[computers] - Felt & Tarrant Comptometer - woodie4728
Monroe and Triumphator pinwheel calculators.
The First Microprocessor - The 4004
VideoBrain from the Obsolete Computer Museum
Electronic Games retro handheld photo collection.
bbc itx b retro casemod.
and the jeannie casemod, out of old motherboards.
[buy me] - Egg and Muffin Toaster
UncommonGoods: Lab Vases, and eggums egg vases.
The critters range 8 clockwork toys designed by artist Chico Bicalho
Zelle geek jewelry at Elsewares and FractalSpin
bow wow. smart.
Mighty Goods: Shopping Blog
[art] - so grisly and cute!
Antlor - The Deer Departed by Danish designer Kenn Munk, avail from toydigger (more pics)
Animal Throw Rugs. hippo, lion, and bears.
How to Get a Head Without Hunting. the mythicals and dinosaurs are lacklustre, but the rest rock. plus a good How They're Made section.
see also:
Maximilian's Pet Shop
Animal Skulls matching/guessing game.
Fossils as Art - skulls to skeletons, dinosaurs to man.
duck feet
[music] - Ambient environmental recordings.
no new-age crap here; just adventurous nuts wandering deep into the nowhere with high quality microphones, leaving the gear to record for hours and days, then editing it down to cd-length. (most links to Earthear, which has samples. though many are out of print.)
(these are the albums i own/recommend)
Douglas Quin - Caratinga: Soundscapes from Brazil's Atlantic Rainforest.
Francisco Lopez: La Selva: the Costa Rican rainforest (a single 71min track. he's a purist)
Rainforest Requiem. more Brazilian rainforest, from the British Library of Natural Sounds.
Chris Watson: Stepping into the Dark: "from wind to a rookery, forest to mangrove swamps, Africa to England.". a smorgasbord.
also Chris Watson: Weather Report, with two tracks from Kenya and Scotland, and ends with recordings of a glacier shuddering and chattering as it slides past itself in Iceland.
Rainstorm. one storm. one shower.
junglescapes and weathersounds. more in the earthear Naturalist Realm section. "straightforward field recordings of nature."
I also find these recordings to be an Excellent test of a stereo-system's soundstage depth/quality.
[toys] - The secret to a happy Happy Drinking Bird, is vessel height.
The rim of the water vessel should be at Exactly the same height as the bird's pivot point. This ensures it rebounds/refills at the appropriate angle.
The water within the vessel, should be appox 1cm down from the top. This prevents both oversaturation and premature-dehydration. Add water daily during summer.
(Happy Drinking Bird: history, variants, science of, and faqs. h2g2 entry
also modify your bird into a solar-powered non-drinking bulb! (sacrilege!))
Three birds are exponentially more amusing than one. More musical, less lonely.
A flock of alcoholic ducks.
[art] - "Sol LeWitt on the Roof: Splotches, Whirls and Twirls"
audrey kawasaki paintings and illustrations (via)
Pars "Eating Me" paintings
one man safari blog of vintage photos and odd design. 'fascinating is the word I use for the unexpected.'
--UPDATE--
bad timing. he changed location. is now happy palace
Takanobu Kobayashi paintings
videos: Graffiti Analysis and application documentation (root)
[video] - Large Quicktime Movies - old and new. demoreels, shorts, and experiments, mostly via k10k:
Brazilian Anatomy (8mb)
Giant Killer Robots' 2005 Demoreel (17mb)
Whizeewhig (5mb)
friendswithyou's Mr Wizard (46mb) (project for Nike's The Art of Speed) and a "making of" slideshow
panOptic's 2005 Demoreel (33mb)
and a shortfilm (40min) on inspiration, by Belief: The Common Desk (118mb).
[robots] - Humanoid Robotics, Almir Heralic. get the movie. coo at its cuteness. grin at the rabid following the girl must surely now have. (via)
and some of its predecessors and peers:
Katsuhisa's SILF-H2
Robo Garage (movie)
Robovie-M
Sony QRIO
ZNP
and bigger brothers:
Fujitsu HOAP-2 (and just announced HOAP-3)
Honda Asimo (movie 8mb)
HRP-2
more at - plyojump.com
[music] - Phantom Words, and Other Curiosities, auditory illusions and curiosities of sound perception, by Diana Deutsch.
and some simplified examples of her work
explanations of other Auditory illusions
The Highest Note illusion
other examples of Auditory Illusions (most require headphones)
Auditory Illusions (more complex/academic)
unrelated, but tangential: Musical hallucinations
[transport] - Goodguys Street Rod of the Year. real purdy pictures. scroll up for more.
Geneva Motor Show 2005. more concept cars. less exciting, more plausible.
The Ugliest Cars in Britain.
there are some beautiful creatures here! how dare they!
Isetta bubble car, Corbin Sparrow, Bond Bug, Morgan Aero 8, Austin Healey Frogeye Sprite, Ford Anglia [well, okay, maybe not the Anglia 105E they refer to, but the 1953 Anglia is scrumptious], Daimler SP250, Jensen S-V8, and the cute little Daihatsu Copen.
Philistines.
The World's Most Efficient Cars, often breaking 10,000 miles per gallon. (a firefly/sprint gets about 38mpg. a prius about 55mpg. a pickup/SUV about 18mpg. check vehicles at FuelEconomy.gov)
This year's entries include the road legal Caterham 2R.
[art] - Michael Paulus :: Skeletal Systems
dylan sisson paintings
Lorenzo Petrantoni - Illustration. complex b&w linework. collages or all original?
Vera Bee illustration and animation. you'll probably want to play snowcraft after watching snow-bo.
Eyvind Earle illustration
microbians illustration
wooden sculptures by Marcus Tatton and part 2. exhibition pictures: Dissatisfied Electrons
[software - eyecandy] - the Really Slick Screensavers collection
Jugglesaver (in the settings, set the "change frequency" slider to Often)
the electric sheep screen-saver, a distributed-computing project, for generating abstract morphing fractal animations, by scott draves.
Folding@Home, distributed-computing project, not as pretty, but helps science!
and then, some pseudoscreensavers (you have to start and exit these manually):
Noah's AcidWarp, a real classic.
and the more basic classic, plasma (zip of my copy, cant find source online)
Drivey: a road slightly less travelled
scott draves also makes bomb visual music, an ultra lo-fi industrial eyeache. think tv-snow, with occasional epilepsy, and virii-like wriggling organisms.
BallDroppings, not a saver at all, but once you've setup/played with it for a few minutes, you could leave it running ;)
[food] - favourite teas
Assam and Oolong and Orange Pekoe
and flavoured blacks: almond, maple, mango, chocolate, and vanilla...
Tea (wikipedia) and the Rec.food.drink.tea FAQ
also: Book of Tea (complete text online)
[learn] - The Power of Nightmares, downloadable/streaming 3part documentary from the BBC, for anyone who enjoyed The Corporation.
--UPDATE--
discussion and further links at On the politics of fear | MetaFilter.
alternate bittorrent downloads at Chomskytorrents: part1 part2 part3
I'll also re-mention: Frontline: watch online | PBS
Reith Lectures, a series of annual radio lectures given by leading figures of the day, and broadcast by the BBC. some historical and all recent lectures are available in streaming audio with full transcripts.
found via Ben Hammersley's: A moral imperative: "As Lord Reith put it: 'There are some people whom it is one's duty to offend.'"
Massey Lectures, the Canadian version. this year's was particularly good: Ronald Wright. A Short History of Progress. i very happily bought the 5-cd set. part one available online.
[transport] - concept car student design season. i smell scifi future. (please!) (expanded pictures are sadly all locked from non-subscribers)
Royal College of Art Show 2005
Strate College Degree Show 2005
Ume� Institute of Design Degree Show 2005
Coventry University Design Degree Show 2005
College for Creative Studies Student Exhibition 2005
Art Center College of Design Spring Show 2005
Pforzheim University Spring Degree Show 2005
more at Jalopnik: concept cars
[lists] - The Walrus Magazine | 13 Reasons For List Lust
Google Sets. "Automatically create sets of items from a few examples."
Flickr: Photos tagged with list and lists
wikipedia:
List of movie genres
List of chairs
List of futurologists
quotes and trivia from High Fidelity (2000) (the book was good too)
more at growabrain: Lists Archives
[art] - Hokusai's "The Great Wave at Kanagawa"
assorted homages/oddities/knockoffs:
Kozyndan's cover for Giant Robot issue 28. i'm the proud owner of a print of this.
great-wave-erni-vales.jpg and atari_nenga.jpg and dmwave.jpg
Great Wave Wall
Rokkakku kite
stained glass
notecube and mug and belt buckle
Denim wave
The Big Wave painting
[wallpaper] - i seem to have aquired some 5,798 wallpaper images (desktop backgrounds). some sources:
Kaliber10000 {The Designers' Lunchbox} - On Display exhibit. other people's desktops.
now wash your hands (top) and meomi calenders
Daze of our Lives. (and archive-dive for some great new-subtitles-to-old-illustrations humour)
Image Savant - S P O R E. fractals and other abstract light sculptures. (your default background is already black, right?)
National Geographic photo of the day.
Tom 7's Photo Gallery. machines, signs, toys, lotsa goodies.
glish.com flower and insect photography
[art] - PostSecret. astounding and heartwrenching admittances.
diesel sweeties riffs Bob Ross! oh, those trees, they were so happy.
The Roving Artist & Co. paper silhouette cutters. i had one of these done whilst visiting france as a young'un, most odd. (and as they say, done in ~90sec)
The Fantastic in Art and Fiction
rustfetish (pick a year, then month, then date-range)
[photography] - blogs collating flickr photos
Catchy Colors Photoblog and FlickrSoup for the Soul by !efatima
FlickrBooty (some NSFW (which i think would've made a much smarter new TLD than .xxx, silly ICANN))
and of course the official FlickrBlog
--
UPDATE
2 days later, flickrblog does their own roundup of blogs
[music] - minimalist ambient suggestions.
Zammuto: Willscher. the pinnacle of glitch? my daily soundtrack, along with the earlier albums from his other band, The Books.
Takagi Masakatsu. foundsound soundscapes and music with toys.
Ogurusu Norihide. sparse and beautiful piano stroking.
music for airports (notation on reverse)
Eric Satie - Gymnopédies and Gnossienne No. 4
streaming radio: Sleepbot Environmental Broadcast and somaFM's Dronezone
[Paper airplanes] -
"May your skies be blue, and you humidity low." Ken Blackburn holds the Guinness record for time aloft for paper airplanes. Guinness's Record GuidelinesWorld's Largest Paper Airplane, Mukilteo, Washington
Which came first, paper airplanes or real ones?
Download, print-out and make the David Hasselhoff paper airplane today
Photo Valet General Aviation pix
Too close for comfort
Molt Taylor's Aerocar
Japanese paper models
Chthulhu's Paper Models
Peter Kunzmann's Paper Aeroplane World
Previously-blogged on the subject: Paper Airplane Flight Simulator, 3Ds by Christian Lowe and Build the Best paper airplane in the world, Paper toys
Also: World War II Aviation Training Films Playing Live Online
Many More Unusual Flight Links Here.
