Duga-3, a monumental Soviet antenna, also known as the Russian Woodpecker thanks to the steady clicking noise it put out across the short-wave band. More information here. Back in the 80s, no-one knew where this inteference was coming from. A little bit more about mystery signals.

Collected Visuals, Design Milk, Beaden, Off the Hoof, Right-Handed, Cosas Visuales, all visual weblogs / the many personas of Joe Nickell / Curio+Abyss, an image blog. Some of said images may not be safe for work / Houze.net, a photo focused weblog.

Armour for mice and cats, by artist Jeff de Boer, via Equivocal / the best of ItalDesign Giugiaro / the Italians develop a robotic hawk to keep airport runways clear of birds. Bird Raptor's Falco Robot is a robotic hawk that acts as a 'gregarious bird removal system (GBRS)'. The company states that the robot 'does not eat, does not dirty, does not fall ill, and most of all, is ...effective.'

Eric Gill got it wrong; a re-evaluation of Gill Sans at Typotheque: '...rather than refuse commissions for Extra Bold and Ultra Bold (well beyond the weight of what was considered normal), he continued to draw up and deliver designs that [Gill] knew to be aesthetically unjustifiable.' / Comparison, an excellent flickr set. The above image comes from a set of computer generated panoramas from the summit of Suilven in Scotland.

The film festival to end all film festivals: Ballardian Home Movies / Jeannie Rusten, photographer / art by Thomas Doyle / Pop-Up Cities: China Builds a Bright Green Metropolis, just like that, Dongtan emerges from the marshes / see also A Slice of Self in RMB City, a post about a 'cyber art island' created within Second Life by artist Cao Fei. Essentially a fanciful but entirely unrealistic 'recreation of China’s social landscape in all its paradoxical glory.' Found at Visions of Modernity, via psfk.

The Mediamatic blog / Abandoned and Little Known Airfields in California / A House in Spain, a photo essay by Alban Kakulya / Architecture Lab, a weblog / Chilton Computing Photographs: 1961-1989, over 3,000 images of the early days including this 1975 unboxing ceremony.

Recommended watching, Jonathan Meades / imitation is the sincerest form, the 2008 Plagiarius Awards lays bare the extent of straightforward copying in the design industry. Unsurprisingly, the worst perpetrators are the Chinese manufacturers.

posted by things at 20:36 / 0 comments