magpie's shiny things

Starting Monday out with beer:

A list of 10 very old com­pa­nies. 3 of them are brew­eries, found­ed in
1040, 1074, and the new com­er in 1328. There’s also a hotel/restaurant
that’s been serv­ing beer for more than 1000 years.
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/29340

On to motorcycles.

I like the lived in look of this Wrenchmonkee’s Moto Guzzi.
http://wrenchmonkees.blogspot.com/2009/07/blog-post_942.html

We need to get one of these for­pass­ing around to the younger generation.
http://designyoutrust.com/2009/07/15/the-rocking-horse/

Intellectual Property: Two impor­tant bits this morning.

On patent­ing plant mate­ri­als. Larry Proctor has lost the first round
in his attempt to main­tain a ridicu­lous patent he duped the US Patent
office into giv­ing him on the com­mon sta­ple (in some Latin American
areas) azufra­do or Mayocoba bean.
http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/newsroom/release_31.htm

The Swedish Pirate Party is gain­ing legs in Europe and mak­ing small
inroads into the USA. Copyright reform is, of course, onthe big planks
in thi­er plat­form. (Does any­one else use that metaphor anymore?)
Richard Stallman has pub­lished a piece on how the pro­posed 5 year
copy­right lim­it might adverse­ly affect the GNU (copy­left) licensing.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pirate-party.html

Ars com­ments intel­li­gent­ly on Stallman’s argument.
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/pirate-partys-copyright-reform-cannon-could-sink-copyleft.ars

And the best kind of pirates. Lesbian Space Pirates! Jocelyn turned me
on to this com­ic when she post­ed a link to this shoe lament. SWF (If
you decide to read fur­ther, and you should, some bits are NSFW.)
http://rosalarian.com/lesbianpirates/?p=34

A cou­ple of inter­est­ing sets of archives.

A col­lec­tion of resources on the Eugenics move­ment in the USA. This
lit­tle rec­og­nized move­ment has chill­ing lessons to teach about the
urge to pre­scribe what’s best for every­one else.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/27/american-eugenics-mo.html

On a less ter­ri­fy­ing note. Duke uni­ver­si­ty has opened the John Hartman
Center’s Archive of ads from the 50’s through the 80s cre­at­ed by the
D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles agency. I expect to see a lot of these
turn­ing up on the ‘net real-soon-now. Requires iTunes — sorry.
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/adviews/explore/

Speaking of iTunes and Apple’s rumored tablet. The thing I miss most
about buy­ing music on-line is album art and lin­er notes. Especially
lin­er notes. Apple may fix that. Not quite enough moti­va­tion for me to
buy an Apple com­put­er but close. Link to arti­cle about the Tablet is
behind a reg­is­tra­tion wall at the Financial Times. Boo.
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/apple_tablet_confirmed_newschool_device_for_oldschool_media_14151.asp

On books and what­not. The argu­ment about how to arrange the books has
unset­tled many a mar­riage. Well not mine but I’m a trained librarian
so I have an auto­mat­ic win on this one. How do two librar­i­ans manage?
Read the com­ments too.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/21/books-arrange-james-purnell

Images for today.

Warren Ellis pro­vides a link to a trail­er for the Asian ani­me version
of wolver­ine. Very ani­me, not very mar­vel. Judge for yourself.
http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=7576

Best. Slash pic­ture. Ever. Every pos­si­ble cliche in one draw­ing. (if
you don’t know what it means don’t ask — it’s total­ly squick)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcus_e/917607569/

I had a ter­ri­ble time last night fig­ur­ing out what to eat this week
that would­n’t require either heat­ing up the house with the stove or
get­ting burnt to a crisp try­ing to BBQ in the heat. Salad is often
good but lacks pro­tein. Here’s a nice look­ing sal­ad that won’t turn
you into a rab­bit. (Fry the bacon and boil the eggs ear­ly in the day.)
http://www.joyfulabode.com/blog/2009/07/25/belt-salad-blt-with-egg-with-roasted-asparagus/

That’s it for today.

Once you ignore the point­less lux­u­ry brand logo on the pipes this is
an inter­est­ing look­ing bike.
http://www.bikeexif.com/chanel-motorcycle

For the kindlers. An archive of pub­lic domain books that are set up
for over-the-air down­load. I’m going to suck down Shakespeare real
soon now ™
http://feedbooks.com/help/kindle

For all your radish slic­ing needs. The Lego Microtome.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Lego-Microtome/

I for­get about Square America and then I run across a ref­er­ence to it
and go back and spend hours look­ing through the archives. Square
America curates found snap­shots. Here’s a reli­gious­ly themed
collection.
http://www.squareamerica.com/ingodscountry/

I’m head­ing out of town for a short vaca­tion. Depending on the quality
of the side­walk cof­fee hous­es you may or may not get link­age tomorrow
and Friday.

smooches for y’all

Short list this morning.

Piccoli Bastadi means, of course, lit­tle bas­tards. Here’s a page of
shots of lit­tle (most­ly 50cc) Italian bikes from the 70s. The siter is
in Italian but worth crawl­ing around.
http://www.piccolibastardi.it/index2.html

Materials Science con­tin­ues to amaze me. Here is a struc­tur­al steel
beam that can be moved into place with­out cranes. (or — as implied by
the pic­tures on the front page — car­ried around by one guy with a big
smile on his face.)
http://www.litesteelbeam.com/

Brain whacks by McLuhan. (I can take or leave — well most­ly leave
McLuhan but these are an inter­est­ing look into the mind that gave us
“the medi­um is the expres­sion” and oth­er over-used media memes.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/86954993@N00/sets/72057594094068031/

Mental Floss has a new game. Lit Slits — which is no where as dirty as
it sounds but is an inter­est­ing way to pass a quar­ter of an hour. (For
some­one who con­sid­ers her­self quite well read — I suck at this game.)
http://www.mentalfloss.com/quiz/quiz.php?q=669

Auto-topia reports: BMW to pro­duce an elec­tric scooter?
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/07/bmw-scooter/
There’s a pic­ture and a google trans­la­tion here:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww2.soloscooter.com%2Fnoticia.asp%3Fref%3D22286&sl=es&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF‑8

Moto uni­corn chas­er for the men­tion of the C‑1:
http://www.bikeexif.com/ducati-bobber

Pop-tarts may be the break­fast pas­try of choice on your house but
these look way better:
http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2008/08/how-to-make-you.html

Today’s pho­to galleries:

Woodstock: (some NSFW)
http://www.laurencemillergallery.com/currentexhibition.html

Ozark’s Music Festival — almost as old as Woodstock: (some NSFW)
http://www.mannmadephotos.com/ozarkmusicfestival
(Black ground info and more links.)
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/20/ozark-music-festival.html

Dear Friends at the International Center for Photography. American
Portraits of Men Together 1840–1918
http://museum.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/dear_friends/intro1.html

Awesome use of ship­ping con­tain­ers to cre­ate a liv­ing space on a West
Texas ranch.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/07/15/dining/20090716-rogerblack-slideshow_index.html

Not quite so awe­some but still awe­some. Mosaic table of the Simpsons.
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/07/simpsons_mosaic_table.html

More awe­some — this time a paint­ing by Julius Grimm of the sur­face of
the moon based on his pho­tographs tak­en in the 1870s and 1880s.
http://butdoesitfloat.com/20623

A mock-up of an Iraqi vil­lage on a stu­dio back lot in San Diego.
Eerie, creepy, and a lit­tle ludicrous.
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/29237

And that big blob that was eat­ing shore birds in Alaska? Algae. (Is it
just me or is there a law that says that any news report of an unusual
nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na must now include glob­al warm­ing as one of the
pos­si­ble explanations?)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090718/us_time/08599191151700

more tomor­row,

We’ve all seen the pic­tures of the motor­cy­cle tow truck. Here’s the
web­site of the man­u­fac­tur­er (now in English) Truly cool.
http://www.comingthrough.se/main.php?lang=UK&page=pro

Audrey Kawasaki’s cus­tom paint­ed hel­met for the CELERITAS charity
auc­tion. Is a gen­tle trib­ute to pret­ty girls and weird skull-moth
bugs? Anyway, I like it. (Follow her links to oth­er hel­mets too.)
http://i‑seldom-do.livejournal.com/141556.html

I love this too. Jim hates it. More cage pr0n. I’d give you guys bike
porn but it there’s so lit­tle of it with decent pro­duc­tion val­ues. Yes
I know about bike EXIF. Anything else?
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/07/bat11-and-ghia/

A cou­ple of illustration/‘cartoon links.

For the fash­ion aware. A bril­liant sum­ma­tion of Ed Hardy from a Core77 reader.
http://www.core77.com/blog/news/coretoons_ed_hardy_recipe_card_14055.asp

NSFW but worth putting a star next to for lat­er today. Robert Ullman’s
Atom Bomb Bikini. Dude has a sense of humor and great chops.
http://rkullman.blogspot.com/

Take vin­tage post­cards add robots and big bug-eyed mon­sters. Uneven
exe­cu­tion but there are some great ones. Like this one with the dog.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/francobrambilla/2316831992/in/set-72157604061918270/

A not so alien crea­ture mak­ing a pos­si­ble come­back in China. Cute baby
‘gator pic­tures and video of crat­ing and ship­ping alli­ga­tors then
releas­ing them into the wild. No, real­ly, alli­ga­tors and crates.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/alligatorbabies/

Making things:

A list of essen­tial mak­er skills. More bet­ter in the com­ments too.
(Way too heavy on the elec­tron­ics and not enough fab­ri­ca­tion IMO.)
http://uptownmaker.blogspot.com/2009/07/18-essential-skills-for-maker.html

Now go fab­ri­cate some home-made ice cream sand­wich­es. Yum.
http://myplumpudding.blogspot.com/2009/07/ice-cream-sandwiches.html

Lies, damned lies, and sta­t­ics. Another attempt at dis­play­ing the
state of the world graph­i­cal­ly and explain­ing what it means.
http://humandevelopment.weaintplastic.com/
Same guy also does weath­er data — not quite as use­ful­ly but it’s still fun.
http://synoptic.weaintplastic.com/

Coilhouse has a mas­sive col­lec­tion of links for the Crucible Fire Arts
Fest. (This week­end for those of you in the more souther­ly latitudes.)
http://coilhouse.net/2009/07/15/fire-puppets-rootabagas-crucible-fire-arts-fest/

Lastly a lit­tle bit of sci-fi (spelled prop­er­ly) about dinosaurs and
guns and mon­ster trucks and a bunch of oth­er stuff. 10-minute read,
20-minute giggle.
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2009/20090713/dinosaurs‑f.shtml

more tomor­row,