Category Archives: Uncategorized

Economic Hypochondria Down Under is one of an armful of great pieces from the just-launched Global Mail – per their website, “a philanthropically funded, not-for-profit news and features website. Our mission is to deliver original, fearless, independent journalism”, and they … Continue reading →

The Iranian rial’s plunge seems to have stalled at the 18,000 mark, but Iran is still determined to take some… erm… serious measures against currency speculators: In addition, the hard-line chief of Iran’s judiciary, Ayatollah Sadegh Amoli Larijani, threatened Wednesday to … Continue reading →

From CME trader Ryan Carlson’s excellent Trading Pit History blog, here is a photo of possibly the greatest open-outcry exchange ever: the American Liquor Exchange. Sadly defunct now, it thrived in the mid-1930s, with this Pittsburgh Press article from 1933 reporting heavy buying … Continue reading →

So if you were the PM of Samoa, which is moving this week from the US side of the international date line to the Australian side, wouldn’t you rather drop a Monday instead of a Friday? Anyway, Samoa is skipping Friday December … Continue reading →

Berkeley in HDR: tone mapping, originally uploaded by Shiny Things. So here’s some photos I shot from a SEKRIT location in the hills above Berkeley, right on sunset on a clear November day, and then processed through Photomatix Pro to … Continue reading →

One quote stood out for me from this piece about people who (bless their hearts) send voluntary donations to the US government to help pay off the national debt: [Senator Orrin] Hatch (R-UT) said he wasn’t surprised that more people don’t … Continue reading →

Busted!, originally uploaded by Shiny Things. The Valley of Fire is, thanks to its winding roads and its alien landscape and its proximity to Las Vegas, extremely popular for car photography. The first time I came through (last year), Goodyear … Continue reading →

Mojave: Where The Streets Have No Name, originally uploaded by Shiny Things. OK, all U2 jokes aside (the famous photo was actually shot in Death Valley National Park anyway), this is a Joshua Tree, sitting on the vast, empty lava … Continue reading →

Grand Canyon, Tiny Robot, originally uploaded by Shiny Things. The Grand Canyon is even grander when you’re only three inches tall.

What were they thinking… OF DEATH!, originally uploaded by Shiny Things. In the early 1880s, a San Francisco businessman named William Tell Coleman came to Death Valley with dollar-signs in his eyes. He said “I’ll mine the borax from this … Continue reading →