In the 1960s, Harley-Davidson was struggling. Honda, with its line of popular scooters, was not. So Harley-Davidson tried to break into this market starting in 1960. The "Topper", powered by a 165cc two-stroke engine, was marketed as a recreational and utility vehicle, useful for fun excursions and package delivery. It even came with a sidecar option for people or cargo. The line never took off, though, and Harley-Davidson ended the experiment in 1965.

Link | Images: Modern Vespa and Motorcycle Info

Rachel Blackman made this Optimus Prime model out of scrap metal for the Fremont Solstice Festival. Kind of dieselpunk, don't you think?

Link via Walyou

The Spalding Building in Portland, Oregon, has perhaps the most formidable-looking bicycle storage facility in the world. It consists of repurposed bank vaults:

Tenants of the 12-story structure can lock their rides up in one of two vaults converted to bike storage in the ex-bank part of the building (and scrub down in the nearby showers after the commute).

Actually, they're just for show. The steel doors can't lock. That would probably be too dangerous for users.

Link via NotCot | Photo: BikePortland.org

Previously: Bicycle Lock Climbs Lamp Post to Escape Thieves

Japanese artist Takayuki Hori created a lovely series of origami animal figures with printed skeletons. When displayed under the right light, they look like folded x-ray images. Here's how he does it:

each translucent sheet is first printed with either the images of fragments of an animal's skeleton, or, on some pages, human-made discarded objects that are often ingested by the animals in the wild. using the ancient tradition of folded paper, hori assembles the pages into a three-dimensional model. once the paper is folded, the printed components are united as a whole, telling the visual story of the animal's plight to survive in an increasingly polluted and hazardous ecosystem.

Link via Geekosystem | Photo: Design Boom

Miss Cellania noted the odd hats that Princess Beatrice of York and other ladies wore to the British royal wedding. What isn't widely known is that Beatrice actually modified her hat to make it a bit less ostentatious. There's a whole Tumblr blog devoted just to the odd headgear that she's worn in public.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've just blogged about the hat that a woman wore at a wedding, so I have to go surrender my man card now.

Link via Super Punch

Computer scientist Haym Hirsh wrote this puzzle. See if you can figure it out:

I am in one of the great capitals of Europe. I just learned that Bob, Carl, and I are in countries that share physical borders with each other. The official language of Bob’s country is Dutch, and Carl’s is Portuguese. It is 9:00am local time for both Bob and Carl.

Now: What is Hirsh's local time?

You can view eight other good puzzles by Hirsh at the link.

Link | Hirsh's Website | Photo by Flickr user pobre.ch used under Creative Commons license

(Video Link)

Until today, I'd never heard of the comedian and songwriter Allan Sherman (1924-1973). He was the Weird Al Yankovic of the 50s and 60s, composing and performing parody songs to millions of television viewers.

This song, "Good Advice", is a real hoot. It turns out that Sherman was responsible for the great inventions and discoveries of the modern age. Who knew?

More Information via TigerHawk

We've previously featured some of Vincent Bousserez's photographs before, but this one in particular made me laugh.

In my home, we joke about pacifier gnomes stealing and hiding pacifiers, but maybe -- just maybe -- they're actually real. You can view a slideshow of Bousserez's work at the link and make up your own mind.

Link | Artist's Website

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Barrier1 Systems is a defense contractor that has developed a number of amazing retractable road blocking systems. The above video shows several of them, starting with a net that can be kept below the surface of the road, then deployed in an emergency. Hitting one of them is like slamming into a brick wall.

Company Website via Geekologie

Don't you recognize the scene? It's the Battle of San Juan Hill -- July 1, 1898. Criminy, they don't teach kids anything in school these days! It was this battle, among others in Cuba, that led to the development of the 1903 Springfield rifle, as the Krag-Jørgensen proved (as you can see in the picture) to have an inadequate rate of fire compared to the Spaniards' Mausers.

This excellent true to life image from history has been attributed to deviantART user Matthew McKeown.

Gallery Link via Geekosystem

The iconic "Mudflap Girl", long seen on America's highways, finally has an identity. Ed Allen of Washington, D.C. says that it's his mother. Allen's father, a trucker, kept a photo of his wife wearing a swimsuit in his rig:

Dad kept the photo in the cab of his truck, which always bore his wife’s name on the hood. When a new corporate owner forbade Stewart from decorating a company-owned vehicle, Stewart put his wife’s silhouette on his trailer’s mudflaps so his boss couldn’t see her when the truck was backed up to a loading dock.

In 1967, Ed Allen said that a local truck-accessories manufacturer named Bill Zinda saw the design. He liked it and, with dad’s permission, started selling it. No one ever trademarked the image, and Mudflap Girl got around a lot during the freewheeling ’70s.

Link via Jalopnik | Photo by Flickr user Brandon Doran used under Creative Commons license

Previously:
Dating Mudflap Girl
Wyoming Library's Mudflap Girl

Rachel Wright made a few dresses from vintage slips and nightgowns that depict the anatomy of the wearer. She's doing so to express an intersection of public and private lives:

The Dream Anatomy series explore these imagined realms inside the body. Because these garments are meant to be worn, the boundary between the internal and the external is blurred. The invisible is made visible: wear your inside on the outside. By using women’s slips and nighties, articles that were not originally intended for public life, I am playiing with the line between the public and the private arenas.

Link via Craft | Artist's Website

(Video Link)

The baby duck is definitely winning. In fact, he's toying with the dog, as though pushing him around takes no real effort. Com'on dog, your ancestors were wolves. Man up.

via Ace of Spades HQ

After one man went into cardiac arrest and his family successfully performed CPR on him with a toilet plunger, Advanced Circulator Systems developed the ResQPump. It's a machine that regulates chest compressions and airflow during the resuscitation process:

According to a study published in The Lancet this winter, the ResQPump, which is used for chest compressions, and the ResQPOD, which prevents too much air from entering the lungs during CPR, could increase certain cardiac-arrest victims’ chances of survival by 50 percent.

The ResQPump works like a toilet plunger, but while decompressing it can draw air back into the lungs. The ResQPOD, cleared by the FDA in 2003, regulates airflow by creating suction in the chest, which draws blood up into the brain.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-04/device-modelled-after-toilet-plunger-improves-cpr-success | Photo: Advanced Circulatory Systems

Previously: CPR Certification at Home with the Nintendo Wii

This is really cute! Etsy seller PlaidPigeon modified plastic dinosaur toys so that they'd serve as planters. This one is Rick the Dilophosaurus with a Zebra Haworthia Succulent growing in his back.

Link via Dude Craft