This was the sign at the doctor’s office for mandatory physical examinations for Volusia County job applicants, way back when I started working at the library (2006 November). The great thing since I was fired, is that I pee into cups far less often being jobless. If I want to repeat the experience, it will only be out of choice and for fun of some sort.

Anyway, I’m sure there’s a more tactful way to work this sign. Perhaps, “please be prepared to give a urine sample.” That wording is more general-purpose too. A sign like that could be everywhere, because who knows when it will come up (for the national security of course).

This was Obey the Sign 6 back on deviantART. The 5 before it are junk, so this is now the definitive Obey the Sign. This photo’s funny in a sad sort of way… we don’t even treat our dogs like this. The clinician has to keep his ear to the bathroom door, to make sure you’re not substituting someone else’s urine. That’s a problem so often, you know?

This isn’t an image you have to beat to death. I just converted to black and white, added a ton of contrast, and burned in the corners.

Canon PowerShot A620, 1/15, F2.8, 50mm, ISO50, 2006-11-10T09:39:53-04, 2006-11-10_09h39m53

Download the high-res JPEG or download the source image.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

The hard drive that never was. Waterlogged is two years old, coming on the heels of Raindrops, but a classic nonetheless. This was the hard drive from my first computer, a budget desktop I got in 2000 (I was 9 then). In February of 2005 it failed, and I’d just left it sitting around till June of 2006 when I cracked the case open (harder than you’d think) and took this shot. The drive is a Seagate ST34311A. I was walking around the yard positioning it as a mirror, creating interesting compositions (Blend In is another), when it started raining. The hard drive got wet, and that inspired this photo. The platters make quite a mirror, making the reflections in the drops quite sharp. After drying, the mirror was covered with spots and dust I never could get off, unfortunately.

Don’t ever open your computer’s hard drive, unless it’s broke and you’ve backed up your data, or you have no hope of recovering it. The read/write head you see in the picture hovers on a cushion of air one-tenth the thickness of a hair, produced by the velocity of the spinning disk(s) (7200RPM is common now). Even a speck of dust on the platter can mess up the drive and destroy your data. Hard drives are really fragile, and generally a bad way to save information, but they’re still the best thing we have to store a lot of changing data, cheaply and quickly. Back up your pictures to CDs or DVDs too, as they’re more stable.

Many hard drives have multiple platters (two to five), but this has just one. I found out the disks aren’t thick (slightly thinner than a CD, though very rigid), …

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The only remaining twig, fighting the last battle against the incoming storm clouds. All the other ones have been washed away, or struck by lightning or something. I ripped this plant life off a bush of some sort in our yard (it’s a jungle out there), because it has a nice shape and pattern of leaves. It fit the bright space in the sky well, so I held it up with one hand while snapping the shot with the other.

It was a bit bluish out; I found the image worked better in black and white. I added a lot of contrast to push the branch to black and the bright parts of the sky to near white, then darkened the dark clouds to add punch. It was late, so I under-exposed to gain a fast enough shutter speed, and because I knew I wouldn’t need shadow detail anyway. That’s why the original image is dark.

Buy a 4*6 copy for $0.95 (USA only). Lustre finish. After adding, go to your shopping cart.

Canon PowerShot A620, 1/100, F2.8, 7.3mm, ISO100, 2007-05-13T19:56:32-04, 2007-05-13_23h56m32

Download the high-res JPEG or download the source image.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.