magpie's shiny things

shiny things in messy little piles

Tag: -est

Morning Linkage (May 28)

May 28, 2010 /

Transportation

Your leathers might seem like a good idea for the slip and slide or the big water park rides but… maybe not.  JL proves that remov­ing your pro­tec­tive cloth­ing before jump­ing in that lake might be a good idea. (Gallery at the bot­tom of the page — for giggles)

You can buy a lit­tle gas engine and make a rat­ty old Schwinn look like a rad board-tracker. And get to work for cheap.

I had nev­er heard of the Brock­house Cor­gi. Now that I’ve seen these pic­tures I want one. At least I want the dress.

Society, Culture, and Buildings

Mak­ing yours just a lit­tle big­ger than the oth­er guys has been going on for eons. First it was fire pits and mid­dens, then cathe­drals and cas­tles. Now it’s most­ly office build­ings. Bet­ting on which is the biggest is per­haps a close sec­ond favorite. Do not make bets with black­dog­prod (no rela­tion) about tallest build­ings. He wrote the book, or more exact­ly the Google Earth hack.

Art, Images, and Design

Wait, wait. There was a nation­al sta­tion­ary show? And I missed it? Waaah­h­hh. Pop­pytalk pro­vides a nice run down and hap­pi­ly, for me at least, tons of pic­tures of very well done let­ter­press work.

I espe­cial­ly love these from Iron and Ink.

Bread and cook­ies. Yum­my to eat. And this plas­tic bag design reminds you of that. Love the grin­ny mouth.

Animation

Ian Wor­rel’s work is moody and dense. Med­i­ta­tions on con­se­quences and redemp­tion in a few col­ors and sim­ple shapes. Icarus and the Tree Herder (3:17 — Music)( is short­er and sly­er. Sec­ond Wind (6:35 — Music) is longer and makes its more com­plex point slowly.

and you’ve wast­ed anoth­er per­fect­ly good week with…

the mag­pie.

Morning Linkage (Apr 8)

April 8, 2010 /

Transportation

I’ve known of cou­ple of bike nuts from Alber­ta. Some­thing about the hor­ri­bly, long , dark win­ters leads to the cre­ation of awe­some bikes to be enjoyed dur­ing the 16 hour sum­mer days. Things like this love­ly Duc.

Oh so old school, oh so cool. A turquoise Indi­an. The details pics of the leaf springs will make you weep.

The Par­tridge Fam­i­ly was a sta­ple of my tween­er life and David Cas­sidy was on the cov­er of every dang issue of Tiger Beat for years. But I’m grown up now and sweet­ened up, hair band singer, wanna-bes do noth­ing for me. That bus they drove, on the oth­er hand, I’d still buy.

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Science

Olive trees show how sex­u­al dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion in plants can change over time. And why that change may remain incom­plete. Fas­ci­nat­ing botany and a reminder that gen­der is mutable.

The world’s old­est tree, it’s a some­what con­test­ed title. I mean, what exact­ly is a tree? and how do you mea­sure old? None-the-less, here’s scoop on 12 con­tenders. Includ­ing this tiny spruce in Swe­den named after a geol­o­gist’s dog.

Sci­ence on a larg­er scale. Tides are the result of the moon and the sun mess­ing about with the water float­ing around the Earth. There’s a nice set of expla­na­tions, some ques­tions answered, and sim­ple ani­mat­ed graphics 

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Art, Images, and Design

The Chi­nese have a long tra­di­tion of ges­tur­al land­scape paint­ing. Sail has updat­ed the mate­ri­als and meth­ods but still pro­duces dreamy images of places you’d like to be. A plum tree on a wall in Shang­hai. Done with spray paint.

Bun­nies, bees, a baby rein­deer. Tulips, cher­ry blos­soms, and welling­ton boots. The Big Pic­ture has a round of spring images.  (And there’s a Magpie!)

Shep­ard Fairey brings his sig­na­ture style to a multi-cultural trib­ute on Mel­rose Ave.

the sun is out! the hail will return, no doubt.

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