Month: January 2010 (Page 3 of 3)

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Transportation

MotoIQ does up a Ruckus right. It han­dles, it brakes, it goes 50 mph with­out a steep hill or a tail wind. (Sucky pre­sen­ta­tion of the series though. Start at the bot­tom of the page, le sigh.)

A hand­ful of vin­tage (1960) motor­cy­cle and acces­so­ry ads. The clean cut prep­pies in the Harley ads are a bit of a brain twister.

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Science

Find­ing things is the moment of oooh shiny in arche­ol­o­gy. Some­times what comes about years lat­er as the found objects are slow­ly mapped out in a lab is even more incred­i­ble. The mys­te­ri­ous and mys­te­ri­ous­ly com­plex Antikythera Mech­a­nism has giv­en up new infor­ma­tion. A mechan­i­cal cal­en­dar of unri­valed com­plex­i­ty. Read more about it and fol­low the links to a 2 part video.

The line between ani­mal and plant is get­ting a lit­tle blur­ri­er as biol­o­gists exam­ine the green sea slug and it’s use, and per­haps pro­duc­tion, of chlorophyll.

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Literature

Seen on the WL list last week, it deserves to put into the record on Shiny. The map of lit­er­a­ture. Enter an author, see the rub­ber band map of style relat­ed authors. No idea what the data under­ly­ing the map looks like.

Shel­fari was also list­ed as a resource for find­ing new books and authors when your lit­er­ary cup­board is bare.

And the near­est thing to heav­en for book­ish peep­ing toms: Library­Thing. Per­son­al, pub­lic, and his­toric libraries from around the world. Is there a WL group yet?

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Art, Images, Illustration

These monster-ific wall vinyls by Alber­to Cer­riteño are among the best kid’s room decor I’ve seen. Maybe my office needs a make over? (UK shop)

In fact I am total­ly in love with all of Alber­to Cer­riteño’s work. Port­fo­lio here:

Peo­ple put the odd­est things in the dark cor­ners of their web­sites. Page down twice for a col­lec­tion of opti­cal illu­sions that cre­ate the image of a skull out of an ordi­nary scene.

In 1937 the orig­i­nal Kamikaze (Mit­subishi Ki-15) made the first Tokyo to Europe flight. These sim­ple col­or­ful post cards where print­ed lat­er that year to cel­e­brate that achievement.

Keep float­ing my lovelies.

Transportation

A lit­tle bas­tard. CB160. omg cute.

On the oth­er hand — this is awe­some­ness smack. Fast Kit­ty Super­bike Show­down. (Ani­ma­tion — Sound)
More here — and t‑shirts:

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Architecture, Design

I try to stay away from the kitchen pr0n. Too many cooks, too few HGTV addicts here­abouts. But these mas­sive kitchens sinks in cute coun­try kitchens… Well, what can I say? Every­one Wants.

Fur­ther thoughts on archi­tec­ture, and the futil­i­ty of space and motion. My
<cough> pretentious</cough> descrip­tion of a puz­zling construction.

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Art, Images, Illustration

Only two links today — but hours of eye stim. Koi, Koi, Koi’s round ups of Street Art for 2009.

The South Amer­i­can edi­tion. I par­tic­u­lar­ly love the Mex­i­can masks of Zime – Neuzz, and the Brazil­ian drag­on of Igno­to Semente.

The Euro­pean ver­sion. Fars – Mouse – Var­na ‘s bathers under the bridge in Bul­gar­ia pust loca­tion to good use. Aec cre­ates a whim­si­cal sci-fi mys­tery on a drive-way gate in the Ukraine.

Have a good day campers.

Transportation

First up, the odd­ly sen­su­al Ben­net­t’s cus­tom drag bike. Am I the only one who does­n’t think Maine pine tree green is a col­or that belongs on a bike?

I was going to show you the Cyclone Board Track rac­er on Bike EXIF but then I found anoth­er pic­ture of it hang­ing about in fab­u­lous com­pa­ny. 20 vin­tage bikes auc­tioned in the last few years. These pics would make an ide­al desktop/background slide show.

Sil­ly Top Gear crap. Always amus­ing. The Ariel Atom is high­ly desir­able, fast, stu­pid fun, and cool look­ing — for some­thing on four wheels. The first minute or so of the video and the expla­na­tion of the haz­ards of mid­dle aged sport­bike own­er­ship is either tacky as hell or scream­ing­ly fun­ny. Depends on your rela­tion­ship to mid­dle age. (And just when did 35 become mid­dle aged?)

Under­wa­ter trans­port, the largest sub­ma­rine in the world. The now decom­mis­sioned Typhoon/Shark. Pages and pages of excel­lent photographs.

I don’t know if you’ll be offered the same video ad on Eng­lish Rus­sia that I was but just in case you weren’t… Spend a cou­ple of min­utes with my lat­est bark­ing mad obses­sion the SLS.

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Science and Technology

Anoth­er cool crea­ture explained by the won­der­ful folks at Dr. Casey Dun­n’s lab. The flamin­go tongue snail.

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Art, Images, and Illustration

More old school, low tech medi­um. Painters.

Con­cept art is made before the animation/game/movie to give the team a sense of the look and feel of the project. Much of this work is still done in acrylics on boards or dig­i­tal­ly to sim­u­late paint. Here’s a hand­ful from The Fab­u­lous Mr. Fox. Con­tains today’s bonus bike.

Vin­cent Hui’s grotesques bring Bruegel into the 21st century.

Love­craft­ian pin-ups. Seri­ous­ly cute with ten­ta­cles. NSFW — pin­ups, no nudity/

New to me, Finnish painter Samuli Hei­mo­nen. If you click through to the Gal­le­ria Heino, nav­i­gate to:  past exhibits > 2009 > Samuli Heimonen.It’s worth the trip.

Take care of your­selves my darlings.

Transportation

The Sun­beam S7 is a dandy bike. The pho­to is bet­ter than dandy.

On my ToDo list for this week: Fig­ure out why the dweebs at TopSpeed
can’t even tell me where they got the lit­tle bit of info they have
about this twist­ed YZ450 to cafe rac­er conversion.

I always thought own­ing an Airstream trail­er would be kin­da cool. I
was wrong, own­ing one of these Vic­tori­nox Spe­cial Edi­tions or a
Seren­i­ty mod­el would be awesome.

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Literature

Fairy-tales are not nice. At least they weren’t nice before the a
bunch of nan­nies took all the good bits out. The excerpt here is
mild­ly NSFW. (Innu­en­do — no pictures)

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Architecture

NYC has way too many peo­ple, with way too much mon­ey, liv­ing in way
too lit­tle space. Hence these five exam­ples of rooftop hous­es. Click
along to the flickr stream men­tioned at the end of the post for more
(unfil­tered) rooftop follies.

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Art, Images, Animation

One of the best artists work­ing in cut paper today. Peter Calle­sen can
show you fields of flow­ers in a sheet of A‑4 white bond.

Snow globes are so roman­tic; unless you look close­ly. Das­tard­ly deeds
in Win­ter Wonderlands.

The lit­tle peo­ple are out again. Lon­don, Grot­taglie (it’s in Italy)
and fine gut­ters near you.

Lisa D sent along the link to this nice exam­ple of new style flip-book
ani­ma­tion. Sweet­ness.

Hap­py Tues­day campers.

I’m flex­ing my fin­gers this morn­ing, get­ting back into the swing for you all.

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Transportation

I love the lit­tle Piag­gio Ape. Here’s a brochure for the 1979 ver­sion. (In Ital­ian on a Japan­ese site.)

The Pacif­ic North­west tri­als sea­son start­ed yes­ter­day with the Plas­tered Pur­ple Pen­guin in Marysville. This ear­ly tri­aler , a Bull­dog, looks noth­ing like the Sher­co in the shop. It’s a sweet piece of equip­ment nonetheless.

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Science

Love­ly video of the north­ern lights. The World at Night has a ton of oth­er amaz­ing videos and photos.

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Images, Art, and Design

Uni­ver­si­ty of Neva­da has many inter­est­ing dig­i­tal archives. This one is ded­i­cat­ed to comics pro­duced for the gov­ern­ment. There’s lots from Archie and Jug­head, and some Cap’n Amer­i­ca, even a Charles Schultz or two.

It’s in Por­tuguese but this is the best of the “Images of the Decade” col­lec­tions I’ve seen. The South Amer­i­can per­spec­tive helps.

And anoth­er year-ender. 342 movies in 7 min­utes. The sound track is awe­some.  (SFW/Music)

Hap­py First Mon­day my lovelies.