I thought the folding bike was the coolest invention in the world – before I figured out how to use a blender that is. I was working for an engineering company a few miles from my house when I first heard about folding bikes.

I lived in a house in the suburbs and really didn’t need the space-saving bonus that the bike offered, so I guess I kind of suck for having it in the first place.

But I must say that after about a month of use, the bike started to wobble and weaken at it’s joints. Then one day the bars actually collapsed on me while riding. So I say this: if you don’t have a big enough apartment to store your bike, get one or plan to pay for the medical bills when your crappy bike collapses on you. And that is the end of my story.

Some nice pieces via Anthony Roussel via a+.  I wonder if you can get splinters from them.

More after the jump.

A big “duh” here.  I told my mom this back in the early 90s when everyone started buying those god awful satellite dish devices.  We’d sit in the car and as soon as a signal would come in, my head would start pounding like crazy.  It’d start to hurt before the  damn thing would start ringing.  She’d laugh at me and say I was imagining things, but I could even tell when she was facing at me or not with my eyes closed.

A few years later, I like the sheep I was, ended up getting one like other kids my age.  That thing would give me HEADACHES like hell.  But I kept it like the good little consumerist I was.

Now I’m stricken with a full blown iphone addiction and my senses to the radiation have all but dulled.  Well they’re publishing all these studies and dumb shit like that.  Any study that says other-wise is dumb, and so is anyone who doesn’t believe they give you cancer.  We just haven’t had them long enough to see the long term effects; in about 20 years I’m going to be laid up in a hospital bed with a tumor the size of a watermelon in my head on one of those commercials talking about how I would’ve had a brain if I had just put that evil iphone down years earlier.  FML

And anyone who says otherwise, again is dumb.  Those same “agencies” that say that it’s harmless just like they did back in the 1940’s when doctors used to prescribe cigarettes.  Mhmm…

More here

As another take on old 70s materials.  My father always taught me that all forms of art circled around communication.  The thing that I love most about portraits and these photos in general is imagining the stories around each of them.

Check out the flickr Library and the link at the Unknowables to see more.

A truly remarkable find, the owner of these photographs states on her flickr:

“These came from a collection of over 400 Polaroid photos of strippers trying out for dancing jobs at a So. Cal club. They were taken from the late 1960’s thru the early 1970’s. I decided to create a new Flickr account to share this collection with other photographers. They document fashion, interior decor, and a time when bodies were for the most part, natural. The Polaroid film makes for an even more nostalgic feel. The main interest I have with these photos is the aesthetics of an era, not just as titillation. As an artist and photographer I find these women beautiful, daring and sometimes desperate. Each woman here has a story, and each one deserves our respect.” [stripper polaroids]

Further to her observations, these Polaroids remind me of Eric Kroll’s Sex Objects: An American Photodocumentary (1977). Here is a review of Sex Objects from the August 1st, 1977 edition of the Village Voice if you care to know more. [From The Unknowables]

The brand strategists and designers at BMW are in top form. Ever since GINA we’ve been in love. While many car companies issue sketches and one-offs of their concept vehicles, BMW does it in a way that builds interest, suspense and kid-like excitement. Their latest project, Vision EfficientDynamics, is a fine example of bold design meeting environmental responsibility. Per their site, “EfficientDynamics combines the performance of a BMW M model with the fuel consumption and emissions of a modern small car. It’s a near-production-ready vehicle whose integrated engineering concept features Active-Hybrid technology and takes BMW to the next level. The result is a fuel consumption of just 3.76 liters / 100 km and CO2 emissions of 99g/km (50 g/km in electric only operation based on EU electricity mix).” Click Read More for additional information and photos. [From PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOS: BMW'S CONCEPTUAL COOL]