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.