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jimwich at anigami dot com

This morning as I read through yet another thrash on The WELL, this time over the use of corporate and product placement in films, I could not help but remember how much I used to enjoy seeing thinly-veiled fake versions of real products and companies. I loved the thought someone taking the time to mock up a fake round oatmeal box that still had the same general dark blue and white background and typeface, but with the name, FAKERS or whatever instead. It wasn't about reality, or the corporate hijacking of pop culture. It was a sly wink from the creators.

Recently I found the site of Brian Clarke, the artist who created all of the great Blump's posters, billboards, and print ads for the film, The Dark Backward.

Blump's "Farm Fresh" Pork Juice (with pulp), Blump's Squeezable Bacon, Blump's Weaselroni, Blump's Yamsicles, and Blump's Pig Newtons. Mmm mmm.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/27/2001 1:14:43 PM

Today we close the tour of my geekosphere with my cute but aggro little friend, Toothy Bugtoid.

Toothy started out as a letterholder, but eventually sprouted Zip-tie antennae, two altoidal eyes, and a raspy maw fashioned from a cap retainer ring on a plastic water bottle. He stands guards atop my original 1984 128k Macintosh.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/26/2001 8:54:09 PM

Next up on Wild Kingdom - Slotplug Flaterpillars in Love. Not to be confused with caterpillars, who are decidedly not prone to get their groove on, flaterpillars are, of course, flat, love getting busy, and are found only on the back of computers where they guard unused card slots.

After a short career on the back of a Mac IIfx a decade ago these two have become the tantric masters of my geekosphere where they now have devoted followers.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/23/2001 12:09:44 PM

Here we have a piece in my geekosphere I call Reclining Nude Playing Harmonica. She's made from two of the metal inserts in Polaroid instant film catridges, two diskette hubs, and the metal slider thingee from a diskette.

Leaning back in what looks like a deconstructed beach chair, this busty beauty plays some unknown blues song. Evidence that someone somewhere musta done her wrong.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/22/2001 1:02:46 PM

I like to fold things. But I was pretty surprized when, messing around with the metal doodad inside a Polaroid instant film cartridge, it suddenly sprang to life as a friendly being! Around the same time another officemate joined my geekosphere, whose head is an RJ-14 phone plug with a body made from a little orange part that came with a toner cartridge kit.

An inseparable odd couple, Friendly Giant and Lil Buddy wave to visitors from atop my Dell tower.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/20/2001 2:14:28 PM

Love makes the world go 'round. Sorta like rolls of tape that these two red Anteaters in Love used to dispense before they met by chance in my office supply drawer.

I don't know why a geekosphere should be that different from an ecosphere. And you thought 3M manufactured these, didn't you?
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/19/2001 10:34:50 PM

Today begins an introduction to some of the fabricated inhabitants of my office geekosphere. For some reason, I seem to sense a secret identity in the odds and ends that might otherwise find their way into someone else's trash.

First up is Ms. Paperclip Keyring Twist-tie Butterfly, who lit upon a nearby desklamp a couple of years ago.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/17/2001 11:12:08 PM

Following links from Dr. Menlo, I poked around Isabel Samaras' online gallery and found this great homage to Theodore Gericault's classic painting, "Wreck of the Medusa" done done on a TV tray with the cast of Gilligan's Island.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/16/2001 6:44:26 PM

I don't know what IT is specifically, but I'm pretty sure I want IT. IT has evidently caught the fancy of such luminaries as Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Bob Metcalfe, and venture captitalist, John Doerr. Speculation is that IT, codenamed, "Ginger" is some sorta motorized scooter that's capable of going over uneven terrain while maintaining an upright position.

IT has been developed by a group of inventors, including scientist/inventor Dean Kamen. They hold US Patent No. 5,971,091 which describes a method of balanced upright wheeled transport. Here are the drawings from the patent. However, the hush-hush Ginger is likely to be more than is revealed in the scooter patent. In May of last year, a group of inventors including Kamen were awarded US Patent No. 6,062,023 which is a variation on the Stirling engine. Kamen and colleagues also have an application in for "Stirling Cycle Machine Improvements" wherein they describe ways in which such an engine could be used in conjuction with a transport. It's the Stirling Engine that may be the real key in providing efficient energy for a small personal transportaton device such as the Kamen scooter, which is rumored to be sold for under $2000.

The Stirling Engine was first patented by the Scottish inventor, Robert Stirling in 1816. Stirling Engines are a form of "external combustion" engine, and while more complicated from an engineering standpoint, and more difficult to miniatureize and produce cheaply, are far more efficient than traditional internal combustion engines. They also have different power conversion traits than internal combustion engines, which presents a problem. For example, you can't instantly start them up and take off the way you can utilizing an internal combustion engine. They also won't shut down instantaneously. Nonetheless, people have been tinkering with versions for decades. NASA has used Stirling Engines in its spacecraft as well. However, if Kamen and crew have truly developed a cheap and efficient Stirling Engine and figured out a way to mate it to a range of revolutionary transportation devices, it could very well be the world-changing paradigm shift that the visionaries who've seen it claim. We'll stay tuned on this one...
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/14/2001 6:07:58 PM

I can only hope you've already had your lunch... Alert reader, Allan Heim was gracious enough to point out that Jerusalem Crickets (the giant three-inch-long mutants are sometimes called Potato Bugs) were "edible" and that there was an amusing story about this fact on Salon a couple of years back. Further proof that almost anything can be eaten deep-fried.

Um, waiter? Could I get some ketchup over here?
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/10/2001 12:07:24 PM

A couple of years ago I met a very creative local inventor and good soul named Bob Gillis. I learned that he was a pioneer in the use of tensegrity structures, which I'd been interested in since building a sphere in the mid-1980s. Among Bob's many patents is the geodesic dome tent, which is now licensed by North Face and other tent companies. He also invented the simple, yet ingenius Grip Clip™ His company, Shelter Systems makes a wide range of deployable geodesic domes, yurts and structures suitable for all types of shelter needs from emergencies and disasters, to stargazing, to archaelogical excavations, to parties, to gardening greenhouses. Over fifty Shelter System domes were erected at last year's Burning Man, held in Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

Here's a set of pages showing a kayak being constructed over four hours from from willow branches, Grip Clips™, and a tarp.

Bob's also part of a local clan called Primitiveways that carries on the traditions of stoneage technologies. It's a pretty fun group! They held a competition to see who could create The World's Smallest Bow Drill Fire-by Friction Set. Their site shows how to make all sorts of things, including a Hoko Knife, a Hunting Atlatl, a Scapular Saw, a Quail Call, a Sycamore Drum, and primitive Crystal Lights! And just look at this beautiful Thatched Ohlone-Style House that the group constructed!

One of the Primitiveways clanmembers, Chuck Kritzon, makes stone petroglyphs! His site is called Petroglyphics.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/8/2001 9:12:37 PM

Yesterday I hiked with friends 3.7 miles up to the top of Windy Hill, which looks out above Palo Alto (the haze is now awful due to high energy prices causing people to light up their fireplaces).

On the way down I saw something that I don't think I've ever seen before in all my hiking and trekking in the California outdoors - an enormous, three-inch-long Jerusalem Cricket. It moved really slowly, but had an enormous head with two Hello Kitty-like eyes. Extremely mutant looking.

Neither my friends, nor I knew what it was at the time, but later I found this webpage on Jerusalem Crickets after doing a bit of entomological research. The page says they grow to to two and a half inches long, but I contend this one was a bit larger.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/7/2001 2:12:15 PM

After the Russian revolution in 1917 as the Soviets reengineered various Russian institutions, sometimes allowing artists to direct the makeover. One facility that underwent such a radical aesthetically-based transformation was the Imperial Porcelain Factory. Under the leadership of Kasmir Malevich, the Suprematists renamed it the No.1 State Porcelain Factory and installed Suprematist designer, Nikolai Suetin as its manager. Suetin applied Suprematist architons to everyday utilitarian objects such as cup and saucer coffee sets, giving them heroic names such as Industrialny, Agrogorod, and Traktorn.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/6/2001 6:28:15 PM

It's so perfect that my first new CD of the millenium is the awesome new ARTOON from the Japanese graphicdesignband, Delaware! It just arrived today in the mail, along with an 230Mb optical diskette full of goodies! For a couple of months I've been listening to their MP3s available on their site, but the CD sounds even better. I'm particularly jazzed to be listening to them off my new Mac G4 dualie with Harman Kardon SoundSticks and Subwoofer. And I just downloaded the new version 2.1 of Audion, too!

I've gotten a whole new level of appreciation of their bitmapped pixelgraphics from an impressive twenty-four page spread in the latest issue of the international graphic design magazine, IDEA (No. 284 - 1/2001). Delaware is doing for the pixel what Roy Lichtenstein did for the nineteenth century newspaperman, Benjamin Day's Benday Dot.

See the original 11/9/2000 JIMWICh review of Delaware.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/5/2001 8:49:40 PM

Currently in the WELL's publicly-accessible inkwell.vue conference, the ever witty/pithy/brilliant scifi writer and journalist, Bruce Sterling is holding forth on 2001 and The State of the Future. He's being interviewed by the inimitable Jon Lebkowski.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/4/2001 6:34:31 PM

Frigits. Cool rolling marble thingies for your refrigerator door. Via Jef.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/3/2001 8:16:29 PM

So here we are at the new millenium, at least for a few of us on the planet using one particular calendar. I was all set to shave my head, pop a roast beef dinner pill, and don my tinfoil suit, but unfortunately the future's just not what it used to be. Whatever...

Oh well, I'm going backwards anyway. I've made a few new stoneglyphs over the holidays, including a new Kokopelli, a family of Coso Sheep, and one that I'm particularly fond of - a shamanic stick swallower.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/1/2001 8:27:43 PM

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