Graffiti Creator

Someone asked me to plaster a picture of a local beauty spot with mock graffiti today (don't ask!)....and not being that way artistically inclined I had to find something to aid the design process. Luckily I came across Graffiti Creator a while ago. Now it doesn't have a 'save' option, only 'print', but there's 2 workarounds if you want to use your tag as an image...
1 If you have a 'virtual' pdf printer installed just print to that, many image editing programmes are capable of opening pdfs where you can tidy the image up
2 That ever-useful PrtSc (Print Screen) key at the top of your keyboard works wonders too.

Welcome to Mars

"Two years ago, Ken Hollings (a UK journalist) presented a radio series called Welcome To Mars, his reflections on the "fantasy of science in the early years of the American Century." In this unscripted, engaging, and mind-bending series Ken connects the dots between nuclear war, LSD, flying saucers, the occult, weird science, B movies, and the birth of the space age. Ken's words are supported by an incredible outer space score prdocued by Simon James."

Listen to/download all 12 episodes here

A book based on the radio broadcasts is due to be published soon (details)

via BoingBoing

60's Newcastle

Starts Monday, click the image for bigger. A few more details here, (and click on the image for all the gory details of the Bainbridge Revlon Make-up counter......go on, double dog dare you!)

Rainbow....the X rated episode

Bubble Cars

Oh, how I wanted one!



There's a great post about the Bubble Car Museum at Nothing to See Here for the similarly afflicted.

A moment in time

"Muther Grumble existed for around 2 years between 1971-1973 it was produced by a motley group of people consisting of students, workers, the unemployed, trade unionists, pensioners, hippies, artists etc, etc. - anyone who wanted to be involved could be. Its aim was to give a voice to the people of the North East and act as a link between the many varied community/self-help groups which were springing up throughout the region at that time."

The online archive of all 17 issues (either read online or download as pdf)

What are you doing here?

because Dr Who REALLY wants to know!......

Animal crackers

Maw's Educated Ponies....
"When he retired in 1954, Mr Joseph Maw reminisced about his 44 years with educated animals. His first was a horse called Skylark, who could pick from a pile of handkerchiefs those colours named by the audience. Another was Daisy, who danced, and then there was Dolly, the Shetland pony who did sums and told fortunes. In addition, he had a troupe of performing dogs." No, no you can't leave me in suspense...tell me more

From the "North Shields, Life and Work, 1890-1930" Collection at Tomorrow's History

Only for the very, very brave....

....because once started there's no obvious way to stop....but then again, who'd want to?
Click on the character to listen to the theme tune at Clumsy.info Bring back Supergran!

Find 10 Gnomes, Episode 9:Chemistry

The latest episode of Find 10 Gnomes has been released.....
Play Episode 9:Chemistry
And links to all the rest here

Putting Britain on the Map

Splendid 1953 video of the Ordnance Survey at work. When I was drawing maps for the DOE in the 70's things really hadn't changed that much.....during training we had weeks mastering the art of hand lettering (a full week of my working life was taken up writing the single word MOONMAN with a mapping pen getting to grips with the concept of 'negative spaces'!) and how to use proportional dividers, scribing was still seen as cutting-edge technology. Notice the distinct lack of female presence and the prevalence of the necktie and sensible specs. Happy days!

Excuses, excuses......

So it's been 'Freshers Week'.......and I'm almost blinded by the reflected light from shiny new faces and designer rucksacks. Click on the above image to find out my cunning plan to survive another academic year. The corner shop came up trumps with an industrial sized jar that might just last me till next weekend. Zzzzzzz.......................

Star quality

Via JayisGames......
"Hoshi Saga is a simple game of discovery. One part point-and-click and one part puzzle game, the objective in each stage is to find the star. How you go about doing that is different for every level. The task is up to you to figure out how." (Part 3 has just been released)

Hoshi Saga
Hoshi Saga 2
Hoshi Saga 3

Wooden Mirror

Via Cut 'n Paste Weblog

"interactive artist daniel rozin works in a very particular artistic milieu, making mirrors from unreflective surfaces. one of his creations, 'the wooden mirror' is a testament to his skill in this area. the mirror uses 830 square pieces of wood which are hooked up to an equal number of small motors which move the wooden blocks according to a built in camera. the camera picks up movement in light and somehow transfers the signal to the wood. the result is an eerie representation of reality depicted in tiny wooden pixels. since building 'the wooden mirror' rozin has experimented with a number of other materials."

Watch it in action.....

Daniel Rozin's website

Green webpage printing

"Have you ever printed a webpage only to find your printout consisted mostly of empty space, ads and other junk you didn't want? PrintWhatYouLike is a webpage editor that lets you control how webpages look when printed."

Link

The Map That Came to Life

My sort of book! A scan of the whole thing can be found here at The Alphabet of Illustrators

Giant Pool of Money

Promised Chris I would post a link to this radio programme. It explains the origins of the current credit crunch in a way that even I understood!

"A special program about the housing crisis produced in a special collaboration with NPR News. We explain it all to you. What does the housing crisis have to do with the turmoil on Wall Street? Why did banks make half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income? And why is everyone talking so much about the 1930s? It all comes back to the Giant Pool of Money."

Link to listen online

The Corpus Christi clock and Chronophage

Amazing stuff....more details here

Fun with stationery.....who'd have thought it?

EepyBird's Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo.

The Golden Age of LP covers

More vintage goodness at LP Cover Lover