Find a Perfect Hotel Room ?

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

Most regular travelers are familiar with the helpful site Seatguru.com. Although it still has some flaws, the site provides useful seating charts for most types of aircraft of the major air carriers. But when it comes to hotel rooms, however, we’ve been at the mercy of easily manipulated user-driven websites.

Now an innovative new website, Room 77, has been launched to remedy the situation. Developed by a consortium of hospitality, travel and techie folk, the site utilizes secret algorithms, research, Google Earth and industry supplied information to identify the most appropriate hotel rooms for picky travelers.

Eventually Room 77 plans to offer photos, floor plans and virtual views for hotel rooms in cities world-wide. For now, the site covers major hotels in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Honolulu, Las Vegas, London, LA, Maui, Miami, NYC, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington.

Posted in Hotels, Tourism, Travel Writing | 1 Comment

Oops, We Almost Missed It…

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

February is Library Lovers’ Month and somehow we almost missed it. This month-long series of events is a celebration of school, public and private libraries.

Posted in Books, Libraries | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Why Save PBS ?

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

Posted in Freedom of Speech, USA | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Just How I Remember Them

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

Swiss photographer Corinne Vionnet has created an amazing effect by compiling 200 to 300 photographs of famous tourist landmarks and mashing them up into single images.

Posted in Photography, Tourism | 3 Comments

Happy Belated Public Domain Day

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

The Public Domain Review is a fascinating newish website that reviews literature which has entered the public domain due to copyright expiration. Founded and edited by Jonathan Gray and Adam Green from the Open Knowledge Foundation, London, the site was launched on 1/1/11. Each week an invited contributor presents an interesting work with accompanying text providing relevant context, commentary and criticism.

The inaugural post was on Nathanael West.

Posted in Books, Freedom of Speech, History, Writing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Why We Fight ( For Libraries )

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

Posted in Books, Libraries, USA | 1 Comment

Street Art With Wings

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

On February 2nd, I blogged about the new Google Art project, which offers digitized collections and tours from a cohort of the world’s best museums. Now the Street Art View project uses Google’s Street View option to showcase crowd-sourced pictures of street artwork from around the world. The audacious project is not of Google origin, but instead is the collective creation of the makers of Red Bull and the Brazilian ad agency Loducca.

Visitors to the Street Art View website can peruse a map, with markers indicating locations where other users have discovered mural artwork. Users can contribute to the collective hive by tagging images themselves.

While the image quality leaves much to be desired, it’s still cool to find far-flung works by the likes of Space Invader, Banksy, ROA, Os Gemeos and others.

Posted in Art, Freedom of Speech | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Despite What Eminem Says…

Posted on February 20, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

Despite the touching platitudes from the resurrected hip hop artist, and the hard-boiled TV commercials from the supposedly resurgent Chrysler brand, Detroit is 138 square miles of ramshackle, crumbling ignominy.

Take a look at a few examples of America’s humiliation from photographer Kevin Bauman’s 100 Abandoned Houses Project.

Posted in Architecture, USA | Tagged | 1 Comment

Replacing Borders, That’s Easy

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

Posted in Books, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The Fool Triumphant: LA’s Been Brainwashed

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

 

If you’ve seen the clever satire, Exit Through the Gift Shop, then you’re already familiar with the ersatz street artist known as Mr. Brainwash. It appears that “Thierry Guetta” is celebrating the film’s Academy Awards nomination with more LA street art.

Posted in Art, Film | Tagged , | Leave a comment