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downtowncamera:

A big happy birthday nod to photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt who was born in Germany this day in 1898.  Known for his candid photography, Eisenstaedt employed 35mm Leica’s throughout much of his life as his primary workhorses.  His early years were privy to many sociopolitical events including the meeting between Hitler and Mussolini in Italy, and one of Nazi Propoganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, which earned him a scolding once Goebbels discovered the photographers Jewish heritage.  Between 1936 and 1972, Eisenstaedt worked as a staff photographer for Life magazine, his photos appearing on the cover 90 times.  Whether you recognize the name or not, Eisenstaedt took some of the more iconic photos from the last 80 years, including the famous V-J Day in Times Square, The Ice Skating Waiter at St. Moritz, and numerous others.  Enclosed is a photograph taken of the clock at Penn Station in New York City, a perhaps much less iconic photograph, but nonetheless a great example of the marriage between a keen eye and a talented hand.

Awesome!

erick41282:

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#photooftheday #picoftheday #primeshots #instagood #bestoftheday #gang_family

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jtotheizzoe:

theweekmagazine:

The formerly familiar swooosh as the caller rotated the dial clockwise on a rotary phone to the “finger stop” and then the click-click-click as the dial returned counter-clockwise to the start position is now a novelty application that you can install on your iPhones for nostalgic yuks. Adolescents waiting in line nearby will wonder what the heck that sound is, while we older fogies will know you’re poking fun at us and our ancient ways.

11 sounds your kids have probably never heard

PHOTO: ThinkStock/Comstock

A little note to blow the kids’ minds a little wider open: Why did phones used to click?

It may be hard to believe, but the world was not always completely contained on microchips, with we mortals floating in a nutrient-rich liquid bath while plugged into the Matrix via a probe inserted through the base of our skulls. No, sir. Phones actually used to have to send a signal to tell an exchange what number to dial. 

Whereas today you just enter 10 digits and it sends that information to a computer, which then locates the person you are calling and then SPACE MAGIC. That old dial up there was purely mechanical. When you turned it and it wound back, it clicked past a little electric contact, sending a pulse through the line, one pulse for one, eight pulses for eight, carefully timed and ordered on a nice round dial. Early telephone exchange machines, which replaced manual operators, counted the clicks as electric pulses through the telephone wire, and routed your call to the callee.

Radiolab did an amazing segment about a guy named Joe Engressia, Jr. He figured out a lot of those signals in order to get free calls, whose whistles, chirps and phone hacks started a movement called “Phone Phreaking”. Super-cool look at the history of phone engineering.

(via 4gifs)

peterfromtexas:

Dental School Models

Now that’s downright creepy!