Mar 12 1 comments
Morning Linkage

Morning Linakge (Mar 12)

Transportation

A particularly nice version of the battery/electric pedal bike. Charges on the flat as well as down hill. Also nice looking, I wouldn’t be embarrassed to ride this to town.

I had the International Scout II for a while. I’d pay (something) to have one of these now. The International Wagonmaster. Alas I was too late.

Rendering from Luca Bar. One of the guys who does those neat-o concept pictures that the bike mags use to illustrate their rumor filled, we have nothing substantial to report, previews of the next year’s bikes. This Moto Morini Corsaro Veloce is a fine example. Spend time looking under the projects tab.

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Science and Technology

Plant galls. Um, er, not really villainous but then again, at the very least alien. Many excellent images to give nightmares to the gardeners in the audience.

Organism produced biofuel. A real step forward by Nippon and Hitachi using a single celled organism that lives in ponds. Uh huh, Jet A fuel from pond scum.

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Food

What the world eats in a week. This is what gluttony and parsimony look like. In a couple of cases the ratio of packaged vs. fresh food will surprise you. Also the variability in the costs. From the book “Hungry Planet” As much as I find the food interesting, the families are compelling element that keeps you looking.

Fuller versions from Time. Part I and Part II families and their groceries. Part III: markets and cooking.

What did you have for breakfast? The first meal of the day, without tableware.

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Art, Images, and Design

Ballpoint pen, pencil, watercolor. Huge, gruesome, Grimm fairytale, delicate, and detailed all at once. Your myths and nightmares are served up by Caitlin Hackett.

Sick. Gotta love the gentle woodland creatures. Grickle. (Music – but that’s the point.)

Paperwar, Papierkrieg. Starting with a couple of paper airplanes and ending with, well, I won’t spoil the surprise. A brother and sister engage in an arms race in folded paper. I know almost nothing about the creators except that one of them is named Mattias and he wants to go to film school. (Yelling)

Wondering what is going to happen next. (SFW)

and that ends this week’s thrill ride

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Mar 11 0 comments
Morning Linkage

Morning Linkage (Mar 11)

Transportation

You’ve seen the pictures of the hacked together ones but here’s the real deal. Motorcycle side-car based camera mount. The fabrication quality blows me away. Based on a 6 cylinder 1500cc what? Seats 4.

Sexy enough to make me consider a electric car. Almost. Or I could buy one and put a real engine in it. Porsche 918 Spyder.

A lyric piece of description. The destruction of a median strip is carefully watched from it’s seemingly innocuous beginnings with a few dusty foot prints to it’s take over a a crossing point for auto-rickshaws. (New Delhi, but it would be under the Viaduct here in Seattle.)

A few pages from the catalog of the 1930 Earl’s Court Bicycle and Motorcycle Show. Love Smith’s gauges.

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Technology

In Afghanistan there are people working hard with little more than trash to bring some connection to the modern world. Wi-fi points and repeaters made from stuff scrounged out of the garbage – literally. Great ingenuity and drive. And so much of the same-same hassles, petty politics, and interpersonal failures of relationships that affect any tech project. As Amy says, it’s funny but it’s not.

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Literature

Good Night Moon has driven parents bonkers since 1947. Now there’s a Star Wars based update called Good Night Forest Moon. Better yet it’s a download and bind yourself project with excellent instructions. Craft time to bed time.

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Art, Images, and Design

Best iPhone stand ever. What is this gadget holder doing in Art, Image and Design? – It’s great found object sculpture. Fork over.

Also an iPhone/iPod accessory. The ammo box speaker set, perfect disguise. Do Want.

More cross-over stuff. Why won’t the world stay nicely sorted in to my categories? The title of this recently released book says it all – Go Faster: The Graphic Design of Racing Cars.

A little cool for my day today. Here’s Ms. Loren from the Impossible Cool.

onward and upward, or at least out the door.

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Mar 10 0 comments
Morning Linkage

Morning Linkage (Mar 10)

Transportation

Plywood paddler for the junior set. Funny how much the logo looks like Harley Davidson from a distance. Cute though.

1923 BMW factory floor. Lots more vintage in the Vintage Motorbikes Flickr pool but beware of bad captions, and wild ass guesses as to makes and models.

Scroll down once for hot girl in short skirt on a real rocket of a bike. And I love how the cape stays fully extended while she’s sitting still on the desk. Yeah – it’s a Japanese superhero toy. (SFW)

1937 Harley bobber. Another fab Danish builder, Customs from Jamesville.

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Science and Technology

A look at what’s under Niagara Falls. In 1969 the Army Corps of Engineers stopped the water flow over the falls in order to be able to inspect and buttress up, if necessary, the rock face. In the comments look for Blatanville he’s got more info. Bitchin’ pics.

If you’ve got a stream with decent flow (7.5 ft/sec) you can have 500 watts of electricity from a device that weights 25 pounds. Very useful. (7.5 ft/sec is about 8 miles/hour – which is pretty fast for a big river but not so fast for a creek or stream.)

Testing structures and new designs for resistance to earthquakes at UNC’s Constructed Facilities Lab. Cruise the gallery for a look at current reasearch and projects. Lots of big (red) machines.

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Art. Images, and Design

Creepy little hand-made character dolls. In that quaint Dickensian nightmare vein.

I’m claiming this is art. Scanning microscope images of the grooves in an LP. Images 2 and 3 look like the geography of memory.

These are hysterical. Old photos with modern goofy, think Cartoon Channel kid’s show, characters photoshopped in. Rellano de Mono from Chile. (His personal website is down. Not surprising. I hope he is safe.)

A friendly reminder that it’s not about the gear or the jargon or even the technical prowess, but the seeing. A mediation on what it means to be a professional (photographer) or an amateur. Applies to all artists.

that is all

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Mar 09 1 comments
Morning Linkage

Morning Linkage (Mar 9)

Transportation

I love the tail treatment on this Triumph. Such a sweet, round butt.

The post title says it all “Enjoy Some Gratuitous Classic Lotus Porn.” Pics from the Lotus archives. (SFW)

A bad jump start once cost me a ECU/BCU pair for a Mercedes. If the surge suppressor in these smart jumper cables works I’d be willing to pay a whole lot more than $35.

Just a note – TopSpeed has been removed from my reader. Their refusal to include links to sources and the websites of organizations they report on has finally driven me over the edge. Nominations for good sources of motor industry news sought. I’d like something that covers cars and bikes, business, and current products rather than vintage and custom.

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Science

Creature Cast update.  Dr. Phil Pugh talks about the first time he got to see siphonophores from a submarine. He had studied these fascinating, clone-based organisms for years without having the chance to see one intact. Mesmerizing video too. (Audio Narration)

Huge data sets and massive computing power seem like they should allow scientists to find more and more significant correlations and dependencies. The opposite may be true. More data and more ways of slicing it increases the chance that results are nothing more than random noise.

More data to play with, Google brings more data sets to Public Data Explorer. Let’s all try to remember that the plural of statistics is not information.

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Art, Images, and Design

The 50’s are often considered the golden age of commercial illustration. From the time the author first noticed a handful of images with the signature Lucia to a correspondence with one of her colleagues, this look at Lucia Lerner’s career in Chicago is a wonderful introduction to this world and a rather unusual member.
Olaf Hajek. I don’t know what these images were made to sell but this series of five “the new secret language of symbols” sells me.(mildly NSFW)

Another excellent photographer with a huge Flickr stream. Batintherain is Andrea de Poda of Pesaro, Italy. A gentleman with a fabulous eye for architecture.

I put this here mostly so that you can share my wonder at Cory’s description of the hulking naval(?) object in the photo.

good luck with that…

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Mar 08 0 comments
Morning Linkage

Morning Linkage (Mar 8)

Transportation

Low rent transformer of now neglected, beloved city mascot. This robot built of soviet era car parts stands outside of Odessa.

Lovely. Thruxton based.

Some background on the engine design of the IoM Norton I showed you a week or so ago. The squish combustion chamber was the idea of a janitor? Not really. Leo Kusmicki’s story reads like an adventure comic none-the-less. Read the comments for additional info.

Interesting if true, BMW has a firmware rev limiter on the new S1000RR. It gets turned off at the 600 mile service. Is this going too far? Or is BMW justified in trying to protect it’s machines from early life abuse and itself from unreasonable warranty claims.

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Literature and Gadgets

A book designer talks about the move to eBooks, what the iPad brings to the party, and what the future of the printed book looks like. His distinction between formless and definite content is a good way of considering which books deserve to be printed and which don’t. Perhaps it is time to recognize that some books are not worth the paper they are printed on.  Excellent civilized discussion in the comments as well.

Less thoughtful but more immediately and commercially relevant. These two videos featuring Penguin Books’ CEO John Makinson talking about the publisher’s move into the digital book market and the upsides and downsides that they see in the near future.

Low tech, for book lovers. Book plates can aid the return of your precious volumes. There are three free designs, I like the one with snakes.

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Art, Images, and Design

Some of the nicest remake/reuse furniture examples I’ve seen. Not a bunny or flower sticker in the bunch. Decent hardware upgrades too. From Purpose Restoration.

Flickr is home to the portfolios of some amazing photographers. The work of Nicholas Moulin includes lots of wicked cool macro images like this four-eyed spider.

Scott Campbell of Zombie Fair poster fame has new work hanging in London.  Who can resist ambiguous woodland creatures and a race car carved out of a boulder ? Or the Bedrock airships?

Cecilia Murgel’s journal pages. Each features an image of two women and a commentary on the activities of a day. In Portugese but you don’t need to read the entries to know how she’s feeling about what’s going on in her life. I haven’t seen markers used so well in ages.

ta ta for now my freaky darlings…

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Mar 04 0 comments
Morning Linkage

Morning Linkage (Mar 4)

Transportation

Purple Helmets, the Isle of Man TT half-time stunt team. Very British
- in a Benny Hill, wellies and slickers, kinda way. (Sound)

Wrench Monkees begin building a bitsa. Where did that purple frame
come from? Updates as they happen.

Desmo double front-wheel trike. Very bizarre and headline writers take
note, no way in hell is this an ATV. More pics.

I love the tail treatment on this Triumph Thunderbird. Such a sweet, round butt.

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Society

This is one of the most consistently beautiful blogs that I know of.
There’s nothing more special about this post than any of the others,
but take a couple of minutes to enjoy the restful images and ideas .
La Tartine Gourmande.

Graphic novels and comics are, for me, the one compelling application
for the iPad. Here’s an example of why.

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Images

Bryce Wymer is the Art Directory for Digital Kitchen. They did a nice
animated mural for the 2010 Census.
You can watch them put the commercial together in this video.
He puts also puts huge chunks of his sketch books on his blog.

I want to be the red haired girl in Lynne Naylor’s happy wilderness pictures.

Visual, typographic pun, with a nod to Marley.

That’s all for today my friendly pumpkin wonders

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Mar 03 0 comments
Morning Linkage

Morning Linkage (Mar 3)

Transportation

This is so damned close to a trials bike, an underpowered trials bike. The wheel size difference is odd. But what the heck. There are girls pictured. FX-Mountain Moto.

Google earth now has pictures of Pima and the airplane boneyard.

Bamboo pedal bike frames. Wicked cool material science and engineering. (Thanks M2)

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Science

Cooking made us human? A look at the fossil record and what it has to say about the rise of big brains and cooked food.

A bit of background on what an EVA entails and a guess at what it might cost.

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Literature

Project Gutenberg is now putting up a daily RSS feed of new additions. I find it helpful to have less than the entirety of PG to browse when looking for something to read. A few days ago I found : La Sorcière: The Witch of the Middle Ages by Jules Michelet. Lush bordering in hysterical, when you get to this sentence in the introduction you just know you’re going to stick around to see the end.

“Witches they are by nature.” It is a gift peculiar to woman and her
temperament. By birth a fay, by the regular recurrence of her ecstasy
she becomes a sibyl. By her love she grows into an enchantress. By her
subtlety, by a roguishness often whimsical and beneficent, she becomes
a Witch; she works her spells; does at any rate lull our pains to rest
and beguile them.”

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Art, Design, Architecture, and Images

Hydro-floors. How to have a pool and a yoga studio in one space. It’s vastly cool.

A bit of a snicker here. The common milk create is essential to camping, even if you’re traveling by space capsule.

Charles Harper was a prolific mid-century illustrator whose style you will recognize. In a nice mix of two of my favorite things, his  illustrations for the Betty Crocker Dinner for Two Cookbook. Scans on Flickr. I agree with Matt from Drawn, this one should be rewritten and reissued with the original illos.

Tilt-shift video. Yes, video. A day in the life of NYC. Sam O’Hare. (Music)

I’m running late, le sigh.

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Mar 02 0 comments
Morning Linkage

Morning Linkage (Mar 2)

Transportation

The F1 safety car. M-B SLS AMG. My very favorite alphabet soup car. The rear lighting is particularly stylish.

Vintagent provides another fascinating story from yesteryear. A 1967 “production” bike class at the Isle of Man TT led to the creation of a special Velocette Thruxton. Tales of it’s successes and failures.

Loverly. In-car and side-of-the-road video of a practice drive for the 100 Acre Wood rally. This is why they do it.

Funny British “Watch for Motorcyclists” ad. Humor and a reminder. Plus perhaps the ultimate helmet accessory, neon.

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Tools

A nice variation on the multi-tool. I like rounder shapes for pocket objects.

I love my rotary cutters for cutting both fabric and paper. I have several including a couple of the pretty flower patterned special editions. Now the rotary cutter principle has been applied to emergency equipment. A better way to cut through layer of denim, textile, or leather.

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Science

A realistic reconstruction of a snake preying on a reptile. Unremarkable except for the fact that the snake is 11 feet long and the reptile is an infant Titanosaur. Nice photos of the originals fossils as well as the reconstruction.

Tiny-saurs. Build-it-yourself mini models, less than $20 for the deluxe kits.They also do custom work if anyone is looking for the ultimate trade show swag.

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Art, Images and Design

Animation – sort of. Aardman presents Home Sheep Home. Infuriatingly simple browser based game for lovers of Shaun the Sheep. Hate, hate, hate. I suck at video games.

Flickr user A Journey Around My Skull is always a good source for new things to look at. These illustrations from Iranian children’s books are at the same time familiar and alien. Many seem to be folktales. This image of two richly dressed characters with flowers for heads sets the tone. There are many equally fine images through out the set.

These are scary and weird and full of vaguely obscene pigs providing moral guidance(?). In other words, terrific. Scott Hassell.  Mostly pen and ink. (NSFW)

Bird obsessed Jungil Hong was trained in ceramics at RISD but is best known for her collages.

More tomorrow…

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Mar 01 0 comments
Morning Linkage

Morning Linkage (Mar 1)

Transportation

Nimbus, a Danish motorcycle designed by a vacuum cleaner mogul. The
strap steel frame is unique and a lot prettier than you’d think.
Here’s a nicely restored example by Soren.

Chumming the waters. Two sets of numbers comparing the current batch
big dual-purpose tourers. Let the debates begin, erm continue. One
organized by bike, one organized by feature.

LED headlight trim has become an indicator of cool on cars. Audi’s got
some cute ones that look like (under) eyebrows. Here’s the same look
on a bike. Sorry, I don’t believe they are actually available, yet.

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Society and Culture

Could Wal-mart be the answer to reviving local agriculture? Or is this
just another example of putting green spin on the corporate good? From
Atlantic magazine, a look into Wal-mart’s new Heritage Agriculture
program.

A new drinking game. Describe the listed specials at Miss Knicker’s
Garden of Delights. Ink dipped quill? (SFW)

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Art, Images, and Design

Furnishing for the very small house. Scroll down for two of the
coolest bunk bed designs ever.

Wood cut illustrations by a self-professed anarchist illustrator.
Cool, calm, collected feeling, especially the Guardian Poetry  series.
Click on Illustrations in the header.

Two photographs of a young Russian boy wearing radio headphones. One
with his kitten. Wistful, haunting. (SFW)

Jonathan Bartlett. Recent work is translucent watercolor washes on
yellowing paper. slightly off-kilter surreal stories. Be careful, the
CGUnit web site can have vaguely nsfw images in the sidebars. J.
Bartlett’s site is safe. (NSFW)

Black ink brush work and calligraphy on a ledger page. Paris coffee
house Le Select, book reading patron.

Dog’s love cars. Eagerly waiting for a ride to the beach. Click for bigger.

Starting the week right

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Feb 26 0 comments
Morning Linkage

Morning Linkage (Feb 26)

Transportation

Three wheels. The DOT calls it a motorcycle. The manufacturer calls a T-Rex. I call it covetable.

I don’t know what it means for the stereotypical ‘here comes the bad guys’ cues in movie sound tracks but for people living under the traffic copter pattern it means quieter commute times. Eurocopter introduces the Blue Edge rotor blade and Blue Pulse system which can cut blade noise by 3 to 4 decibels. Which doesn’t seem like it should help much but the in-cockpit recording are substantially different in volume and in quality.

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Science

This photo a glacier weeping red ooze is stunning enough for inclusion in the linkage. But when you read the description of what the ooze is and how this particular primordial ooze has been isolated for 2 million years… Atlas Obscura has information and lots of pictures.

Information is Beautiful has a good visual today. A bubble race chart of dietary supplements and which have solid supporting evidence for efficacy and which don’t. Be sure to read the explanation of the chart and click on the Show Me tab on the right.

Increasingly specialized iPhone apps are appearing. Stuff that’s a lot more useful that captioning your snapshots with thought balloons. This stethoscope add on for example. Digital diagnosis in your hand.

Not really science but vaguely web related. There are tons of websites out there that earn their keep by generating link backs. In order to optimize your chances of grabbing that coveted TechCrunch citation I give you “Link Bait Generator” I had a good little giggle by entering -moto press- in the box. Try a few of your own.

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Art, Images, and Design

One commenter accuses this image of Aiguille de Midi of being overly Photoshopped, but I personally like the washed out vintage post card feel . No I am not going up there.

Hours of amusement await you in this NBC collection of weird news photos. Occasional gore and one giant, pink, cherry blossom laden phallus. (NSFW)

The ability to draw eludes me, the ability to draw like Paul Lung eludes almost everyone. The animal portraits in particular will make you blink. Fur in such incredible detail.

Close to my heart – book arts. A collection of fabulous bindings. From embossed images of peonies to silver and gem encrusted breviaries.

and that’s it for another week. see you Monday my freaky little darlings.

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