Monthly archives: July 2013


Roof Hens!



Roof Hens!, originally uploaded by spinneyhead.

You may not be able to see them in the photo, but there are chickens behind the coop. They’re on the roof of the biospheric project in Salford. I hope their wings are cropped, because they live on the second floor. If they fly down they may not be able to get back up.


Daily Blog 07/09/2013

  • The insanity of the early Cold War manifested itself perfectly in the Atomic Cannon, built by the US in the early ’50s to shoot nukes out of artillery. It turns out that the Russians built a nuclear gun, too.

    tags: russia weapons

  • There are few professional sports as closely bound to technology as cycling. A bike isn’t just equipment, as skiis or a tennis racket might be—it’s a partner in a symbiotic relationship between the machine and athlete. And it’s remarkable to see how drastically certain parts of that machine have changed in the last century, while others have stayed largely the same.

    tags: cycling

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 07/04/2013

  • Karl Fiara’s Mk1 Escort is a trip back in time for me; sat here in the glorious sun of the recent Players Classic Show at Goodwood it transports me back around 20 years. To when you had to be at one of the big season-opening shows to see what everybody had been building during the winter, where you could catch up with friends without knowing how many laps of the Nurburgring they’d done the month before,when the excitement was tangible in the air and cars like this Escort two-door were more commonplace and that can only be a good thing.

    tags: cars CustomCars reference inspiration

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 07/03/2013

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 07/01/2013

  • With 5 million square feet of leased warehouse, light-industry, and office space, and a network of more than two miles of rail lines and six miles of roads, SubTropolis is the world’s largest underground business complex—and one of eight or so in the area. To people along this stretch of the Missouri River, however, subterranean development also represents an innovative local way to save energy and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

    tags: ecobuilding underground

  • The coyote, that cunning canine of wide-open spaces, has come to the nation’s capital. And to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities. In fact, coyotes have spread to every corner of the United States, shifting their behaviors to fit new habitats and spurring researchers to cope with a worrisome new kind of carnivore: the urban coyote.
    ….
    The coyote’s affinity for life in the big city has surprised many researchers. But odder still is the coyote’s propensity for breeding with wolves. Canine species within the genus Canis, which includes coyotes, wolves and domestic dogs, are capable of interbreeding, but they usually stick with their own kind. The “coywolf” hybrid is larger than a purebred coyote. It is found in northeastern Minnesota, southern Ontario and southern Quebec, Maine and New York. Researchers recently studied the genetic profiles of 100 coyotes killed by hunters in Maine. Of those animals, 23 had some wolf genes. Most crosses occur between male wolves and female coyotes. Some of the hybrids go on to mate with other hybrids, creating what one researcher calls a “hybrid swarm” that has the potential to evolve into a new species.

    tags: city nature coyote

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.