MetaFilter posts tagged with Smithsonian

My Mom Is Proud of HDR Photography

netbros — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:59:39 -0800

HDR photography seems to be polarizing. People either love it, or hate it, including here on MeFi. For those who enjoy exploring the possibilities HDR presents, a good place to start is Stuck In Customs. Trey Ratcliff has the first HDR photo ever to hang in the Smithsonian. He offers a comprehensive, six-step HDR tutorial if you want to try it yourself. A sampling of his HDR travel photography is here, and throughout the site, and he is also experimenting with HDR video technology. via HDR Spotting

Steve Jobs interview

erikvan — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:30:58 -0800

I'm 100% sure that if it hadn't been for Mrs. Hill in fourth grade and a few others, I would have absolutely ended up in jail. A timeless and fascinating 1995 interview with Steve Jobs.

Much Cooler Than Ceiling Cat!

cjorgensen — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:45:18 -0800

There's ceiling cat, then there is this! Be sure to watch the video. (via.)

Ben Stiller and walking dino skeleton not included.

FunkyHelix — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 09:13:27 -0800

Saturday, September 26th, the Smithsonian museum family and their affiliates will be hosting a free admission event, if you go to their MUSEUM DAY site and print out the admission coupon. One coupon = 1+ admission. Which museums across the nation are participating? I'm glad you asked. Because there are three ways of finding a participating venue. This is free culture being thrown at you for free and is free. Did I mention free? TAKE IT AND RUN. Introduce your kids to something other than the television. They may like it. Take your boy/girlfriend on a romantic date though the ages. Impress out of town guests with an excellent field trip. Teachers, force your kids to go and bring back a pamphlet or report as extra credit in your class.

Rocks from Heaven

various — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 21:23:15 -0800

Rocks from Heaven “…A party of the inhabitants of the town of Casas Grandes, as a matter of curious speculation, commenced excavating in the old ruins there. One more fortunate than the others drifted into a large room, in the middle of which there appeared to be a kind of tomb made of adobe-brick. Curiosity led this bold knight of the crowbar to renew his excavations, he found a large mass of meteoric iron in the middle of the tomb, carefully and curiously wrapped with a kind of coarse linen.” You can buy them online. If you think you've found one, you can check with experts to get it verified.

FlickTubeFaceSpace.com

LarryC — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:57:31 -0800

Web Tech Guy and Angry [Museum] Staff Person. A very funny animation for the museums workers and librarians subset of Mefites. From Michael Edson at Smithsonian 2.0.

Wiring the Castle

Miko — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:09:16 -0800

Circuits are flipping on in the nation's attic. A couple of weeks ago, 31 "digerati" -- like Clay Shirky, Chris Anderson, and George Oates -- dropped in to the Smithsonian Institution for the invitation-only conference "Smithsonian 2.0: A Gathering to Re-imagine the Smithsonian in the Digital Age". Dan Cohen of the Center for History and New Media provides a great summary (and continues to pose provocative questions) on his own blog. Those whose invitations were somehow lost in the mail can play fly-on-the-wall by watching the keynotes, paging through the Flickr pool of envymaking glimpses of their behind-the-scenes lab and collections tours, reading the blog (where Bruce Wyman of the Denver Art Museum lays out a succinct road map for museums using social media), and poking around in the SI's website gallery. Want to cheer on the USA's favorite 163-year-old "Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge" without taking the trip to DC? Thanks to their recent efforts, you can now follow the SI on Twitter, listen to its podcasts, watch its YouTube channel, visit the Latino Virtual Museum in Second Life, or use the FaceBook gifts page to send your best friends their very own pair of Dorothy's ruby slippers, Hope diamond, Negro Leagues baseball, or coelocanth.

Revival Revival

Miko — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:06:52 -0800

The Folkways Collection is a downloadable, 24-part podcast series that "explores the remarkable collection of music, spoken word, and sound recordings that make up Folkways Records (now at the Smithsonian as Smithsonian Folkways Recordings)."

U.S. Ex. Ex. 1838-1842

cenoxo — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:26:50 -0800

The United States Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 — Authorized and funded by the U.S. government, six ships sailed with 346 men (including officers, crew, scientists, and artists) on a four-year scientific and surveying mission, logging 87,000 miles around the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. Two ships and 28 men were lost, and the Expedition's contentious commander Charles Wilkes was court-martialled for his erratic behavior, and was sued by former officers and crew members. During the Civil War in 1861, he boarded a British ship, seized two Confederate agents, and nearly provoked military retaliation by England (he was court-martialled once again in 1864 for insubordination.) Wilkes' 1845 Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition and the Ex. Ex.'s journals were published by Congress, and some 40 tons of Expedition specimens and artifacts became the foundation of the Smithsonian Institution's collections. [Nathaniel Philbrick (video lecture) chronicles this almost-forgotten voyage in his 2003 book Sea of Glory (NYT review).]

The Smithsonian on Flickr

Kattullus — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:55:41 -0800

The Smithsonian has a Flickr page as part of the Flickr Commons program. So far there are 6 sets, Portraits of Scientists and Inventors, Portraits of Artists, American Celebrations, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, People and the Post and Smithsonian's First Photographer, featuring the work of Thomas William Smillie. [via The New Yorker's Book Bench]

Invention Playhouse

netbros — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 05:48:11 -0800

Explore the playful side of invention and the inventive side of play in Invention at Play. Learn how play connects to the creative impulse of both historic and contemporary inventors. From the Lemelson Center at the Smithsonian.

Do You Like American Music?

Miko — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 07:54:59 -0800

Sounds of America is a new monthly streaming audio program, a collaboration between the National Museum of American History and Smithsonian Global Sound. Up now are 3 episodes: African-American music in New Orleans, Women in American Music, and Freedom Songs of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nation's Millennium General Assembly

flatluigi — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:38:56 -0800

All that glitters is not gold. In this case, it happens to be pure junk. (via) The janitor's massive piece currently resides in the Smithsonian.

Doodles, Drafts and Designs

mediareport — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:08:46 -0800

Doodles, Drafts and Designs: Industrial Drawings from the Smithsonian. Including crayon tests, the original telescoping shopping cart and more. [via the horse's neck]

And all of it on their own stationery.

From Bklyn — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 01:33:18 -0800

Saul Steinberg, artist-in-residence of the nation's attic. 1967 S. Dillon Ripley, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution at the time, invited Saul Steinberg to come be their artist-in-residence. He lasted four months. A gallery of the works he made while there is included in the article. Previous Saul Steinberg.

vote for your favorites

nickyskye — Mon, 21 May 2007 09:53:39 -0800

Finalists in the 4th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest.

Challenging the Smithsonian

peacay — Fri, 18 May 2007 12:28:19 -0800

The non-profit group, Public.resource.org, are challenging the Smithsonian Institution by downloading all 6,288 (mostly) public domain photographs from the very restrictive Smithsonian Images site and reposting them to Flickr. [more: here, here] {via Ramage}

Digging in the Back Yard

Stynxno — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 07:58:09 -0800

A Polite Letter from the Smithsonian

Native Art in Embassies

aletheia — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 07:25:51 -0800

Established by the US Department of State, the Art in Embassies Program (AIEP) is "a global museum" exhibiting works by U.S. citizens in "approximately 180 American diplomatic residences worldwide". Recently, the AIEP began a collaboration with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) to bring limited edition works by five important contemporary Native American artists to embassies around the world.

The Native artists selected for the project include internationally exhibited Mario Martinez, who was recently given a major retrospective at the NMAI in New York City, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, a pioneering artist and art activist, as well as Marie Watt, Larry McNeil, and Norman Akers.

Art Museum, Deconstructed

Dave Faris — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:14:56 -0800

The Luce Foundation Center in the recently renovated and reopened National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, is more like a smörgåsbord-cum-antique store, packed in an overflowing archive rather than a more traditional museum layout. The collection is comprised of varying American art styles and genres in intimate display cases, with little in the way of context or reference. (Though the same site in this link is available on computers scattered throughout the gallery for further detail.)

Sunday Bible fun!

ibmcginty — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 17:55:24 -0800

The Smithsonian's Sackler gallery opened a unique and wide-ranging new exhibit yesterday featuring fragments of Bibles from before the year 1000. "Most of the manuscripts have never been seen outside the countries where they are stored. [Some Smithsonian-owned documents in the exhibition] have never been exhibited and two have not been shown since 1978." Fragments of the Codex Sinaiticus are included in the exhibit. Along with the archaeological interest, these fragments can pose theological and historical challenges for Christians. Some, like UNC's Bart Ehrman, have lost their faith as a result of studying early Bibles; some, like Luke Timothy Johnson of Emory, believing that Christianity is about a common cultural and spiritual experience, are unmoved by the "corruptions" and differences in the New Testament over time; other Christians try to refute (MeFi link) claims that the text has changed.

Free museum admission! Whee!

moss — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 12:12:10 -0800

"On September 30, 2006, for one day only, museums across the country will join the Smithsonian Institution in its long-standing tradition of offering free admission to visitors."

16,000 artifacts from 87 countries for the last 101 years

Megafly — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 16:56:44 -0800

Did you ever wonder what a Block 1 Apollo guidance computer looked like? Was grandpa a gunner in the Imperial German Air Force ? Maybe he sold a pioneer some laxatives? Perhaps you're just interested in a high tech Japanese Cameras? Find images of these items and more! at The Smithsonian Air and Space eMuseum

Smithsonian Photography Initiative

kirkaracha — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 22:40:36 -0800

The Smithsonian Photography Initiative provides access to "1,800 digital images, the work of 100 photographers, who used 50 different processes." It's the first online batch of the Smithsonian's 13 million photographs. (More info here and here). The Enter the Frame feature lets you save your own photo sequences.

Smithsonian selling right-of-first-refusal to Showtime

elpapacito — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 08:51:18 -0800

World Famous publicly founded Smithsonian Institution recently sold a right-of-first-refusal on their collections to Showtime Networks, allegedly because the Smithsonian badly needed cash for urgent works (previous Mefi thread). Some poster on other blogs notes that if the WIPO Broadcasting Treaty (links to second draft) will be implemented that could grant Showtime a broadcast right over the documentaries produced with Smithsonian materials ; this right would be similar yet separated from copyright , but with additional and increasingly chilling effects [partially via BoingBoing]