Remember that old commercial about "Zack, the Lego maniac"? Well, Zack ain't got nothing on Andrew Carol. When Carol's not working on improving the finer points of OS X as a software engineer at Apple, he's hard at work building analog computers -- like the Babbage difference engine -- entirely out of Legos.
We love crafty stuff and everything, but we admit we're a bit mystified by the appeal of pressed flowers, which have about as much youthful pizazz as a box of muesli. At least that's what we thought until Ignacio Canales Aracil came along. The Spanish artist has managed to freshen up the old flower-press technique with a pair of gorgeous sculptures that appear to float in mid-air.
[In remembrance of 9/11, we're reposting a tour we did last year of the 9/11 memorial and museum at Ground Zero. ? Ed.]
"In 100 years, there won't be anyone alive that experienced 9/11," says Steven Davis, whose architecture firm, Davis Brody Bond Aedas, is designing the 9/11 Museum. "What will you tell them? And how will you tell them, to make them understand what happened?"
The FIDA mat, by Hannover designer Patrick Frey, solves a problem that has plagued people everywhere since the dawn of the picnic: how to sit comfortably upright on the ground.
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Raising and canning your own produce -- and maybe keeping a few chickens. Getting down and dirty with hand tools and crafts. Living like a pioneer or a lumberjack -- even though you live in Williamsburg or Silverlake -- may be in vogue right now, but for some parts of the country, "authenticity" isn't a passing fad. Lehman's Hardware, a sort of anti-big-box store in the unincorporated town of Kidron, Ohio, about 70 miles northeast of Columbus, has been selling practical and proudly old-fashioned tools, clothes, toys, and food for over 50 years.
Technically speaking, any instrument could be considered "collaborative"--as anyone who's played "chopsticks" with a friend on a piano knows. But Matt West has stripped that notion down to its essence with his electronic "Collaborative Instrument," which consists of little more than a button to control rhythm, a knob to control pitch, and a speaker to hear the results.
We've long admired the British product design firm Industrial Facility for dreaming up elegant solutions to all sorts of niggling problems, whether a hairdryer with built-in cord storage or a doorstop that actually works. Their latest release goes one step further: It's a watch that, we reckon, could save your marriage.
Leave aside whether you believe in the right to bear arms, as it stands these days. Consider instead: how many guns do Americans have? Is it so large, compared to the rest of the world? Short answer: Yes.
This infographic by ChaCha.com charts out who owns the world's handguns. And the stats are mind-boggling. For example, in the U.S., there are about 90 handguns per 100 people. That's three times what you find in Germany, France, or Sweden. And its 2.5 times what you find in Iraq.
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