Film projectors (as well as film cameras, processing equipment, etc.) use a special mechanism called a Geneva drive to ensure one whole frame is advanced at a time, instead of simply spooling a film continuously. Wikipedia:
The name derives from the device’s earliest application in mechanical watches, Switzerland and Geneva being an important center of watchmaking. The geneva drive is also commonly called a Maltese cross mechanism due to the visual resemblance.
In the most common arrangement, the driven wheel has four slots and thus advances for each rotation of the drive wheel by one step of 90°. If the driven wheel has n slots, it advances by 360°/n per full rotation of the drive wheel.
The device itself is beautiful in its simplicity. There are two variations on the drive (external and internal). More at wikipedia.
The Moonvilla has an outer shell/screen that revolves with the sun to regulate the climate inside. Neat. Although I wouldn’t want to be around when the motor is on the blink. Having said that, there is cleverly a little underground level built into the design.
There are no stairs. Due to the lack of gravity on the moon, people can leap from floor to floor!
The New York Times has developed a very clever little gadget — The Times Skimmer — to let you skim their online newspaper in a similarly quick and efficient way to how you would skim a real paper to find the interesting articles.
It seems to be made with netbooks and other mobile devices in mind, because it fits my screen like a glove, whereas their regular site is indeed a bit of a nightmare to navigate efficiently.
Here’s a great concept for a built-in extension lead, designed by Meysam Movahedi (via offcolors).
But wouldn’t having many feet of extra coiled cables in every room probably waste a fair amount of electricity over time, as the current would have to travel further?
I suppose, if that were the case, the problem could be overcome by building in a circuit that you can open and close with a switch.
Consultant Gregg Rapp tells clients to “omit dollar signs, decimal points, and cents … It’s not that customers can’t check prices, but most will follow whatever subtle cues are provided.”
If a restaurateur has his wits about him, he’s using his menu to manipulate you and make your dining choices the most profitable. So it seems in this feature at the New York Times.
An unknown comic author makes an interesting observation.
From SlashFilm:
I’m sure you’re aware of Hollywood’s overuse of floating heads on movie posters… but have you noticed the excessive use of orange/blue contrast on theatrical one-sheets? David Chen happened to come across this comic illustrating the Blue/orange contrast, although I’m not sure where it originated or who created it. After the jump you will see a ton of examples of orange/blue contrast, however I must warn you — as the comic says, once you see it, you’ll notice it everywhere.
This phenomenon was something I was vaguely aware of but never consciously thought about. Looking at their examples it all seems very familiar.
GOOD has a neat brainstorming series at the moment called “Ideas for Cities”. They’re ideas designed to make communities more efficient and progressive.
We’ll post a new idea each day until we run out, at which point we’re counting on you to come up with something smart.
I haven’t read all of the ideas posted so far, but two that I find very appealing/interesting already are Edible Schoolyard:
Cities should provide service opportunities and training for all ages to instill confidence, self-reliance, and pride. One of these programs could be an Edible Schoolyard that is cared for by students and led by professional farmers and volunteers. It would provide 100 percent of the school meals to the student body, and excess food would be delivered to the ill and elderly. In addition, schools would produce zero waste by composting all bio matter. The school could also compost neighborhood bio matter to fund its agricultural efforts.
Cities could make the success of governance measurable and known. Rather than waiting for the next election to recognize and promote results (or lack thereof), cities could do it transparently. City stats, charts, and powerful infographics would provide a call-to-action for citizens.
I love the simple design philosophy of muji, and I think I shall always be a fan of the infinite fun and possibility that lego offers. These two wonderful entities have come together and produced something compoudedly wonderful. High snobiety has the story and some pictures:
Together they’re encouraging us to think outside the blocks (horrible, I know) by punching LEGO-sized holes in paper. The rest then becomes obvious – but wow – how innovative is that?
Perfect really. Available November 27th at MUJI Japan – just in time for the Holiday season. US and European MUJI locations have yet to confirm stock.
The creative and mechanical possibilities opened up by this simple development are, I would imagine, many. You could make your own paper pieces, of course, or — if the hole-puncher is strong enough –( you could even make pieces out of other materials like plastics and fabrics.
Architonic has an article taking a look at high alpine buildings.
I like very much how the reflective surface of the Monte Rosa lodge (above), coupled with its shape, allows the building to take on the colours and character of its surroundings. And yet it is not lost; it’s a proud and attractive adornment of the landscape.
The inside is a delight and a surprise:
Read more about this and other lodges at Architonic.
Ethically sketchy — do flies have any self-awareness? — but, beyond that, brilliantly whimsical and imaginative: The publishing company Eichborn (“the publishers with the fly”) used wax to attach ultra-lite banners to flies whom they then let loose as advertising drones.
At the end of the video it says no flies were hurt, as the wax melts off by itself after a while (though I doubt there were no casualties, what with the flies’ agility reduced so much and their visibility increased).
It makes one think: Do insects really feel, or are they mostly just functioning unaware, perhaps like how our unconscious mind ticks away — making decisions, observations, processing information — while we are unaware? Or perhaps they function just like a clockwork toy, to be exploited for fun. (via hundertmark)
My paperback copy of George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia was in need of some love; its spine was broken, the pages were falling out, and the cover was pretty ugly to begin with (I can’t even track down the cover online, which suggests it’s a design that didn’t last long).
So I knocked out a new jacket, complete with buttons. I rebound the book with woodglue along the spine.
The colourful felt used is actually cut from a metre-length of kitchen cloth that I got at the supermarket.
The text is printed directly on to the felt. I fed an A4 piece of the felt through my (standard) printer. The text resolution was surprisingly crisp and attractive.
Dyson’s at it again. He’s redesigned the common desktop fan to be greener and easier on the eyes. It certainly is pretty, with its minimal, sleek design.
This is a new design I’ve cobbled together for my blog. It’s a splicing of two themes I liked with some of my own ideas and images; I liked both of the themes individually but I didn’t feel they exhibited my own personal taste.
The basic layout comes from the bbv1 theme by Aaron Adams. I changed — perhaps I should say “added” — all the colours, and I exchanged the (very 2001) pixel patterns for some nice textures, sampled from the same notebooks and scrap papers you can see in the header image — a photo I took especially for the purpose.
The, in my opinion, rather attractive typography of the main column was appropriated from the Oulipo theme designed by Andrea Mignolo.
The previous design was perhaps a bit more homely in its untidy way, but I wanted something new (it’s been three years after all) that stands more for my current tastes.
Here’s a round-up of my favourite recent posts from TheKitchn. Firstly they have an exciting collection of soup and broth recipes. Can’t wait to try some of these out as I’m somewhat of a soup fiend.
Then there’s an interesting food science piece that explains the “digestive consequences” (I like that) of beans and offers tips on how to reduce the severity of said consequences.
The second option is to be sure to cook your beans long enough. The cooking beans low and slow eventually breaks down the carbohydrates so that our bodies are able to absorb them
without trouble. While this method takes time and patience, the positive is that all the good vitamins and minerals are retained.
This recipe for pear and currant chutney sounds easy and looks delicious. I’m on a sort of pickles and chutneys buzz of late.
There is some nice design on display in this roundup of snazzy fruit bowls. I think it’s admirable to give your fruit the attention it deserves like that… I don’t think I’ll be shelling out 100 dollars for a design I could replicate myself though. Some of them are more reasonably priced however.
A consortium is trying to put together the funds to build a new model in east Germany: completely electric, solar heated and ecological. This one is the only one in existence.
As much as I admire the idea and the sentiment, the design above seems to lack the understated charm of the original.
One thing I found disheartening upon visiting middle-America was how one cannot really walk anywhere at all — a car is the only way, not only because it’s a big place. There’s a lack of design in that respect. Every establishment and every place is sprawling and independent of every other place. The only unifying design in a town or city tends to be the road that invariably runs through it. There’s no sense that the place has evolved a unique character through centuries of planning or even trial and error.
Apparently there is a growing desire for so-called “walkability” in the more cosmopolitan areas of America. Slate has a nice slideshow-based essay about Forest Hills Gardens, a concept town built 100 years ago in NY State whose well designed community schematic never really caught on back then, but may offer solace in a more health conscious contemporary America.
What makes Forest Hills different from—and much better than—most modern suburbs is not just the density, walkability, and architectural variety. It is also the attention to detail, whether in Olmsted’s planting strips or Atterbury’s distinctive street lamps. The designers understood that one of the great challenges of building a planned community from scratch is creating an instant sense of belonging. They achieved this by harmoniously integrating planning, landscaping, and architecture. That may be Forest Hills’ most important lesson: Community building is an art. Not a pictorial art, but an experiential one, appreciated when you walk through the dark arcades of Station Square, beside the shaded town green (where a person sat in a deck chair the day I was there) and along the looping curve of Olmsted’s greenway. This is not merely planning or building; it is place-making.
