tiny gigantic

Yasmin Sethi has designed a super sexy chess set inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.

In ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’ by Lewis Carroll, Alice falls through a mirror and on the other side of the mirror, she becomes a piece in a game of chess. Inspired by this, the chess pieces have an opaque mirror finish, when they touch the surface of the board they magically turn transparent and reveal the identity of the piece contained inside them. When removed from the board they revert to being opaque, hiding the identity of the piece.

Read more here.

via notcot.

This is just one of the many amazing nests and cocoons and huts that Patrick Dougherty makes. Gorgeous.

I love that sometimes, the lore of a city turns out to be true and that all the mystery we thought lacking in our lives becomes present again. Here’s what I mean:

The lost rivers of Manhattan are real; hundreds of streams and whole wetlands were paved over and filled so that the roots of buildings could safely grow. But whether or not you could ever fish in them – this whole thing sounds like Dr. Seuss to me – is the subject of a post on the also defunct blog, Empire Zone. There, a commenter informs us that fishing for eyeless carp in the underground cisterns of Istanbul is something of a national past-time.

Thanks to bldg blog for this one.

Check out this minimalist cabin built from off-the-shelf parts. It’s 140 square feet, and features a cleverly re-purposed garage door.Link.

Found on notcot.org

Ladies and gentlemen, replate has hit the big time.First, Daily Candy wrote an article about it, which ran this morning. And we just finished being interviewed for tonight’s NBC nightly news show! If you’re in SF, watch channel 3 at 6pm to see us wax poetic about the project.

And know this: The project never would have made it with out you. So thank you all for continuing to spread the word. You fucking rock.

jck & aa

A fellow out in Chicago just emailed us to share his concept for using newspaper dispensers as a place to replate your leftovers. It’s a great idea, especially in cities that don’t have ledges or hoods on their trash cans. Check it out here.

For those of you who saw this a few years ago, watch it again. It’s still brilliant and creepy and good for you too.

Heyaz,

Replate is now about a week old, and it’s been met with a very strong response. Lots of conversation, and surprisingly, a little bit of confusion too. So we thought it’d be a good idea to add a section to the site to help with all that. Check it here.

We forgot to mention one other thing people have been talking about in regards to replate:

Many are saying that if replating your leftovers counts as activism, then the bar for activism is set way too low.

Maybe that’s true.

But though the first steps of activism (however you define it) are small ones, they form the foundation for the giant leaps to come. And replate is just the beginning of a conversation that we hope will inspire greater action.

And don’t forget that this is an open-source movement. It’s yours as much as anybody’s and you can build on it however you want.

So if you don’t think it’s activism yet. And if you want to make replate bigger and badder and more hardcore, we’ve got a hunch you’ll get all the support you’ll need.

Replate is less than a week old and already we’re getting a lot of props (thanks everybody!), some photographs of replated food from cities all over the country, and requests for stickers are coming in. We’re psyched.

There’s also been some good conversation around the food we let go to waste. And that’s really what the project’s about. Here’s the big issues people have been chewing on:

The idea of food left outdoors feels messy.
Some have worried that food will rot or that rats will get to it before hungry people do. This is a legitimate concern in small towns or sparsely populated areas, but certainly not in a town like San Francisco where, any given moment, there are many people without enough to eat.

Why not just eat your own leftovers?
Of course. Many of us do. But sometimes you just don’t, for any number of reasons. Rather than toss ‘em out, or go traipsing through the city looking for a hungry person, maybe the next best thing is to replate them.

Incompatible trash cans.
Apparently, New York City trash cans don’t have hoods or ledges, so there’s no horizontal surface on which to replate. This isn’t as big a problem as some have suggested. If you want to give someone the food you’re not going to eat, simply put it next to the trash can, or on a newspaper dispenser.

Evil people.
There’s a strange paranoia in the conversation about evil people poisoning the food. Sure, it could happen. But you could also get pushed in front of the subway train. Or someone could put razor blades in your Halloween candy. People could betray your trust in any number of ways but if you ride the subway, or eat Halloween candy, you know that the fear far outweighs the actual risk.

The City should officially get involved.
Some have suggested formalizing a leftovers drop-off point like a food bank, free dining room, or some city-sponsored receptacle. We think that’s a great idea. Make it happen.

We did not invent this behavior.
We observed it, thought it was worthy of real public conversation, and so we gave it a name.

Here’s a few threads of the conversation:
Bake Town
StumbleUpon
Wasted Food

What do you all think?

Big news! We’ve launched that project we were struggling with a while ago and we’re super psyched to share it with you.

The project is called Replate and it’s about creating a new household word to promote a behavior that’s not getting the attention it deserves.

Think of it as a public service campaign that doesn’t suck.

We’d love to hear what you think.

Most days, I wake up with an deep urge to do the hard work of changing myself and the world around me for the better. But some days, I wake up and all I want to do is ENJOY the world—just to have a day where I live as if everything is just as it should be. Those are the days I dream of train jumping.

via FecalFace

You know how planets with moons kinda look like atoms with electrons, and vice versa? Well, this short movie made in 1977 by Charles and Ray Eames shows that when you look at our world through lenses of different magnification, you start to see all sorts of similarities like that. It’s called Powers of Ten. Watch it before YouTube yanks it again.

Remember oobleck? It’s the goo that happens when you mix cornstarch with water (and sometimes food coloring), and it’s remarkable because it’s “viscoelastic”, which means it’s runny if you’re gentle with it, and stiff if you’re brusque. Strange stuff.

Now a company called Monsterpod claims to have figgered out how to use viscoelastic goo to stick camera supports to all kinds of surfaces. Is this the first sign of a gooey future? Link.