magpie's shiny things

shiny things in messy little piles

Month: May 2010 (Page 3 of 4)

Morning Linkage (May 12)

May 12, 2010 /

Transportation

A new direc­tion in elec­tric motor­cy­cles, look­ing back to the 50’s. Ham­mar­head builds the Vol­ta, a retro look­ing bat­tery pow­ered machines on a mod­ern frame. If you can call the Enfield Bul­let modern…

In case you saw today’s Bike­EXIF, the Fal­con Kestral, and want­ed the back ground. Here’s the press release and bunch of links, as well as the pics. I am unmoved but I know some of you all will love it.

Paul Van Den­ton is a recent grad of the Roy­al Col­lege of Art. He does some pret­ty out­landish cafe racer/futuro con­cept bikes. Pipeburn col­lect­ed some of his best images. PVD also has a love of rods and drag rac­ers so some of the pho­tos on his blog are worth a look. The link is in the story.

Science, Tech, Gadgets

You sim­ply can­not fail to appre­ci­ate that we live on a plan­et that has a mas­sive crys­tal struc­ture at its core. Real­ly — it’s like some­thing out of a movie. It’s also why seis­mic waves move faster when going along the merid­i­ans than the latitudes.

Society and Culture

David Wein­berg­er is a info geek. He reads wide­ly and recent­ly he read through a cou­ple of issues of Game Devel­op­er mag­a­zine. His reflec­tions on the roles of moral­i­ty in gam­ing and games reminds us that the real world is rarely sim­ple enough for good/bad choic­es. And that moral choic­es some­times have fuzzy con­se­quences. Per­haps this is a good thing. Bina­ry nar­ra­tives are boring.

Art, Images, Design

I have no clue why the first image is upside down. Not that it makes the pic­ture any stranger. Char­ac­ters who just won’t stay in their books.

OMG-level awe­some: Jud Turn­er’s GreedEater. An assem­blage of parts.  Fol­low it up with Inter­nal Com­bus­tion #2 — Bone Machine.

and that’s the mid-week review…

Morning Linkage (May 11)

May 11, 2010 /

Transportation

I am devel­op­ing a the­o­ry that green bikes are always chal­leng­ing. Take for exam­ple this ‘83 R80ST bob­ber. It is fas­ci­nat­ing; in a train wreck of a gas tank sort of way. Points for brav­ery though.

This Tiger 100 fea­tured at Quail is the def­i­n­i­tion of col­lectible. A one-off pro­duced in 1940 for Rody Roden­burg. Nev­er restored and doc­u­ment­ed all ways to hell. This one should be parked in the liv­ing room.

Anoth­er bike seen at Quail. The Mule Motor­cy­cles “Street­mas­ter” a Bon­neville based street track­er. Build details and plans for a lim­it­ed pro­duc­tion run. 70+ hp in 300 pounds. Oh my,

Society and Culture

The LA Times pro­vides a brief look inside Dis­ney­land after hours. 600 busy peo­ple make the Mag­ic King­dom sparkling new every night.
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All that eco-responsible toi­let paper you buy? You might want to start hord­ing. Too much recy­cled paper in the world means too lit­tle high qual­i­ty paper for mak­ing that cushy bum stuff.

Art, Images, and Design

Design­ers are now social engi­neers and cre­ators of solu­tions. At Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of Arts the design stu­dents were giv­en a brief to design prod­ucts that fall (rough­ly) into the cat­e­go­ry of health and fit­ness. Some are prag­mat­i­cal, some are sil­ly, and few are out right good. Like the smack down dolls of Sam Free­man and the eas­i­er to grip wine glass of Aaron McKenzie.

I love shoes. I have tons of friends who love choco­late. I think I’ve found the per­fect gift for all occa­sions . Some­thing that clear­ly reflects my pas­sion and their crav­ing. What could be bet­ter than choco­late shoes?

Hid­den behind the easy, pas­tel  japan-kitsch there is some­thing painful­ly hon­est in Zain7’s depic­tions of ado­les­cence.

Her blog is NSFW (nudi­ty)

Morning Linkage (May 10)

May 10, 2010 /

Transportation

52 side­car images. Worth a look if only to hit page down once and get the best gig­gle you’ll have all day. If you have tod­dlers in the house call them over to the screen first.

The math of rac­ing. In the end, it’s all about how fast can you go around the track and how fast the oth­er guys can go around the track. The lap times of Rossi, Pedrosa, and Loren­zo at the Jerez track in 2010 graphed. Look and learn.

An inter­est­ing, and vio­lent­ly green, cus­tom treat­ment of a Tri­umph as hot rod.

Science, Technology and Gadgets

The two or three times a day fin­ger pricks are a fact of life for many dia­bet­ics. There has been talk of skin implantable sen­sors for blood-glucose mon­i­tor­ing for a cou­ple of years. The first nano-sensor pro­to­type has been developed.

Space zom­bies… Uh oh. Galaxy 15 illus­trates the chal­lenges of man­ag­ing dead satellites.

Orange builds amps. Lots of amps, and they are all orange. All that orange… but this PC they’re build­ing is still sweet looking.

Art, Images, and Design

Ani­malar­i­um’s Sun­day Safaris are always worth a look. This one is a trib­ute to all the Tau­ri out there.

A col­lec­tion of stere­o­scopes. Includ­ing the Japan­ese ones from a month or so ago. The head­er image is great. There’s one stu­pid nude (a greasy girl on a cliff) mak­ing this oth­er­wise gig­gly, dizzy col­lec­tion NSFW.

A fas­ci­nat­ing bit of archi­tec­ture. What to do with the lit­tle old garage in the back yard? Move in. A garage rehab in Seat­tle that makes liv­ing in less that 300 square feet appeal­ing. Slide show and the sto­ry behind the rehab.

time and again we start out so well and end up.…

Morning Linkage (May 7)

May 7, 2010 /

Transportation

The Fri­day freaky find. This was spot­ted on eBay and now it lives on pipeburn and per­haps in some­one’s garage. Is it a Nor­ton? A Tri­umph? An ungod­ly mashup? Twin engine goofy­ness.

You know that I love the work of Wrench Mon­kees. So do a lot of oth­er folks and now we’re start­ing to see some very nice builds in the same grit­ty style.

Black and white image of an SS750 engine with­out the side case. This pic is big enough for net­book wall paper. Just sayin’

Society and Culture

Aban­doned places. A Sovi­et mis­sile defense instal­la­tion, even allow­ing for the degra­da­tion of aban­don­ment this must have been a grim place to live and work.

Art, Images, and Design

uhu­ru design in Brook­lyn has brought out a line of fur­ni­ture fea­tur­ing wood tak­en from the Coney Island board­walk. The lounger design is a swoopy delight.

A cou­ple of days ago I men­tioned Lean­dro Caste­lao in a post about rhi­nos. Here’s a look at some more of his work. Robots for T‑shirts.Click around for more goodness.

A sweet Jim Flo­ra illo done for the cov­er of Com­put­er Design some time in the 60s or 70s. Ear­ly geek art!

Animation

A dark world and a bright umbrel­la. A well done senior year project from CalArts by philip vose.

week­end ahead, off you go.

Morning Linkage (May 5)

May 5, 2010 /

Transportation

If you sim­ply *must*have a Ducati… No, no, please don’t hit me. I only find them and bring them to you. I don’t actu­al­ly cre­ate them.

East­ern Europe is turn­ing out a lot of tal­ent­ed visu­al artists and a cou­ple of odd-ball bike cus­tomiz­ers. Every­one has seen Yuri Shif’s tri-color Mon­ster the DUster, but this bike, mys­te­ri­ous­ly named Gus­tav Skip­pone has an creepy charm all it’s own.

Three appar­ent­ly unre­lat­ed pic­tures. I want to make up a sto­ry that accounts for the rac­er, the ad, and Nor­ton. I’ll set­tle for a nice look into the past.

Science, Tech, and Gadgets

In the midst of this col­lec­tion of images from the Museo Vir­tu­al del Diseno Cre­ativ­i­ty (Spain) there is a pho­to­graph a a radio shack belong­ing to EA3DY. Lin­ing the walls are the QSL cards he col­lect­ed from his con­tacts. The cards are also repro­duced here. A bit odd in the mid­dle of a set of images devot­ed to com­mer­cial design in the 30’s but a fas­ci­nat­ing find.

Art, Images, and Design

Wicked, or sil­ly. I can’t decide. This skele­tal arm micro­phone hold­er may be just the thing for a rock­er in need of a mean­ing­ful mike stand. Nah, it’s just very cool.

Very nice met­al work on this clock by Dutch design­ers Niels van Eijk and Miri­an van der Lubbe. A reminder that we can choose to have

A col­lec­tion of pic­tures of rhi­nos that should­n’t be as won­der­ful as it is. I par­tic­u­lar­ly like the Lean­dro Caste­lao and the Ser­go Ruf­fo­lo — con­ve­nient­ly locat­ed next to each other .

…and there you have it, the week is half over.

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