larry's Blog

French designer Jean-Marie Massaud proposes this leviathan airship as a flying hotel for 40 guests with a cruising speed of 130kmh. Read all about it at Dezeen Magazine.

Some very tasty material to be found here courtesy of MAKE Magazine's interview with Dutch Artist/DJ/Modder Gijs Gieskes. For starters, he made a garden path out of those Gameboy Bricks pictured above...

Things are hotting up over at the AV 08 Festival site, with announcements of the UK premiere of John Cage's Variations VII, an Authechre jam and the 12 screens of Deep Play by German film-maker and artist, Harun Farocki - The 2006 World Cup Final from Every Angle. The 2008 Festival runs from 28 February to 8 March in venues across Newcastle, Gateshead, Middlesbrough and Sunderland. I might even get even get on the ferry for this one...

The good folks over at youworkforthem have launched a new blog. Looks like lots of nice illustration / design goodness. I think they're back in the limited edition t-shirt business too, if that's your thing.

I missed Tim Sheridan's recent Irish visit, unfortunately. And I'm not going to make this little bash he's involved in either. In fact I've never heard him DJ. So won't someone please tip along tomorrow night and have a beer for me? Cheers...

I didn't know that Norman Mailer ran for Mayor of NYC in 1969. This poster uses a sweet little l'il map that namechecks lots of famous places.

A terrific piece of banal whimsy, courtesy of the New Yorker, with apologies to all true students of The Code.

A flotilla of 40 holiday charter boats on the Norfolk Broads are being fitted with engines that run on vegetable oil. A team from Newcastle University will spend next summer measuring emissions from the launches. See the press release here

Power House is a kit-in-a-box that lets children build a solar and wind powered house, and fiddle about with other such projects. That's christmas morning sorted then. Via boing boing

Legendary American stuntman Evel Knievel has died in Florida aged 69. Did you have the Stunt Cycle? Did you? I didn't.

Remote control of your electrical sockets, lights, appliances, etc. using hand-held remotes or web / email / bluetooth triggers. I've no hands-on experience of this stuff, and some of it seems a little lazy, but there's just gotta be supafunky uses for it. Here's a company offering OSX implementation.

Heaps of low-tech new-tech to be found here. Well worth a look, dungarees optional.

(ahem) That's Jesus H Christ and the Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse, to give them their full title. Fall in love with them. Now.

They're Australian, they dream of mastodons, and they can grow beards if they want to. It can only be The Spooky Men's Chorale. Sample their new cd "Stop Scratching It" here

I've organised a screening here in Galway. So if you're in the West of Ireland on January 24th, holla!
helveticafilm

Foils are big news on the water these days. From the excitement of dinghy racing on foiling Moth one-designs (video here )to the friction-killing Flyak. SeaPhantom are a new co. looking to utilise ground effect in fast (like 100knots+), safe marine transport. Check their site for videos of their current full-size prototype, or have a look here to see just how far they've come.