Disappointingly few photos of ice sailing

This weekend me and my mate Archie (he's the grinning idiot on the right) popped over to Sweden to try our hand at ice sailing.
Unfortunately, when it got exciting we were too busy having fun (and
scaring ourselves silly) to stop and take photos, so here are the
precious few that I did manage to snap. Some fairly crappy video here.

MOV00003.3gp

Worldchanging: Eat what you want, pay what you can

Wow.

Opening a restaurant where customers choose how much to pay for their food seems the height of foolishness - but there are at least two restaurants (one in Denver, one in Salt Lake City) that seem to be making a go of it. Okay, so the owners aren't taking salaries, but even so, it's pretty amazing.

And that concludes today's inspirational piece. From worldchanging. Incidentally, I bought their book at the weekend. It's pretty cool, although like all such sourcebooks, it will be out of date in another six months.

Worldchanging: Eat what you want, pay what you can

Wow.

<a href="http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/005812.html">Opening a restaurant where customers choose how much to pay for their food </a>seems the height of foolishness - but there are at least two restaurants (one in Denver, one in Salt Lake City) that seem to be making a go of it. Okay, so the owners aren't taking salaries, but even so, it's pretty amazing.

And that concludes today's inspirational piece. From <a href="http://www.worldchanging.com/"> worldchanging.</a> Incidentally, I bought their book at the weekend. It's pretty cool, although like all such sourcebooks, it will be out of date in another six months.

Ecostuff: ZEDfactory

Isn't it nice when something which you'd consigned to that category of 'interesting but untraceable' suddenly crosses your path again, and you're suddenly able to put a name to it? I remember seeing a picture in a newspaper, many years ago, of Zedfactory's Hope House, and its intriguing conservatory arrangement - and thinking 'wow, how cool! When I build my own house I'd like something like that." Of course, the article didn't have any information about it, and I was a busy bunny so I didn't bother chasing it up. But today I'm browsing worldchanging (there's a link on my homepage, I can't be bothered) and I find an article about their Jubilee Wharf project, down in Penryn in Cornwall. And being interested in this sort of ecodesign stuff, I explore their website a bit, and lo and behold! It's a house with a crazy conservatory! Yay!

Also, while I'm on the subject, found this on Inhabitat. That's a prefab house?! Wow! Just look at it: I want one. Compare and contrast with ZEDfactory's RuralZed prefab: Worthy, I'm sure, and I love the fact that they mention one of my favourite architectural features (lots of really heavy thermal mass to regulate temperature) but really, yuk. Their nice pictures of small towns made of these things are rather alarming. C'mon guys,









I'm sure it works brilliantly, but D minus for aesthetics.

Lockheed Martin trials hybrid airship (way back in May)

I've always been a fan of the hybrid blimp/flying wing/hovercraft
concept, which I thought as only being developed by a few of the
barmier wildcat
aviation entrepreneurs. However, thanks to browsing on
Peter's directory of stupid photos, I come across this photo
of soemthing which (a) doesn't look
faked, and (b) has Lockheed Martin plastered all over the side. So I do
some digging, and rapidly I find this
article - apparently LM did a test flight way back in May!
Sheesh! How come I didn't spot this? Darn it.



(For those who aren't familiar with the concept, the thing get almost
all of its lift from the airbags like a blimp, but the last little bit
which gets it off the ground comes from the wing shape of the whole
thing, giving it enough lift to be able to take off from short,
unprepared runways. The undercarriage is made of of hovercraft-like
airpads, which enable it to land on rough ground and can also be
swapped from 'blow' to 'suck' to prevent it from zooming up into the
air when you take all the heavy cargo out. Genius or what? LM don't
want to talk about it, but apparently aviation geeks are guessing the
prototype has a cargo capacity of about 3-5 tons).

Lockheed Martin trials hybrid airship (way back in May)

I've always been a fan of the hybrid blimp/flying wing/hovercraft
concept, which I thought as only being ceveloped by a few of the
barmier wildcat aviation entrepreneurs. However, thanks to browsing on
Peter's directory of stupid photos, I come across img
src=http://funnypictures.punt.nl/upload/dec2006/f2112069.jpg"
width=300> this photo of soemthing which (a) doesn't look
faked, and (b) has Lockheed Martin plastered all over the side

Simple and cute - an origami greetings card

http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/flower_card_by_antclub_5314.asp
Right, I am supposed to be working maniacally, but just couldn't resist sharing these, from Korean design studio antclub. Cute or what? And incredibly simple. Lovely.