Anamorphic Sculpture

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An anamorphic image is an image that appears distorted until viewed a particular way. Below is Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors with a Memento Mori, a well know example from classical painting (the odd looking blob at the bottom is a skull when viewed from an oblique angle).

The London based artist Jonty Hurwitz has created anamorphic sculptures (above) which reveal their images in reflective cylinders. You can see more of his work at his gallery of recent work.

Via: Colossal Art & Design, which includes a video of his work showing how it appears as you move around the sculpture.

Holbeins painting with the anamorphic image

The skull seen from the correct angle

Fixing a Flat

The above video shows how to apply a patch to a large $30,000 tire from an earth moving machine.

Glass Viruses

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 Luke Jerram is something called an 'installation artist'. His installations have featured such things as Hot Air balloons floating around playing music, pianos scattered around cities folks could play on, little gold figurines scattered about that people could find and keep, and so forth.

This post is about his Glass Microbiology series of sculptures. Working with scientists and glassblowers, he has created glass sculptures of various diseases. There are more examples of them after the jump and at at the link.

Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

A great version of the spiritual by the Dixie Hummingbirds. 

    

LEGO Egg Decorating Machine and More!!!

If you haven't decorated your Easter eggs yet you can always build one of these handy devices to assist you with the job. From JK Brickworks, which has information about the egg decorator, as well as the Hatching LEGO Eggs (below), and many more LEGO projects.

Sugary Cereals With Prizes Inside

Brigid at Borepatch's put up the post When Your Cereal Selection is Based on the Prize in the Box - Growing up in the 60's. She looks back at the sugary cereals of her youth and the little toy prizes that came in them. It is a nice trip down memory lane.

My brother and I were raised on the sugar-sweetened joy of the 60's.   My favorite Western RanchHands were Twinkie the Kid and the Hostess Cupcake. We drank Koolaid (Soda Pop was an expense that was only the rarest of treats in my house), or better yet, cold water from the garden hose. We watched TV when we could, but mostly we ran, we jumped, we covered miles of ground on our bikes. TV was a treat, not a weekend-long marathon and the backyard was our empire, one of constant motion. None of us had an ounce of spare flesh on us, we were lean and healthy from all the outdoor playtime.

And our cereal came with prizes in the box. 

Follow the link above and read the whole thing. By the way, speaking of prizes inside, here is a link to an old post of mine about Cracker Jack.
  

Vintage Farm Magazine Covers

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 After following the adventures of Farmer Bill and his New Tractor, I decided to look up some old farmer's magazine covers to see what he read. So I went to MagazineArt to see what they were like.

From the titles of the articles, while a few were concentrated mainly on the business of farming, others were more focused on the rural/outdoors lifestyle. Those types had a heavy dose of old style Americana about them. Some also had romance stories, so some must have been aimed primarily at the farm wives. 

There are more samples after the jump, and of course many more at MagazineArt.

The Sounds of Venus

While the U.S. concentrated on landing probes on Mars, the Soviet Union sent a number of probes to Venus. One of them, Venera 14, had a microphone aboard. Above is a video with a soundtrack from Venera 14.

Not surprisingly the sound isn't all that interesting -- sadly, no outer-space monsters roaring in the background. However, the accompanying images from the surface of Venus are well worth a look.
 

Horseless Farming With Ford Tractors - 1917 Film

Little Billy Todd leaves the farm and discovers Ford tractors and true love. The Ford tractor plant seems to be from before assembly lines. And the tractor sure spews a lot of smoke.
 

Old Slot Machines

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I am not a gambler, so I have no nostalgia for slot machines. Still, I've seen them here and there in my travels and they're always fascinating in their own way. Gaudy and loud as they try to suck coins and/or tokens out of your pockets.

 

 

Billy Jean

Billy Jean covered by Honeywagon

 

Revolver & Camera

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 While modern gun cameras are not unusual, this 1943 version mounted on a Colt 38 is an oddity. This photograph, with an inset of six photos taken by the gun camera, was taken in New York, but nothing else is known about the gun. The picture was posted to Flikr by the National Archives of the Netherlands who hope they can get information about it.
 

The Wintergatan - A Marble Driven Musical Instrument

Following my post about Pipe Organs, we have another complex musical instrument: the marble driven Wintergatan. While not as imposing as pipe organs, it is still quite impressive (albeit in a silly sort of a way). Above is a video of it in action, and the below two videos show how it works.

Pipe Organs

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Pipe organs are ancient instruments. The Greeks originally used water to force wind through pipes, but by the 6th Century AD bellows were being used to produce the wind flow for them.

In Christian churches, both visually and through their sound, they became part of the majesty and mystery of religion itself. Their installations were elaborate and quite beautiful.

Here, and after the fold, are some of those installations. Also, since we should hear as well as see the pipe organs, at the end is Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Enjoy.

Chuck Berry - No Money Down

RIP Chuck Berry
 

Chicken Attack

Well, this one defies description. All I can say is... watch it to the end and you'll be treated to Japanese chicken yodeling.
  

The Patented Pigeon Camera

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In the 19th Century, and early 20th Century, homing carrier pigeons were common. They were primarily used to deliver messages, however they they had other uses. In 1903 Dr Julius Neubronner, an apothecary in Germany, used them to deliver medicines to a sanatorium in a nearby city.

He eventually began to experiment with mounting small cameras on the pigeons with shutters on timers that could take pictures while the birds were in flight. He submitted a patent for his first Pigeon Camera in 1907. At first it was rejected. The patent office thought it impossible for the pigeons to carry the weight of the camera, but it was finally approved when he provided pictures they had taken.

His technique became popular when he exhibited his pigeon cameras at the 1909 International Photographic and the International Aviation exhibitions. He would send his pigeons aloft, develop the pictures when they returned and sell them as postcards.

Photography from aircraft soon eclipsed the popularity of Dr Neubronner's pigeon cameras. I wonder what he would think of today's drone mounted cameras?

Sources:  Pigeon photography, Now that's a bird’s eye view.

Finally -- a Realistic Battle Scene in a Movie

Man, do these extras chew the scenery in their death scenes, or what?
 

Spanish-American War Graphics

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 The Spanish-American War has largely faded from America's historical memory, but it was very consequential in the move of the U.S. from a purely continental power to a naval and a 19th century imperial power. The notions of imperial America vs America taking its place at the table of World Powers were batted about at the time. Those conversations still echo in our national dialog.

I started by looking for propaganda posters about the Spanish-American War, but there were very few of them. However, there was a wealth of graphics of battles and editorializing about its aftermath.Enjoy, and as always there are more after the jump.

Starting a 1909 Blackstone Oil Engine

The video is from rustymotor's YouTube channel. I quite like the style of filming and the soundtrack that is nothing but the engine's sound.

The comments that introduce it state, "[The] 1909 10HP Blackstone oil engine was used for pumping water from a river to a market garden. The engine was sabotaged in the 1920s by someone blowing up the cylinder with explosives. A new cylinder was installed and the engine was returned to service for a number of years when it eventually fell into disuse. A number of river floodings submerged the engine and it was eventually partially buried in silt. It was recovered in the 1990s and in 1997 it was dismantled, cleaned and started again after many years of neglect. The starting procedure requires heating of the hot bulb with a blow lamp in order to vaporise the fuel ( kerosene ) and to preheat the internal combustion chamber to allow fuel ignition."