Morning Linkage (Nov 30)

Transportation

Boring Euro sedans, re-makes of already clas­sic cars, and the Porsche con­vert­ible for the mass­es. This list of 10 future col­lec­tor cars from folks at Hagerty Insurance Agency does­n’t make me want to run out and buy some­thing to stash in the barn. Except maybe the Fiat or the Mini Clubman. But you can still get the orig­i­nals if you’re look­ing for clas­sic. Whadda ya think?

I am dis­turbed that the com­mon name for the own­ers and oper­a­tors of these wild­ly cus­tom vans from Japan is Yankee. Or maybe it’s just the reac­tion to see­ing so many fly­ing plas­tic wings and those low­er mandible spoil­ers. Bonus — all these vans make the 2 cus­tom sedans includ­ed in the gallery look real­ly tame.

I like this Sportster. I like old school and I like satin paint. NewBlood by Deus.

Another Sportster. Completely dif­fer­ent from VTM in France. Best Tron-ish future bike I’ve seen recently.

Very ear­ly attempt at the hub steer. Many more inno­va­tions in this 1921 Ner-a-Car.

Science

Flying squid. It’s a con­fus­ing mix of squid­li­ness (ten­ta­cles) and ray­ness (flap­ping wings) but the video is cool and the glimpse into doing deep-sea research with remote-controlled sub­marines will make your desk job seem bor­ing. CreatureCast.

Where’s George? And what can the data col­lect­ed on the web about the trav­els of dol­lar bills tell us about the coun­try we live in? First things first. How are you going to look at all those bills? This student-created video from Northwestern shows how some of the cal­cu­la­tions of net­works and bound­aries look while they’re grind­ing away. Cool.

Art, Images, and Design

Originally I was just going to point out the pic­ture of the under­side of the wave. But that’s just not the only awe inspir­ing pic­ture in this round up of Nat’l Geography 2010 Photography Contest.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/11/national_geographics_photograp.html

These pho­tos of ants in mossy places look like the set designs for Avatar. Maybe bet­ter, the nar­ra­tive makes more sense.

DieLine takes anoth­er look back­wards — this time to the seed pack­ages of old. The let­ter­ing is love­ly, flow­ing, and all hand drawn.

Animation

I don’t care if it is in Spanish — it’s not like we’re going to need to fol­low the dia­logue. Javier Olivares does a new  Batman car­toon for TV. The look is just right, goth­ic, gotham, and lit­tle grainy.

Morning Linkage (Nov 29)

Transportation

Pretty girls on bikes. Catherine — who does­n’t get a last name here  but you can look it up — had a Norton Commando and a set of red cus­tom leathers in the 1970’s in Paris. And she wrote for La Moto.

I don’t think you’ll ride it far but this CB350 is so per­fect­ly simple.

Another unrid­able 350. This time a Ducati. But damn, just look at what he did with the exhaust. Ingenious.

The famous red London bus­es get redone for the 21st century.

Art, Images, and Design

Basil Wolverton. The name sounds like he should be the but­ler in one of Bertie Wooster’s aun­t’s house. But no, he’s a the cre­ator of some fine sci-fi illus­tra­tions from the 1930’s. And yes, I did read the Meteor Morgan comics shown here.

Mikela Prevost’s paint and paper illus­tra­tions look most at home in a chil­dren’s book. The sec­ond page of her port­fo­lio opens with a girl look­ing for some­thing in the back of the pantry and con­tin­ues through sev­er­al more cook­ing adventures.

Nightmare sci-fi fairy tales told with big blocks of col­or. Bunnies, dogs, cat heads, squir­rels, and oth­er for­mer­ly cute crea­tures inhab­it a cold spiky land­scape. Talita Hoffman. Brazil.

Animation

Alligator, golf ball, deer, alli­ga­tor. That’s it. There’s noth­ing else to ginny+garth’s Pixel Film:Oo (video 0:27)

Morning Linkage (Nov 26)

#BlackFriday edi­tion

Linked three-some. Plus two bonus links that give you a chance to do good. (Hint.)

Sally Bridges Metal love­ly whim­si­cal met­al work for fur­ni­ture. I’m not sure about the din­ing room chairs but the head­boards are a sure win­ner. The full line. But WTF “Rustic Modern”?

More met­al fur­ni­ture — this time with a decid­ed­ly more mas­cu­line feel. Pipe wrench tres­tle table.

And this prob­a­bly won’t be the case in a month or two but right now Dudecraft is run­ning a ban­ner ad in sup­port of 826. A group that brings writ­ing pro­grams to store­fronts. Odd store­fronts. In DC the 826 project is in the Museum of Unnatural History. And Oliver Munday has cre­at­ed a line of pack­ag­ing for their “sou­venirs” You can have Unicorn Tears, unfil­tered of course, Hindsight, or Existentially Distraught Wood.

826DC — The Museum of Unnatural History is here. (Amusing twit­ter stream as well.)

The Seattle ver­sion. Greenwood Space Travel Supply.

Morning Linkage (Nov 24)

Transportation

If the Lamborghini has been dropped from your new ride shop­ping list due to its fixed roof and slight­ly porky pro­file. You might want to recon­sid­er. The new Gallardo. Lighter. Topless.

The main­te­nance guys’ Cushman Carts were the object of deri­sion, prank­ing, and com­mon theft in col­lege. I guess we weren’t the only ones who secret­ly thought they were cool.

The horse track in Aarhaus Denmark was giv­en over to the sport of motor(cycle) rac­ing in the 1950’s. Included on this Speedway Life page are rac­ing pro­grams, pho­tographs, and race results. The pic­tures and draw­ings of the side­car rac­ing, like the one above, are espe­cial­ly fine. In the orig­i­nal Danish.

Art, Images, and Design

Arrested Motion’s best pho­tos of the ROA show in LA at Thinkspace. The work on accor­dioned reclaimed doors is good.

The Sherlock Holmes sto­ries were not the only thing that A. Conan Doyle wrote. The Arthurian romance “The White Company” was illus­trat­ed by N.C. Wyeth and pub­lished by David McKay in 1922.

Paul Bunyan, Babe the Blue Ox. Shaw Nielsen makes me hap­py by adding a cou­ple of masked birds as well.

A whim­si­cal lit­tle bit of met­al and the most won­der­ful turquoise enam­el ever. The cir­cus ring. (And go read Jonah Leslie’s bio and shop infor­ma­tion — cura­tion of goods in an internet-linked world.)

Animation and Science and Papercraft

Combining live action, paper cos­tumes, and sex. How can you miss? Just to remind you that the first episodes of Sundance Channel’s Seduce Me Season 2 are up. For the moment they are unlink­able on the flash-based SC web­site. Expect links to the indi­vid­ual episodes as they come up on YouTube.

As a teas­er I’m giv­ing you this behind-the-scenes from Season 1. (NSFW unless you are a zoologist.)

Morning Linkage (Nov 23)

Transportation

Just in case any of you thinks that this gig is all about spend­ing the day look­ing at pret­ty bikes and enjoy­ing adult bev­er­ages. I’d like to give you a lit­tle look into the prob­lems of shiny hunt­ing. Scott over at Pipeburn shares a hand­ful of pic­tures that he’s been hang­ing onto because he does­n’t have enough info to post them. (And his ace read­ers get the goods for him on two out four — go read­ers!) A Guzzi, 2 BMWs and a Sportster.

I’m unde­cid­ed about this cus­tom bike with a Buell motor. The frame is unique enough to pull in my eye and the exe­cu­tion is top-notch. But hey the motor’s gonna have to be changed. The spud.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Is that a Tony Kart chassis?

Art, Images, and Design

Yuko got to do a cov­er illo for the NYT Review of Books. The Keith Richards cov­er. Wow.

Etch-a-Sketch, sports fig­ures.  ’nuff said. (Making of videos too.)

30 year-old Jung-Yeon Min paints peo­ple in the every­day world with the sur­re­al land­scape of the human soul on the edge of break­ing through.(NSFW — artis­tic nudes)

Animation and CGI

Is this real­ly all CGI? Reliable sources say it is.

This just makes me hap­py. I hope it makes you hap­py too. Betty Boop does the hula. Bamboo Isle. If you want the full meal deal (with some fab Hawaiian music) and have 8 min­utes you can watch the low-res ver­sion of the com­plete film here. Is Betty SFW?

sled­ding and hot choco­late today?