Dritz Quilting Measuring Gauge

I’ve had a plastic variant of this for a few years now. Undeniably handy, but being plastic meant that the ¼" arm had broken off. Saw this in metal and had to grab it. For $3? Hell yeah.

http://www.dritz.com/quilting-sewing-supplies/quilting/marking-measuring-tools/quilters-measuring-tools/3100/#sthash.qwu5OoXS.dpbs

Tripl

Interesting design for inter-urban deliveries. As population density in cities increases, and traffic becomes more problematic, our 1950s approach to delivering and collecting goods needs to change. Large vans that are largely empty, clogging roadways, aren’t a sensible solution any more.

Denmark’s Tripl electric cargobike is an interesting attempt to address this challenge. Cargo capacity of 750 litres and a load capacity of 200 kg. An 8 hour charge of the 8 kWh battery yields a range of 70-100 km. The box can be alternately heated or refrigerated. Clearly their use is limited in winter time, but that’s still not a reason to not start thinking about ways to relieve traffic congestion. 

http://en.tripl.com/TRIPL

S.o.t.D. - Blah Blah – L.A.O.S.

Blah Blah – L.A.O.S.

Nothing blah about this tune.

High Level Bridge Wander

I’ve been heading down to check out the rail bridge construction going down by the Desjardins Canal a few times in the last few months. Received a gift of a hike enhancer and went for a wander.

 Dundas Peak in the distance.

Princess Point.

High Level Bridge.

The view from atop the bridge.

Some views of the ongoing construction as the prepare to put in the bridge.

360° view from atop the bridge before heading down the stairs.

The view across the road.

Cross over again and head down.

Cootes Paradise on the other side.

About halfway down the stairs.

 Looking up. The area in the middle is where the new bridge is going to go. The stone abutment on the right is still the original ones put in in the middle of the 19th century. They were there at the time of the 1857 train disaster.

 A view from one end of the canal, from the Burlington Bay side.

And the view if I turn 180°.

Merganser.

Looking down the canal from the other end, the Cootes Paradise side.

You have been warned.

Views of the Cootes Paradise side of the canal, with the fishway that keeps carp out.

Ground level views of Cootes Paradise.

S.o.t.D. - Signs (Rødhåd Remix) – Howling

Signs (Rødhåd Remix) – Howling

S.o.t.D. - Spunion – Tipper

Spunion – Tipper

Melt your brain!

S.o.t.D. - Hungarian Ghoulash – Mad Professor & Scientist

Hungarian Ghoulash – Mad Professor & Scientist

You’ll be whistling this little ditty all day. 

Duuuuuuub!

S.o.t.D. - Lost In Thought – Koan Sound

Lost In Thought – Koan Sound

Would go well in a set with Cinematic Orchestra. Lush, evocative, catchy.

The History of Typography

A 291 paper-letter, 2,454 photograph stop-motion animation about the history of fonts and typography, by Whitehorse, Yukon designer Ben Barrett-Forrest.

The Baldwin Articles on the Alice Pack

Soldier Systems has had an excellent series of articles on the venerable ALICE pack by Lt Col Terry Baldwin, who served in the US Army on active duty from 1975-2011 in various Infantry and Special Forces assignments.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

S.o.t.D. - Loner – Burial

Loner – Burial

I think this might be his most upbeat tune. It’s Burial. It’s great.

The above video, staring at this imagery very intently, will do weird things to your senses. Dreamachine imagery. 

Loner – Burial

You could also watch this video instead – a stylishly filmed bit of the old ultra-violence. Blighted environment, gangs battling. Taken from “Rivolta”, which was directed by Marco Prestini and Marco Santi.

Balance

Besides working at increasing my strength and endurance, I’ve also been working at increasing my balance.

It’s not like it’s ever been bad, but anything can be improved.

While walking through the cemetery, I stopped at a row of yellow, concrete filled 8" steel pipes. Stepped up and balanced my self. On either leg, or just a bit of of both feet on top, I really dig doing this. That meditative state you get into, as well as the workout your feet, calves, thighs and core get. I held myself there as long as I could, in one instance for 17 minutes. The pipes were spaced about 2 meters apart, and I also balanced myself with both feet on separate ones. Spent probably an hour doing this. Some likely see it as lollygagging. Oh well.

S.o.t.D. - 16 Bar Cycles (ft. Christoph El Truento) – Tokyo Prose

16 Bar Cycles (ft. Christoph El Truento) – Tokyo Prose

Goodness, is there ever a lot of goodness going on in this. Exquisite little tune.

The Lego Minifig Infographic

by Hot Butter Studio.

From Visually.

S.o.t.D. - Afternoon Soul – Gramatik

Afternoon Soul – Gramatik

Always quality stuff.

“Oscillate” by Daniel Sierra

“Oscillate” is the title of the thesis animation done by Daniel Sierra at the MFA Computer Art program in the School of Visual Arts located in New York City.

His goal with “Oscillate” was to visualize waveform patterns that evolve from the fundamental sine wave to more complex patterns, creating a mesmerizing audio-visual experience in which sight and sound work in unison to capture the viewer’s attention. 

S.o.t.D. - Hopelessly Coping – Wilkinson (ft. Thabo)

Hopelessly Coping – Wilkinson (ft. Thabo)

Always enjoy it when a soulful, well sung song is paired up with a liquid D&B framework.

Bibliophilia: Apocalyptigirl: An Aria for the End Times – Andrew MacLean

Apocalyptigirl: An Aria for the End Times – Andrew MacLean

Read this book tonight. Fun enough read, but what made me happy was that my proud family name is the sound a super cool motorcycle with guns mounted on it makes.

I realize that my initial review was pretty flippant, so after expanding in the comments, I thought I would post it here as an add on. 

Kick ass babe and her companion cat, living in a subway car beneath an overgrown post apocalyptic / paradoxically somewhat Eden-ish city, two factions of cool looking baddies she has to look out for, and she’s on a quest for an unspecified artifact. Bit of a twist at the end regarding who she really is.

Bibliophilia: The Shadow Hero – Gene Luen Yang

The Shadow Hero – Gene Luen Yang

The Shadow Hero by writer Gene Luen Yang and artist Sonny Liew revives the Green Turtle, an obscure Golden Age superhero, the first (albeit shortlived) Asian American superhero as a matter of fact. (The Green Turtle was originally created by cartoonist Chu Hing. The Green Turtle’s superpower seemed to be that he could dodge bullets. He helped to defend China against the invading Japanese army.)

It’s a wonderfully funny, sweet, exciting and thoughtful book. Anyone who knows something of the immigrant experience can relate to this, whether their background is Chinese or not. The “Tiger Mother” mother is one of the best characters I’ve read in a graphic novel in some time. She provided several laugh out loud moments. She doesn’t want her son, Hank, to become a boring shop owner like her husband. Instead of driving him to be a doctor or lawyer, she gets on his ass to become a superhero. Adventure, both hilarious and tragic ensue, as he sets out to battle crime. Does he actually have any super powers? Well, some Chinese guardian spirits seem to be helping and protecting him. Will he get the pretty girl he meets along the way? You’ll have to read it to find out.

S.o.t.D. - Morning Love – Alex M.I.F.

Morning Love – Alex M.I.F.

Deep, soulful booty shaker.

The photographer was photographed by the photographer

My sister was looking through photos of the neighbourhood we grew up in in Amsterdam. She saw one of the mayor at a ceremony for driving in the first pile for the office building slated to be built behind our place. He was in a 1910 Spijker, a car that had been produced in a factory that had stood there in the early part of the 20th century. She saw that someone was standing on what she figured to be our balcony. Now, our father was a serious shutterbug. She looked through all of our photos and found the photo that he took the same day. Same scene, two perspectives. The photographer was photographed by the photographer.

The Natural Navigator

The Natural Navigator

Just wanted to mention this excellent site and books by Tristan Gooley. Very recommended.

S.o.t.D. - Generations – BCee

Generations – BCee

Propah rollah!

Fitness

I’ve been striving to get smarter every day for my whole life.

Lately I’ve been just as dedicated to getting stronger every day.

I’ve never been that unfit or that overweight. But I realized that I had been gaining some weight that I wanted to lose and I just wanted to improve my overall strength, endurance and agility. I knew I wasn’t eating as well as I should, wasn’t exercising as I ought to, so I just decided to do something about it. So for the last 7 or 8 months I’ve stuck to eating better and doing an hour of calisthenics, 5, 6, 7 days a week. 

I don’t own a weigh scale, but every once in a while when I visit friends with one I’ll get on it. Weighed myself last month. 104 kilos (230 lbs.). At the start of the year I was 117 kilos (260 lbs.). My weight is edging back up again as fat gets replaced by muscle.

I’ve been really conscious of how much sugar I consume. And other not good for me food in general.

I think for me part of the appeal is the aspect of continuously improving. Where you once struggled to do 1 rep, a while later you can do 5, and a week later you’re doing 20.

It’s all very gradual. The loss of the weight. The building up of strength. The improvement in appearance. Little by little, you see flab going and muscle appearing. It’s time consuming, ache inducing, and frankly kind of boring. But I’m really happy with the results. More than any visual aspect, it’s more of a psychological thing. You feel better. Movement is easier. Agility improves. Endurance improves.

And another motivator for me is seeing how weak and frail and unflexible my mom is. She spent decades essentially sitting in a chair. Never used most of her muscles. I don’t know how long I have, but I hope that if I make some use of the muscles I have now, and stretch, and flex, and balance, that those capacities will diminish at a slower pace. Or that hopefully my quality of life, doing the things I enjoy doing, will still be possible.

I’m not particularly dogmatic about the exercise or the eating. I often make a game out of the exercise. Waiting for a minute for something to warm in the microwave? Do some squats. Do a plank during a commercial. Do some pushups or leg lifts while you watch TV. Do some crunches while you wait for water to boil. Something you can hang on? Grab it and do a chinup. Or just hang there and lift you legs to your abdomen. I also don’t bother with gyms or gym equipment. I just do calisthenics. No fees, no expensive equipment / laundry collectors cluttering space. There are 50 variations on pushups, dozens of abdominal exercises, dozens of leg exercises. That you can do anywhere. For free. Just requires some motivation. Fill a back pack with book or jugs with water and lift various ways. Etc. 

S.o.t.D. - Don’t Make Me Wait For You (Magic Mix) (feat. Jess Monroe) – Just Be

Don’t Make Me Wait For You (Magic Mix) (feat. Jess Monroe) – Just Be

Mid tempo chugger. Think I’d like the vocal less version more, but I say that about almost all music.

Ruck’mups pt. 7

Wanted to put some ventilation pads along the spine, to try and help mitigate that sweaty back thing. Being a small time tinkerer, and not having much money, and not wanting to order just a yard of some sort of moisture wicking material mail order, I tried something more accessible and cheaper. While at Len’s Mill, I found some plasticized mesh, similar to what Maxpedition uses. I tried several approaches to a foam, until I bought an anti-fatigue mat for $3 at a dollar store.

The tube is a paper drill.

Making things holy.

Punchy.

And the result.

Attaching the two sides was a tedious process. I wanted to make them more shaped, (I had cut the foam in a more angled shape originally) but ended up going for a straighter shape, since the squares of the mesh kind of pushed me in that direction.

And covered with webbing. The stitching looks brutal, but it works.

This will hopefully give a bit of breathability. Oh and there are two of these. (Only had the one when I took the photo.)

It might be a slightly ghetto solution, but I’m fairly confident it will work. I’d love to have a full roll of the latest, greatest high tech breathable fabric to play around with. I don’t so I make do with what I can easily get my hands on.

Adapt. Improvise. Overcome.

S.o.t.D. - Hourglass Infringement – Tipper

Hourglass Infringement – Tipper

This would work well in a set alongside Amon Tobin.

S.o.t.D. - Class 5 Roaming Vapour – Tipper

Class 5 Roaming Vapour – Tipper

More brilliance from Dave Tipper.