#nemfrog report 4

[nemfrog]

NEMFROG REPORT 4

Week ending October 14, 2017

If you want to reblog any of the images, please use the links. That maintains the history and the archiving which I work to provide.

Join me again behind the scenes as I wipe off the makeup and strike the sets on this week’s Nemfrog Follies.

You, my audience, clapped merrily for more posts than usual this week, while at the same time you weren’t shy about tossing rotten fruit this way when you saw the intermittent dud on your feed. Still I’m feeling a bit baffled. After 22,101 posts on Nemfrog I thought I knew where the Venn diagram of my taste and your taste intersected. But, no. I know from nothing.

The image above, of the map of the United States with clusters of dots exemplifies this. As I write this report,  21 hours since the map reached you, it’s attracted 3959 notes. Four thousand notes in less than a day? That’s happened less than a half dozen times in Nemfrog history.

It wouldn’t be quite true to say that I almost didn’t post it. When I found it on the Wiedrick Historical Education Curriculum Collection of textbooks on the Internet Archive, I loved it. It matched so many categories I look for. Maps. Dots. Black backgrounds. Absurdity. I know that “each dot represents 5,000 hogs” makes sense in the realm of data visualization. But outside that realm? It may be from now on whenever I see a dot, any dot, I’ll think that it represents 5,000 hogs. A blackhead on a face? Hogs. A lot of hogs.

Even so, I didn’t expect much of reception for the post. For one thing, I posted it around 1am Pacific Time, when Tumblr posts are like those trees that keep falling in the woods that no one hears. America has gone to sleep and Europe isn’t up yet. But more than that, Tumblr doesn’t like my maps very much. You do like dots, but not maps. And then there was the whole pig farming issue. Hog farming on an industrial scale is an environmental insult. As intelligent as dogs, pigs raised on those factory farms live short lives of horror. I thought because of the prevalent vegan ethos on Tumblr, many might mistake the post as some kind of endorsement. But I know that treating animals as industrial parts is an indictment of a sick society.

So, I’ve rarely been this wrong about a post. In the time it’s taken me to write this the count jumped from 3959 to 4603. Who knows where it will be when you read this. 

This image of a solar eclipse, which I processed on Pixlr and posted during the eclipse excitement in August, is the last Nemfrog image that attained some virality and I was caught by surprise that time too. I mean I did it and it’s cool  and I’m especially gratified when the processed images I make get a good reception. I just didn’t think the blue moon with the pink corona would end up in Nemfrog’s top ten.

If I had written this report yesterday, before the map with dots caught on, the yellow crescent moon picture would have been this week’s clearcut favorite with over two thousand notes. And this one is a post that almost didn’t make it to the screen. Not because I had doubts about its charm or thoughts that Tumblr would reject it, but because it appears originally as a small image among less interesting other small images which somehow dimmed it’s value for me.

This is what the page with the crescent moon looked like when I downloaded it, except it was on its side. Now that I look it again I think I may post the bookcase, the piano and the pail. 

Speaking of smash hits, this week, this image of three shining black cherries, went over the 25,000 note threshold. Groups of threes are pleasing. That along with the the strong contrast of the black foreground and sepia background, plus the in-your-face closeup of the fruit draw in the eyes. But when you think about it, this nursery catalogue photo would be nowhere without the stems.

And now, before you chase me off the stage, the stats. You can easily see the surge in the last day resulting from the popularity of the map with dots. Welcome new followers, and thanks to everyone for making this a rewarding week on Nemfrog.

#nemfrog report 4 #week in review #nemfrog

[nemfrog]

NEMFROG REPORT 7

Week ending December 16, 2017

Next Friday Nemfrog will observe its fourth anniversary of bloghood. To get us all in the mood I’ve been reblogging items from the archives. In fact I’ve never done so much reblogging in a week.

Please use the links provided to reblog images. That maintains the archiving which I work to provide.

Like this one, the cover of a seasonally appropriate children’s book from 1859. Seasonally appropriate, that is, for those of you at the right latitude in the Northern Hemisphere. 

And this one, a multi-color, multi-layered geology chart, also from the 19th century. 

And this. Accidental op art from the Journal of geophysical research in March 1917. It’s a theoretical representation of the Northern Lights.

All this raiding of the archives has led me to think a bit about reblogging my material and also about tagging posts. The topics are related. Nemfrog consists overwhelmingly of images that I find in books and journals online. My main sources are the Internet Archive, the BioDiversity Heritage Library and the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. I want to unearth images that haven’t been posted before. That’s hard. And I recognize that a lot of what I post has been posted before. Sometimes a lot. But nearly always the when I post something it’s something I’ve come across on my own by digitally turning lots of pages.

For a long time in Nemfrog history I almost never reblogged. Not my stuff, not anyone’s. As I accumulated a lot of followers, I realized that if I reblogged someone whose work or curation I admired I would be doing something to give them attention they might need. So I do reblog others’ work, but still rarely. And sometimes the bloggers I reblog don’t require any boosting from me, I just do it because I’ve seen something that excites me and I want to share it.

Gradually I started reblogging my own posts, too. Nothing like I did this week, but here and there, and increasingly. I saw that my original reluctance didn’t make sense. The only rule I was following was in my own head. I’ll reblog a post that I think is wonderful but hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. That can go either way. Sometimes you will ignore the second blogging as much as you did the first one. But sometimes a post that fell flat the first time will take off with second exposure.

Often I’ll reblog something of mine because I’ve noticed on my dashboard that someone else has unearthed it and it’s a great image that I may not even remember. Sometimes I’ll reblog something because I’m like a deejay on an oldies stations playing the hits from 2013, 2014, 2105...

Which brings me to the theory and practice of tagging. Briefly. I use as many tags as I can within reason. There was a time when Tumblr would only post ten tags anyway, although that seems to have changed. It’s because I tag everything that I can use Google as a way searching Nemfrog. It’s not definitive but it’s still fantastic. And because I use all those tags, this week I was able to pick a tag for each day - #winter, #cover, #black, #word, #radiating - and have many, many images to choose from.

Everyone tag! Tag, you’re it! It’s what makes an archive searchable. (And could somebody explain what all those single letter tags mean?)

For me Nemfrog is serious fun. I think it pays off for people who follow the blog but it also pays off for researchers who may not know Nemfrog from Memfrog, but can find what they need because I use tags and supply links.

I’m going to spend the next week writing more about how and why I blog. (Feel free to skip that and just look at the pictures.) And I’m going to be asking for financial support so I can continue to devote time and mental energy to making Nemfrog wonderful.

You can beat the rush by sending a $5, $10 or $25 gift now. And know I’m grateful for any gift and I appreciate everyone who follows and enjoys Nemfrog.

#nemfrog is 4 #nemfrog report 7 #fundrasing drive 2