Morning Linkage (Dec 14)

Transportation

We’ve had some bad weath­er around here late­ly. Too much rain leads to sat­u­rat­ed ground which leads to mud and rock slides. Here’s one of the fab pics from the WA-DOT of some of the clear­ing activ­i­ty. This one is on Chuckanut Drive a bit north of here.

Something spe­cial for afi­ciona­dos of the small­er makes. A visu­al his­to­ry of KTM. Sadly with­out iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion for the bikes. Still fun.

Science

Perhaps all those flood myths in the mid­dle east have a basis in a pre­vi­ous round of glob­al warm­ing? Are the remains of a once thriv­ing civ­i­liza­tion damply wait­ing for us beneath the Persian Gulf.

Art, Design, and Images

A lit­tle over the top for most office recep­tion areas but if you have the need… TF2 sen­try gun. (WETA, of course)

Thomas Perkins draws trip­tych comics. Every day. On his three kids’ lunch bags. And he posts them for the rest of us to enjoy.

Animation

Is it even pos­si­ble that I did not post this the first time I saw it? BLU makes ani­ma­tion on build­ings. Really. The evo­lu­tion of life on earth.

There you go my dears, see you tomorrow.

Morning Linkage (Dec 13)

Transportation

That Enduro XT sure is cute. Well fet­tled too.

I was all set to show you the newest Fat Attack show bike when I acci­den­tal­ly clicked on the pre­vi­ous post link. Thank god. Or we all would have missed this beau­ty. 1928 Moto Guzzi racer.

And here’s that Fat Attack. H&R Erbacher The One. Just because a flat black hyper-bike is a good fit for a Monday.

Science

Completely, utter­ly squee. Red pan­das on live cam spon­sored by Firefox.

Art, Images, and Design

Entry point for Lee Misenheimer’s flickr stream. Curly lines make for both sin­is­ter and amus­ing creatures.

A change of pace from the usu­al water­col­or or pen and ink sketch­es. Quickly scrib­bled pas­tels give the col­or and shape of Autumn trees.

This is the nicest wed­ding invi­ta­tion I’ve seen in ages. And at the LeBrea Tar Pits. Couldn’t be more roman­tic.

Animation

I want to see this .… when it’s done. Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.

Morning Linkage (Dec 9)

Transportation

Because you real­ly need to know how engine ori­en­ta­tion of a Melkus affects the design of it’s rear hatch. A col­lec­tion of cut away draw­ings of cars. Thousands of them.

Bobbers, meh. Hondas, meh. On the oth­er hand — this maroon beau­ty does the thing up right.

le sigh. Really if you don’t get this…

Science

Once again we may dis­cov­er that there was once water where this now a desert.

Could I be any hap­pi­er? Animation and sea crea­tures. The Secret of the Stomatopod Strike.

Art, Images, and Design

Words and pic­tures. Such won­der­ful pic­tures. Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Simple, col­or­ful, images of ani­mals from Russian chil­dren’s books. Boris Kalaushin.

Someone is bound to com­plain that there images depict cru­el and dan­ger­ous treat­ment of chil­dren. I sug­gest instead that Jason Lee’s pic­tures of kids reflect n the fun and goofi­ness that chil­dren them­selves imagine.

off you go…

Morning Linkage (Dec 8)

Transportation

The odd sto­ry of George Disteel and his hoard­er’s col­lec­tion of motor­cy­cles. Which I give to you most­ly because the dog in the first pic­ture of Disteel, late and crazy in his life, clear­ly shows a Bouvier des Flanders. Proving that good taste in motor­cy­cles and good taste in dogs often go together.

Getting a bike that fits right and looks good is tough. Or was that shoes? Nope bike. Help is at hand. Cycle Ergo takes your mea­sure­ments and plops a lit­tle man­nequin built like you onto any one of hun­dreds of bikes. Though it claims that your rather petite cura­tor of shiny can flat foot a K1600 GLT. I am skeptical.

Speaking of the salt. (We were just yes­ter­day) Triumph — mod­i­fied. Prettiest sil­ver bike ever. Ever.

Science

We were just dis­cussing these mag­nets in the shop the oth­er day. Neodymium mag­nets are such a geeky won­der. Tiny lit­tle bits of (nickel-plated) met­al that grab on and won’t let go. You can get all sorts from K & J Magnetics. But more impor­tant­ly you can get their newslet­ter with stuff like this: “How Neodymium Magnets are Made.”

Art, Images, and Design

A hand­ful of Sanjeev Joshi’s quick sketch­es from Istanbul.

I know of Cliff Roberts only from car­toons in my father’s New Yorker mag­a­zines. Turns out he did some won­der­ful chil­dren’s books as well. I so want a copy of Thomas — he’s cer­tain­ly the finest cat I’ve seen this fall.

Though odd­ly, I do recall a copy of Langston Hughes’ First Book of Jazz also illus­trat­ed by Cliff Roberts. I just nev­er con­nect­ed the two.

Fascination with 60’s and 70’s design. There are pho­tog­ra­phers who seek out and cap­ture images of the every­day objects that filled our lives and homes. Browsing in this col­lec­tion can fill up your inspi­ra­tion well in just a cou­ple of min­utes. (via phil k)

Morning Linkage (Dec 7)

Transportation

Seemingly ran­dom, Japanese, custom-bike guy blog. I pre­fer look­ing at these with­out the assis­tance of Google trans­late. The sto­ry of one guy’s life, his friends, his lunch­es, and his bikes. (Occasional bits of NSFW — most­ly ani­me girls.)

For all of you drinkers of the Orange kool-aid who were dis­ap­point­ed by the small (125cc) size of the pro­posed KTM mini machines can relax. There’s a new pro­pos­al — for a 250 or 300. Sometime in 2012? Maybe that’s long enough for them to find some­one to do some­thing about the 1980’s era water­craft graph­ics. Urk. (And, yes, I know that’s the pro­mo pic for the 125.)

The pho­tog­ra­pher’s site is down for main­te­nance. But here are a hand­ful of Christopher Wilson’s images from the salt. Ethereal indeed. (thanks Chicane)

Science

A lit­tle fic­tion leads to a whole bunch of facts and a cou­ple of videos about giant squid.

Art, Images, and Design

Another of the Portuguese artists from the turn of the last cen­tu­ry. Amadeo Souza Cardosa is lit­tle known out­side of his home coun­try. Bright, often geo­met­ric, paint­ings full of life and good humor.

Do pup­pets count as design or ani­ma­tion? The giant pup­pets of Royal de Luxe arrived in Mexico City with a spe­cial per­for­mance for the bicentennial.

Little, frag­ile, ephemer­al bits of the real world are added to Micheal Aaron William’s street art. Heartbreaking.

Animation

I want to like this. I think I like this. The trail­er for O Apostolo. Frightening folk and fairy tales from Northern Spain. Review in English, trail­er in Spanish. (Video 1:06)

keep calm and car­ry on