iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 30/08/2026

@bosak I mean, I still do play them all day. The ones I bought then, and the ones I buy now (usual cost these days ranges $23-$40).

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 30/08/2026

More #FoundPhotos featuring students of #Philadelphia's #UniversityoftheArts #UArts from 1969 and 1970. UArts closed in 2024, but decades of supplies and projects were salvaged. #photography #FoundPhotography #Ektachrome

A female artist works up close on a geometric painting. She has long straight brown hair, tied back with a scarf, and is wearing a gray t-shirt with an emblem from Elizabethtown on it. She is seated, working close to the painting which is laid flat, horizontal.

A man with curly/wavy brown hair, long sideburns and a mustache kneels on the floor as he tacks a pencil sketch to a vertical board.

A young man with longish, wavy lighter-colored hair and a mustache looks toward another student whose face is away from us; he is wearing a light shirt with embroidery down the front. Behind him, various artworks are tacked to a wall display.

A young woman with straight, dark hair pulled back, wearing a dark sweater, sits or kneels low to the floor, looking away from painted works posted on a wall.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 29/08/2026

@bosak Yeah, if I were thinking of a big city, that would be true. Certainly B&H is more than that massive.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 29/08/2026

When #Philadelphia's #UniversityoftheArts #UArts closed in 2024, decades of supplies and projects were salvaged. I've scanned some #FoundPhotos featuring students from 1969 and 1970. #photography #FoundPhotography #Ektachrome

A young Black woman bends over, various paint jars near her feet, working on a large painting laid on the floor. A shiny galvanized garbage can sits between the artwork and the wall.

A woman wearing a head scarf works on a painting on an easel; the painting is of irregular geometric shapes in various colors, part of which is still unpainted pencil outlines.

Two students work on separate paintings, both on easels, consisting of irregular geometric shapes being filled in blocks of color.

A number of modernist (for 1970) paintings hang on a wall panel. Most are geometric shapes, though the center of focus is paintings that features fantasist or surreal images.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 28/08/2026

@ifixcoinops I had a house where we managed for years without air conditioning because of a huge attic fan, lots of windows and a commitment to changing the air on most summer mornings. Became less effective when we lost some shade trees, unfortunately.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 28/08/2026

@bosak I was going to marvel at the size of that camera store – but if it's within a department store, maybe that makes more sense.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 11/08/2026

Further searches have not determined whether Mrs. Edna Van Benschoten was ever reunited with her lost book. #OldNewspapers #AlbanyNY #Newspaper

From the Albany, NY Knickerbocker News Action Line, 1970:
Q — Hope my plea will net stump you or lead to
some blind alley. Can you help me trace a book entitled, “Under the Desert Stars” by Frank Koester?
My late husband, Lloyd C. Van Benschoten, illustrated the book and Mr. Koester autographed it and
gave it to him. Somewhere between 1927-31 Lloyd
had a studio on Chapel Street, and a fellow borrowed
the book. He in turn loaned it to someone else and
we lost track of the book. Would appreciate your
help or that of your readers. — Mrs. Edna Van Benschoten, Schenectady. . ’
A — Action Line readers — Can we help Mrs.
Van Benschoten locate her lost book?

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 09/08/2026

This little souvenir booklet shows how incredibly charming Storytown U.S.A. was in its original incarnation. It was a very simple amusement park near Lake George, NY, and when last I was there, perhaps 15 years ago, many of these structures were still there […] [Original post on mastodon.sdf.org]

A sculpture of a whale emerges from a small pool of water – the whale's mouth is just big enough that small children can step inside. I believe there was a fish tank within.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 07/08/2026

This 1857 Sprague/Dripps map is just a thing of beauty. Just a little tiny detail here. What are future generations going to use for history when everything has been recorded digitally, and there are no physical sources? #OldMaps #Maps #AlbanyNY #LocalHistory #ErieCanal

Detail from a beautifully drawn 1857 map of Albany, New York by Sprague and Dripps, showing the intersection of the very beginning of the Erie Canal and the surrounding streets in Albany's Lumber District. The waterways and buildings are beautifully shaded in straight pen lines; bridges are simply and clearly indicated, and the lettering is gorgeous.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 28/07/2026

@bosak Me, reading every title on that shelf to see what's familiar.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 18/06/2026

Sept. 25, 1970: A time when someone would write to the local #newspaper Action Line to figure out where Disney World was, or rather where it was going to be, and a local snowbird had the answer. #OldNewspapers #newspapers #Albany #Schenectady

ACTION LINE RE-ACTION — A few days ago Action Line advised Mrs. G.H.M. of Albany, who was seeking information on the new Disneyland in Florida. to contact the Qrlando Chamber of Commerce. Now.comes more explicit information from Fred L. Flansburgh, owner of Frederick’s Home Service at Ballston Lake, He wrote: “The proper name is Dis- ney World, and it is being built about 15 miles south- west of Orlando. I vacation in the South four months each year, and last spring only one building was up. It has a small movie theater that gives visitors a preview of what Disney World is going to be. The completion date is supposed to be October, 1971.” Mr. Flansburgh enclosed a map that shows Disney World is being set up at the junction of Interstate Route 4 and a road that leads from State Road 535. Action Line is thankful to Mr. Flansburgh for his help.

Action Line solves problems, cuts red tape, Stands up for your rights. Write Action Line. The Knickerbocker News. 645 Albany-Shaker Road, Albany, N.Y. 12201, or The Union-Star, 211 Clinton Street, Schenectady, NY. 12301.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2026

Still getting out on the bike, still learning how to make somewhat interesting videos. Here's an evening roll through the train station at Washington's Headquarters in Valley Forge: www.youtube.com/shorts/3ZAbJhg3xps #cycling #roadcycling #roadbike #valleyforge #insta360

black and white still from a linked video showing the train station at Valley Forge. What is visible here is a stone structure with crisp-looking multi-paned windows, and a portico supported by wooden columns, half fluted and half not, set on rectangular pedestals.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 05/05/2026

I just find the weirdest things on maps, both new and old. But at least now I know where to get my hedgehog repaired. #maps

A screen capture from Google Maps showing a location for "Festung Hedgehog Repair."

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 28/04/2026

@SamUpstate I've got an X5, which isn't helmet-friendly. Charging is pretty quick, and there's an option to either change the battery easily or even (depending on setup) attached an extra battery pack. I've found that the battery will capture continuous video for more than two hours, and that […]

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 28/04/2026

#Ghostsigns of an enormous auto and truck garage from #AlbanyNY – shots I took back in 2010 but current StreetView shows it's pretty much the same today. #sign #signs #signage #ghostsign #UpstateNewYork #upstateNY

The end of a massive brick building with buttressed walls in deteriorating condition. At the top is a faded sign saying "Auto Truck Garage"

A side door to the building , next to a massive garage door. Over the human sized door (which is behind a dumpster full of rubbish) is a sign that once said "Storage." Curiously, half the background of the sign, which was white, has completely disappeared, leaving only the black letters on the brick, but the other half is still quite visible.

The end of a massive brick building with buttressed walls in deteriorating condition. Over a large garage door is a faded sign saying "Auto Truck Garage" There is more but it is illegible.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 27/04/2026

@bosak That pump sprayer – once a staple of cartoons, now completely gone.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 25/04/2026

Having a great early #cycling season, with 11 rides in April and more than 800 km on the season already. Of course, now the rains will come and make it more challenging to get out. New #bike, new computer, #Insta360 camera all giving me new incentive to get out there into the gorgeous early […]

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 09/04/2026

As of April 9, I have 488 km of riding on the season (my whole last season was 2000 km) – and a lovely new bike, a Cervélo Caledonia. I went over to the electronic shifting/disc brakes / wide tires cult, and I am not regretting it. I come back from rides so […] [Original post on mastodon.sdf.org]

Photograph of a warning sign that says "caution" with a stick figure picture of a rider going over the handlebars of a bicycle, posted on the approach to a small bridge, with bare trees and green ground cover in the background. At the bottom of the picture are statistics from a bike ride, which was a distance of 46.62 km and took 2 hours, with a small elevation gain, 161 m.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 02/04/2026

On this day in 1984, I woke up hung over for the last time. I made a pledge I'd made before, but somehow this time it stuck. 42 years sober, 15,342 days without drinking or drugs. If you're struggling, this is to tell you it can be done. Here's what I wrote about it a couple of years ago […]

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 31/03/2026

in 1921, this Nosferatu-adjacent creature was meant to entice you to buy sardines. Presumably. #OldNewspapers #Advertising #OldAdvertisements #OldAdvertising

Newspaper advertisement for Underwood's Sardines, featuring a drawing of a long-taloned, pointy-eared and pointy-tailed horned devil standing in front of a tin of sardines, with the slogan "Taste the Taste" over one of his outstretched arms. Beneath, the headline is "Underwood's / The Greatest Sardines in the world / for 10 to 15 cents." There's more copy from the makers of Underwood Deviled Ham, William Underwood Co. of Boston.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 24/03/2026

"Let us show you a knife" really didn't take off as a marketing catchphrase. Let's bring it back. #OldNewspapers #OldAdvertising #OldAdvertisements #Schenectady

Old 1913 newspaper advertisement that reads: If you cannot think of anything else let us show you a knife. For boys, girls, ladies and men. Prices 25c to $5.00. Clark Witbeck Co. Community Silver Headquarters

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 16/03/2026

My latest #localHistory post looks at my hometown's biggest park, Collins Park, long a center of community along the #MohawkRiver. As some old pictures show, it was sometimes hard to tell apart from the river during floods. I also found a surprise […] [Original post on mastodon.sdf.org]

A photograph from 1913, showing two buildings – a carriage barn to the left, with a carriage parked outside, and an ice house in the center background, painted with local advertising signs – submerged in flood waters of the Mohawk River.

This real photo postcard of a 1913 flood along Scotia’s Dyke shows the levels the Mohawk River used to reach on a regular basis before the modern Barge Canal brought significantly more control of the river. The building on the postcard with the painted advertisement for Barney’s was the Collins Lake Ice warehouse. Dated April 6, 1913, the writer tells Mrs. E. Howard of Dolgeville: “This picture was taken just this end of the dyke near Sanders this is the way the dyke looked, where the water was so high it was a sight this is four times i have seen it like this the river and the lake was one body of water.”

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 15/03/2026

I haven't ridden with a #bikecomputer in years – my last one failed, didn't feel like shelling out hundreds for the feature-laden modern ones. But I finally gave in this week and got a relatively inexpensive Bryton 650 (no subscription, OpenStreeMaps, works with the Bryton tail light radar I got […]

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 10/03/2026

@dlakelan I'd demand a discount. How can they charge you tuition for something that genuinely you could just Google? If this is the future of education, we really are doomed. And if educators think it's okay, we're past doomed.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 10/03/2026

I've been a still photographer for decades, but have never had any affinity for video. 1000s of pictures of our kids, almost no videos. But we just bought an Insta360 camera to capture #cycling rides, #kayaking, #hiking, etc., and I'm really enjoying it. Still working out how to edit to make it […]

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 09/03/2026

@bosak Feeling pretty inspired to replicate that slogan right about now.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 09/03/2026

@bosak For me the only thing that dampens my enthusiasm for performing his songs, which I love performing, is that someone will inevitably think I'm going to do *that* song. I am not.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 09/03/2026

Country Joe McDonald was not only key to my musical discovery in my late teens, but his music has become even more important to me as I have become a musician myself in my later years. I cover quite a few of his songs, including the beautiful "Janis." Between his death and John Hammond Jr.'s […]

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 04/03/2026

July 1870: Just a couple of months before wildly miscalculating what turned into the Franco-Prussian war. Presented for no particular reason. #OldNewspapers #History #HistoryRepeatingItself

An article from the Troy NY Daily Whig, July 1870:
"That's a very probable story which the London Telegraph prints that Napoleon confessed to its correspondent he should be obliged to lead France to war to save the reins of power from slipping out of his hands. The Emperor doubtless feels all this, but he isn't such a fool as to say so."

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 02/03/2026

Apparently, in the 1892 New York State census, "tally man" was a job. #genealogy #census #upstateNY

Entries from the handwritten 1892 New York State census. Shown are the listings for John E. Gillett, male, 28, whose occupation is listed as "tally man." Below is his wife, Lillie V. Gillett, female, 24. She is not a tally man.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 28/02/2026

February was a rough month for #cycling around these parts, so yesterday was the first day I was able to get out. Here are some nice highlights from the #SchuylkillRiverTrail near #valleyforge #RoadBike #RoadBikes #WinterCycling youtu.be/GryPVrUeuqk

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 27/02/2026

This is an old #rppc #postcard that I bought at a shop in #Schenectady a couple of years back. Fascinated with it but never sure just what to do with it. It's a real photo postcard showing "Dick on Mohawk River at Schenectady in 1917 while working in G.E." […] [Original post on mastodon.sdf.org]

A photograph of a man wearing a large cap, what appears to be a mid-weight, mid-length jacket and trousers, standing on a vast field of broken ice on a frozen river. The low shoreline is in the far distance.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 25/02/2026

@bosak This is very much reminding me of an entertaining line of dialogue from "Diner," with a shopper insisting he wants a 21" Emerson black and white. Didn't like color TV, because Little Joe looked green.

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 24/02/2026

When I took this – or even ten years ago, for that matter – I could not have imagined that city newsstands would almost completely disappear someday. This is from November 1979, in downtown #SyracuseNY. His name was Pete Mussi, and he was a fixture there for […] [Original post on mastodon.sdf.org]

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Carl Johnson @cjonthehudson.mastodon.sdf.org.ap.brid.gy · 24/02/2026

@bosak Propofol man myself. I could see what Michael Jackson saw in it ;)

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