Wow. An outdoor ‘relaxer’ in woven fibre, with canopy, footstool and side table. Designed for Gloster Furniture. Read More...

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Stone Forest has created unparalleled hand carved Japanese and contemporary sculptures and water fountains since 1989. They use a myriad of stones from granite, marble and travertine which gives their work structural integrity that man made materials cannot provide. Each piece is carved with hammer and chisel and bears the character of the rock as well as the inspiration of the stonecutter. The presence of this timeless beauty gives your home or garden the hint of eternity.

Stone Forest specializes in Stone Tub sinks, fountains, furniture, bathtubs, sculptures, and table ware. Equally impressive are the hammered bronze and stainless items that have an obvious hand made character with hammer marks, solder points, and minor oxidation suggesting old world Read More...

This part of the site is a cool "roll your own" Green Home tool... you are building the real modules that will be delivered and installed on your lot. Very cool.

From the site:

"We build homes created by world-class architects, which feature warm, modern design, functional amenities, and great price value.

Our homes include natural, non-toxic and sustainably-derived materials; and they're made in specially equipped factories that ensure unsurpassed quality, lower construction cost and waste, and shorten schedules.

The result of all this: healthier, happier homes that have a dramatically smaller ecological footprint than most new homes."

Our first home was designed by Ray Kappe, FAIA, and was installed in eight hours on April 13. It was recently certified LEED® Platinum by the United States Green Building Council, the first home in the nation to achieve this distinction. Read More...

Here are 10 wonderful things that just seem to happen by themselves:

• Diversity & Harmony
• Connection & Friendship
• Self-organisation & Synergy
• Resonance & Synchronicity
• Insight & The spread of great ideas
• Emergence & Paradigm Shifts
• Learning & Growth
• Happiness & Flow
• Healing & Forgiveness
• Relaxation & Enlightenment

Ming The Mechanic is the personal blog of Flemming Funch, a Danish programmer and all around interesting techno hippie. Read More...

The first documented evidence on the existence of carpets came from Chinese texts dating back to the Sassanid Dynasty (224 - 641 CE). In 628 CE, the Emperor Heraclius brought back a variety of carpets from the conquest of Ctesiphon, the Sassanian capital. The Arabs also conquered Ctesiphon in 637 CE, and among the spoils brought back were said to be many carpets, one of which was the famous garden carpet, the "Spring time of Khosro". This carpet has passed into history as the most precious of all time. Made during the reign of Khosro I (531 - 579 CE) the carpet was 90 Feet square.

The Arab historians' description is as follows: "The border was a magnificent flower bed of blue, red, white, yellow and green stones; in the background the colour of the earth was imitated with gold; clear stones like crystals gave the illusion of water; the plants were in silk and the fruits were formed by colour stones" However, the Arabs cut this magnificent carpet into many pieces, which were then sold separately.

In the Persian (or Sinneh) Knot, the wool thread forms a single turn about the warp thread. One end comes out over this thread and the other over the next warp thread.

In the Turkish (or Ghiordes) knot the yarn is taken twice around two adjacent warp threads and the ends are drawn out between these two threads Read More...

It all started in a Southern California office, where two coworkers who had a love of famous quotations started to tinker. One of the coworkers had a small quotation site, which had been in a state of perpetual development since its inception fours years before. A tremendously large collection of famous quotes had been gathered in preparation for inclusion onto the web site, but there never seemed to be enough time to get the project to a respectable stage. The second coworker, unbeknownst to the other, also has an impressively comprehensive collection of famous quotations.

The idea for Quoteopia! started to take shape once the existence of these two large collections became known to the two coworkers.

Over the next few months, much midnight oil was burned in order to make the idea a reality. These famous quotations, are from two personal collections that have been combined to create one of the largest, if not the largest famous quotations database available on the Internet.

Here's a good one from Annie Dillard,

"Eskimo: If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell? Priest: No, not if you did not know. Eskimo: Then why did you tell me? Read More...

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Some of the coolest mid-century album covers were illustrated by artist Jim Flora. Crazy angles, cubist stylings, playful lines and a touch of the diabolic were all part of his work for Columbia and RCA in the 40s and 50s. We always love seeing one his album covers in the thrift store record bin, and were excited to discover this Web site (JimFlora.com) that showcases his unique and graphic style. Read More...

Newfoundland artist Brenda Hoddinott has created a massive drawing tutorial site. Definitely worth checking out. Read More...

A nice pencil drawing tutorial for still life artists showing the process step by step... click the lighter to se the steps! Read More...

SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization"... it's the book of tricks that can get your site listed higher or closer to first position in a search engine, which means more people will see your product or ideas. There is some good free advice here. click the pic for more.
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Somehow, with the emergence of the internet, this list seems quaint... but these books all contain some pretty powerful stuff. Funny that our Grandparents generation was terrified of the ideas on these pages. click the pic for more. Read More...

What’s ‘eco’ about an ecospace EcoCube?

Pretty much everything. Sustainable wood structure and cedar cladding, organic sedum roof, environmentally-friendly electrics and appliances, high performance insulation and double glazing, and if you use your ecospace as your workplace, it’ll do wonders for your carbon footprint too. Read More...

If you don't already know about it, FOUND Magazine is a Quarterly that collects, photographs and publishes collections of found stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, doodles-- anything that gives a glimpse into someone else's life. Anything goes.
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Alphabet and Letter - Information on alphabets from around the world, with chapters from "The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering" written by Frederic W. Goudy. Read More...

Experimental architecture and industrial design studio founded by Antonio Pio Saracino and Steve E. Blatz. Biographies, awards and portfolio of innovatory designs including flexible housing, screens and furniture.

The Seed House (shown) in Marbletown, NY was commissioned by an art collector from NYC who is seeking the solitude of a rural setting far from the frenzy of her home in New York City. The setting is a 4 acre site joined by two other lots, also owned by the artist, on a deeply wooded slope. This project is the first of three houses to be built for the client on the three parcels. In addition to being an artist, the client is also a yoga instructor and collector of contemporary art and she commissioned the house as an addition to her formidable art collection. Her first desire was to have a retreat open to nature that could inspire her artwork in different ways than are derived by the urban setting of her main home.

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Marilyn Monroe was (and still is) idolized by people everywhere as a beauty standard... you forget that she had a pretty voluptuous figure compared to today's standards. Eventually we will gravitate back to this somewhat more sane "ideal" and then we can all realx. Read More...

There is a lampshade buyers guide at Lamps USA that has some good information. It points out the different types of shades, base designs and how to measure correctly for a lampshade. Many lamp shops are more intent on selling a new lamp as opposed to a replacement shade. Lamps USA offers a good selection of replacement shades available for purchase at reasonable prices. Read More...

An Impressive collection of kitsch for sale in several categories for hipsters. Click th pic to visit. Read More...

How various clichés of our times are faring based on the number of references on Google over a three month period. click pic to read this fascinating list of modern cliches. Read More...

Art meets meditation on the waste of Society. Dutch artist Nico Van Hoorn cruises the streets every day for a half hour looking for that one perfect piece of refuse, which he then delicately scans and posts to his photoblog. Read More...

"DEDICATED TO THE ART OF MOCKING PUBLIC WORKS" ... perfect for the smart ass in you. Read More...

Some people collect postal stamps; Exit Mundi collects scenarios of what could go wrong with the world. Sure, our planet could get hit by an asteroid. But hey, that's nothing. Did you know we could all be munched away by hungry molecules? Or that our physicists could unintentionally wipe us all out while tinkering with particles? `Oops, sorry...'

Exit Mundi isn't in it for doom preaching, but strictly for fun. It's a fascinating thought: if that &*%#-comet didn't wipe out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, we wouldn't be here pondering about apocalypses and armageddons in the first place. The dinosaurs roamed our planet millions of years longer than we did. If it wasn't for the comet, they still would.

That's why this site is a tribute to floods, quantum explosions and awfully big chunks of space rock falling out of the sky. If there's a lesson to be learnt, it should be that within every end looms the dawn of a new beginning.
Sounds good, doesn't it? Read More...

PhotoSeen is an ever-changing gallery for an expanding group of independent photographers and imagists. It exists to provide a showplace for remarkable contemporary artists. Seen here is a photo by Anna Aichinger in her Habitat Series. Click the pic or the link for more. Read More...

Diana Sudyka lives and works in Chicago as an artist, and is a sometime co-conspirator of the Bird Machine. She initially worked as a printmaker for Tony Fitzpatrick at Big Cat Press, and at Landfall Press for several years, until getting a Masters of Fine Art from Northwestern University.

She then worked alongside 15th and 16th century manuscripts, and archives including the John M. Wing History of Printing and Book Arts Collection at Chicago's Newberry Library. Currently, she works as an illustrator, focusing on watercolors, etchings and screen printed posters. When not drawing all sorts of small mammals with her husband, Jay, she is hanging out with Seth the Greyhound, volunteering in the Field Museum's Bird Division, and engaging in gereral bird watching nerdiness. Read More...

Overlooked and difficult to find, there are hundreds of thousands of U.S. government web sites that can help you accomplish a variety of tasks.

At the right federal .gov destination you can locate historical documents, keep tabs on Congressional happenings, view presidential paperwork, and a whole lot more. Click the pic for the most useful U.S. government web sites out there. (via LifeHacker) Read More...

University of Zurich researchers have created a spray that can relieve people of shyness, and help them socialise with others.

The spray is very easy to use, and an individual can boost self-confidence just by squirting it up the nose.

The researchers say that the spray harnesses the powers of a feel-good hormone called oxytocin, a neurotransmitter in the brain that is involved in social recognition and bonding. Read More...

Humble Voice offers a variety of inspired features geared toward both local and widespread audiences to view and create artist profiles. Each anomalous profile offers ample views of photography, art, film, writing or music. By creating a profile, one can upload, maintain and manage not only a community of friends and family, but also a vantage point to share your own artistic creations - in whichever form they may abound.

Each artist community homepage contains featured artists, each day's top listened to/viewed/read creations as well as a shout out to the newest members of each community. Members can manipulate their own profiles by uploading a profile photograph, their own art of any and all kinds, basic biographical information, messages and friends' profiles as well as unique-to-the-site features with bulletin boards, commentary, featured texts, blog space, and community actions and photos. Read More...

A near comprehensive list of all the RSS readers, tools, browser plugins, tips, hacks and directories available on the web. Read More...

As part of the Simpson's Movie release, there is a really well executed Flash site that lets you create yourself as a Simpsons character. Here I am in all my glory. Click the pic to go make one of yourself. Read More...

Nice review by TV Squad of the best episode yet of this thought provoking show that I absolutely love. Read More...

If this is a real business... it's a great idea! Read More...

"The virtual crossroads where candy and people barfing up candy meet! Since 1997". Funny reviews of bad candy! Read More...

Shown here is "You Are The One" by The Sugar Bears, it was a cereal box cutout I had when I was 8. Frank LaRosa has collected some great MP3s and information about some really obscure records. Big fun. Click the Sugarbears for more. Also be sure to check out "The Monsters Go Disco" where BooBerry, Frankenberry and Count Chocula get down to a disco beat.

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AppleJack is a user friendly troubleshooting assistant for Mac OS X. With AppleJack you can troubleshoot a computer even if you can’t load the GUI, or don’t have a startup CD handy. AppleJack runs in Single User Mode and is menu-based for ease of use.

The number one resource for finding missing socks online. From Alabama to Zambia, we have socks that are missing their partners. Read More...

The site author says,

"I started collecting records many years ago. The problem was, there were so many other "collector nerds" where I lived that finding "good" records at thrift stores & garage sales was next to impossible. No matter how early I got to the sale, there was a bigger nerd who was there 15 minutes earlier and bought all the so-called "good" stuff.

I noticed that when a collector nerd looks through a box of old records at a thrift store, he will often pull out some 70's religious disco exercise record, make some sort of witty remark about it's lameness to his bored girlfriend, and toss it back while grumbling how you can't find good records at thrift stores anymore.

I began to notice that often these "rejects" were just as good as the more widely sought-after items. This is what I started to collect!"

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Shoegaze Psychedelia. Sublime. Read More...

The website has millions of images from thousands of photographers, picture agencies and national collections. Our customers include newspapers, magazines, book publishers, advertising agencies and corporate marketing departments.

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This is such a brilliant concept. There's also the possibility of decorating these reusable (or disposable) vases as well for certain occasions.

"Danish design meets origami with this easy to use folded paper vase. Never again be without a vase when guests arrive with a bouquet - each vase is waterproof, reuseable and ultimately disposed of when you have no more need of it.
Since NoMing is stored flat you don't have to give up precious cabinet space when not in use. Each box contains four vases." Read More...

If you like our feathered friends, you might also like this lovely glass bird feeder. Very simple and elegant (as far as birdfeeders go), this looks like it would blend in nicely with any outdoor environment.

"This bird feeder is made from mouth-blown glass and designed to withstand wind, weather and beating wings. The ball can easily be suspended from bushes, trees and the eaves of your house – and filling it with seed and other natural products is extremely straightforward." Read More...

Andrée Putman, the grande dame of French design, is world famous and internationally celebrated and not just for her creative originality, which she has undoubtedly and impressively proven with her free-standing bath, specially designed for Hoesch. The gently rounded shapes in which Andrée Putman combines the formal language of antiquity with modernity make the bath look as if it is floating, and it is apparent from the outside that it is for two users. It's an amazing look that will undoubtedly achieve cult status. The spacious interior offers pure comfort, especially when whirling. Read More...

A charging station that actually looks good? For real, it's true. Stations that house and charge our electronic appendages cut down on many unsightly cords that get tangled easily, and makes it ever so much easier to find the phone, camera, ipod, etc. So, hurray for one that does no harm to your aesthetic environment.

"You can corral up to three items and neatly tuck a 10” power strip out of sight behind the sliding door. No room on your desktop for the 13" long Charging Station? You can also mount it to the wall as easily as a clock with two dry wall screws (included)."

Available in black or navy. Read More...

The "Rare Book Room" site has been constructed as an educational site intended to allow the visitor to examine and read some of the great books of the world.

Over the last ten years, a company called "Octavo" embarked on digitally photographing some of the world ’s great books from some of the greatest libraries. These books were photographed at very high resolution (in some cases at over 200 megabytes per page).

This site contains all of the books (about 400) that have been digitized to date. These range over a wide variety of topics and rarity. The books are presented so that the viewer can examine all the pages in medium to medium-high resolution.

In particular the site contains:

1. Some of the great books in science, including books by Galileo, Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Einstein, Darwin and others.

2. Most of the Shakespeare Quartos from the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the University of Edinburgh Library, and the National Library of Scotland. It also contains the First Folio from the Folger Shakespeare Library.

3. The complete copies of Poor Richard ’s Almanac by Benjaman Franklin.

4. Very rare editions: Gutenberg ’s Bible of 1455 (from the Library of Congress), Harvey's book on the circulation of blood, Galileo ’s Siderius Nuncius, the first printing of the Bill of Rights, and the Magna Carta. Read More...

Julien shoots a lot of amazing industrial stuff, and some nature and people. Beautiful. Read More...

One of the the most amazing placse I've ever been was a 10-12 mile backpack in from the Old Faithful area. There's a large group of these pools there and they are isolated and away from where fat-ass tourists can park their Winnebagos. Not only do these bacteria thrive in the geothermally heated water, but each variation in temperature produces a different color. This pools in this basin fill a palette. Psychedelic! Read More...

SmashingDarling.com is sort of retail meets social network for sellers and buyers of indie fashion. (sort of like etsy.com, but with less craft and more fancy stuff) click the pic or link to visit. Read More...

Fun gallery by Photographer Susanne Middleberg depicting Wonder Woman in mundane situations with her family. Read More...

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From Artist Scott Blake (who looks a lot like Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips). Enter personal information about yourself to be bar coded. All of the calculations in Barcode Yourself are based on real world facts, gathered from the Internet. Read More...

Answers the question: "what would happen if Volkswagon and IKEA built a green camper together"? click the pic to visit the site and watch the trippy movie that shows it's transformer goodness. Target price is $69K Read More...

Nice step by step for all you would be whittlers. Apparently this is easier than it looks. Read More...

A nice flash movie that shows how the Middle East has been fought for and occupied over the past 5000 years. Read More...

This site is completely independent and noncommercial. It is the product of a single author (Bruce Harris of Australia). Selection of the persons featured in the hero and killer files has been entirely at the author's discretion. fascinating. Read More...

interesting collections of photo galleries capturing street fashion in Japan. click the pic or the link to see. Read More...

Trunkt.org is a collection of things from Independent Artists, Jewelers and Craft people, lots of interesting stuff. Read More...

Eco-Friendly lamps made from a mixture of hot glue and ethylene vinyl acetate (a non-toxic thermoplastic that melts at a low-temp). The plastic can be re-melted again which allows Wurman to recycle 100% of his materials.

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Very Zen. I love this. The website is unfortunately laden with useless Flash... click this pic at your own risk. Read More...

Ghislaine Viñas established her interior design studio in 1999, when commissioned to do the complete build-out of a 9,000-sq-ft office/art gallery in the Starrett Lehigh Building in New York's Chelsea art district.

Born in the Netherlands and raised in South Africa, Ghislaine brings a special blend of international sensibility, intuitive style, humor and refreshing enthusiasm to her work.

Ghislaine is driven daily by her passion for interior design especially by form and color. "Color excites me. As a child, I would feel a rush of excitement when opening a box of crayons and seeing all the colors interact and relate. I still feel the same excitement when I see colors come together in a room."

Ghislaine lives in New York City with her husband and their two young girls. Click the pic to visit her website for more. Read More...

Because We Can, LLC is lead by a husband and wife team working in all mediums and exploring new ways of solving old problems. Jeffrey McGrew is a Designer and is currently taking his Architect License exams. Jillian Northrup is a Designer and Professional Digital Photographer. Click the pic to see more of the desk and more of their work.

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Shown here is the Slab Table, a giant hunk of Walnut. nice stuff. Read More...

2 funny things about my generation... we have embraced corporate logos in an ironic nostalgia mash-up AND we pay more for stuff that is distressed by other people so it looks "vintage". Anyway, I love the orange 76 logo... still looks pretty fresh. click the pic to visit more t-shirts covered in corporate excess. Read More...

Nice version of this great song made famous by an episode of Scrubs. Read More...