Morning Linkage (Aug 25)

Transportation

The scram­bler is a great idea for a week­end toy. Here Touratech
cre­ates a mod­ern take on the theme using a BMW F800.
http://www.bikeexif.com/bmw-f800scrambler

Texting and dri­ving is a bad idea. How can any­one think that building
traf­fic mashups while on the go is a good idea.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/08/two-new-iphone-apps-go-beyond-navigation/

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Science

Sunspots and solar mag­net­ic changes fas­ci­nate me. That the things that
hap­pen on such a small (rel­a­tive) scale on the sun can have such huge
effects on earth seems improb­a­ble. We may get to have out own little
ice age.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/08/another-little-ice-age-solar-activity-and-climate-change.ars

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Technology

Next time (huh?) I end up with an arm in cast I’m going to demand one
of these. I’m think­ing the pur­ple camo is nice.
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/08/24/exos-arm-brace-has‑c.html

One the eBook front. The race is on and now we all have to live
through a cou­ple of years of com­pet­ing devices and for­mats as well as
the attempts by var­i­ous com­pa­nies to wrest exclu­sive distributing
deals out of pub­lish­ers. Ad nau­se­um. Here’s the latest.

Flat World Knowledge a pub­lish­er of text books just fin­ished up a beta
test of a pro­gram that lets you read that 400 page tome for free
on-line. You can get more portable/useful ver­sions for a price. (Still
below that of the tra­di­tion­al dead-tree ver­sion.) They are striving
for device independence.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/08/flat-world-schools-textbook-publishers-with-free-web-editions.ars

Two new devices:

Irex will be bring­ing out an e‑reader to go with the new Barnes and
Noble e‑book store.
http://mobilefactor.org/coming-irex-and-barnes-noble-to-launch-new-e-book-reader/

Sony’s newest read­ers launched this morn­ing. Some include wire­less and
one ver­sion has a touch screen. I’m not entire­ly clear on what the
Library Finder does. I’ll let you know when I know. Crunch Gear’s live
cov­er­age of the announcements.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/08/25/sony-announce-the-wireless-daily-edition-ereader/

Now that we have so many choic­es in read­ing devices here’s a list of
sources for free books. Often you get what you pay for but a free copy
of Sherlock Holmes can make an O’Hare lay­over bearable.
http://www.rotorblog.com/2009/03/09/top-25-free-e-books-sites-the-definitive-list/

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Home Ec and Some Silliness.

There’s no way Future President Moss can eat enough baby goop to keep
us all in baby food jars for work­shop stor­age. I found this exam­ple of
using those CD spin­dle packs for shop storage.
http://woodworkingextras.blogspot.com/2009/05/good-bye-baby-food-jars.html

Speaking of sprogs. If you’re the one in cubi­cle land with­out an
excuse to leave ear­ly on Friday for junior’s soc­cer game here’s a
solution.
http://www.theofficekid.com/index.html

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Art, Design, and Popular Culture

In Philadelphia 50 walls fac­ing the Market Street Elevated will be
paint­ed with love letters.
Cyanatrendland has a descrip­tion of the project.
http://cyanatrendland.com/2009/08/24/a‑love-letter-for-you-street-art/
The blog fea­tur­ing all of the paint­ings (in progress) is here.
http://www.aloveletterforyou.com/

Just as soon as they come out with the bik­er ver­sion of these little
desk­top friends I’m get­ting one. Maybe more.
http://collect3d.com/news/beit-dudes/

I’m feel­ing gen­er­ous toward my Y enhanced friends this morning.

Mort Kunstler did cov­ers for the men’s adven­ture mag­a­zines in the
60’s. Wicked awe­some and SFW. Though gen­er­al­ly lurid and tacky. Yum.
http://www.americanartarchives.com/kunstler.htm

Almost SFW — depends in whether you could get away with the Stihl
gi’me cal­en­dar. George Petty’s 1947 cal­en­dar girls. Giggle-icious.
http://cyanatrendland.com/2009/08/24/george-petty-curvy-pin-up-from-1947/

And for those of us XXs. A brief arti­cle on the flap­per phe­nom­e­na. The
vin­tage pho­tos are worth a look.
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/32657

enjoy!