Inclement weather and clunky fenders beware: Plume's new mudguard (a Britishism for fender) will keep cyclists on the road—and dry—no matter what Mother Nature has in mind, all the while keeping the aesthetic of the two-wheeled...
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When I used to work for an artist who specialized in photorealistic portraiture, I remember watching the assistants use a projector to draft the preliminary pencilwork for his medium-to-large scale (30”×40”+) paintings. Since we were working with digital compositions, it was a simple matter of lining up the image with the canvas or archival paper, then painstakingly tracing the photograph and background onto it.

Now that software has democratized and simplified the tools of creating images, I imagine this is a common practice in artists' studios. But what about drawing from real life? Most everyone has seen or at least heard of camera obscura, but it turns out there's a somewhat more, um, obscure tool that draftsmen of yore had at their disposal.

Pablo Garcia and Golan Levin (Art Professors at SAIC and CMU, respectively) note that "long before Google Glass... there was the Camera Lucida." The device is a "prism on a stick," a portable lens-like device that is affixed to a drawing surface, allowing the user to accurately reproduce an image before them by hand.

We have designed the NeoLucida: the first portable camera lucida to be manufactured in nearly a century—and the lowest-cost commercial camera lucida ever designed. We want to make this remarkable device widely available to students, artists, architects, and anyone who loves to draw from life. But to be clear: our NeoLucida is not just a product, but a provocation. In manufacturing a camera lucida for the 21st century, our aim is to stimulate interest in media archaeology—the tightly interconnected history of visual culture and imaging technologies.

According to the well-illustrated history page on the Neolucida website, the device was invented by Sir William Hyde Wollaston in 1807, though the Wikipedia article suggests that it was actually developed by Johannes Kepler, whose dioptrice dates back to 1611, nearly two centuries prior.

Selections from Pablo Garcia's personal collection of vintage camera lucidas

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Not the first time I’ve seen something similar but this Kickstarter project for the stainless steel Pucs are by far the most well crafted. The general idea is ice cubes are terrible at keeping liquids cold. They immediately melt and dilute the flavor and they can even alter the taste if your water source isn’t pure from the start. Don’t even get me started on the chemicals used to treat city water supplies. Pucs stay colder longer and imbue no taste or smell to your drink.

Pucs come in sets of 6 in either a solid Black Walnut or Maple case. The wood case is simply beautiful all by itself, and helps keep them organized and cool if they are out and about. The cases are sourced from FSC woods throughout to assure responsible forestry practices and environmental thoughtfulness

Designers: Dave & Calvin Laituri, Kickstarter

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(Stainless Steel Ice Cubes was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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1. Stainless Steel and Bronze
2. Nest Chair Made of Stainless Steel
3. Win A Finnish Design Combo – Magisso Cake Server & Magisso Stainless Steel Kitchen Cloth Holder

Six years ago, industrial designer Sam Pearce was sitting in an airport when "I saw a mother pushing her child in a buggy," he writes. "The front wheel hit a slight kerb [sic] and the child jolted forward because of the impact. It happened several times in the time I was waiting there." He then did what many ID'ers do, which is to find the nearest piece of paper and sketch out a potential solution. What he drew in his notebook was this:

A simple idea for a wheel with built-in suspension.

Two years later, while off-road cycling, he remembered the sketch and began thinking if a suspension system like that could be built into a bike wheel. Now, many years of tinkering later, what Pearce has come up with is this:

It's called the Loopwheel, and its system of "tangential suspension"—essentially leaf springs folded back in on themselves—are not only workable, but they provide a gentler ride over sharp obstacles due to physics:

For now, Pearce is focusing on developing Loopwheels for smaller bikes, because the design "[allows] suspension where suspension can't normally fit," as with a folding bike design.

Last month Pearce debuted his creation at the UK's Bespoked Bicycle show. Response was tremendous, and he's now seeking Kickstarter funding to get the Loopwheel into proper production; up until now he's been making them as one-offs in his shop.

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Le erbe aromatiche greche sono famose per essere molto rinomate in ambito culinario ma la loro commercializzazione resta purtroppo ancora localizzata. Daphnis and Chloe è un progetto di Evangelia Koutsovoulou che sta cercando di realizzare grazie al supporto di kickstarter per aiutare ad esportare in tutto il mondo questi prodotti greci.
Per ora le erbe in commercio sono quattro: origano, salvia, timo e alloro. Le trovate qui.