Morning Linkage (Jul 9)

It’s been a good week on the inter­net and there are just too many things still to share with you all. So dig in for a good hour or two.

Transportation

A recent con­ver­sa­tion with the moto-heads of my acquain­tance ques­tioned the nature of some of Ducati’s recent crop of “spe­cial edi­tion bikes.” Here’s a look at one of the real™ clas­sics.

I don’t know whether to be offend­ed, amused, or heart­ened by this look at the role of women in the design of auto­mo­biles. I dis­agree with the state­ment that you don’t need to be a gear-head to be good, but only if you allow for gear-head to cov­er more ground than just a fas­ci­na­tion with  cylin­der head shape and  rebound cal­cu­la­tions. I hes­i­tate to admit that the most appeal­ing image in the sto­ry is the “Damsels of Design” lined up with Harley Earl. Oh, and the head­line writer should be pelt­ed with pow­der puffs.

You can go look up the his­to­ry and all that if you’d like. I’ll just sit qui­et­ly and look. Megola.

Unclassifiable

Oh you’re a div­er, how cool is that? Um, maybe not so cool if you are Carlos Barrios Orta and your job is to keep the sew­ers of Mexico City flowing.

… and the nation­al geo­graph­ic video here (not safe for lunch)

Science

Freezing tis­sue sam­ples at the American Museum of Natural History. The Ambrose Monell Cryo Collection. Bet you did­n’t know that AMNH had so many kinds of collections.

Remember the Giant Spider Crab shed­ding it’s shell from the oth­er day? Here’s a nice Nat Geo gallery fea­tur­ing him and some of his deep ocean liv­ing bud­dies. Starting with the apt­ly named Fang Tooth Fish. OMG, and there’s a Vampire Squid. The usu­al Nat Geo high qual­i­ty photography.

Food

Candy specif­i­cal­ly designed to be shared.

A brief look at the process of hand rais­ing apples in Japan. We’ve all mar­veled at the per­fect­ly pre­sent­ed ide­al fruit in Japanese gro­ceries, these bas­kets and trays are meant for giv­ing as a gift. Jane Alden has pho­tographed the farm­ers and their orchards.

Art, Images, and Design

Jane Alden’s own web­site fea­tures a less peace­ful but utter­ly com­pelling essay World War I on the Tears of Stone.

A cou­ple of point­ers to the art of Kodomo no kuni, a Japanese chil­dren’s mag­a­zine pub­lished in the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s. From the gallery of illus­tra­tions I par­tic­u­lar­ly like the work of Takei Takeo and Onchi Koshiro. (Click on the list icon under the pic­tures to see a list of all the illus­tra­tors.) Some gen­er­al infor­ma­tion about the mag­a­zine is also given.

Summer arrived quite sud­den­ly a cou­ple of days ago and I want this instant Popsicle mak­er. Now where did I see that cit­rus cool­er pop recipe? The one with the vod­ka in it?

Video

Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle. If you don’t want to see this… I’m going to won­der about your taste in vio­lence. RED the trail­er is up.