Crystal Gregory calls her project "Invasive Crochet" -- the imposition of dainty doilies into harsh places. She writes that it:
[...] challenges gender roles by placing handwork on hardened city surfaces around New York. Crocheting lace doilies onto the razor wire of an abandoned lot for the 14th Street public art show Art in Odd Places, smothering the urban landscape in a soft, decorative, and familiar juxtaposition.
Link via Colossal
I grew up with Sesame Street, but I never envisioned Bert as a terrifying character. This silicone bust by The FX Lab forum user Nacho is a bit more unpleasant to the eye than the Muppet. More pictures at the link.
Link via Geekologie
Napoleon Wine Bottle Stopper - $11.95
Do you know someone who is a bit of a petty tyrant when it comes to fine wines? Get them the Napoleon Wine Bottle Stopper from the NeatoShop. This essential wine accessory has never been so authoritarian.Be sure to check out all the impressive Cocktail & Barware available at the NeatoShop!
Graphic designer Viktor Hertz has created a cool series of logos redesigned to better explain what you're really going to find within the brand. Cat videos? Yeah, you know that's what you're really doing on YouTube.
P.S., Viktor also has movie posters as depicted in pictogram that are really cool. There Will be Blood is my favorite.
Link via Adweek
Eric Miller created this nifty equation of the nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice for a toy shop. See more at Ads of the World: Link
There are many ethnicities of man, but according to microbes, there are only three kinds of people:
Our gut contains trillions of bacteria, known collectively as the microbiome. Their cells outnumber our own by ten to one. We are, to the closest approximation, thriving communities of bacteria encased in a human shell. No two people have quite the same collection – we differ slightly in the species we contain, and there can be hundreds jostling for space.
But this variation isn’t infinite. Previous studies have shown that once people reach adulthood, their microbiomes become remarkably stable. Even after the communities are rocked by antibiotic assaults, they rebound to their old selves, recruiting members in the same proportions as before. Now, Manimozhiyan Arumugam and Jeroen Raes from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have found that these constraints go even further. There seem to be just three preferred ways of building a community of gut bacteria.
Why is this useful? Because it can help doctors:
Enterotypes aren’t quite as well-defined as, say, blood groups, but they could have similar uses as medical markers. The microbiome helps us to digest our food and it affects our susceptibility to diseases; the enterotypes could reflect these roles. Each enterotype was dominated by a specific genus of bacteria, and varied in the proportions of the other members. They produce energy in subtly different ways, they’re particularly efficient at breaking down different nutrients, and they specialise at creating different vitamins.
Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science blog has the details: Link
In her latest post, Allie Brosh goes into the mind of her simple dog, which appeared to be wiped clean by a small adventure. The emptiness she sees may be terrifying to contemplate, but more likely will provoke a laugh. Link
(YouTube link)
A cat momentarily gets into a fight with himself. It may be a case of temporary loss of body awareness, or what some of us call a brain fart. -via Cynical-C
Will Foreman used the power of math to beat speeding tickets before three different judges. The tickets were automatically issued by traffic cameras. Foreman used the photographs themselves to raise a reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of the speed sensors.
A representative for the company that installed the cameras (and which receives a portion the fines they generate) said that the vehicles' speeds are measure before the pictures are taken. Foreman said he doubted the cars slowed that much afterward, since the pictures do not show brakes lights on. Link -via Fark
(Image credit: Rod Lamkey Jr./The Washington Times)
The camera company, Optotraffic, uses a sensor that detects any vehicle exceeding the speed limit by 12 or more mph, then takes two photos of it for identification purposes. The photos are mailed to violators, along with a $40 ticket.
For each ticket, Mr. Foreman digitally superimposed the two photos - taken 0.363 seconds apart from a stationary point, according to an Optotraffic time stamp - creating a single photo with two images of the vehicle.
Using the vehicle’s length as a frame of reference, Mr. Foreman then measured its distance traveled in the elapsed time, allowing him to calculate the vehicle’s speed. In every case, he said, the vehicle was not traveling fast enough to get a ticket.
So far the judges have agreed.
A representative for the company that installed the cameras (and which receives a portion the fines they generate) said that the vehicles' speeds are measure before the pictures are taken. Foreman said he doubted the cars slowed that much afterward, since the pictures do not show brakes lights on. Link -via Fark
(Image credit: Rod Lamkey Jr./The Washington Times)
(YouTube link)
San Francisco's planning commission is strict about changing the look of historic buildings. But a parking garage adds a LOT of value to a home in a city where there are very few places to park. Beausoleil Architects figured out a way to make everyone happy. Link -via The Daily What
Danielle Michoud and her husband encountered a woman who was locked out of her car in Manchester, New Hampshire. Michoud was the smallest of the three, so volunteered to try getting in through the partially-open sunroof. But she became stuck.
Michoud was checked out at an emergency room and went home with bruises to her ribs and back. Link -via Arbroath
“I actually thought I almost had it and then I hit my ribs and I couldn’t go any further. I could not go up. I could not go down,” said Michoud.
She says out of the 50 or so people passing by where she was wedged to the waist in the sunroof, many stopped, but it wasn’t to help her.
“They were taking pictures, they were filming, they were laughing,” said Michoud.
It took firefighters using a portable airbag to finally get her out.
Michoud was checked out at an emergency room and went home with bruises to her ribs and back. Link -via Arbroath
That's one ugly couch! It was the winner in the 2010 Worldwide Ugly Couch Contest. But you may know of a couch even uglier. Poor you. The search is on for the 2011 winner, so submit a picture of your ugly couch now. Link -via J-Walk Blog
Get your thinking caps on -it's time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog! Do you have any idea what this contraption is? Can you come up with an interesting guess?
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop!
Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?
For more clues, check out the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!
Update: ladybuggs was the first of many with the correct answer. This is a National Cash Register Stamping Phone, used in bigger department stores. It was for clerks to get approval from "credit specialists" in the back room for customers to charge their purchases. Read more about them here. The funniest answer came from next2exits, who declared that this is a Wisconsin voter polling station. The handset allows the governor to call you and tell you who to vote for.
