Linked List: May 24, 2017

Wednesday, 24 May 2017

The Marc Newson Hourglass for Hodinkee 

Watch the video and read this. I’ll update this post with my comments later today.

Update: OK, so my take on this is going to upset many of you. I first saw this last night via this tweet from Marco Arment, and I read through the replies and every single one of them was mocking either the entire premise of an exquisite hourglass or at the very least the price.

I think this looks beautiful, and I don’t think there’s anything crazy about it costing $12,000. I’m not buying one. But all sorts of pieces of art cost tens of thousands of dollars, and I say this is most definitely art. Newson’s previous hourglass design, for Ikepod, ranged from $13,000–40,000.

I do find it odd that every unit is numbered “1/100” rather than giving each piece a unique number — “1/100”, “2/100”, … “100/100”. And Hodinkee isn’t doing themselves any favors with some of the precious bits of copywriting (e.g. “approximately 1,249,996 little spheres” is not an approximation). But if you don’t see anything ludicrous about a mechanical watch costing in excess of $10,000 (or $100,000, or more) why is there something ludicrous about a $12,000 hourglass?

The world is full of cheaply-made mass-produced crap. Why not celebrate the creation of something genuinely beautiful?

‘Spectre’ Trailer Re-Cut With Roger Moore as Bond 

This is so well done it gave me goosebumps. Makes me think the franchise could use some Moore-like suaveness when they recast the role post-Craig.

‘Moonraker’ – The Insane Attempt to Turn James Bond Into ‘Star Wars’ in 1979 

James Whitbrook, writing for io9:

Moonraker might not be the best Bond movie — it might not even be the best of Moore’s time with the Bond mantle. But all these years later, its goofy charm perhaps best represents the joyful camp that Moore brought to his role as 007, something we will always remember now that he’s gone.

Over the years, my youthful resistance to campiness has faded, and my esteem for Moonraker has grown.

From the Annals of Anal 

The New York Daily News:

At approximately 6:30 a.m. Monday, a car crash involving two pickup trucks sent one of the vehicles inside the AnalTech building of Newark, Del., leaving a giant hole. The truck damaged the facility’s laboratory and caused an odor to emanate from the cavity, WDEL reports.

Regarding the company name:

In an email sent to the Houston Chronicle, a spokesperson revealed, “In 1964, the company paid a marketing firm to come up with a different name. They said, ‘Well, you guys do Analytical Technology — why don’t you put the two words together and call it ‘AnalTech!’”

However, the spokesperson admitted that “AnalTech faces certain challenges because of the ‘juvenile’ humor that has developed in the past few decades and current web filters that may block the company name” and has considered rebranding as a result.

I don’t see anything “juvenile” about this humor. Good butt jokes are funny to all ages.

(Via Paul Kafasis.)