John Farrier's Blog Posts

Turkish Pizza

It's called pide and it looks delicious! Instagram member stark_eats describes how he discovered it at a restaurant in Istanbul:

A bearded gent from northern Turkey, crammed in with his family at the table next to ours, upon noticing our non-Turkish tongues, asked us with guarded suspicion how we found out about this family-run spot. Once we gave him a satisfactory answer, he told us we had chosen wisely, for this was his favorite pidecisi in Istanbul. When we were about to dig in, he told us to first slide the butter around the crust and then eat. Glad we did

-via Thrillist


Check out This Amazing Woodworker's Tool Chest

(Photos: Rau Antiques)

19th Century pianomaker Henry O. Studley is now famous for the portable tool chest that he built for himself. It's a marvel of design and precision craftsmanship.

Sadly, we don't know who made this cabinetmaking tool chest, which is equally magnificent. It dates back to the United States in the early 20th Century. It has multiple layers that fan out to tigthly contain 210 antique tools, including a vast array of planes, chisels, bevels, gauges, saws, punches, and even a tiny vise.

Then it folds up neatly again into a beautiful cabinet.

This masterpiece is up for auction by Rau Antiques. You can see more photos of it at Core 77.


Medieval Armor for Dogs

It's a dog-eat-dog world out there. Send your pup out with as many advantages as possible.

Etsy seller Lebovski's Cocker Spaniel is ready for anything. He's wearing a suit of aluminum plate and mail armor. It has a ferocious-looking helmet featuring tusks for close-quarters combat. Now he will rule the dogpark with no rival to challenge him.

-via Dude I Want That


"What Brought You to Florida?" -- A Hoax Guestbook by Obvious Plant

Obvious Plant is an ongoing prank series in which Jeff Wysaski prints official-looking signs and flyers and leaves them in public places. In the past, he's made in-store IKEA product reviews, library signs, and Halloween costumes.

Most recently, Jeff created a fake guestbook for an Airbnb rental in Florida. The owners will be delighted to see fairly positive reviews of the state, which will hopefully generate new customers.


Artist Brings "Real Life" Internet to the Elderly Residents of a Village

You want to chat about what's going on in your life? That's for the Twitter bench.

Did you catch that new viral video on the YouTube screen?

Civitacampomarano is a village of 400 people in central Italy. Most of the residents are elderly and many are out of touch with web culture and the social media utilities available in the world.

So the street artist Biancoshock created low-tech simulations of them around the village. They include a knowledgeable elderly woman who is a talking Wikipedia, a local newspaper labeled as an RSS feed, and a bulletin board called Facebook. You can see them all at Design Boom.


Hoodies Made Specifically for Hugging

Would you like to enjoy human contact for once? I've heard that it's a wonderful experience, but holding a "Free Hugs" sign out in public isn't helping. Perhaps Together Wear will. Mashable reports that this new line of hoodies has pockets in the back that encourage someone to hug you, especially in chilly weather.

Pro tip: slip a $5 $20 bill in each pocket to seal the deal.

-via The Presurfer


Scuruchi's Carved Apple Art

Italian artist Fruttart Scuruchi (translation) felt inspired when seeing an elaborate pumpkin carving for the first time. Since then, s/he (?) has been turning fruits and vegetables into fine sculptures, including, recently, several colorful apples. This Rubik's Cube began as an apple, as you can see from this video illustrating it partially complete. 

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Bizarre Photos of Upside Down People With Clothes Right Side Up

French photographer Patrice Letarnec calls his series "Head over Heels." In a surreal alien world, humans flail about awkwardly (from our perspective) as their bodies are inverted, but their clothes are like ours. The fashionable subjects stride down the streets of Paris a bit more slowly than we do.

-via Laughing Squid


A Statistical Analysis of the Ratings of the First and Last Episodes of TV Shows

How well did Glee end? Fans were clearly delighted. I didn't see it, but I did watch the finale of Newhart, which was ingenious.

Dexter rightfully deserves to be dead last in this list. Just hacking off the last 3 minutes alone would helped a lot.

Redditor ChallengeResponse compared IMDb ratings of the first and last episodes of famous television shows to see whether they were relatively good or bad, as well as compared finales with average ratings for the respective durations of each show. You can see all of the charts here.

Do any of these rating shifts surprise you?

-via Twisted Sifter


Beer Made from Belly Button Lint

(Image: 7 Cent Brewery)

To brew beer, you need yeast. And where should you find yeast? The truth lies within yourself--and specifically, your belly button.

7 Cent Brewery in Australia has developed a new beer from the bacteria found in the belly button lint of one of the founders. It's called Belly Button Beer. 9 News describes it:

As for how Belly Button Beer tastes, the brewery has described it as being "in the style of a new world-ish Belgian-ish Witbier with fresh orange zest and toasted coriander seeds".

"The yeast exhibits qualities of Belgian beer with the key characteristics being spiciness, clove and light banana esters. The orange zest and coriander seeds were used to help complement the yeast and a calculated amount of Riwaka and Mosaic hops were added to increase the citrus qualities and give it a refreshing hop kick," they said.

"Four different grains were also used to add both body and complexity including: barley, wheat, oats and rye."

This isn't the first time 7 Cent Brewery has used unique ingredients in a beer recipe:

The brewery also made an oyster stout, and launched a 'hipster beer' at GABS 2015, which was made with quinoa, chia seeds and kale.

-via Ace of Spades HQ


Giant Hammock Can Hold 5 People

Hammacher Schlemmer calls it the Bunyanesque Hammock after the mythical lumberjack Paul Bunyan. The $500 hammock holds 5 200-pound adults and measures 8 by 15 feet. The straps appear to be rigid, thus preventing it from being used as a slingshot, which is a shame. Perhaps those could be added as an aftermarket feature.

-via Incredible Things


Surreal Aquariums Seem to Defy Gravity

Inside this aquarium is another aquarium, inside of which ferns grow.

Resident fish can swim up to the top of the ferns, but no further, as there's a bubble of air inside this little balloon.

Haruka Misawa, a Japanese designer, calls her series of surreal aquariums "Waterscape."

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Steve Harvey Has Hair Again!

(Photo: unknown)

Game show host Steve Harvey has shaved his head for years now. But it looks like he's grown back his coiffure. An unknown barber made good use of the cut hair on his shop floor to shape a realistic portrait of Harvey.

-via Pleated Jeans


Toys for Families with Paralysis


(Video Link)

One of the great joys of life is playing with a young child. They're full of pure energy and bliss. But if you're paralyzed, then actively participating in play is very hard. As Donna Lowich, a grandmother in this video from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, says, "I'm basically relegated to spectator."

That's why the Foundation is developing toys that people with paralysis can use with children. These include remote control cars that can be operated with blow tubes and neck movements, as well as voice-activated pitching machines. They're called Adaptoys.

With the Adaptoys, users can participate in the simple joy of play. Eric LeGrand described his experience with the remote-controlled cars to Fox News:

“The idea of playing with my nephews with the Adaptoys, I thought it was honestly incredible,” LeGrand said. “It was awesome. I had a lot of fun with them competing and showing them that Uncle E does have some competitive drive. It was great.”

“It opens doors for me because all of a sudden I could play with them. I could pitch with a baseball or whiffle ball with them,” he said. “It was funny to see how my little nephew got so mad telling me I cheated when I won. That’s the priceless stuff you can’t replicate.”

-via Huffington Post


Intricately Carved Spoons Are Sculptures You Can Eat With

That's because Giles Newman's first design principle is a spoon is always a spoon:

Each piece must be a functional spoon, suitable for daily use and comfortable in the hand. This constraint ensures that I don't let the complexity of my designs compromise the functional premise of the carving. Creatively this gives me a firm foundation on which to design. Knowing that there must be a bowl and a handle of some sort helps me avoid the 'blank canvas' feeling. My designs always start with the bowl and work out from there.

That's from an interview that the artist gave with the Wood Workers Institute. He describes his work in detail, including his use of hand tools. Newman's techniques focus on the axe and the knife, for which he completes almost all of his work. You can see a time-lapse video of his use of the axe on a spoon here and view more photos of spoons on his Instagram feed.

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Profile for John Farrier

  • Member Since 2012/08/04


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