magpie's shiny things

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,

Just one link this AM.

I can’t decide what to think of these por­traits of the chil­dren of the
new Russian elite. Somehow I think they don’t feel as odd here in the
US as they do in Russia. The sex­u­al­iza­tion of child­hood and the push
to mim­ic­k­ing adult behav­iors and atti­tudes in 12 year olds is common
here.

Nonetheless the pic­tures are com­pelling. (audio)

http://www.annaskladmann.com/little_adults.html