brooklyn walkup

roombacon

2009-03-19T23:08:00.002-04:00

finally, I have a castoff roomba to play with. apparently it has battery issues.
we'll see what the cats think about that.

the orbitron

2009-03-16T13:05:00.004-04:00

From 1965, the recently rediscovered and restored Big Daddy Roth hotrod, "Orbitron".

What's really far-out is that with that RGB headlight, it uses additive color mixing to get a white light, like stage lighting.

It was found in front of a mexican brothel.

USS Monitor vs. CSS Merrimack

2009-03-09T10:02:00.009-04:00

Today marks the 147th anniversary of the historic battle between the great Civil War ironclads the USS Monitor and the CSS Merrimack. I have always been fascinated by this whole concept of these primitive steel vessels duking it out with cannons, but especially liked the look of the Monitor with its giant turret (20ft H x 90ft W!)

very informative essay here.

For fear of this turning into a Civil War blog (which I easily could), let me point out that the Monitor was built here in Brooklyn, by a Swedish Engineer.
Greenpoint to be exact.

of paper toys and floating cars

2009-03-08T12:35:00.008-04:00

I love paper toys.

especially those old handrawn models. they usually seem to have much better fit than the new computer drawn ones.

they are good cheap fun and when I get bored of them, it's off to the recycling bin.

in particular, I enjoy cars that I could never have the room for, like the 2cv:

I found this on the french blog agence eureka and look forward to more.

regarding the the 2cv, I think that I will use my futuristic computer technology to make a variant known as the 2CV nautique. I understand that because there was such a long production run of these cars (until the 80's, I think) they can afford to chop them up. kinda like the ubiquitous vw bug.
I guess that with the agrarian culture, it makes sense that france would have rednecks as well as the united states...

CONSHELF II

2009-03-06T10:01:00.008-05:00

very intrigued by the remains of Jacques-Yves Cousteau's Starfish house that was built in 1963 to study the effects of humans living underwater.

this footage from 1975 is, in a way, almost more intriguing than a sunken shipwreck.

a more recent photo:

(more here)

weekend work

2009-03-05T22:02:00.002-05:00

another weekend is coming up and I've got another list of things to do. gotta take advantage of the crappy weather to rationalize staying in with all my electronics projects. this little side gig rewiring lamps will hopefully pay for my hobby.