Link Banana

Though I dislike having to repeatedly click to see the series, Jason Kottke’s right that this is a rather good set of photos of Barack Obama.

Is awsome. (Yes, this is another Big Picture post.)

Closer to home, today’s Daily Dose of Imagery is pretty awesome too.

Think the “Northern Lights”. And someone named Paul has taken a lot of great pictures of them.

(via Delicious Ghost, who picked some of the best)

Blake Hounshell points to a handful of images of the DAX — Germany’s stock exchange — in decline that all feature the same woman. The Independent even interviewed her.

Because sometimes Digg bait is just too pretty.

I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never looked nearly this closely at the stuff.

(via Neatorama)

Photographed from above. On The Big Picture.

If those lines aren’t enough to make you view this one, nothing else I say will.

Another coincidence worth noting:

• The Big Picture has a great set of photos of life in Rio de Jinaro.
• While at Passport, Patrick Fitzgerald argues that the IOC should make Rio the host of the 2016 Summer Olympics. Though his argument is at times tepid, I find myself in agreement.

(via MeFi, where the early comments are uniformly bitter)

Sam Javanrouh captured a few moments of a great one.

Though I think giving Nigeria’s active but low-budget film scene an “-ollywood” is tacky, these are some interesting (and graphic) photos of it.

(via Boing Boing)

Two interesting tidbits:

• Primordial Mars was like primordial Earth.
• The European Space Agency offers some beautiful photos the Echus Chasm. The chasm was made by liquid water at some point in the past. (via Wired Science)

This picture is very cool. That is all.

(via kottke)

If only to demonstrate how much a fan I am of The Big Picture, another link to another stunning series.

Though the theme and title of this Big Picture post is rather inelegant, the pictures are quite amazing.

The Morning News has had some awesome photo galleries of a certain bear in dozens of places. Rosecrans Baldwin’s useful introduction:

I believe I enjoy publishing Witold Riedel’s “Bear” galleries here on TMN more than any other series of photos we run. If you’re new to the bear, I recommend digging back into previous iterations, like “The Bear,” “The Bear Goes to Paris,” or “The Bear in Helsinki.”

I met the bear in person once, at a dive bar in Greenwich Village. He was traveling with Witold that evening as he often does (but not always), and up close he embodied the same melancholic fortitude we get from the pictures—a little Germanic and perhaps too tall, but not someone who’s put-off by the world. More of a stiff spine in the face of the strange, the big, and the imposing. A traveler like the rest of us, moving through forests and museums and on planes, and one just as easily awed.

I don’t really know how these pictures were made, but I’m pretty sure I like them.

(via Andrew Sullivan)

The Big Picture really should try to do a post about this. Even Passport’s rather small picture is impressive.

More than 10,000 people have been mobilized to clean up green algae that has invaded the Olympic sailing venue in Qingdao, Shandong, China. The Qingdao Olympic Sailing Committee estimates that the area will be cleared before July 15.

Matt Kirkland has stripped away the fluffy cuteness behind Elmo and other plush toys to reveal the creepy-looking robots underneath.

(via kottke)

I have no idea how this picture was made, but it looks really really awesome. That is all.

(via Matt Yglesias, who actually links to this story about rapidly chilling beverages)