magpie's shiny things

Charming lit­tle toy that does that glass­es clean­ing thing your
grand­fa­ther did when he was­n’t sure how to answer “Why is Uncle
Tommy’s head like that?”
http://vimeo.com/5567700

The lap­top is becom­ing the form fac­tor of choice for WTF mod-ers.
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/a_commodore_64_laptopwhat_the_benheck_is_going_on_here_14033.asp

A cou­ple of retro tech links:

Grid Beam looks like a very grown up ver­sion of the Mecco or Erector Set.
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/003822.php

Sony’s first “home” video recorder. Lipstick cams were not even a dream then.
http://www.sonyinsider.com/2009/07/13/1960s-black-and-white-video-the-sony-cv-series-videocorder/

Toy I want to give my nephew — My sis­ter would hate me. (Caution turn
the audio down before you click play on the video.)
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/07/14/very-cool-rc-toy-mission-carrier-swat-truck-with-helicopter-video/

Shaking a full scale build­ing is the extreme way to test earthquake
proof­ing. The third test in the series was done’ this morn­ing. We’ve
missed the live web­cast but you can see ear­li­er tests and it’s likely
that a link to the video of today’s tests will be post­ed ASAP.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/quakesim/

I don’t real­ly care about elec­tric cars. But the lead pho­to in this
sto­ry on the pos­si­ble Mercedes gull-wing elec­tric is one of my all
time favorite cars in a fab­u­lous loca­tion. Yum.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/07/electric-gullwing/

Paper mod­els with a sense of humor. I’m buy­ing this. Right now. I love
Matt’s stuff. (Sorry there’s no URL with­out the pay­pal link)
http://www.mattshlian.com/purchase/purchase-%20papercuts%20w%20paypal.htmll

A very sweet fab­ric swatch. Butterflies with lorgnettes.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/90255045@N00/3717115538/in/pool-trueup

Bonus lol-cat: You kids, get off my lawn indeed.
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/07/13/funny-pictures-hoomanz/

See you all Thursday,

Monday the 13th. That seems like it should be worse luck than Friday the 13th.

Seven pages of the most amaz­ing mon­sters ever paint­ed. Travis Louie’s
Monster? group exhibition.
http://www.copronason.com/monsterweb/index.html

Tom Gauld draws mon­sters too. mak­ing nois­es. Onomatopoeia is fun. So
is the rest of his photostream.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomgauld/3532447347/in/photostream/

Drawing and words togeth­er again in cal­li­graph­ic ani­mals from BibliOdyssey
http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2006/06/zoomorphic-calligraphy.html

Real ani­mals and some oth­er very strange visions. It’s almost State
Fair time and Nat’l Geo has a pho­to gallery for us.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/07/state-fairs/sartore-photography

Sugar and caf­feine are potent drugs. Here there are, com­bined in a
nos­tal­gic form. Nixie Sticks — pix­ie sticks for grown-ups.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/candy/c0bc/

Have a few of the above and sit down to watch the cavort­ing squirrels,
rab­bits, and mice in the Royal Ballet’s Tales of Beatrix Potter.
(Cloyingly cute.)
http://coilhouse.net/2009/07/13/btc-the-royal-ballets-tales-of-beatrix-potter/

A note­book that is so cool that I am will­ing to post this link in
spite of the unus­able flash based site.
http://www.wallsnotebook.com/

Use the note­book to design a fortress to besiege using a cou­ple of
these lit­tle gems. Cube warfare!
http://www.instructables.com/id/Pocket-Sized-Minty-Catapult/

No imag­i­nary prin­ci­pal­i­ty is com­plete with­out a flag. There are few
that are no longer being used. (And the details as to why may provide
lessons to be heeded.)
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2009/07/flags-of-forgotten-countries_06.html

Have a good morn­ing y’all

Good morn­ing y’all. Lots of links today, good for a slow summer
Friday. Let’s get start­ed shall we?

More busi­ness card tom­fool­ery. Better than that chem­istry set you had
as a kid. It’s a dark detector.
http://kits.sparklelabs.com/2009/06/25/printed-circuit-business-cards/

Much ear­li­er tech. Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace start in their own
com­ic (Sydney Padua is very, well just very)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8139075.stm

The parts of sev­ens — sev­en animals…

…who can fly (but are not birds, or bugs, or bats)
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/28403

…who changed his­to­ry (FSVO)
http://www.cracked.com/article_17507_7-random-animals-that-decided-course-history.html

Some ani­mals, some oth­er things. all edi­ble. (Maybe.)
http://www.edithzimmerman.com/blog/

House and Home:

Massive col­lec­tion of info on win­dow film. Which besides being cool is
um, cool. Here most­ly so that I can send it to one of the thou­sands of
(liar) peo­ple who get this via BCC.
http://www.notmartha.org/archives/2009/07/09/everything-i-know-about-window-film/

I have chalk­board pan­els on the front of my fridge. It makes life in a
two per­son we don’t see each oth­er while coher­ent for most of the week
pos­si­ble. Here are two more slight­ly less spa­cious chalk boards.

For a sim­pler life, a to-do list I can han­dle. I can’t fig­ure out if
these are for sale or not. They should be.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marykatemcdevitt/sets/72157615258699188/

Taking your sprog to the gro­cery store. Make him earn his keep by
car­ry­ing the list. (What! $35.00)
http://www.inhabitots.com/2009/07/08/chalkboard-tee-shirts/

Then you can put him to work in the kitchen. (Flat pack fur­ni­ture hack­ing, yay)
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/07/play_kitchen_roundup_from_ikea.html

Then while your boy is doing the dish­es the girls can get on with the
impor­tant work of upset­ting the bal­ance of power.
http://girlsguild.org/

One of the things that the larg­er Kindle DX has promised is access to
mate­r­i­al that does­n’t work well in the trade paper­back for­mat that the
kin­dle 2 was aim­ing for. One I did­n’t fore­see is sheet music. Growing
up parts of the house were over­run with the stuff and no-one could
find their own or remem­ber which of the huge cheater tomes contained
what. (Mr. Biggs taste in music is questionable.)
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/07/10/sheet-music-for-the-kindle-im-so-getting-the-memory-from-cats/

From music to pictures.

The ques­tion of pho­tographs and real­i­ty par­tic­u­lar­ly in journalism.
David W. pro­vides a few words and a set of links to some thoughtful
material.
http://www.everythingismiscellaneous.com/2009/07/09/real-photographs/

The National Portrait Galley (UK) has a show that I want to see: Gay
Icons. Portraits of influ­en­tial peo­ple (not all gay) cho­sen by a panel
of 10 influ­en­tial gay peo­ple. The web­site shows only two of those
por­traits. But the show is impor­tant enough to mer­it men­tion and I’m
going to order the catalog.
http://www.npg.org.uk:8080/gayicons/exhib.htm

The part of 35s …

… 35 cool pho­tog­ra­phy sites on the web. There goes my week­end and
illu­sion that I might some­day have a wor­thy port­fo­lio site.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/10/35-beautiful-photography-websites/

… love the spark­ly stars and poof­ing clouds and it’s all things
kit­ty. Happy 35th you evil beast.
http://kitty35.com/english/index.html

’til Monday my good peo­ple. Stay safe.

Read how they did it and then watch “Performance”. I always wanted
water­col­ors to work this way even if it is an ad for gasoline.
http://www.cpluv.com/www/feeditem/7853

You all liked one sen­tence sto­ries so much that I fig­ure you’ll like
Significant Objects as well. Here’s a descrip­tion of the project.
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/significant_objects_rob_walker_gets_literary_about_stuff_13984.asp
and here are the stories.
http://significantobjects.com/

Degree I won’t be get­ting. (Does the descrip­tion say any­thing or is
free of seman­tic content?)
http://www.core77.com/blog/education/svas_new_degree_mps_in_branding_2010_13974.asp

Photo essay on migra­tion and immi­gra­tion around the world. We here in
the US often think that we have a unique ‘prob­lem’. (Note that while
many peo­ple object to flash based pre­sen­ta­tion in this case I think it
works.)
http://www.100eyes.org/the-migrants/

Good design:

I was mak­ing ster­ling cuffs in class a cou­ple of weeks ago. These are
way cooler.
http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_file.asp?individual_id=56953&portfolio_id=2345466

How to make ubiq­ui­tous mate­ri­als inter­est­ing. Plywood that bends
around a cor­ner. And if I ever had to live in one room again I hope
these will be available.
http://www.spotd.it/2009/06/flexible-wood.html

Some guys are always cool. From one of my favorite occasionally
pub­lished blogs.
http://theimpossiblecool.tumblr.com/post/137058438/mcqueen

Things to see:

If you don’t know the films of Studio Ghibli you are miss­ing some
awe­some sto­ry telling. So on Aug 19th I will be the first in line to
see Miyazaki’s newest Ponyo. (Ping me if you need to catch up on his
ear­li­er work — I have most of it and movie nights are my fav.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiNB4epGxK8

More aban­doned build­ings. This time an hos­pi­tal in East LA. Having
just read Gaiman’s Neverwhere it’s a lit­tle disconcerting.
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/28071

Crop cir­cles are for ama­teurs. How about rice pad­dy art?
http://www.pinktentacle.com/2009/07/photos-rice-paddy-crop-art-2009/

Technology:

EME is one of the coolest ham radio activ­i­ties. What’s EME you ask?
Read an learn.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/ham-operators-shoot-the-moon/

The ele­phant in the room is one of my sis­ter’s favorite say­ings. So
here’s to ele­phants and elec­tric cars and why they won’t be coming
soon to a depressed sub­urb near you.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/07/ev-moon-shot/

Infrastructuralist brings us 4 cas­es of tear­ing down roads to make
traf­fic bet­ter. Followup arti­cles are promised. I’ll post them as they
show up.
http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/07/06/huh-4-cases-of-how-tearing-down-a-highway-can-relieve-traffic-jams-and-help-save-a-city/

Politics? Intellectual Activity? Academia?

Lisa Goldman reports on the Janet Maslin (in the NYT) call­ing Chris
Anderson “crass, lazy, and reck­less.” Mr. Anderson is quick­ly becoming
the ele­phant in the room of the next rev­o­lu­tion. I am not unhappy
about this.
http://lisagoldresearch.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/in-the-new-york-times-janet-maslin-calls-chris-anderson-crass-reckless-and-lazy/

Nothing crafty today, maybe Thursday.

And out with a silly.

New Gather Activity. Local too. (Link to boing-boing because I refuse
to link to King5.)
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/06/cardboard-tube-fight.html