A super secret preview of the KPK Wunderkammer

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My partner in sciencecrime is pulling some of his collections out of mothballs and displaying same. We’re assembling quite an interesting little wunderkammer. I’m responsible for most things that respire, he for the things that don’t or have ceased to. The name we’ve assigned to the project is both a geologic descriptor and a mashup of our initials (the last K is for kolossal!!). I’m hoping to take a panorama shot in a bit, but for right now, a sneak peak:

The Hall of Local Skulls

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The Hall of Porifera, Vespids and A Fish

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Don Coyote

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Lucy

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Nepenthes truncata Paisan Highlands

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“Atoms for Peas Piece Peace” Chemistry Set

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The Siege Engine and Robot Annex

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The Snowbird Ornithopter

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Seems like it wasn’t all that long ago when any kind of human-powered flight was a very ambitious goal.

The Snowbird Human-Powered Ornithopter was designed and constructed by a team of students from the University of Toronto. On August 2nd 2010 it sustained level flight for 19.3 seconds, becoming the world’s first successful human-powered ornithopter.

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More info at hpo.ornithopter.net.

Via a tweet from @bruces.

The Atlantic Tech Canon

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Tons of quibbling possible  – no The Elements of Programming Style (feel free to substitute your own title)? Regardless, any list that includes Fred Brooks, Vannevar Bush, Murray Bookchin and Donna Harraway is OK by me.

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N.B. – a tech canon is very different from the meatball cannon drawn for me yesterday by a slightly off-task, but creative, second grader.

The Atlantic Tech Canon – Alexis Madrigal – Technology – The Atlantic.

Gigantic spider’s web discovered in Madagascar

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But even that web is dwarfed by those spun by Darwin’s bark spider.

“They build their web with the orb suspended directly above a river or the water body of a lake, a habitat that no other spider can use,” says Professor Ingi Agnarsson, the director of the Museum of Zoology at the University of Puerto Rico, in San Juan who made the discovery with colleagues.

That allows the spiders to catch insects flying over water, and explains why the web is so long.

To reach from one bank to the other, the spider must weave anchoring lines of up to 25m.

BBC – Earth News – Gigantic spider’s web discovered in Madagascar.

Pudelpointers, a Small Munsterlander and a (mostly Unter)see Teckel

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Up bright and early this morning to exercise the two young dogs somewhere where there’d be many swimming opportunities. Our route to a favorite cover/swimming hole takes us past a State Game Mgt. Area that hosts a lot of field tests – quite a few trucks in the lot at 7 AM, so I thought I’d stop in, say hi and kibitz a bit. Turns out it was a Pudelpointer fall test – judges included Rich Dobey, Dave Trahan and Blaine Carter. I watched one dog run…

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…then spent an hour running around our swimmin’ hole cover…

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…then back to the testing grounds in time to see the last two dogs run the bird field. The last pup up was a nice Small Munsterlander.

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And, in case you hadn’t seen enough of the main event – Pudelpointer face time.

Rambo Lambo

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Impractical (I read long ago that reliability was a bit of an issue), but oh so groovy.

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Hemmings Find of the Day – 1988 Lamborghini LM002 at Hemmings Blog – Classic and collectible cars and parts.

And as long as we’re focusing on wild excess (as is appropriate – there’s an air show coming up this weekend), a picture from the Chrome, Smoke and Fire: Old School Mechanical Fetishism flickrpool – Art Arfons‘ Green Monster: