Fun with Office Supplies

Perhaps I’m easily impressed and/or amused, but I had no idea until I went back into the world of corporate dronage that the Liquid Paper I grew up with had been replaced by cool correcting tape that’s applied with a dispenser filled with all kinds of rollers and gears and semi-circuitous pathways. Anything worth engineering… Continue reading Fun with Office Supplies

Hot Trike

Why didn’t we have these when I was a mere yute?

Published
Categorized as Cycling, Design

Back Yard as a Terrarium

Last Wednesday, the high temperature in Midland was 104°, which was not only a record for April 25th, but the highest temperature ever recorded in the city in April. Couple that kind of heat with our outdoor watering restrictions, and our back yard is toast – literally. (OK, not literally literally, but blogger hyperbole literally,… Continue reading Back Yard as a Terrarium

Published
Categorized as Design

Pebble: The future of watches?

Meet the next millionaire-making personal-electronics phenomenon: the Pebble smartwatch. This unassuming wristwatch is designed to interact with – control and/or be controlled by – your iPhone, iPod touch or Android smartphone, via Bluetooth. The face is so-called ePaper, a display that’s visible in bright sunlight, like a Kindle, and is also backlit for viewing in… Continue reading Pebble: The future of watches?

Flights of Fancy

I created this from an actual photograph. Any idea what it is? You know what? The un-retouched image is actually quite a bit more impressive: I know that some of you have seen this scene from ground-level. It’s an aerial look at the Forest Creek Capricorn Ridge (thanks, Gregg!) wind farm just north of Sterling… Continue reading Flights of Fancy

Currency Devaluation

Make Your Franklin is a “community art project” that lets folks redesign the US one hundred dollar bill and upload the results to an online gallery. The site even provides a high resolution scan (7300×3000 pixel) of a Benjamin in case you don’t have one handy (and I never do). A lot of the entries show… Continue reading Currency Devaluation

Cinemagraphs: Animated GIFs Live Again!

Before there was Flash, the primary means of displaying movement on a web page was via animated GIFs, low resolution graphics with mostly clumsy transitions. Animated GIFs have mostly been relegated to retro-cult status, with very few serious uses for the format (although done properly, with the right graphics, they provide a quite passable substitute… Continue reading Cinemagraphs: Animated GIFs Live Again!