shiny things in messy little piles

Tag: maps (Page 1 of 2)

Morning Linkage (Jan 5)

Transportation

If you’ve got 25 min­utes to kill and the desire for a new career in the excit­ing field of mil­i­tary avi­a­tion you might want to sit down with this video. Or maybe if you need at a look of the unfor­tu­nate his­to­ry of humor and pret­ty girls in train­ing films. 1943 Army Air Forces P‑47 Thun­der­bolt train­ing video. That real­ly is worth a watch for plane fiends. (Video 24:41)

For my Super­Mo­to lov­ing friends. The Black Pearl. But could you go out and get this one all dirty?

Pure, unadul­ter­at­ed yum. BSA Gold Star Day­tona Spe­cial. Because some­time restora­tion is way more effec­tive than customizing.

Science

Must be some­thing about the hol­i­day hang­over but I can’t wrap my mind around any sort of seri­ous sci­ence news. Instead you get shit like this… io9 writ­ers and com­menters rule the world (again.) Why we need to do real, exper­i­men­tal sci­ence. Involves giraffes and water and no computers.

More help­ful­ly, and more seri­ous­ly. An insight­ful decon­struc­tion of the sub­tle aids that Google maps use to make their maps the most read­able maps on the web. (Arguably.)

Art, Images, and Design

Jim Flo­ra did this Baba Yaga late in his life. Won­der­ful depic­tion of the wise old witch.

Tan­gen­tial­ly, I was watch­ing a doc­u­men­tary recent­ly and saw a pic­ture of the cov­er of Char­lie Park­er’s Char­lie Park­er with Strings. Not my fav Bird album but the art work is way cool. So I went look­ing… David Stone Mar­tin did tons of the cov­ers that I remem­ber from my child­hood. Includ­ing the one at the top of the post. (NSFW — artis­tic nudes)

Animation

Pop-up fairy tales in French. Not at all what you’re expecting.

Morning Linkage (Dec 20)

Transportation

KZ400, El Dia­blo by Mad Crow in Barcelona. The details on the head­light and tank make it special.

Hed­ton. A rare Hed­lund engine crow­barred into a Nor­ton(?) frame. Includes links to the Hed­lund engine sto­ry and a flickr stream of Hed­lund motos.

Odd-bits bicy­cle sculp­ture. A Mon­day morn­ing smile.

Science and Technology

Yeah, soci­ol­o­gy is a soft sci­ence but wth. Why a lim­it­ed lev­el of cor­rup­tion among offi­cials and law enforce­ment may be nec­es­sary to the cohe­sive­ness of society.

Some­thing to mull over. this map of the world shows the heav­i­ly walled nation­al and inter­na­tion­al bor­ders. Are we walling off the rest of the world? And can you think of oth­er heav­i­ly for­ti­fied bor­ders and how do they fit into this map?

Art, Images, and Design

Thomas Allen brings pulp fic­tion paper­backs to life by mov­ing the sub­jects out of the flat plain of the cov­er. Artist bio.

A sam­ple of the work of Her­mann Hup­pen — one of the rare breed of writer/illustrators in the world of comics. Some of the Jere­mi­ah series fea­tured here are avail­able in Eng­lish translation.

Animation

Head­less Pro­duc­tions. Teas­er for I’m a Mon­ster. It’s going to be a first-rate fam­i­ly giggle.

Morning Linkage (Dec 15)

Transportation

3 from Asphalt and Rub­ber this AM.

I seem to be all about the black bikes late­ly. And Ducati has got­ten the mes­sage. The dis­as­trous­ly white Diav­el has got­ten a pre-release make-over and now comes in a much yum­mi­er Dia­mond Black. More rid­ing, less polishing.

And April­ia has the per­fect Xmas gift for your fav boy-racer. The RSV4 car­bon fiber fair­ing kit. Per­fect if you’re a bit more flush than most of us. 5K? Srsly? Damned pret­ty though.

I can­not explain the pic that goes with this post. Oth­er than to assume that I am not the only who could use an appetite sup­pres­sant dur­ing the hol­i­day (over) feed­ing sea­son. But the news appears to be real. Paris Hilton has flung a bunch of mon­ey at a cred­i­ble 125GP team.

Toys and Maps

The unfor­tu­nate­ly named Fuck Yeah Car­tog­ra­phy tum­blr. Many , many pages of maps. Some clever, some odd, some cheesy, some more art than maps. Links to the sources vary in their use­ful­ness but some lead on to won­der­lands of images and history.

It was inevitable. Food­ie Lego. A vil­lage bak­ery and Parisian green gro­cers. I’m not sure the local four-year old is gonna be pleased to see either of these under the tree instead of the next Star Wars set, but I’m going to have a great time on Xmas.

Art. Images, and Design

A love­ly print of a line of pranc­ing dev­ils. Matt Forsythe.

Episode One — Robots in film. The usu­al sus­pects from the ear­ly days are here. Maria, Gort, Rob­bie. And few that are new to me. Tobor? He looks like fun.

Fruit and Veg­gie Alphadeath. Maybe a few too many deaths by knife but there’s not many oth­er ways you can mur­der an egg­plant. (Click through to flickr)

Animation

Made for Mole­sk­ine by Rogi­er Wieland. Cut paper ani­ma­tion of dates in a plan­ner. Bonus dinosaur appear­ance. (1:07 — the sound track is grat­ing and you don’t need it)

Morning Linkage (Nov 18)

Transportation

Jesse Dixon had a rotary wing take on the fly­ing car. In 1940.

Google may have its rov­ing all-seeing eye to give you a good look at each inter­sec­tion but Microsoft has a bet­ter idea for pro­duc­ing direc­tions. Ask a cab­bie.

Back­wards Porsche, mutant Prius, horned hel­mets, and ‘busa engine in a Nation­al Guard brand­ed three wheel­er.… Auto­topia picks its weird­est of SEMA.

Science and Technology

You’ve seen those pic­tures of the wind­mill farms locat­ed out at sea? Here’s the ship that builds them. Pics, video, and link to one of the crew’s flickr stream. Who said infra­struc­ture is boring?

Art, Images, and Design

Geom­e­try, geog­ra­phy, and celes­tial maps. Eye can­dy from the 17th century.

Kick Start Cal­i­co Bean Sal­ad. A recipe and a fab moto illustration.

Neigh­bor­hoods as swing sets, roller coast­ers, and jun­gle gyms. Amy Casey’s fab­u­lous hous­es.

Moving Images

Are play­er pianos the new clowns? Mark Tuck­er has freaked me out.

And just to share lit­tle more of the creepy that’s inhab­it­ing my brain this week, here’s Dirty Night Clowns… and that fun­ny, floaty way that mar­i­onettes move.  Mak­ing Of bonus material.

…off you go, there’s a week­end just ahead…

Morning Linkage (Nov 15)

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.

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