How Differential Gear Works

Helveticat

How to Tie a Bow Tie (Without Hands)

Sequence of Lines Traced by Five Hundred Individuals

The title says it all. Made possible by crowdsourcing.

Shugo Tokumaru - Katachi

Chairlift - I Belong in Your Arms (Japanese Version)

Button + Earbud Cord Holder

3D printers will really revolutionize product designs. See more details or buy at http://www.shapeways.com/model/699026/button-2-0.html

Cornered by Adrian Piper

I saw this in Seattle Art Museum. Captivating and thought-provoking.

Flight Attendant Rap

Next time I will fly Southwest.

Redesigned Covers of Haruki Murakami’s Novels

See more at http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2012/october/murakami-book-covers-noma-bar

The Road to Happiness

The road to happiness is maintained by optimists.

—Dorothy Gambrell in http://catandgirl.com/?p=3904

Last Address

An aptly named short film by Ira Sachs documenting the last addresses of New York artists who died of AIDS.

Logo for New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute

Clean and smart. See more.

How to Separate Yolk from Egg White

That that that that that

He said that that that that that writer used should really have been a which.

—David Foster Wallace in an entry of “that” in Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus freely bundled with Mac OS X

Note: I cannot find this quote in Mountain Lion.
via http://www.davemadden.org/blog/2011/07/a-discovery/

The Aikiu - Pieces of Gold

Prime Number Patterns

The pattern of prime numbers is beautiful.

Sport & Good Will

I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates good will between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn’t know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles.

—George Orwell in The Sporting Spirit

Conclusion

The rage for wanting to conclude is one of the most deadly and most fruitless manias to befall humanity. Each religion and each philosophy has pretended to have God to itself, to measure the infinite, and to know the recipe for happiness. What arrogance and what nonsense! I see, to the contrary, that the greatest geniuses and the greatest works have never concluded.

By Gustave Flaubert in Correspondence (1929)

How It Feels to Be Colored Me

Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the granddaughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me. Slavery is sixty years in the past. The operation was successful and the patient is doing well, thank you. The terrible struggle that made me an American out of a potential slave said "On the line!" The Reconstruction said "Get set!" and the generation before said "Go!" I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and weep. Slavery is the price I paid for civilization, and the choice was not with me. It is a bully adventure and worth all that I have paid through my ancestors for it. No one on earth ever had a greater chance for glory. The world to be won and nothing to be lost. It is thrilling to think--to know that for any act of mine, I shall get twice as much praise or twice as much blame. It is quite exciting to hold the center of the national stage, with the spectators not knowing whether to laugh or to weep.
...
Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me.

From How It Feels to Be Colored Me by Zora Neale Hurston