Morning Linkage (Nov 18)

Transportation

1984 — the movie. Did you real­ize those thought police bikes were Vincents? Additional links to the back sto­ry on Cafe Racer Soc.
http://ottonero.blogspot.com/2009/11/bbiwy.html

Another e‑bike. This one with ped­als. I“m not sure where this more push-bike than moped fits into the hier­ar­chy of vehi­cles but it is sweet looking.

Keeping you up to date on the police cruis­er in the rear view mir­ror game. The Crown Vic will be no more; Ford announces (a few details about) it’s new in 2011 purpose-built police vehi­cle. I’m sure most of us will con­tin­ue to have that auto­mat­ic “am I legal?” reac­tion to the Crown Vic pro­file for decades.

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Tech

Developed as a mil­i­tary tool, Xflex wall rein­force­ment is meant to pro­tect the occu­pants of build­ings from blasts by rein­forc­ing the walls. No doubt it will see mil­i­tary ser­vice but I’m bet­ting they sell a lot to civil­ian ser­vices that need to pro­tect assets from hur­ri­cane and tor­na­do dri­ven debris.

Fitness mon­i­tor­ing is get­ting more com­pact and cheap­er. The Fitbit is the size of a mon­ey clip and only costs $100. PC down­loads and track­ing soft­ware mon­i­tor exer­cise lev­els and sleep pat­terns. Pure curios­i­ty makes it near­ly irresistible.

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Objects

I spend a lot of time think­ing about eggs. Not real­ly, but they are a con­stant part of my life along with the 13 hens that pro­duce them. This 1930s(?) counter top egg hold­er takes up a lit­tle too much space but it charms anyhow.

Slightly less charm­ing but more desir­able. Doris Day Duke’s shoot­ing gallery. Seriously, tak­en from her base­ment, sold for more than 40K. (That’s for the cor­rec­tion Debb!)

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Art, Images, Animation

Amy C points to Paul Jacoulet’s Japanese inspired wood­cuts. Serene. (NSFW)

Pure tex­ture in photographs.

Image 5 of the slide show of the work of Johanna Velasco. (SFW except for one baby butt.)

Tim Burton delights me. Concept sketch­es from the last 15 years.

Spy. Spanish street artist with a taste for sar­casm and an under­stand­ing of the ephemer­al nature of art.

Wood block like illos of the char­ac­ters of the Western and Chinese Zodiacs. Much good­ness on this site.

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Creativity

Ariana Osborne is one of my heroes. Technology is her play­ground and quirky irony her usu­al fil­ter for look­ing at the world. Yesterday how­ev­er she was hav­ing a cranky day. The start­ing point is her recent pro­duc­tion of a POD book (Sifting Sands) for Warren Ellis. The burr under her sad­dle: whingers who has 19 excus­es for why they can’t make their own book; the chief one being “but I’m not Warren Ellis” Her come­backs are snap­py and point­ed — as in sharp stick. Because all of us need to remind­ed on occa­sion to get off-ass and do something.

More gen­tly there is Elizabeth Gilbert’s Ole at TEDTalks.

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Animation

An oldie, today needs a gen­tle out the door. Cat Man Do.

That’s it my dears. More than half way through the week.

-lara-