Ko Min, 26, manually extracts oil from one of three 300 feet deep wells he works on in the Minhla township of the Magwe district October 27, 2013. Everyday, Ko Min makes around $30 extracting crude oil from three small wells after he bought rights to use them for close to $1000 from a farmer who owns the land. In Myanmar, an impoverished country rich with natural resources, people from poor communities find ways to supplement their income by exploiting such resources, such as the Minhla township, traditionally rich with oil, often using primitive and dangerous methods. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

A view motorists have grown accustomed seeing, a military truck made by Oshkosh Corp. is taken for a test drive Thursday, April 11, 2013 in Oshkosh, Wis. Faced with deep cuts in U.S. military spending, and the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Oshkosh Corp. is laying off 900 employees in its defense division based in Oshkosh. Approximately 700 hourly workers at the state's largest manufacturer will lose their jobs in mid-June, followed by approximately 200 salaried employees through July. (Photo by Mark Hoffman via The Journal Sentinel)

The Apple l, the first Apple computer made by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976, is seen on display at Sotheby's on June 8, 2012 in New York City. Sotheby's called the computer “an exceptionally rare, working example with original Apple cassette interface, operation manuals and a rare BASIC Users' Manual”. (Photo by Andrew Burton/AFP)

A rescued malnourished sea lion is manually fed a fish at Sea World in San Diego, California March 17, 2015. Animal rescue centers in California are being inundated with stranded, starving sea lion pups, raising the possibility that the facilities could soon be overwhelmed, the federal agency coordinating the rescue said. (Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

Members of the Indian Army display aerobatic Taekwondo skills during the 11th Reunion and 262nd Anniversary of Army Service Crops in Bangalore, India, 09 December 2022. The 11th ASC Reunion & 262nd Corps Day will be held at Army Service Corps (ASC) Centre & College on 8th and 9th of December 2022, to showcase the military capabilities. Indian Army Service Corps, established in 1760, is an arm of the Indian Army handling logistic support. (Photo by Jagadeesh N.V./EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A worker manually changes the direction of the bonde, the typical tram line in Santa Teresa neighborhood, using a rope in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 9, 2015. The Santa Teresa bonde, called “Bondinho” in Portuguese, is running with passengers as a part of a test period, after the service was suspended in 2011 following an accident that killed six people, according to residents. (Photo by Pilar Olivares/Reuters)

People will spout about impermanence of digital records, but books are really fragile, too. Alexis Arnold from San Francisco wanted to illustrate that with her project The Crystallized Book: collecting books and growing Borax crystals on them. Books range from literature classics to magazines, and there’s even a mysterious and arcane tome called “Linux: The Complete Manual”.

Gas-masked men of the British Machine Gun Corps with a Vickers machine gun during the first battle of the Somme, 1916. (Photo by General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)