A stunning collection of photos of fireflies captured in timelapse photography. Makes me miss the summertime.

Thanks to t.chin for the link.

Via Treehugger:

There’s a lot of wooden bikes out there, ranging from the glue-it-yourself, no-metal kind, to award-winning, high-end designer bikes. But this near all-wooden bike, handmade by Dutch industrial designer Jan Gunneweg, must be one of the most beautiful wooden specimens we’ve seen to date.Made out of solid walnut and weighing under 35 pounds, the bike’s unique cachet is all in the wheels, which each sport a thick wooden spoke. Drawing attention away from the metal support spokes, the wooden spokes create the impression that there is a continuous line from front wheel, through the frame and all the way to the rear wheel.

As Gunneweg tells Co.Design, the spokes “symbolize the legs of man,” adding that “balancing the wheels was pretty challenging because of the width of the wooden spoke.”

Another nice detail are the groovy wooden rims on both wheels:

Though it may seem paradoxical, wood and bamboo may actually be more sustainable as materials for bike design, due to the energy-intensity of steel and aluminium. Plus, the nature of wood and bamboo lends more easily to the do-it-yourself ethic, which may explain the recent explosion of handmade bamboo bicycles in places like Brooklyn, and even far off locales like Ghana, Africa.

Gunneweg, whose obsession is wood, has previously designed two wooden bikes before this version, and says that this latest model delivers a smoother ride. The bike will be available for sale later this month; for more details, visit his website.

Great use of design, color and perspective. love it.

Via CoolHunting and Arrested Motion:

Five Spanish artists take graffiti and mural painting to the streets of Vila Brâsilandia in São Paulo, Brazil. The favela’s winding streets are given a 3D effect with brilliant colors and words that are legible from specific points of perspective.

Boa Mistura or “Good Mixture” is made up of five Spanish artists, Arkoh, Derko, Pahg, Purone and Rdick, who have developed their work in different fields including graffiti and mural painting, to graphic design and illustration. Collectively, they meld their talents together for various endeavors like this recent Participative Urban Art project in Vila Brâsilandia, one of the favelas in São Paulo. The intervention, with its 3D illusionary effect, focuses on “vecos” and “vielas” – winding streets that form as connections for the internal life of the community.

With all of the attention on Apple’s working conditions in China, it’s interesting to know how things started. Long before the giant Foxconn plants, long before scandals about workers becoming suicidal and living in mass communal spaces, things were quite different.

Consumers are just as guilty as Apple for the current state of manufacturing.

Reading the Steve Jobs biography, you learn that Apple began manufacturing in beautiful, high-end factories right here in the USA. Indeed, Jobs was so particular about the look of the factory that he ordered the tooling machines painted specific primary colors, and the floors were so clean you could eat off of them. For Jobs, the cost of building and producing were less important than making the best product possible. If that meant that computers from Apple cost $2500-4000, or NeXT computers cost $9,995, so what?

Via Vice’s Motherboard:

When he ran NeXT Computer, Steve Jobs decided that his machines were too precious to be handled by slow, accident-prone, whiny humans. Only the machines really knew how to handle the machines.

To assemble one of his sleek $9,995 NeXT workstations, Jobs employed a robot workforce at his Fremont, CA factory that outnumbered his humans 13 to five, and could turn out a completed computer in under 20 minutes.

For Jobs, who had recently left Apple, this wasn’t about money: the cost of labor is only a tiny fraction of the cost of manufacturing computers at rapid speed. It was about quality. For a brief time, the 40-person team of engineers that Jobs dedicated to figuring out the manufacturing problem had more Ph.D.s than the group designing the machine itself.

It wasn’t Apple’s sole decision to start manufacturing overseas. It was consumers. Like you, like me. We saw computers selling for $1000, and wanted that. Apple’s products were seen as high-end for years, but after the iPod phenomenon, they started catering to a younger and less affluent demographic, and prices came down. Way down. In a world where a fast food meal still costs $3.99, people grow to expect cheap electronics, and companies deliver.  While I would certainly like to see companies like Apple take up manufacturing in the States, it’s an obvious reality that most consumers would be turned off from paying double what they do for tablets and other computers. I’d like to think that I’d step up to the plate and pay a steep premium for American-made goods, but with the model the way it is, it’s hard to envision it changing anytime soon.

This isn’t to say that pressure shouldn’t be put on companies to improve worker’s conditions, but I think it’s important that consumers know they are just as guilty for cheap Chinese labor as the companies that make their products.

Via Colossal:
Fashion photographer and filmmaker Jacob Sutton shot this hauntingly beautiful video in the Rhône-Alpes region of south-eastern France starring pro snowboarder William Hughes who dons a special suit laden with white LEDs.

Sutton, who has created work for the likes of Hermès, Burberry and The New York Times, spent three nights on a skidoo with his trusty Red Epic camera at temperatures of -25C to snap Hughes carving effortlessly through the deep snow, even enlisting his own father to help maintain the temperamental suit throughout the demanding shoot. “Filming in the suit was the most surreal thing I’ve done in 20 years of snowboarding,” says Hughes of the charged salopettes. “Luckily there was plenty of vin rouge to keep me warm, and Jacob’s enthusiasm kept everyone going through the cold nights.”

The film, titled L.E.D. Surfer, is absolutely mesmerizing to watch. Music by John Spatcher. (via make, nowness)

FastCompany has a good list and good insight into what they claim are the 50 most innovative companies in the world. Check out the whole list, here are the top 5:

1. Apple

   For walking the talk

2. Facebook

   For 800 million reasons to share

3. Google

   For expanding its hit lineup

4. Amazon

   For playing the long game

5. Square

   For making magic out of the mercantile

The GOP continue to give great handouts to filthy Big Oil.

I’ve toiled whether to avoid politically-charged articles on this site, but when issues hit particularly close to home, they must be shared.  As an avid cyclist and huge advocate of a clean (and safe) transportation system in the US, this type of backwards-thinking legislation is scary.

Via Treehugger:

© April Streeter

By now you must have read somewhere in the blogosphere that the Transportation Bill (officially The American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, or H.R. 7) being shepherded by chair of the House Transportation Committee John Mica (R-FL), is considered a distaster for active transportation. The bill has been called a variety of bad names, including “horrible” by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, “troubling” by Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer, and “a bill only Big Oil could love,” by Streetsblog.

Bob Mionske, the bicycle lawyer who writes frequently on cycling policy and legislation, details exactly why H.R. 7 is so horrible for cyclists, as well as for pedestrians and transit users.

As Mionske puts it on his blog, H.R. 7:

• Reverses 20 years of bicycle and pedestrian-friendly federal transportation policy.
• Eliminates dedicated funding for the Transportation Enhancements program (funding cycling and walking projects).
• Allows states to build bridges without safe access for cyclists and pedestrians, as previously required.
• Eliminates Bicycle and Pedestrian and Safe Routes to Schools coordinators in state transportation departments.
• Repeals Safe Routes to Schools.
• Eliminates language that ensures that rumble strips “do not adversely affect the safety or mobility of bicyclists, pedestrians or the disabled.”

The bill also attacks dedicated transit funding, eliminating gas tax revenue for transit (not such a bad idea) but not replacing it with anything else (definitely bad).

That is plenty enough to turn active transportation advocates against the bill. What is interesting is all the support in the bill for the oil industry, including the stunning idea of linking funding for transportation infrastructure to oil production. If transportation was solely about driving internal combustion vehicles on huge highways, never mind peak oil, sustainability concerns, conservation, or pollution, this idea would have some logic.

In the real world, it seems like an attempt to make us all more addicted to the very oil said to be running out.

Mionske puts it like this:

I think it’s pretty easy to connect the dots here and draw the conclusion that Big Oil—which spends millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions every year, but reaps billions of dollars in record profits—is afraid. Very afraid. It’s kind of funny when you think about it—the oil industry, which is enjoying the largest profits in human history, is afraid of a child on a bike. So afraid, that Representatives in Washington who are beholden to Big Oil will do whatever they can to make it less safe for children to get to school. Cycling has been steadily increasing in popularity among all age groups, and particularly so with young adults. We are a massive wave representing a fundamental shift in attitudes, and that is what frightens Big Oil.

Since Mionske first wrote his piece, a group of congressmen (and woman) proposed the Petri/Johnson amendment to restore some of the cuts, and though Petri/Johnson failed when put to its first vote, it has since been offered again as H.R. 7 gets closer to vote. On the Senate side with the MAP-21 Transport bill, the Cardin/Cochran amendment is also attempting to restore local jurisdictions’ control over bike and pedestrian program funding.

Via Cool Hunting:

From design powerhouse Black + Blum comes a stellar new alternative to wasteful disposable water bottles. Eau Good uses Binchō-tan, a traditional Japanese charcoal, to naturally filter tap water over the course of six hours. The plastic bottle has a small indent to hold the charcoal in place while drinking, and a simple squeeze releases the piece for replacement. Held in place with a metal ring, a natural cork stopper secures the opening.

Sourced from sustainably harvested timber, the charcoal is created by burning the wood at a precise 1000 degrees celsius. Once activated, the filter rids water of chlorine and other odors while balancing pH levels to deliver a natural, clean finish. While many filters currently use processed charcoal, Binchō-tan has a longer shelf life and is recyclable as a fertilizer and deodorizer. The charcoals—only $3.70 per piece—can be reactivated by boiling after three months for an average life of six months.

We recommend picking up a pair from the Black + Blum shop to keep your cold, clean water in constant rotation.

Binchotan active charcoal has been used in Japan as a water purifier since the 17th century. It reduces chlorine, mineralises the water and balances the pH. The binchotan active charcoal can be used for up to 6 months and amazingly recylces for many different uses after this.

Over 22 billion plastic water bottles are discarded around the world every year. We want to reduce this by making tap water taste better and encourage people to stop buying bottled water.

• BPA free tritan, cork, stainless steel, silicon
• includes x1 binchotan active charcoal filter (6 months life)
• 8.5 x 24cm – 800 ml / 27 floz