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Cory Doctorow at 5:45 am • 
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Here's a sweet mini-doc on the creation of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, the last ride that Walt Disney supervised to completion. Pirates, like the Haunted Mansion, was originally intended as a walk-through museum of old-timey stuff, but the advent of robotic props ("audio-animatronics," whose R&D was funded commissions for the NY World's Fair in 1964) was a breakthrough that changed the way Disney's designers thought about ride possibilities.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN THE RIDE PART1 (via Vintage Parks Disney)
Cory Doctorow at 5:42 pm • •
I'm loving the Scarfolk site, where "Dr R Littler" chronicles the mysteries of an English town stuck in a Wyndham-esque loop betwen 1969 and 1979. It's full of the most lovely horrors. It's all so perfectly wrought and so grisly and freaked out and perfectly aged. If only we could all retire to Scarfolk and never grow old!
Scarfolk is a town in North West England that did not progress beyond 1979. Instead, the entire decade of the 1970s loops ad infinitum. Here in Scarfolk, pagan rituals blend seamlessly with science; hauntology is a compulsory subject at school, and everyone must be in bed by 8pm because they are perpetually running a slight fever. "Visit Scarfolk today. Our number one priority is keeping rabies at bay." For more information please reread.
Cory Doctorow at 2:15 pm • •
Mitmunk's chainmail tights don't actually appear to be on sale any longer, but the design is a treat.
(via Geeks Are Sexy)
Update: Hurrah, they're back on sale (thanks, Dean!)
Cory Doctorow at 12:26 pm • •
Three ads for tailfinned Lincoln Continentals are a reminder that one of the best ways to make something amazingly beautiful is to make a million mediocre and terrible things and wait half a century (or more) until the good ones have risen to the top. The suicide door was incredibly dumb, but it sure looked nice, at least when designers lucked into (or were canny enough to create) a pleasing form for them.
Cory Doctorow at 9:21 am • •
Architects Moon Hoon designed a house in Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea, that uses a staircase as a slide, a library and a room-divider. My goodness, it is lovely.
The basic request of upper and lower spatial organization and the shape of the site promted a long and tin house with fluctuating facade which would allow for more differentiated view. The key was coming up with a multi-functional space which is a large staircase, bookshelves, casual reading space, home cinema, slide and many more…The client was very pleased with the design, and the initial design was accepted and finalized almost instantly, only with minor adjustments. The kitchen and dining space is another important space where family gathers to bond. The TV was pushed away to a smaller living room. The attic is where the best view is possible, it is used as a play room for younger kids. The multi-use stair and slice space brings much active energy to the house, not only children, but also grown ups love the slide staircase…An action filled playful house for all ages…
Cory Doctorow at 8:46 pm • •
I'm at LAX as I type this, heading home from a great family spring break in LA that culminated with a trip to Disneyland. While I was at the Mouse, I happened upon this killer Haunted Mansion t-shirt, which wasn't available in my size at first, but later got re-stocked. I'm wearing it now. it is awesome Alas, it appears to be a park-only item (neener-neener), though you can always try Disneyland Deliv-EARS (and yes, it glows in the dark).
PS: I also met a Haunted Mansion cast-member whose no-foolin' hometown was Purgatory.
Cory Doctorow at 7:03 pm • •
Jordan sez, "Our t-shirt company was just successfully funded through Kickstarter, now at $46,000+ with 4 days to go. We take insane art from independent artists and throw them on shirts using a new type of printing called Sublimation. It allows us to print ALL OVER the shirt in extremely vibrant colors."
Not all this stuff is up my street, but some of it is pretty fawesome.
RaveNectar: This isn't clothing - it's an EXPERIENCE. (Thanks, Jordan)
Cory Doctorow at 8:31 am • •
I love Bruce Sterling's "Design Fiction Slider-Bar of Disbelief," a list of fictions in ascending order of credibility:
9.4 New age crystals, lucky charms, protective pendants, mojo hands, voodoo dolls, magic wands
9.3 Quack devices, medical hoaxes
9.3 Fantasy “objects” in fantasy cinema and computer-games
9.2 Physically impossible sci-fi literary devices: time machines, humanoid robots
9.2 Perpetual motion machines; free-energy gizmos, other physically impossible engineering fantasies
9.0 State libels, black propaganda, military ruses; missile gaps, vengeance weapons, Star Wars SDI
8.9 “Realplay” services, “experiential futurism” encounters, military and emergency training drills, props and immersive set-design, scripted personas
8.8 Online roleplaying scenario games
8.7 Net.art interventions, diegetic performance art, provocative device-art scandals
8.6 Guerrilla street-theater; costumes, puppets, banners, songs, lynchings-in-effigy, mock trials, mass set-designed Nuremberg rallies, propaganda trains
8.5 Fake products, product forgeries, theft-of-services, con-schemes, 419 frauds
Spoiler alert: the list ends with these:
1.0 Engineering specifications, software code
0.5 Historical tech assessment of extinct technologies, the “judgement of history’
0.0 The ideal and unobtainable “objective truth” about objects and services
David Pescovitz at 12:26 pm • •
The deluxe edition of dark IDM/R&B duo Beacon's new LP consists of rose-colored vinyl housed in an cast sugar box. The Ghostly International label worked with sculptor Fernando Mastrangelo to create the object, available in an edition of 20. You can't eat it though as it's coated in epoxy. Oh, it includes the digital download too. "TWWS DELUXE ART EDITION by Fernando Mastrangelo x Beacon" (via The Fox Is Black, thanks Patrick Kelly!)
David Pescovitz at 9:14 am • •
Seen here is "Hemi-Powered," a new fine art print collaboration by our pals COOP and Pressure Printing's Brad Keech! COOP's model for this beaut was a Dodge 426 Hemi engine (aka "The Elephant") with a Cragar blower. The relief print is 38.5" x 30", available in a limited edition of 25 signed and numbered for the price of $666 (natch). More details on the Pressure Printing blog here.
Cory Doctorow at 8:21 pm • •
Julia Kononenko, a designer in Kharkiv, Ukraine, created a clever piece of furniture that converts from a coffee table to a sofa to a dining room table with chairs. It's more small living-space porn for me -- the perfect thing for your 130sqft apartment.
In our apartments we are always in the confrontation with furniture for the living space. It is so important, that the Interior items possess little space, are multi-functional and small in size. I created a sofa for the living room, that can easily be transformed into a small dining-table with 6 padded stools. In terms of ergonomics it gives maximum comfort and convenience to the user. While transforming the sofa, the seat turns into six padded stools, and the backrest - into a countertop. From one small sofa, we can get a dining-table for 6 persones. Transformation furniture - ideal for limited space.
Cory Doctorow at 11:59 am • •
Designer Kevin Kidney's posted more of the awesome Tiki Room stuff he and Jody Daily designed for the Disneyland Tiki Room 50th Anniversary event this summer (he posted his Luau Bowl earlier). This time around, it's a pair of lidded mugs paying homage to two of the idols of the tiki garden outside the Tiki Room in Disneyland: Pele and Tangaroa-Ru.
New Tiki Room Collectibles Coming to Disneyland This Summer (Part 1)
Cory Doctorow at 5:13 am • •
Inthralld showcases a 130 square-foot apartment in Paris, where a set of insanely clever design decisions allows for a full apartment's worth of amenities to be jammed into a teeny weeny space. I love the drawers in the steps, but of course I really love the hiding bed/sofa. Basically, I want to live in a Murphy apartment and/or houseboat.
What was once a master suite of an apartment in the Montparnasse neighborhood is now a 130 square foot micro apartment that houses all of the necessities. There’s even an extremely creative way to house the mattress-slash-sofa. The bed doubles as seating space for lounging and entertaining, which rolls away discreetly underneath a set of steps on the floor. The Magis One stools add some much needed contemporary pizazz to the inner environment, while the storage really looks like art and functions just perfectly.
Cory Doctorow at 8:18 am • •
Projectophile's Clare has a funny post about the hazards presented by beautiful mid-century modern home designs to children. My grandparents had a proper split-level MCM when I was a kid, and it's a wonder we survived. As Clare says, "I love open, flowing space as much as the next modern girl. But I know it would only be a matter of minutes before my kid flings himself off one of these deadly ledges..."
15 Mid-Century Modern Dream Homes that will Kill Your Children (via MeFi)
