Transportation

This is the cutest scooter. Ever. Red and yellow, and it has tail fins
- and a rudder.

The Ghezzi-Brian website is pretty broken and this particular Furia
version of the V11 seems to have disappeared from it’s galleries.
S’okay this black version shown at TopSpeed looks better than the red
one on G-B’s sites.

I know that a number of you take advantage of Bike Bandit’s impressive
on-line collection of parts fiches. For the fanbois there’s now an
iPhone app. That’s right, you can now look up and order parts right
from the break down lane on the freeway. It works pretty darn well and
it’s free.

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Science and Society

The Smithsonian reports on the excavations at  Gobekli Tepe and what
the findings might mean for the theories about the transition from
hunter/gather societies to agricultural societies.
“… these new findings suggest a novel theory of civilization.
Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and
live in settled communities did they have the time, organization and
resources to construct temples and support complicated social
structures. But Schmidt argues it was the other way around: the
extensive, coordinated effort to build the monoliths literally laid
the groundwork for the development of complex societies….” Read
more:

Do you remember the movie “Valley Girls” and how we all made fun of
the oddity of adding the questioning inflection to each and every
sentence? The plague has spread into every nook and cranny and we are
now a nation that sounds as if we aren’t sure where we parked our
selves. Taylor Mali wrote a poem about it and Ronnie Bruce made some
type dance for it.

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Music

I’m getting kick out of listening to these 3 and half minute duels
between John Kessler and John Maynard as they pit their collection of
obscure and whacky vinyl against the clock, a theme, and each other. Record Bin Roulette.

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Art, Images, and Design

Weapons design for the cubicle slave/warrior. When the Zombies come
I’m barricading myself in the stock room at Staples.

Paper and stop motion animation. Yay! Like the G wagon as well. (Video
with sound)

The line between live action and animation in big budget movies is
continuing to blur and purists are up in arms. James Cameron insists
Avatar isn’t animation despite the enormous number of animators who
worked on his film. This is nice summary of the kerfluffle with links
to Cameron’s statements and a well reasoned response by Kristin
Thompson.

Blocky bodied, bendy armed, charming, robots and other critters. The
nearly anonymous Exit man.

hang in there my dears, only one more day to go.