This ram is very lucky that this was just a quadcopter piloted by a man he could easily defeat when he came looking for it. If it had been the U.S. military, he would have been toast.
They say great design is in the details, so what would happen if you were to twist a key element here or tweak a core feature there? As it turns out, rendering an item relatively frustrating (but still functional) is quite easy and at times fairly humorous as well.
In an ongoing series dubbed The Uncomfortable, Katerina Kamprani “decided to create and design for all the wrong reasons. The goal is to redesign useful objects making them uncomfortable but usable and maintain the semiotics of the original item. Vindictive and nasty? Or a helpful study of everyday objects?”
Much of her work deals with the most common items we use everyday, from tableware and cookware to keys and chairs, each recognizable but distorted, usable but difficult.
Adding hinges and chains to spoons, forks and knives readily defeats their purpose, as does bending the handle on a mug or adding a nose-bumping extrusion to a wine glass. While the works are conceptual renderings, some are for sale as art prints and many others could be 3D printed as gag gifts, too.
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Is that glass of orange juice hiding something from you? A student project demonstrates how even the most innocent objects can conceal plenty of secrets.
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Creatures large and small seem to have eaten their way out of the confinement of everyday items like rolling pins, axes, pianos and chairs in the hands of ...Click Here to Read More »»
Artist Nick Veasey uses powerful x-ray machines to reveal what lies under the surface of objects like teddy bears, light bulbs, even entire office buildings.
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Why spend a fortune on a virtually endless array of aesthetically questionable kids’ furniture, from birth to their teen years, when you could choose customizable, transforming, modern furniture elements instead? These 13 smart space-saving solutions are just as well-thought-out as furniture made for adults, and can keep up with kids’ growth.
Rubik’s Cube Modular Kids Furniture
The Magic Module is a bunch of colorful foam and fabric cushions that can be clipped together to resemble a giant Rubik’s cube, or disassembled into seats, lounges, footrests and beds.
Smart Kid Bedroom in a Box
This kids bedroom-in-a-box starts out as a solid birch and plywood crib and then reconfigures into a variety of items that can be used throughout childhood. Take it apart once your toddler is too big for it and re-assemble it into a playpen, junior bed, desk or chalkboard and book rack.
Dumbo Double-Tuck Bed
Tuck Beds by Casa Kids are ‘modern murphy beds for kids,’ with the ability to be mounted horizontal or vertically to practically any wall. It takes up just 13 3/4″ of floor space when it’s all closed up, leaving lots of space for play. An integrated shelf doubles as leg support.
Convertible Crib Turns into Toy Bin & Bookshelf
The Yiahn Bassinet is another design that goes from birth to late childhood, starting out as a safe place for baby to sleep and transforming into a toy bin and bookshelf for toddlers, and then a chair and table for kids aged 4-8 years. If the family has a second baby, it can be reclaimed for its original use.
SPOT All-in-One Wooden Furniture Series
Free of all the visual clutter typically associated with children’s bedroom sets, SPOT by Polish designer Wiktoria Lenart is a space-saving furniture set with a neutral look and highly customizable character so kids can craft their rooms according to their own personalities and needs. Lofted beds, sliding compartments and a bed frame that doubles as a play space make it fun and easy for kids to create their own personal spaces.
If you want something comfortable and conventional you might want to look elsewhere. If you are looking for bold and creative furniture designs you are in the ...Click Here to Read More »»
Multifunctional and convertible furniture solutions from Resource Furniture unfold and expand in unexpected ways, fitting lots of function into tiny rooms.
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While much of it can be boring, some designers are putting the fun back into kids’ furnitures. These pieces are a delight not only for kids, but for their ...Click Here to Read More »»
With over 34 thousand followers, it's likely that you're already following the excellent Lego Academics twitter account, which'll celebrate its one-month anniversary next week. If you aren't, you should.
Anyone who's been to Normandy, France or has a solid interest in spirits knows the wonders of Calvados, the high-proof apple brandy that really packs a punch. However, apple brandy happens to be an American tradition, as well. It's known as Apple Jack...
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Popular internet animal video Cat Vs. Deer has been translated thanks to British comedian Chris Cohen. What follows is visual proof that every single animal video should—and must—be translated for our comical benefit. It's brilliant.
Last week, I was scouting downtown Brooklyn for apartments when I happened to turn onto Duffield Street and come across a great little surprise I’d forgotten about…
In fact, the best part is that it’s almost invisible when you first start down Duffield.
Then, as you near the halfway point, something quite surreal suddenly comes into view…
Wedged between the surrounding modern buildings, a row of four wonderfully quaint, perfectly preserved 19th century homes in the last place you’d expect to find them.
They’re so out of sync with their surroundings, they almost feel like the backlot set for a period New York movie…
…especially when you step back and consider the skyscrapers that literally come up to their backyards:
I’ve always wondered about the houses, and knocked on a few doors. According to signs, they’re all the property of nearby Metro Tech. Strangely though, they all seemed to be empty, and I was suddenly reminded of the eerily deserted ghost towns I’ve visited in my roadtrips across the US.
As it turns out, all four houses were originally located on Johnson Street near Lawrence (about five blocks away), once a vibrant middle class residential neighborhood filled with like homes that came into being around Brooklyn’s incorporation in the 1830s.
Today, that same street is looking quite different:
Three of the homes were built by Reverend Samuel Johnson, who had inherited land from his grandfather’s farm. The first, #188 Duffield Street, was constructed circa 1835-1838, and later remodeled and enlarged in the 1880s with a combination of Queen Anne and Second Empire designwork.
I love the porch…
…with its nicely stylized overhang:
Next door is #186, built during the same period by Johnson…
…and one of the only homes in New York City with a free-standing Greek Revival portico:
Also of note are the dormer windows:
The third in line, #184, was built in 1847 by merchant Francis Chichester as an investment:
Interesting how the second floor windows appear to stretch from floor to ceiling:
Finally, the last is #182, built by Johnson and the only property not part of the original group.
Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, these homes would have been occupied primarily by those of the middle class, bridging the literal gap between upper class Brooklyn Heights and the working class Navy Yard area. I love how each has a small garden in front, a stipulation made by Johnson:
Here’s a peek into the backyards, which can be seen via the church alley next door:
So how did the houses wind up on Duffield Street? The homes were moved in 1990 to save them from the wrecking ball during the Metro Tech redevelopment. Costing about $2,000,000 in total, each building was lifted 17-feet up onto flatbed trucks and transported to their current location in an effort to preserve a small slice of what was once middle class living in Brooklyn.
Today, the buildings are owned by Metro Tech and have been in use as office space for a number of years. I’m not sure why they currently appear to be vacant – perhaps renovations?
Considering the dramatic makeover that’s been going on in downtown Brooklyn over the past few years, it’s frankly amazing anyone had the foresight to save them at all.
I’ve been scouting around the neighborhood over the past week, and everywhere you turn, older buildings are being boarded up…
…and slated for demolition…
…to make way for bland modern glass highrises.
I’d complain, but then, all of these buildings are nearly fully occupied by folks who can afford the expensive rents, and I’ve been told time and again that’s all that really matters.
Oh well. At the very least, I guess it serves to make little slices like Duffield Street all the more precious.
A home's Wi-Fi dead zones are, to most of us, a problem solved with guesswork. Your laptop streams just fine in this corner of the bedroom, but not the adjacent one; this arm of the couch is great for uploading photos, but not the other one. You avoid these places, and where the Wi-Fi works becomes a factor in the wear patterns of your home. In an effort to better understand, and possibly eradicate, his Wi-Fi dead zones, one man took the hard way: he solved the Helmholtz equation.
The Helmholtz equation models "the propagation of electronic waves" that involves using a sparse matrix to help minimize the amount of calculation a computer has to do in order to figure out the paths and interferences of waves, in this case from a Wi-Fi router. The whole process is similar to how scattered granular material, like rice or salt, will form complex patterns on top of a speaker depending on where the sound waves are hitting the surfaces.
The author of the post in question, Jason Cole, first solved the equation in two dimensions, and then applied it to his apartment's long and narrow two-bedroom layout. He wrote that he took his walls to have a very high refractive index, while empty space had a refractive index of 1.
While I'm not pregnant, any time they advise pregnant women not to eat something like this on the grounds that full grown bodies "can take it", I get nervous.
Here's how to avoid unnecessarily exposing yourself and your kids to dangerous neurotoxins.
Cnidarians like anemones and jellyfish extend nematocysts, stinging organelles capable of shooting venom into another creature. The nematocysts are too small and move too quickly to be seen by the naked eye—but now they've been captured through a microscope with a high-speed camera.
Pablo Ruiz is an Argentine pop singer who had his greatest success as a child star in the ’80s. He is not, shall we say, a person you’d imagine to be among the top influences of Australian psych-rockers Tame Impala. But a new YouTube video that’s making the rounds makes a case that Tame Impala ripped off Ruiz’s 1989 single “Oceano” for their Lonerism jam “Feels Like We Only Backwards,” which has essentially become their signature song. It seems like a coincidence, but Tame Impala will be in Argentina later this year, so maybe Ruiz can holler at them about it. Below, check out that video along with Kevin Parker’s first “FLWOGB” demo and some newly announced Tame Impala American tour dates.
<em>Editor's note: This post was originally published by our partners at <a href="http://www.popsugar.com/tech/Funny-Secret-App-Messages-35480817#photo-35480823">PopSugar Tech</a>.</em>
If you've never spent time on the Secret app, you should know it's pretty addictive. It's where people anonymously post thoughts they'd never admit out loud—from the serious to the hilarious. And you often find yourself nodding along because you feel that way, too. That's especially true when you read the ones that would only come up in the 21st century ... thoughts about the iPhone, Facebook, YouTube, texting, and more. The following 22 examples are waiting for you.
Grimes’ “Go,” the Blood Diamonds collab that the two of them apparently wrote for Rihanna, may have started more fights than any other song this summer, at least until Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” came along. It’s a truly epic bit of pop weirdness, and now it has a video to match. Grimes and her brother Mac Boucher directed the video together, working under the name Roco-Prime, and their video is a dizzy pileup of images: Black lights! Iron masks! Billowing silks! Big-ass swords! Intense Vapo-Rub dance moves! Sand dunes! Hair flips! It’s a whole lot to process, but my first reaction is that it’s fucking awesome.
From what I've heard, Danish people don't think about their "bicycle culture." Bicycling is just a part of life, as ubiquitously invisible to them as checking the mail is to us. In fact, you can go from a sperm bank to the grave on a bicycle.
Warriorssssss…don’t miss your trainnnnn
Ever catch your friends complaining about how the subways have no character anymore? First of all, remind them that riders are now just as terrified of picking up bedbugs as they were of being mugged back in the day, which has to count for something. Second, direct them to BAM’s “Retro Metro” film series starting in late September, which will trace the history of the subway system in film, from the 30s to the 90s. Opening the series? The Warriors!
According to a press release, “Retro Metro” will run from September 26 until October 5, with one or two old movies that spend some screen time on the old subway running each day at BAM. The films stretch back as far as 1928 with Speedy (October 3), a movie about a horse-drawn carriage driver trying to save the city’s embattled horse drawn carriage from the encroaching threat of mass transit (that’ll… Read More
"Let’s say that I am, through my actions, doomed, and that I will go to hell. Even if I am going to hell, that still doesn’t mean the Earth is 6,000 years old. The facts just don’t reconcile.”
It was a battle that raged for nearly a half-hour. A 56-year-old Indian woman — armed with only farm tools — is now recovering in hospital after killing a leopard that attacked her.
Man, librarians are the best. You should definitely let them pick your books. via Facebook
So you’re finished with you’re summer reading, and you’re not sure where you want to go next. After all, there are so many books! Fortunately, the Brooklyn Public Library is here to save you from your own poor decisions with a new service called Bklyn BookMatch, in which they make you a personalized reading list. If there was ever a reason to pay back your massive late fees, this is it.
Bklyn BookMatch works pretty simply. You just head over to the online form the library has set up, and let them know things like if you’re looking for very specific recommendations or who you enjoy reading in general, if you want YA, children’s or adult books and your age. Even better, you can tell the library what you don’t want to read, so you can just get… Read More
Katharine Hepburn skateboarding on the studio lot during the filming of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
Matthew Broderick and Alan Ruck watching as Mia Sara is getting pied at the wrap party of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Bees explore a field of lavender in Provence, France.
Here's how to avoid unnecessarily exposing yourself and your kids to dangerous neurotoxins.
From what I've heard, Danish people don't think about their "bicycle culture." Bicycling is just a part of life, as ubiquitously invisible to them as checking the mail is to us. In fact, you can go from a sperm bank to the grave on a bicycle.
