John Labovitz
life
Raised in Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC, I later spent a decade in the San Francisco Bay area,
both in the city and rural Sonoma County. I moved to Seattle in 1995, and watched that city grow for seven
years. I now live in Silverton, Oregon, in the foothills of the Cascades.
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- jslabovitz (offline)
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art
Photography integrates my diverse interests in architecture, culture, history, travel, nature, technology, design, and sense of place.
I continue to explore these themes in my ongoing international travels, as well as around my home.
See more of my photographs at Flickr Photostream
travel
I have always loved to travel, and as I get older, I find I want to travel more, and more deeply. Along with frequent short travels
around the US to visit friends and family, I am starting to experiment with longer yet slower journeys to other parts of the world.
Upcoming trips:
Waiting for the train
Friday, 19 December 2008 » This afternoon I arrived at the train station in Vila Real de Santo António assuming a short wait. Instead I found the online schedule had been wrong, and I had just missed my train, and would wait another hour and a half for the next one to Tavira. » read more
Waking up in mystery
Thursday, 4 December 2008 » I wake to a warm morning and a thick head from last night’s wine. Pigeons careen overhead like geese. The flock of peacocks scrabble down the cliff of the canyon outside my little studio. Cars and trucks buzz from the nearby highway that winds over the bridge into Mértola. The air seems more flexible, breathable; it’s a welcome change from the last few frigid nights. » read more
Out of the dark Northwest
Monday, 24 November 2008 » We lift off on a rare gorgeous November day. Above bands of shadowy conifers and glittery rivers rise the snowcoated mountains: Baker, Adams, Saint Helens. » read more
Read more at On the Road: travels with John
tech
I have been programming and using computers for a very long time. From my first computer in 1978 (a COSMAC VIPER I assembled from a kit),
I’ve experienced a great deal of what used to be called the ‘microcomputer revolution.’ I was also fortunate to be involved in the
pioneering days of the early Internet of the 1980s, though the explosion of the Web in the 1990s, and into the boom and bust.
These days, I am primarily interested in desktop and mobile technology, as well as the general impacts of technology on our culture
as a whole. I’m especially fascinated by the impact of digital technology in artistic fields like photography and music.
See my professional profile at LinkedIn
An unexpected sense of place?
Sunday, 27 July 2008 » In Great To See You. Just Not Around Here (full article), Jan Chipchase outlines the darker, edge effects of location-aware technology. In summary, the advertisement of location destroys anonymity – not just one’s own, but others’ as well. » read more
How Flickr could make the world a better place for copyright
Friday, 11 July 2008 » Flickr has come under fire recently for not enforcing licensing terms on images accessed through their application programmer’s interface (API) and syndication feeds.Comply with any requirements or restrictions imposed on usage of the photos by their respective owners. Remember, Flickr doesn’t own the images — Flickr users do. Although the Flickr APIs can be used to provide you with access to Flickr user photos, neither Flickr’s provision of the Flickr APIs to you nor your use of the Flickr APIs override the photo owners’ requirements and restrictions, which may include “all rights reserved” notices (attached to each photo by default when uploaded to Flickr), Creative Commons licenses or other terms and conditions that may be agreed upon between you and the owners. In ALL cases, you are solely responsible for making use of Flickr photos in compliance with the photo owners’ requirements or restrictions. If you use Flickr photos for a commercial purpose, the photos must be marked with a Creative Commons license that allows for such use, unless otherwise agreed upon between you and the owner. You can read more about this here: www.creativecommons.org or www.flickr.com/creativecommons. » read more
On semantic HTML
Saturday, 14 June 2008 » Reposted from a discussion on pdxruby.How does one resolve the Absolute Good of semantic HTML against the need for a CSS layout framework?Compare doing layout in semantic HTML and CSS to doing layout in Adobe InDesign for instance. I assert that the requirements addressed by the two approaches are roughly equivalent and yet you hardly have to be a high priest to do layouts in InDesign. You just lay things out. Sheesh. » read more
Read more at Technography: Musings on technology
discoveries
The sphere of information is full of inspiring or interesting bits, waiting to be discovered.
Here are a few of my discoveries.
High Power Job » A beautiful, mesmerizing video about the Faraday-encaged linemen of the sky. Please do watch it. » read more
Perhaps the answer lies in greening the cities — not in a vertical direction — but on the horizontal? This is pretty much what Cuba did when the flow of Soviet oil dried up and large-scale mechanised agriculture became impossible. Under the US trade embargo the people faced starvation. The result was a proliferation of small-scale organic farms that basically kept the nation fed. The Guardian: ‘Farming: vertically challenged?’
No one I know has clicked on a fucking ad in years while rushing through a website. Amen: A Night With Bill Gates’ New Big Hairy Vision (Brian Lam)
See more at Discoveries
