Dubailand

Dubailand is an entertainment and commercial real estate complex currently under construction in Dubai. It's slated for completion in 2020, but who knows if it'll be finished now.

A fantastic photo essay on Dubai's unbridled materialism by the New York Times's Lauren Greenfield.

"I call the story an improbable fairy tale," Greenfield said. "Anything that could be fantasized could be built. It really was the land of opportunity. It’s more Las Vegas than Las Vegas."

Photo by Lauren Greenfield. See the entire photo essay here.

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The Pixelator

This is a pretty sweet art hack. Photos of the Pixelator in action are available here.

Video by Jason Eppink.

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The 2010 Olympic Torch Relay is on it's Way to Vancouver

The Olympic Torch is lit inside a bus outside of Resolute Bay, Nunavut.

Boston.com's The Big Picture has an excellent photo essay up this week about about the Olympic Torch's journey across Canada. At the moment, the flame is about a third of the way through its a hundred-and-six day, 26,000 km relay. On its journey, the torch will pass through twelve thousand hands and more than a thousand communities before it reaches its final destination in Vancouver.

Although the photos in this essay are fantastic, in many ways, I feel like I've seen this all before. The Olympic Flame has already been carried through almost every environment in every gimmicky way imaginable, which unfortunately dulls each progressive journey.

From Boston.com

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A Christmas Card From SaveOurNet.ca For Tony Clement

From SaveOurNet.ca:

Sign the card through Twitter.
Sign the card through Facebook.
Sign it on our site: http://saveournet.ca/card

AND, thousands of people have already told Tony Clement to stop Big Telecom companies from taking control of our Internet use. Considering we've successfully pushed the CRTC to develop open Internet guidelines and convinced the two major political parties to support Net Neutrality, we can win this if we send Clement enough letters. If you haven't already done so, please take a few seconds to send Clement a letter.

Image from SaveOurNet.ca

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Canada Post's Letters to Santa Program

A Toronto Star reporter interrogates several kids over the content of their letters to Santa.

My article about Canada Post's Toronto launch of its letters to Santa program is now up on Torontoist.

Although I had a good time at the event, which was held at the Learning Enrichment Foundation in Weston, at times I felt like I was exploiting the kids for their journalistic value; especially after half of Toronto's media establishment showed up.

Whenever I cover a story, I try to let things flow naturally, especially if I'm taking photos. However, most of my colleagues had absolutely no qualms about staging shots, or having kids rewrite their letters so they could get some good photos. While I don't usually mind when this kind of thing is done with adults, it was gross to see the kids shuffled around, and I felt bad that I was a part of it.

Photo by Stephen M.

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