More racing from the weekend! This time at the Singlespeed Cyclocross World Championships in Golden Gate Park. The only rule in this race is that you have to ride a bike with only one gear and aside from that there are no other rules. It was super fun, ridiculous and crazy!
Here’s the awesome quadcopter video of the event
Filed under: cyclocross, singlespeed · 0 Comments
This video was shot by an RC multipcopter at a race I did 2 weekends ago and is pretty awesome!
I noticed it hovering in the air that day and wondered what it was doing there. When I’m at a race, all I see is dust, dirt and gravel, so it’s pretty neat to see what it all looks like from above.
Filed under: cyclocross, multicopter, video · 0 Comments
Sometimes, for fun, I like to browse the illustration archives at the Library of Congress, which is a veritable treasure trove. I found the lovely one above while poking through the Tissandier Collection which contains images documenting “the early history of aeronautics with an emphasis on balloon flight.” There’s no information on the artist though which is unfortunate, but apparently he or she thought we’d get to the moon by bike! (which I kind of like :)
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Kidoodle Apps presents: Pirate Scribblebeard’s Treasure! from Kidoodle Apps on Vimeo.
My super talented friends Michaelangelo and Karen (and their equally talented son Oscar) just made a really fun drawing app for kids! I don’t have any kids…but I sometimes behave like one, and I have to say that my inner 6 yr old approves! I am going to give it my nephews since my brother’s iPad is, for the most part, a very expensive (but compact) kid’s toy (that is all they ever use it for). I especially like the “email” feature that makes it easy for kids to send their drawings to their parents (except I am going to set up the app so my nephew’s drawings come to me :).
You can find out more about the app over here and you can get it at the iTunes store over here!
Filed under: drawing, ipad · 0 Comments
the future of books belongs to popups! I just got 2 of them in the mail today and they are FUN.
The one below is called One Red Dot, by David Carter. It’s one of a series of books for kids featuring his fanciful paper sculptures, but I think adults will like it too. In spite of the fact that I love my iPad and do most of my recreational reading on it now, there’s something magical about opening a book and having a 3 dimensional creature or landscape pop up.
He also wrote another great book I got a while ago called The Elements of Popup which shows you how various popup mechanisms work. It’s awesome. You can even download the popup patterns from his website.
The other book that came in the mail is Trail by David Pelham which is lovely and delicate…but not really for kids.
The all white landscapes in this one remind me of an inspiring video I recently saw called The Ice Book – a miniature theatre performance projected behind a pop-up-book stage set.
Lastly, did you know that most popup books are still assembled by hand? (usually in China) It’s true…they are labor intensive and apparently too intricate for machines to deal with.
Filed under: books, crafty, popups · 0 Comments
I recently picked up this book at Green Apple earlier this week and it’s so beautiful I can’t stop looking at it! Some of you may have grown up seeing his illustrations in books like the The Golden Book of Biology. This compilation was assembled by Todd Oldham and is the most comprehensive book on Charley Harper right now. It’s GIGANTIC. You will not be able to fit it in your backpack or on your lap. Green Apple has one more boxed copy left for $49. This is an amazing deal given that this version of the book is $200 elsewhere and $125 on Amazon (hooray for Green Apple!) GO GET IT!! (If you don’t I will… although, if it happens to be gone, you can still get a smaller more manageable version of the book for a more manageable price).
Also, I haven’t really looked at this yet but apparently there is an iPad / iPhone game for kids based on illustrations by Charley Harper called Peekaboo Forest!
Filed under: books, charleyharper, illustration · 0 Comments
I just finished reading Zeitoun, an account of Hurricane Katrina and the disastrous events experienced by Zeitoun, a Syrian immigrant living in New Orleans and his American born wife Kathy.
The story is told from Zeitoun’s and Kathy’s perspective but written by Dave Eggers. When I first started the book, I have to admit I was a little skeptical because it’s written like a novel but is supposed to be a non-fiction account of this family’s experience. A part of me is always a little skeptical when I read anything that’s ghost-written or told through someone else, so I found myself questioning the dialog, the level of introspection, the details that seemed beyond the scope of memory. How could Eggers have known the exact words that were said on any particular day? The exact details of what something looked like? But accuracy to the letter isn’t the point of the book and once I accepted that and Eggers’ style of telling the story, I allowed myself to suspend disbelief and was drawn in.
The story that unfolds is gripping…and will make you very very angry…and depressed about our government. I won’t go into details about what happened – I didn’t know where the story would lead and I think that’s what made it so horrifying. At the same time it was heartwarming and inspiring to read about the family. I definitely recommend it.
Filed under: books, zeitoun · 0 Comments
woohoo it’s now possible to do this! I just discovered Bluefire Reader over the weekend and am happy to report that it works beautifully. The app lets you read ePub and PDF documents (including DRM ebooks available from most public libraries) on your iPad and iPhone. The UI is simple and easy to use. All I had to do was download the free app to my iPad, login to my SF public library account from Safari, and then download a book directly to my device. Their website says you need to download books to your computer first before transferring them to your iPad but I didn’t have any problems downloading directly to the iPad – no need for syncing and after 3 weeks, borrowed books are automatically returned (no more late fees!) It’s awesome!
Filed under: awesome, ebooks, ipad · 5 Comments
We now have kittens on turtles
and puppies on turtles. (poor turtles!)
Filed under: cats, cuuuuute, theinternetisawesome, turtles · 0 Comments
(taken by Michael Prados)
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This is the cutest thing I’ve seen all year.
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Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.
A dad and his son attached a video camera to a balloon, sent it up into space, and made this recording of the earth’s outer reaches.
Filed under: awesome, crafty, diy, spacecraft, video · 0 Comments
Yay! My first iPhone app is in the app store! Actually it’s been in the app store for a while now, but I wanted to fix a bug before telling anyone and well, the app store process being what it is…it took a while. Anyways, it’s finally up! I’m happy because I finally learned to make an iPhone app on my own, which is why it’s such a simple app…and free :).
I didn’t, however, use Obj C for the app, but decided to use javascript, jQTouch, and PhoneGap…so it’s essentially a web app in an Obj C wrapper. I think I will try to make a native app next…although I’m still struggling with the idea of the app store and the submission process.
On the one hand, I think it’s great that Apple is giving developers a place to be rewarded for the things they make…but the length of time it takes for them to “approve” an app and the approval process in general is hard to get used to (especially when you’re used to the speed and freedom of the web). The bug I fixed took 1 line of code and 2 seconds to update on the web (this being a web app, you can also access it here but you’ll have to save it to your home screen for it to work properly) – it took them a week and a half. I know that’s probably a short amount of time compared to how long others have had to wait but 2 seconds compared to a week and a half is a big difference! While I’m not likely to make something that they reject based on content alone, I love that no one can tell me what I can or can’t make for the web….and that whatever I make will likely work on other phones without having to rewrite a lot of code (I think…I’ve yet to package it for Android phones). I also have to say that working in XCode sort of reminds me a little of Eclipse and Flash (there are lots of things that seem weird and arbitrary).
But whining aside, I’m happy that I can now recognize the characters for most meat and vegetable dishes now! (a side benefit of doing this project :)
Filed under: education, food, iphone · 2 Comments
There are lots of really neat javascript demos on the JS1k site! This one, a musical instrument of sorts, by Christopher Abad is my favorite so far. Some other interesting entries are:
The deadline to submit something is this Friday and all submissions have to be 1k or less in size.
Filed under: code, javascript · 0 Comments
James Hance has reenvisioned Chewbacca, R2D2, and Han Solo as Winnie the Pooh characters in these super cute doodles. (I wonder though, if I think they’re cute because I’m old. A kid asked me the other day what Star Wars was and I was flabbergasted!)
Filed under: cuuuuute, illustration · 0 Comments
(works best in chrome but it’ll work in safari too)
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A guy named Ola in Norway is collecting one million giraffes and he needs them by the end of the year to win a bet. He’s got 824,025 of them so far (probably more by the time I click the “publish” button). The only rule is you can’t use a computer to make your giraffe(s). Here’s a video of him explaining why he wants a million of them. Anyways, I just sent him these two!
Filed under: doodles, giraffes · 0 Comments
Edible Paradise is a blog about cooking seasonally from farmer’s markets in Monterey and Santa Cruz that I just added to my RSS Reader.
One of my favorite things about living in Bernal is that I can walk or ride my bike to the Alemany Farmer’s Market every Saturday morning. For less than $20 I can stock up on food for the week! I have my favorite vendors for various things. Like the mushroom stand…and the egg stand…the jumbo eggs from Alemany are so big that they have to wrap rubber bands around the recycled cartons they use to keep the eggs from falling out. I don’t know really know where these eggs come from though and was just thinking today that it would be nice if there were a site for Alemany where you could find out about all the different vendors and farms at the market. Some of them I think have been selling at Alemany for several generations!
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I don’t think I’d want members of the royal family lounging in my teacup but still, these tea bags are ingenious! At least they are wearing clothes.
And while we are on the subject tea, this yellow submarine is also brilliant. I think the beatles would approve.
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The Literary Platform is a new blog “dedicated to showcasing projects experimenting with literature and technology.” Ever since I got an iPad I’ve been using it read webcomics that I used to read on my computer. Web comics are much more fun when lounging on the couch. I can’t wait for more interesting graphic novels to be available!
Filed under: books, ipad, literature · 0 Comments
The other 162 bots live over here. (Like all of us, TikiRobot has a crazy uncle too…)
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Hooray! Google Maps now tells you how to get to places by bike!
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This is going to be at the Palace of Fine Arts on Wednesday and Thursday. It looks awesome. We should go!
Here’s a list of films that are playing (though I’m not sure which films are playing on which night).
Filed under: banff, mountains, travel, video, wanderlust · 0 Comments
How adorable is this font?! It’s designed by Denise Bentulan and you can download it for free over here.
Filed under: cuuuuute, fonts, illustration, typography · 0 Comments
Filed under: birthday, comix, jibjab, video · 2 Comments