I spotted these sketchbook notes by Austin Kleon on Flickr, of a presentation that Heather Gold gave for VizThinkU. I wasn’t at the talk, but it’s amazing to me how much of the gist of it these two pages seem to convey. Heather Gold on unpresenting for VizthinkU
Ancientwood, Ltd., is a US company that imports 50,000-year-old Kauri logs that have been preserved for millennia in peat bogs under New Zealand’s northern island. Besides its value as a conversation piece, ancient Kauri is mined, rather than logged, and no live trees are killed in the process. Kauri trees (Agathis spp.) thrive in New […]
German chemical giant BASF pioneered the technology to colorize the traditionally blah-colored world of manufactured wood products like medium-density fiberboard (MDF). Besides requiring no or little finishing, through-color MDF will not betray scrapes or scratches like painted material. It has been available in Europe for awhile now, but only relatively recently in the US through […]
The Zeer pot is an African cooling gadget which, for less than $2US in local materials and without electricity, can extend the storage lifetime of fresh produce by as much as 18 days. It is of staggeringly simple design: Two clay pots are nested with a relatively thin layer of sand between them. The sand […]
I love old-style manually-operated tools. They frequently feature in my survivalist fantasies: the zombies come, the power grid collapses, and I’m the only one left who can still build killdozers because all my tools are manually-operated. Then one day Alyson Hannigan runs screaming into my compound, in terrible distress and in dire need of my […]
Over at the mightyOhm, Jeff Keyzer has a guest blogger, his friend Tony. Tony’s first project posted is (part 1) of this awesome diamond-bladed precision chop saw he built with parts from hard drives. The motor, pivot bearing, and motor driver are all from old drives. The blade is a surplus wafer-dicing blade, 300µm thick! […]
When I first saw this, I didn’t think it seemed like such a bright idea — maybe because of how it apparently beats the crap out of the tin and because this guy carries a lot of keys. I only carry three and a flat LED keyfob flashlight. And I always carry a tiny-tin Altoids […]
