If you missed it last year, Refill 7 has a wonderful set of images from all decks from it’s exhibition at the MTV Gallery in Sydney on Flickr now.

And what was Refill 7? Refill magazine, asked a select group of artists around the world to design art for 50 skate decks. The art was then laser etched into the decks to produce beautiful, fine and often intricate pieces.

[check the Flickr set here]

Nuts!

…. yes, this is serious.

[via all sorts of places but the source is here]

“Charles F. Brannock only invented one thing in his life, and this was it. The son of a Syracuse, New York, shoe magnate, Brannock became interested in improving the primitive wooden measuring sticks that he saw around his father’s store. He patented his first prototype in 1926, based on models he had made from Erector Set parts. As the Park-Brannock Shoe Store became legendary for fitting feet with absolute accuracy, the demand for the device grew, and in 1927 Brannock opened a factory to mass produce it. The Brannock Device Co., Inc., is still in business today. Refreshingly, it still only makes this one thing. They have sold over a million, a remarkable number when one considers that each of them lasts up to 15 years, when the numbers wear off.”

[Read more of this interesting article by Michael Bierut at Design observer]

At long last, a tablet notebook Mac…. but not from Mac!

Axiotron takes a Mac Duocore Macbook and slaps it with touchscreen and new case to end up with a ‘Axiotron Modbook’.

Yes, we think it’s too cool for school and def. want one.

[see the love]

An interesting exhibition going down in London soon.

“PostlerFerguson is proud to present Paper Wars, an exhibition of the Death Machines series of paper reproductions of classic weapons systems at Portobello Road’s Craze Gallery.

The exhibition features a series of one-off pieces by an international selection of artists and designers. Using PostlerFerguson’s paper AK-47 kit as a starting point, each participant has recorded a personal reaction to the tension between the AK-47’s blend of seductive aesthetics, robust design and murky morality. Participants include Ben Wilson, El Ultimo Grito, Oscar and Ewan, Pixelgarten, Hiroko Shiratori, Paul Wysocan, Inkie, BASE23/DC|DE and more.

Also featured is a new addition to the Death Machines series, the Oerlikon anti-aircraft gun. First produced by the Swiss company Oerlikon Contraves in 1914, it was either sold to or stolen by all sides during WWI and WWII and continues to be used today.”

Well, between it being quiet in the ‘interesting, quirky or just plain odd’ front, and the flu from hell, we are happy to break the drullness with something that is, well, just plain odd.

We present you the R2-D2 projector: