Transportation

Massive construction under Grand Central Station in NYC. A slide show of images of tunneling for the new LIR connections. Note – individual captions are to the right of the images.

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Science and technology

Hunter and predator robots. Neural networks and random mutations allow robots to evolve behaviors.

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Art, Images, Design

13 pictures from the Women’s Bureau archives of women doing war work. The National Archives is making good use of Flickr. The slide shows are entertaining and the information about the individual images are well cataloged and well presented. Best of both worlds.

It’s not in English (yet) but dang do I want it to be. Cartoon Cooking. Illustrated recipes and techniques.

Economy, simplicity, timeliness. More of life should be as finely drawn as these line based portraits done on the Tokyo trains.

A handful of brilliant opening credits for recent movies. (video – sound)

Another classic children’s book. Aesop’s Fables with illustrations by Milo Winters.

We’ve almost made it. Just a little further.

Transportation

Every body loves a top 10. Okay, so how about a top 19? The 19 most complex and dangerous roads in the world. Complex ?= Dangerous.

Tamburini = Brutale ++. That said, there is absolutely no justification for providing a link to this productivity sapping photo gallery. None.

The best collection of WTF moto moments.

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Technology

There is less than 100% agreement on what exactly Panotpitclick is measuring/revealing but the fallacy of non-identifying information is taking another beating. Your browser customizations may make you trackable. My results on Jan 31, 2010. “Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 443,644 tested so far.”

Ancient tech. The oldest known multi-tool. A Roman Army Knife, if you will.

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Art and Design

Tommy Kane (was) a big shot in advertising. Now he wants to be an illustrator again. I’ll start you out with one of his colored pencil sketches. The shop Zen Needlecraft has the misfortune of having the rather unhappy looking fish logo from the upstairs restaurant right over the front door.

In 3-D. Kinekt gear driven rings, for your finger. Watch the video.

Bill Watterson talks about his decision to stop drawing Calvin and Hobbes.

English Laundry and Dan and Dave. It’s a bit much trendy for me but the music is good and the card flourishes are just plain cool. (Video – Sound)

Off to be a girly-girl today, expect me to be all pink hearts and flowers and little smilies to dot my I’s for a couple of days…

Transportation

A plane mystery solved. This (flying?) derelict in Hanoi was identified by the fine folks at Telstar logistics. And we get a nice overview of the Antonov AN-2. It’s wicked on skis.

Sweet, orange, retro, but brand new. French GIMA 125. Do Want.

The news that makes my day! SLS production has started. Last post until the first ones hit the US market. Promise (fingers-crossed behind my back.)

The new Icon Variant helmet. The demo’d graphics are pretty damned teenage macho but I’m dying for the extra wide eye port and sweat wicking interior.

Free wallpaper of the vapor cone created at the moment of sonic boom enveloping and airplane.

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Society

Never missing a chance to be kawaii, these lunch box meals (bentos) feature Wall-E, Mario, and the Linux penguin. Some times the foreignness of Japan makes my mind spin.

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Science

Doing science is never as easy as the tidy published reports with their pretty graphs and charts make it look. These entries in the Round Robin (Cornell Ornithology) show just how arbitrary the real world can be when you go looking for something. The Godwits that Cornell Ph.D. student Nathan Senner went looking for on Chiloé Island, Chile failed to get his save-the-date notice and where off at some other party when he arrived.

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Art, Images, Design

The first of the children’s books by Jim Flora, the king of bebop illustration, to be reprinted in decades. I can’t wait to get my own copy of The Day the Cow Sneezed.

New primitive in style, slyly modern in outlook, a Kama Sutra by Barcelona born Adria Fruitos. Absolutely, utterly, gloriously NSFW.
If you need something SFW. Go to Adria’s website and click on most anything else.

Simplicissimus was a German satirical weekly that published from 1886 through 1944. It has been digitally archived by the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bilbiothek.  Cheeky, sophisticated graphics fill each issue.For example this first issue of 1904. Or you can have any other year you’d like by perusing the second link.

Sweet miscellany of winter bird images and illustrations. You’re bound to find something you like. Maybe a change of desktop wallpaper is in order?

It’s Friday. We need girls on bikes. (all SFW)

that’s it sinners just one more day and then you can go back to being saints.

Transportation

There’s been no SnowPocalypse in Pugetopolis this year. But don’t get too comfy with the idea of dry(ish) sunny Januaries. In fact, you might want to view this educational video from BMW – how to glide gracefully across the frozen wastes in your BMW X5M – where do I sign up?

http://www.topspeed.com/cars/car-news/video-bmw-x6m-and-x5m-snow-action-ar84064.html

There are few things sexier than Steve McQueen… Though this recreation of his desert racer (from the Great Escape) is damned close.

Oh, and just in case you need to spend some time contemplating the original bike and the crucial question on of “did they really make that jump?”, TimesOnline brings you the story of another recreation – the big jump. (Video has narration.)

A whole lot of black and white goodness. Tons of moto and moto life pictures, this dude loves the Nortons. The Tokyo Rockabilly Club (third down) is making me smile. (Search for Tokyo Rockers and Tunnel of Love) NSFW – pinups in the mix.
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Technology

There are a number of games making their way around the internet played by typing words into the Google search bar and watching the suggestions that pop up. WebSeer takes it one step further by allowing you to compare the suggestions for similar phrases. (I tried dogs hate and cats hate.)

There are advances in heated gear tech. Carbon fiber in your socks.

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Art, Architecture and Design

Some times art is just fun. What happens when Katie draws chalk foot prints on sidewalk in front of her apartment?

Building a hobbit house in Wales.  Part timber frame, part straw bale, part adobe, part god only knows, but a whole lot of awesome.

Polish poster design. You’ve seen it’s influence in trendy advertising and product packaging design.

From Kirov Russia, living in a fairy tale. Cheerful interior design based on children’s books, by Maria Yasko.

This little giggle – for the job seekers out there. A new and very efficient pre-screening technique for engineers.

keep calm and carry on

Transportation

That plane car you ordered? It’s here.

A boxer will never look quite right as a cafe racer to me. OTOH it’s a Bonneville record holder. BMW R75/5.

The TTXGP race from last year is gong to be the subject of a documentary film. Here’s the trailer.

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Technology (Cameras)

A solid resource for learning about lighting in photography, mostly using camera mounted (mountable) flash units.

The next thing I want after I get a hold of that 50mm lenses. A lenses mounted light ring.

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Science

More sea creatures. The armored snail has a number of tricks for thwarting attacks. Tricks that may make it into battle armor and bike gear.

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Art, Design,

…And science – these flash cards are a little much for a three year old, but an alphabet with an atom instead of an apple and binary code instead of a ball appeals to the very best geeky bits of myself. it is good to be an auntie.

Happy stop motion animation starring fruit and candy and a cork screw from Oz – where it is summer. Sound.

Scenic paintings from a Japanese artist. The textures behind the watercolors add unusual depth. I especially like the third image from the top, of the girls watching a trail of ants in the street. I can tell you nothing about the artist, the site is entirely in Japanese.

Zombie Fair – looks like something that would appear on the the cover of the New Yorker magazine. Until you click on the little magnifying glass, that is…

Warhol, before he became an intentional caricature of himself.

Happy Monday my freaky darlings,