TPile

Kodak takes another stab at video with the Zi6. It’s YouTube-ready, handles still shots nicely and USB plug delivers instant upload and edit.

: Photo: James Hough

James Hough is a lawyer by profession but a gearhead at heart. He’s always tinkering with engines and building things from scratch. About a year ago, he combined the two passions to create the Houghmade Cycle Works 71, a motorized bicycle that pays homage to the racing motorcycles of the early 20th century.

“I had been looking for a project and saw online that someone had put an engine on an old Schwinn,” Hough says. “I was inspired by that and thought it would be a fun project, an outlet for my desire to build. I thought it would be fun to ride around the neighborhood and to run errands. The 100-plus mpg didn’t hurt.”

Click through the gallery to check out the tech behind this cruiser on steroids.

Left:

Hough drew inspiration from the board-track racers that sped around steeply banked wood tracks called motordromes — especially the 1911 Harley Davidson “Silent Grey Fellow” and the leaf-sprung Indian motorcycles of that era. The Houghmade bike’s gas tank copies the tank found on the 1919 Excelsior OHC that some consider the most advanced motorcycle of its day.

: Photo: James Hough

Like most projects, the Houghmade Cycle Works 71 took longer and cost more than expected. “I started in August of 2007 and expected it to be done in a month,” Hough says. “However, as time went on, my vision of what I wanted became clearer. I wanted something special.”

Hough spent 13 months and “somewhere around $1,000, give or take,” on the project. Future plans include better brakes — drum brakes from a moped or disc brakes from a mountain bike — and perhaps a chain guard. “I do not see it as a safety issue, because my cuffs are nowhere near the drive chain,” Hough says. “I purposefully left the chain guard off both sides because board-track racers did not have chain guards.”

: Photo: James Hough

Hough modified or made many of the parts on the bike. The handlebars were formed from old plumbing pipe, and the headlight is a railroad lantern. He’s fitted it with a speedometer and electric lamp that uses a 3-volt flashlight bulb and two batteries. “I will probably install a more robust lighting system inside the current headlight housing, though I have no intention to ride at night,” he says.

: Photo: James Hough

Hough sweats the details, going so far as to install a manual oil pump and fabricate an air-filter housing similar to those the board-track racers used. Houghmade Cycle Works is a play on words, and the model number he assigned the bike — 71 — refers to the year he was born.

: Photo: James Hough

Though the final product looks seamless, underneath it’s a Frankenstein of disparate bike parts.

The project all started with a Huffy “Santa Fe” beach cruiser Hough found at a flea market for $25. The only things left from that old clunker are the frame, stem and seat post.

The Husky wheels sport white Kenda tires. Pedals from a Free Spirit that Hough road in junior high turn a crank set taken from a kid’s bike of unknown origin. The springer fork is from an old Schwinn.

: Photo: James Hough

The seat is an “eBay special” Hough re-covered it with goatskin. The front and rear leaf springs are ornamental and don’t actually provide any suspension damping, but the style is spot-on.

: Photo: James Hough

But how fast is it? Although the speedo maxes out at 50 mph, Hough says the Houghmade Cycle Works 71 won’t go that fast. “It runs smooth,” he says. “I cruise around at 25 to 30 mph. It tops out around 40, but that’s really pushing it. At 25 to 30 mph, it really feels like highway speeds, and I love every minute of it.”

: Photo: James Hough

The bike sports a half-gallon fuel tank bonded to a fiberglass shell that replicates the shape of the fuel tank on a 1919 Excelsior OHC. It’s enough to go about 50 miles. Hough is toying with the idea of fabricating a tank out of sheet metal. “This project has done wonders for many of my DIY skills,” he says, “Why not more sheet metal skills?”

: Photo: James Hough

The heart of the bike is a Honda GHX50 50cc engine mated to a Grubee Skyhawk II transmission. Hough spent a little more than $400 for the drivetrain, which is mounted to the Huffy frame with a Grubee engine mount. The bike is street-legal in Indiana and doesn’t require a license plate or registration. “I have ridden it to work,” he says, adding that it’s a 32-mile round trip. “I stick to back roads and try to do my riding away from traffic. I try to ride two or three times a week for fun.”

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Some hard-core bicyclists sport enough ink to give the Hells Angels a run for their money in the tattoo department.

From stark, black-and-white symbols to colorful skin-art standbys like flaming skulls and comic-book characters, you never know what will show up on the arms and pedal-pumping legs of bike fanatics.

Left:

Sean McKinney, of S&M Bikes, has the company logo tattooed on his wrist. He had the skulls added to the logo for effect.

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The number for “4130 Chromoly,” a steel alloy containing chromium and molybdenum that is commonly used in bike frames, is tattooed on the right shin of Dave Harris, 34, of Binghamton, New York.

“It is my metal of choice,” said Harris, who is a welder for FBM Bike.

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Matt “The Beard” Bischoff, owner of Cincinnati’s Failure Bikes, has a tattoo inspired by bike rider Tim “Fuzzy” Hall on his inner bicep.

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A lost bet led to the tattoo on the thigh of Zack “Catfish” Yankush, of Dayton, Ohio. The artwork shows fellow BMX rider Alan Cook doing a back flip over his wife.

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Brian Osborne, 31, of Louisville, Kentucky, has sprockets tattooed on his right arm. “BMX,” said Osborne. “What more can I say?”

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The Silver Surfer rides a Schwinn Black Phantom on the forearm of Jason Faircloth, 35, of Marin County, California.

“My buddy had a really cool Silver Surfer tattoo, but it seemed kinda poseur for me to get,” said Faircloth, who works as a product manager for Marin Bikes. “I’m not a surfer. I’m a biker.”

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Brad Cider, 30, of Thousand Oaks, California, has a tribute to his riding partner NJJ tattooed on his chest. Cider is a sales rep for Pronghorn Racing.

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World Bicycle Trials champion Vittorio Brumotti has a tattoo commemorating his favorite rider on his chest.

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A bicycle tire bursts out of a flaming, winged skull on the thigh of Denver resident East Foster, 39.

“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” said Foster. “I gave a friend free rein and this is what he came up with. I think it is perfect.”

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Ryan Sher, 28, of Portland, Oregon, is brand manager for Subrosa Bicycles. He has the skull-and-snake emblem from the company’s Malum bicycle tattooed on his forearm.

While he makes the designs for the bicycles, they don’t all end up as tattoos on his body.

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Michael Sean Moore of Santa Cruz, California, and an employee of bike shop Calfee Design, has the word bicycle tattooed on his forearm.

“So simple,” said Moore.

See also:

• Wired.com Readers’ Best Geek Tattoos
• Geek Ink: Comics Fans Show Off Tattoos

Three strikes for les gratuittards

The French Senate has overwhelmingly voted in favor of disconnecting Internet pirates, despite European Parliament’s direct opposition to the punishment.…

Love and patriotism shared

Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama is the leading choice for BFF among pre-teen kids following the US presidential elections.…

daria42 writes “The leaders of three of Australia’s largest internet service providers — Telstra Media’s Justin Milne, iiNet’s Michael Malone and Internode’s Simon Hackett — have, in video interviews with ZDNet.com.au over the past few months, detailed technical, legal and ethical reasons why ISP-level filtering won’t work. Critics of the policy also say that users will have no way to know what’s being filtered.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There are some legal decisions that just make no sense. Gunnar writes in to let us know of a story in Michigan, where a judge has ordered a furniture store to stop using a design that shows a couch being unwrapped from a candy bar. Hershey’s sued the furniture company, claiming it violated their trademark on unwrapping chocolate bars:

But here’s the thing: even the judge admits that trademark law shouldn’t apply here because it’s a totally different business and there’s little chance of customer confusion: “While both parties cater to the general public, there is no indication that their customers are predominantly the same. Even if their customer bases overlap to some extent … the risk of consumers confusing a furniture outlet with a candy store, or vice versa, appears remote.” Those are all things a judge says right before denying the trademark claim, but in this case, it went the other way. If a moron in a hurry isn’t likely to be confused, then there’s no trademark infringement. The furniture store wasn’t even using the image yet — but just had it in a contest for truck designs. At least the company hadn’t spent too much money painting up all the trucks.

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Popular Firefox addon Read It Later has just introduced an updated version of their plugin which adds new functionality to Google Reader. With the new extension, which now …

A duo from Texas recently got their hands on the yet-to-be released Mitsubishi Laser TV and placed it in the first head to head match-up against the top o’ the line Pioneer Kuro PRO-151FD 60-incher.

In the end, they came to the same (though admittedly very early) conclusion I did when I first laid eyes on the Laser: The color gamut, and the reds in particular, are fiery gorgeous and might prove to be the game-changer. And heavy action scenes with lots of motion are rendered in detail, and without much blur.

In addition, they found that the low-power consumption of the LaserVue was a great calling card, as it consumes only 135 watts, as opposed to the 524 watts by the Kuro.

But this picture quality rumble is destined to last through the Winter because there are some things the Kuro can do that the Laser apparently cannot.

According to these guys, the Kuro still has the best blacks, the best viewing angles, and its thinner build is way more conducive to living room options. The LaserVue, at 10.6-inches deep, will take up a good chunk of space and even though it is mountable, you wouldn’t really call it thin.

For the test, they used a Panasonic DMP-BD30K Blu-Ray to play an Iron Man Blu disk (as well as Pioneer’s demo disk for side by side comparisons) and found the superhero’s suit more realistic looking, and just better defined overall. Same thing happened with the dress, as seen in the pic below.

We’ll draw our own conclusions with a full review in the next few weeks, so look for it here and in our new Product Reviews website. 

See also:

• CES 2008: Mitsubishi’s 50" Laser TV Changes the High-Definition Game (With Exclusive Gallery!)
• Mitsubishi Releases Specs of the ‘Frakking’ Laser TV

MaxwellEdison writes “Scientists have discovered evidence of magnetic portals connecting the Earth and the Sun every 8 minutes. ‘Several speakers at the Workshop have outlined how FTEs form: On the dayside of Earth (the side closest to the sun), Earth’s magnetic field presses against the sun’s magnetic field. Approximately every eight minutes, the two fields briefly merge or “reconnect,” forming a portal through which particles can flow. The portal takes the form of a magnetic cylinder about as wide as Earth. The European Space Agency’s fleet of four Cluster spacecraft and NASA’s five THEMIS probes have flown through and surrounded these cylinders, measuring their dimensions and sensing the particles that shoot through.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.