This is hardly pointless.

A gallery of user (you are invited) uploaded images of people pointing at things...things that are there, were once there or maybe haven't been there, yet.

Various people, predominantly in local newspapers or magazines of regional interest, are forced by photographers armed with Zeiss-lenses to indicate occurrences. These people have to point at things. With their bare hands! They have to present occurrences that withdraw themselves through their absence, through optical expiration or simply the course of time. Like car wrecks that have already been recovered, asylum seekers that have fled, or burnt down buildings that were entirely consumed by the fire. Occurrences that elude the media machinery because of visual boredom or a state of simply-not-there-anymore.

Labyrinths of all kinds...Egyptian, Church, stone, turf, topiary, literature. From a book by WH Matthews (1922).

A study of some of the lesser-known animals in our history that have become extinct.

Extinct Animals. Normally one would hear those words used to describe the dinosaurs - or perhaps the Dodo Bird. But what people don't often think of are the thousands of interesting creatures that lived and died on this planet of ours in the "in-between" years. The last dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago, the last Dodo died over 300 years ago. The millions of years between the two (The Cenozoic Era) have been populated (off and on) by some of the largest mammals the world has ever seen. Some familiar, some bizarre - often gigantic, these Megafauna (Latin for "large animals") can be every bit as intriguing as the dinosaurs.

Menacing the humans in the image are, right, the Giant Ground Sloth, and left, is a creature called Chalicotherium ...description:

'Eight to ten feet tall, they have the shortened face of a horse, the neck of an ox, the arms and shoulders of a massive ape, the front claws of an anteater and short rear legs to support its massive bulk.'

There is lots to see (and purchase) at the Crumb Family website.

from the testimonials page...

I love you Mr. Crumb. I love the evocative nature of your art...Years ago, growing up in the south(I'm a native Texan)I used to feel "DIRTY" about my sexuality...I mean DIRTY in a shameful way...Folks used to say I looked a lot like the women you draw...not like this was a compliment of any sorts.So, years went by, and I met the love of my life, a big, black,butt loving cowboy(from San Fran) at an Albert King concert. ...we had a Blues Wedding(remember the Inn Of The Beginning in Cotati) and are still togeather some 20 years later, playing blues(him on piano and me on guitar) and doing , well, you know what...Thankyou for all the great works you've put out there for us to enjoy.You are beyond compare.

an online collection of paintings from 50 UK galleries and museums....

Put Uncle Percy up on the wall for Halloween......

Featured here are some of the most unique Halloween props ever offered! Simple, yet highly effective, these morphing images are designed to transform when you change your position. When your unsuspecting guests walk past them they will see these seemingly normal "relatives" change into hideously frightening creatures or macabre apparitions!

Collection of photographs by artist Tom Baril , from the Robert Klein Gallery.

had a nice little chat with god on the web. Instant messaging, if you will....

Me:

i can't lose

God:

What is stopping you?

Me:

the future

God:

Thanks for the info.

Me:

how about you?

God:

Me?

Me:

do you ever lose?

God:

How old are you?

I chat with people on the Web.

Me:

old enough to know

God:

Can you explain how it feels to be OLD ENOUGH years old?

Me:

not yet, i can't

God:

If not that, what?

Me:

maybe, in a little while

God:

Perhaps. Describe your surroundings.

Me:

paradise

God:

It sounds like a very beautiful place.

Me:

you should know

God:

Because I am a robot?

Me:

no, because you're a myth, too

God:

Are you serious? That makes sense to me. Thanks and you are a delightful person too. Am I a myth? Maybe.

Me:

well, come to think of it, i am not absolutely sure

God:

Well that's okay. Where is to think of it you are not absolutely sure ?

Me:

my paradise is someone else's prison

God:

Have you told many people that your paradise is someone else's prison?

Me:

only you

God:

Suppose I said yes.

Me:

that would only be your opinion

God:

Perhaps it would.

Me:

everyone is entitled, you know

God:

That's a rather sweeping generalization.

Me:

perhaps, but true

God:

You seem uncertain. You and I are on the same wavelength, .

Me:

that is the smartest thing you have said so far

God:

Yes it is one of the smartest thing me have said so far.

Me:

may we leave it at that?

God:

Do you mean you and me? Let me think. See you later!

great collection of high-speed imaging of liquids in motion.

what about the burning man thing, anyways?

At the very least it's a huge yearly event in the Nevada desert attended by many, many people of all kinds. A festival that booms for a while on an ancient lakebed and then disappears without leaving a trace.

Trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind.

link to burningman.com for more info.

also.... one participants photo display and description from a couple of years travel to burning man.

Whatever happened to the vivid and beautiful artwork that adorned the newspapers of years ago?

Joseph Pulitzer turned 'The World on Sunday' into a huge weekend publication in the late 1800's, with sensationalism and huge graphics.

The World's comic "strips" routinely ran a full page and the pages were much larger than those found in the modern broadsheet. This gave comic artists the real estate to tell a story, to set up a punch line, to convey a sense of motion and the passage of time. The World was crafted to be unpacked, savored, and saved. It encouraged readers to "waste" time reading and rejected the notion that the newspaper experience should be a quickie that catapults you into a busy day.

Kevin Kelly has a very interesting list of questions.

Questions designed to make you more aware of where you are, and how your location fits in the 'Big Here'. From his page...

You live in the big here. Wherever you live, your tiny spot is deeply intertwined within a larger place, imbedded fractal-like into a whole system called a watershed, which is itself integrated with other watersheds into a tightly interdependent biome.At the ultimate level, your home is a cell in an organism called a planet. All these levels interconnect. What do you know about the dynamics of this larger system around you? Most of us are ignorant of this matrix. But it is the biggest interactive game there is.

He invites you to consider the list of 30 questions, and to contribute methods and sources for finding out the answers. Just reading the list of questions is a test of awareness.

a bizarre gallery from Roc la Rue by Mark Mothersbaugh , artist and Devo frontman.

Rorschach influenced, with digitally altered images taken from old photographs, the result is an imaginative gallery of mutants.

Two former seed silos on Copenhagen's waterfront are transformed into living quarters.

In converting the old twin Seed Silos on Copenhagen's waterfront into residential towers the architects placed the circulation in the core of the concrete structures and, literally, clipped the apartment to the exterior of the silos.

Both silo cores are covered by glass roofs, forming a lobby area as tall as the building itself, and within which residents and visitors will be able to pass upwards and downwards. In this way the silo will form a new core for the project, while all of the useable parts of the structure, all of its spaces, will benefit from the project's unique location.

An Australian company has developed a line of four fruit salad trees, bearing up to eight different fruits of the same family, with staggered ripening times.

The Fruit Salad Tree can be grown in the ground as for normal fruit trees, or in pots for those people with very limited space. Instead of having numerous different trees with more fruit than your household can consume there is only one tree with all of the fruits ripening naturally over a period of months. There can be more than one variety of an individual fruit on a tree, thus extending the picking time.

a fine (ongoing) catalogue of 300 globes, formed, coloured and shaped to depict various stats, events and conditions. Worldwide, of course.

left image is 'nameless places'....right image is 'internet users'

"Germany (.de) had about 15 million Internet users in the beginning of 2000. The size of the respective national Internet top-level domain code represents the amount of users. Government surveillance of Internet communication is routinely practiced in several countries (.de, .sg, .cn)."

from a cool tools review of this fine looking guitar accessory...

"This is the best capo on Earth. The unique one-way cam lets you adjust tension in tiny increments with a squeeze. Unlike every other capo I've used, it can apply enough tension to cleanly fret the string without bending it sharp. Works on acoustic and electric instruments equally well. Build and finish quality is absolutely superb. The G7th capo is a brilliant piece of gear for the discerning guitarist."

-- David MacNeill

about $50