bikes and things

I recently bought a MacBook Air for typing, blogging surfing and some light Photoshop and Lightroom work. I liked the idea that you could throw it in your bag without a charger and just use it wherever. The problem with this? Crap cafe wifi.

From passwords, to login forms wanting everything including your inside leg measurement, to slow connections or ones that want you to pay £5 for an hour. At least 50% are shit. Having ended up on one of these crap connections I suddenly wondered if I could just use tethering on my phone. In iOS6 you can share a connection via Bluetooth which is incredible and no extra fees from O2. The first thing is obviously to turn off Dropbox and Backblaze which would chew through the data. But it’s surprisingly fast and usable. So unless the wifi is free, no logon and fast I’m just going to resort to this in future.

I was going to post about this after this Wired article came out which included a couple of decent photos of the interior with those fantastic coloured pipes. Then It’s nice that found a few more photos.

Seems like a superb commission to get – be the first official photographer within Google’s data centres, especially if you are anyway nerdy. I would love to shoot something like this (and get paid for it). The scale of it is ridiculous as well as those pipes being colour coded which reminds me of an excerpt from the Steve Jobs bio where his first factory in the US is done out like this. All the robots painted Apple colours of the time. The Google pipes almost seem Willy Wonka like in a way.

All images © Connie Zhou

There’s also a walk through video which is also pretty interesting.

“When we were told it’s impossible, we knew it’s the right way to be done”.

Via Neil.

Having just got back from a visit to Northern Ireland it seems like a good time to start planning the next. Usually we fly into Belfast or Derry and then go to either Portstewart or Donegal. However I think on the next trip we might hang around a little before going to see family. There seems to be a sudden flurry of excellent new projects reaching completion over there which we’d both love to see.

Top of the list has to be the new MAC in Belfast by Hall McKnight.

Images © Christian Richters

Then whilst still in Belfast it’s almost certainly worth seeing the Sterling Shortlisted Lyric Theatre by O’Donnell & Tuomey. I’ve been a fan of their work for years since meeting them on a field trip to Dublin in 2000 during my degree.

Images © Dennis Gilbert

Then West to Derry to see An Gaelaras, again by O’Donnell & Tuomey.

Image © Dennis Gilbert

After that and catching up with Emma’s dad then I think it’ll be time to drive North to Portstewart and then on to the Giant’s Causeway visitor centre by Heneghan and Peng. The last time we were there it the white shed was no where near as good as this! Then I think that’ll be enough architecture and it’ll be time for a Guinness and a glass of Bushmills.

Images © Hufton & Crow

Updated: My friend Matthew emailed me with a map of all the projects worth visiting which is well worth looking at if you’re planning a trip.

There’s been some amazing images recently of the decommissioned space Shuttle Endeavour making its way from in service use to its final resting place at the California Science Centre.

Image © NASA/Bill Stafford

After a series of low level flyovers above various landmarks across the US, it was delivered to LAX Airport. It was then transported through the streets of Los Angeles over three days.

Image © Kevin MacLeod

Image © Stephen Confer

Image © Jay L. Clendenin / LA Times

This kind of thing reminds me of some awful movie I used to watch loads as a kid – Space Camp . The space program seems to inspire that kind of childhood wonder in people. Such a shame that the shuttle programme had to end really.

Image © Allen J. Schaben / LA Times

There’s even more shots over at the Atlantic.

Updated: There’s an incredible timelapse of the shuttle too. Via Dave Morris.

Yes, another place I’m ‘curating’. The term curating needs some discussion but lets save that for another post. So I’ve set up a Channel on Vimeo for all the things I find to add to one page with the idea that others can view it and then share further. The title – “You’ve seen these right?” which seems to be a commonly used term when sending a video to a friend as you never know quite how viral it’s gone.

This also raise the issue that there’s so much good stuff out there that it’s hard to keep up with it all.

This Sat Emma and I had been together a whole six years! She gave me the superb Velo book with illustrations by Jo Burt which instantly reminded me of all those years spent reading MBUK as a kid. I gave her the Mr Bingo book.

The plan was to go to Brighton for the day but that seemed to get quickly abandoned. Instead we grabbed the bikes and headed out to the South London Gallery for a coffee.

We then took the back route to the Design Museum via Bermondsey to check out a housing scheme I had worked on at a previous firm as well as the forecourt of the White Cube Gallery.

We popped in to see the three exhibitions on – Designed to win, something about crystals and the Designers in residence exhibition. Two of which were great, one was about crystals.

After that we walked along the Southbank with the idea of seeing the tanks at the Tate Modern. Unfortunately we got caught in a zombie walk and made our escape to The Cut taking refuge in Byron.

So nice being out and about on the bikes on a lovely autumn day.

Love the autumn light. Just caught this before the moment went last night.

Unfortunately I’d left the camera on 1600 ISO so a little bit of noise in there. I grabbed another shot a few seconds later the light had gone.

Good to see Nat in London this week after he popped down from Brissol for a course. Drinks, pizza, more drinks and a nice coffee and chat the next morning.

Here he is modelling the work Brompton in East Dulwich. Models own clothing.

So much to like about this little book, the man himself as well as his superb illustrations.

Some say he’s the ‘Master of pens’.
Some call him the ‘Justin Bieber of drawing’.
Some say he fucks about for a living.

Last year he started a project whereby he’d send an illustrated rude postcard to anyone who gave some money on his website. Apparently it was a little too successful and he had to close it after six days. Anyway, fortunately they made it into a rather nice book which has just been released, which you should definitley buy!

There’s also a great video of him explaining the project.

All images © Mr Bingo