Austin-based Ronn Motor Company - an automotive design and manufacturing company - is out to show that eco-friendly cars don’t have to look like bug-like little boxes with wheels or overly cute. They can look super sleek, exhibit great performance and cause minimal harm to the environment.

The hydrogen fuel injected hybrid Scorpion is just that car. Though before you place an order for this green friendly car, you’ll need a substantial amount of green in your wallet because it’s a little pricey at $150,000.  Don’t expect to see a conga line of these vehicles cruising around your town or parked at the mall anytime soon. Still, the cutting edge new fuel technology will eventually find its way into more affordable vehicles as the growing rush to find alternative fuel concepts goes from the drawing board to real world application.

Ronn Motor Company’s Chief Executive Officer Ronn Maxwell says, “We’re designing and building cars with performance components and unique styling with the objective of making the new environmentally friendly vehicle stand out with never before seen style and approximately 40 mpg plus efficiency.”

How does it work?

The hydrogen delivery system with dual computer processor controls produces hydrogen on demand, and in real time, which will be inducted through the air intake manifold and blended with gasoline at a ratio of 30-40 percent hydrogen, according to Maxwell. The fuel for this system is derived from fracturing water molecules drawn from a small on board water tank, and will not require a high pressure, on board hydrogen storage tank or hydrogen fueling station.

The Scorpion rolls out in the fall.

For more information on this $69,000 piece of work, see Verdier.ca.

There’s an old saying that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Two spots I recently visited in Texas take that statement even further to a level of artistry.

I began my Texas jaunt in Houston’s West End where in the midst of 1930’s style bungalows and condo developments sits a glistening, silvery house that’s covered in as many as 50,000 beer cans. The first sight of the Beer Can House can make drivers stop their cars in the middle of Malone Street or drive back around the block several times.

The home at 222 Malone began as the humble abode of John Milkovisch and his family in the ‘40s. Milkovisch, an upholsterer for the Southern Pacific Railroad, began collecting beer cans while he was covering the yard in concrete with inlaid marbles and stones. He apparently grew tired of mowing the grass. Once the yard was complete, he began a 20-year project that put his growing beer can collection to good use on the house.

“He didn’t believe in throwing anything away. He was way ahead of his time in that respect,” says Stephen Bridges, who handles PR for the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, which now owns and operates tours at the Beer Can House.

As Milkovisch began affixing sheets of flattened aluminum beer cans to his house, it coincided with a drop in his air conditioning bills. Not to be wasteful of any part of the cans, he found a use for the tops, creating what Bridges calls “pop top garlands.” These still line the house today and can be heard clanking together in the breeze (not that there was much of one on the hot July day when I visited). In addition to the aesthetic purpose of these, the garlands were also functional, serving as a sun blocker to Milkovisch and his wife when they sat on the front porch, probably sipping beer.

“He mainly would have beer in the evening times. This is back in the day when you would stand out on your driveway, on your front porch and your neighbors would come by and you’d talk and have a beer with your friends,” Bridges says.

Milkovisch passed away in 1988 and his wife soon followed. The house was later purchased by the Orange Center and renovated earlier this year. It’s now a popular tourist destination. Once the novelty of the house begins to wear off, the creation actually can get you thinking about the everyday waste we create.

Even though the house is now thought of as piece of folk art, Milkovisch “didn’t consider himself an artist. He just loved making things,” Bridges says. “He would tell people he would lie awake at night and think of all the things he had to do with the house and people always asked him, ‘Why’d you do it?’ And he just said he just had to.”

Another very public display of folk art sits about 160 miles west in Austin at the Cathedral of Junk. Its owner/creator, Vincent Hannemann, says he and Milkovisch must have shared some DNA at some point given their ability to turn trash into community treasure.

The Cathedral of Junk sits behind Hannemann’s yellow house in a very typical Austin neighborhood. The estimated 60 tons of junk he’s collected since 1989 stretch above the rooftops of nearby houses.

“It just started with a few hubcaps along the fence and kind of grew from there,” Hannemann says from a spot in the shade behind the cathedral.

Walking through the cathedral’s passageways and up its staircases, it’s astounding at the sheer amount and variations of discarded things here. Hannemann says there are about 800 bikes within the cathedral, in addition to the old TVs, phones, wires, CDs and just about anything else you can think of. Over the years, neighbors have often brought their trash to Hannemann, knowing he would put it to use somehow.

“You could only do something like this in America. I had somebody from some South American country. I don’t know if it was Paraguay or where it was and he said you know you could never do this in my country because you would never find any of this stuff. All of this stuff would be repurposed somehow in some probably more practical way,” Hannemann says.

It’s an interesting observation, especially as Hannemann leads a tour into the cathedral, pointing out commemorative bricks from the ‘50s that now make up a staircase to another level where a view shows decorative garlands of old CDs above seats from a car. At so many instances on the tour, what initially seemed to be an odd project is actually quite beautiful. The blue bottles sitting in an old bed spring make for a wonderful ceiling in an entryway.

The Austin community is in agreement. They’ve come to love what Hannemann has created and many people even use the space for parties or weddings. “It really is a cathedral in that it is a public work of art. People give me the pieces. They use it for their events and what not. And I can see it going beyond my lifetime and being a part of the community.”

For many decades if you wanted to see a movie once it left theaters you were pretty much out of luck. Sure, if you were a fan of It’s A Wonderful Life you could catch it on Christmas, but for most films it seemed as though they were lost to the ages. Then came the wonder of home video. With a short drive to the store you could watch any number of films in the comfort of your own home. This was a giant step forward, but alas it was not perfect, for what if it was raining? The solution? Netflix.

Now all that needed to be done to watch your favorite movie was to put it on your queue and in a matter of days it showed up on your doorstep. But in this ever-demanding society of ours even that wasn’t good enough. But rather than go the way of the video store, Netflix took a bold step forward and partnered with computer giant Microsoft to bring video on demand to the general public.

Thanks to the versatility of the Xbox 360 console, not only can you play the latest video games and store your vacation photos to show off on the family big screen, but now you can watch movies from your Netflix playlist with the push of a button.

Once the 360 logs into your Netflix account, the movies from your selected playlist show up, allowing you to scroll through a stack of box covers to find the movie of your choice. Then once the lights are dimmed, the popcorn buttered and the family comfortable, it’s showtime. And the best part is, if the movie stinks, with a few button presses a new flick starts right up.

There’s a lot of talk in the media about India and China taxing “our” oil supplies, but this little Wired article brings some much needed clarity to this argument.

California alone uses more gasoline than any country in the world (except the US as a whole, of course). That means California’s 20 billion gallon gasoline and diesel habit is greater than China’s! (Or Russia’s. Or India’s. Or Brazil’s. Or Germany’s.)

China’s is home to 1.3 billion people.

California is home to 37 million people.

With all the incredible hype surrounding the new Apple iPhone 3G, it was only a matter of time before the biggest question was answered about this instantly iconic handful of technical wizardry: Will It Blend?

There is nothing new about stop motion animation, in fact it’s almost as old as moving film with the technique being first applied in 1898. Adam Pesapane, who goes by the moniker PES, has solidified his position as one of the true modern masters of the medium. He specializes in creating the most incredibly imaginative worlds using everyday household objects and he brings them to life in the most inventive ways. When not making commercial work, PES continues to crank out these wonderful short films, and Western Spaghetti is his most recent creation.

Michel Gondry, who is another incredibly imaginative filmmaker and a fan, told Paste magazine, “Clicking on a PES film is to open a safe and suddenly see a million ideas glittering and exploding. The only reason you close the door is to reopen it just after and see what will pop this time.”

What do Groove Armada, Kanye West and The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas have in common? Not much, except they, like a growing number of recording artists, have inked some very lucrative recording and touring deals with major brands. That’s right, brands—not record labels.

Brands like Nike, Red Bull, Proctor & Gamble and Converse, to name only a few, are now boldly delving into the world of music in a substantial way. They are all laying out big sums for recording and touring costs as a new way to promote products at a time when the major record labels are desperately scurrying around and trying to figure out how to make money in the constantly evolving digital universe.

A recent article in The New York Times points out that, “unlike Starbucks, which got into the music business to sell CDs at its stores, these companies want to use music to promote products they already sell.”

“It’s not about money,” said Sarah Tinsley, a global marketing manager. “It’s a branding exercise.”

The article also points out that, “Unlike the exclusive album deals that Wal-Mart is striking with older, established groups like The Eagles, these companies are attracting artists at the height of their relevance. Two weeks ago, Converse released a single by a combination of artists that The Times of London called ‘a three-headed Frankenstein’s monster of coolness:’ The Strokes singer Julian Casablancas, producer Pharrell Williams and R&B performer Santogold. Offered as a free download on Converse’s web site, the song received mostly favorable reviews from both blogs and newspapers.”

Ten years ago, very few new artists, especially alternative/indie bands, were willing to stand in front of a corporate logo; now, it is becoming just another way to get the music out in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Although there is still a line in the sand for some bands, it is quickly fading, as many new bands see this branded exposure in the same way that the previous generation saw getting signed to a major label. Today, “selling out” does not carry as much water in a world where everything, it seems, is branded in some form or fashion. In a sign of the times, Converse even offers a line of Kurt Cobain signature Chuck Taylor All Stars.

The New York Times quoted Danny Goldberg, founder of the management company Gold Village Entertainment, and the former chairman and chief executive of Mercury Records, who said that deals with brands would turn off fans of some bands, but could be effective in promoting other performers.

“In another era, there was a stigma attached to this,” he said. “Now it’s just another way to expose your music.”

[via The New York Times]

In April, I had the opportunity to meet and learn from two guys who make beautiful woodcuts. It gave me a new appreciation for an ancient art form.

Today, I stumbled upon another relief-block artist, Stephen Alcorn.

John Glusman, Vice President & Executive Editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, says, Alcorn’s “sheer craftsmanship is breathtaking, revealing a kind of artistry that hasn’t existed for half a century.” He’s “nearly obsessed with clean lines, the interplay of light and dark, the myriad possibilities offered by a centimeter of space, a delight in structure, design and texture.”

Several of Alcorn’s images are available as artist’s proofs, hand-printed by the artist on acid free paper for $300 to $500.

When you live in New York, the sounds of the city become very much a part of you. After awhile, the din of buses, cabs honking and people yelling isn’t an interruption. The noise isn’t tuned out but it doesn’t warrant attention either. Every now and then though, even the most jaded New Yorker may take note of music in the subway, usually because it’s either really bad or really good. In fact, one of my favorite NYC musicians—Lipbone Redding—got his start in the subway.

A mid-Atlantic cable network is picking up on the treasures that can be found underground. The MSG Network, which has traditionally focused on NYC sports (particularly teams that play at Madison Square Garden), is expanding its entertainment offerings with a show called NYC Sound Tracks.

The show takes viewers underground in five boroughs in search of the city’s best subway musician. In typical reality TV fashion, viewers will have the chance to vote and narrow 16 musicians down to the top subway star.

The show begins airing July 13th at 8 p.m. on MSG.