magpie's shiny things

shiny things in messy little piles

Archives for June 2010

Morning Linkage (Jun 9)

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Transportation

It’s all about the life style right? Triumph for your body. The Spring 2010 col­lec­tion. Video. (NSFW — under­wear)

A motor­car­rier is one of those three wheeled things with a cargo bed held up over two wheels in the front and a sin­gle dri­ven wheel behind the ‘rider’ in the back. Very agri­cul­tural, and of course it can be raced. Helmets do not appear to be required.

There are sev­eral day’s worth of motor­car­rier rac­ing videos on YouTube is you need more bad ideas. The Dutch are bored, really bored.

Loverly Ariel with enclosed side­car. (Thanks EdW.)

Tech and Gadgets

Very good news for the Pacific Northwest weather geeks. We’re get­ting our radar a year early!!

Toys that teach lan­guage are a favorite gift from the aun­tie. These kanji char­ac­ters trans­form into the ani­mal named. Maybe the next sproglet needs to learn Japanese.

Art, Images, and Design

I work stand­ing up so I wouldn’t have the prob­lem of sand inter­fer­ing with the cast­ers on my chair. Eternal beach.

I don’t think I can rec­om­mend this website/​blog as a great exam­ple of infor­ma­tion trans­fer but I love the way it looks. The RSS feed makes it pos­si­ble to actu­ally read what the owner actu­ally has to say.(Matt Mullenweg is one of the mavens of WordPress.)

Stylized por­traits of the roy­als and their retain­ers from the Mughal empire. How can such visu­ally busy pic­tures be so serene?

keep it going…

Morning Linkage (Jun 8)

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Transportation

The Sidewinder. Yup, Barris, still wrong. (The site includes all of the Barris designs from your child­hood. The Munsters through General Lee. The front page has music.)

There are only two pic­tures here, but it’s not often you get to see an Excelsior under the sky.

You just know that this cat was the height of cool.

Science

Osedax roseus is a bone bor­ing worm that lives on the picked over remains of a sunken whale car­cass. Adaptation is stun­ning in it’s vari­ety. And no, it’s not weird to read about a fin­ger sized red worm and repeat­edly exclaim — that is so cool!

Poetry

Two pieces of poetry, very dif­fer­ent prove­nances, very sim­i­lar messages.

First, Tom Waits reads the oddly hope­ful ‘Laughing Heart’ by Charles Bukowski.

Then, Neil Gaiman reads “Instructions” while Charles Vess’ illus­tra­tions and work­ing draw­ing cap­ti­vate your eyes.

Images

Os Gemos from Brazil hit­ting the streets of Italy with some clever visu­als.

I’m not sure about the ham­ster wheel por­tion of this cylin­dri­cal hous­ing solu­tion but the bit that rolls over to change from a desk and chair to a bed is just what I need for my office. Nap-time!

Yuko Shimizu at drawger intro­duces us to another of her long list of on-​line friends. Benjamin Gudel (u with umlat) Most of the images in this gallery are from a Carhartt cam­paign. Really.

‘ta my dar­ling readers

Morning Linkage (Jun 7)

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Transportation

For any­one who doesn’t already know where the inspi­ra­tion for my hack, Brunhilde, came from. The clas­sic cream with pin­stripes has always spo­ken to me.

Another junk bicy­cle and lit­tle gas engine cre­ation. This could get to be a recur­ring fea­ture here.

Oh my, another Deus. The Bloodnok. Flash based gallery at the source.

Society and Culture

This is one of those finds that is delight­fully dif­fi­cult to cat­e­go­rize. Sukkah City NYC  2010. 12 sukkahs will be built in Union Square next fall. And it will all end up in a book,“Sukkah City: Radically Temporary Architecture for the Next Three Thousand Years.” But mostly you have to see how they’ve illus­trated the rules.
“Sukkah City: Radically Temporary Architecture for the Next Three Thousand Years.”

Images

This is an almost per­fect illu­sion. Daylight stream­ing through a non-​existent window.

xiaobaosg is really William Chua. He puts a lot of his work on Threadless and Designs for Humans. Images like his is one of the rea­sons that the graphic T-​shirt is mak­ing such a come back. Gorgeous.

Some pic­tures hint at a pos­si­ble nar­ra­tive. Others drop a story on your toes and force you to pick it up and pon­der it’s fissures.

Morning Linkage (Jun 3)

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Transportation

Ryca CS1 — what your Suzuki S40 is going to be when it grows up. Ryca’s own flash encum­bered site.

Pretty girls and motor­cy­cles. This time with his­tory of Chinese cin­ema added.

A cut away illo and some pho­tos of the Vincent Nero/​Super Nero. The naked shot is out­right frightening.

Tech and Gadgets

The ulti­mate shop door? Well it’s the bitchin’-est hangar door I’ve ever seen. Though it looks more like the local feed store than a house…

Have you ever cal­cu­lated the cost of that weekly staff meet­ing? Do you know what it costs to let Dave from account­ing blather on for an extra 12 min­utes? TIM will do the math for you, in real time.

Art, Images, and Design

I love com­ing across an artist   whose work can make me both very gig­gly happy. See the lit­tle bird rocker about half way down. And fore­head wrin­kling puz­zled. The sheep in NY — um, that’s not even…  Claude and François-​Xavier Lalanne.

Extraordinary images of Venice. Liquid and mys­te­ri­ous. Giuseppe Desideri. (Most effec­tive as a slide show.)

Friday Animation

The sur­real Zayatz and Volk. Russian kid­die car­toon­ing from the 70s/​80s era. The com­men­tary is almost as whacked as the cartoon.

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did you know that ‘play’ is the one key off on the right hand typo for ‘okay’?

Morning Linkage (Jun 2)

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Transportation

Hell for Leather brings you the Garage Company in it’s new loca­tion. View full screen and scroll right for for tons of photos.

Pissed Off Pete. A log truck con­verted to hot rod and drag racer. No account­ing for taste. I just like it.

This is the pret­ti­est restora­tion I’ve seen in a while. ’37 Sunbeam. Bike that is. Enjoy the gallery.

Science

Um, I think I may have been mis­taken a cou­ple of weeks ago when I told you about how the moon makes the tides. Kitteh explains to Pip.

More from Creature Cast. If you hold your breathe when you dive into the deep end of the pool, what does a Nautilus do when it dives into the deep end of the ocean? Hold it’s heart like a turtle.

Art, Images, and Design

Carlo Gianferro takes pho­tographs of domes­tic inte­ri­ors. A unique and pro­foundly effec­tive form of por­trai­ture. These pic­tures of gypsy inte­ri­ors and their inhab­i­tants intro­duced me to a visual lan­guage that I have never seen. A chaotic mashup of Eastern and Western styles. Baroque and super-​saturated. I want the red kitchen :-)

The exte­ri­ors of the gypsy houses are as much of a pas­tiche as the interiors.

And now a sim­ple, util­i­tar­ian design to cleanse the mind palette. A tran­sit pass good for the week of Jun 24, 1939 bear­ing an adver­tise­ment for the Moose Circus. — 20 thrilling acts, too big for roof or tent! — Found in a copy of  Witch Wood by John Buchanan.

The wan­der­ing bear returns today, there may be no link­age tomorrow.