Dear Internet, can you help me find the owner of this print?
I took advantage of the Mpix large format print sale recently and ordered a 16 x 24 of this photo I took in India:
I’ve contacted Mpix customer service and I’m sure this will be fixed in some manner at some point. Trust me, this is not a complaint post by any means. I’m actually curious if I can put the Power of the Internets to work and find the rightful owner of this photo.
If this photo is yours, please get in touch – I’d love to know where you took this picture and the story behind it. (And I’m really curious if you got my print instead or if someone ELSE has it!)
Japan, you’re in my thoughts.
Such unthinkable events going on in Japan. A massive earthquake, terrifying aftershocks, devastating tsunamis and an unfolding nuclear nightmare. I can only hope the worst is over, but we’re all looking at the news between the fingers over our eyes these days, aren’t we?
It’s popular in nerdy circles to view Japan from afar as some kind of geek-topia where everything is always perfect and awesome. Well, I’ve at least spent enough time there to know better. But I know if there’s one country that’s as prepared as any country is ever going to be for a series of disasters on this scale, it is Japan.
That said, I hope people donate to help the people affected. The scale of the damage is hard to fathom. Japan, a nation technologically ahead of the curb in many ways, right now needs the world’s help on a basic, human level.
If you are able, please donate to the Red Cross or a similar charity that will help out those that need it.
And if you have Japanese language skills to spare (and I really, really wish my Japanese were up to snuff for this), the Japan Association of Translators is a compiling a list of translators who can lend their interpretation skills to charities on the ground.
And there’s even a drive to send the evacuees fresh pairs of socks (and a care letter). Little gestures with grand meaning.
The Japanese earthquake/tsunami disaster and Twitter hashtag use
Mainly English-speaking outside of Japan
#Japan, #tsunami and #earthquake are pretty intuitive but also ephemeral and not too specific to Japan – you will see tweets about the tsunami reaching the CNMI or Hawaii, for example, with the #tsunami hashtag. Mainly English-speakers are using tags like #PrayForJapan or #HelpJapan or variants thereof. CNN makes frequent use of the #quake tag to mark its tweets about the news.
Japanese-speaking globally, English-speaking within Japan
A lot of people in Japan (speaking Japanese, English, et cetera) on the ground or trying to get information out are using other tags, including #jishin (地震/earthquake – sometimes also Romanized as #jisin), #saigai (災害/disaster), #eqjp (EarthQuake JaPan – a space-efficient acronym, great for re-Tweeting important announcements), and a combination of the two in #jishin_jp.
Another interesting trend to note is the use of prefecture-specific hashtags to organize. You’ll see hashtags like #save_miyagi, #save_iwate, #save_ibaraki as well as just placenames like #Sendai (city), #Touhoku (the northeast area of Japan that includes Miyagi and Ibaraki prefectures), #miyagi_oosaki (the prefecture name followed by the town name).
Unfortunately as the threat of radiation grows, there are more tweets about how to fend off radiation poisoning and get access to safe water and shelter marked with the tag #bousai (防災, disaster prevention).
A handy hashtag that crosses into both language categories is #jishin_e, for English earthquake news.