The Impossible Project

by 10:59 am. It has 22 Comments.

I’m old enough to remember the excitement of the Polaroid SX-70: it spit out a piece of paper, and you watched a picture develop in front of your eyes. Pure fucking magic, at a couple of bucks a shot.

Polaroid went out of the instant film business a few years ago, after a complete marketing failure. One highlight of their decline was the official response to the OutKast video “Hey Ya!” (Shake it Like a Polaroid): a warning that shaking a Polaroid might distort the image.

After Polaroid failed, a couple of artists bought their plant in Holland and started The Impossible Project, an effort to resurrect that plant and create new instant film. Today, they’re launching their first new product, a line of black-and-white film that fits in old SX-70 and Polaroid 600 cameras. Color’s coming by the end of the year.

Their site is gorgeous, and the whole thing is testament to what a few very determined people can do. I hope they make it.





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Early Morning Open Thread

by 3:30 am. It has 49 Comments.

Many thanks to JeffreyW for linking to this morning’s Moment of Zen:

The mechanics of hovering had been explained to me, but I’d never realized how much these little guys would look like swimmers treading water…

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For those who were impressed, and moved, by the Esquire profile of Roger Ebert, he will be debuting his “own” computer voice on Oprah today:

A company called CereProc has taken voice samples from Ebert’s DVD commentaries and created a computerized voice that Ebert can use to “speak.” This could even lead to Ebert using the voice for other media, including podcasts, video, and commentaries.

(h/t TV Squad)

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Open Thread

by 2:23 pm. It has 74 Comments.

My SNOWPOCALYPSE pics are up on Flickr.

snow-1

Email me a link to yours and I might post a few in some new photo threads.





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Pictures from the Balloon Juice get together

by 2:10 pm. It has 117 Comments.

Here’s some pics from the San Francisco Balloon Juice Event of 2010.

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Open Thread

by 12:00 pm. It has 43 Comments.

Patrick Power, Le Gout.

le-gout

Dayv, Pigeon on a wire.

pigeon-on-a-wire

Email me a link to your one or two favorite pics on a photo site like Flickr (do not send the image itself please) and I will put up favorites in open threads. Send a short caption if you want one.

Click on the photos for a link to the photographer’s website. To see all photo threads, click on ‘photo blogging’ at the bottom of the post.

If your computer cannot read our email links at top right, my email is (remove the zeroes): portus0jackson0ii at yahoo dot com.





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