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Aerial Photographs of the 1906 Earthquake
hansoloaf writes "In 1906 San Francisco had a devastating earthquake - registering around 7.7 to 8.3 on the Richter scale. George Lawrence had devised ways to take aerial photographs and went to SF to showcase his technology. He used kites and custom built cameras that could take photos while up in the air."
It's an innovative use of technology at the time to accomplish something pretty amazing. It might not be regarded as news, but it's an interesting thing to hear about at the very least. Besides, how much of anything on /. is truly news that people care about? We have more iPod and game articles than anything else!
-- Reality is for people who lack imagination.
"Nobody reads /. for the articles, just the comments!"
/. to start using Coral and FreeCache?
:(
So how are you supposed to comment on a site which gets Slashdotted in seconds? Is it too much to ask for both readers and the people who get their sites totalled for
Dag, yo.
This guy enbodies the hacker spirit. He didn't "invent" anything in the strictest sense, but it's a damn clever hack using the teconology available to him.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
actually, now we have live coverage of the quake, with MSNBC news bunnies emoting over the destruction as it occurs.
of course, I'll tivo it and watch it later, after South Park, which will have its earthquake episode next Wednesday.
What's worse is the folks who gripe about the people who are griping. Like me, I'm worse than you. I'm actually griping about nothing.
Only 3 weeks was awesome and they were glad to have it. Just 54-60 years before was the California Gold Rush when the travel time was a lot longer. If you went by land it was 5-6 months IF you arrived at all. Lots of people died along the trail. If you went by sea it was more like 1-3 months IF you lived. Lots of people died of disease by crossing Panama on foot or were lost sailing all the way around South America.
Nowdays, people get pissy when their four hour flight gets delayed for an hour because of bad weather. People don't really realize how much and in how short a time things have changed in this world. There are people alive who can tell you about the 1906 earthquake and fire because they were there. The last of the civil-war widows only died a year or two ago.
People talk about "Ancient History" but it really wasn't all that long ago.
I sat here, looking at the front page of slashdot. I read this summary. And I knew, knew without a doubt, that some fuckhead with a high userid would say "How is this news" before anyone posted any actual useful comments.
This is Slashdot's equivalent of a fluff story. It sure as hell beats the nightly network complement of kittens rescued from wells. It lets us talk about something other than the old SCO, Patents, Microsoft, Privacy brigade that are mostly posted on here. It's just a break, and it only took you thirty seconds to read the summary.
Contrary to popular belief, there's no shortage of pixel statechanges in the world. We don't need constant commentary on whether it was worth linking this thing or that thing.
All you guys pissing about with "this is old" or "so what" are missing the point...this was innovation and the photos are quite unique considering the time period. Check out the design on the kites. Don't be such 4th graders...oh, wait. This is slashdot--you probably are 4th graders.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
If you think you're on a technology news site, then I think you got a little lost somewhere on the web.
this is _exactly_ the sort of story that makes slashdot worth reading....
SCO, Politics and the MPAA/RIAA can all go fuck themselves...
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