shiny things in messy little piles

Month: April 2010 (Page 1 of 4)

Morning Linkage (Apr 29)

Transporation

A col­lec­tion of SR400 and SR500 videos. These high­ly mod­i­fi­able sin­gles are the start­ing point for tons of cus­toms in Japan. Now in addi­tion a to the work on the bike — it seems that you have to make a rid­ing video. Kick start bike, cruise the neigh­bor­hood, hit the under­pass, have your bud­dy take lots of shaky close­ups of your pants pock­ets :-D But you real­ly want to spend time with the SR500 built by trouthunter. It’s the nicest build doc­u­men­tary I’ve seen. (Video #4 — Music)

Amir Glinik draws CGI bikes that you can hear rum­bling in your brows­er. Swear to God.  This ‘45 Harley can be had in either red or white. Luscious.

The fel­lows at Jamesville (that’d be James) have moved a lit­tle out of the cus­tom bike field to work on a 1936 Ford Coupe. Maybe I read too many R. Crumb car­toons as teenag­er but these always give the gig­gles. It’s a beau­ti­ful job.

Science

Very nifty opti­cal illu­sion. You’ll see a spi­ral but it’s not there. I’m not sure how it’s done, some­thing about the background.
There are a ton more exam­ples here. and some explanations.

Art, Images, and Design

Insects and dew. Macro pho­tos of the bejew­eled denizens of a world we over­look every morning.

I’m not sure where to go with these, a mutant bio­log­i­cal dystopia. Line and sim­ple col­ors cre­ate charm­ing night­mares. (Fer­nan­do Hereñú (AKA Pulpo)

Sim­i­lar­ly, not-quite human char­ac­ters but full of whim­sy and bright col­ors. Hap­py robots liv­ing in a hap­py world drawn by lit­tle kong.

keep calm and car­ry on…

Morning Linage (Apr 28)

Transportation

Sim­ple and sweet. The RD350 as cafe racer.

Rat scoot­ers. There are a cou­ple of home­ly lit­tle items in this col­lec­tion that I would hap­pi­ly take home and shine up. And a WTF or two.

I remain uncon­vinced, but there are folks who think this clip from a dyno test of the MotoCzysz D1-10 proves that elec­tric bikes will make cool nois­es. I think it sounds like cat­a­stroph­ic bear­ing  fail­ure in the main gen­er­a­tor house at Hoover Dam.

Society and Culture

Fab­u­lous­ly obscene blues song by Lucille Bogan from 1935 proves that mod­ern music has always been degen­er­ate. Shave Em Dry. NSFW

I care very much about the future of comics, car­toons, and ani­ma­tion. The old mod­el of polar oppo­sites (Mar­vel comics vs xerox­ed ‘zines) is giv­ing way to new­er pos­si­bil­i­ties at points in between. Options that allow cre­ators to earn a liv­ing at a small­er scale than was pos­si­ble before. From wikipedia a list of “self-supporting’ web comics. Brave folks tak­ing big risks. And some of them are damned fun­ny too

Art, Images, and Design

I’m not sure what it means when a woman begins to paint her­self as a young boy. The results of Julie Hef­fer­nan’s exper­i­ments are deep, com­plex, and hyp­not­ic. Roman­ti­cism gone wrong. It’s worth spend­ing time with her oth­er paint­ings as well. (NSFW artis­tic nudes)

Mod­ern hero. 38 of your favorite super heroes depict­ed in mod­ern angu­lar glo­ry. Unfor­tu­nate­ly they are no longer avail­able as prints. le freakin’ sigh.

Black and White image of the day. Lyn Fontane and Alfred Lunt — laid back and louche — with a side of wiener dog.

so it goes…

Morning Linkage (Apr 27)

Transportation

Is this real­ly what it says it is? A Vin­cent drag rac­er? New or old? Dang I love this site for the pics but they have less info than Bike­EXIF. Though the loca­tion is ID’d in the comments.

We’ve all seen the city bus­es and the occa­sion­al hum­mer cov­ered in vinyl graph­ics adver­tis­ing some­thing — usu­al­ly an ener­gy drink. But those cus­tom wrap­pers are com­ing to a car near you. Going to be pop­u­lar with the smug-mobile crowd… and the lit­tle urban deliv­ery van folks.

5 great shots of the best play­ing around at desert rac­ing at  Ocotil­la Wells, CA. Click to en-biggen.

Science

Wild-life pho­tog­ra­phy gets a new gad­get. Beetle­cam - a low to the ground view from Africa. Cam­era, track dri­ven plat­form (the size of a rab­bit), and a warn­ing about things that might be mis­tak­en for a cat toy.

Money

Using flash on your web­site is often scorned as being inac­ces­si­ble and point­less­ly com­plex for no val­ue, but it can be well done. For exam­ple: The $100 bill is has been redesigned and new ver­sions will begin to cir­cu­late in Feb of 2011. You can check out all of the new fea­tures of the $100 bill in this inter­ac­tive app. (Note the easy to link to URL.)

Art, Images, and Design

Richard Kirk’s work is best summed up by the quote that he uses on his front page. “there is no beau­ty that hath not some strange­ness in the pro­por­tion” Sir Frances Bacon (1625) Thin, ethe­re­al, twig­gy human ‑botan­i­cal cross breeds.

Super sat­u­rat­ed pho­tographs. Vivid col­or­ing that push­es the fall into the dere­lic­tion to the foreground.

Micheal Quigg has a good eye for less beat­en down images as well.  This pho­to of anoth­er pho­tog­ra­ph­er and her grand­child in his cher­ry blos­soms Flick­er set warms the heart.

now get moving…

Morning Linkage (Apr 26)

Transportation

There is very lit­tle infor­ma­tion on the bike in this pic­ture but the set­ting — BBQ and the pho­tos are nice. A Ducati cafe rac­er. But which one?  The paint looks real­is­ti­cal­ly, well, rough. But would some­one please aim the headlight?

I’ll make it 2‑fer Guzzi Monday

Moto Guzzi Le Mans — sub­tle silver.

Moto Guzzi Con­dor — arrest me red.  Mind bog­gling mechanicals.

Science and Pretty Girls

What are we cut­tle­fish? Isabel­la Rosselli­ni is back with more paper cre­ations and crea­tures to explain the world of sex­u­al repro­duc­tion. Seduce Me sea­son 1 begins with — Cut­tle­fish.

Food

How to eat a cup­cake. I know you think you don’t need instruc­tions. You need these instructions.

More cup­cakes. Cup­cakes, cup­cakes, cup­cakes. Been done to death so what can I pos­si­bly have come up with that would jus­ti­fy anoth­er post on cup­cakes? Mup­pet wed­ding cake — that’s what.

Art, Images, and Design

Any of you that have been involved in the com­mer­cial design world will remem­ber, fond­ly or not, crits. Well, here’s one you might have enjoyed par­tic­i­pat­ing in. The sum­ma­ry of couch forts as archi­tec­ture.

John Burge makes inti­mate por­traits in either water­col­or or oil. Old school paint­ing. Just like life, some images are NSFW.

Yuko Shimizu is draw­ing for Ver­ti­go (DC Comics) again, anoth­er cov­er for Unwrit­ten. This stand­alone edi­tion deliv­ers a fairy-tale world with a dark preda­tor. As usu­al her post has lots of in process scans of the work, some edi­to­r­i­al changes, and snaps of her visu­al ref­er­ence material.

march­ing on…

Morning Linkage (Apr 23)

Transportation

Don’t let the URL fool you. It’s a groovy Nor­ton. For real? Dear lord, that’s way too much flower for me.

Have $10K lying around? You might want to head over to the Duc deal­er and get one of these, and a mocha. 2011 Duc Mon­ster 796. Yum.

Hon­da goes two-wheel elec­tric. Japan only mod­el the EV-neo. Avail­able for lease at the end of the year. A new busi­ness mod­el for the prob­lem of rapid­ly devel­op­ing elec­tric vehi­cle tech mak­ing this year’s mod­el obso­lete before you’ve fin­ished mak­ing the payments.

Science

The role of Asi­a’s some­times mas­sive spring dust storms in the weath­er of the Pacif­ic Northwest.

Dr. Clelia Duel Mosh­er taught at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty at the turn of the last cen­tu­ry. Her work includ­ed in depth stud­ies of wom­en’s sex­u­al atti­tudes in the late 19th cen­tu­ry. Work that remained buried in the Stan­ford archives until 1973.

Art, Images, and Design

21 con­dom ads you won’t see here in the Unit­ed States of Puri­tan. Some of these are damned fun­ny. (Love the water bot­tles — sub­tle and would fit right into a Seat­tle mag­a­zine, what with our ded­i­ca­tion to the sport­ing life.)

Dum­fries Scot­land. A land­scape whose plants are irrel­e­vant. Stone and met­al objects that visu­al­ize the basic tenets of math and physics. Utter­ly nerd cool.

Strong lines and vibrant col­ors makes Julie Oak­ley one of my favorite urban sketchers.

and that’s that…
see you next week.

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