Costco Photo Center: “

Though I claim to be a photographer I don’t own a printer. I can’t stand dealing with ink cartridges or printer profiles. Instead, I rely on Costco Photo for most, if not all, of my photo printing needs.

Costco is the cheapest place I have found that prints on high quality Fuji archival photo paper in sizes up to 20′ x 30′. At $9.99 for a 20’x30′ print, it’s 1/3rd the cost of the previously reviewed Pictopia (though, admittedly, they lack the same range in sizes). You do not need a membership to use the Costco Photo Center service on-line but it necessitates that the prints are shipped to you. Larger prints are shipped rolled in a tube. If you are a Costco member you are allowed to use custom color profiles while also adding the option of picking up your order at the nearest Costco which can cut down on turn-around time.

I have heard on forums that Costco Photo Centers vary significantly in quality, and that some labs are run incredibly well and are capable of producing results equivalent to far more expensive services, while others have wonky colors with less than dedicated staff. In my experience, if I ever have a problem with a photo, no matter how minor, they are very, very quick to reprint while also letting me keep both (which is a nice bonus).

— Oliver Hulland

Costco Photo Center

20’x30′ print on Fuji archival photo paper

$10

Available from Costco Photo Center

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FINDING YOUR DOMINANT EYE: “To find your dominant eye, make a circle of your thumb and forefinger about 6 inches in front of your face. Look through the circle with both eyes at an object across the room. Now close one eye; if the object stays in the circle, the open eye is the dominant one. Submitted by: Donald H. Dunn, in Business Week”

Designs For A Vertical City: “

Anthony Stahl and David Lee’s “barrio de los paracaidistas’:

The architecture within the tower develops over time, creating a dynamic composition of vertical neighborhoods that grow around and into one another. Sub-public and private spaces evolve organically, creating complex urban spaces similar to those of historic Mexico. The meaning of the tower is a living being that breathes in the city and is truly defined by Mexican culture and people.

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You knew this was coming. I’d call spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen Inception yet, but honestly, this flowchart from graphic designer Sean Mort will just confuse you anyways. If, however, you’ve been fortunate enough to see the mind roller coaster of a film already, Mort’s chart makes perfect sense and might clarify any confusion. Levels and dreamers are labeled accordingly. I think the line for Cobb to Limbo should start at Level 4 though.
[via datavis]

Long Form * Instapaper: “

Longer than a newspaper item but shorter than a book, a magazine article is the ideal length for my attention span. I’d rather spend an hour with a great magazine article rather than read a book any day. Ditto for hopscotching through shallow blogs and newspaper bits. But there are fewer print publications running long form journalism. Ironically, a new website, called Long Form, points to the best long form articles appearing anywhere in print, and also collects the great magazine articles from the past. Long Form fits perfectly into a small ecosystem whereby you can read these great pieces of writing on a Kindle, iPad, or phone. I’ve found the easy-reading portable screens of these tablet devices fit a 1 to 2-hour window perfectly.

Here is how this system works. The Long Form website lists great magazine articles just published as well as past hits from the archives. You mark the articles you want to read, which are then downloaded to your tablet via Instapaper, another website, which has an iPad app and Kindle connection. You can then read the articles, without ads, at your leisure on your gadget. The whole migration is seamless and unconscious.

Give Me Something To Read, like Long Form, makes reader selections of the best magazine articles. On both sites you hit a button ‘Read Later’ to move it to your reading device. In fact you can mark any web page to be ‘read later’ from an Instapaper button on your menu bar and it will move it to your tablet, phone, or even RSS feed. And you can send to Instapaper (and therefore to your reading device) any item from your Twitter stream or social apps like Delicious or Digg, Reddit, etc. to be read later on your Kindle or iPad (or computer screen).

However, I prefer to read long form factuals, and so I keep returning to Long Form to find the gems. I particularly enjoy classic great magazine pieces that I missed over the years. In fact, I realized that I’ve never seen a list of the best magazine articles ever, but see no reason not to make one now. If you have a nomination for one of the top 100 magazine articles of all time, please send it to me (with a link if possible). I’ll share what I accumulate on this page here.

— KK

Long Form

Instapaper

Give Me Something To Read

iPhone version:

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Controlling Soot Might Quickly Reverse a Century of Global Warming: “A massive simulation of soot’s climate effects finds that basic pollution controls could put a brake on global warming, erasing in a decade most of the last century’s temperature change.“

Ants on a scanner: 5-year video timelapse: “

By François Vautier

(via Submitterator, thanks gevertully).

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Consider What Your “Top Idea” is Making You Do [Thinking]: “

Essayist and programmer Paul Graham realized that the idea one thinks about when allowed to think freely—in the shower, for example—is more than just a quiet obsessions. It’s a “Top idea,” and it influences every other thought, too. More »

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HOWTO make spider-silk thread: “

Love the spiders in your garden? Put the little critters to work for you by turning their abandoned silk webbing into thread: ‘
I have also encountered many abandoned webs, which gave me the idea of harvesting these out-of-use webs for their silk. Having walked into so many webs, I know how unbelievably strong and stretchy their threads are. Spider silk, in fact, is the strongest fiber ever discovered. Spider silk is stronger than steel, for its diameter; that is, a thread of steel would be weaker than a thread of spider silk of the same size.’

How to make Spider Silk Thread

(via Craft)

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Mila’s Daydreams: mom photographs what her baby might be dreaming: “

Adele Enersen in Helsinki says, ‘This is my maternity leave hobby. While my baby is taking her nap, I try to imagine her dream and capture it.’

Mila’s Daydreams

(via Laughing Squid/Matt Haughey)

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