Friday Ephemera

Real-time global map of distress calls and disasters. // G-Speak spatial interface. // Space station bachelor pad. // The world of washing machines. // The museum of art museum toilets. (h/t, Mick) // Art museum guards. (h/t, Coudal) // The collected Jonathan Meades. (h/t, Georges) // Irony. // Clever Monkeys. // When birds flock. // Underwater robot rescues fish. // Bioluminescent fungi. // Transmogrifier. // Vintage pop-up books. // Mannequin moustaches. // Art cars. // Concept cars. // Honda’s V4 concept bike. // Groovy antique scooter. // Knitted motorcycle cosy. (h/t, Wild Slutty Womens) // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Mr Burl Ives.

Comments

[newbie]

The disaster map is very impressive. It's even got some car accidents.

[John D]

Love the transmogrifier. It's a real shame Bill Watterson stopped drawing Calvin and Hobbes. It was a brilliant strip.

[David]

“It was a brilliant strip.”

One of the best. It managed to be both surreal and quite touching. I particularly liked the ongoing series of gags with the box – transmogrifier, time machine, Calvin duplicator, etc. And the racoon story is very sweet.

http://www.lovine.com/hobbes/comics/racoon.html
http://www.lovine.com/hobbes/comics/racoon2.html

[Paul]

One of the best birthday presents I've ever received was the lovely Calvin & Hobbes box set, containing the complete strips. Pure pleasure. And relatively cheap on Amazon.

[Anna]

So is Hobbes just a toy or does he actually come alive?

[David]

Anna,

“So is Hobbes just a toy or does he actually come alive?”

One of the pleasures of the strip is that it’s never quite made clear. Hobbes is always inert when seen from the point of view of Calvin’s friends and parents, but there’s just enough ambiguity to keep the question somewhere in the background. Watterson was very Zen about it:

“The so-called ‘gimmick’ of my strip - the two versions of Hobbes - is sometimes misunderstood. I don't think of Hobbes as a doll that miraculously comes to life when Calvin’s around. Neither do I think of Hobbes as the product of Calvin’s imagination. Calvin sees Hobbes one way, and everyone else sees Hobbes another way. I show two versions of reality, and each makes complete sense to the participant who sees it… Hobbes is more about the subjective nature of reality than about dolls coming to life.”

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5007825

[carbon based lifeform]

I like the G-speak interface. Very "Minority Report."

BTW, Harry's Place is asking The Big Question…
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/12/05/why-read-the-guardian/

[David]

Carbon,

It’s interesting that many of the HP commenters who do buy the Guardian say they buy it for the Saturday listings guide, rather than the news and commentary. In fairness, that probably is the most defensible reason. Oh, and Ben Goldacre is quite good.

[gaffee]

In the thread about Al-Guardian the word "smug" has been used 7 times. So far.

[Brian H]

The flocking birds are wonderful.

[liamalpha]

Wow, the museum guardians is such a simple, yet powerful photographic idea. The museum guards sometimes look like museum pieces themselves, and sometimes there's a more interesting interaction: On the 4th picture from the right, is the sitting woman the same woman in the painting, many many years ago?

[Candice]

What should be (and probably has been) done is to paint a perspective image of a museum guardian on a museum wall. Thus the guard can be an artistic work. Or to make a wax guardian. Any such thing will do.