Simian Design

These are my delicious links for November 20th:

• The Muppet Show's 10 Weirdest Moments – I love the Muppet Show. It's brilliance. Here are it's 10 oddest and weirdest moments.
• Library Porn – A collection of beautiful libraries. Really beautiful places.

These are my delicious links for September 16th:

• Backpacker Classics – I am not sure which books backpackers carry with them these days so this list may be a little out of date. The concept of backpacker books goes back to the days of the hippy trail when travellers would carry such classics as the I Ching, the Tibetan Book of the Dead or anything by Herman Hesse. A backpacker classic should have an element of profundity, preferably mystical -if not it should have cult status or be a statement about who you really are. There is an element of self discovery in setting off – the path to enlightenment, the journey inwards…A backpacker book is not a 'beach read'–the book must be worth the weight and space it takes up and should be reverentially handed on to other travellers or left in a hotel or bus station for another seeker to chance upon.
• Sports Design Blog: Old School Design: The NFL Helmet Hat – In the early 1980's there was a really great licensed product known at the Helmet Hat. The Helmet Hat was one of the most unique and innovative ideas in a time when sports licensed products were still growing as a retail force. The Helmet Hat featured the graphics of your favorite NFL team all over the top of the hat, just like the would look on the team's helmet.

  I want a bunch of these.

These are my delicious links for May 14th through May 15th:

• Low-Fi Sci-Fi – If the main objective of a book cover is to make you stop, pick up said book, perhaps read the back or the first few lines (and consider buying it, of course) then the new Gollancz range of science-fiction classics has certainly got something right.
• Sacredart Murals – Wow. This guy has some serious painting chops. The murals he creates on normal bedroom walls are really evocative and gorgeous. I wish I had a few of his murals in my place. I know my kids would as well.

These are my delicious links for April 4th:

• Holodeck requested. – A brilliant response to a joke help-desk ticket. Be sure to read it through.
• In Bed With Bond – In the 23 official and non-‘official’ Bond films (so far), Bond sleeps with 59 women. There are three ‘failures’ (where Bond tries hard and fails) and one ‘almost’ (time beats him).
  As well, there are 92 other Women Bond has time to seduce, or be seduced by, but doesn’t. That means, Bond sleeps with 59 of 151 Women or 39%. (That is not counting the other 114 or so Women he meets but doesn’t have the time to test his luck with.)
  Of the 59 bed (and floor, boat, raft, space, etc.) partners, 30 (or 50.8%) are mutual seductions. Bond only seduces 12 women (20.3%), while he is seduced 17 times (28.8%).
  Bond is clearly trailing the Women in the seduction stakes.
  Why is it that so many insist otherwise?

These are my delicious links for January 7th through January 8th:

• Book Cover Archive – For the appreciation and categorization of excellence in book cover design
• Worlds undersea cables. – Nice chart showing how the world's wired up.
• 10 Killer WordPress Hacks – Nice collection of hacks and examples for WordPress.
• Lego Star Wars. – brickplumber's photostream is a fantastic collection of lego Star Wars figures and creations. Fun fun fun.
• Andy Griffith theme/Beyonce mashup – This is so incredibly captivating, just brought a wide smile to my face. Party Ben's Single Ladies (In Mayberry) (Beyoncé vs. "The Andy Griffith Show" Theme) is just the thing to start your day with.
• 100 (Really) Beautiful iPhone Wallpapers | Graphics | Smashing Magazine – Great collection of images to spruce up your iPhone.
• Air Force Releases 'Counter-Blog' Marching Orders – Bloggers: If you suddenly find Air Force officers leaving barbed comments after one of your posts, don't be surprised. They're just following the service's new "counter-blogging" flow chart. In a twelve-point plan, put together by the emerging technology division of the Air Force's public affairs arm, airmen are given guidance on how to handle "trolls," "ragers" — and even well-informed online writers, too. It's all part of an Air Force push to "counter the people out there in the blogosphere who have negative opinions about the U.S. government and the Air Force," Captain David Faggard says.
• Vertoramas – Ralph Cooksey-Talbott is a landscape photographer who studied under Ansel Adams in Yosemite in the 1970's. Cooksey is currently doing vertical panoramic photography that is reminiscent in composition to monumental Asian landscape ink-on-silk paintings. He calls them Vertoramas and I think they are exceptionally beautiful. Besides selling prints, Cooksey provides many of his images as free desktop pictures.

These are my delicious links for November 25th through December 2nd:

• Top Book Covers of 2008. – I love these sort of lists. I wish there were actually more book covers to see. My personal favorite out of this list is Maps and Legends, by Chabon. It's a breathtaking cover of a book, in three layers. If you ever see it in the store, take a look, it's well worth it.
• 45 Vintage Space Age' Illustrations – I want my jetpack. I want my flying car and robot maid. I want my talking house. Until then, here are 45 fantastic vintage illustrations of those promises of tomorrow.

  I'm not joking about my jetpack. I really want it.

• The Original Winnie the Pooh drawings. – I love these drawings. So simple, so clean, so evocative.
• Foodscapes: amazing food art by Carl Warner – Anyone who can create a believable sea of salmon has my vote. Great photos.
• Top 14 Top Gear Moments – Top Gear is a brilliant show you really should be watching. Here are 14 clips of some favorite moments.
• The International Space Station turns 10 – The Big Picture – Boston.com – As usual, The Big Picture comes through with a gorgeous set of photos of the ISS.
• Alien-like Squid Filmed at Ultra-Deep Oil-Drilling Site – WOW. This is really amazing, in a creepy way. What a freaky looking squid.

Wow. I’m a fan of Dune, both the books and the movie, but this blows me away.   I was not aware that this ever was conceived.

Alejandro Jodorowsky worked at creating a truly amazing Dune movie in 1975.  He worked with H.R.Giger (!!), Jean Giraud, Chris Foss, Pink Floyd (!!) to do the score.  Funding stopped the process, and it’s a shame.

Casting, sound, art, it was all planned out to be a beautiful, weird movie (and yes, I know Lynch’s was the same, but go look at the art and tell me that this wasn’t going to be magic.)   I mean, check out his description of Emperor Padishah Shaddam IV.

The Emperor of the galaxy is insane. He lives on an artificial gold planet, in a gold palace built according to not-laws of antilogical. He lives in symbiosis with a robot identical to him.

 

 From his summary of the script:

Already 20,000 years ago
        that the Earth burst…
Man conquered the Galaxy,
        but he realizes
        that he still lives on an Island:
the Galaxy itself is encircled by
        an insuperable Magnetic Wall.
No one could cross it.
Not having anything more
        to discover,
        to conquer,
Man delivers himself completely
        to the pleasure,
give his capacity to machines
        and degenerates in the luxury.

Oh how I wish this was made.  The imagery just brings the books to life, just so much more in line with the books tones.

AskMen has a great listing of 10 things you might not have known about James Bond. Now, I love James Bond, the books and the movies.  A number of fascinating tidbets can be found in here.

Now I knew that Ian Flemming wrote the James Bond books at his estate (called Goldeneye).  I didn’t know that he negotiated two months of vacation a year (nice deal, I’m jealous) when he got a job at Kemsley Newspapers.  It was during those two months he banged out the next Bond book.  So you really got a new Bond book a year, which is impressive in itself.  I couldn’t write a book in two months under any circumstances.

In regards to the name James Bond, Ian Flemming has been quoted as saying

“I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, ‘James Bond’ was much better than something more interesting, like ‘Peregrine Carruthers.’ Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure — an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department.”

Peregrine Carruthers. Thank God that didn’t come about.

I also didn’t know aobut there only being 7 00’s.  We’ve seen the deaths of 002, 003, 004, and 009.  006 was killed as the villian in GoldenEye.  008 is the only one we don’t see die, and he is mentioned to be Bond’s replacement.   001 and 005 never are mentioned. 

Ian Flemming wrote the following books:
1953: Casino Royale
1954: Live and Let Die
1955: Moonraker
1956: Diamonds Are Forever
1957: From Russia with Love
1958: Dr. No
1959: Goldfinger
1960: For Your Eyes Only (short stories)
1961: Thunderball
1962: The Spy Who Loved Me
1963: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
1964: You Only LIve Twice
1965: The Man with the Golden Gun
1966: Octopussy (short story)
1966: The Living Daylights (short story)

The books are all fantastic, and worth reading if you’re a fan at all. It’s a totally different take on Bond from the movies, yet just as enjoyable.  I haven’t read much of the other authors Bond books, but have thoroughly enjoyed Ian Flemmings works.