Morning Linkage (Sept 2)

It’s a big list today. So many inter­est­ing things going on in the
world that beg to be logged.

Transport

German built H‑D side car rigs. Um, that’s weird.
http://mobec-international.com/range/harleycombo/53276097890f1cb09/o000.html

There’s been lots of talk about the 747 tanker being used to fight the
fires in LA County. Here’s a round up of links to pics, videos, and
oth­er stuff. (Also a cou­ple of the old­er fly­ing boat that is way
cool­er looking.)
http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/telstarlogistics/2009/08/747-supertanker-makes-its-firefighting-debut-.html
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/09/evergreen-supertanker/
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/01/big-ass-flying-boats.html

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Culture (?)

News of the pur­chase of Marvel by Disney has the comics crowd howling.
Mostly in pain, but here’s a lit­tle of what’s lead­ing to laugh­ter in
the cheap seats.
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/top-10-disneymarvel-mashups

Do you remem­ber the fam­i­ly tree of rock-n-roll that Jack Black drew
for his stu­dents in School of Rock? Here’s a sim­i­lar effort that
describes the evo­lu­tion of sci-fi themes on pop TV.
http://io9.com/5347631/at-last-a-graph-that-explains-scifi-tv-after-star-trek

In case you need a refresh­er on the his­to­ry of rock, here’s a post
with a num­ber of genealo­gies includ­ing the famous blackboard.
http://www.fakeplasticrock.com/2008/07/09/the-genealogy-of-rock/

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eBooks and read­ers and copyright

iRiver’s US-bound read­er. Based on a Japanese mod­el with a built in
“comics mode.” Does this mean I can read graph­ic nov­els on it?
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/01/iriver-shows-off-its-us-e-book-reader/

Google teams up with Interead to bring us cool­er­books and cool-er
read­ers. No one doubt­ed that Google meant to get into the sale of
copy­right books to go with it’s Google Books initiative.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/02/google-widens-attack-on-amazon-kindle-partners-with-coolerbooks/

Tucows, the unfor­tu­nate­ly named Canadian ISP (and more) has provided
David Weinberger with a chance to address the Canadian copyright
con­sul­ta­tion. David W pro­vides a read­able refu­ta­tion to the”: strong
copy­right pro­vides an incen­tive to cre­ate, weak copy­right is a
dis-incentive” argument.
http://tucowsinc.com/news/2009/08/copyrights-creative-disincentive/

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Random Things that Made Me Smile

Plushy microbes. There are sev­er­al sets avail­able but this one seems
the ide­al gift for some­one you don’t quite like.
http://www.giantmicrobes.com/us/main/venereals/

Cookie dough and ice cream are both good. Cookie dough and ice cream
togeth­er are great. Cookie dough and ice cream togeth­er shaped like
gyoza are… incred­i­bly clever.
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/icecreamgyoza

An exten­sive gallery of beau­ti­ful chick­en coops. Mine is look­ing quite
tawdry by comparison.
http://www.mypetchicken.com/about-chickens/chicken-pictures/Chicken-coop-X127.aspx

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Images

Masakatsu Sashie’s orbs are float­ing col­lec­tion of life and living
space. Japanese sur­re­al­ism well done.
http://www.pinktentacle.com/2009/09/orb-paintings-by-masakatsu-sashie/

A selec­tion from Samantha Zaza’s large port­fo­lio. In this case, her
regal pigeons in uni­form. Yes, this is what pigeons see when they look
in the men­tal mirror.
http://cyanatrendland.com/2009/08/31/pigeons-in-uniform/

If I had a win­ery I would want July Macuda’s naive paint­ings for my
bot­tle labels.
http://www.pincelvirtual.cl/

Something new. A video trail­er for a book, Scott Westerfeld’s latest
YA Leviathan. Visually it’s much steam-punky good­ness. The voice over
is all wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYiw5vkQFPw