Etsy seller Krukru Studio has some amazing designs for luxury bags, including octopodes, angel wings, coffins, cacti, the Eiffel Tower, and a boxing glove. But the one that I found most amusing is this gas can purse. I wouldn't mind too much carrying it as murse if I had to. It still conveys a manly sense of utility.
-via Technabob
Stained glass artists Eugene Koksharov and Anna Dobrunova in Vladivostok, Russia are masters of their craft. The most spectacular piece in their Etsy shop was this 41-inch tall panel showing a female version of the comic book hero Hellboy.
It contains 1,470 individual pieces from a palette of 45 colors, which makes it 21 times more complex than any stained glass panel I have ever made. It's a truly incredible work of precision craftsmanship.
-via Super Awesome
KT Beans studied printmaking and bookmaking in art school. It was only when, according to a 2019 interview, that she discovered taxidermy that she found renewed inspiration.
Her creative output has been both impressive and terrifying. Teeth, eyes, and hair inhabit decidedly non-human abodes, making them not quite human and not quite non-human.
Kanako Abe, an artist living in San Francisco, is a master of the traditional Japanese art form of kiri-e, which is cutting paper.
During the 1980s, American security engineer Charles Gandy knew that the Soviets had found a way to electronically spy on the US Embassy in Moscow. Americans had already discovered antennas hidden inside a false hole in a chimney. But Gandy couldn't figure out what signals these antennas were relaying to the KGB. After much searching, He discovered that a typewriter's ball had been hacked through an extraordinarily sophisticated method to relay whatever it typed to Soviet agents.
A point of historical clarification: inside many electric typewriters there is a metal ball that the machine uses to print text. It looks like this. IEEE Spectrum describes how the Soviets tracked the movements of that ball:
A solid aluminum bar, part of the structural support of the typewriter, had been replaced with one that looked identical but was hollow. Inside the cavity was a circuit board and six magnetometers. The magnetometers sensed movements of tiny magnets that had been embedded in the transposers that moved the typing “golf ball” into position for striking a given letter.
Other components of the typewriters, such as springs and screws, had been repurposed to deliver power to the hidden circuits and to act as antennas. Keystroke information was stored and sent in encrypted burst transmissions that hopped across multiple frequencies.
Perhaps most interesting, the transmissions were at a low power level in a narrow frequency band that was occupied by intermodulation overtones of powerful Soviet TV stations. The TV signals would swamp the illicit transmissions and mask them from detection by embassy security scans, but the clever design of the mystery antenna and associated electronic filtering let the Soviets extract the keystroke signals.
-via Instapundit | Photo: Steve Lodefink
The car culture blog Jalopnik brings to our attention The Cup. That is, at least, how it is known by NASCAR fans. It was given away to fans at tracks in 2009. You can drink your beer while keeping both eyes on the race. It would also be useful at children's school concerts or Miss Cellania's private fight club for the same reason.
Photo: I Want to Believe in NASCAR
Charlie McMillian is everyone's friend and is thus a natural-born politician. He's just getting started on his political career, having been inaugurated as the mayor of the small town of Whitehall, Texas. Mayor McMillian is only seven months old. KBTX News describes his meteoric rise:
Mayor Charlie was elected to serve the Whitehall community in Grimes County back in October.
Each year the position of mayor is auctioned off at the Whitehall Volunteer Fire Department BBQ Fundraiser. This year, Charlie was the highest bidder, thereby "electing" him the youngest mayor in America.
The mayors adopted father, Chad McMillan said Charlie's motto is to "Make America Kind Again."
"Charlie loves folks from all political leanings; Republican, Democrat, Independent. Regardless of anyone's background, he loves them and we hope he can be a unifier in our country," said Chad.
Mayor Charlie and his family have a visit with our local congressman and Senator Ted Cruz next month in Washington D.C.
By going to Washington, he's already demonstrating national political ambitions.
-via TYWKIWDBI | Image: KBTX
Yip yip yip yip. Hello. Christmas!
Novelist Dot Hutchinson tweets this photo, which is of Christmas stockings knitted by her sister-in-law. They take the form of the Yip Yip Martians, which are recurring characters on Sesame Street.
-via Super Punch
Riccardo Bonci has an impressive organ and he knows how to play it. He's fond of using his organ to cover the theme music to favorite old cartoons, including Inspector Gadget and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
On his YouTube channel, Bonci also covers many 70s-era anime themes, only a few of which I recognize (sorry, Alex hired me for my good looks, not my knowledge). These include Captain Harlock and Mazinger Z, the latter of which I remember vividly in its American version as Tranzor Z.
-via Geekologie
Hoàng Tiến Quyết, an artist from Vietnam, makes origami figures that seem to pop out of the limits of mere sheets of paper. He uses a technique called "wet folding", which involves moistening the paper just the right amount in order to give flexibility to it.
For a Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) party, artist Lissette Carrera assembled an oz of Yoda eggs using what appear to be apple slices for the ears. It looks like spicy hot wasabi, right? Carrera says that her husband wanted to, as a prank, make one egg pure wasabi.
-via Super Punch
Take your time to properly clear the ice and snow from your tactical vehicle before initiating your morning reconnaissance, or even just taking the kids to school and picking up groceries. That's how you stay safe and alert to potential threats.
The police department of Mansfield, Massachusetts appreciates your diligence. Several months ago, to encourage proper snow and ice removal, it invented the Snow Enforcer. This advanced device, ideal for urban operators such as yourself, has an extended buttstock, red dot sight, and side-mounted light.
What it lacks is a couple Picatinny rails and sling mounts for essential accessories. You may have to take your Snow Enforcer to a skilled scrapersmith to fully equip it.
-via reddit
No, you're doing it wrong. Don't take the earrings off the card. Each card of earrings is itself an earring. So you'll actually need two sets to make one set. You follow?
Maison Margiela offers Tag, an earring that will turn heads--especially when you tell people you paid $92 for each. That will impress them because it's marked down from $305. Thoughtful, stylish people will be impressed with your fashion sensibilities and thriftiness. It speaks of what Twitter user Mari xx calls "shoplifter chic." That's the ideal look this season.
-via Dave Barry | Photo: Ssense
At almost 32,000 square miles, Lake Superior is the largest lake in North America. Much of it freezes during the winter. Recently, 77% of the surface was frozen.
Let's say that you wanted to smooth over that surface to create an enormous skating rink. How long would it take for a single zamboni--an ice resurfacing machine--to do the job? The Detroit Free Press found the answer provided by U.P. Supply Company, a Michigan-based clothing retailer:
1 frozen Lake Superior = 52,020,513 ice rinks.
At aboout 7 minutes per rink it would take 364,143,591 minutes to resurface all of Lake Superior. That is 252,877 days.
In all, that means it would take approximate 693 years to resurface Lake Superior in its entirety. The ice resurfacer will have driven approximately 39,015,384 miles.
So: overtime pay. A lot of overtime pay.
-via Dave Barry | Photo: mark6mauno
Donnachaidha O’Chionnaigh is an artist and father. For this Christmas, his kids didn't want specific items. They just wanted cash. He found a creative way of packing the money with card and blister packs reminiscent of Transformers, GI Joe, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Star Wars, and other popular toy/cartoon lines. You can see more photos here.
-via Kurt Schlichter
