Google Street View with…Camels?

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Google Street View has evolved into “Camel Cam”.

The trial in the United Arab Emirates’ Liwa Desert has made it possible for each and every one of us to carry out a virtual tour of those sandy dunes from the comfort of our own homes.

The company says using using camels meant they could take “authentic imagery” with minimal disruption to the environment.

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I, for one, can’t wait for the results of Google Camel Cam (I suppose I should add a trademark icon after that, right?) to make it into Google Maps.

Map vie Google Earth.
Via BBC.

Abacus Bracelet

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The bracelet is made from layers of bubinga veneer, glued around a form one layer at a time.

The first step was to make a form for the bracelet. I drew out the shape in Illustrator, printed it, then spray-mounted it to a scrap of 2×4. I cut around the edges with the band saw, then smoothed it right up to the line with the belt sander.

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To make the bracelet I spread some glue on a strip of veneer, wrapped it around the form with the glue side out, then wrapped another strip around it. Hose clamps held its shape until it dried, then I added another layer, let it dry, added another, and so on until seven layers were built up.

When I glued on the last three layers I passed a piece of guitar string back and forth through each channel to keep it clear.

I cut each wire shorter than the width of the bracelet so that it would be inset in the holes, then filled the holes with a paste made from super glue and sawdust from the bracelet.

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Now, that’s what I call retro…

Via Haha Bird for the full description of how it was made.

Welcome to Inlé

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This project actually started way back in 2006 or so when I decided I wanted to sculpt my interpretation of the Black Rabbit of Inlé from Richard Adams‘ Watership Down.

I was still pretty new to sculpting, but ended up making something I was really happy with and that marked a pretty big turning point for me, both in terms of style and subject.

Last summer, a couple purchased the original piece (you can find photos of it posted here on my tumblr, quite a few pages back), and paid me to create a more detailed base for the piece, and gave me free rein, creatively speaking, to do so.

Talk about an incredibly difficult novel to market. As Richard Adams’ publisher noted to an associate, “I’ve just taken on a novel about rabbits, one of them with extra-sensory perception. Do you think I’m mad?”

The subject of this sculpture, “The Black Rabbit of Inlé”, is a grim reaper figure with touches of Mictlanteuhctli (ignore the spelling on Wikipedia; they use the more popular but linguistically inaccurate transcription of the name) who as the servant of the rabbit god, Frith (the Sun) is responsible for ensuring that all rabbits die at their appropriate time.

Sculptor Rachel Young via Black Rabbit Sculpture.

Breakaway Packagingless Hexamine Pencils

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Laurence Grégoire created a unique and sustainable way to package (colored) pencils. By using the product itself as the packaging, she was able to eliminate waste and create something visually beautiful.

The wooden pencils are lined up and bound together requiring the simple act of breaking them apart for them to be functional.

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Very clever. Eliminating packaging costs while at the same time making something somatically engaging like this is very clever indeed.

Laurence Grégoire via The Die Line.

New York’s Converted Elevated Freight Line Park

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The High Line is an elevated freight rail line transformed into a public park on Manhattan’s West Side.

Founded in 1999 by community residents, Friends of the High Line fought for the High Line’s preservation and transformation at a time when the historic structure was under the threat of demolition.

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There have been a number of these sorts of conversions lately that have the potential to change what our assumptions are about what it means to live in an urban environment.

A similar project has been proposed to cover over parts of one of Los Angeles’ major freeways to create a park.

Via Memolition.

What Armored Combat Really Looked Like

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One of the hazards of practicing historical European martial arts – you know, swords, halberds, that kind of thing – is watching movies. There are so many crazy misconceptions about how hand-to-hand combat worked (and didn’t work) in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance that at some point you just have to sigh.

This great video goes over the basics, and as is often the case, the truth really is stranger than fiction.

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Some of the highlights:

  • Properly fitted and made armor weighed about half of what a modern combat load would be. (When weapons, etc. are factored in, it’s basically identical).
  • A cutting blow to plate does exactly…nothing. Maybe give you a dent. Maybe. A piercing blow to plate, on the other hand does, well, um, also nothing.
  • So how the hell do you injure a medieval tank, a.k.a. a person wearing full plate? You get in close, probably knock their weapon away, grab your own sword (assuming that’s what you are using) halfway up with one hand, then stab your opponent with the pointy end through an eyehole, the unplated groin area, an armpit or kneepit, or even through the base of the foot (true story).
  • But what about using a sword with the cutting part? Sure. But not against someone in full plate. Your opponent’s horse, or that poor s.o.b. in brigandine or half-plate or nothing at all? Yeah, they’re fair game for a cutting blow.
  • Knock ‘em down. Someone in properly made plate can, in fact, do cartwheels and jumping jacks (as the video demonstrates), but knocking them down can give you an opening to draw a dagger or other pointy thing and stab them in some truly embarrassing ways.
  • What about the AK-47 of the medieval period? You know, things like halberds and warhammers? There have been some interesting tests with these, and the amount of force these can deliver is astonishing, but even so, it takes using a spiked end driven full-force to have a chance to pierce most plate, though knocking someone down or deforming their armor are all viable possibilities as well.

Bottom image of “half-swording” from the Codex Wallerstein.
Via on YouTube.