Gromov.vn

 

My friend Leslie Bloom from the San Luis Obispo County Bicycle Coalition just sent me this link to http://streetmix.net.  On this site you can design your own street.  it is a pretty fun and easy tool for visualizing street design.  Wow.  You can adjust the building height… the lane widths… the bike path width… etc etc.  A great tool for bicycle advocacy and city planners or anyone interested in creating better public places and streets.

Each year we experience our normal seasons of hot and cold. Winter brings snow to many of us, and in summer, often blazing hot temperatures and beach days. John Nelson has given us a new vision of this familiar cycle in the form of a simple GIF… but the result is mesmerizing for its profound demonstration of these cycles upon our lives and the world processes it clearly illustrates.

Nelson, who is more often associated with extremely complex visualizations of weather patterns, used cloudless imagery from the NASA Visible Earth team. He took their flat graphics showing each month of the year and wrapped them around a spherical globe. Then he added some effects like coloration, atmospheric haze, and month information… and that’s about it.

What we see as a result, is seriously hypnotizing. The Earth’s seasonal heartbeat on display as never before. The northern hemisphere’s massive snowpack as it rolls into winter and the vegetation of the world drying and greening as the seasons pass.

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Nelson calls his animation The Breathing Earth, and it’s a very apt title. Each year as these cycles progress the CO2 levels of the Earth similarly go up and down. This is because the Earth’s vegetation is not equally influenced by winter and summer cycles happening simultaneously in the northern and southern hemispheres. As a result, the north’s vegetation filters far more CO2 and produces far more oxygen in the summer, and during the long, snowy winter this is significantly less. In contrast, the southern hemisphere has little snow, many thick jungles, and provides much of the world’s valuable air filtration. This can be clearly seen on CO2 level graphs. Among some of the other things Nelson finds fascination about his project:

“The effects of warm currents feeding a surprisingly mild climate in the British Isles. The snowy head start of winter in high elevations like the Himalayas, Rockies, and Caucuses, that spread downward to join the later snowiness of lower elevations. The continental wave of growing grasses in African plains.”

Much larger versions of these images can be seen here.

via fastcodesign

Just when you thought that an abandoned psychiatric hospital couldn’t get any creepier, Brazilian street artist Herbert Baglione comes along to give us the ultimate waking nightmare. Part of his ongoing 1000 Shadows project, he’s been painting black silhouettes on the weathered walls, floors and ceilings of long deserted buildings in São Paulo and Paris… but by far the creepiest location to date is this abandoned hospital in Parma, Italy.

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The dilapidated building, complete with abandoned wheelchairs, pealing paintwork, molding walls and long dark corridors would easily have enough “ambiance” in itself to house all kinds of imaginative visions, mental illness or not. But with Baglione’s fine touch the place has been transformed into something truly frightening. Can you imagine seeking shelter inside this place during a freak rainstorm? I’m pretty sure I’d rather stand outside.

Surprisingly, much of Baglione’s work is quite charming in comparison to these shots; his photographic works often taking on a journalistic direction. You can see more of his street art and photography at herbertbaglione.blogspot.com.au or follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

via Unknown Editors

There are many different forms of meditation- for some it’s sitting cross-legged focusing on their breath, for others it’s going through various yoga sequences, but for artist John Franzen, his freehand illustrations are the perfect mind-clearing activity. For his series called Each Line One Breath he creates “morphogenetic freehand drawings.” Starting at the left of the page, he begins drawing a line with a black pen as straight as he can, but since he is only human the line is never ruler-straight. He then attempts to copy the line, with another one parallel to it, leaving just the tiniest bit of space, continuing this process all the way to the right edge of the paper. The imperfections get intensified with each line, creating waves that look almost three dimensional.

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Franzen summarizes the purpose behind this work:

Lines are everywhere to find. In waves of sound and light, in water and dunes, growth rings and lines of trees, skin and stratum, tree formations in the forest, the falling rain, the grass luffing in the wind. The consecutive synthesis of lines bedded next to each other depicts an allegory to the stratification of constant transmission and fusion of matter. Any kind of an existence to me is the materialized conclusion of these very basic forces.

His meticulous precision looks almost like computer-generated sound-motion waves, but he offers video proof that this is a freehand exercise (see below). Check out more work by the Netherlands-based on artist on his website, JohnFranzen.com and Tumblr.

Via: booooooom.com

Aside from the chewy deliciousness of bread, it may serve another purpose in the fast food world- concealing the low-grade mystery meat beneath so that we can deem it edible. Photographer Jon Feinstein placed open-faced fast food sandwiches under a high-resolution scanner and surprisingly, they look nothing like the appetizing sandwiches shown on billboards everywhere. Although he does not label where any of the “food” items are from, many are fairly easy to identify and he titles each picture with it’s fat content instead.

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Feinstein explains:

Under austere, uniform lighting; stripped of branding, packaging and iconography, the food takes on a scientific, yet ethereal quality that is at times both revolting and mouthwatering. These photographs investigate the love/hate relationship that many Americans have with fast food, and, like many other aspects of popular culture, its ability to be simultaneously seductive and repulsive.

Jon Feinstein is co-founder of the non-profit Humble Arts Foundation and has curated many art exhibitions in New York. See more of his work on his website.

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Via: twentytwowords

You may have never heard of the Droste effect, but you’ve seen it before in loads of artworks. The effect sees one image repeated, seemingly in infinite repetition, within the same image. What you probably haven’t seen is that effect realized in a sand sculpture. Carl Jara did just that with his sculpture “Infinity” at the Hampton Beach Master Sand Sculpting Competition in New Hampshire. In his sculpture we see a figure holding a smaller version of himself atop his palm, and a smaller version atop that figures palm, and on and on to infinity… well, not quite. What is probably the most surprising part of the sculpture is those massive fingers popping out of the beach, revealing the presence of an even larger figure below the sand.

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At the event, held in June, Jara took home the gold medal as well as the people’s choice award for his creation – clearly showing he won over the entire crowd. You can see more images of the event on Jara’s Flickr page or check out the intense time-lapse of the sculpture’s creation below. After that it’s time to head to the beach and practice up!

via laughingsquid

The street artist going by the name of Nychos didn’t have what we’d call a ‘normal’ upbringing. He was born into an Austrian hunting family in South Africa and spent much of his childhood seeing things which many ‘normal’ people would consider cruel or even brutal. For Nychos though, it was a fascinating world. At seven he was bitten by a boar while he was playing in the forest close to home. Just a little while later he had boar meat for lunch. In another instance he saw a dead baby lamb being consumed by maggots the same color as its fur. Instead of being horrified, he was fascinated. He studied the hidden insides of animals and noticed the way life often grows from other life. At the same time he was also a child of the 80s, growing up watching cartoons and being influenced by their flashy bright colors.

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Today he’s channeled those influences – along with instances of extreme dreams and real-life epileptic fits – into the wild art that you see here. Like his childhood we see animals from rabbits and dogs, to whales and sharks dissected. This time though, their various pieces are perfectly – almost geometrically – sliced. Inside are bones, and guts arranged like a scientific schematic and sometimes wild surprises like the lunch they had earlier that day. Rather than being disgusting, Nychos works end up being highly fascinating.

You can find out more about his work at the highly influential street art concept he started, Rabbit Eye Movement, or on his Facebook or Tumblr.

Huangshan (literally “Yellow Mountain”) is a mountain range in eastern China and one of the most iconic locations in the country. Even with its famous glacier carved landscape and wildly jutting granite peaks, local variety of pine tree and frequent views of the clouds from above, the most special location is the area’s aptly named Bridge of Immortals.

The frighteningly high bridge’s ornately carved path leads from a cave in a sheer rock wall to another on a nearby wall, traversing the narrow gorge below. If that isn’t enough of a thrill however, there are a number of footpaths anchored right into the cliff walls. In some instances the only thing keeping you from a sudden drop off the side of the very questionable walkway, is a steel chain to hold onto in (most likely) utter terror. Note: this is not the place to get over your fear of heights!

Considering Huangshan’s extreme beauty, it’s not surprising that the area derives much of its significance from Chinese art and literature. It has inspired poets such as Li Bai, many Chinese ink paintings, and more recently, photography. According to Wikipedia, over 20,000 poems were written about the mountains between the Tang Dynasty (618-906) and the end of the Qing Dynasty (1614 to 1911). They’ve also inspired modern works, lending to the fictional world designed for James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar. Learn more about the area here.

via Amazing World Online

Jack Thurston of The Bike Show, has created what must be the most beautiful guide to cycling in South East England. The Lost Lanes book has been sat in my inbox, awaiting review for far too long, but with sunnier days ahead of us, I thought it was time to bring it to everyone’s attention.

The book contains 36 rides, each one brought to life in passionate detail. From the history of the area, to the geography and the feeling of actually been out there on your bike – it’s all enough to get you reaching for your bike.

Inside each route you’ll find all the basics such as the distance, the terrain to expect and the difficulty. Following the rides is easy thanks to the GPS coordinates that you can download. These can then be downloaded on to your iPhone (in to an app such as Cyclemeter), Android or a Garmin GPS.

Whilst you won’t find turn by turn directions inside the book, you will find them through the links included in the book. This will also show you the view on a detailed OS Map and an Open Streets Map. The turn by turn directions can be printed out so that you can attach them to your handlebars, if that’s your preferred form of navigation.

This truly is the future of cycling guidebooks and it’s great to see the publisher embracing it.

Let’s take a closer look at the three London routes included in the guidebook.

• The Eastern Extension route is described as: “Twenty almost traffic-free miles around the rapidly changing, intensely urban east London, with some breathtaking views along the way”. The route takes you from Victoria Park, all the way along the canals as far as London City Airport and across the Ferry to Woolwich and back again, past Greenwich Park. In the guidebook you’ll hear the interesting story of how Jack put this route together, you’ll read about Victorian history and you’ll spot the filming location for Batman Begins.
• The Garden City route is described as: “Joining the dots between central London’s amazing diversity of gardens, parks and green spaces”. This 14 mile route starts in Lambeth and takes you past St James Park, Hyde Park, Regent’s Park and then back down towards Soho. Along the route you’ll discover the interesting history of London’s parks.
• The Wimbledon to Weybridge route is described as: “Parks and the Thames Path make for a scenic, mostly traffic-free escape route from south-west London into Surrey”. This a nice 19 mile route that starts in Wimbledon, takes you through Richmond Park and out in to Weybridge. You also get a brief introduction to the history of the area in the ride description.

All the rides in the book include the all important pub and cafe stops – which is why we really go on these long bike rides isn’t it?

Overall, I’m really impressed with the Lost Lanes guidebook and I’d thoroughly recommend it for cyclists looking for interesting bike rides and great days out.

You can take a look inside the book using the ISSUU preview. Alternatively, grab your copy from Amazon (£11.39) or your book shop of choice.

The post Lost Lanes: A beautiful cycling guidebook to South East England appeared first on London Cyclist Blog.

Materials: Mandal bed, Capita legs 11 & 21 cm, Galant extention & shelf, two 2x4-Expedit, two 1x5-Expedit, two Vika Kaj, 100cm Linnmon Tabletop, Expedit desk mounting

Description: Last year I moved to Berlin to start my masters degree. I found a wonderful flat mate that I totally wanted to live with. Only weak point: the room for rent was only ~10m². After 3 month of planning, searching hacks and forums, I came up with a plan to get most of my stuff from my previous 20m² to the new tiny room.


1) Mandal bed mounted on 1x5-Expedit

I love the Mandal bed frame since I first saw the black edition at my local Ikea years ago. On IKEAHackers I found tons of DIY-bedframes made from Expedit shelves, which gives you lots of space for storage - in the shelves and underneath the bed.

So the idea was to mount my favorite bedframe on two narrow Expedit. It is pretty simple. You put together the bedframe as described by the manual BUT you do not attach the white bars, that come with it as a base. The 1x5-Expedits are assembled like the manual says. Put them down on their long sides and place the bedframe on top. You can fix the bed by putting long screws (~8cm?) trough the holes where the base is normally screwed on. Voila, bed with lots of storage :)

2) 2x4-Expedit meets Linnmon (Amon in Germany)


Next I needed a desk with storage for books, folders etc. My first choice would have been the Expedit desk combination but there is not enough space for a 80cm deep table. So I got a 2x4-Expedit and the mounting for the desk (from the IKEA service counter) but not the desk itself.

Instead I bought the smallest Linnmon tabletop and the adjustable Vika Kaj legs. I put together the Expedit but left the vertical part in the second row from top out. This is where I connected the Linnmon Tabletop. To mount my monitor I attached 11cm Capita legs to the small half round Galant extention, like I had seen in my local Ikea.

3) Mounted TV


Yeah, not exactly new...but it belongs to my room. Since my bed is 90cm high I needed to mount my TV to see more than just the upper part of the picture, while sitting on the bed. So I bought the Galant shelv and screwed Capita 21cm to it. It has the perfect width for my TV and there is space under it for DVD-player and photos.

So, that's my room, basically. There are also two Grundtal drying racks, mounted high on the wall but that is not exactly a hack. Just using the ~3m of wall :)

And just if you wonder about the red and grey blankets - thats sleeping places the cats choose. If we miss one of the kittys, just look under my bed ;)

~ Bianca, Berlin, Germany

The weather is perfect. Warm with low humidity. Time for another afternoon ride. Yesterday, I left my work place in Burlington and decided to ride all three dirt road trails in the neighborhood at once - the Narrow Gauge Trail in Bedford, the Reformatory Branch Trail and the Battle Road Trail. My route led me through Bedford, Concord and Lexington where I picked up the Minuteman Bikeway towards Arlington. This is probably my favorite bike ride in my area. Let me explain it with some statistics:

Materials: Ikea Helmer cabinet plus a lot of fancy stuff

Description: We have optimized the original Helmer renderfarm for 24/7 Desktop computing.
We have used the standard Ikea Helmer cabinet to build a renderfarm in it.
Helmer-Air gots.
24cores, 81.6GHz and 96GB RAM.


A complete tutorial with all the Hardware and a lot of pics and Details on setup is here.

~ First Image, Germany

Developers Erkki Trummal, André Berlemont, and Morten Brunbjerg have created Disunion, a guillotine simulator for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset made during the Exile Game Jam. In the simulation, players kneel with their heads placed on a chair, desk, or some other substitute for a chopping block and experience the visual sensation of being beheaded in front of a virtual crowd. The game is currently available to download from Unicorn7, but players will need an Oculus Rift to experience it.

via Kotaku

“Look, he’s currently planing the monitor. He has absolutely no idea about IT.”

The Australian production company Jungleboys released a short comedy sketch titled “Amish IT.” It shows a business man who gets locked out of his computer and is forced to rely on unsuccessful tech assistance from Jacob the Amish IT guy. An old school hand drill didn’t seem to do the trick. This sketch is one of many from the Jungleboys ongoing comedy series, The Elegant Gentleman’s Guide to Knife Fighting.

via Tastefully Offensive

Todays post comes from Certified Problem Solvers and grip-tape-enthusiast, the BikeTinker. Standard disclaimers apply...

"I’m a big fan of grip tape on pedals. It’s been sticking soft-soled shoes to skateboards for 40 years, so why wouldn’t it work for bike pedals and bicyclists?

It does. I use it on my wooden skateboard pedal decks, and I’ve used it on a couple pairs of platform pedals. $5 worth of tape will do about 800* pairs of pedals. These are some MKS pedals.

Recently I got some magnesium BMX pedals that come with 18 spikes per pedal. They’re red. Just the word “shinburger” has kept me off pedal spikes, and some of my shoes have soles thin enough so I can step on a penny and tell “heads” or “tails.”

I used a little specialty hex tool, and a pipe wrench for the leverage to pop the Loctite free. Now I have a little bin of pedal spikes, which is nice, because having little bins of hardware of indeterminate future use is an end in itself.

To make the grip tape fit the pedal, I put the tape on a cutting board, grip side down, and traced each side of each pedal with a sharpie. I labeled each one, and then cut them out with an Xacto knife.

This uncut one has the non-pedal parts filled in, to make a robot monkey face. The left-over rounded bits went into another bin, in case I ever need sandpaper that sticks to the end of my finger.

Peel it off, line it up, and press it down firmly. Pay attention to the edges. The rounded corners will help keep the tape from peeling up, and you can burnish the edges down with something hard and smooth that won’t get too ripped up by the tape. I think I used a bottle.

The finished pedals look pretty professional, and give me a good grip for my size 12 (or 13) feet. So far, nothing has peeled or slipped.

These are 360 grams, if you care.

*Exaggeration for effect.

 

 

Robin over at inkodye.com just sent over this fantastic tutorial to showcase their fantastic photo-sensitive permanent dye. This product really ticks all of the boxes for me, because it works on so many different materials (including wood and leather), and it connects to my love of all things photographic. Here is Robin’s tutorial:

Only with Inkodye can you create this incredibly easy and rewarding DIY project! Because Inkodyes are truly photographic you can use them with black & white negatives to create your very own photo-printed silk ribbon. 

Use your ribbon in your hair, around your waist on a summer dress or cut it into sections and give them away as adorable bookmarks!

Total tutorial time: 15 minutes

Used in this project: Inkodye Violet

Materials. Violet Inkodye, foam brush, pins, silk ribbon, b&w negatives and a work surface board

Making your own negatives. You can buy a B&W disposable camera and take your own shots! Important Note: High contrast negatives are needed for this project to work so try to overexpose the pics you take! You can also request “push processing” at your local film development lab to ensure higher contrast negatives.

Prepare. Cut your ribbon to the size of the negatives you’d like to print

Position. Lay your ribbon down onto a board that you’ll be able to move out into the sun

Pour. Apply your Inkodye straight from the bottle, we recommend not diluting for this project

Brush. Using a regular ol’ foam brush make sure your Inkodye is evenly applied

Place. Get your negative placed properly, make sure you put it SHINY side down so as not to smear it

Pin. Using push pins, pin your project to the board to keep the negative in contact and so it can’t blow away!

Smooth. Using the slight stickyness of the wet ribbon rub the negative down until it is smooth

Take into the sun. This is where the magic happens, watch your photos develop right before your eyes!

Wait. Leave your project in the sun for at least 5 minutes, up to 12 minutes in cloudy weather

Uncover. In a shady indoor area uncover your masterpiece!

Wash. Wash vigorously in HOT soapy water, preferably use a strong textile soap like synthrapol. If you do not wash enough your project may continue to develop after it is dry.

Dry. Dry your project without heat, just lay it out indoors (not in the sun) and let it dry completely

Enjoy! Use your beautiful custom ribbon however you want – be creative!

I do not mind riding in the rain, but one downside is wet shoes.  Wet shoes take a long time to dry and as a result can start to smell musty.  Newspaper and powder can be used to help with drying and "de-stinking," but it is also a good idea to take measures to keep water away from your shoes as much as possible.

Even though I ride with fenders, I have found that my shoes get really wet because when I ride through big puddles, the water kicks up right at shoe height.  My fenders have a small mudguard, but it is not big enough to avoid the splash impact.

In an effort to fend off the spray, I decided to create my own additional mudguard. I started off by cutting a magazine page in the shape of what I thought would do the trick.

My first thought was to use a milk carton, but the milk carton did not seem to have the surface area shape I needed to conform to my cutout.

I started looking around a had and spotted a surge protector I had purchased but not opened.  The packaging looked about the right size so I opened . . . 

. . . and it was the right size.

I added some velcro to my fender and to the mudflap so I could attach and remove as I liked . . .

. . . and now I just need for it to rain to test it out.  I report back when tested. 

 

Une coupe de Pythagore, aussi connue sous le nom de coupe de Tantale, est un verre qui force son utilisateur à boire avec modération.
Si vous remplissez le verre sans abuser la coupe se comporte comme un verre normal, par contre si vous dépassez un certain niveau le liquide passe par un tube présent dans le pied et la colonne centrale de la coupe qui vide totalement de son contenu par le bas grâce au principe du siphon.

Le site Whoworeitbetter s’amuse à repérer les étranges similitudes entre les oeuvres de différents artistes, pour un résultat surprenant.

[Via]

Sinewy, strong, fast

A Cervelo S5 arrived in time for road season, studying it, trying to best describe how it looks, all I got is Iggy Pop. So ugly it rocks. The shaping is like “Hypnotizing chickens worth a million in prizes and I’m just a modern guy. Got a Lust for Life.”

If you’re into this sort of thing, then this is the bike for you. To me it seems the engineering stopped at the head tube. Like all their budget went into slamming that tire up a seat-mast ass. The front end is unbalanced and twitchy with that high of a head tube, like steering a bus or flying an MD-80 in turbulence. Keep the gas on into a corner, so it doesn’t forget which direction you were pointed.

Thick and thin

The S5 does get down the road and accelerates and that’s why racers like it. The bike moves, but with the all the subtly of a Sagan, podium-girl butt pinch. It’s also the team bike of choice and for good reason, lots of zooma-zoom-zoom-zoom in a boom-boom on a working-class racer’s budget.

66s attached

In the time we had this bike at Hugga HQ, it didn’t stop raining long enough to shoot it until last night. At sunset, the S5 glows pretty and beckons you into a bike shop. We can’t recommend a 52/36 for racing, but a fondo, sure. Spin those sub-compact gears up the hills.

Cervelo wants this bike back now and we’ve got to make way for another. After the sunset shots, this morning the S5 is being packed up in a bike box. Would’ve liked to ride it more.

Web design company mass:werk has created Google60, a creative reimagining of Google Search — or Gabby Ontology Operated Grader and Linguistical Extrapolator — in the style of AMC’s Mad Men, a popular television drama set in the 1960s.

images via mass:werk

via Tweetsauce, Justin Scholz, The Loop, MG Siegler