- Boing Boing

ConcreteWall is a Norwegian company that sells wallpaper silkscreened to look like unfinished concrete in a variety of textures. I guess it's more "street" than drywall over 2x4s?

ConcreteWall.no (via Beyond the Beyond)

John's Phone: the minimalist anti-smart-phone

Cory Doctorow at 7:17 PM Wed

John's Phones sell no-frills mobile phones that send and receive calls and pretty much nothing else (though there's a place to keep your pen). Warren Ellis likens it to a phone from minimalist Japanese housewares/clothing company Muji.

Finally a separate unit with no frills and conditions. A simlock free phone with large keys, an address book, a pen and over three weeks time standby... John's Phone is simple and easy for young, old, holiday, grandfathers, grandmothers, athletes, national and international business traffic.

John's Phones (via Warren Ellis)

Apple's iPod harvest: hands-on with new Shuffle, Nano, Touch

Xeni Jardin at 6:30 PM Tue

As predicted last week in the Boing Boing agricultural almanac, Apple this week releases three new varieties of iPods for the fall crop.

All three bear improvements over earlier generations of this familiar fruit, but some of the new additions—and in some cases, what's missing—may surprise you. Following are snapshots of the new iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, and iPod Touch, with taste-test notes.

You can find them all in your local farmers markets soon, or order them now at the online Apple store.

Read the rest

HOWTO make shotgun shell candles

Cory Doctorow at 4:03 PM Tue

Here's Instructables user Sunbanks's simple HOWTO for making candles out of discarded shotgun shells, just the thing for your William S Burroughs-reviving seance!

Shotgun Shell Candles (via Make)

Cheap, portable personal 3D printer: the UP!

Cory Doctorow at 4:05 PM Mon

The UP! personal 3D printer from China retails for $1500, with goop running at $50/kg. From this early adopter's review: It runs at 0.3mm resolution, and the finished models show striations from successive layers of goop, but light sanding produces a smooth finish. For objects with funny extrusions and sitcky-outie bits that aren't stable until they are fully printed, the printer calculates and adds support struts on the fly, and these have to be removed with a hobby knife after printing.

Personal Portable 3D Printer (via Futurismic)

Art Deco motorcycle mod

Cory Doctorow at 3:57 PM Mon

This 1936 Henderson motorcycle was given a superb Art Deco mod by Frank Westfall of Syracuse, NY and displayed at last summer's Rhinebeck Grand National Meet. The Knucklebuster blog got to see and photograph it in person there, and has a thrilling account of its performance: "The bike is a fantastic piece of history, the craftsmanship is absolutely stunning and it's surely more of a museum piece than a daily rider. Frank has obviously spent an incredible amount of time meticulously restoring and rebuilding the bike to its current gorgeous state."

1930 Art Deco Henderson (Thanks, Littledragon!)

Sweet little steampunk automaton

Cory Doctorow at 6:11 AM Sat

Kamill1 sez, "My first attempt at an automata, I think it turned out pretty well! Super fun build. A little wink to Jake Von Slatt, sitting down to play the pipe organ. Huzzah!"

Steampunk Automata "Orchestra Von Slatt", Completed Friday, Sep 3 2010 (Thanks, kamill1, via Submitterator!)

WTF stamp

Cory Doctorow at 1:44 PM Fri

For all your puzzlement needs: the self-inking WTF stamp.

WTF Stamp (Thanks, Alice!)

Jewelry made from laminated, polished cross-sections of books

Cory Doctorow at 1:26 PM Fri

UK designer Jeremy May makes jewelry by laminating and polishing pages from old books together to make striking pieces: "The beauty of the jewels extends within the piece: text and images pass all the way though the object, only exposed at the surfaces - giving a tantalising glimpse of the book within."

LITTLEFLY (Thanks, Irene Delse via Submitterator!)

Flying carpet sofa

Cory Doctorow at 12:53 PM Fri

Tonio de Roover's East meets West sofa is meant to evoke flying carpets. I can't figure out how comfortable it'd be, but it looks great.

East meets west (via Craft)

Old tabriz rug becomes bear rug

Cory Doctorow at 12:49 PM Fri

An unnamed artist transformed a worn antique tabriz wool rug into a wonderful, fanciful bear rug. I imagine the reported "repaired knots and moth damage" just enhance its charm. 87" x 59", $1800 from CS Post.

Repurposed Antique Tabriz Wool Rug (via Make)

Adafruit Industries has posted a pair of terrific videos in which Apple's "Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs talk about their short career building illegal telephone equipment, aka 'blue boxes.' Interesting how their two stories differ...the engineer and the marketer." Bonus: Cap'n Crunch! — Xeni • Comments: 4