Year: 2017

Falling ice at Chicago Apple Store

Design flaw in Apple flagship store

[Update: Apple has explained they do have a heated roof. Blair Kamin of the Chicago Tribune reports: “The roof has a warming system that’s built into it,” Apple spokesman Nick Leahy said. “It needed some fine-tuning and it got re-programmed today. It’s hopefully a temporary problem.” So I take back that this is a design …

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old yarn, new yarn

Our yarn for the next five years

Instead of ribbon, I use yarn. Every single gift I’ve given the past five years has been decorated with this same yarn. Today our supply ran out, so I biked to Hobby Lobby to buy a new bundle of yarn for the next five years’ presents. I’m very sentimental about this yarn. Sarah owned it …

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300 of my favorite things, by category

ART ASCII art bitmap art ceramics felt found objects HDR photography LEGO mosaics mail art modern dance oil pastels origami pencil rubbings printmaking public art sculptures Artists Alexander Calder Anselm Kiefer Bruce Nauman Camille Pissarro Christo and Jeanne-Claude Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (aka Christopher R. W. Nevinson. He’s a recent artist of interest to me, …

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Fun facts about Ewok poop from the Death Star librarian

From transit fare increases to Ewok poop

I love having several fictional Twitter accounts–the Death Star librarian, an Ewok, a baby Ewok, extreme croquet player, and so on. These fun accounts can work in tandem for some pretty silly responses to tweets. The Chicago Tribune digital editor tweeted about Chicago’s tax hike for their transit service. Which then eventually lead to talk …

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baby name Velcro

How you can name your child Velcro

Velcro. Wouldn’t that be a great name for your child? Velcro, I’m stuck on you! I like to joke around with my wife that our 18-month-old daughter’s name is Velcro. Sometimes I’ll tell my daughter we almost named her Velcro. I love the name Velcro. But in our household that name will never fly–even as …

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Where is the next...

Where is the next…

Type a search into Google for “Where is the next…” and it will auto-complete your search with three suggestions: Solar eclipse World Cup Olympics All three are global events. Large global events. Although aren’t solar eclipses more of a local event? Each eclipse occurs in only one spot of the world. The Great American Eclipse …

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New definition for the word pigeon: a slow modem

A slow modem is a pigeon

Do you have a modem that is really slow? Then you have pigeon! If it takes a long time to load a webpage, you might as well load that page via a carrier pigeon. Thus, your modem is like a pigeon. I submitted this new definition for pigeon to Urban Dictionary: Word: Pigeon Definition: A …

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Lunar Sample Return bag used on Apollo 11

A giant rip in Neil Armstrong’s $1.8 million moon rock bag

The most important command given to Neil Armstrong was to make sure he collected moon rocks as soon as he landed on the Moon. Just moments after stepping onto the moon and saying, “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” Armstrong then took a purse-sized pouch out of his spacesuit’s pocket and …

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Shutterfly unlimited free prints deal

The truth behind Shutterfly’s unlimited free prints offer

All the 4×6 prints you can imagine for free! All you have to do is order your prints through the Shutterfly app. Sounds great, right? Almost unbelievable. What would you do with unlimited prints? Here’s a few ideas: Mural: Take lots of close-up photos of the sidewalk. Tile the prints together to make a huge …

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