photo by Makenai

photo by Blake Maloof

Jeri Ellsworth created this awesome Commodore 64 bass guitar for last weekend’s Maker Faire Bay Area. Ellsworth explains how she made the guitar and how it works in this MAKE:Live video recorded at Maker Faire. (skip ahead about 40 seconds to the start of the interview).

via Waxy.org

Team Coco created The Museum Of Old Pop Culture References to help younger viewers understand Conan’s jokes.

via Tastefully Offensive

Manitoba’s oldest microbrewery Fort Garry Brewing is now making Kona Imperial Stout, a limited-edition craft beer that is brewed with 50 pounds of rich roasted coffee beans from Kona, Hawaii. It is described as “intense in-your-face goodness” by the brewery’s Matt Wolff. The stout’s retro-modern tiki packaging was designed by Atmosphere Design.

via Lovely Package

images via Atmosphere Design and Oh Beautiful Beer

Squirrel Monkey imagines what Pinterest might have looked like if it was created in the 1990s. Here’s a screenshot.

Here’s YouTube in the 1990s, Facebook in the 1990s, Twitter in the 1980s and LinkedIn in the 1980s.

This retro-futuristic 1983 video announces the Viewtron system, an early telephone-based information service by AT&T and media company Knight Ridder. The system could provide weather reports, news, stock prices, and other info through a video terminal that was connected to a modem. It was expensive, slow, and ultimately canceled in 1986.

“The Expanding Airport” by Charles and Ray Eames is a 1958 educational animation about the novel design of Washington Dulles International Airport, the country’s first airport designed to accommodate jet aircraft. The film coincided with the beginning of the airport’s construction—the airport would go on to open in 1962.

via Cartoon Brew

Justin Hawkins and Adrian Grenier (who starred in HBO’s Entourage) co-founded Churchkey Can Co., a craft brewing startup company that has brought back beer in flat-top steel cans. The cans require the use of a church key to open them, just like they did 50 years ago. According to the Churchkey Can Co. website, the beer itself is a pilsner recipe crafted by homebrewers Lucas Jones and Sean Burke and is currently being sold in the Pacific Northwest.

via TechCrunch

photo by Russell Lo

In her True Adventures in Better Homes photocollage series, Massachusetts-based artist Nadine Boughton has combined the look of vintage men’s adventure magazines with Better Homes and Gardens of the same era.

These photocollages are set against the backdrop of the McCarthy era, advertising, sexual repression, WWII and the Korean War. The cool, insular world of mid-century modern living glossed over all danger and darkness, which the heroic male fought off in every corner.

My intention is to show how the inner psyche reflects the culture at large. I am drawn to the tension of opposites: inner and outer spaces, wildness and domesticity, the sweat and the cool. With a background in psychology, I am always interested in what lies beneath appearances. The predator theme so present in the “true” adventures led me to explore “who” or “what” is breaking through. Whether the metaphor is that of bats or whales, this “other” carries not only our deepest fears but our deepest desires. We meet ourselves.

via Flavorwire and Coilhouse

images via Flavorwire and Nadine Boughton

Squirrel Monkey created another informative Wonders of the World Wide Web VHS recording that imagines what YouTube might have looked like if it was created in the 1990s.

Previously Squirrel Monkey took a look at the 1990s version of Facebook and the 1980s version of Twitter.

Artist Travis Louie created these wonderful paintings of Victorian characters and their mythical pets for his upcoming show “The Secret Pet Society” at the William Baczek Fine Arts gallery in Northampton, Massachusetts, May 2 through June 2, 2012.

via Arrested Motion

The 1914 A.L.F.A. 40/60 HP Aerodinamica Prototype was a very early attempt at creating an aerodynamic automobile. Thanks to its teardrop shape, the Aerodinamica could attain a top speed of 86 mph from its 70 horsepower engine. The car was designed by Marco Ricotti of Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Castagna. It was based on the A.L.F.A. 40/60 HP, a road and race car from the company that would eventually become Alfa Romeo.

via Retronaut & Car Styling

photo 2 by John Lamm, all others via shorey.net

“Childhood of a Circle” is a beautifully retro animation about a creature named Archibald and a mysterious red circle. The animation was created by French designer Kadavre Exquis.

via Geeks Are Sexy

Keyboard Art from the October, 1948 issue of Popular Mechanics, a predecessor to what would become ASCII art.

via Retronaut & Modern Mechanics

In this 1985 60 Minutes report, host Ed Bradley investigates allegations that Dungeons & Dragons causes devil worship, suicide, and murder amongst its players.

via They Might Be Giants

Sci-fi author and futurist Arthur C. Clarke predicted in this 1974 TV interview that in 2001, regular people would have personal computers that communicate and retrieve information using a system that sounds rather like the Internet.

He will have in his own house…a console through which he can talk to his friendly local computer and get all the information he needs for his everyday life, like his bank statements, theatre reservations—all the information you need in the course of living in a complex modern society. This will be in a compact form in his own house. You”ll have a television screen…and a keyboard and he’ll talk to the computer and get information from it. And he’ll take it as much for granted as we take the telephone.

The interview is from the archives of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

via Explore & Open Culture

The 2012 Blip Festival, an event showcasing music and art that is created with vintage computers and game consoles, takes place May 25-27 at the Gramercy Theatre in New York City. The Blip Festival is presented by 8bitpeoples, The Tank, and Live Nation.

Squirrel Monkey created this informative VHS recording that imagines what The Facebook might have looked like if it was created in the 1990s. Squirrel Monkey also took a look at the 1980s version of Twitter.

via BuzzFeed

Squirrel Monkey made an animation that imagines what Twitter might have looked like if it was created in the 1980s.

via Viral Viral Videos

Artist Joe Spiotto created these Nintendo game box designs for three famous Alfred Hitchcock films.

via Super Punch

1-Bit Camera is a wonderful retro photo app for iPhone that takes 1-bit black and white photos. The app is inspired by the 1-bit graphics of the original 1984 Apple Macintosh OS, as well as the short-lived Nintendo Gameboy Camera. To see photos taken by the app, take a look at the 1-Bit Camera Tumblr. 1-Bit Camera is by Swedish designer David Lindecrantz.

via Waxy.org

Google has just released an 8-bit version of Google Maps for Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). When it hits the Google Store it will be the first NES cartridge to be released in almost 18 years. Here’s a trial version.

With Google Maps 8-bit, you can do all the things you already do on regular Google Maps. Search for famous landmarks and sites around the world. Take an epic journey with 8-bit Street View. Get detailed directions to avoid dangerous paths, and battle your way through a world of powerful monsters and mystic treasures.

via Google Lat Long Blog

In June 2010, this custom Cadillac baby stroller won first place in the Open Car class at the Monthly Muscle Car Show in Plano, Texas. Macomber Fiberglass Bodies in Santa Paula, California sells unfinished fiberglass shells on Ebay to make this or other custom pedal cars or strollers at home.

It has air-ride, lights under the car, and even fire out of the tailpipes!

1960 Cadillac pedal car hot rod stroller 1/4 scale fiberglass body rat rod

via Neatorama and Everlasting Blort

images via Macomber Fiberglass Bodies

These animated TV ads from the late 60s and early 70s were created by cartoonist and regular Mad magazine contributor Jack Davis. Comics Alliance has more on Jack Davis’ career in advertising.

via Comics Alliance

“The Sale of Manhattan” is a 1962 cartoon that tells the tale of the notorious transaction between Native Americans and the Dutch that resulted in the sale of the island of Manhattan. The cartoon was designed by Saul Bass and aired on the television show “Stan Freberg Presents The Chun King Chow Mein Hour.”

via Miss Cellania

In the 1968 British Pathé film clip “Miss Honeywell,” a suspiciously humanoid “robot woman” demonstrates the latest technological gadgetry from the computer division of Honeywell.