanwell W7 to be more precise. Click on the logo here and you’ll see other blog sites in and around Hanwell, Boston Manor & Northfields stations. Of course you can also choose any other station you like. Sweet.

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