magpie's shiny things

shiny things in messy little piles

Month: November 2010 (Page 3 of 4)

Morning Linkage (Nov 11)

November 10, 2010 /

Transportation — Pretty Bike Thursday

I do not have the time to crawl through the moun­tain­ous pile of images on ADV Rid­er. Luck­i­ly I have friends who do. MV Augus­ta 750S.

Anoth­er bit of his­to­ry goes up for auc­tion.  Bob­by Sirkegian’s 1953 Tri­umph drag rac­er “Pret­ty Boy II”

A nice lit­tle RD400 cus­tom. Noth­ing extra, just enough to make it sweet. Nice resurrection.

Science

I have a lot of pho­tog­ra­phers among my read­ers. So the occa­sion­al pho­to­graph­ic DIY is always wel­come. Maybe you all would like to learn a lit­tle about cap­tur­ing images of the sun? Wired Sci­ence brings you the sto­ry and tech­niques behind Alan Fried­man’s mind blow­ing sun photo.

Art, Images, and Design

Not your dad­dy’s Dis­ney. Four great muta­tions of the Mouse and the Duck. Then four rather dull and pre­dictable waifish girls. And then… then, Odo cre­ates some Ben­der fabulousness.

Paco Pomet’s quirky, spooky paint­ings. Click around a bit. You’ll espe­cial­ly like Fab­u­la (far right col­umn — 4th down.)

Vincent.zp is a fan of pack­ag­ing and indus­tri­al design. Among his many col­lec­tions is a Flickr stream of face pow­der box­es. Calm, love­ly pack­ag­ing for a prod­uct not often seen today. The Three Flow­ers box was post­ed on Amy Cre­hore’s blog last week. And the masked char­ac­ter on this box of Cipria Masche­ri­na is my cur­rent favorite. There are dozens of oth­er inspir­ing images to found here.

Animation

God, I hate OK GO music, but seri­ous­ly, ani­ma­tion on toast. It can’t fail. Bonus fish play­ing a guitar.

I’m off to be very cul­tured (Picas­so exhib­it, din­ner date, and then the sym­pho­ny) behave your­selves while I’m out.

Morning Linkage (Nov 10)

November 10, 2010 /

Transportation

Adven­ture does not require expen­sive gear, mas­sive bikes, or exot­ic locations.

Some­where between WTF and the most insight­ful por­trait of the motor­cy­clist’s soul ever. A detail from Aki­ra Yam­aguc­chi’s The Nine Aspects. (If any­one can find a pic of the entire paint­ing please let me know.)

This one is a lit­tle bit of a gimme. I know at least two read­ers who will love any Tri­umph Scram­bler I post.

Science

Time lapse pho­tog­ra­phy seems to have fall­en out of favor. Why? Did the won­der of watch­ing plants grown and bloom and die some­how leave the world? It’s a beau­ti­ful plan­et — all the more so because it hous­es some­thing as love­ly as the snake gourd plant or the white egret flower. Plants of Japan. (video with music)

Art, Images, and Design

These “tank totes” are a com­mon sight around here. They are car­ried around in the back of pick­up trucks by folks with less than reli­able water sup­plies. But I did­n’t know they were so cheap. Here’s a good re-use. Sig­nal lamps. Any oth­er ideas?

Ram­shackle hill­side apart­ments with too many win­dows and too few doors? No, not some sort of hell­ish slum. Nina Lind­gren’s mag­i­cal card­board houses.

Video

I have been self­ish­ly keep­ing this one to myself for the last cou­ple of days. Alice Herz-Sommer is some­one who you have to hold in the pri­va­cy of your own heart and con­sid­er qui­et­ly before you can share her.
Trail­er for the doc­u­men­tary Alice: Danc­ing Under the Gal­lows (Video 12:11) More on Alice and the film.

Morning Linkage (Nov 9)

November 9, 2010 /

Transportation

No mat­ter how you feel about cig­a­rettes and smok­ing and adver­tis­ing, if you’re over 35 you’ll always asso­ciate the Camel brand with motor­cy­cles. This col­lec­tion of Camel ads has too many of the car­toon camels but there are a cou­ple of prizes. A rough side­hack on the beach, a full page of army motos from the 40’s, and AMA Pro dirt bikes (60’s?)

Wash­ing­ton State Trans­porta­tion Depart­ment is one of the finest exam­ples of a gov­ern­ment agency using social media in its out­reach. Yeah, yeah, I hear you ask­ing what’s this doing in the trans­porta­tion sec­tion… the WSDOT blog recent­ly announced that their Flickr stream, begun in 2007,has reached the amaz­ing mile­stone of 10,000,000 views. That’s right 10 mil­lion. Go have a look around, you’ll find some­thing that astounds you. I promise.

I have nev­er seen the BMW R7 pro­to­type based on the 1930’s star frame before. I am smit­ten. Also a Type 255 Rennsport. The Vin­ta­gen­t’s excel­lent round-up of BMWs pre­sent­ed at the Paris pho­to equip­ment trade show.

Science

Ten love­ly images of the struc­tures of the brain. The start­ing point for Carl Shoonover’s new book Por­traits of the Mind: Visu­al­iz­ing the Brain from Antiq­ui­ty to the 21st Cen­tu­ry. And again remind­ing us that Richard Axel was right when he “sci­ence with­out enchant­ment is noth­ing! (via my friend T and Simon Mainwaring)

Art, Images, and Design

Mak­ing a virtue of neces­si­ty. If you have to run con­duit and wires on the sur­face of con­crete walls you may as well make an aes­thet­ic state­ment with it.

Koikoikoi selects 28 black and white por­traits from Nobuyu­ki Taguchi’s large vol­ume of work.

If you pre­fer some­thing in col­or, how about this set, also from Taguchi. Mak­ing pointe shoes at the Freed of Lon­don factory.

Reli­quar­ies are one of my favorite for­mats for art. Coil­house fea­tures three new paint­ings in the form of reli­quar­ies by Made­line von Foer­ster.  A much larg­er image of The Red Thread is cur­rent­ly on the front page of the artist’s site. (NSFW — artis­tic nudes)

We are remind­ed that in some parts of the world, autumn is a time of fine, soft light rather than murky gray.

Tues­day — at least it’s not Mon­day and I used to like Mondays :(

Morning Linkage (Nov 8)

November 8, 2010 /

Transportation

Mooneyes, Yoko­hama Cus­tom Show. Yeah — none of us are gonna be there but this getting-ready video gives a nice overview of cus­tom bike and rod builders in the US at the moment. “Demo reel” for this year and last year. Nice video — nasty music.

Much more fun can be had on the Mooneyes web­site. The loud, crowd­ed feel of a 60’s hot rod mag­a­zine in a brows­er. And they sell dog toys? (Hid­den Diaz bonus: pho­tos from a VW Type 2 par­ty in Sept.)

A lit­tle clas­sic Ducati to get your moto week off to a good start.

Food and Science

Truf­fles, black truf­fles not the choco­late kind, have com­pli­cat­ed sex lives. And same-sex dorms.

The sweet irony of find­ing dinosaur fos­sils in church mar­ble is too hard to pass up. And the bonus of the rec­om­men­da­tions for a cou­ple of cool urban geol­o­gy books makes this a must-link for a Monday.

Art, Images, and Design

Explo­sions of organ­ic shapes and col­or. Many lay­ered cut paper cre­ations of Simone Louren­co. Much, much more in the port­fo­lio.

Appar­ent­ly I am hope­less­ly out of date. Not only can’t iden­ti­fy most of the musi­cians asso­ci­at­ed with these clothes when I looked up the answers I did­n’t know who a good hand­ful of them were. Can you do bet­ter? Ensem­ble: The Style of Music, 20 musi­cians iden­ti­fied by their clothing.

More images from music. This essay on Elvis Pres­ley fea­tures some of the best rock and roll pho­tog­ra­phy. Black and whites from the 50’s and 60’s.

We make our cities in our own images. And when we make films we make new cities to express our new vision. A look at a hand­ful of icon­ic cin­e­ma cities going back to 1927 (Metrop­o­lis.)

alright my dears, let’s make this week just a smidgen bet­ter than last week shall we?

Morning Linkage (Nov 5)

November 5, 2010 /

Transportation

I have no expla­na­tion for the face paint that match­es the hel­met. But it’s the nicest B&W bike pic I’ve seen this week.

Vin­ta­gent pulls togeth­er a brief his­to­ry of a 1938 BSA Gold Star for sale in Oz. Bonus pic of the “movie-star hand­some”  Wal Han­d­ley who earned the cov­et­ed gold star at Brook­lands for BSA.

None of the rac­ers I know has this kind of class. The FIAT trans­porter that fer­ried around the Fer­rari cars in the late 1950s isn’t exact­ly with­in the bud­getary con­straints of most of my rac­er mates either.

Offi­cer Silent is sneak­ing up behind you. First it was the elec­tric cars in the NYC fleet. Now Utah based ATK would like to sell your local LEOs some elec­tric bikes.

Science

The physics of the wet-dog shake (as well as mice, rats, and griz­zly bears.)

Why do gigan­tic pump­kins always look like they were left in the sun and melt­ed? All squat and squashed? There’s an answer to that. It’s a bet­ter shape than round for grow­ing out sized squash.

Art. Images, and Design

Ani­malar­i­um high­lights the ani­mals por­trayed in the work of two Finnish illus­tra­tors. San­na Annuk­ka whose work for Marimekko you can find on her web­site. (The look into the pro­duc­tion process for Marimekko fab­rics is cool.) And Klaus Haa­panie­mi whose large-scale pic­tures of fan­ci­ful ani­mals always make me smile.

The Book or Rev­e­la­tions is puz­zling to even the most devote of schol­ars. Com­men­taries have been writ­ten through­out the cen­turies. Bib­liodyssey brings images from the Bea­t­us Apoc­a­lypse. Noah’s ark fea­tures some par­tic­u­lar­i­ty unset­tling animals.

I have to agree. The posters for Black Swan are so unlike the usu­al run of actor’s faces poor­ly pho­to­shopped onto stand-ins’ air­brushed bod­ies in front of CGI explo­sions that at first I did­n’t real­ize that Black Swan was a movie. (It’s a ballet/psychological thriller movie. Who’s going with me?)

Love­ly cal­lig­ra­phy exe­cut­ed on video. Lega­cy of Let­ters pro­mo piece. Luca Bar­cel­lon­a’s econ­o­my of motion while let­ter­ing is amaz­ing. (Video)

Animation

When you have a band named the Kandin­sky Effect. the best pos­si­ble pro­mo video would fea­ture a piece (or two) of Kandin­sky art, no? (Video)

But is you need some­thing a lit­tle less high-brow you can’t go wrong with the episode of Saari. A preschool pro­gram designed by a Finn and pro­duced in Spain. Charm­ing. (Video)

And that’s it for this week. be hap­py, have fun, be safe.

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