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Video: Funny cigarette TV commercial with Ferrari.

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High Resolution 1600 X 1200 Porsche Wallpapers Download

Have you been to Porsche.com lately? I have to tell you Porsche USA Official Web Site has some of the best high resolution wallpapers you can find. Even if you’re not a Porsche fan, you can still enjoy these beautiful photos.

You’re able to download high resolution wallpapers of all Porsche models including Boxter, 911 Carrera, 911 Turbo to 911 GT3. Some model gallery offer short movie films also.

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Video: Chris Bangle: Great cars are Art

American designer Chris Bangle explains his philosophy that car design is an art form in its own right, with an engaging account of the BMW Group’s Deep Blue project, intended to create the SUV of the future. Sending a team of German designers to live in the US and research the future of the SUV seemed like a good idea at the time.

Car design is a ubiquitous but often overlooked art form. As chief of design for the BMW Group, Chris Bangle has overseen cars that have been seen the world over, including BMW 7 Series and the Z4 roadster.

Official BMW web site
BMW Designer’s perspective
BMW Group- Design

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Mister Jalopy’s Urban Guerilla Drive-In Movie Theater in Make Volume 11

Lots of the folks that write for Make Magazine are bona fide experts in their field and present very refined designs that have evolved from many prototypes. Unfortunately for Make readers, I am not one of those individuals. I am (or have been) an amateur mechanic, power transformer salesman, computer tech support expert, re-engineering consultant, corporate executive, welder, maker, small business owner, database programmer, real estate investor, stove restorer, graphic designer, photographer, author, web designer, tech advisory panel member, woodworker, public speaker, handyman and furniture restorer. I am professional at only two things: garage saling and being an amateur.

As an amateur in all things, I have found great commonalities to approaching subjects as a newbie. I think the greatest skill that could be taught in schools is how to be a professional amateur as that is the single skill set that unlocks everything. Nobody likes to assist a know-it-all, but there are lots of stone killer experts that get a kick out of sharing knowledge with thoughtful individuals that are deeply curious, respectful, have a firm handshake, don’t interrupt and will meet your eye.

Glass door hinges seemed like such a clever way to allow the Fresnals to swing for keystone correction. Didn’t work - the hinges extended too far in the image area.

As opposed to your vocation, an avocation tends to be a more quiet affair and your failures are mercifully private events. Building for the magazine is more complicated as you need to be able to undo your mistakes and present a cohesive, linear project. If I included all my missteps, the article would be 5 times as long and would make no sense as readers would follow me down so many dead ends that even I would forget where we were going.

• Mister Jalopy’s Axiom of Amateurism #1, Retrofixism: Provide a path back. Always build undo buttons. Recoverable mistakes are non-events.

• Retrofixism Corollary #1a : Take 10x photos as you may need those “pre-mistake images” later.

One of 12 Chicken Scratchings Submitted to Make Art Department.
Poor Bastards. Hi Daniel!

The projector article turned out great largely due to the efforts of rockstar technical illustrator Tom Parker. Being that Tom is a maker himself, he was able to work from chicken scratchings to come up with my favorite Make illustration ever. The projector was a barely do-able project for the scope/space of a magazine and it is still not a step-by-step build guide as every projector is different. But, with the detail of the illustration, you can really get your head around how the projector works and how the build comes together. There is no replacement for the lumenlabs site.

Mark’s Little Lioness Photo: Mark Frauenfelder

On a complicated project with Maker Faire deadline, I will build it so it works but it may not be refined, explainable, repeatable or article ready. When I got back from Maker Faire, I took it apart and rebuilt to deal with overheating, phantom shadow and light leak issue. That refined version is what appears in the magazine.

One of my two raffle prizes

The cover photo shoot was at Mark and Carla’s house which included gracious hospitality, burritos, cold beers and an entertainment revue called Ye Olde Entertainment. The kid’s death defying trampoline acrobatics was followed by a raffle in which I won a shiny rock and the button pictured above.

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I wouldn’t say that I collect ball chain, but I wouldn’t say that I don’t. It is more like money. I like to have money in the bank and the second best thing is to have things that money buys in ready reserve. In a sort of elastic view of currency, having a $10 pile of ball chain stock is practically the same as having ten dollar bills.

The entire jar of ball chain was purchased an inch or ten at a time from garage sales. If I see a little 5″ piece, I will offer a nickel for it. You can’t ask, “How much for the ball chain?” as people have seemingly lost an understanding of amounts of money under a quarter. Before they can say twenty-five cents, dig out that nickel and get ready for some serious negotiating. They will look at the extraordinarily modest length of ball chain and realize that a nickel looks pretty damn good. Sure, I save money by never paying retail for ball chain but, more than that, I save time, energy and trips to Home Depot. Saving trips to Home Depot is a pretty good policy for healthy living. For each Home Depot trip I avoid I suspect I add a day to my life, not to mention dollars to the bank, gas to my tank and time to my day. And if that isn’t enough, Home Depot doesn’t even sell ball chain on the spool anymore. Not surprisingly, Amazon does at 30 cents a foot.

Of course, the economics of buying ball chain at garage sales make no sense but, besides priceless treasures, I buy lots of staples at garage sales-from binder clips to pegboard hooks to Pendaflex folders to circuit breakers to Astrobright paper to sandpaper to half-full cans of WD-40. In other words, all the stuff that makes you wonder how you pissed away so much money and don’t have anything to show for it.

Save on the stuff that doesn’t matter and spend your money on heirlooms. When was the last time you bought something that you knew you would have for your entire life and pass down to future generations?

How do you drill a hole in a cupcake topper without disturbing the clown’s plucky hat? Pilot hole. Use a tiny drill bit first, then expand the hole with larger drill bits in several steps.

Remember the game closet in The Royal Tenenbaums? With the Monopoly house on the light pull chain? If the Beastie Boys are our band, Wes Anderson is the moviemaker for our hopelessly sentimental generation. I am continually amazed by his astonishing understanding of what it is like to be a geeky kid. He makes movies that reflect how we thought life was going to be. The big projects, the car projects, the Make projects, are great. But boy is it satisfying to knock out something like this in fifteen minutes.

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The Hooptyrides, Inc. Patio Area

Everybody’s asking, instead of posting to your entertaining internets presence, are you running around like a bare chested savage at Hooptyrides, Inc.? Are you drinking from a dog dish? Howling at the moon? Barking at passersby? Are you knee deep in god-awful? Up to your suspenders in filth? Hijacking trash trucks? Like a damned animal in a damned cage?

Considering the condition of Hooptyrides, Inc. on the day that I received the keys I can not begrudge anyone asking such insulting questions. Environmental site testing was completed by taking soil samples from a depth of 15 feet, but if we really wanted to find something fantastic and terrifying, we should have taken samples from the restroom. It was outerspace terrible. Horror movie face eating bacteria awful. After a week, you really started to get a sense that it is filthy but having spent 6 months scraping the floor with a putty knife, only now can I fully understand how bad things can get.

It was a sobering exercise and I am treating it as a cautionary tale. Don’t lose sight of civilization. Stay connected with humans. Don’t get used to odd smells; eliminate them. Before going garage saling, empty the car of last week’s finds. Keep the shoes shined.

As people have done for generations, I dressed up the medicine cabinet in the Hooptyrides, Inc. Executive Washroom with a charming waterslide decal of two kittens.

Ape Products is moving from Burbank, so I have been watching their trash cans pretty closely. I was stunned then delighted to find these ultra custom director chairs. Though not perm for the patio, they sure are a welcome addition to the Hooptyrides shop. What if I need to interview John Force? Or Evil Knievel? Or Ted Nugent? What if Ted Nugent wants to interview me?

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Make Magazine Senior Editor Phil Torrone asked if I had any magazines from the golden age of handy. I did, so I scanned them.

Though I have never seen a welding vacuum chamber with pink Playtex Living Gloves, welding of exotic materials like titanium is still done with a TIG setup very similar to this. Looks like a coffee table from Skin Two.
Want to see my entire collection of handy magazines? Here.

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The Pink Pearl - Sounds like a dirty Italian ‘art’ film

I couldn’t tell you which states were in the first 13 colonies. The Mississippi is a long river, but I have no idea how long. George Washington was the first President and Jefferson was the third, but I don’t know who the second was. I can say pencil in French, but have no idea how to say pen. These embarrassing gaps in knowledge are the direct result of daydreaming while racing Pink Pearl eraser Can-Am racecars at my grade school desk.

With the logo side down, the shape of a Pink Pearl was a nearly perfect Can-Am car. Draw wheel wells and mags on the sides, faux headlights at the front leading edge, exhaust pipes out the rear, a two-seater cockpit with rollbar and, most importantly, 8 fuel injector velocity stacks directly behind the driver to suggest an 800 horsepower Chevy big block.

Of course, you would get in big trouble for desk racing Hot Wheels, but the teachers were largely helpless when it came to an eraser car. When accused, you would thrust the eraser in the air and snottily declare, “It’s just an eraser!”

Can-Am cars are burned into my brain as the ultimate racecar. Brutally fast and light cars, the Can-Am racing series was the last bastion of unlimited racing before the buttondown 1970’s. From the wikipedia entry, “…essentially a formula libre for sports cars; the regulations were minimal and permitted unlimited engine sizes (and allowed turbocharging and supercharging), virtually unrestricted aerodynamics, and were as close as any major international racing series ever got to anything goes…”

Porsche showed up with 1300 horsepower and absolutely inspired livery

So, sitting in front of a full race, uncorked injected big block is probably pretty loud. Then add a 2-cycle ‘ringdingdingringdingdingdingding’ snowmobile engine running two giant fans to suck the car to the track. The Chaparral 2J ‘Sucker’ had a Lexan skirt that wrapped the perimeter to create a race car suction cup that had a full 1/2 G advantage over the other fellas. Imagine running down the first straight and trying to decide when to lift your foot off the accelerator. With McLarens, Porsches, Lolas and Ferraris behind you, how far are you going to push into the turn?

Fearless astronauts. That’s who was racing these cars. And mad scientists were building them.

Not Tommy Ivo, Not Nailheads; A Rotax motorcycle engine for each wheel

Shadow Prototype - Like Han Solo in Carbonite

So, why the sudden Can-Am obsession? As these things often start, there is a car for sale.

Think you can do better? I wouldn’t doubt it. Send pics of your entry for the Eraser Nationals

This eraser is not a relic from when I was a kid nor was it found at a garage sale. I drew it a couple days ago. My idea of fun is fundamentally the same as when I was 10 years old. I still like to go as fast as I can. Still like ice cream bars and arcade games. I enjoy walking along railroad tracks and idle fishing when there is no hope of catching anything. I build stuff for the joy of building. Go karts and minibikes, pinball machines and firecrackers, tree houses and ghost towns, pocket knives and monkey wrenches.

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