$250K gundam

Made of pure platinum. I don't know what to say but-- WHY?!? Sure Cagalli had a gold MS in Gundam Seed Destiny but platinum? What's next? Herbertsmithite?

Dan's New Cup

S-C-A-R-Y!!!

The Sport72 Luxus

Made in Germany. Other than the Sachs Duomatic rear hub all parts are unbranded. Has a generator (not shown) to power front light and back light (on a fender, also not pictured) with the wiring going through the bike frame. Contact points inside the downtube where it splits apart allows for separation without de- or re-wiring.

errata

In the Daphne Oram post a few weeks ago I neglected to mention that the Listen Move and Dance record is available on CD as part of Creel Pone's Creelpolation 1. As penance I shall be adding more links to the sidebar --->

Sachs Duomatic Two-Speed

Yesterday I took one of the bikes I tend to Bike Pirates to replace the warped front wheel. This bike is an old separable bike my parents had in their garage when I was growing up. Its headtube says Luxus Sport 72, and the downtube says Splitbike, but I haven't come up with much on it. The best part of the bike though is the rear wheel. The hub is a Sachs two Speed Duomatic hub. 2 speeds? Awesome. You change gears by wheeling the pedals back, just like you stop with a coaster brake. Super fun, but a bit hard to enjoy on this tiny tiny bike. But back to bike pirates. The front rim was one of those old pitted ones that are like cheese graters for brake pads and it was warped to an intolerable extent. I had my eye on a nice bmx wheel to replace it but of course the axle diameter was too large. Eventually I had to settle for a crunchier wheel of similar vintage (I think they had the same hubs) and I then moved on to the brakes. There were few long reaching caliper brakes and all the ones that were newish, shiny and not bent were missing hardware and I didn't have the time to rummage through a bunch of stuff to find bolts that fit. So. On went some old ugly ones. Left the same lever on, even though I wanted to change it. Anyway, the brakes work as well as they did before and the bike rides nicer with the new wheel. And now we have another ridable bike.

Separated at Birth

Chaco from Fulci's Four of the Apocalypse and Jack Sparrow from boring poop...

Daphne Oram - Oramics

Sometime last year while I was sleeping Paradigm Discs released Daphne Oram - Oramics, a 2CD set of her post-BBC work. Hot damn! And it's still available at Boomkat!
If you aren't in the know, Daphne Oram was one of the founding members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and if you don't know what the Radiophonic Workshop is you might be reading the wrong blog. Also available by Daphne Oram in a couple forms is the track "Four Aspects," featured on a couple of avant garde compilations, and a Listen Move & Dance record from the 60s(?) put out by the Beeb...

From Kubrick to Cybertron

I just found out that Scatman Crothers voiced Jazz on the original Transformers cartoon series. That is messed up!

Y&Y Brand Duck Gluten in a Can

Too bad their site is down for construction. I found two awesome products today at Oriental Harvest in chinatown: curry chicken gluten and duck flavoured gluten in a can! I guess I could have gone to Buddha's and grabbed some gluten there, but the canned fake meat seems novel. They also had dry fried gluten balls for soups and such. I loves it. I'll review the duck and chicken and add a pic of the can (at least) later...

OK, so it was good, this fake duck from can. I made a nice thai curry sauce served over udon noodles. Even fresh galangal is tough. This isn't the actual product, but the same idea: canned fake fowl.

Aasimov's Laws of Robotics reified

CBC reports that South Korean Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy's robot team member Park Hye-Young expects the ethical standards proposed to be programmed into machines will reflect the first three of Aasimov's Laws of Robotics. Which would mean there are a whole lot of robots doing unethical work. Obviously this isn't going to work universally, but I know I'll be looking for some verification of ethics before purchasing a robot in the future. And yes, I'm planning on buying many many robots. Dancing ones.

Coffee does nothing for me!?

According to this article @ the Beeb, researchers in Bristol have determined that for regular drinkers morning coffee does nothing but erase the symptoms of caffeine withdrawl, with no additional increase in alertness or awakeness. Ok maybe I made up the awakeness part because I have no idea how they measure these things. Anyway, since I drink approximately 1 billion cups of coffee everyday I imagine at least three morning cups are needed to return my brain to a normal state, before I finally feel "awake."