Vivood Shelter

Spanish architectural collective Vivood have developed an inexpensive (Approx. $10,000) shelter that can be erected in one day and is perfect for a glamping retreat, guesthouse, or basic tiny house. The shelter is constructed from sustainably-sourced wood, and features a living space, with room for a bed, couch, and books.

Travel Photo of the Week

Vancouver, Canada

Miniature Cement Skeletons On The Streets Of Mexico

"Artist Isaac Cordal is well-known for his creation and placement of miniature cement figures in public places around the world as part of an ongoing series called Cement Eclipses. While the meaning behind each tiny sculpture is intentionally ambiguous, it’s impossible to look at each piece without imagining a story. The pieces often appear in scenes of mourning or despair, as part of what Cordal says is commentary on humankind’s disregard for nature and as foreshadowing of potential consequences."

Found on Colossal.

Engineering Bacteria To Treat Chronic Disease

Researchers at Vanderbilt University have modified a bacteria to produce a therapeutic compound in the
guts of test mice. Studies have shown that beneficial bacteria naturally found in the gut plays a role in obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, so the researchers set out to see if it was possible to manipulate gut microbiota to improve health.

When water containing the modified bacteria was added to the drinking water of mice fed a high-fat diet for eight weeks, the researchers found they ate less and had dramatically lower body fat, insulin resistance and fatty liver compared to mice that received control bacteria.

This has promise in treating diabetes, obesity and other chronic conditions.

Hoverbike

Yep, you read that correctly. Malloy Aeronautics has been working on crossing a helicopter with a motorbike and has launched a Kickstarter campaign to support its Hoverbike project.

"Our goal is to produce an extremely reliable helicopter, designed with rugged simplicity at its heart and true pilot safety built into the design and operation of the aircraft," said the company.

It flies like a quadracopter and can be flown manned or unmanned. If you back the Kickstarter campaign, you get a one-third scale working model for $1200.

You know you want one.

Fun Time! Making Chairs From Plastic Found In The Ocean!

Anti-Tracking Phone Pouches

With the worries of the NSA tracking your every move today (not me, if they're watching, they've been bored to sleep by now), folks are becoming more aware of the steps they can take to limit government snooping into their oh-so-interesting lives.

One way that the feds can supposedly track you is your phone, which even if off, is said to give off locating signals to make it possible to pinpoint your whereabouts.

Not anymore! You can now purchase a pouch for your tattling telephone. Offpocket has this quite ugly oversized model (above right) for only $80, while Eyetek offers one for only $17.

Personally, I'm going to cast my fate to the wind. I don't care if I'm being tracked. I'm certainly less trouble than I'm worth.

Twenty Eight Feet - Life on a Little Wooden Boat

The life of David Welsford. A short film by Kevin Fraser. Found on Lloyd's Blog.

Travel Photo of the Week

Côte d'Azur, France

Is There A Way To Test For The Existence Of Multiverses?

In a provocative press release from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, in Ontario, Canada, physicists there are proposing a method of testing the notion that we may live in a multiverse; multiple universes existing in parallel, but separated forever in their own bubbles.

To do that, they intend to model the entire universe.

“We start with a multiverse that has two bubbles in it, we collide the bubbles on a computer to figure out what happens, and then we stick a virtual observer in various places and ask what that observer would see from there,” says Matthew Johnson, a physicist at the institute. “All I need is gravity and the stuff that makes these bubbles up. We’re now at the point where if you have a favorite model of the multiverse, I can stick it on a computer and tell you what you should see.”

The press release indicates that they are not trying to prove that multiple universes actually exist. They are just looking for the possibility of finding the observational clues that would point the way to an answer.

In the meantime. I'll just keep my traveling clothes packed.

Biohackers Create Real Cheese, No Cow Needed

Sunday Fun Time Bonus! Monty Python's The Ministry of Silly Walks App!

And as a bonus to yesterday's Monty Python Live (mostly) Fun Time, I want to alert you to the availability of a wonderful game for your iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone. It's also available for Android devices. One of the best parts is that the game actually includes the voice of John Cleese himself!

I present to you The Ministry of Silly Walks app. Have fun!

Fun Time! And Now For Something Rather Similar: Monty Python Live (mostly)!

Tomorrow my wife, daughter and I will be enjoying the final live performance of Monty Python Live (mostly) at the cinema as it's simulcast worldwide.

In celebration of that, today I offer an audience video of the finale, "Always look On The Bright Side Of Life" from the July 1st show.



If you have a longer attention span, you might enjoy this BBC documentary that looks at the preparation of their final ten shows ever (probably), in English with English subtitles for those of you who'd rather read it.

Since The 1970s A Man Has Been Planting A Forest Larger Than Central Park, One Tree At A Time

One person can make a difference. Found on Colossal.

The Pots And Pans That Cook Food 40% Faster

The "Flare Pan" was designed by Oxford University professor Thomas Povey and will be sold by Lakeland, a British kitchenware supplier, starting in late August.

What makes it so different? It's claimed to be 40% more efficient than other cookware. That means it cooks 40% faster and with 40% less energy use. Povey designs high efficiency cooling systems for jet engines. He is also a mountaineer and wanted to make a pot that would work better at high altitudes. Made from cast aluminum, it has "fins" around the sides that increase the surface area being heated, affording more even heat distribution.

Lakeland will be offering a saucepan, a stockpot, two different sized pans and a three piece set. A bit pricey, but perhaps they will pay for themselves in time and energy savings.

Travel Photo of the Week

Mykonos, Greece

Insanely Luxurious Australian Off-Road Camper

Found on The Shelter Blog.

People Laying In A Week’s Worth Of Their Own Trash

"7 Days of Garbage" is photographer Gregg Segal's thought provoking photographic essay that shows people laying down in a weeks's worth of the garbage that they've created.

It makes you think long and hard about the enormous amount of junk we leave behind as we live our lives.

The link above provides only a few photos from the series. Use Google images and the name of the show to see just how much trash we generate.

New Study Confirms Benefits Of Organic Farming

The research, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, has found that organic crops contain more antioxidants and fewer pesticides than their non-organic counterparts.

"If you buy, consistently, organic fruits and vegetables...you get one to even two extra servings of antioxidants from those organic foods compared to if you bought conventional brands," said Charles Benbrook, a Washington State University researcher and the lone American co-author of the paper.

Quoting from the study: "Most importantly, the concentrations of a range of antioxidants such as polyphenolics were found to be substantially higher in organic crops/crop-based foods. Many of these compounds have previously been linked to a reduced risk of chronic diseases, including [cardiovascular disease] and neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers, in dietary intervention and epidemiological studies."

Fun Time! Cheap Cremation Urns For Cheap People!

Big Power Fights Back Against Solar And Wind

An interesting article today on Grist. It seems that now that household solar is spreading and becoming more than just a novelty, utility monopolies are taking the threat to their business model seriously and devising ways to fight back.

Utilities in Wisconsin are raising the price for solar homes to connect to their electrical grid. A new law pushed by Oklahoma utility companies allows them to charge more to customers who also have solar or wind turbine generators. Arizona has passed a law to raise the property taxes of anyone leasing solar panels.

As the article states, welcome to the solar backlash. For more here's a link to the Grist article or you can check the other links that I've included.

Hypnotic Stop-Motion Animation Of Objects Sanded Down Layer By Layer

Found on Colossal, where there's always amazing art.

Travel Photo of the Week

Ha'penny Bridge, Dublin, Ireland

Golden Mean Calipers

I saw this today on Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools and knew I had to share it. The Golden Mean is a mathematical ratio (1:1.6180339887498948482... also known as the Golden Section) that is seen over and over in nature and is considered aesthetically beautiful. It has been used in art and architecture for thousands of years. Now you can buy a set of calipers for any work you might be involved in that requires the Golden Mean.

Although there are several sources for these tools, perhaps the most elegant and beautiful set is available from Nick Taylor in New Zealand. A bit pricey, but are they ever gorgeous. Here's video of Nick and his calipers. Here's a link to his website. He also takes Bitcoin.

Original Unverpackt - Berlin's Supermarket Without The Packaging

Here's an idea that's bound to catch on. Original Unverpackt is going to be opening in Berlin soon. The big difference between it and other supermarkets is that it will serve up its over 600 items in bulk. Shoppers will bring their own containers and be able to purchase as much or little as they like. A significant amount of the cost of the food items we buy goes into the packaging and we are often forced into buying more than we need, contributing to spoilage and waste.

The project is being crowdfunded and the team is currently exploring their supply chain and looking for a space to put the first store, but they are already receiving inquiries about franchising.

The Shelter Blog

Driftwood beach shack.

The Shelter Blog is an off shoot of Lloyd Kahn's personal blog and devoted to the idea that "Shelter is more than just a roof overhead." The content is mostly original instead of recycled from other websites. Kahn has been collecting and receiving submissions of material on the subject for over forty years and if you see it on The Shelter Blog, most likely, you're seeing it for the first time.

If you're interested in vernacular architecture, this is the most interesting place on the web.

Treehouse in German forest.

Fun Time! Happy Birthday SPAM!

In celebration of the 77th birthday of "Specially Processed American Meat" or "Supply Pressed American Meat" or "Special Product of Austin, Minnesota" or maybe even "Something Posing As Meat" AND the final run of Monty Python's Flying Circus live shows ever, for today's Fun Time, I offer.....

Female Figure - Amazing, Creepy Cutting Edge Animatronics

And here is a link to another, quite amazing, video of Female Figure.

The Reverse Perspective Paintings Of Patrick Hughes

For more, here is his website.

Travel Photo of the Week

Cinque Terre, Italy

Want To Cut Your Carbon Footprint In Half? Go Vegetarian.

This comes from Grist...

"A team of British researchers scrutinized the diets of 2,041 vegans, 15,751 vegetarians, 8,123 fish eaters, and 29,589 meat eaters, all of them living in the U.K. They estimated the greenhouse gas emissions associated with 289 types of food. Then they combined the data to determine the globe-warming impacts of those four diets, based on consumption of 2,000 calories a day."

It seems that eating meat adds a significant amount of carbon to the world. Raising the animals requires the use of fossil fuels to power the farms and farm machinery. There's also the issue of animal flatulence (there is an effort afoot to genetically engineer animals to eliminate this, let's see how that goes over).

Here are the numbers...

Heavy meat eaters add 16 pounds of carbon dioxide a day. If you eat less than two ounces, you add 10.3 pounds a day. If you only eat fish, 8.7 pounds. Vegetarians add 8.5 and vegans 6.5.

We are what we eat.