Photo: PB Abery at LIGC ~ NLW [Flickr] - via Cute Overload
Photographer Percy Benzie Abery took this photo of a dog with pipe in its mouth in Wales c. 1940-1950. I believe he may have found René Magritte's long lost dog.
Alex Santoso's Blog Posts
In 1947, after the love of her life passed away unexpectedly, May Alice Savidge bought a house to restore.
A few years later, she was told by the town council that her house was to be destroyed to make way for a road. Needless to say, May didn't take that lying down: she fought the town ... and lost. But Savidge never gave up:
In 1969, when she was 58, the bulldozers reached her gate. Her response was to number each beam and pane of glass so that her home could be reassembled like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
Dismantling the heavy oak timber frame, held together with tapered wooden pegs, was both difficult and dangerous. A team of local demolition contractors helped May. She traced over a sample of brickwork using greaseproof paper and crayons so that she would know which bond to use and how thick to lay the mortar.
She continued to live in the house as it was taken down, sleeping beneath the stars in the freezing cold. [...]
She found a site in the seaside town of Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk, and obtained planning permission and laid foundations. A lorry made the round trip to Norfolk 11 times to carry every part of the house.
So began a life of hardship. She had no electricity and worked by the light of Victorian paraffin lamps. She used an alarm clock to set herself targets each day, noting how many nails she extracted from oak beams per hour, as she dismantled the house and prepared for rebuilding. [...]
Two years later, the framework was fixed to the foundations by a local carpenter and May started to infill the brickwork. She had no experience of brickwork, but was determined to lay every single brick perfectly.
It would be another eight years before the roof tiles were put in place and the property made watertight.
By the time she was into her 70s, however, May had moved in and the house stood proudly in its new gardens, each old oak beam in place, the brickwork nearly complete and many of the walls plastered.
Savidge continued to work on the house until she died at the age of 82. Her niece, Christine Adams, continued the job to finish the house and now recounts the amazing life story of her aunt: Link - via Cellar IotD
Sure it's a little bit sexist, but at least it's creative! When Gee Seoul ad agency created this giant "calendar" ad for male deodorant Axe on the side of a female dorm. You get the message, I'm sure.
Larger pic at directdaily: Link
Just because the apocalyptic scenario of a bioterror attack is (always) around the corner, it doesn't mean that you have to sacrifice fashion for safety. Behold the designer gas masks by Diddo Velema:
Deep down, we are afraid we may never be satisfied. An expanding archive of branded myths and icons feeds this fear. Designer Gas Masks is an attempt to visualize this state of mind. Because it is only by first acknowledging and then challenging fear that we will all be able to breathe a little easier.
http://bydiddo.com/?p=12 (Don't miss his shark attack wetsuit!) - via why not?
What do you get when you mix Twitter with a crafster? How about this twitter quote (michael Ian Black) put in cross stitch, by Julie Zidel of You Heart.Us:
I’m not really sure where I should begin here. I guess we should go way back the beginning, last Wednesday. I’m in the office sitting at my desk eating lunch and making my daily rounds through facebook, flickr and twitter. I take a look at my twitter favorites page. The tweets on this page. These tweets range from the the funny to the mundane to the completely absurd but they all have one thing in common. They amuse me. I thought it was a shame that people were out there living life and not even knowing what they are missing out on. Then it hit me! It is my duty to spread the joy through cross stitch.
http://www.youheart.us/index.php/youheartus/ind/tweet_this/ - via Craftzine
Remember the flipbook you had as a kid? Well, paper engineer (that's what he calls himself) Matt Shlian has just turned that concept upside down. Technically, that may be inside out. Or maybe front to back. Who knows! Just take a look at his mind-blowing Inhale Exhale cutout Flipbook and weep: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
If the unknown soldier has a tomb, then what about the unknown washerwoman? Here's a whimsical art installation titled Monument to the Unknown Washerwoman (2005) by Bulgarian artist Pravdoliub Ivanov: http://www.pravdo.com/site_specific_works01_1.php - via VVORK
Jim is a skull artist. And yes, that means he turns skulls (real or not? I don't know) into works of art. Right now, he's really, really into ropes: Link - via I Want Your Skull
Peter Locke created a set of colored magnets called Motifo that act as giant pixels to turn your fridge into a works of art:
Each mosaic design has been specially crafted to use the same combination of pieces, so every mosaic can be made with the 1296 pieces included in each motifo pack. If you want to create a new design, just rearrange the pieces.
If I'm not afraid that they'd swallow the small pieces outright, this would be a blast for my kids! Link - via Funfurde
Brazilian artist Breno Pineschi of Hardcuore had a little fun with this Suco de Laranja (orange juice) video clip. All you need to make a funky electronic music are fresh oranges, some melba toast and a dash of humor.
Hit play or go to Link [Vimeo]
Photo: Todd Krainin/NY Times
Boy Scouts's motto "Be Prepared" apparently extends all the way to modern day's terrorism. In this post 9/11 world, you can't be too careful, so the Border Patrol in Imperial County, California, has a - shall we say, unique - program for the Scouts:
The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.
“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”
The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out “active shooters,” like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.
Jennifer Steinhauer of The New York Times has more: Link
Dan Lockton, David Harrison, and Neville A. Stanton came up with this spiffy idea: The Design with Intent Toolkit v.0.9, a set of design principles with the aim of influencing user behavior.
The trio cover a wide range of design principles including how to encourage users to do something; guide them as to how to do it properly; and how to reduce errors by limiting choices and so on. There are even ways to subtly or not-so_subtly discourage users from doing what you don't want them to do.
You may think as some of these principles as obvious and common-sensical, but the hallmark of a great product is exactly that it can be used by people armed only with common sense.
Take, for instance, the way to influence user's behavior through the use of segmentation, spacing, and orientation:
Most people want their furnitures to last, but not Ate Atema! His Auto-Cannibalistic Table (made in collaboration with designer Amy Campos) made from egg cartons and wheatpaste glue, is designed to be planted with herbs which "eat away" the table as they grow:
Why can't a table eat itself? Tables support food, but why can't they BE food too? The Auto-Cannibalistic Table understands that in nature energy and matter are in a constant state of transformation, cycling and recycling. It understands these facts and its design explicitly celebrates them. The Auto-Cannibalistic Table is made from paper egg flats, flour paste, soil and seeds, and when water is added, the seeds germinate and so the table begins to eat itself.
Inhabitat blog has more: Link
(Photo: Dick Ireland / USGS)
California may be in the forefront in some environmental issues like alternative energy and recycling, but it is actually quite backwards when it comes to groundwater. Despite the long and severe drought, the state is bending to political pressure to allow farmers to withdraw groundwater to water their crops.
Felicity Barringer of The New York Times has the story:
Since 2006 the surface of the aquifer, in the Kaweah subbasin of the San Joaquin basin, has dropped 50 feet as farmers pumped deeper, Mr. Watte says. Some of his pumps no longer reach far enough to bring
any water to the surface.If he lived in almost any other state in the arid Southwest, Mr. Watte could be required to report his withdrawals of groundwater or even reduce them. But to California’s farmers and developers, that is anathema. “I don’t want the government to come in and dictate to us, ‘This is all the water you can use on your own land,’ ” said Mr. Watte, 57. “We would resist that to our dying day.” [...]
Older Californians are quick to recall more severe droughts. Heavy groundwater pumping in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s caused large overdrafts, meaning the groundwater pumped out exceeded the natural recharge of water percolating down from the surface. Some water tables dropped 400 feet; in some areas the ground itself sank as much as 50 feet.
The interesting photo above comes via the United States Geological Survey. It depicts USGS scientist Joe Poland showing subsidence (or sinking) of the land in the San Joaquin Valley from 1925 to 1977. The sign shows where the land level was at that year.
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