Whole Tree Architecture - if you'd like a house built by pioneering architect Roald Gundersen, your first step might be to hike in your nearby woods to choose some young, wind-bent, and diseased "Charlie Brown" trees. Small diameter round trees have 150% the strength of milled lumber and twice the strength of steel in tension. Besides structural and environmental advantages, whole trees make for some beautiful and naturally sculptured environments.
posted on Nov-22-09 at 7:56 PM

MarineTraffic is a live map recording ship traffic based on AIS data. The site mainly covers European and North American coasts and includes info on vessels and ports, plus a gallery with some cool ship photos. Similar: see ShipAIS for live vessel movements from around the UK.
posted on Nov-9-09 at 10:27 AM

Top 10 Food-Based Rube Goldberg Machines (videos) If this type of food preparation is too elaborate for your tastes, the Super-Fast Pancake-Sorting Flexpicker Robot might be more to your style.
posted on Sep-27-09 at 2:47 PM

Putting heart and muscle into the term "bespoke," Josh Hadar creates hand-crafted metal sculptures that double as functional bikes. He describes his process in a recent interview with RocketBoom. Intrigued? A bicycle custom built to your whims could run from $12-$35k, or if you live in NYC, you can try your hand at welding and metal sculpting at his Burn Clinic. (via bioephemera)
posted on Sep-4-09 at 7:13 AM

Amazon: wtf
posted on Aug-22-09 at 9:50 PM

Me Le Se and Dance Medley - live clips of King Sunny Ade and his African Beats in Seattle last month just before being inducted into the AfroPop Hall of Fame. More clips from the show ...
posted on Aug-9-09 at 4:45 PM

Children Full of Life - grade 4 students in Kanazawa, Japan learn deep life lessons from their incredible teacher and from each other. I strongly recommend this as awesome, but one caveat: keep tissues handy. (5 parts, 40 minutes total, English)
posted on Jul-25-09 at 5:21 PM

Stalin's Secret Weapon - a Russian hobbyist's terminator-esque diorama painstakingly constructed from military action figures. (Via buzz
posted on Jul-19-09 at 3:30 PM

We Have Band's music video for You Came Out is stop-frame animation created from 4,816 still images without any video footage. The making of. (via likeCOOL)
posted on Jun-13-09 at 8:52 PM

Peasant! Free your pregnant wife from work, don't allow her to pick up heavy items since this will harm her and the child. An excellent collection of vintage soviet propaganda, public health, and infographics posters from 20s to 30s, many with full translations.
posted on Jun-7-09 at 7:01 AM

Frank Soltesz was a master of fascinating cutaway illustrations depicting "modern businesses" in the '40s and '50s - from hotels and hospitals to breweries, grocery stores, and more. (via Telstar Logistics Blog)
posted on May-3-09 at 5:55 PM

Kinda sutra - a charmingly animated short in which people talk about childhood misconceptions about sex and childbirth. More on childhood sex misconceptions from Dan Savage 1, 2, 3. (pretty tame clip, but possibly NSFW)
posted on Apr-13-09 at 4:14 AM

Around Cape Horn - if you've ever wished for an authentic glimpse into the bygone era of the majestic age of sailing, this is it - a rare 1929 true adventure film about sailing a four-masted commercial barque around the Cape Horn during a huge gale. It was shot with a hand-cranked camera by Captain Irving Johnson who offers a spirited narration. 36 minutes, B&W
posted on Apr-11-09 at 8:28 PM

From cops vs. hoods and other toughies to mad science and dramatic ledges and bridgewalkers, a vast and entertaining collection of vintage pulp art categorized into themes.
posted on Mar-26-09 at 3:52 AM

Extravagant Crowd - Carl Van Vechten’s Portraits of Women and Photos of African Americans. Previous post by ND¢: Creative Americans: Portraits by Carl Van Vechten 1932-1964. Also, public domain works from Wikimedia Commons.
posted on Mar-22-09 at 8:08 AM

A Crooked Gambling Supplies catalog from 1960, a 1914 Cyclopedia of 5,000 Puzzles, dozens of magic posters from the '20s to the '40s, and more fun ephemera from Old Catalog's flickr sets.
posted on Mar-11-09 at 7:24 PM

Division: Work it out! - these girls be spittin the math.
posted on Jan-17-09 at 10:01 AM

The beautiful vintage photos of three Belgian friends - a doctor, a painter, and accountant - who shared their experiments in color photography from 1907 to 1920. (via The Wonderland of Mia Mäkilä)
posted on Dec-26-08 at 1:43 PM

"We were classmates in high school... And we spoke the plan to go to Yakushima Island. However, the talk swells greatly...We decided to make a camper for a round-the-japan trip. We thought that various equipment was necessary to long trip. However, the bed space has disappeared when various equipment is packed. Then, the idea adjusted to two stories appeared." More on the truck and the trip. (via Dinosaurs and Robots)
posted on Dec-21-08 at 7:21 AM

Michael Mararian creates pen and ink drawings of mischievously macabre babies and children. Meet the dark and wicked little demons in his current exhibit or explore the world of childhood terrors in his phobias, foibles and fiends collection (scroll down a few) where humor and horror collide.
posted on Dec-14-08 at 5:39 AM

Counter-Strike, Vincent Van Gogh style - a curiously pleasing little video mashup. (via Milinkito)
posted on Dec-10-08 at 6:30 PM

Once Upon a Time - a filmed fairy tale starring baby monkeys lost in frightening trees, a witch, crocodiles, a tiger, a "popotamus" and a lion, and even a "tremendously very bad mammoth." (In French, English subtitles)
posted on Nov-16-08 at 7:04 PM

Armchair travel via three superb audio slide shows by photographer Reinhard Krause:
Monlam, the Tibetan Great Prayer Festival - Aba China
Catholics celebrate Christmas in rural China
Tibetan prayer meeting in Tongren
posted on Oct-30-08 at 6:52 PM

Burlap paradummies called Ruperts were dropped during D-Day, later depicted in the film The Longest Day. But prior to D-Day, both the British and the Germans had used straw-filled decoys in various locations. Later in the war, the U.S. tested "Oscar" but found him lacking, adopting instead the PD Dummy.
posted on Oct-5-08 at 2:04 PM

Brutal or Amazing? - this is just one of many fine posts on the Photo Africa Blog, an excellent source of in-the-wild animal and nature photos and reports from bush field guides. Also see: Madikwe Lions.
posted on Oct-4-08 at 7:49 AM

Meet Dora DuFran and her cat house of Deadwood; Perle De Vere and the working girls of Cripple Creek; Annie Chambers of Kansas City; and Squirrel Tooth Alice of Sweetwater. In the wild west, prostitution was one of the few career options for women. Western history is filled with many colorful tales of shady ladies and legendary madams.
posted on Sep-21-08 at 2:19 PM

Have the wheels come off the straight talk express? At least one sleeping giant woke up today: the NYT finally gives Sarah Palin a thorough vetting and the results aren't pretty. The McCain campaign's aggressive - and many say dishonest - tactics in promoting Palin may have sparked the beginnings of a media backlash. Camp McCain's reaction: We don't care and intend to stay on offense. And about that offense, they will soon have some help: Group With Swift Boat Alumni Readies Ads Attacking Obama. How low will things go? At this week's Values Voters Summit, 'Obama Waffles' with racial stereotypes were all the rage.
posted on Sep-14-08 at 5:32 AM

Vintage 3-D stereoviews of old Japan, Meiji and Taisho era swimsuit girls, working people, geisha, and kids, old Japan salt prints, dozens of T. Enami glass slides, and strange or offbeat images: all part of a vast and superb collection of Japanese photos from 1862 to 1930 by flickr user Okinawa Soba.
posted on Sep-9-08 at 10:30 AM

Violent death in the insect world - grisly yet compelling macro photographs of bug-against-bug carnage.
posted on Sep-8-08 at 6:58 AM

20 pretty painted guitars. (via Nag on the Lake)
posted on Sep-6-08 at 9:42 AM

Perhaps you think you've had your fill of photographs of decaying architecture and abandoned buildings. If so, the rich color and play of light in Michael Eastman's beautiful body of work from Cuba, Europe, and the U.S. may change your mind. His site is flash - for non-flash folks, the Duane Reed Gallery has additional works, including his B&W portfolios on horses, landscapes, and succulents. (no relation to the Kodak family; via BB-Blog)
posted on Aug-23-08 at 9:07 PM

A Good Poop is an entertaining blog by an occupational and environmental health student who enjoys finding oddities in medical and scientific research from PubMed. (via Look at This...)
posted on Aug-20-08 at 9:15 PM

Rich people's rooftops in NYC offers a fun birds-eye view into a few sky-high secret decks and gardens. Roofs are the new frontier for innovative urban architects, but they aren't exclusive to the wealthy. All kinds of people and organizations are starting rooftop gardens. See the impressive results that two Chicago denizens had growing heirloom vegetables on their roofs (2).
posted on Aug-9-08 at 10:24 AM

Japanese-style popping is dope - check out u-min and dancers on the Polysics I My Me Mine. The girl, Strong Machine 2, was only 11 years old at filming. And let's not forget the classic display of popping in Late at Night. But beyond these dancers who've achieved some commercial prominence, check out a few fun and stylized Japanese popping clips from lesser known but great dancers.
posted on Jul-26-08 at 10:51 AM

Dino Valls (NSFW) (large format slide show of his work) is a self-taught Spanish artist who studied Italian and Flemish masters of the 16th and 17th centuries. Use of egg tempera and oil is one of his favorite painting techniques, requiring great mastery but affording rich color and tone. His works are beautiful, disturbing and surreal.
posted on Jul-20-08 at 12:09 PM

Retronomatopeya - cute collection of comic book images and language conveying sound and motion. Also see anastasiav's prior post: Ka-BOOM, the Dictionary of Comic Book Words on Historical Principles. (via oink!)
posted on Jul-17-08 at 10:08 AM

American-Dutch photographer Peter van Agtmael and English photographer Olivia Arthur are the two newest nominees recently welcomed into Magnum Photos. Agtmael's images of Afghanistan and Iraq are very powerful - he discusses his work in Conscientious. Arthur's recent work has focused on women's experiences in what she calls the Middle Distance.
posted on Jul-8-08 at 7:29 PM

Elvis rode to fame on one of her covers and Janis got rich on her signature song, but you haven't truly heard Hound Dog or Ball & Chain until you've experienced Big Mama Thornton belting them out. A seminal blues figure who could play the harp with the best of them, she was true original. In her heyday, Willie Mae was a 6-foot tall, 350-pound, gun-toting crossdresser who led a rough and colorful life and took no guff whatsoever. Emaciated but still powerful, she gives a final raw and expressive performance of Ball & Chain and Hound Dog shortly before her death in 1984.
posted on Jun-20-08 at 12:24 AM

This fun Japanese contact juggler's clip is proving popular lately, but he is not the first Japanese practitioner of the art to surface online. Here are several more highly entertaining Japanese contact juggler clips worth watching: one, two (starts about 1:06), three, four, five. (all via the highly entertaining Ministry of Manipulation's blog).
posted on Jun-5-08 at 8:13 PM

Wayne Miller's compelling B&W photos of Chicago 1946-1948 set to Muddy Water's "I feel like going home." (flash alert; via bifurcated rivets)
posted on Apr-20-08 at 5:09 PM

Dramatic footage of golden eagles hunting mountain goats. (alerts: rather gruesome; voiceover in Spanish)
posted on Apr-16-08 at 4:29 PM

Then and Now presents works from 8 South African documentary photographers - each contributes 10 photos taken during apartheid and 10 made since the democratic elections of 1994. (On display at Duke University through July 27.)
posted on Apr-13-08 at 6:24 PM

Russell Higgs has been adorning his face and head with various objects and posting photographic portraits online since July 2006. Dutch artist Levi van Veluw also likes to modify his face by putting things on it and photographing the results.
posted on Apr-12-08 at 10:42 AM

Six Masai warriors will face cultural challenges when they run in the Flora London Marathon to raise money for clean water for their village. Meet the runners (video clip) Think about making a small donation in their time of trouble because when we had problems here in the US, they were most generous to us.
posted on Apr-7-08 at 7:40 PM

Henry Miller Bathroom Monologues, part 2, part 3, and follow on - Miller takes us on a tour of the art in his bathroom. And a few years later, we have Dinner with Henry, 1979 .
posted on Apr-6-08 at 12:24 PM

Two historic photography collections from Sydney's Powerhouse Museum: The Tyrell Collection - glass plate negatives from the Sydney studios of Charles Kerry and Henry King from 1884-1917 depicting a local record of the times; and the Hedda Morrison Collection - photographs from China, 1933-1946. The collection also includes personal papers and objects, such as Chinese papercuts, belt toggles, and photos from a 1930s-era folk festival in Germany.
posted on Mar-16-08 at 9:22 AM

40 years ago tomorrow, more than 500 villagers were raped, tortured, and slaughtered (disturbing images) by American soldiers in a hamlet nicknamed Pinkville. Four Hours in My Lai tells the story. Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
posted on Mar-15-08 at 7:17 AM

Gram Parsons fans take note - there's a recent new biography and a release of 90 minutes of vintage Flying Burrito Brothers. Some rare footage has also recently surfaced online: performing with FBB and duets with Emmylou Harris 1, 2, 3. Other items of note: Emmylou talks about Gram in 2000; British biographical sketch; Keith Richards on Gram in Rolling Stone; an interview with Manuel, the designer of the famous Nudie suit.
posted on Mar-7-08 at 7:56 AM

La Real Frida offers beautiful film footage of Frida Kahlo.* Beyond her own self-portraits, some of the most iconic images of Frida are portraits by her 10-year lover, photographer Nickolas Muray.
posted on Feb-25-08 at 4:51 AM

"What is the sound of color? We asked that question of 5 musicians. We assigned each musician a different color. They wrote 5 tracks. We gave the colors and tracks that inspired them to 5 directors." The Sound of Color contains the songs and videos that were created. The site and free downloads are only available through March 15. (Via Carolina Vigna-Marú)
posted on Feb-18-08 at 4:29 AM