tech@vedella

The Atlantic reports on DOCUMERICA, an early 1970s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) photo documentary project. More than 100 photographers were hired not only to document specific environmental issues, but to capture images of everyday life, showing how we interacted with the environment and capturing the way parts of America looked at that moment in history. [...]

The Gun Snuggler. "Because happiness is a warm gun." Comes in sizes to fit everything from handguns to assault rifles! This began as a funny internet joke, but so many people took it seriously that it is now being offered as an actual thing that you can really buy for real. (Thanks, Marque Cornblatt!)

Katy Beveridge turned her bicycle wheel into a zoetrope, fastening cut sheets of paper to the spokes so that the bike's wheels displayed sweet animations when in motion. This is a piece created to question whether it was possible to film animation in realtime. Part of my CSM 3rd year disseration project I was looking [...]

[Video Link]. BB pal Griffin from South Africa says, "This TV ad was made for Nando’s, one of South Africa’s popular chicken fast food chains. As I understand it, they might have an outlet or two in the US as well. Watch how the infamous dictators are planning on spending their Xmas. Fucking brilliant!" This [...]

This brief, 1930s UK newsreel predicts the future of fashion, asking "famous fashion designers" to predict the garb of the year 2000. Pretty much everything worn in this video could be worn, somewhere, in the contemporary world (if only Burning Man), but it's hard to say that any of this really nailed Y2K's sartorial look-and-feel. [...]

Todd McLellan's gorgeous photo-series "Everyone has a piece of the puzzle" shows everyday electronic items disassembled and arranged in neat (or messy) layouts, laying the machine bare in all its glory and higgedly-piggeldy. Everyone has a piece of the puzzle (via Crib Candy)

MakerBot's just released three open source hardware toy kits to produce with your 3D printer: an RC car, a windup robot, and a hand-cranked dynamo: The MakerBot Botmobile is the first open source remote control car. MakerBot’s own designer Michael Curry, took everything he learned from creating the Turtle Shell Racers which were featured on [...]

Etsy seller blanaid upholsters overstuffed chairs with coffee sacks, for a great, rough look. These reclaimed vintage armchairs which I covered in worn vintage coffee bean bags. The chairs are 'sold as seen' - I love them dearly and hate to part with them! We made them to suit our studio, but have been inundated [...]

Condensed for your abbreviated pleasure, WKRP in Cincinnati's classic turkey drop episode, shrunk down to a brisk 30 seconds. AS GOD IS MY WITNESS I SWEAR I THOUGHT TURKEYS COULD FLY. WKRP Turkey Drop in 30 Seconds (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

UK designer Sarah Jane Williams sells beautiful, finely constructed handmade luggage that is deliberately impractical: suitcases with right-angle bends, U-shaped suitcases, suitcases that curve in a series of waves. They're way spiffy, and rather glorious in their whimsical two-fingers-up to practical considerations. Williams British Handmade | Collections (via Core 77)

Three weeks ago, Canada's Attawapiskat First Nation -- an indigenous community living on a treaty reservation -- took the unprecedented step of declaring a state of emergency. The community's housing is in such disarray that families are living in shanties and tents, and the temperatures are plunging well below freezing. However, not one federal or [...]

Wikipedia helpfully catalogs the major fictional diseases. (via Maria Popova)

A hairline crack has appeared in the authoritarian facade of Vladimir Putin's Russia. The would-be-dictator-for-life -- he recently commanded his sockpuppet, Dmitry Medvedev, to stand down from the next election so that he could run unopposed for another term as president -- was booed while attending an important political function: a mixed martial arts match [...]

There's a great write-up on Good about my city and my mayor, R.T. Rybak. Minneapolis isn't a perfect city, by any means. But it remains the best place I have ever had the privilege of living. And I think a huge part of that is the unofficial city motto that Good highlights here: "Minneapolis: We [...]

On StackOverflow, Robert Harvey -- apparently a man who's been around the block a few times -- has some impassioned advice for naive developers who are contemplating parsing HTML using regular expressions: HTML is a language of sufficient complexity that it cannot be parsed by regular expressions. Even Jon Skeet cannot parse HTML using regular [...]

The dilemma of how to reconcile the needs of security with the desire for humanity is the defining question of the twenty-first century. This sentence opens my thesis, "Loss Prevention: Customer Service as Border Security," written for the strategic foresight and innovation program that I just graduated. I decided to write about the future of [...]

As she does every year, Danielle Spencer hosted a "Turkey-shaped Jell-O® mold competition" in New York City a few days ago. And as it happens every year, the entries are awesome. Above, Cassandra C. Jones' "Homemade Hostess Holiday," First Place Grand Prize Trophy Winner [by popular election] for "Best Overall Turkey." Wow, it's Cassandra's second [...]

FBI agents arrested seven Ohio Amish men yesterday in Pennsylvania. They are accused of participating in a series of "beard-cutting attacks." Samuel Mullet, the leader of an offshoot group who reportedly ordered the bizarre attacks on other Amish men, was taken into custody along with his sons Johnny Mullet, Lester Mullet, and Daniel Mullet. Also [...]

Das Programm is an online store featuring the iconic electronic designs of Dieter Rams. As incorrigible Dieter Rams collectors we are all too aware of the gap between the desirability and availability of his work. Das Programm was conceived to correct this. We only sell Dieter Rams designs and Braun products issued between 1955 and [...]

This morning, NPR brought on Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, of the depressingly small House Civility Caucus, to offer advice on how to defuse the now-traditional Thanksgiving political spat. As you might suspect, given the Civility Caucus' record of success, this was not the world's most helpful interview. Probably the best bit of advice Congresswoman Capito [...]