1. When Architects design Dollhouses
In 1983 Architecutral Design Magazine launched a competition to for architects to design a doll house. Found in a book and scanned by Present & Correct.
2. These virtual reconstructions of archaeological buildings
Adam Nemeth has been working as a 3D artist specializing in archaeological renderings for a decade. Follow his work on Instagram.
3. Meet the woman who builds the world’s most unique Airbnbs
Today, the phrases “Airbnb landlord” and “passive income” are well-discussed among dreamers. But Kristie Wolfe is actually doing it, and doing it with a scrappy style that inspires us at MNC. She has built off-grid hobbit holes, treehouses, and potato-shaped abodes — often on a shoestring budget. Before building Airbnbs, she was unloading sacks of dirt-laden potatoes for $13/hour. She cites her mother as her inspiration for creating beautiful spaces that are marked by practicality, using reclaimed materials and doing the rest herself.
“Going off-grid opens up your options for cheap land,” she says. “But you don’t get city utilities, there’s often no infrastructure, and you can’t just call a random electrician when your generator goes out.” Last year, during a nasty cold spell, Wolfe had to cancel a week’s worth of guests and drain a frozen water line in single-digit temperatures. When the septic line froze, she had to drive 8 hours from Boise to Washington with a truck full of lumber and build an outhouse from scratch.
In her odd-jobs phase, Wolfe was hired to drive this potato rig around. When she found out that the concrete potato was going to be traded for a lighter one, she inquired about its uncertain future. The company ended up giving it to her for free. Of her potato masterpiece, she says, “It’s in the middle of nowhere… but people come from all over the world to stay here. Everyone loves potatoes.” The 6-ton potato became one of Idaho’s hottest Airbnb locations.
Full article found on the Hustle.
4. An Orgone Accumulator
Orgone Accumulator, a device sold in the 1950s to allow a person sitting inside to attract orgone, a massless ‘healing energy’. The FDA noted that one purchaser, a college professor, knew it was “phony” but found it “helpful because his wife sat quietly in it for four hours every day.”
Found on Historic, more found on Dangerous Minds.
5. NASA is going to Study Sex in Space
If the Elon Musk’s of the world are serious about establishing off-world communities–we’re going to need some intimacy questions answered. Can humans do it in space? Living in space affects the bodies heart rate, blood pressure, hormonal balance; and not to mention, levels of radiation in space are notably higher for those in space than for us groundlings.
Obviously reproducing is critical to long-term colonizing new planets and moons, but it’s critical for mankind’s short-term physical mental health too. At least, that’s the argument from Maria Santaguida, a psychologist at Concordia University, in her work to study sexual behavior in zero-gravity environments. But she’s not the first to propose it. For decades, researchers have been pushing for research on how all bodily functions change in orbit, not leaving out sexual and reproductive health.
Read more about NASA’s prudish hesitations to study space-sex, and the few dedicated researchers proposing this new field of study.
6. A long-lost shipwreck found 10,000′ below the Antarctic circle
Ernest Shackleton never completed his cross-Antarctic expedition when he set out on Endurance in 1914. But he returned to Britain a hero by other methods: successfully leading the rescue of himself and 27 other crew members when Endurance became lodged in thick Antarctic ice and became irreparably damaged. After 106 years of searching, the resting place of the impeccably preserved ship Endurance has finally been discovered.
Found on The New York Times
7. The ancient guide for uncertain times
Epicetus, a founding member of the Stoic school of philosophical thought, knew what it meant to live in uncertain times, haunted by the possibilities of an unforeseeable future. Here are some of his, and other Stoics including Seneca and Marcus Aurelius for these trying times…
- It is not events that disturb people, it is their judgments concerning them.
- Recognise what you can (and can’t) control
- To be lucky all the time and to go through life without mental distress is to remain ignorant of half of the natural world
- “If you are doing your proper duty, let it not matter to you whether you are cold or warm, whether you are sleepy or well-slept, whether men speak badly or well of you, even whether you are on the point of death or doing something else: because even this, the act in which we die, is one of the acts of life, and so here too it suffices to ‘make the best move you can'”
- “Is someone afraid of change? Well, what can ever come to be without change?” asked Marcus Aurelius. “Can you yourself take your bath, if the wood that heats it is not changed? Can you be fed, unless what you eat changes? Can any other of the benefits of life be achieved without change?
- And a warning for those who remain passive in saying, ‘It will never happen to us:’ “Should it surprise me if the perils which have always roamed around me should some day reach me?” — Seneca
Can the teachings of the Stoics help in these troubling times? Read the full article found on The BBC
8. A reminder that Trees are Amazing
Follow a group of skiers, snowboarders, scientists and healers to the birch forests of Japan, the red cedars of British Columbia and the bristlecones of Nevada, as they explore an ancient story written in rings.
9. Just another SMH moment from the 1950s, “babycots” in airplanes
(SMH = Shaking my head). Found on Reddit
10. This Japanese restaurant train
Wood paneled, modern, and fitted with private booths and even a children’s playroom, this Japanese restaurant train gives the Parisian dinner bateau-mouche a run for its money.
Found on SoraNews24
11. The neo-classical dreamland of this elegant, pastel hotel near Lake Maggiore
This enchanting hotel is comprised of two villas, bookable for parties of ten or more. BRB, planning imaginary dinner parties in this garden forever.
Found on Instagram, booking here.
12. This Seriously Fun Fashion Brand
Find it here: Outsider Division.
