magpie's shiny things

Transportation

The scram­bler is a great idea for a week­end toy. Here Touratech
cre­ates a mod­ern take on the theme using a BMW F800.
http://www.bikeexif.com/bmw-f800scrambler

Texting and dri­ving is a bad idea. How can any­one think that building
traf­fic mashups while on the go is a good idea.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/08/two-new-iphone-apps-go-beyond-navigation/

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Science

Sunspots and solar mag­net­ic changes fas­ci­nate me. That the things that
hap­pen on such a small (rel­a­tive) scale on the sun can have such huge
effects on earth seems improb­a­ble. We may get to have out own little
ice age.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/08/another-little-ice-age-solar-activity-and-climate-change.ars

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Technology

Next time (huh?) I end up with an arm in cast I’m going to demand one
of these. I’m think­ing the pur­ple camo is nice.
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/08/24/exos-arm-brace-has‑c.html

One the eBook front. The race is on and now we all have to live
through a cou­ple of years of com­pet­ing devices and for­mats as well as
the attempts by var­i­ous com­pa­nies to wrest exclu­sive distributing
deals out of pub­lish­ers. Ad nau­se­um. Here’s the latest.

Flat World Knowledge a pub­lish­er of text books just fin­ished up a beta
test of a pro­gram that lets you read that 400 page tome for free
on-line. You can get more portable/useful ver­sions for a price. (Still
below that of the tra­di­tion­al dead-tree ver­sion.) They are striving
for device independence.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/08/flat-world-schools-textbook-publishers-with-free-web-editions.ars

Two new devices:

Irex will be bring­ing out an e‑reader to go with the new Barnes and
Noble e‑book store.
http://mobilefactor.org/coming-irex-and-barnes-noble-to-launch-new-e-book-reader/

Sony’s newest read­ers launched this morn­ing. Some include wire­less and
one ver­sion has a touch screen. I’m not entire­ly clear on what the
Library Finder does. I’ll let you know when I know. Crunch Gear’s live
cov­er­age of the announcements.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/08/25/sony-announce-the-wireless-daily-edition-ereader/

Now that we have so many choic­es in read­ing devices here’s a list of
sources for free books. Often you get what you pay for but a free copy
of Sherlock Holmes can make an O’Hare lay­over bearable.
http://www.rotorblog.com/2009/03/09/top-25-free-e-books-sites-the-definitive-list/

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Home Ec and Some Silliness.

There’s no way Future President Moss can eat enough baby goop to keep
us all in baby food jars for work­shop stor­age. I found this exam­ple of
using those CD spin­dle packs for shop storage.
http://woodworkingextras.blogspot.com/2009/05/good-bye-baby-food-jars.html

Speaking of sprogs. If you’re the one in cubi­cle land with­out an
excuse to leave ear­ly on Friday for junior’s soc­cer game here’s a
solution.
http://www.theofficekid.com/index.html

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Art, Design, and Popular Culture

In Philadelphia 50 walls fac­ing the Market Street Elevated will be
paint­ed with love letters.
Cyanatrendland has a descrip­tion of the project.
http://cyanatrendland.com/2009/08/24/a‑love-letter-for-you-street-art/
The blog fea­tur­ing all of the paint­ings (in progress) is here.
http://www.aloveletterforyou.com/

Just as soon as they come out with the bik­er ver­sion of these little
desk­top friends I’m get­ting one. Maybe more.
http://collect3d.com/news/beit-dudes/

I’m feel­ing gen­er­ous toward my Y enhanced friends this morning.

Mort Kunstler did cov­ers for the men’s adven­ture mag­a­zines in the
60’s. Wicked awe­some and SFW. Though gen­er­al­ly lurid and tacky. Yum.
http://www.americanartarchives.com/kunstler.htm

Almost SFW — depends in whether you could get away with the Stihl
gi’me cal­en­dar. George Petty’s 1947 cal­en­dar girls. Giggle-icious.
http://cyanatrendland.com/2009/08/24/george-petty-curvy-pin-up-from-1947/

And for those of us XXs. A brief arti­cle on the flap­per phe­nom­e­na. The
vin­tage pho­tos are worth a look.
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/32657

enjoy!

Technology

Just in case there’s any­one who has­n’t seen this infor­ma­tion on
extend­ing the win7 tri­al period.
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/08/how-to-use-windows-7-for-free-for-120-days-legally.ars

There’s a new lap­top in my future. I just wish it could be this one. A
built in graph­ic tablet would mean one less piece of hard­ware to try
to find a space for when I’m on the road.
http://www.whitezine.com/en/design/laptop-concept-for-designers-and-illustrators.html

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Transportation

Ilmor is work­ing on a 5 stroke, 3 cylin­der engine. Sort of. I need
time to hunt up videos before I“ll claim to under­stand how this works.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/08/five-stroke-engine/

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Science

Why hav­ing a cou­ple of drinks with the plan­ning ses­sion won’t help you
meet your goals. I think we all intu­itive­ly know that the things you
say you’re going to do dur­ing the Saturday night bull ses­sion don’t
amount to much on Monday morn­ing but now sci­ence is set­ting out to
prove it.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/vodkagoals/

Tossing a coin is sub­tly not as fair as your old­er broth­er told you it was.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/08/non-randomness.html

An mys­te­ri­ous cloud for­ma­tion in Queensland Australia. Look like rolls
of cot­ton batting.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/morninggloryclouds/

A TV sta­tion in Cleveland man­ages to top our own King5 for heinously
fear mon­ger­ing report­ing. That is until it becomes clear that someone
is pulling off a bril­liant farce. Do you think the news director
caught on to it before the seg­ment hit the air?
http://www.misscellania.com/miss-cellania/2009/8/22/backyard-bear-report.html

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Intellectual Property and Copyright

Nominee for the best worst use of copy­right. How doc­tors (or rather
their rep­u­ta­tion man­age­ment lack­eys) are using the DMCA take down
pro­vi­sions to remove bad reviews from rat­ings sites.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090328/1445494290.shtml

A nice sum­ma­ry of the State of Union with respect to the Google Books
set­tle­ment and the many chal­lenges to it. Microsoft and Amazon have
clear motives for their objec­tions but that does­n’t inval­i­date their
point that Google seems to have made a land grab for the rights to
books that are out of print.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/08/microsoft-amazon-join-opposition-to-google-books-settlement.ars

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Visual Arts

Not the same as the Google land grab but a col­lec­tion of old map based
games and puz­zles. By old I mean the first was pub­lished in 1680.
http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2009/08/puzzle-and-game-maps.html

A recent dis­cus­sion of low­er prices wines on this list yield­ed several
rec­om­men­da­tions for the “the label is pret­ty” school of wine shopping.
Here’s a selec­tion of wine labels and pack­ages that would qualify.
http://www.thecoolist.com/amazing-wine-labels-30-creative-and-unique-wine-label-designs

A love­ly gold­fish paint­ing. Click on the fishy for bigness.
http://thejasminedragon.deviantart.com/art/a‑fish-a-fish-a-fishy-oo-98009668

I don’t real­ly dig the pic­ture but the fact that it was cre­at­ed on an
iPhone kind of makes the iPhone look like less of a sil­ly idea.
http://insomnio.org/post/170004968/a‑walk-in-the-park-created-on-an-iphone-using

I love the soft old school look of these illus­tra­tions by the Russian
Dmitry Ligay.
http://www.evasion.cc/blog/comments/illustration-dmitry-ligay/

Last night Elvis Costello made a Sean Connery joke. Almost too easy, I
admit. As an anti­dote here’s a clas­sic Connery pic.
http://theimpossiblecool.tumblr.com/post/168151304/connery

Until tomor­row campers,

Tech and Design

These solar pan­els make alien flower art at night. Austin, what you
been drinkin’?
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/sunflower_leeds_14354.asp

Seattle has a cou­ple of aban­doned big box stores. Other parts of the
coun­try have more. Many of them have clear or translu­cent roofs.
Here’s a pro­pos­al to reuse those spaces for food pro­duc­tion. Instead
of buy­ing con­sumer goods made in China we would be able to buy food
grown locally.
http://www.re-burbia.com/2009/08/01/a‑new-business-model-a-productive-suburb/

I think I like the pic­ture of the lit­tle girl with her bug catcher
pen­dant more than the object itself. I know sev­er­al sprogs who would
love one of these portable biol­o­gy labs though.
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/08/how-to_bug_catcher_necklace.html?CMP=OTC-5JF307375954

Silly is a good thing ear­ly in the morn­ing. I don’t drink bagged tea
but I’d fall off my chair gig­gling if one of these dec­o­rat­ed tea bags
appeared in my cup.
http://www.holycool.net/2009/08/tea-party-series-from-donkey-products.html

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Images

A mixed up set of pic­tures today.

From Shanghai, Maleonn cre­ates elab­o­rate sets and cos­tumes for his, I
like the term used in the blurb, fables. This series of circus
per­form­ers car­ries an almost cin­e­mat­ic over­tone. Click through to his
web­site for much more.
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/crazy-chinese-circus-maleonn

From Russia, more gen­tle, apocalyptic-cartoon illus­tra­tion. Anton Semenov.
http://designlenta.com/2009/08/19/anton-semenov-gloom82/

Brandon Bloomaert (Germany) builds crea­tures from waste paper and then
stages scenes that remind one of old vaca­tion snaps.
http://www.diskursdisko.de/2009/08/brandon-blommaert-ecostation/

A very dif­fer­ent look­ing almost sten­ci­lesque set of illus­tra­tions from
the French design­er Maloo. A cou­ple are NSFW.
http://www.pixelelement.com/pretty-cool-illustrations-by-maloo/

A series of stills from the movie Metropolis along with a nice summary
of the movie’s style cues.
http://butdoesitfloat.com/60098

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Misc Cultural Bits

Too sweet. Life size Candyland game being built in Lombard St.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/08/19/life-size-candyland.html

The impos­si­ble Cool brings us Bud Ekins. The guy who jumped the bike
in the Great Escape. (look him up in wikipedia)
http://theimpossiblecool.tumblr.com/post/165764519/ekins

Finally, why can’t my school trips have end­ed with all the nasty girls
get­ting eat­en by a croc­o­dile? Revenge by paper automaton.
http://www.cool4cats.biz/page16.htm

Time lim­it­ed edition.

Covered is a blog that show­cas­es re-imaging of old com­ic book covers.
Most often point­less but I still read ti for gems like this Millie the
Lovable Monster redo.
http://coveredblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/alessa-kreger-covers-millie-lovable.html

No link to the source but these Japanese crayons look like they should
be made of taffy not wax.
http://designyoutrust.com/2009/08/18/%E2%80%9Crichcolorcrayon%E2%80%9D/

Mikela Prevost has a nice style for chil­dren’s illus­tra­tions. Some
dark­er themes as well.
http://www.mikelaprevost.com/htmlver/galleries.php?galnum=1&sec=1&tstart=1

God Trump Cards — card based game (like Pokemon) for reli­gions. Sense
of humor required. First skew­ered my beloved C of E.
http://newhumanist.org.uk/1915

Self-entertainment is a cru­cial skill for tod­dlers. Video babysitting
is the bug-bear of mod­ern par­ent­ing. Here’s a lit­tle help for
enter­tain­ing or babysit­ting your­self today.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/08/car-commercials/

Transportation

Auto-topia pro­vides tons of links to cov­er­age of Monterrey. And this
sweet pic­ture of a BMW Isetta 300. A few oth­er nota­bles in the slide
show as well. The descrip­tion of the 523 Jag C‑Type as bux­om is dead
on.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/08/heaven-on-wheels-in-monterey/

Sweet 1916(?) Michelin poster. The com­ments are worth a read as well.
At least until they reach the inevitable BB con­clu­sion “Duck in the
face at…”
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/08/17/michelin-tire-ad-by.html

————

The Visual Arts

A nice vin­tage pho­to of a cabaret cast on hols. (Pointed out by Amy
C.) Moving back­wards in the pool there is a col­lec­tion of ban­jo player
pix. No doubt why Amy was there in the first place.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ricksoloway/3814037151/

David Lanham does child­ish (in the nicest pos­si­ble way) vec­tor art.
Navigate by click­ing on the tiny fav­i­cons in the left pan­el. Here a
tree reacts to change from fall to win­ter about the way I do.
http://dlanham.com/art/fall/

Things I don’t think I need­ed to know. Graffiti artists use specially
con­coct­ed spray paints man­u­fac­tured by the likes of Upper Playground
and Montana. For a lim­it­ed time you can order your professional
van­dal­ism tools in these cus­tom cans.
http://viacomit.net/2009/08/12/upper-playground-x-montana-limited-edition-spray-cans/

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Literature and Booze

Yup in one post. Warren Ellis points us to the Jura Writers Retreat.
http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=7663

Okay the real site is here. But Warren is funnier.
http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/node/3757

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Commentary

If you’ve got­ten as tired of the Industrial Designers “Design can save
the world” cant. You’ll like the last item in this list of things
IDers should stop doing. (Contains a naughty word)
http://www.productdesignhub.com/articles/36-tips-a-advices/91-dont-design-a-logo-five-self-promotion-rules-industrial-designers-should-break

Abstinence porn reach­es a new low. Candies — the brand that’s brought
you some of the finest strip­per shoes aimed at teens and twenty
some­things — uses sexy to sell, well, not hav­ing sex
http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/2009/08/candies-sexes-up-abstinence-campaign/

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Science and Animation

Students of  Brown University biol­o­gy prof Casey Dunn are producing
video pod­casts about top­ics in zool­o­gy. Here’s the first, a discussion
of iri­des­cence in squid. The top­ic is cool, the sci­ence is cool, the
sci­en­tists are cool, and the ani­ma­tion will make you giggle.
http://creaturecast.org/archives/127-creaturecast-episode‑1

that’s all for today