On our last trip to Urban Ore, we found this fantastic example of illustration as an element of industrial design. The “Sun Dial” on this 8mm Bell & Howell 333 wind-up movie camera is absolutely foolproof. If only all camera controls were so clear!
Here’s what the rest of the camera looks like. Sorry about the busy background–those pretty tube boxes are awfully distracting. You can see the normal, wide, and telephoto lenses here. Note that the red and yellow rectangles on the viewfinder correspond to the ring color on the lens choice as well. (Where’s my digital conversion for this thing, anyway?) |
All posts by Lenore Edman
High Cuisine for Halloween: Eyeball Caprese
Insalata caprese, an Italian classic, becomes an instant halloween classic as well.
The traditional ingredients for this delicate salad are fresh mozzarella, basil, plum tomatoes and olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper. Our version goes only slightly further, adding a thin slice of olive as the garnish. And, a clever trick produces perfectly round pupils every time.
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Enjoy new taste thrills with skewered food!
The cheerful vintage packaging card for these lovely Kenberry stainless skewers proclaims that “whatever you like, it will taste better on a skewer.” This set came from the hallowed halls of Urban Ore in Berkeley. It is hard to imagine anyone who could have resisted the exhortation to “enjoy barbecue taste thrills year round indoors & out!” More pictures including close ups of all of the suggested skewer uses (“for individual shish-kebob service,” “for meat birds,” and “for good eating”) are in this flickr set for your enjoyment.
Bicycle Frame Lunch Bag
You’re headed somewhere on your bike and you want to bring your lunch along. Maybe you’re commuting or just headed to the park. Backpacks get warm, so you’d rather not wear one, and you don’t have a rack on your bike to pack your lunch on. Here’s a solution: a bike frame lunch bag you can make that will perfectly hold a box of leftovers or a sandwich. This one is designed for a standard “entree” sized plastic container, which is reasonably waterproof and acts as a structural integrity field for your sandwich.
Linkdump: September 2008
- Weird Bug Lady
- Aluminum Polyhedron model sets
- Gojira no tamago
- Impossible Fractals
- Excellent graph paper (Downloadable!)
- Ultimate Ninja Showdown (comic)
- FlickrMemory Game by Ze Frank (example using our superball collection)
- Extruded Pendant
- Totoro Baby Room Mural by Crab Fu (via Craft)
- Cookie Monster’s Head (see also, the Mime)
- Lovely Pac-Man Ghost Graffiti
- Origami Octopus
- The logical evolution of the whoopie cushion.
- Curta simulator!
- Last minute shopping for September 19th.
Charming Japanese Notebooks
“Most advanced quality Gives best writing features” is a great not-quite-nonsensical slogan we found on a charming little notebook from Kinokuniya’s stationery store in Japantown in San Francisco. Another is “Made of paper specially prepared in Tokyo.” Or is that “Made of paper” and the booklet is “Specially prepared in Tokyo”? In either case, we’re always on the lookout for little booklets for TGIMBOEJ and these fit the bill perfectly.
Chair Reupholstery with Used Denim
A broken-in pair of jeans is one of the comfiest things in the world (denim is to humans as cardboard is to cats, right?). Unfortunately, they do eventually wear out. Luckily, they leave behind the best upholstery material: soft, comfy, durable denim. Chair seats wear out, too, especially kitchen table chairs, which can take a lot of abuse. Here we’ll show you how to combine the two, reusing your old jeans and improving the chair.
A Visit to Sturgeon’s Mill, a Steam-powered Lumber Mill
Sturgeon’s Mill is a steam-powered sawmill in northern California. I had the privilege of seeing it running recently. The next demonstration dates are Sept 20 & 21 and Oct 18 & 19. If you have any cause to be near Sebastopol, California on those dates, I highly recommend a visit.
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Generations of Video Games
Last weekend we went to California Extreme and took along Tennis for Two, which got to sit right next to a PlayStation 3. Video games have come a long way in fifty years, but as one Tennis for Two player commented, good game play doesn’t have to have fancy graphics.
Bakery Machinery is Awesome
Specialized machinery is fascinating, but you don’t often get to see it. Our local bakery, Le Boulanger (at their headquarters on Mathilda in Sunnyvale) provides windows from their seating area into the production area. It is absolutely wonderful to sit and watch the dough poured out of the giant mixer. It heads into a hopper which cuts it into pieces which get spun into balls, which go through the rising machine and roll out down the conveyor belt. Sourdough rounds are on the way! And that’s just one of the processes you can watch. Sometimes you’ll see bagels, sometimes pastries, sometimes breadsticks… It’s definitely worth a visit, and even more fun than the Krispy Kreme machine which only does one thing. And they have free (albeit slow) wi-fi!
