magpie's shiny things

shiny things in messy little piles

Morning Linkage (Jan 18)

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Transportation

Eco-driving, the
socially acceptable in-car video game, where you do your best to make the little leaf as green as grass. If studies continue to prove that instantaneous display of mileage information prompts drivers to tune their driving style to maximize mpg, you may be seeing more and more of these displays on your dash. Speaking of auto-data
technology, the boys at Cult of MAC are clearly not gear heads but they kind of get the point of the OBD-II reader that Griffin has announced for the iPhone. I just wonder if the software (app) will be useful to the gear heads or only a drive nicely pretty please app to make the eco-driving crowd coo.

The Griffin site claims that the CarTrip reader will allow code check and reset. I'll be getting one to test on the airbag fault light on the Rover. (Grrr.)

To atone for all the geeky green-weenie crap above, I give you: The highlights of the 2010 British Super Bike Championship. 4 minutes of thrills, chills, and a couple of spills. (Forgive me?)

Science and Society

30 years of National Geographic pictures by Bruce Dale. 9 minutes of video and a terrible punning joke.

We as a society are always rewriting our past. It's inevitable and in large part unconscious. But to what extent can we justify deliberately messing about with the images of the past? Did the USPS really need to remove the cigarette from Robert Johnson's mouth?

Art, Images, and Design

Walnut is lovely. And the dark color goes perfectly with coffee. Scrap lumber becomes something useful and beautiful.

An anonymous small token of gratitude and generosity. Compliments on tear-off tabs. PDF to print. Bring your own staple gun.

Oooh, the romantic allure of the abandoned subway station. The City Hall Station in NYC was opened in 1904 and closed to use in 1945. Until recently the only way to get a glimpse at what is arguably the prettiest of the NYC subway stations was to sneak in. Not anymore. A recent rule change means that you can now sit tight on the Number 6 as it makes it loop through the old station.

Animation

Megan Tupper, a recent grad of the University of Wales, has a fine sense of character and the comic implications of everyday life. Keys. The truth about cats. (Video 3:26)

Morning Linkage (Jan 17)

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Transportation

Contemplating the changes in the cul­ture of rac­ing and rule mak­ing. Reims in ’54 the return of the Mercedes and a grid full of indi­vid­u­al­is­tic machines.

Really I spoil you all. I should be look­ing these bikes up and dol­ing them out one at a time. But what the hellz. A bonanza bou­quet of old (really old) bikes at the Bonham’s Las Vegas auc­tion. Munch Mammut, an H-​D Peashooter from a mine in Western Australia, and my fav the Indian Camelback.

Science

Jogging, not just hated exer­cise but per­haps an adap­tive evo­lu­tion­ary advan­tage? Something called endurance hunt­ing may have been an impor­tant fac­tor in the suc­cess of our ances­tors. Oh hell, pass the fries.

I’m going to lose big karma points for post­ing this but… cats con­fused about what’s up and what’s down in weight­less­ness. On video.

Art, Images, and Design

Paper — cut and lay­ered by Britteny Lee. Her ani­mals always have way too much personality.

Impulsive kisses. Given on a street cor­ner. Painted on a street cor­ner. C215 and, prob­a­bly, his girl Alice.

Betraying a sense of the del­i­cacy of the divide between humans and their fel­lows that is far more sophis­ti­cated than you expect from a 21 year old. Russian artist Eugene Soloviev cre­ates stripped-​down float­ing landscapes.

Animation

Street art, meets stop-​motion, meets flip-​book. 294 walls, 4 cities, 3000 kilo­me­ters. Think about what that means. Think about how the vid ends. By the Turkish group, Sokak Savasa Karsi.  (Video 1:30 — music)

happy Monday y’all

Morning Linkage (Nov 15)

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Transportation

Northeast Ohio is not a friendly envi­ron­ment for out­door stor­age of equip­ment. Weep for this rot­ting col­lec­tion of mostly mil­i­tary  air­craft. The video is well done. Shot with a Nikon D90.

Old school indeed. GS1150ES.

Mods vs. rock­ers but this time the vio­lence was con­fined to the tug-​o-​war. Lots of nice pics of clas­sic cafe rac­ers — Tritons, Guzzis, Norvin (wtf?)

Science (high-​speed photography)

Popcorn. I can’t watch this with­out think­ing that the pop­corn pop­ping looks like an angel open­ing it’s wings.

Beginning with the ques­tion “How do cats drink?” and end­ing with a some­what freaky elephant-​trunk based robot arm. A bit of a walk through the lands of sci­ence for the fun of it. Side note, the paper about cat lap­ping may be the first time that a YouTube video has played a role in a pub­lished sci­en­tific paper.

Art, Images, and Design

Interactive maps can be so very good. The best jour­neys of fact and fic­tion mapped out with details and high­lights. (And a few lowlights.)

Old globes are pretty darned use­less, unless you want to make art out of them. Here are a cou­ple of nice exam­ples and a bonus video of how globes are made.

Animation

Smigly’s life is hard. and noisy.

yeah — it’s kind of Monday out here too.

Morning Linkage (Oct 28)

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Transportation

Helmut Fath’s mul­ti­ple cham­pi­onship win­ning URS side­car recently sold for more than $150K. Worth it? There cer­tainly is enough his­tory here to make it interesting.

The logic of the pick­ings and place­ments of these 50 best rac­ing liv­er­ies will baf­fle you. Until you real­ize that each place­ment had to had a video. (Not true, a few don’t.) Try the 1988 Porsche rac­ing in the 24 hours of Le Mans — with the fog addled start. Or maybe the 15 sec­onds of pure sonic joy to had Parnelli Jone’s Boss 302.  All the rest are in the box on the right. Just don’t look at #50. Tic tac.

New Norton Commando- ditch the lit­tle idjit screen, and pony up for the wire wheels and the sport­ing exhaust. Then get the hell outta my way. (Oh and tell the dude on the video to shut up. m’kay?)

Cute Natural World

Big cats love the post Halloween gro­cery clean-​up. And who knew that pump­kins float? The tigers loved chas­ing them in the ponds. (2 dif­fer­ent videos.)

Internet Tips and Tricks.

Um, Google now indexes all of the LIFE images. So go to google​.com, click Images in the top nav bar and type : “fer­rari source:life” into the search box.. or maybe “duke elling­ton source:life” if you’re in a more laid back kinda mood.

Art, Images, and Design

A brief overview of the work of Finnish pho­tog­ra­pher Nelli Palomaki. Portraits of women and girls sug­gest­ing depths to their life sto­ries that are not revealed causally.

Somehow the croc­o­dile on the side of this bricked up build­ing in Lisbon looks ter­ri­bly sad about some­thing. Lucy McLauchlan’s lit­tle birds, how­ever, are hav­ing a very good day.

Using up the relics of the WWII. Making fur­ni­ture and home decor out of naval mines. Yup, that’s gonna look right­eous in my library.

Swing Shift Cinderella — with this Flashy Lassie with the Classy Chassis. Um, it’s the lobby card for an upcom­ing car­toon short from the mid-​century. I love it. More ads fea­tur­ing the car­toons here. And a reminder that car­toons were orig­i­nally for the grown-​ups. (SFW)

sec­ond times the charm :)

Morning Linkage (Jul 29)

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Transportation

Starting with a cou­ple of Ducatis.

Sweet Duc 750 Sport.

Joe’s V Cycle cafe rac­ers. A ’66 Duc Monza 250 and a ’72 Honda CB750.

Italian ref­er­ence, NSU licensed and built Lambrettas. Stub-​tailed cat on a scooter.

Not Italian at all. moto — extremis. I love this bike.

Political Trivia

“Subjects” became “cit­i­zens” and the tone of the doc­u­ment changed in a sub­tle and impor­tant way. Jefferson’s revi­sions of the Declaration of Independence.

Art, Images, and Design

This could take all day. Titles, excerpts, and cover art for vin­tage tracts and pamphlets.

They draw — they cook — pasta al limone.

Amy show us vin­tage Chinese fire­works packaging.

I seem to be on a mon­sters kick this week. Fuco Ueda under­stands mon­sters and the mun­dane dis­guises they wear. Coilhouse gives an overview.  Her site.  The nav is hid­den under shoes.

But now we need some­thing a lit­tle brighter. The Bear turns fifty today. Here’s a lit­tle birth­day party.

off you go,