magpie's shiny things

And we were all snick­er­ing at the park­ing cops on segways…
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/05/any-cop-is-robocop-with-an-electric-police-trike/

A gallery of the cov­ers of the jour­nal Advanced Materials. Click to
embiggen. Read the issue sum­maries to dis­cov­er that you know
absolute­ly nothing.
http://www.wiley-vch.de/publish/en/journals/alphabeticIndex/2089/?jURL=http://www.wiley-vch.de:80/vch/journals/2089/cover/index2009.html

Sometimes the answer to nasty mate­ri­als is not to dis­pose of them but
to reuse them. I say it’s more than sort of sustainable.
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/sortof_sustainable_flooring_vinyl_yes_vinyl_composition_tile_13468.asp

A good sum­ma­ry of the chaos in Guatemala caused by the death of lawyer
Rodrigo Rosenberg. Social medi­a’s role in this cri­sis is big. (I hate
the term social media.)
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/12/guatemala-slain-lawy.html

If you’re post­ing video to one of the video shar­ing sites you might
want to have a look at Markus Weiland’s review of their
ownership/copyright/privacy poli­cies. (Do they own your video?) Anyone
know of a sim­i­lar overview of the terms of use for the pho­to sharing
sites?
http://advancingusability.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/owned-legal-terms-of-video-hosting-services-compared/

For WordPress users a col­lec­tion of hacks tak­ing advan­tage of custom
fields. I par­tic­u­lar­ly like the first one — post expi­ra­tion dates. (I
have not had time nor incli­na­tion to look care­ful­ly at all the code.
Use at your own risk.)
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/13/10-custom-fields-hacks-for-wordpress/

Distributed trans­la­tion efforts for TED talks. There’s also supposed
to be a new trick in the tran­scripts. Select a bit of text and go
direct­ly to that por­tion of the video. Haven’t found it yet. Will
advise.
http://blog.ted.com/2009/05/ted_open_trans.php

Neil Giaman reminds us that we do not own the right to an author’s
future out­put just because we bought the first book in a series. Some
days he just makes me nod my head and smile.
http://blog.ted.com/2009/05/ted_open_trans.php

Unintended coin­ci­dence. Tomorrow I leave to cross the coun­try. May
14th also marks the 205th anniver­sary of the begin­ning of Lewis and
Clark’s cross coun­try trek.
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/14940

Zen image of the day.
http://sleepmachine.tumblr.com/post/106996448/plasticdreams-tumbleg-kiri2-muibrog

This is like­ly to be the last Morning Linkage until I return from the road.
Occasional trip reports to WL or fol­low along dai­ly with words and pic­tures on:
http://shoes.blackdogandmagpie.net

A sil­ly to start. 69 Love Song Illustrated. Just what it says. All by
dif­fer­ent artists. They haven’t got the full 69 yet and a the quality
varies but this one is hap­py sil­ly. (Mildly NSFW due to hazy nakedness
and furries)
http://howfuckingromantic.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/lets-pretend-were-bunny-rabbits/

Douglas Bowman’s depar­ture from his post as head design­er for Google
has freed him to say a lot about how Google works. In this NYT article
he again dis­cuss­es the data vs. design divide.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/business/10ping.html?_r=1

How the smart guys at UCSB hijacked a bot­net. This is the best I’ve
been able to find on it. Details of how the bot­net worked are light.
(I real­ly don’t care about the user data they found. There’s nothing
new.) I’ll keep look­ing for some­thing more in depth.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/252353/hijacked-botnet-exposes-startling-online-habits.html

Charmingly British head-to-head test between a net­book (Asus) and an
iPhone. Which is eas­i­er to type on? In a Rally car? At full goose bozo
speeds?
http://news.cnet.com/8301–17938_105-10230160–1.html

Cory Doctorow’s review of Daniel Pinkwater’s new chil­dren’s book.
Pinkwater like Gaiman writes chil­dren’s books that make grown-ups
hap­py too.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/11/pinkwaters-neddiad‑a.html

Pretty. Shiny. Nostalgic (for some of you) and pos­si­bly the coolest
bike name *ever*.
http://www.bikeexif.com/hodaka-combat-wombat

I still hate monday.
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/05/11/funny-pictures-the-monday/

more tomor­row,

The Design Edition

Starting with a cou­ple of fur­ni­ture designs.

With a welder and some scrap from out behind the barn we could make up
a cou­ple of these lawn chairs. Not sure I want to sit on one. Humor in
design is good.
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/sitting_on_the_fence_13389.asp

And anoth­er report­ed by Core77. Proving that lack of humor in design
think­ing is what makes the rest of think design­ers are pretentious
idiots. From the pull quote: “…struc­tur­al nar­ra­tive of planned
imper­fec­tions…”  WTF?
http://www.core77.com/blog/ny_design_week_09/ny_design_week_09_preview_divis_table_from_mike_and_maaike_13414.asp

Two on the design process.

Flikr set of pho­tos and sketch­es show­ing high­lights of Andy Logan
design­ing the TurboChef DWO oven. (Do Want)
http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_set.asp?individual_id=243760&set_id=269978

NTY on-line about Steven M. Johnson. Characterized as R. Crumb meets
Buckmister Fuller. You can just look at the pix (tons) but the article
is well worth the 15 min. read. (Discuss)
http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/searching-for-value-in-ludicrous-ideas/

A quick report on a sweet lit­tle ad cam­paign to stop trash­ing the ocean.
http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/2009/05/the-most-dangerous-species-in-the-mediterranean/

Information Architect and Designer want­ed by the State of Oregon to
work on the unholy mess that is the elec­tion process. Not the voting
machines/techniques but all the sur­round­ing media. Voters pamphlets,
polling place sig­nage, PSAs etc.  Good t see some recog­ni­tion of the
role of IA and design in pub­lic dis­course. (See also the book Nudge -
Jim H read­ing first.)
http://www.coroflot.com/public/job_details.asp?job_id=22721

Ob Moto Content:

Nice mod of a stan­dard. (Don’t like Sucker Punch Sally’s oth­er work
much but this is rockin’) <begin rant> And for gawks sake this is 00s
do not build URLs with spe­cial char­ac­ters in them <end rant>
http://www.bikeexif.com/sucker-punch-sally%E2%80%99s-fender-triumph

Another nice port­fo­lio of bike draw­ings and mockups.
http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_set.asp?individual_id=75848&set_id=20281

more Monday
have a great week­end folks

The arts and crafts edition.

Oh, and one toy. Now you nev­er have to be with­out a train set.
http://www.paulsmith.co.uk/new-online-255/blumenau-model-train-set-r8sr-gama-88100–1/product.html?LproductId=16155

Art from books. I don’t always hold the line with the “nev­er destroy a
book” crowd. Here are two exam­ples of why.

The flickr set of Nicholas Galanin’s What Have We Become .
http://www.flickr.com/photos/galanin/sets/72157594357065714/

Thomas Allen’s pho­tographed dio­ra­mas made by cut­ting and fold­ing pulp covers
http://paintalicious.org/2008/11/20/thomas-allens-book-art-photography

Bajema’s newest book. Sold out of course. Link to the Coilhouse review
because it has more pic­tures. Go ahead and explore Coilhouse as well.
http://coilhouse.net/2009/05/06/bajemas-web-collection-ii-etta-diem-out-now/

If you’re prowl­ing Seattle this week­end go to see the new show at Roq
La Rue — Lush Life. I’ll be there though sad­ly not for open­ing night.
http://roqlarue.com/index.php?module=Exhibits&id=36

The crafty bits:

First baby-food jar project that I’d let with­in a mile of my house.
Maybe under the canopy in the garden?
http://www.naturalhomemagazine.com/Homemade-Home-Decor/Baby-Food-Chandelier.aspx

Friends for your desktop.
http://www.obviousfront.com/

There are a few of you who will have to turn away from the screen for
this one. But I laughed myself silly.
http://www.duccutters.com/UnknownTrikes/Originals/apedesmosedici.jpg

DucCutters has lots of oth­er projects many less vio­lent­ly wrong than
the one above.
http://www.duccutters.com/index.tpl

Silly chil­dren’s book. The draw­ings are delight­ful. The text
abom­inable — in a cute sex­ist way. Don’t both­er read­ing the comments.
http://michiedo.blogspot.com/2008/12/im-glad-im-boy-im-glad-im-girl.html

News:

Librarians are wor­ry­ing about the Google Books set­tle­ment. No access
to put of print books vs. access con­trolled by giant corp. Rock and
hard place.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/05/libraries-weigh-in-with-worries-on-googles-book-settlement.ars

There was a lot of wor­ry about eBay encour­ag­ing the stolen antiquities
mar­ket at the begin­ning. This paper finds that, in fact, eBay has
dras­ti­cal­ly cut down on the sales of stolen mate­ri­als. Unintended
con­se­quences that win rather than fail. Nice.
http://www.archaeology.org/0905/etc/insider.html

Kind of loud and whiny but a cogent indict­ment of the per­son­al finance
guru scam.
http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2009/05/03/end-personal-finance

Design:

The port­fo­lio of Akihisa Nakatani. Lots of sports gear includ­ing a few
bits of moto gear. Love his sketch­ing style.
http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_work.asp?individual_id=65196

I hate mod­ern low ener­gy light­ing. So do a lot of oth­er peo­ple. But
the solu­tions are too damned expensive.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/05/100-led-lamp-uses-quantum-dots-to-imitate-more-natural-light/

The CryENGINE2 ren­der­ing engine is get­ting a lot of good press right
now. Click through to the mes­sage board for tons of mind boggling
images *if* your con­nec­tion is real™ fast. Mine ain’t.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/05/the-crysis-engine-does-a-pretty-good-job-of-rendering-blade-runner/

Lovely video com­posed of time lapse pho­tos as a freighter moves
through Houston at night. Be sure to watch both halves.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oneeighteen/3500258467/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oneeighteen/3500258467/

There’s a map of the route here.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=106108931087575796421.0004692e839d29806d032

And anoth­er very sil­ly green  item to end the list.
http://archmage.livejournal.com/2062431.html

more tomor­row,