Tumbleweed Tiny House Company Architect: Jay Shafer

Tiny Brick House in Aldeburgh, Suffolk Photo: Margaret Patterson

And so I was delighted to find the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. Architect, Jay Shafer has been designing and building small houses, ranging in size from 50 to 750 square feet. He lives in a 70 square foot house that he designed, as well. He spent over a decade as adjunct assisant professor at the University of Iowa School of Art and Art History, and has written and lectured widely on subtractive design and low-impact architecture. I would love to have a small property with a small domecile on it. Compared to Shafer, Henry David Thoreau was a land-scarring space hog! His cabin on Walden Pond, which he spent $28.12 to build, covered a whopping 150 luxurious square feet!

Tiny Wood Frame House

There are lots of examples of tiny houses to be found on the web. There are tiny brick homes, tiny wooden frame homes, tiny log cabins, tiny homes based on ancient styles, and even cute petite maisons in the French countryside.

Tiny Estonian Log Cabin

I don't know if I could manage on such a miniscule space, though. You couldn't have a family in one, and I don't know where you'd hold a party or gathering. I'm thinking that one alternative to a traditional large house though, might be a grouping of tiny buildings. Like a miniature town! You could have one building for the kitchen and dinining, another for a family room, maybe designed to look like a little theater! And others for bedrooms and baths. Instead of a deck or patio you could have a little town square!

Tiny House based on 10th Century Cordovan Architecture

Petite Maison in the French Countryside

I'd started thinking about the idea of *literally* living in a small town (as in, actually living in the entire little town) when I drove through a very tiny old town in Missouri years ago. There were about four little two-story brick buildings, side by side, with a couple of small ones across the street. I begain thinking that you could probably either buy a little town like that, or simply build your own! I don't know whether it would be practical or not, but I just like the idea of having a really tiny town all one's own!

Flying Spaghetti Monster Tshirts 'n Stuff Available at Spreadshirt All Proceeds From Sales Go to NCSE National Center For Science Education Logo Design: Jim Leftwich

The religion was created to protest the absurd decision of the Kansas State Department of Education to include "Intelligent Design" (which, ironically, is neither!) alongside legitimate science in the state's public schools.

Bobby Henderson sent an open letter to the Kansas School Board, demanding that Flying Spaghetti Monsterism be given equal consideration in public school science classes, since it was every bit as scientific as other creationist myths. Yes, it's funny. Yes, he's serious about demanding equal time. It so perfectly frames the absolute idiocy of efforts to degrade science education with religious myths and pseudoscience hokum.

Original Drawing of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (c)2005 Bobby Henderson

The net movement has really taken off. Niklas Janssen created a magnificent rendering of the moment of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism creation, entitled, "Touched By His Noodly Appendage." And now there are even FSM trunk badges to compete with the fish, Darwin creatures, and even J.R. "Bob" Dobbs.

"Touched By His Noodly Appendage" Artist: Niklas Janssen

Seriously, it's very disturbing to witness the growing movement to water down legitimate science education with thinly veiled religious nonsense. What's next for our public education? UFOlogy and the biology of Bigfoot? The return of phrenology? Perhaps it's time to investigate this notion of a spherical Earth. And really, who says the Earth revolves around the Sun? Copernicus? Hey, he had his critics, too!

Let's just hope that in the end, common sense and real science will prevail.

1957 Nash Metropolitan (c) Brian Lee

Unveiling at the 1954 Chicago Auto Show

The Nash Metropolitan has an interesing history. It was designed stateside by William J. Flajole for the Nash Motors Division of the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation (Check out these super nifty early and late original renderings that Flajole made!). The car was manufactured in Birmingham, England, with the body being produced by Fisher-Ludlow, Ltd., and the engines and mechanical outfitting provided by Austin Motor Company, Ltd.. Production ran from October 1953 through April 1961. In 1954 Nash-Kelvinator merged with Hudson and became American Motors Corporation. It was through AMC that the Metropolitan was marketed in the U.S..

The first two years, the Metropolitan had a 1200cc Austin A40 engine, and in 1956 it was upgraded to a 1500cc A50, along with a new grille and chrome on the sides and the signature two-tone paint job. Both sedan and convertible models were produced.

Custom Metropolitan Station Wagon Jim and Irma Cave Surrey, B.C.

Approximately 95,000 Metropolitans were built for marketing by Nash/Hudson/AMC and 9,500 built to be marketed by Austin in the U.K.

The Prolong 'Metro-Nator' 1,500 Horsepower! Owned by Bryan Thatcher

While most collectors are satisfied to restore their Metropolitans to their original state, some have pushed further. Jim and Irma Cave, in Surrey, British Columbia, have a Metropolitan that's been customized as a miniature station wagon. So cute!

And then there's Bryan Thatcher and his Prolong-sponsored show car. Bryan saw fit to turn his Metropolitan into a steroidally beefed up supercar - with a stunning flame paint job and an enormous engine that produces 1,500 horsepower! Ohhh yeahhh... That's what *I'm* talkin' about!

That's not the only souped-up Metropolitan, though. Check out The Megamet and this stretched-hood Metrod.

1985 Flat-Panel Computer Jim Leftwich

It was done back when I was just a year out of Design School and living in Kansas City and needing to add something computer and interface related to my portfolio. The really funny thing is that my housemates at the time would've probably agreed with the post on Engadget! Though I was using my 1984 Macintosh 128k to do a lot of the design work, and screen mockups, my housemates were like, "You're designing a what?"

The full story on that model includes additional photos of the model and the software screen storyboards.

The Vidstone(tm) Serenity Panel

Back in 1997 I'd written a piece of microfiction titled, "Grandma's Place," that described a futuristic cemetary named, "The Grounds," and centered around a visit by two grandchildren to the multimedia-gravesite of their grandmother, who was interred there.

At The Grounds, just like most contemporary cemetaries, each plot differed from others in terms of how elaborate its multimedia installation was. Visual displays, playing scenes or reminiscing from the life of the deceased, familiar smells (activated by depositing "sacracoins" that are conveniently vended at The Grounds). Plots also contained small, scale-model "statches" of the dead folk, molded from a cement made from the cremains and molded in forms based on full-body scans conducted while the person was alive.

The Vidstone(tm) site says that they have "patents pending." Without seeing a copy of their published application, it would be difficult to tell what they're claiming a patent on, but there's a number of prior art descriptions of similar concepts. Michael Lazar pointed out "Stars In My Pocket, Like Grains Of Sand," by Samuel Delaney. I haven't read that, so I'll have to check it out. Most of my library is filled with geeky subject matter ("The Care and Operation of Farm Machinery," "Mr. and Mrs. Roto-Broil Cookbook," and "Japanese Street Slang," etc.).

Dead Batteries (c)2005 Jim Leftwich

Time to haul these out to our local recycling center and start another jug.

Palms and Clouds (c)2003 Jim Leftwich

Sunrise Cloud Field (c)2003 Jim Leftiwch

I also like to look at clouds while on airliner flights. I took this photo of an almost perfect cloud field at sunrise on a morning flight out of San Francisco a couple of years ago. I use a large version of it as a desktop image.

Mammatus Clouds (c)2004 Jorn C. Olsen