Gantri fuses 3D printing with design to create inspired table lights created by independent designers from all around the world.

Having the opportunity to design a smartphone that will go straight to market in under two years sounds like a daydream you'd have during an endless design school critique. For 27-year-old Linda Jiang, it's just reality. 

As the Lead Industrial Designer at Essential Products, Jiang has been hard at work designing the borderless Essential Phone, along with a slew of accessories to accompany it. The phone's accessory list most notably includes an itty-bitty 360-degree camera that attaches to the top of the phone's body, something no other company—not even competitors Samsung or Apple—has attempted thus far.

During a visit to our NYC office, Jiang slowly poured a slew of prototypes for both the Essential Phone and 360-degree camera onto our coffee table.

We were like kids in a candy shop as she explained step by step how her team was able to bring a combination of unexpected materials selection, game-changing technology and boundary-pushing form factor to the table within such a short timeframe. 

It turns out, a lot of Essentials' speedy success has to do with size. For being founded by Android co-founder Andy Rubin, Essential is an unexpectedly small company. The team, which Linda excitedly described as scrappy and ambitious, is made up of around 100 people. Their small size allows for easier communication between designers and engineers, making faster deadlines more realistic than larger competitors. 

On the overall design process

The Essential team's main focus over the past couple of years was designing a functional, borderless phone, meaning they needed to challenge the look of all smartphones currently on the market. Because Essential was working to develop a completely new design, the initial concept phase was key."We did a lot of concepting in the beginning for a device that had glass that went all the way to the edge so you could see a little bit of refraction. We did concepts where it's super bubbly so it feels like a meniscus, where the glass flows over the edge and is actually part of the camera corner," she explained. 

After initial concepts were received so excitedly by companies including Foxconn, the team started to reign in the creativity in order to refine and add in more functional details. "We locked ourselves in a room for a whole week and thought about the things that needed to go into the phone in terms of technology and function," she noted, referencing the grueling details that came with refining her team's designs. Simultaneously, the Essential team filed around 10 to 15 patents solely based on improving said details. 

On materials

When holding your iPhone or Android phone, their purposefully sleek designs feel as if nothing went into designing them at all—even though we know that's not the case. Designing a sleek form factor can only come after experimentation, and with Essential, a good amount of that experimentation was with materials. 

Various Essential Phone prototypes

After beginning with an all-titanium prototype featuring spring hinges as side keys, Jiang and her team decided to regroup and move on. "It was a good starting point, but we realized it was becoming too technical, and it was looking very, very masculine—you know, that Robocop kind of feel," said Jiang as she showed us some of the initial titanium prototypes. 

Titanium had other complications besides the obvious aesthetic ones. "On the back of the device we have so many components, and we realized that with titanium you need windows for all those components because they can't work through metal," Jiang explained. "So then we thought about how we could design those windows nicely. We went through a phase where we got super expressive imagining those windows to make them look purposeful, but throughout the whole exercise, it just felt wrong—our goal was to be premium, sophisticated and refined, and none of that felt refined to me." 

Ceramic backing prototypes

This decision to abandon titanium lead them to begin working with a material we never expected to hear within this context—ceramic. Ceramic is a bold material choice, but it served the purpose of hiding all of the components, including antenna breaks. According to Jiang, the Essential team has a tendency to embrace challenges, so working with ceramics encouraged instead of deterring them.

Specifically, the ceramic material forced the back of the phone to be flat because the more linear the ceramic part is, the stronger it will be. "At the time, we were doing this exercise where the back of the phone actually had a curvature to it, and that was because we wanted it to feel thinner around the edges. But we quickly realized that the whole accessories line would have to have a similar curvature to match, so that means future-proofing would be out of the question." Basically, the second generation of the Essential phone wouldn't be compatible with the original accessories—something we're glad at least one phone company is concerned with. 

Another challenge the team faced was camera positioning. The team decided the camera had to go on the top for user convenience, but as Jiang accurately phrased the challenge, "how were we going to put it on the top if it's borderless up there?" The result needed to be cutting into the display, which the manufacturer came around to after some persuading. "We cut into the display, and the top is the front-facing camera," she said. "The actual barrel goes into the display a little bit, so we had to find the right camera for that as well. On top of the camera, we were able to fit the proximity, the ALS sensor and even a speaker—so everything is pretty much up in that corner."

On the Essential phone's 360 degree camera capabilities

The main design element that sets the Essential Phone apart from other smartphones on the market is its ability to directly connect with a line of accessories—the most hyped being a playful 360-degree camera the team originally referred to as "the lollipop." "We realized that with the phone we were staying so muted and clean that over time it could get kind of boring to people", Jiang explains. We had a great story with the accessories because they come out on a more regular basis, so we can be a little bit more expressive with it."

360 degree camera prototypes

The camera attaches directly to the phone via magnet, which posed a whole new set of criteria Jiang and her team had to meet. The camera needed to be,"secure enough to where you can be at a concert waving it around and you don't feel like it's going to pop off, but at the same time easy to put on,"Jiang explained. After looking into various mount systems and phone cases the camera could attach to, the team settled on specific magnets that are strong enough to keep the camera in place but still easy enough to take off. Magnets are also complicated because of credit cards, so figuring out how to shield the magnet so it only works with Essential accessories was, well, essential. 

4K 360 video can sound intimidating to people that don't feel connected to technology so the main goal when designing the camera was to make it, "super friendly so that anybody can use it." Interestingly enough, Jiang and her team achieved this though omitting buttons and an actual physical interface from the design. To avoid the camera feeling like a toy, they then added in more technical details to the body to make it look as high-tech as it actually is. 

On standing your ground as a woman in the tech world

When asked about the gender gap in Silicon Valley, Linda immediately spoke on the learning lessons she's had to experience in order to get where she is at such a young age, beginning with her time at Motorola straight out of school. 

"It's hard fighting in a meeting room with 20 guys," she recalls. "At first you start shadowing designers, but once and awhile they can't make it to a meeting, and it's just you and like three engineers that have been at Moto for fifteen years and a marketing guy who's telling you your design isn't sellable. I was 20 trying to say, 'Um don't you guys think this looks better?' Everyone kind of disregards you like you don't have a voice." She continued to explain that by learning how to voice her opinions in a confident way early on, she slowly earned respect and started gaining more decision-making power.

This dose of confidence also caught the eyes of industry leaders. When Jiang made the move to Playground, a startup incubator founded by Rubin, she was quickly recruited to join the Essential team early on—as one of the first three members including Rubin himself. 

The Essential Phone may not be as far-reaching as the Apple and Samsung smartphones we've become accustomed to quite yet, but all that does is motivate Jiang more. "Sometimes I'm so sick of this industry, I just want to go do something else like design toilets or something. Something completely unrelated to consumer electronics," she notes. "But then I remind myself that I'm not even 30 yet! There's way more to learn, so I just shut up and keep on grinding."

Looking towards the future, it's too early to predict how the Essential Phone will perform, but eventually, Jiang envisions it as the acting nucleus in an integrated system of accessories. The Essential Phone and its 360-degree camera are just the beginning for the young designer, and we can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

*******

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Essential Phone retails for $699 USD and is available for pre-order here.

The Raymond Corporation, a part of Toyota Industries Corporation, has been a proud innovator of material handling solutions for more than 90 years—designing and building the best lift trucks and material handling equipment in the business. We employ a team of skilled and talented people who have made us a world-recognized leader in our industry. We're a company with the strong values of innovation, quality and service and a steady commitment to the place where we live and work.

Take a look at this photo: What color are these shoes?

I see teal and grey, and while many others do as well, apparently another chunk of the population sees these shoes as pink and white. Yep, it echoes that blue/black or white/gold dress photo that was making the rounds in 2015.

Here's what the shoes look like on Vans' website:

As with the dress, the reason each of us see the sneakers as one set of colors or the other is "a perception issue. It's the way the brain processes information that comes in," eye surgeon Paul Dougherty told TODAY in 2015. "Everyone's brain is different, so even though it's the same stimulus coming in, which it is, everyone processes the information differently."

Is there any more fitting metaphor for our society today, where we all look at the same issues—political, social, economic, religious—and cannot agree on what we see?

The devastation of the fire that tore through Santa Rosa this month is hard to comprehend; entire neighborhoods have simply vanished. As you can see in these aerial shots, the results look consistent with a thorough aerial bombing campaign:

Image by Marcus Yam / L.A. Times

The view from on the ground is equally chilling:

All told nearly 3,000 buildings were destroyed and 34 people were killed.

One elderly couple, 70-year-old John Pascoe and 65-year-old wife Jan, found themselves trapped as the fire swept in. Unable to escape, they survived by spending six hours in a neighbor's pool, as reported by the L.A. Times:

[The Pascoes] submerged themselves in the blackened, debris-filled water. They had grabbed T-shirts to hold over their faces to protect themselves from embers when they surfaced for air.

They moved to the part of the pool farthest from the house. John was worried about having to tread water, or hanging on to the side, which could be dangerous with all the burning objects flying around. Blessedly, the pool had no deep end. It was about 4 feet deep all the way across.

… [Jan] waited for the house to burn to the ground, for the fire to pass so they could warm themselves on the concrete steps. The wind howled and the sound of explosions filled the air. Propane tanks? Ammunition? They had no idea.

"I just kept going under," she said. It was the only way to survive. "And I kept saying, 'How long does it take for a house to burn down?' We were freezing."

She had tucked her phone into her shoe at the pool's edge. When she saw it next, it had melted.

You can read the entire incredible story here.

Let's face it: Last year your neighbor did a way better job with their Halloween decorations, making your lame cobwebs and un-scary zombie statue look inferior. But this year you can put the Joneses in their place by upping your game with some scary-ass holograms.

A company called AtmosFearFX is selling downloadable "digital decorations" that you can project onto walls, screens or even a sheet hung over your window. The effects are suitably spooky:

You'll be the talk of the next block party while the Joneses skulk around in the background, muttering under their breath.

The robotics buzz may be endless, but it’s rare to see cutting-edge technologies come to market in a meaningful way. While startup bots_alive is driven by robotics, artificial intelligence, computer vision, and augmented reality, the simplicity and fun of the product is what makes the biggest impression. Many robotics products try to teach children to code, but bots_alive strives to inspire them.

A' Design Award & Competition, one of the most well-known international annual juried competitions for design, is currently accepting submissions for its next cycle. The prestigious awards program covers a wide range of creative fields to highlight the very best designers from all countries in all disciplines. Entries to the competition are peer-reviewed and judged by a jury panel of experienced academics, prominent press members and established professionals.

The A' Design Award is an opportunity for distinction, prestige, publicity and international recognition through the A' Design Prize, which is given to celebrate all awarded designs. While the A' Design Awards accepts entries 100 main categories, including lighting, toy, car design and more, we've chosen to highlight a list of our favorite winners in the Furniture, Decorative Items and Homeware Design category. We hope this list raises awareness of the talented winning designers while inspiring you to submit your own work for recognition. This particular category is open to both concept stage and realized designs, so really anything goes. 

Sagano Bamboo Furniture Chair and lamps by Alice Minkina (Image: Alice Minkina)

Heart Bike hanger by Martin Foret (Image: Martin Foret, 2016)

Corona Cabinet by Jo Zhu - Suyab Design (Image: Wang Zao-Hui)

ANGLE Bookshelf by Selami Gündüzeri (Image: Selami Gündüzeri, 2016)

VacuumGlow Clock by Vadim Garnaev (Image: Photographer Vadim Garnaev, VacuumGlow Brown Coal, 2016)

DROP MARBLE COFFEE TABLE Coffee Table by Buket Hoscan Bazman (Image: Buket Hoscan Bazman, 2016)

Multifunctional Sideboard by CreateSpace Multifunctional Sideboard by Peter Fritsch (Image: Miroslava Kašubová & Jarolím Žácek)

laundrybag Laundry Hamper by Katja Horst (Image: Photographer Johann Cohrs, 2016, variations)

Stocker Chair Chair - Stool by FREUDWERK, Matthias Scherzinger (Image: FREUDWERK, Matthias Scherzinger)

Chieut Table Table by JAY DESIGN (Image: JAY DESIGN, 2016)

a chairs Multi functional chair by Yi-An Hung, Yestudio (Image: Clivelan)

Wave Table by Attila Stromajer (Image: Photographer Marcell Mizik, Norbert Szilas, Wave, 2016)

Binhi Multifunctional Bench by Ito Kish (Image: Photographer Paulo Antonio Valenzuela, Binhi collection shot at the Peninsula Manila)

Coq Chilled cheese trolley by Patrick Sarran (Image: Patrick Sarran)

View more A' Design Award winners from all categories here, and follow this link to enter your work for consideration. 

Modernist Studio focuses on strategy and design work for big brands. In working with these companies, we've seen a theme around "owning the consumer." Each company is fighting to become front and center in people's lives, with a particular focus on the home. Big companies speak about locking in customers to a technological future focused on their brand; startups in the valley identify the same goal, but couch that goal increased convenience, comfort, pleasure, or experience in the home.

We've also seen a trend towards a disposability of culture, one where things are delivered, used, and discarded. Coffee delivery from Keurig, ingredients delivered from Blue Apron, smoothie packs from the now defunct Juicero; our home is the centerpiece for all things garbage to show up, be used once or twice, and then disappear. We've arrived at a convenience economy.

And, we see a theme of fear. In the privacy of our corporate-entrenched homes, comforted by our delivery services, we lock our doors entrench, creating a sense of timidness towards interacting with the world. Our security becomes paramount, as if our way of life could be stolen from under our very noses.

The New Materialism of The Home is a discursive exploration into that future. We've highlighted a future that seems plausible, but unfortunate in its believability: it's a future of technology run amok, but hiding in plain sight.

British retailer Made.com asked a bunch of pre-teen kids to draw "what homes might look like in the future." The company then commissioned an illustrator to render them, and surprisingly, some of these don't look that far-fetched:

Alannah, age 7, Woking

This home features fluffy carpet walls, and its windows are made out of melted strawberry lollipops. The giant slide is made out of jelly (making it extra slippery and bouncy) and enables inhabitants easy access to the outside play area (which includes swings, a trampoline and a swimming pool).

Isla, age 10, Worthing

This home powers itself thanks to the solar panels covering the exterior walls and roof. With an interior which boasts a library, games room, music studio and gym, there really is something for everyone here.

Gana, age 7, Crawley

On the right hand side of this house, it is always night-time and you can view the stars using the large telescope on the roof. On the left hand side, there is constant sunlight and a large trampoline. This home is equipped with a long slide and benefits from a large balcony.

Charlie, age 5, Folkestone

This home has the ability to move itself, and can travel long distances on its mechanical legs. Its exterior features a range of delicious treats and sweets, including its windows. This house also benefits from a rocket roof, so it's ready to blast off at any second.

Ellis, age 7, Harlow

This home is built to last – it's constructed using titanium bricks, and fitted with bullet proof windows and a steel roof. Next to the house is a small oak shed. In this vision of the future, even the clouds are made of metal.

Kya, age 12, Esher

Located by the sea, this home features a glass panel roof and is made out of fine wood. Its architectural design is definitely unlike that of traditional homes; but what really sets this house apart is its ability to camouflage at night time.

Hamza, age 8, Crawley

This home in a wild forest is situated high up in the trees and benefits from stunning views. The treehouse is accessible via the large stone steps which lead to the rope ladder.

Tilda, age 7, Folkestone

This sugar-coated home is made out of custard cream. There are cherry flavoured bricks on the edges of the home, candy windows and a bubble gum door. To top it all off, strawberry juice coats the roof of this delicious house.

Ameen, age 10, Crawley

This "street" of multi-coloured homes floats in the clouds. The houses come in a variety of different shapes and sizes, and flowers grow in the skies.

Antoni, age 10, Worthing

This eco-friendly pyramid-shaped home is equipped with solar panels, a port for your hover car and a viewing point to take in the local landscape. It also benefits from a sliding front door.

I'd say none of these look as outlandish as the stuff Frank Gehry puts out.

LUNAR is an award-winning design firm that has spent 30+ years creating stand out product experiences, including everything from 360 degree cameras to DNA sequencers to ice cream scoops. LUNAR was acquired by McKinsey & Company in May 2015—the partnership provides our clients a full-spectrum offering that combines McKinsey’s depth in business strategy with LUNAR’s unmatched capability in design, engineering, and insights.

You remember this couch that folds into bunk beds?

That one, called the Doc, was featured in our most popular video of all time. We've long known that that piece, and many of the others in the Resource Furniture showroom where we shot it, was designed and manufactured by Italian company Clei. But we never knew the name of the actual designer(s).

Well, this video below is currently making the rounds, featuring an update to the design, and now we've got a bit of a mystery on our hands:

The new version looks easier to operate, and I was interested to see the support mechanisms were left exposed in this iteration, as opposed to the previous design, which conceals it. From what I've seen of Clei's designs, the exposure seems rather uncharacteristic.

I was interested to see the designer of this latest iteration listed as "Kassandra 'Bonbon" Ferreira." I looked into Ferreira and while I could find no designer of that name, she and her husband, Peter Gunnarsson, founded a company called Bonbon Trading Limited to distribute Clei's furniture in the U.K. Puzzlingly, this iteration of the design, called the Flip, appears on neither Bonbon's website nor Clei's. I was also unable to find anything linking Ferreira to Clei beyond the distributorship, so I'm stumped. If any of our Italian readers are familiar with Clei or Ferreira and can shed some light, please let us know!

Remember how Dubai's police department uses a fleet of supercars as their cruisers? Now the flashy force has added another head-turning vehicle: A Scorpion 3 hoverbike built by Russian company Hoversurf.

According to Autoblog,

…The police force aims to deploy its latest toy as a first-responder vehicle in hard-to-reach places, such as the middle of a traffic jam. Conveyed to a staging point, the Scorpion's 660-pound cargo capacity could carry an officer to a choke-point scene with aid before a Mercedes G-wagen or Bugatti Veyron could get through. The hoverbike also does standard drone duty with a range of up to six kilometers.

I'd love to see these here in New York City. Alas, this is the NYPD's latest vehicle.

In many cases, the millennial generation has been forced to grow up way too fast, thanks to the ever-evolving social media phenomenon. What used to be back and forth AIM messages at 2AM while your parents sleeping has quickly morphed into full-fledged profiles aiming to show the world detailed versions of exactly who you are—or in many cases, who you aspire to be. 

As a whole, millennials are characterized as self-absorbent, especially when it comes to online presence. However, there are two specific types of social media obsessions worth distinguishing between: Aimlessly scrolling through your Instagram feed for 4+ hours a day, gaining no knowledge from wasted time is one thing, but using social platforms to meticulously plan out a future career is another case entirely—one I strongly believe we shouldn't discourage in the design world.

Case in point: Aspiring sneaker designer Nigel Langley Jr landed a job at adidas' new Brooklyn-based Creator Farm at just 17 years old, making him the youngest sneaker designer currently in the industry. That's no easy task, considering most sneaker designers go through years of schooling before even landing an interview.

Scrolling through Langley's Instagram feed makes sneaker enthusiasts like myself drool, but what sets the young designer apart is his work behind the scenes. Langley spent time reaching out to designers he admired through Instagram's Direct Message feature. Thanks to these efforts, Langley was able to get in contact with (controversial) adidas VP, Marc Dolce. Langley's initial message in 2015 eventually warranted sound advice from Dolce, encouraging the young designer to pursue his dreams by way of footwear specific education:

Dolce's grammar needs some serious work, but what a lovely message! 

Langley also took Dolce up on his offer too meet after a course the VP was teaching at Pratt Institute, and the rest was history. Now 18 years old, Langley works at adidas' Brooklyn Creative Farm while simultaneously attending Parsons School of Design.

As designers potentially seeking fresh talent for their firms, it's important to remember there is an abundance of young designers out there paving the way for themselves through personal social channels in a positive way. While self-absorbed tendencies are a negative trait of the millennial generation, at least the majority of us understand how to market ourselves online. 

So, if you're an employer looking for talent from younger generations, it may be time to exit your LinkedIn tab and focus your attention on image-based social platforms like Instagram. Weed through the aimless social media zombies, reach out to kids actually exhibiting potential, and maybe you'll find the next Nigel Langley Jr. of your industry.

And if you're a millennial designer reading this, keep doin' your thing—productively, that is.

*******

View the full story at NiceKicks.

Designers, we're curious to hear your thoughts on the millennial generation in the design workplace and ways that you go about searching for new talent—please share your experiences with us in the comments section.

This is the latest installment of our Core77 Questionnaire. Previously, we talked to Li Edelkoort.

Name:Mika Piirainen

Occupation: I'm a designer at Marimekko's ready-to-wear design team. In the past, I have also designed some prints for Marimekko, but at the moment I'm concentrating on creating the silhouettes. In this job it's important to understand the characteristics of prints, as well as the foundation of Marimekko's ready-to-wear—paying equal attention to the print and the shape of the garment.

Location: Helsinki, Finland

Current projects: At the moment we're designing the spring 2019 collection—there's some recognizable Marimekko looks coming. As Marimekko has never been about trendy fashion but about timeless design, we're always many seasons ahead in our design work.

All images provided by Marimekko

Mission: One of the most iconic Marimekko designers, Vuokko Eskolin-Nurmesniemi, stated many decades ago that the woman is the one that should be sexy, not the dress. I have always kept this in mind when designing. Marimekko's design philosophy is based on empowering women to walk their own path and bringing joy to everyday moments through timeless and functional designs.

When did you decide that you wanted to be a designer? I actually never decided or wanted to be a designer—it was a lucky and happy accident. Sometimes life takes you in a direction that you never though it would take you. After working as a Marimekko designer for over two decades now, I wouldn't change a thing!

Education: I graduated from the Lahti Institute of Design and Fine Arts in Finland and from Ravensbourne College in London as well.

First design job? My first design job was actually at Marimekko, the iconic Finnish design house known for its original prints and colors. In 1994, the Marimekko team came to critique my final student presentation at Lahti Institute of Design and Fine Arts, and afterwards they told me to call them. Within a few days, I had an interview with Marimekko's previous owner Kirsti Paakkanen herself. I got hired as a design assistant in the middle of the first meeting. I was very lucky.

Describe your workspace: I work from many different locations. Sometimes from the Marimekko headquarters in Helsinki, sometimes from my home and sometimes on the road. Traveling is a great source of inspiration for my work, I consider myself as a nomad.

What is your most important tool? Imagination is my most important tool as a designer. Besides Marimekko's rich heritage and history that goes all the way to the year 1951, as well as my travels, Marimekko's in-house printing factory is a great source of inspiration for me. Around a million meters of fabric are printed here every year. The printing mill serves both as a factory and as an innovative hub for our creative community. These things especially feed my imagination.

Marimekko SS18

What is the best part of your job? My favorite part of my job is seeing someone wear my designs. It is inspiring to see these designs as an important part of people's everyday lives.

What challenges do you face at work? I feel that the most challenging part of my job is the fact that we're designing functional and timeless pieces. This requires a lot of thought in the design process. You need to think of many details to achieve this goal.

How do you procrastinate? My favorite thing to do when I want to procrastinate is garden. It puts things in perspective and is a great counterweight for all the thinking and problem solving that design work requires.

What is your favorite productivity tip or trick? I like to think that things will always work out. My favorite productivity tip is to be relaxed and stress-free—when you're stressed, you'll never be able to get the best out of your productivity.

Sarpaneva cast-iron pot, Timo Sarpaneva

What is the best-designed object in your home? The best-designed object in my home is a Sarpaneva cast-iron pot designed by Finnish designer Timo Sarpaneva in 1960. I love how practical but also appealing the pot with its wooden handle is.

Who is your design hero? I have two design gurus: Alfred Hitchcock and Sarah Winchester.

People don't usually think movies as a design, but from my point of view, the British movie director Alfred Hitchcock was a master in designing entities. The costumes, casting, story—all the pieces in his movies create a seamless entity. He also mastered timelessness in his designs—his movies truly stand the test of time.

Sarah Winchester is my other design guru for the Winchester Mystery House that she built to San José, California. She kept building the house for many decades. There's a lot of things that are opposite of functionality; the odd design of this house fascinates me, and I look forward to seeing the movie about the house that will be out next year.

What is the most important quality in a designer? A designer is a problem solver as well. When you create something new, there are always some problems that you need to solve in order to create timeless and functional design. Another important quality is to be able to be a bit laid-back even under a pressure—nothing good comes out when you're too stressed.

In design, one must always look forward but also treasure rich heritage. Sometimes heritage can be more interesting than the future.

What is the most widespread misunderstanding about design or designers? The most widespread misunderstanding about designers is that we master everything in our own. When you're a designer, it's never only about you but the team you have around you. All our professionals, whether they work in sourcing or our in-house printing factory, are actually designers as well. Good design is much more than a beautiful object and is always a team effort; the sense of doing things together has always been essential to our design philosophy. We even have a term for it, we call it Marimekko's creative community.

We've been waiting for this international giant robot fight since 2015, and this month it finally happened. To refresh your memory, American robotics firm MegaBots challenged Japan's Suidobashi Heavy Industries to a mecha-vs.-mecha fight, the challenge was accepted, and trash-talking ensued.

To be honest, I was a little worried that this duel was going to suck.

I figured there's no way these guys would actually deploy giant chainsaw swords and fire projectiles that could do any kind of actual damage, and I also thought that a concern for safety would limit the fighting tactics they'd use.

I was wrong. These guys aren't messing around. And during the two duels, the fear of the pilots inside the cockpits is palpable.

I don't want to spoil anything, and I've cut the video into the two duels. Here's the first, which is practically over before it begins:

Here's the second, which is filled with some surprises and OH SHIT moments:

I eagerly await the rematch!

This story starts with a broken bicycle, and reminds me a bit of how Post-Its were invented.

Richard Brooks is an avid downhill mountain biker, and in the field he continually encountered problems with the chainstay on his bike. Brooks also happens to work for Watts Urethane Products, and as Head of Innovations, has access to resources that allowed him to invent a solution.

Brooks came up with Adventure Tape, a polyurethane-based, adhesive-free tape that has an incredible amount of utility:

I like the fact that it's washable and reusable, unlike duct tape, and of course doesn't leave any residue. Nearly 600 Kickstarter backers agree, as it's just passed its funding goal. If you'd like some for yourself, there are still 15 days left to pledge, and there are still some Early Bird three-packs available for $24.

Maybe you buy a backpack for your new camping hobby, then discover you hate camping. Or there's a two-year-old jacket in your closet that you hardly ever wear because it looked better on you in the store. Maybe you received a better bike light as a birthday gift, and now your old one's gathering dust.

All of these things took resources to produce, and there is a real wastefulness to letting them remain unused--or worse, in landfill. Thus first Patagonia and now REI have launched used goods initiatives, whereby you can trade in "gently used" clothing and gear for store credit. You can also, on the flip side, purchase used goods from them at reduced prices.

If you're looking to buy, Patagonia's WornWear website is well-stocked with both men and women's clothing.

Patagonia has yet to get their Gear section up and running, as they're currently working on the intake phase. If you've got used Patagonia gear that you're looking to trade for credit, bring it to one of their stores.

Though REI launched their version of the initiative after Patagonia's, their Used website features men's and women's clothing and also has a well-stocked gear section.

I browsed through it and the prices are attractive: As one example, this Cycliq HD Camera/Bike Light is going for $195 (it was $279 new).

Kudos to both of these companies for allowing us, as a society, to wring greater utility out of unused mass-produced goods. It's better for us as consumers and it's better for the planet.

These are the longest planes I own. I don't actually use any of them although I have tried. The longest planes I use are in my shop, these planes are in my tool collection.

Long planes, "Jointer Planes" as they are called exist for two reasons:
The first reason is for accurately milling wood. The second reason is for making the soles of other shorter planes accurate.

The first reason is the usual reason we are all taught that when milling wood by hand (which I do) the longer the plane you use the more accurate the final result will be. The standard way of planing anything flat is to first intentionally plane it hollow and then with the longest plane you own go from end to end until the high ends disappear into one long continuous shaving. If you use a short plane the concavity under a shorter plane will be less and therefore you will get that continuous shaving over a shorter distance than a longer plane and it is less accurate. It's beyond the scope of this blog entry to go into all the geometry but that's why in the days when people did all their milling by hand a long plane was pretty useful. This is especially true because in the 18th century, when wood was sawn by hand it was sawn pretty accurately and to final thickness and by the time it got to the joiner ideally only a few passes with a jointer plane were needed to finish the job. Smooth planes were used to take care of low spots the jointer missed.

The second reason comes from shops that used wooden planes regularly. The beech soles of hard used wooden planes wore and the occasional pass over by a long accurate jointer plane easily got their soles back to flat. Shops would keep a long plane especially for this purpose and use shorter planes for most things. Milling wood was done with long but not your longest plane - so that the longest plane would stay flat and could be used to fix all the other planes in the shop.

The long wooden plane 26" (second from the back) is a late 18th century jointer plane by Gabriel. It's in very poor condition, but the main reason it probably survived was because unlike short, more useful planes this plane was initially used as a reference and was taken very good care of for at least the first part of it's working life. Long wooden planes are the lightest of the genre and with their high sides by far the easiest to hold square. I learned this from Larry Williams many years ago and put it into practice. When you hold a plane with a high center of gravity vertically, it feels square, much like holding a glass of water and walking across a room. You get this effect with all planes but with woodies the effect is most pronounced. It because far easier to joint something free hand because once you get used to the sensation you can feel when you are out of square.

The long Stanley 28" transitional plane (no. 33) at the back is a rarity, Mimicking the long wooden planes that were readily available Stanley, offered transitional planes with a wooden sole and a metal mechanism in lengths up to 30". By the time this plane was available however almost every cabinet shop in the US of any size would have used powered machinery to do basic jointing and planing, and there wasn't really much of a call for long planes. In use compared to a regular iron Stanley they are at best mediocre.

Thomas Norris & Son - the great ((mostly) 20th century) infill plane maker listed jointers from 13 1/2" to 28 1/2" long in their catalogs and longer one on special order. I included three (that I don't use) here. The 22 1/2" A1 (the "A" is for adjuster) Norris jointer in the picture (middle) is on the rare side, but once you try using it for any length of time you understand why. It's just too heavy for regular use. The 17 1/2" plane plane I have in the shop (not in the picture) is far, far more common because it was far more useful. Of course by the 1930's there was less and less call for long planes and production was never very high.
Behind the Norris jointer is a 1930's Norris A72 22" wooden jointer plane. This is a collectible rather than a working plane. They suck. Norris in a depression era bid to lower the cost of their tools grafted the Norris mechanism onto a fairly random Beech body. The mouths are wide and it's not uncommon for the cheeks to be cracked. You find them in good cosmetic condition because they weren't used much.

The long plane in front of the Norris jointer is a C. 1920's Stanley Bedrock 608. The 608 being the premium line of Stanley No. 8's. The Number 8 and 608 were the longest iron planes Stanley made and is 24" long with a 2 5/8" wide iron. I find the tool way to heavy for regular use. In my toolbox I have a Bedrock 607 ( 22" long - the same length as a regular No 7) which I like a lot, use, and is long but a lot lighter than the #8. Lie-Nielsen and Clifton make long planes, we have a Clifton no.7 in our showroom and it's a wonderful plane, better in many respects than my 607, but both Clifton and Lie-Nielsen use far heavier castings than the original Stanleys. I find the modern 8's and 7's planes unwieldy for a long sessions of planing.

The English use the term "Panel Plane" to describe planes that are too long to be smoothers and too short to be very accurate jointers. 13"-18" long or thereabouts. These planes are a wonderful size and perfect for dressing timber in most cases.

In the front on the left is a C. 1830-1840 panel plane by Robert Towell This is one of the earliest iron panel planes in existence and it might have even been an experiment by Towell. It predates the typical construction of a panel plane and internally it is more like a mitre plane, with the bevel down but a mouth cut in and the sides wrapped around. Next to it on the right is a 13 1/2" A1 Norris panel plane. C. 1920's This is a very very nice plane to have for planing boards when accuracy isn't the primary concern (although it is more accurate than a smooth plane and usually has a wider blade). As mentioned earlier I mostly use a 17 1/2" panel plane, but you can use a longer and less wieldly longer plane to give you your accuracy and do the bulk of your work with this plane. As antique tools go these shorter infills are far more common, although it's important to get one in good original shape, and too much "restoring" can lessen the very properties that make these planes desirable in the first place. Stanley make a panel plane sized number 5 1/2, but I find the balance off and it has never had much appeal for me.

Now that I have a planer (I didn't use to) I find myself reaching for long planes less and less. If you really want to work unplugged even for milling timber a No 7 or better yet a wooden long jointer is a wonderful thing to have. The other options are IMHO too heavy (please don't write me if you love your No. 8 - that's fine but this blog is about what I find useful).
If you mostly use machines for planing wood really all you need is a smoother you can count on, but a panel plane is really nice to have.

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This "Tools & Craft" section is provided courtesy of Joel Moskowitz, founder of Tools for Working Wood, the Brooklyn-based catalog retailer of everything from hand tools to Festool; check out their online shop here. Joel also founded Gramercy Tools, the award-winning boutique manufacturer of hand tools made the old-fashioned way: Built to work and built to last.