David Lidsky's Blog, page 3269
May 2, 2014
This Designer Makes Handbags From Cow Ears, Tails, And Faces
It's like the fashion equivalent of SPAM, but way more elegant.
Designer Victoria Ledig has made a collection of handbags using the parts of the cow that are usually discarded by leather manufacturers. Called "Precious Skin," the collection includes a purse made of an ear and a bag handle made of a tail.
A Phone-Shaped Chair For--What Else?--Making Phone Calls
The Firstcall chair sends a very clear message to your coworkers.
The trend of the open office floorplan, while critiqued of late, definitely isn't going anywhere, so finding a little privacy at work remains tricky. A mundane task like calling in a prescription refill can suddenly feel like an overshare moment with coworkers.
Designer Makes Gorgeous Tableware From Scrap Stone And Wood
Earnest Studio's Rachel Griffin makes the most of materials, with reconfigurable stone-and-wood collections.
Stone milling companies tend to leave a lot of material on the cutting room floor. In the process of milling, say, a round marble tabletop, a pile of scrapped stone, with rough-hewed edges, will inevitably be left behind.
A Simple, Nifty Trick For Cleaning Up Your Facebook News Feed
Is your Facebook friends list bloated to near unusable levels? Perhaps try this simple strategy.
This week, in an enormous feat of determination, New York's Kevin Roose nuked his Facebook friends list after years of letting it balloon into a hugely messy confluence of acquaintances and strangers. It would prove to be no easy task: He had nearly 2,789 Facebook friends, and wanted to cut it down to about 100 close friends and family, plus 500 others. "By pruning my account to include just the stuff I wanted to see," he wrote, "I would see if New Facebook could be made to feel like the Old Facebook I loved, or if it was beyond repair."
May 1, 2014
Double-Decker Armrest Could End Battle For Elbow Room On Airplanes
"Paperclip" keeps your seatmate's filthy arm three inches away.
Armrest design is second to everything for the airline industry, which clearly doesn't give two hoots about the unpleasantness of touching your neighbor's elbows and, worse, encountering his or her sweaty skin. It's downright unseemly in an era when most airplanes have $10,000 televisions on the back of each seat.
Superfan Trent Girone Is The Best Thing To Happen To Wheel Of Fortune
And everyone on the Internet was pulling for him.
Last night Wheel of Fortune had its first-ever special needs contestant, Trent Girone, a superfan who immediately won our hearts when solving the first toss-up puzzle by correctly getting "a smashing success." He also charmed host Pat Sajak when he referenced Megaword, a defunct puzzle category that Sajak "hated every minute of."
New York's Top Chefs Spill Their Secrets To Staying Creative
Two years' worth of interviews with New York's culinary stars reveal important insights about pushing your own boundaries.
Jacqueline Raposo has spent two years interviewing more than 100 of New York's most creative people--the city's top chefs. Restaurants are a notoriously competitive game, and New York is a city bursting with of serious food talent; staying on top means constantly pushing yourself. In her column this week on Serious Eats, Raposo reflects on these conversations and highlights the lessons about creativity and business that have most informed her own personal and professional life.
Happy 50th Birthday, BASIC!
The adored programming language of yesteryear was born May 1, 1964.
The programming language BASIC celebrates its 50th birthday today. Long before spreadsheets or iPhone calculators were a boring staple of everyday existence, PC users (and the "personal" part of that is used loosely) had to write programs to carry out mundane tasks, like counting stuff. It was hardly mundane at the time, though. Invented in 1964 by Dartmouth College's John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz, the language, short for "Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code," was initially developed to run the school's General Electric computer system. Its creators had no idea it would eventually go on to be taught in high school curriculums across the country. Here's how Time's Harry McCracken lovingly describes it:
DonorsChoose Has A Friend In Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP
Attention, die-hard Beyoncé fans with money to burn.
Beyoncé in said shoes If you're in the market to drop $2,500 for a pair of Beyoncé's secondhand kicks, today's your lucky day (if you're a size 8 and half). GOOP--Gwyneth Paltrow's content-and-ecommerce lifestyle project--is hosting its second annual closet sale this week, with proceeds going to DonorsChoose, the education crowdfunding organization founded by Charles Best and featured on the cover of Fast Company's 2014 Most Innovative Companies issue.
The Grommet Launches Wholesale Platform To Bridge The Gap Between Makers And Retailers
With The Grommet Wholesale, brick-and-mortar stores can get early access to innovative products, and benefit from the already-existing relationships The Grommet has with makers.
For independent retailers, one big challenge can be in finding new, unique products to put on store shelves, and establishing a relationship with the makers of these products. That's where a new wholesale shop from The Grommet comes in.
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