This is the most recent picture of the upcoming Porsche Panamera mule; this particular model is one of the first spotted in the US. Caught by Fast Lane Daily viewer mcshin, who tells us:

Seen in Marina Del Rey, California today with a chase care behind. When I pulled my camera out the chase car would drive really close to the car and try and block my view. Thank goodness for the traffic.

The Panamera is Porsche’s first ever four-door, and should be htting the auto show stands in the very near future. Price estimates sit at anywhere from the high-$50,000 range all the way up to a $100,000+ Turbo model, competing right with the BMW 7-Series and Mercedes-Benz S-Class.

Watch today’s show, with the Panamera spy shot featured!

TAKEN FROM www.fastlanedaily.com

This monocycle replica from 1873 is an stunning engineering and mechanical feat. Created by a spaniard using 19th Century documentation and old-style handcrafting techniques, it uses a 6.16-foot wheel, with a 238-teeth inner segment. As you can see in the gallery, the quality of his work is simply amazing.

This man from Burgos, Spain, created the whole thing by himself, casting the main bronze wheel from a carved oak model. He also used different steel alloys for different parts of the mechanism, depending on the stress they are going to suffer. The saddle’s suspension bar was treated in a forge to obtain the necessary elasticity to make it work right.

TAKEN FROM gizmodo.com

Steampunk is a kind of speculative fiction that usually takes place in urban settings where the future meets the past: Victorian era inventions clash with often dark alternate realities. However, what started as a literary genre has since evolved into an art form with incredible real-life inventions, modifications and redesigns. The following is an introduction to the art of Steampunk, with everything from altered guitars to a Steampunked iPod.

In Steampunk literature, the living computers and flying cars of science fiction are typically replaced by hulking steam-powered machines and floating dirigibles. Moreover, the art of design in these future-past visions reflects the ultimate integration of form and function epitomized during the periods being referenced: where even gears and buttons on an archaic machine were beautifully crafted. Shown above are three amazing modifications of contemporary technologies to fit the aesthetic of the Steampunk era: the Villianizer, a re-engineered Stratocaster and a Vespa.

Like Goth, steampunk draws on elements of Victorian dress. Like Cyberpunk, there is an emphasis on the technology and culture of the material world as shown through and alternate present or future. Beyond those, however, there is a kind of celebration of the more elemental and tangible science and technology of periods prior to our present computer age. However, some of the most amazing Steampunk redesigns combine these two eras and involve modifications of computer monitors or even entire laptop computers.

One of the most amazing feats of Steampunk art and engineering is the Steampunk Tree House, constructed for the Burning Man Arts Festival. This fully-functional interactive art pieces was one of the highlights of this year’s Burning Man Festival, lit up spectacularly at night and able to withstand strong daytime winds as shown in the above photographs.

 

Steampunk ideas have also increasingly been retroactively applied to existing cult classics. Perhaps the most notable of these is Star Wars. Shown above is one of a series of Star Wars themed Steampunk renderings depicting, in this case, the Death Star reimagined for the Star Wars universe. Other artists have created tangible works such as a Star Wars Steampunk light saber made from old radio parts and evening a functioning R2D2 Steampunk robot. Some clever individuals even scripted and filmed a hilarious Star Trek parody set to a Steampunk theme and complete with archaic cinematography and a fitting musical score:

 

TAKEN FROM weburbanist.com

 

Paintings normally require canvas and most theater takes a stage, but carvings can come out of almost any material - a fact which some talented artists have put to into practice in amazing ways. Most people are familiar with amazingly carved ice statues and perhaps even giant cheese sculptures, but what about eggs, pencils or books? Here are three approaches to carving used to create amazing art from ordinary (and often fragile) objects.

Lew Jensen, Don Lisk and Brian Baity and others have approached the art of egg shell carving in a variety of ways and with strikingly varied results. Some artists work layered reliefs into the seemingly one-dimensional shells, others are subtractive and emphasis the relationship between figure and void. One set of artists has even gone into the business of taking larger bird eggs to create lamp shades.

Mizuta Tasogare and Kato Jado divide their incredibly intricate pencil carvings into four basic types and the rest they consider variations on these basic themes. Any mistake, they note, is fatal for an individual work which must remain intact throughout the delicate carving process. Creating link after link without breaking through thin wood barriers and while dealing with the material change between the graphite and surrounding wood is extremely challenging.

Brian Dettmer is a kind of “book surgeon,” performing “autopsies” on old volumes with engaging three-dimensional results. He uses an array of precision instruments to create or reveal patterns within a given book or set of books, often taking advantage of the particular appearance, form and content of his subject material. In many cases, the connection between the material, process and product is overtly evident, as he reveals an interpretation the past through history books and the dissects virtual bodies via anatomy texts.

TAKEN FROM weburbanist.com

Ironhide as he appears in the film, Transformers

Of all the GM rides playing Autobots in Transformers, one of the favorites around here is Ironhide (above), who rolls as a completely tricked GMC TopKick 6500 pickup truck when he’s not kicking ass, taking names, and intimidating Chihuahuas as the Autobots’ weapons specialist. Monroe Truck Equipment, which modifies rides like the TopKick for business owners, has partnered up with Hasbro to offer the ultimate adult Transformers toy: a near-exact Ironhide replica (minus the giant transforming robot element, of course).

Ironhide buyers get twin big-rig-style smokestacks, 20″ black wheels wearing massive tires in lieu of the TopKick’s standard dualies, custom, powder-coated front and rear bumpers, and a monster winch up front. The only real differences we see on the Monroe Truck version are the amber running lights (Ironhide’s are blue) and the non-aero (but more useful) mirrors. As for the look of horror on Prius drivers’ faces when you thunder by in this thing, well, that’s an intangible that you can’t put a value on. Ironhide effing rules!

TAKEN FROM  

Click the image above for more images from Best Car.

Within days of announcing Toyota’s formation of a “Committee to create interesting cars,” this summer’s Best Car Plus magazine reveals that the long-rumoured new AE86 type car has indeed been spawned by the group and should be in showrooms in the winter of 2008.

The new article goes into some detail of the new car’s spec. Under 4m long and 1.7m wide, it’s pretty low at 1.35m tall, and engineers have been directed to keep weight below 1,000kgs. Power will come from a 1.5L 2NZ-FE good for 120 horsepower. What has been unknown until this time is where Toyota would source a cheap RWD drivetrain, but Best Car has learned that it will come from new partner Fuji Heavy Industries - better known to you and me as Subaru.

And the best news of all? The committee’s final directive is to keep the new car’s sticker price below 1.5million Yen. That’s about $12,300 USD in today’s money.

TAKEN FROM  www.autoblog.com

This is one of the biggest hamburgers in the world which was pronounced as “The Hamburger King”. It is made by a man with skills abut also with a big love in this one of the most famous fast food. On this cool pictures you will one, big, weird but cool giant hamburger, the Hamburger king.

TAKEN FROM /thecontaminated.com/

TAKEN FROM /freemanforwards.blogspot.com

We show a lot of proposals for buildings in Dubai, often draped in photovoltaics and covered in propellers, or twisting and turning, it is a Disneyland of architecture. Sometimes we think they are going a bit overboard, as they evolve from Disney to Lucas with buildings like OMA’s Ras al Khaimah Convention and Exhibition Centre. We have used Picasso’s bon mot, updated by Le Corbusier before: “Good architects borrow but great architects steal” but never was the homage so obvious. Architectspeak below the fold.

So far the 21st century – in a desperate effort to differentiate one building from the next – has been characterized by a manic production of extravagant shapes. Paradoxically, the result is a surprisingly monotonous urban substance, where any attempt at ‘difference’ is instantly neutralized in a sea of meaningless architectural gestures.

RAK is confronted with an important choice: Does it join so many others in this mad, futile race or does it become the first to offer a new credibility?

This project represents a final attempt at distinction through architecture:not through the creation of the next bizarre image, but through a return to pure form. ::OMA via my favourite source for wild and crazy architecture, ::Myninjaplease

Note: gravestmor suggests that it is not modelled on the deathstar, but on a Panasonic radio from 1972, five years before the first Star Wars movie, calling it “the little Japanese radio that could.”

TAKEN FROM www.treehugger.com

­You open your eyes to the soft, diffused light of fiber optics and dawn. Ice surrounds you — some of it carved into furniture and sculpture, some of it in massive blocks that make up the walls, the ceiling and even the floor. But despite the room’s beauty, it’s time to get moving. After all, your room is 17 to 23 degrees Fahrenheit (-5 to -8 degrees Celsius) and you’ve just spent the night in a mummy bag on a slab of ice. The beauty, the cold and the quick morning escape are all part of the typical ice hotel experience.
Ice hotels are oversized, extravagant igloos. Solid blocks of ice make up their formidable, barrel-shaped structures. But inside, ice hotels glitter with elaborate ice furniture, ice bars and even ice glasses. Colorful lighting makes the structures look more like magical snow castles than frigid arctic dwellings.

Hotel Image Gallery

Peter Grant/Getty Images
Sweden’s ICEHOTEL is built every year on the River Torne.
See more pictures of hotels.

The hotels are built near rivers where workers can draw water, freeze it into ice and cut the ice into large blocks before trucking it into place. Extensive, large-capacity ice hotels take about five to six weeks to build. But when spring comes, all the hard work melts away, and the hotels must wait until winter to rebuild.

­Ice hotels are part of a growing trend in destination hotels. People no longer select lodgings simply because they’re close to holiday spots. With normal vacations just not cutting it anymore, hotels have become destinations in their own right. Arctic resorts that once had to close up shop for the long winter can now attract tourists year round.

People describe the experience of waking up after a night in an ice hotel as one of sheer exhilaration. Some say it even feels like an accomplishment. In the next section, we’ll learn about the original ICEHOTEL in Jukkasjärvi,

TAKEN FROM travel.howstuffworks.com