Whimsy Inc.

I’m always interested in reusing things as often as possible. I’ve been reusing things to make various things around the house - shelves, hooks, etc. which I should really get around to posting up here. Ever since moving into my apartment, we’ve been without a light in the dining room, so I decided to set about making one from re-used parts.

The shades are old-style glass milk bottles - I cut off the bottoms with a wet saw and sand-blasted them frosty. The wiring is from old computer power cables. The wood was all scraps salvaged from my father’s wood workshop.

The design took a while to get right, but eventually fell into place. The light quality is very nice and warm.

Here is a great link showing how many countries have yet to move to the Metric System.

I’m currently working my way through The Toyota Way. While I don’t normally read management or manufacturing books, I’ve found this one particularly enlightening. Toyota has just recently surpassed GM and Ford to become the largest automaker in the world, and this book goes a long way to explain their remarkable success. Much of their success is due to their relatively long term view. Toyota often sacrifices short term success for long term gains, a refreshing outlook for such a big company.

I’m not done the book, but one really good piece of advice has stuck with me. When you encounter a problem, be sure to ask why at least 5 times. What that basically means is - always look at least 5 levels below the surface when trying to find the root of the problem.

Found in the back-alleys.

Naturalist E.O. Wilson, in partnership with The TED conference, has set out to create The Encyclopedia of Life, a rich and detailed collaborative site to record information on all manner of life on earth. While still in the initial stages, the potential for this project seems huge. In particular, the video demonstration on the page shows how the site could work.

Here’s a set of locally made dishware I stumbled across on the weekend. They wear their non-commodity status on their sleeve by proudly declaring “not made in china”.

While I don’t generally think it’s a good idea to sell or buy something for what it isn’t, rather than what it was, I couldn’t help but be struck by the design.

Here is a composite photograph of the number of plastic bottles used in the U.S. in one hour - 2.5 million. (click to enlarge).

Via GoodExperience

Summer is coming, and that means I hope to get up to doing some graffiti photos. Here’s one I took this afternoon.

A few months ago, while walking in Toronto, I ran across a statue near the waterfront that was vaguely familiar. Yes - it is remarkably evocative of everyone’s favourite internet shock image (Link safe for work).

When relatively advanced western societies first arrived in certain areas of New Guinea and Melanesia many years ago, the more primitive societies living there had to deal with an influx of technologies and goods they were not familiar with. Many of the items the westerners brought were not made of wood or stone, but metal and synthetic goods the natives did not understand. Since it did not make sense to them that man could have made these things, they began to believe that they were created by the gods.

What arose from these beliefs were the incredibly interesting “Cargo Cults” - groups of people whose religious practices involved mimicking the behavior of Westerners by building mock airstrips, offices, and radios out of available local materials, in an attempt to get goods (or cargo) from the gods.

Here is a decent write-up on the phenomena. Wikipedia also has some good information. It’s fascinating stuff.