magpie's shiny things

The Design Edition

Starting with a cou­ple of fur­ni­ture designs.

With a welder and some scrap from out behind the barn we could make up
a cou­ple of these lawn chairs. Not sure I want to sit on one. Humor in
design is good.
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/sitting_on_the_fence_13389.asp

And anoth­er report­ed by Core77. Proving that lack of humor in design
think­ing is what makes the rest of think design­ers are pretentious
idiots. From the pull quote: “…struc­tur­al nar­ra­tive of planned
imper­fec­tions…”  WTF?
http://www.core77.com/blog/ny_design_week_09/ny_design_week_09_preview_divis_table_from_mike_and_maaike_13414.asp

Two on the design process.

Flikr set of pho­tos and sketch­es show­ing high­lights of Andy Logan
design­ing the TurboChef DWO oven. (Do Want)
http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_set.asp?individual_id=243760&set_id=269978

NTY on-line about Steven M. Johnson. Characterized as R. Crumb meets
Buckmister Fuller. You can just look at the pix (tons) but the article
is well worth the 15 min. read. (Discuss)
http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/searching-for-value-in-ludicrous-ideas/

A quick report on a sweet lit­tle ad cam­paign to stop trash­ing the ocean.
http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/2009/05/the-most-dangerous-species-in-the-mediterranean/

Information Architect and Designer want­ed by the State of Oregon to
work on the unholy mess that is the elec­tion process. Not the voting
machines/techniques but all the sur­round­ing media. Voters pamphlets,
polling place sig­nage, PSAs etc.  Good t see some recog­ni­tion of the
role of IA and design in pub­lic dis­course. (See also the book Nudge -
Jim H read­ing first.)
http://www.coroflot.com/public/job_details.asp?job_id=22721

Ob Moto Content:

Nice mod of a stan­dard. (Don’t like Sucker Punch Sally’s oth­er work
much but this is rockin’) <begin rant> And for gawks sake this is 00s
do not build URLs with spe­cial char­ac­ters in them <end rant>
http://www.bikeexif.com/sucker-punch-sally%E2%80%99s-fender-triumph

Another nice port­fo­lio of bike draw­ings and mockups.
http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_set.asp?individual_id=75848&set_id=20281

more Monday
have a great week­end folks

The arts and crafts edition.

Oh, and one toy. Now you nev­er have to be with­out a train set.
http://www.paulsmith.co.uk/new-online-255/blumenau-model-train-set-r8sr-gama-88100–1/product.html?LproductId=16155

Art from books. I don’t always hold the line with the “nev­er destroy a
book” crowd. Here are two exam­ples of why.

The flickr set of Nicholas Galanin’s What Have We Become .
http://www.flickr.com/photos/galanin/sets/72157594357065714/

Thomas Allen’s pho­tographed dio­ra­mas made by cut­ting and fold­ing pulp covers
http://paintalicious.org/2008/11/20/thomas-allens-book-art-photography

Bajema’s newest book. Sold out of course. Link to the Coilhouse review
because it has more pic­tures. Go ahead and explore Coilhouse as well.
http://coilhouse.net/2009/05/06/bajemas-web-collection-ii-etta-diem-out-now/

If you’re prowl­ing Seattle this week­end go to see the new show at Roq
La Rue — Lush Life. I’ll be there though sad­ly not for open­ing night.
http://roqlarue.com/index.php?module=Exhibits&id=36

The crafty bits:

First baby-food jar project that I’d let with­in a mile of my house.
Maybe under the canopy in the garden?
http://www.naturalhomemagazine.com/Homemade-Home-Decor/Baby-Food-Chandelier.aspx

Friends for your desktop.
http://www.obviousfront.com/

There are a few of you who will have to turn away from the screen for
this one. But I laughed myself silly.
http://www.duccutters.com/UnknownTrikes/Originals/apedesmosedici.jpg

DucCutters has lots of oth­er projects many less vio­lent­ly wrong than
the one above.
http://www.duccutters.com/index.tpl

Silly chil­dren’s book. The draw­ings are delight­ful. The text
abom­inable — in a cute sex­ist way. Don’t both­er read­ing the comments.
http://michiedo.blogspot.com/2008/12/im-glad-im-boy-im-glad-im-girl.html

News:

Librarians are wor­ry­ing about the Google Books set­tle­ment. No access
to put of print books vs. access con­trolled by giant corp. Rock and
hard place.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/05/libraries-weigh-in-with-worries-on-googles-book-settlement.ars

There was a lot of wor­ry about eBay encour­ag­ing the stolen antiquities
mar­ket at the begin­ning. This paper finds that, in fact, eBay has
dras­ti­cal­ly cut down on the sales of stolen mate­ri­als. Unintended
con­se­quences that win rather than fail. Nice.
http://www.archaeology.org/0905/etc/insider.html

Kind of loud and whiny but a cogent indict­ment of the per­son­al finance
guru scam.
http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2009/05/03/end-personal-finance

Design:

The port­fo­lio of Akihisa Nakatani. Lots of sports gear includ­ing a few
bits of moto gear. Love his sketch­ing style.
http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_work.asp?individual_id=65196

I hate mod­ern low ener­gy light­ing. So do a lot of oth­er peo­ple. But
the solu­tions are too damned expensive.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/05/100-led-lamp-uses-quantum-dots-to-imitate-more-natural-light/

The CryENGINE2 ren­der­ing engine is get­ting a lot of good press right
now. Click through to the mes­sage board for tons of mind boggling
images *if* your con­nec­tion is real™ fast. Mine ain’t.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/05/the-crysis-engine-does-a-pretty-good-job-of-rendering-blade-runner/

Lovely video com­posed of time lapse pho­tos as a freighter moves
through Houston at night. Be sure to watch both halves.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oneeighteen/3500258467/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oneeighteen/3500258467/

There’s a map of the route here.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=106108931087575796421.0004692e839d29806d032

And anoth­er very sil­ly green  item to end the list.
http://archmage.livejournal.com/2062431.html

more tomor­row,

Transportation:

More on the sad state of our rail sys­tem. (With a lit­tle swine flu
pan­ic thrown in.)
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/05/flu-pandemic-could-put-send-us-freight-system-to-the-icu/

A cool fold­ing two-wheel trans­port. Summary here:
http://www.core77.com/blog/events/mobility_concept_wins_buckminster_fuller_challenge_13365.asp
More images here.
http://challenge.bfi.org/winner_2009

Stupid prod­uct — fun­ny videos. (A seg­way knock off for the under 8s.)
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/05/dareway-unsafe-at-any-speed/

Technology:

A use­ful site list­ing alter­na­tives to var­i­ous soft­ware. Some of the
alter­na­tives are free some are not. For exam­ple both Visual Studio
(expen­sive) and NetbBeans (free) are  list­ed as an alter­na­tives to
DreamWeaver. Especially use­ful if you need to find something
cheap/free for a one-off project.
http://alternativeto.net/

Design:

Includes the best pair of cow­boy boots I’ve seen this week. (Do Want)
(click through to the site but the best three are right here.)
http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/2009/05/one-dollar-art/

I’m an Amy fan not a ukulele fan but damn it’s been a long wait for
this gem. Worth it.
http://amycrehore.blogspot.com/2009/05/amy-crehores-tickler-ukulele-number-two.html

There are always too many radish­es in the gar­den. Now I have something
use­ful to do with them.
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/05/how-to_make_a_radish_wreath.html

more tomor­row

Science:

Seattle is adopt­ing new math text books. Cliff Mass has some­thing to
say about it. You should too.
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2009/05/seattles-big-math-decision.html

A study of zebra finch­es brings up new ques­tions about how bird song
is taught/learned. I nev­er feel com­fort­able with the broad conclusions
about the nature of cul­ture and cul­tur­al inher­i­tance that peo­ple want
to draw from these exper­i­ments. Nonetheless the results of this one
are fascinating.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/songbirdculture/

Stuff:

Golfers are obses­sive (my Dad so would have had one of these)
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/03/doorstop-helps-improve-your-putting/

Things to do with a dumpster.
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/05/dumpsters_pool.html

Technology and Design:

How design can make a dif­fer­ence. Case study — Redesigning the IV
pole. Excellently writ­ten as well.
http://www.core77.com/blog/news/_core77_case_study_modos_iv_pole_for_cardinal_health_by_goo_sung_13354.asp

How Google scans a book with­out the page dis­tor­tion caused by the
cur­va­ture of the page. (Warning: Patent Info)
http://www.npr.org/blogs/library/2009/04/the_granting_of_patent_7508978.html

Art and Images:

World class sandcastles:
http://www.pinktentacle.com/2009/04/photos-world-sand-sculpture-festival-2009/

Stealth tromp l’oeil of an urban sort.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/8030766.stm

Just because it made me a lit­tle hap­pi­er this morning.
http://sleepmachine.tumblr.com/post/102944001/miniatures-biccchi-qiring

more tomor­row,