Tom – Page 123 – Random Connections

Stereograph Collections

March 10, 2011 Tom 1 Comment

EdTech, History and Genealogy, Photography

I think I mentioned that while growing up we had an old stereographic viewer and collection of stereograph cards as seen above. I used to love playing with it, and it seemed like we had quite the collection. While I was still on this 3D kick I decided to check to see if there were other collections online besides the one I found at the University of South Carolina Library. It turns out that there are an AMAZING number of images available online, if you know where to look.

The first thing I did was just a simple Google Image Search for the term “stereograph.” That turned up lots of interesting hits, and some potential sources for more images. It looked like a good many of these led back to the Library of Congress, and that’s where I hit paydirt.

My first search on the Library of Congress’s site led me to the Robert N. Dennis Collection, now housed at the New York Public Library. The stereographic images in the University of South Carolina’s online collection are from this collection. Dennis was not a photographer, but a collector, and he amassed a huge collection of these image cards. Many of these depict life in small-town America, but the collection itself spans the US and includes some European shots. Dennis donated these to the library in two batches, first in the 1930’s and later in the 1950’s. The collection consists of about 72,000 stereograph cards, of which a little over 12,000 have since been digitized and placed online.

The online Dennis Collection can be browsed by state, so I was curious to see what was available for South Carolina in addition to those I had already seen. I was surprised to see that there were several images of Greenville, including one for Reedy Falls and one of the old Furman campus and Belltower.

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Research Tips with a Camera

March 7, 2011 Tom 6 Comments

EdTech, General Technology, Internet

As I was doing the research for my post on South Carolina’s Tricentennial, one point was driven home – you just can’t find everything you need on the Internet. That’s a lesson our students often forget. Sometimes you just have to crack open a book or make a trip to the local library in order to get the information you need.

I have, however, found a couple of tricks to make library research much easier, especially if you’re working with reference materials and other items that have limited circulation, or that can’t be removed from the library. I’ve found these techniques especially helpful in places like the South Carolina Room of the Greenville County Library, where the items are often one of a kind, and need to be protected.

I always have an old-fashioned pencil and paper for taking notes, but my research tool of choice lately has been my trusty Nikon S70 point and shoot camera. Today’s cameras have such high resolution and memory is so cheap that it’s just as easy to snap a picture of a page in a book to review later. You can zoom into the photo to read the text clearly, and it saves a ton of money on photocopying. You can also snap photos of images and illustrations, as well as bibliographical information for proper citation later.

Of Tricentennials and Tetrons

March 4, 2011January 20, 2020 Tom 13 Comments

History and Genealogy

Three unrelated events had the effect of catapulting me back 41 years. Several months ago I bought a Rubik’s Cube as part of a musical experiment. Two separate Facebook friends posted links to songs from South Carolina’s Tricentennial, and this week I met with my friend Tim Taylor about setting up a geocaching trail around the Roper Mountain Science Center. Those three events together created a time warp, and sent me in search of information about Greenville’s ill-fated Piedmont Exposition Park, and the geodesic cube designed by Buckminster Fuller that was supposed to sit atop Roper Mountain.

It was the 1969-1970 school year, and I was in Mrs. Medlock’s third grade class at Gray Court-Owings School. In third grade the social studies curriculum is all about South Carolina, so the timing with the state’s tricentennial was perfect. We all sang that we were good Sandlappers, and we learned about the various sections of the of the state, from the coastal plains to the Piedmont.

Geotagging “Threat”

March 4, 2011 Tom No Comments

Geocaching and Maps, Internet, Photography

Just when you thought it might be safe to let the kids out of the house, the news media comes up with even more scary stuff that you didn’t know about. This time geotagged photographs are the culprit. Two separate news outlets – MSNBC and ABC, have aired segments on the dangers of posting geotagged … Read More “Geotagging “Threat”” »

Not Quite Normal

March 3, 2011 Tom No Comments

EdTech, Internet

Some time ago I had a teacher ask me about Xtranormal as a possibility for digital storytelling. I took a brief look at it, and it appeared fairly simple and easy to use. You type in some text, and animated characters act and read what you typed in a mechanical voice. It seemed fairly simplistic, … Read More “Not Quite Normal” »

Pawn Wars

March 2, 2011 Tom 2 Comments

Entertainment

A couple of months ago I mentioned that there seem to be a plethora of auction/evaluation shows on TV now days. Well, even more seem to be cropping up, and these seem to be taking a much uglier turn.

Perhaps it’s a sign of today’s economy. Rather than finding some hidden treasure of extravagant value, these new shows seem to focus more on desperation. Some of the shows are based on abandonment, and some are based on folks so down on their luck that they are willing to sell anything.

First up are the storage shed shows, and there are two of these hitting the cable networks. Both are set in California and are based on a law in that state which says that if the rent on a storage locker is unpaid for three months, the contents of that locker can be sold at auction. In other words, some poor folks couldn’t make their rent for whatever reason, had to abandon their stuff, and the guys on these shows get to make money off of it.

Both shows follow a similar premise. Buyers are not allowed a close inspection of the storage unit. They are allowed only five minutes to view what they can from the door. Upon that quick inspection they have to decide how high to bid. It could be a big pay-off with hidden treasure, or a bust.

Contra Dancing

February 26, 2011 Tom No Comments

Entertainment

Friday night was a busy night. Laura wanted to go to her favorite restaurant, the Lazy Goat, and I wanted to go dancing. We did both.

Many years ago Laura and I were very active with the Harvest Moon Folk Society, which sponsored a contra dance once a month. We started dancing with them when they were just getting started at the Stone Center at McPherson Park, moved with them when they started at Slater Hall, and continued when they finally found their home at the River Falls Lodge up near Jones Gap. For whatever reason, we stopped going to the dances. Perhaps it was because River Falls was a bit further away, or perhaps it was just because we got out of the habit. Regardless, it’s been probably twelve years since we’ve been to a dance.

Which brings us to the present day…

Slave Songs of the United States

February 25, 2011 Tom 2 Comments

History and Genealogy, Music

This past week one of the ETV channels was rerunning an episode of History Detectives. This particular episode had been produced to air during Black History Month, and featured stories about African American history. It originally aired in 2008, and I remember seeing it once before.

In the first segment investigator Wes Cowan visited Avery Clayton, president of the Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum in Culver City, California. Clayton had found an old song book from 1867 entitled “Slave Songs of the United States,” and wanted to know if it might be the first collection of slave spirituals. The rest of the segment involved Cowan’s investigations into the origins of this collection.

Given my interest in old hymnals, this segment really caught my attention. There were other connections, as well – the investigations took them to Cal State Dominguez Hills, where Laura did her undergrad work, and to the sea islands of South Carolina.

Fun with Anaglyphs – Part 4

February 23, 2011 Tom No Comments

General Technology, Internet, Photography

In the previous parts of this series I looked at ways of creating anaglyphs with Photoshop, both from old stereoscopic images and from a set of two images shot with a hand held camera. But what if you’ve already got a photograph and want to “fake” a 3D image? Well, I think I’ve worked out a method of doing that, too.

So far I haven’t found any tutorials online for creating fake anaglyphs in Photoshop. I did find Jim Long, who has done an excellent job of converting 2D images into 3D cyan-red anaglyphs. Jim as quite the gallery not just photographs, but also of classical art rendered both as stereoscopic images and as anaglyphs. Here’s his version of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa:

I don’t know what process Jim is using, but he manages to maintain color on the images very well. He also has a link to a supplier of 3D glasses with one of the most extensive inventories I’ve seen.

Fun with Anaglyphs – Part 3

February 23, 2011 Tom No Comments

Photography

In the first part of this series I was stumped because I didn’t even have a pair of 3D glasses. This time I was stumped because I didn’t have a 3D camera set-up. In Part 2 I had mastered converting existing sterographic images into 3D anaglyphs using Photoshop, and now I wanted to try my … Read More “Fun with Anaglyphs – Part 3” »