I did not discover the barfing flickr panda just followe dlinks in my gReader from sites like Mashable. The panda provides a different way to Explore flickr, the 500 most “interesting” photos as identified by the magical algorithm. The Panda just seems to be a new way to vew them; just sit and watch as new photos are upchucked:
There is a bit more information, but no explanation, in Of Pandas and Rainbows.
To some people, Explore is the ultimate beauty contest. It’s the pinnacle of Flickr, the achievement of achievements. They fret and conspire and worry, and actually get angry and frustrated, when their perfectly fine photos, never “get into” Explore.
Except it’s basically random. No matter how artificially “interesting” you try to make your photos (Explore photos are selected via Flickr’s “Interestingness Algorithm”, affectionately known as the “Magic Donkey”), Explore is still only 500+ images each day. And each day on Flickr, there are more than five thousand photos uploaded each minute. That’s each minute.
So to help these poor souls, to shed some light on the mysteries and myths of Explore, a Group was formed. “The Secrets of Explore”. A clearinghouse of info to clear up the nonsense, to spread some fact jelly over fiction bread.
And of course, it has its very own blinky graphic. This artwork might go blinky for the cause as well, but it’s also an homage, a bit of a congrats and thank you, to the fine Flickr volunteers who risk their sanity, to tell TruthToExplore(tm). Why pandas, you ask? Why pandas vomiting rainbows?
That’s a whole other secret.
Holy cow, if I thought the internet was big. Swallow this line again:
And each day on Flickr, there are more than five thousand photos uploaded each minute.
I like the mystery. Take your best guess- what does the barfing panda symbolize? And is he/she really barfing?
