Bird’s Eye: Just another flakey compilation. Have a ball.
* Gallery of Snowflake Pictures New Scientist
* Twenty Hours of Snow in One Minute youtube, via J-Walk
* Snow (song, Jesse Winchester)
“Now you know what they say about snow flakes
How there ain’t no two the same
Well, all them flakes look alike to me
Every one is a dirty shame”
Bird’s Eye: We start with an amazing ABC special on the Aussie floods: as you move your cursor across the page, you see what the city looked like before and after. It really brings home the power and horror of what’s happening. Then a light trip to Pamukkale, in Turkey where white limestone deposits form stone snowbanks down the hills. That’s different from Quebec, where snow forms the snowbanks, or Yellowknife, where boiling water sublimates before it can hit the ground in -30º weather. And we end with water skittering, either an individual droplet in super slow-mo across a pan, or lots of droplets, in the world’s largest fountain in Dubai.
* ABC News – Brisbane floods: before and after
* Meanwhile, in Québec [Click on right to see all pictures]
* Water at -30º in Yellowknife youtube, 30 seconds
* Water Droplet in Hot Pan (via the Presurfer)
* Dubai Fountain (via the Presurfer)
Bird’s Eye: There is sure a lot of it about, and that means there are a lot of good pictures about… and here are some, with a jocular chaser.
* A Slate Snow Picture Collection
* A Big Picture Snow Picture Collection
Bird’s-Eye: Tikkunista! has a lot of “what’s happening” photos, but now it’s time for some that showed what happened. We lead with a lovely collection of photos of Toronto a hundred years ago, follow with 1939 Montréal fashion in facial protection against snow storms (probably illegal now in Quebec, and for sure at airports), and an amazing photo from Petrolia “Canada’s oil town”, circa 1900
The images here are taken from 100 Views of Toronto, a picture book published at around 1900-1910. The original caption for each photograph is included, with additional notes in parentheses.
* Face Protection From Snowstorms flickr
Montreal 1939
* The Girl in the Middle is Dead Petrolia
This is a Petrolia post mortem photo by Robson . It was extremely expensive to have a photo taken during Victorian times. Only the wealthy could afford such a luxury. If a child or other loved one died it was a common practice to have a photo taken either alone or as in this case with the family especially if there was not yet a living likeness. If you look closely you can see a base behind the girls feet and a post would go up from that with clamps at the waist and neck and the clothing would be open at the back. The arms would have stiff wires running at the back to hold them in place. Also notice the strange placement of the hands. The pupils are painted on the closed eyelids.
