Author Archives: Chompsky

Behold: the 1967 Porsche 911S Targa, but not just any old 911S Targa – this one was the first of its kind to roll off the Stuttgart production line.

Bizarrely, not long after its purchase, it ended up in a US barn where it remained beneath a plastic sheet for four decades before hit was rediscovered and returned to Germany.

Commissioned by the current owner, a three year restoration by Porsche Classic, with access to over 60,000 genuine spare parts, the factory’s original straightening sets, frame gauges, data sheets, and technical drawings has returned Targa No.1 to its original 53 year-old condition.

Not currently for sale.

hiconsumption

Laoise Moore tweetz:

I came across this lichen (I think) walking this morning in #BlueHills. In Massachusetts I never feel far from home.

(H/T: Niall Gubbins)

Previously: The Dark Molecular Cloud That Looks Like Ireland

Obligatory bewk plug: The Broadsheet Book Of Unspecified Things That Look Like Ireland (Edited by Aidan Coughlan, New Island)

Behold: Simeis 147, aka Sharpless 2-240, aka the Spaghetti Nebula – a giant supernova remnant worthy of your praise. To wit:

Seen toward the boundary of the constellations Taurus and Auriga, it covers nearly 3 degrees or 6 full moons on the sky. That’s about 150 light-years at the stellar debris cloud’s estimated distance of 3,000 light-years. This composite includes image data taken through narrow-band filters where reddish emission from ionized hydrogen atoms and doubly ionized oxygen atoms in faint blue-green hues trace the shocked, glowing gas. The supernova remnant has an estimated age of about 40,000 years, meaning light from the massive stellar explosion first reached Earth 40,000 years ago. But the expanding remnant is not the only aftermath. The cosmic catastrophe also left behind a spinning neutron star or pulsar, all that remains of the original star’s core.

(Image: Georges Attard)

apod

Behold the 1930 Bentley Blower, or rather, the first of twelve such ‘continuation’ vehicles to be built by Bentley’s Mulliner Classic division from the original plans of Sir Henry ’Tim’ Birkin’s Le Mans 24 Hour Race winner.

Using Birkin’s original 90 year old tools and jigs along with detailed laser scans of the original car (which sold for £4.5 million back in 2012), each Continuation Blower will contain 1,846 handcrafted parts from small British firms, pluckily clinging to the past God bless ’em, as their country drifts off into an uncertain future.

Mmf.

All twelve vehicles are already spoken for.

uncrate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eyb41sm5e10

An impressive 2002 (hence the low res) short by Croatian animator Simon Bogojevic-Narath. To wit:

The night. Metropolis. [A cat]. Pockets full of money. A beggar in a crowded avenue. How a leisurely stroll down the street can change a life for the worse… or the better.

animatic