My 1st katize.com photoblog photo…taken from my car window on De Soto Ave, while driving home from work today. Yes, this corner liquor store will buy your gold. So next time you thirst for a cold one and strapped for cash, look no further…

These tiny handmade cardboard miniatures of old analog audio equipment by Daniel McPharlin have to be the cutest things I’ve seen in a long time. The fine details of these vintage machines that he has recreated into miniatures exhibit an amazing craftsmanship. According to Dan they are “an interesting experiment to render hi tech objects in a low tech medium such as paper or cardboard.”

I just stumbled upon this fascinating article about Aerogel (also called ‘Frozen Smoke’) on the Times Online UK and had to share my excitement.

This stuff will really change the world.
 

Wikipedia says Aerogel is a low-density solid state material derived from gel in which the liquid component of the gel has been replaced with gas. The result is an extremely low density solid with several remarkable properties, most notably its effectiveness as an insulator.

[youtube 5PfelqRpOQk nolink]

Check out the video to get a better idea about how Aerogel looks and feels; I’m really curious about this stuff. It looks really light and its structure shows why they name it ‘frozen smoke’.

Check out just a few uses as mentioned in the Times Online article:

What you see above is our first moblog / photoblog image (a picture I took of my screen, adding this category, ‘Photoblog’ - using the camera of my Nokia 6133 phone). Beginning Monday, August 20th, Kat and I will post photos in this category. It may be taken with our mobile phones, digital camera, iSight or even a scanned Polaroid, but it has to be originally taken by either one of us to be posted.

Enjoy and feel free to comment on our adventures.

… and I only mean that in the best sense. The modern computer household can now add a new piece of art and design and create a bridge between new and old. Check out Art Lebedev’s Matryoshkus, a very modern take on the traditional Babushka (or Russian Nesting) Dolls. Also a great learning tool, since these dolls will remind you of what’s bigger. A Bit or a Byte?

The most traditional nesting doll design is one that looks like a young Russian woman dressed in Russian native costume with a scarf on her head. In the traditional nesting doll sets all of the dolls look almost identical to one another, and the number of dolls in the set ranges from 5 to 30, but some custom-made sets contain many more.
from russianlegacy.com

The Serif, a graphic design blog, asked visitors to redesign London’s Tube ticket and received some really creative and quite clever submissions. My favorite is the one above, designed by Adam Rix, which even got a mention in the British newspaper, the Guardian.