History

Smithsonian Chooses Design For African American Museum On the National Mall

by Toby

The final museum on the land designated as the National Mall in Washington, DC will be the architectural creation of Freelon Adjaye Bond and SmithGroup teams. The Smithsonian announced its juried decision yesterday, after reviewing the designs of the six finalists in the international call for submissions. The National Museum of African American History and Culture is expected to be finished in 2012.

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10 Funny, Dramatic, & Irreverent Peep Shows Too Good To Miss

by Toby

If sugar ever goes out of fashion, the folks who make Peeps® never have to worry; Peeps is a gift that keeps on giving in all kinds of amusing ways during holidays, but especially at Easter. Here are some 2009 winning Peep designs to which I've given my own awards, like the Best Political Peep Show, Best Industrial Use of Peeps, and the Best 'As Seen On TV' Peeps...

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Create Beautiful Works of Art at Origami.com

by Austin Keenan

So you sit there and think, "How am I going to get through to the weekend?" Well, you could play games, or watch silly videos, or you could achieve enlightenment of the ancient Buddhas by folding paper into funny shapes! Origami.com is here to help bring you to nirvana, or at least help you kill a few hours while you sit there, suffering at your desk.

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Who Am I? Ask My DNA Bookcase!

by Toby

A bookcase tells your story... who you are... who you became after your genetics determined your hair and eye color. In MYDNA, Mexican designer Joel Escalon has designed an altar-like DNA strand that lets you tell your own unique story through the things you love -- your personal treasures and the books, music, and movies that entertain or inspire you.

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Does The Russian Army Inflate Itself With Fake Tanks?

by M Dee Dubroff

In the case of so many things appearances are everything, although who would have thought this would ever apply to a nation’s security? Perhaps the Russian army is correct and power truly is, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder? Still, wonder and read on before you decide to throw down the gauntlet.

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N2A Stinger Corvette Brings Back 1960s Styling with Modern Comfort

by George Delozier

Even though the new C6 Corvettes are easily the most well engineered in the history of the Corvette name, many people still prefer the earlier generations for their unmistakable styling. Sadly, these older Corvettes are becoming more elusive as collectors and age claim them one by one. The good news is, N2A Designs is now offering up a custom fabricated retro Corvette that uses the best of both new and old.

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6 Breathtaking Designs For The New African-American Museum On The Mall

by Toby

Plans for the final museum on the National Mall in Washington D.C. are beginning to fall into place! Yesterday the Smithsonian Institution opened an exhibit of the six architectural designs being considered for the new National Museum of African American History and Culture... and they are all breathtaking!

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Wikirank Lets You Keep Track of Wikipedia Trends

by Austin Keenan

As a blog reader, surely you know about the significance of using Wikipedia links. The user-generated information resource has become a staple of online research, and sometimes reading Wiki articles is just plain fun. Wikirank is a new service that displays all of the current trends on Wikipedia, such as most viewed pages of the month, trending topics, and lets you search throughout them to get all the info you need.

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Easter Baskets That Bring Back Sweet Memories: Candy By The Decade

by Toby

Easter is about kids in most families. Painted eggs, jelly beans, baskets stuffed with shredded colored cellophane and Peeps®. But we were all kids at one time, and for most of us our nostalgia for our youth includes the Easter Sunday mornings when our own baskets would be full of our favorites. Candy Crate is making this Easter special for every generation from the 1940's to the 1990's in its Easter Retro Candy Gift Box.

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Architect's Design Selected For New Center For Civil And Human Rights In Atlanta

by Toby

For several months the Center for Civil & Human Rights (CCHR) in Atlanta has been studying submissions to its competition for its new center's Architect of Record. The winner has now been chosen: the Freelon Group based in Durham, NC will partner with HOK, an Atlanta-based architecture and design firm to build the center, under Freelon's direction.

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10 Iconic Treasures 0f 20th Century Design Now Selling at Christie’s

by Toby

We may not be in the top five percent economically, but millions like us can still appreciate looking, even if we can't touch. Tomorrow, Christie's auction of 20th Century Decorative Art & Design at Rockefeller Center in New York, is one I'd love to see; there are hundreds of brilliant collectors' furniture and decorative items of the knuckle-biting kind, one more exquisite than the next. Here are 10 of the works that caught my eye for their artistry as well as iconic symbolism of period design.

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Falling In Love With Design: The Latest Collection From Dima Loginoff

by Toby

Russian designer, Dima Loginoff has doubled his creative output in the last two seasons. Perhaps it was the unbearable Moscow winter, but more likely it was Loginoff's growing passion and exuberance for interior design, now that he has found the perfect vehicle for his creative talent.

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10 Great Invention Ideas for the Best St. Patrick's Day Ever

by Elizabeth Valeri

The following are my picks for the best St. Patrick's day ever, with a few post-St. Patrick's day reconciliation-style inventions thrown in for good measure.

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Sunken 18th Century Russian Ship Stuck in Pipe

by M Dee Dubroff

During a recent seabed survey for the Nordstream Gas Pipeline Project, a sunken ship along with the remains of five other ships from a Russian fleet that dates back three centuries has been discovered. Scientists have been called upon to quickly save it before fresh construction work destroys it. Read on for some amazing details.

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Bizarre, Elongated Skulls Found In Siberia

by M Dee Dubroff

Archaeologists in Siberia have recently unearthed a weird set of elongated skulls that date back to the 4th century. Although not the first time odd skulls like these have been found, they raise many new questions as to how multiple cultures across the globe with no contact with each other came to perform the same type of ancient surgery. Read on for details but hang on to…your head.

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Karaoke: Inspirational Invention or Just Plain Annoying?

by M Dee Dubroff

A recent poll of more than 2,500 adults found that that nearly 25% of British people wish karaoke had never been invented. Along with karaoke, some other annoying inventions voted upon and receiving honorable mention included 24-hour sports channels, computer games consoles, mobile phones and alarm clocks! Read on for more details, and wonder what’s an inventor with dreams of creating noisy things supposed to do anyway?

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History of the Rubik’s Cube: Madness, Fun and One Man’s Obsession

by M Dee Dubroff

Rubik’s Cube is an invention that has been torturing puzzle-lovers for decades, but one man in England has surely broken the record for perseverance. It took him 26 years to solve the mystery and he as well as his enduring wife are very relieved that it is all over. If you are a puzzle fan read on, and if you are not, read on anyway and be amazed at how deeply this silly toy has permeated our cultural psyches.

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Google Earth: Atlantis Still Lost Among New Finds

by M Dee Dubroff

There is some embarrassment and quite a bit of denial surrounding the claim that the Google Earth mapping tool was used to discover a grid of streets in the ocean that were thought to be the lost city of Atlantis. Google Earth has had some amazing results and the entire Google search system has come further than even its creators could ever have predicted. Still, read on for more details, which confirm that the lost city of Atlantis is, alas, still lost.

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Arsenic: Is This Ancient Poison a Modern Remedy?

by M Dee Dubroff

News sources in Hong Kong have released information concerning the success of some leukemia patients that have been treated with a combination of arsenic and vitamin A. How far has this poison dating back to an 8th century A.D Arab alchemist named Jabir really come? Read on for some startling details.

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Elegant Punk: The Darwin Bracelet Celebrates Man And The Man

by Toby

With replicas of our predecessors, including the skulls of Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens, the Darwin Bracelet is not only evolutionary, it's revolutionary... Darwin's Bracelet is elegant punk!

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