7x7

shuffleboard: some interesting facts about the sport of curling

wait, wait—don’t tell me: a public television programme or something Liam Neeson would say to a burrito right before eating it

official portraits: artists Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald commissioned by the Smithsonian to create paintings of the Obamas

nocturlabe: an instrument to determine local time at night based on the relative position of the stars

suffragetto: a century’s old board game that pits equal-rights activists against the police

hermetically open: Amsterdam’s private Ritman Library brings over sixteen hundred occult manuscripts on-line with the help of Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown

how u hot: a neural network generates phrases for chalky candy hearts

sandbox

Having himself matriculated through the patent offices in Bern, Albert Einstein surely saw some proposals with potential though perhaps not commercially viable, so we enjoyed—via Miss Cellania—learning about some of the genius’ forgotten inventions, as documented through his intellectual property filings.
After articulating the General Theory of Relativity, awarded the Nobel Prize or discovering the photoelectric effect and discovering a new phase of matter, Einstein invented, among other things, a refrigerator designed to operate without electricity and only required a heat-source, making it suited for developing countries, and interestingly a tunic, a waistcoat that’s scalable and can expand to accommodate added dimensions.

flat-pack

Though probably better remembered for his later career as an industrial designer and architect for his contributions to the Walt Disney Studios compound in Burbank, California and a few neighbourhoods of surrounding Hollywoodland, Kem Weber helped to inform the stylistic sleek and iconic “Streamline” look. Moreover, though not a commercial success despite inclusion in the 1928 International Exposition of Art in Industry due to the Great Depression and outbreak of war, Weber introduced the idea of furniture to be assembled by the consumer, rather than transporting a finished piece from the showroom floor a decade before IKEA grew from a workshop into a single outlet and then going on to become a global brand. Weber’s Airline Chair of 1934 was shipped in a cardboard box that was easily toted away, to be put together (with confidence) at home.
Years ahead of the mid-century whose style he defined, Weber was a pioneer but with the infusion of the talent of fellow creative individuals fleeing totalitarian regimes in Europe (of Berlin-extraction, his adopted first name was composed of the initial letters of Karl Emmanuel Martin, wanting to make a less Germanic new persona for himself) and materials and designs derivative of the war-effort, he was not considered on the cutting edge for very long, supplanted by subsequent generations, indebted to his vision.

aeroplanette

Though popularity and thus signalled acceptance for the concept of heavier than air propulsion as a viable and reliable form of conveyance took some time to cement itself in the minds’ of the public—as told through product tie-ins—was more gradual than, say, the appetite for all things space related. Nonetheless by 1912, there was a parlour game, a version of roulette, which in this variation had a tethered propeller-powered plane that was wound up and stayed aloft for around thirty circuits. The winner of the wager was the player who choose the correct world capital that the craft would touch down in. In the illustration, it looks to me like a dispute is about to ensue with the plane landing exactly on the line between Berlin and Wien.

persistence of vision

Professor and lecturer at the Chinese Academy of Art in Hangzhou, Cao Shu, has produced a visually captivating short animation comprised of a few disposable motions that typify what we do in those moments when we’re waiting for what’s next—taking a sip of a drink, glancing at one’s watch rotoscoped to take in the entire sweeping survey of art history from the Ancient Egyptians to the Post Modern era all in less than a minute. Visit the link up top to learn more about the styles and movements and to watch the entire video.