I love surplus.

I was at my local surplus store when I came across these great tools.

I'm not sure what the original intended use for these was but... I will find a good use for them.
They looking more like they would be used for torture then any thing else.

(If you know the purpose these bad boys where designed for drop me a line.)

Mini pliers sweet.

I cannot think of any practical use for them, they are almost too small to use successfully.
Yes that is a Quarter for scale

I am all for getting things online but these are things that you I would not find online because they are not something that one goes looking for, for that I say here is to the store, the place where I can go and touch, feel and see the crazy fun things that I just have to have and will find a use for later.

Yea... I need one or... maybe 2

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The Guys at London's Mutoid Waste Company sure have made Mark Pauline and the rest of the crew at Survival Research Laboratories very proud.

"I like to make machines that can just do their own shows... machines that can do all that machines in the science fiction novels can do. I want to be there to make those dreams real."- Mark Pauline

"Rube Goldberg" Machines

I think it might be time to stop calling them Rube Goldberg machines.


The Honda Cog ad

I don't think that it is an accurate or fair to either side. The sides being Rube Goldberg and those who make these contraptions. When done well these contraptions are well , like the cog commercial, they are poetry in motion. Maybe the poetry of motion. At their worst even Rube goes "What?"



Rube Goldberg's illustrations are great whimsical illustrations that play with the imagination.

These machines really got their start with Peter Fischli and David Weiss with their short film Der Lauf der Dinge, The Way Things Go.
Here are two of my personal favorite, besides the Cog ad or The Way Things Go.






I'm not sure what we should be calling them but I do feel that there has to be a better way to describe them.

It's soo cutie.

I don't go awe it's so cutie very often, but I saw this and...


"Look at the little baby trailer."
Ok then...
"Hay, you gotta license for that thing."
"So, is that the practice trailer and when you pass the test you get the real one."
"I take it you where at the toy store Christmas shopping and just could not resist getting a toy for your self."
"So, what is gonna go on something that small."

I think that is all I got.
But I'm sure that it has many uses, I cant think of any. It fits nicely in the garage.

"It's pledge time here on PBS."

That can only mean one thing tracking down when "Alone in the Wilderness" is going to be on.
If you have not seen this than... well you are missing out on something. "Alone in the Wilderness" give an account of what it was like for Dick Proenneke living day to in the remote Twin Lakes, Alaska. I have to say that he is one of my hero's, dear I say idol. He moved there in retiment and build everything thing he needed and live by himself for 30 years. He made his cabin and it could be one of the greatist single pices of craftsmanship of the 20th centry. The footage in the film he all shot him self on 16mm with a tripod all in his first year and his journals are used as the sript.




Needless to say Dick did not hunt wolves, moose or anything else from a airplane.
He died in 2003, after moving to calinforina in 1999 at age 82. I belive the resaon he gave for leaving Twin Lakes had something to do with the it being to long and to cold in the winter something 80 below with windchill.

5-in-1

The 5-in-1 painters tool.
No work shop or tool box should be without one or more.


I can't tell you what the 5 tools in the 1 are but I know that it has more than 5 uses. I have pushed these bad boys to the edge doing things that they were never meant to do, and I can not recall ever breaking one (new mission try to break a 5-in-1 or at lest damage beyond all repair).

Here is something you don't see every day.

Yep, the truck is straddling the lane divider, the in and the out. Now I'm not sure how or why it happened but it did. I have to wonder what the driver was thinking when the legs on the trailer hit the concrete. Anyway in my quest to try and understand why this might happen, I created a "photo-realistic" birds eye view.


I am the last person to say "Are you sure you know what your doing?" I'm more of a "Whats the worst that can happen, go for it" kinda of guy, but that's just me. I do how ever think you should know the limits of your tools, in this case the truck, and I do like to have a plan.
"I think we learned something today......"

"Found Object"

I was cleaning and the hand attachment on the vacuum was not working right.
So, took it a part and what a great little machine driven by the suction.


You can see the belt drive. I just have to say what a great, simple solution.

I'm Calling it a two-fer

The greatest pliers ever.
Fence Pliers

I know that they are meant for building fence (I know because when I worked for NYC and made fence they rocked), but they are great to have around the shop as well.



So even Kevin Kelly, one of the founders of and now editor at large of WIRED. He also writes is own web site www.kk.org and the Cool Tools portion of the site. Where fence pliers are featured.
So there it is two things Fence Pliers and the Great Kevin Kelly, KK.org.

Here it is your moment of ZEN.

Via.

The Vertebrae

It has been called a "Swiss Army Knife" for the bathroom.
An all in one column that is 8 feet tall designed by Paul Hernon.
What a great way to make the most use of all space in an room that does not need to be to big.

Via the Daily Mail.

Tag-a-long

After the post about Troy Hurtubise and "Project Grizzly" I think it would be good to fallow up with Dr. Brady Barr of the National Geographic Channel. He had a "Hippo Suit" made so he could get close to live wild Hippos to collect sweat, I know sweat kinda out there. Any way check the video.

Time to Kill

If you got time to kill and are looking for a movie I am going to tell you to get "Project Grizzly" (netflix it or whatever). The doc is about Troy Hurtubise and his quest to make a "Grizzly-Proof" suit. Troy is out there... he even got himself an Ig Nobel Prize* in Safety Engineering. You can Check out Troy's web site, here.







*The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative -- and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology. (Part of me wantsto win one.)

Trash Art?

The San Francisco city dump has an Artist in Residence program. My first thought was what?!??... then, right San Francisco. But beyond, that I looked in to it more and it looks like a great residency, it has all the things one might expect 24 hour access, studio space, a monthly stipend and the thing that sets it a part is artist a encouraged make work from reclaimed metreials and they are free.
The current artists are Barbara Holmes and Casey Logan
Some of their work:

Barbara Holmes "After Hours"

Casey Logan "Galactic Tumbleweed"

There is even a sculpture garden. Check it out here.

The I-35

The I-35w bridge reopened early this morning, so i thought that I would post pictures I took after the bridge collapsed.

Dark Evil Matter

The CERN Large Hadron Collider is up and running although nothing has been collided..... yet.
What a sweet machine tunnel smashing thing. I'm still not sure what a Hadron is but when they collide I'll bet it's cool.






I'd be willing to bet it's something like this:




Or this:



One more if I can get a way with it:



I think it might be on a smaller scale, more controlled and more science-y.
In all the things I learned/heard about the LHC is that there was going to be a even bigger collider built in the only place that could handle 54 miles of underground tunnels (the LHC is only 17 miles)... Texas. The Superconducting Super Collider (that's two supers) was underconsturion untill 1993m in Waxahachie, Texas.

5 things.

yep.

Canoe

Not to long ago I repaired and gave my canoe a custom paint job.

Who doesn't love PIRATES!!!!!!!

Basically I re-glassed the bottom of the boat and filled the scratches.
Painted the gold.
I made the Jolly Roger in illustrator that masked off the skull and painted the brown over it.

I could not find the picture of it when I was in the BWCA in the summer.So one more when I was painting it.

MAKE THINGS

I have need a place to sit in my work space so with some scrap from a round the garage. I cranked out this stool.


Plus there is always room for pirates.
I'll get to my bike soon.

A good place to start

Arthur Ganson is one of the "father's" of kinetic art. The motion in "Machine with Artichoke Petal" is just mesmerizing along with his other works.


Respectfully lifted from artists web site.
In Mach of 2004 he gave a talk at the TED Conference.