De Puniet Helmet

I'm generally not much of a fan of trying to emulate racer's helmets or paint schemes for road use, and I've seen very few factory helmet graphics that I would consider donning, but I think I could handle this new De Puniet replica RSI from Shark.

I'm currently in the market for a new lid and although I think I'd have to cover the "Randy" text and I'm a little uneasy about what may be hiding at the very back this will be added to my helmet short list.

via twowheelsblog

Update:
The back isn't as bad as I feared, with only a quite restrained RDP logo, still unsure I'd leave it though.



lcr.mc

Live Dirt Track

I read a few days ago that Roland Sands' crew are putting on a "Run what ya brung" dirt track event. All well and good if I were in Cali. The interesting bit I just found out is that the event will be broadcast live on the RSD website!

By my rudimentary calculations I'll be out for most of the duration so I live in hope that someone will put some footage up on youtube.

via hellforleather

Good Cookies

The engineered blandness of "cookie cutter" suburbia always disturbs me, the same roofs, the same fences, sometimes the same colours. Whether it is due to overly restrictive regulations or just the higher cost of building anything that would be considered different, or the lack of desire to do so, all the new housing developments I have seen recently are tainted with the same taste of beige.

As with any form of production, it is cheaper to build multiple entities rather than one-offs, so why are there so few projects that push the boundaries a little while keeping the budget under control by increasing the numbers. Is it lack of interest and demand, unwillingness of planning department or just lack of imagination?

Here is one example of building to a consistent, yet original, plan that results in interesting dwellings that give buyers the opportunity to live in an interesting building without having to foot the bill for a bespoke home:

‘the cyclops’ hilversum, the netherlands, 2001 (photo by andrei thurlow)



Of course if every street looked like this we would be back at square one.

via designboom

Flying Dirt

via speedhunters

Trusty Steed

Thought I'd post up a couple of images of my trusty steed and ongoing project.
It is my primary transport so I can't afford the luxury of having it off the road for extended periods, as such the modifications thus far have been very mild weekend affairs. The other hindrance is (a non-existant) budget, these factors have limited changes to TRX tail panels, and aftermarket pipe. The most attractive quality of the tail and pipe were price (free) and I had to build the link pipe, battery box, sub-frame and many small parts from scratch but I think they look, and work, reasonably so far.
I will most likely make another sub-frame once I get my hands on a seat to match the tail to the tank ('03 ZX6 seems close) as the first effort was a little rushed and I'd like to incorporate some form of expandable luggage capacity. Along with all the other tasks on the to-do list like ZX10 front end and wheels, design and make all new body etc.....



When it was standard for comparison's sake:

Easy CAD?

If this new development from Siemens lives up to it's promises, it really could be as earth shattering as they make it out to be in this promo video (the real interest starts at about the 5min mark, the rest is history and fill).

The advance is called Synchronous Technology, essentially it enables modelling to be independent of parent-child relationships so that future use and possible modifications don't need to be planned for in the initial stage of model building. While on the surface it sounds like a lazy way to model, the benefits further along the life of the model would be immense: no more having to dig back to the base sketch after trying to change one dimension and having a dozen errors show up.

The technology will be incorporated in to the next release of Solid Edge and there are going to be information sessions around Australia in June.

I may have to consider changing my CAD loyalties.

Some practical ink

This has to be the most useful tattoo I've seen (short of the ID bar code that will eventually rule our lives, careers and place in society). I wonder if he has a metric version on another finger for doing business with the rest of the world.

Church of Choppers

Adaptive living

I just came across Big Prototype's changeable dining/coffee table over at swiss miss. I love the clean lines and simple construction of this execution, it also transported me back a few moths to the development stages of our own Confused table:



While both tables share a common initial idea they obviously came from different briefs and requirements. Confused was designed for an exhibition called Dine in the South Australian Museum as part of [X]periment. As the piece could address any aspect of dining we chose to address the changing dining habits, especially those of people with small homes without the space to spare for a dedicated dining table.

The main points of the brief were that the table must seat four diners comfortably, take the minimum possible footprint when in coffee table form, and allow configuration changes by one person with as little fuss as possible.

While I am reasonably happy with the result, I regard it's current form as merely a prototype, as such we are in the throws of addressing some of the issues presented and refining the table.

The invasion continues

Is nothing safe from the space invasion? While I do understand the appeal of this, and quite like it, I'm still a little disappointed that this is essentially just another of the plethora of existing products trading on the "retro" appeal of the Space Invader. I've seen this iconography used in a various different formats and products including jewellery and clothing from many sources (I can think of two separate hoodies alone), along with street art, school assignments and advertising.
While some of these are highly original and at the leading edge, for example the Invader, who not only used the design in a completely new context, he did it with mosaics. Others are merely profiting from memories and the current "cool". Has this become the present day smiley face?

Disclaimer: I fully acknowledge that one of Two Halves products could be lumped into this discussion.


via Monster-Munch

A familiar story

Going through road worthy inspection:



48 hours later:



Ah, the memories.... I've not been through the saga of getting a car legal, then immediately turning it back into what it should be for a few years, but it's a situation I remember fondly with the pride of putting one over on the authorities (even if only temporarily).
Just like looking both way before crossing a road, it's still very much an ingrained habit to always have a keen eye out for the Fuzz, although the recent modifications to my bike have made it a necessary tactic again.

Panscapers

Cherish your failures

Some wise and timely reflective advice from Micheal Ditullo posted on the Core77 Board. I've got it bookmarked to see what other gems come from this discussion.

Bike travel by air

A recent post by Yorgo Tloupas, only adds to my desire to build up a single speed bike. It solves one of the problems of travelling to new city: getting around without spending a fortune on taxis or having to figure out the public transport riddle (admittedly some cities are fantastically simple).
I've spoken to a number of people about checking in a bike as part of your luggage and this little write-up just cements the brilliance of the concept. There are still problems to overcome though; last time I flew I was carrying a crate containing two lamps for the exhibition I was attending,. I don't like my chances of hauling that and the bike through the terminal, let alone riding with it.



check out the carbon forks

Dope Shizzz*

*their title not mine.



The folk over at VWvortex have some really interesting pictures threads running, you do have to wade through their bickering and copious amounts for VW and 'Supercar' photos (many of which are genuinely cool) but the pay-off is the great variety of images.

A sampling:

10 Degrees

One of my spare-time-sucking projects is two halves, it is a collaboration with an old uni collegue primarily making furniture, lighting and some smaller products. We recently completed the latest prototype of our 10 Degrees table. We needed images in a hurry, for submission to an exhibition, so although neither Aus or I are photographers we had to make do with what we had at hand. These images were taken late at night in a local loading dock using their sensor light and our headlights as studio lighting. The result is far from professional but I'm happy enough with them given the resources at hand.

King of pop-up ABC (printers nightmare)

This ABC pop up is not the sort of volume you give to your three year old to teach them the alphabet, you could i guess, but I'd advice you to get two copies. The articulation of the pages in this book is phenomenally clever, both in the grandeur of it and the variety of techniques. I had trouble deciding which pages to post as they are all worthy, check out the cover too.

The video needs to be seen to do it justice





via: Arkitip Intelligence

Sideburn

I discovered Sideburn magazine some time ago and immediately fell for it. I combines the talents of two of my favourite media types: writer Gary Inman, and photographer Ben Part. I was first impressed with the work of these guys on the pages of Performance Bikes and I've taken notice ever since. So you can imagine my excitement when I found that they had started a blog along with this new project: Sideblog. Frequent snippets by guys I admire on subjects I'm in to!



images from hell for leather

Feeding the addiction

Watches are an addiction of mine (not that I can afford to get my fix often) and I just found the next to add to my collection: the Nixon Esquire. For now I'll have to content myself with my Thai Bell & Ross knock-off (genuine below), but eventually I will track this one down.


I can't condone forgeries but it's understandable when a B&R is around $5000 and my fake was $50, I will get the real deal one day...

via sub-studio