firehose

stargazer909:

This is a gif that should be in every Trekkie’s blog 

Here's a little madlib for you, “The Illustrator’s Lament”:

This was just a piece I did for fun, out of my love of sci-fi and awesome ladies. I also used it for a quick Photoshop demo when I was a guest in Sam's advanced digital illustration class (which I will be teaching next semester!)

I used a lot of clipping masks in this for many of the textures. If you want to see how I do it, I made a walkthrough post on my tumblr about texture and clipping masks (albeit with a much simpler image). You can read it here!

My original sketch:

(although looking at it again, I kinda like its simplicity.....ah well!)

VW Limo Project - $1500 (Terra Bella, Ca.)

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Avenue 88

This Volkswagen Limo Project has been started and all paperwork has been completed. I have a CURRENT & CLEAR TITLE for this VW Limo Project and a CURRENT NON-OP REGISTRATION. The driver compartment has been started by shortening the windshield, All four doors open and function as they should, and the front door handles have been shaved, a longer wiring harness is provided, all the major frame work has been done and all the paperwork is in order, what more could you ask for from a project that the hard stuff has already been done for you. I was going to purchase a Volks Rolls Kit for this project to give it some flair because the kit includes all (4) fenders, hood, grille, and rear deck lid, but I have to many projects to complete and never bought the kit. If you are looking for an odd project that no one else will have, here it is. I will also consider all reasonable offers and any trades of anything with value.

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/cto/3616200236.html

The electric lighbulb, the phonograph, and the movie camera were invented (or significantly improved upon) by Thomas Edison, so lets give him credit for one more: LOLcats:

This short film was shot at the world's first movie studio, The Black Maria, located in West Orange, NJ. The entire building was built on a turntable so that the building could rotate with the sun for the best lighting conditions. (via "robin sloan")

Tags: movies   Thomas Edison   video

[Matt Galisa] decided to try his hand at setting up the Belkin WeMo outlet without using a Smartphone app. The hardware is a pass-through for mains voltage which allows you to switch the plug over the network. It has a built-in WiFi module which normally connects to your home network. But the first time that you power it up it announces its own SSID designed for an iOS (and recently Android Beta) app to connect to in order to enter your AP credentials.

He started with this Python script used for WeMo hacking. It was originally meant to issue commands to the outlet once it had passed the initial setup. [Matt] followed along but couldn’t get an answer on the port he expected. It turns out that the device listens on a different port until the initial setup is complete (probably so that you don’t mess up other outlets on the network that are already working correctly). His next challenge was to manually set the WPA credentials. This never really worked and he ended up using a virtual AP without password protection through DD-WRT. From there he was able to set up a Python script to turn on, off, and toggle the state of the outlet.

If you’re looking to dig deeper into the device’s security check out this project.

Filed under: home hacks

“Stay close to any sounds that make you glad you are alive.”

- Hafiz (via suckerforanything-acoustic)

This is what it looks like to shock flowers with 80,000 volts. In this odd but old photographic technique (called Kirlian photography), the object is placed over photographic film over a metal plate. When the extreme voltages are applied, the air surrounding the flower is ionized, leaving a ghostly electric image on the film. The remainder of the colorful image is hand-painted later.

Check out Robert Buelteman’s gallery for more shockingly ethereal flowers.

Bonus: Check out this gallery of plants imaged via electromagnetic photography at myampgoesto11. Gorgeous!

(via DeMilked)

Pope Benedict XVI resigned after an internal investigation informed him about a web of blackmail, corruption and gay sex in the Vatican, Italian media reports say.

Three cardinals were asked by Benedict to verify allegations of financial impropriety, cronyism and corruption exposed in the so-called VatiLeaks affair.

The cardinals were said to have uncovered an underground gay network, whose members organise sexual meetings in several venues in Rome and Vatican City.

On December 17, 2012, they handed the pontiff two red-leather bound volumes, almost 300 pages long, containing “an exact map of the mischief and the bad fish” inside the Holy See, La Repubblica said.

After a public falling out, director Michael Bay and actor Megan Fox have reconciled their differences and are set to work together with Fox starring at April O'Neil in the upcoming TMNT big screen reboot.

wealldraw:

original character is free

Plants don’t blog. They don’t post stupid comments. They don’t have follower counts and they don’t care how many followers you have.

All plants want is a little water, a little sun, and a little company. And in return they’ll grow and change and reward you occasionally with explosions of beauty.

These changes don’t happen at internet speeds. You’ll hardly know they’re happening at all. This is one of the gifts plants give me. They remind me to slow down, to take the long view, to breathe, relax, and just wait for what happens next.

This is why I love having plants. (via)

This, I hope, will remind people that the business plans of the startups they use are, indeed, their business. They should find out how the company is making money now and what their plans are in the future. They can then make an educated decision whether to participate or not. They can also judge the company by how well they keep their word.

Many months back I started and neeeeearly finished this piece, for fun, between work. I have been (and am currently) in a long busy stretch, so I didn't get the chance to put the finishing touches on it until last week!

This all started as a composition exercise. I was reading the wonderful Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis (out of print, but free pdfs available online) and he has a great section about informal subdivision as a compositional tool. Informal subdivision is a process Loomis created, where you divide your image space unequally (and somewhat randomly!) by drawing a series of horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines. As he shows it in the book:


Once you create this dynamic linear plan for your image, you let it suggest your composition for whatever subject you have in mind. Here's the subdivision I made:


I didn't have a particular subject in mind, I just wanted to draw a lady. So I kind of just let myself meander a bit with the drawing.


I settled on the lady in the chair, who I made into a space lady (one of the best kinds of lady) who maybe got herself into some sort of a sticky situation.

Here's the final lined up with my informal subdivision.


It's a pretty fun exercise! It might be a little tricky to use if you need to have a specific sort of layout, but it's great for suggesting ideas. Try your own! Composition for all!

Feb 22nd 2013 By: Andy Khouri

Deadline is reporting that Matthew Vaughn will produce the new Fantastic Four film for 20th Century Fox. Based on the classic Marvel Comics superheroes created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, the film is to be directed by Chronicle's Josh Trank and is a reboot and unconnected to the studio's previous efforts, Fantastic Four and its sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Vaughn's involvement with the FF reboot is unexpected but not really a surprise. As a director Vaughn has quite the comic book pedigree, having made X-Men: First Class for Fox, as well as films based on Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess' Vertigo (not-really-a-comic-)book Stardust and Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr.'s Kick-Ass. Vaughn is also closely associated with Millar, who recently took a position at Fox where he'll consult on the studio's various superhero films, including Fantastic Four.

Vaughn has a reputation in Hollywood as a proper producer, someone who will see to it that the director's vision makes it to the screen. This is good news for FF director Trank, whose Akira-invoking Chronicle expresses a vision that's very distinct from anything else in the superpowered-persons realm at the moment.

urhajos:

Duke R2-D2 by *wytrab8

tastefullyoffensive:

Cats are jerks.

[via]

I’ve always said I like cats okay, but I’ve never trusted ‘em.

swag level 1000

naative:

Religious people came to my friends door and gave her this pamphlet but they got the texts wrong so apparently jesus has no time for you

(via)

Born without the use of her hind legs, Lola learned to walk just fine.

Another new drawing from the Line Gallery show in North Bay. Also without title. I'm open to suggestions.

 

 

Kraft’s subterranean cheese cave, Missouri by Christoph Morlinghaus

“More than three-quarters of the food consumed in the United States today is processed, packaged, shipped, stored, and sold under artificial refrigeration. The shiny, humming stainless steel box in your kitchen is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak—a tiny fragment of the vast global network of temperature-controlled storage and distribution warehouses cumulatively capable of hosting uncounted billions of cubic feet of chilled flesh, fish, or fruit. Add to that an equally vast and immeasurable volume of thermally controlled space in the form of shipping containers, wine cellars, floating fish factories, international seed banks, meat-aging lockers, and livestock semen storage, and it becomes clear that the evolving architecture of coldspace is as ubiquitous as it is varied, as essential as it is overlooked. […]

Despite the efforts of industry bodies, government agencies, and industrial archaeologists, this vast, distributed artificial winter that has reshaped our entire food system remains, for the most part, unmapped. What’s more, the varied forms of these cold spaces remain a mystery to most. This guide provides an introduction to a handful of the strange spatial typologies found within the “cold chain,” that linked network of atmospheric regulation on which our entire way of life depends. […]

Welcome to the coldscape: the unobtrusive architecture of man’s unending struggle against time, distance, and entropy itself.
”