A tiny wooden steamship.

It actually works! Coo.

The ship has an engine – but an unusual type, one that manages without pistons, wheels or cylinders. It consists of a brass pipe and a tea candle. First fill the pipe with water. Then light the tea candle. When the water comes to the boil, it turns into steam and seeks to escape. This produces a partial vacuum in the pipe, which in turns sucks in fresh water. The force of the escaping steam being stronger than that of the incoming water, the ship is propelled in a forward direction – for some time, until the flame of the tea candle goes out.

Steamship with special Pulsation Engine - Manufactum

Tattly™ Traffic Cones

As someone who used to live eight min from work and now drives to the suburbs for work -- during the most ghastly Wisconsin construction season EVER -- I feel like I need these. As a badge of honor. Or badge of shame. Not sure which. Love 'em.

Tattly™ Designy Temporary Tattoos — Traffic Cones

Art Shay: The Sporting Life & Times

I could not be more proud of my bestie, Bradley, for his work on this video and the Art Shay exhibit tonight at HDC.

Art Shay: The Sporting Life and Times from Bradley Rochford on Vimeo.


Art Shay (b. 1922) is a photographer and writer who has captured and helped define the American experience for the better part of seven decades. After flying 52 combat missions during World War II, Shay took a job as a staff reporter at Life magazine. There he wrote a hundred anonymous stories and did time in the New York, Washington, San Francisco and Chicago bureaus, finally leaving to pursue his first love, photography. He was soon shooting pictures regularly for Sports Illustrated, Time, Life, Fortune, the Saturday Evening Post, Forbes, Business Week, Parade and The New York Times Magazine.

Since the opening in 1976 of Northbrook Court Mall in Northbrook, Illinois, Shay has been chronicling life at the mall. He is also working on a project on the life of The Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan. Since the end of 2010, he has been writing a weekly photography blog “From the Vault of Art Shay” on Chicagoist.

Art Shay: The Sporting Life &Times

More here: The Sporting Life and Times: Art Shay, a legendary photojournalist at 91 years of age you must know | ISO 1200 Magazine | Photography Video blog for photographers

Artisinal Tinfoil Hats: my new favorite Kickstarter.

Artisanal Tinfoil Haberdashery by Master Haberdasher Patrick Blanchfield — Kickstarter

Tiny paint chip paintings by Seanna Hong

I'm genuinely embarrassed by how long this has been sitting in my blog queue. But, unlike most posts, I feel that, even though it's OFN, it's still worth posting. I love these tiny paintings on good ol' paint store color chips.

Seonna Hong: Selected Works 2011

via JeannieJeannie

Ummmm - I'm back.

Hullo? Is this thing on?

I'm sorry I've been so damned quiet as of late. It's because I've been in the throes of changing jobs after 16 YEARS. Daaaamn. My robot army and I just (well, almost three weeks ago now) moved from HDC to Bader Rutter & Associates - another agency here in the Milwaukee area. I'm now officially commuting from the east side to the 'burbs, which seriously bites, but the new job is ace.

Anyway, I'm happy to be settling into my new job and new life as a Senior UX Architect. Especially since I'm now reporting to my pal, Gretchen, who is, seriously, brilliant, but for some reason, kept sending me pictures of sexy gorillas and things like this before I started my new gig:

That's it. Just thought you deserved an explanation. Carry on.

How to fold a shirt in under 2 seconds.

 Okay, seriously. This is pretty amazing.



via Digg Videos