Brought to you by MAKO Design + Invent, North America's leading design firm for taking your product idea from a sketch on a napkin to store shelves. Download Mako's Invention Guide for free here.

Navigating the world of crowdfunding can be overwhelming, to put it lightly. Which projects are worth backing? Where's the filter to weed out the hundreds of useless smart devices? To make the process less frustrating, we scour the various online crowdfunding platforms to put together a weekly roundup of our favorite campaigns for your viewing (and spending!) pleasure. Go ahead, free your disposable income:

SwitchBot—a line of easy-to-use, retrofit smart home solutions—has just come out with a new offering: a small, connected device that will turn any curtain into a smart one. Why do you need to automate your curtains, you ask? In addition to convenience—no more getting up in the middle of the movie to fix the glare—they can help save energy and improve sleep cycles. There are already smart window treatments on the market, but this one let's you keep your favorite curtains in place and doesn't come with any unsightly power cords.

Tero makes composting look easy. The award-winning tabletop technology boasts the ability to crush and dry food waste, reducing its volume by 90% in just three hours.

This DIY kit makes the art of horology much more accessible. Choose one of three styles and you'll receive everything you need to make a 17 jewel mechanical movement watch—including access to a digital support team to help you along with the harder parts of the process.

Part faucet, part fountain, this redesigned fixture might make your bathroom rituals a lot easier—particularly for those with chronic pain.

There are 20,000 species of bees on the planet and most of them are not the yellow-and-black, highly social ones we're used to. In fact, most of those species are solitary native bees that live alone in small cavities they find in the ground or in trees. Architect Candace Vanderhoff turned her attention to creating habitats for these vital members of our ecosystem so that anyone can play a part in restoring the bee population.

Do you need help designing, developing, patenting, manufacturing, and/or selling YOUR product idea? MAKO Design + Invent is a one-stop-shop specifically for inventors / startups / small businesses. Click HERE for a free confidential product consultation.

Remember Signs.com's logo drawing challenge? It was fun to see the results of 150 people being asked to draw popular logos (Apple, Target, Starbucks and more) from memory; even simple ones like Apple's yielded an incredible variety, most of them wildly inaccurate.

UK-based promotional company Adler has just run a copycat challenge with more logos, some of them familiar to us Yanks, some not. If you're a designer with some markers on your desk right now, before you scroll down any further--can you draw, from memory, the logos for BMW, Lego, Puma and Spotify? Once you've sketched them out, scroll down and see how yours stacks up to the 100 other peoples' efforts.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

BMW

LEGO

PUMA

SPOTIFY

You've got to love the attempt at the Spotify logo at top left of that chart.

Here's a few more logos that ought be familiar, at least Stateside:

LACOSTE

SHELL

RED BULL

Finally, here are the rest of the logos Adler asked for, which ought be familiar to our Euro-based readers:

CADBURY

VODAFONE

ALDI

By the bye, if any of you want to take a stab at it and won't cheat, please draw the Core77 logo from memory, and attach it in the comments. The winner will receive a firm handshake if they appear at the next Core77 Conference.

The deterioration of eyesight is terrifying. As I get older, I now have to use my smartphone to photograph labels and other tiny text, then pinch and zoom on the image to read it. I recently received a subscription to Car & Driver as a gift, and discovered that the magazine's font size is too small for me to read.

For me, that's a mild hassle. For the millions of folks who have worse vision than mine--those who suffer from macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, retinitis pigmentosa, and glaucoma--poor vision is absolutely debilitating.

Dr. Frank Werblin, a professor of neuroscience at UC Berkeley, was trying to solve this problem by developing retinal chip implants. But as he became aware of developments in virtual reality technology, he realized he could take a page out of their book to create something less expensive and invasive than implants.

The result is IrisVision, a set of high-tech goggles that you snap a smartphone in front of. The smartphone's camera feeds video to the goggles, and what the users sees are algorithmically-modified images specifically tuned to the user's species of visual impairment. The result is that "IrisVision helps the user's brain access the parts of their eyes that still function properly and provides enough information to fill in the gaps and remap the scene captured by the smartphone camera into a complete picture."

In addition to providing a clear picture, the goggles also allow the user to zoom in. I do wonder how nausea and safety concerns have been worked out.

My vision isn't yet bad enough that I'd be willing to strap a pair of these on, at least not on a regular basis. As you can see from the photos, the object is rather physically ungainly. This device could use the ministrations of a supremely gifted team of designers, but even then I'm not sure what they'd be able to pull off with the existing technology; Werblin's aim is to use existing gear to keep the cost low, or at least, lower than the alternative.

A set of IrisVision goggles costs $2,950. If that sounds like a lot, consider that retinal implants are projected to cost six figures. More importantly, IrisVision is reversible--if they don't work for you, you can simply take them off (and get your money back); the company has a 30-day return policy.

Along these lines, we also wrote about these hi-tech Japanese eyeglasses that supposedly allow you to change focus and zoom in. Sadly they appear to be Japanese-market only.

Mitsui Chemical's TouchFocus eyeglasses

Also along these lines: Did you guys ever see the Wim Wenders movie "Until the End of the World?" It's a sci-fi movie where a scientist invents a set of goggles that connect to the brain and "recreate the biochemical event of seeing," if I'm remembering the dialogue correctly. Anyways it's discovered that if you leave the goggles on while sleeping, you can actually record your dreams and re-watch them when you're awake. The test subjects unexpectedly become addicted to watching their dreams--I'm talking, like, heroin-level addicted. It's a pretty interesting flick.

A still from "Until the End of the World," the 1991 Wim Wenders sci-fi movie

Regular Core77 readers will remember that I was obsessed with Preston Tucker's unusual design for a 1940s pickup truck with only half a cab:

A handful of you gamely accepted our challenge to complete the design.

While cruising Coroflot just now, I came across another concept vehicle that reminded me of it. Designed by Marouane Bembli, it's his concept for a Volkswagen Outbox, a weird and wonderful vehicle envisioned as a go-fer car for the World Expo that Milan hosted back in 2015:

I'll cut some of the images in half so I can blow them up a bit here:

I freaking love it. It looks like something you'd have seen in Car Styling magazine in the '90s. It would put a smile on my face if I saw an electric version of this zipping around in a convention hall or an airport terminal.

As it turns out Bembli, who hails from Sweden but has now relocated to Florida, has a rather interesting design hobby and sideline. Stay tuned and we'll cover it. In the meantime, check out Bembli's portfolio on Coroflot.

They say you have to know the rules in order to break them. And industrial designer Marouane Bembli, the guy behind that nifty Volkswagen cargo car concept, certainly understands the rules of automotive design; it appears he spends most of his waking time drawing every type of vehicle in existence.

With the rules down, then, his hobby--under the nickname The Sketch Monkey--is to tinker with the design of these cars, righting what he sees as wrongs, subjective though it is:

A Huracan reimagined as a front-engine GT car. Except for the grille, the changes make it read more Jaguar than Lamborghini to me.

Re-imagined 2019 Lincoln Continental. I have to imagine this would sell well.

I admire the effort, but can anyone really fix a Crossfire?

He's even branched out into iconic TV cars, taking 1980s show The A-Team's van…

…and showing you what it'd look like if it was a modern-day GMC Savana cargo van:

If you're looking for some sketch-spiration, there are multiple places where you can see more of The Sketch Monkey's work.

- His Coroflot portfolio, we recommend you start here.

- His deep archive of sketches/renderings on Facebook.

- His YouTube channel, featuring real-time videos of his design makeovers.

Finally there's what appears to be his current gig, in design education. He teaches car and product design sketching skills online, through this portal. And we're talking analog skills, with good ol' pens and markers.

I don't know what it says about our society, when a three-minute video demonstrating creative shoelace-tying patterns goes viral. But last I checked this had some 250 million views on Facebook. Perhaps the sneakerheads among you will see the appeal?

You know how sometimes, someone points something out, and then you can't unsee it? Like the first time you realized the FedEx logo contained an arrow? Well, this Tweet here contains the fine art version of that.

The side-by-side:

Looking forward to the comments/angry e-mails from people who believe I'm writing this earnestly!

Previously, I thought the most hilarious police vehicles were these NYPD Smart cars:

But if we travel farther back in time than 2017, to the 1960s, we learn that Port Authority cops in New York--those responsible for policing the tunnels in and out of town, among other facilities--once had to patrol the Holland Tunnel in these things:

The January, 1954 issue of Popular Mechanicsreveals that the car is electric, and bi-directional:

Image and text: Popular Mechanics

The nearby Lincoln Tunnel, for reasons unknown, had tunnel carts of a different design. Rather than riding on rails, they were hooked to a low railing affixed to the wall:

This Lincoln design had sheet-metal sides and did away with the fancy canopy of the Holland design, though there are two adorable little semicircular windscreens:

And as you can see, these were not designed for plus-sized cops.

Incredibly, these tunnel carts persisted into the 21st Century; the New York Times reports that the last one was decommissioned in 2011.

Project M Plus is a Silver Lake based collective of designers and architects, and we’re looking for a superbly organized, creative type to help with client services, project management and new business. Love of design and architecture, top-notch writing skills, and occasional office DJ are must-haves. Responsibilities:

"Well no, it doesn't work great as a smartphone. But we have found that if you throw it, it comes back to you, which is pretty cool."

True story: This is a $418 luxury "designer" leather tissue dispenser that you have to open and load with a stack of tissues.

"This will be a positive addition to my lifestyle (as soon as I figure out how the orientation lock on an iPad works)."

"I'm trying to marry the addictiveness of something you can pop repeatedly with an object that only needs to be manipulated once per day. And actually, it doesn't matter if you can't control yourself and pop all of the bubbles; popping one doesn't actually provide any visual difference."

Haven't you always wanted a partially-transparent bathtub, so that anyone viewing you can see you from the least-flattering angle possible?

"After you fill it and empty it just 117 times, it pays for itself!"

"That's a good point, I guess there isn't any good way to clean these. But look at how there's a shark inside! A SHARK!"

If the color of water bores you and you need to shower in a rainbow, you're either out of problems, or not focusing on any real problems that might exist in your life.

"Now that you mention it, yes, females have stopped coming into the store. But they're only 50% of our customer base, so I guess it's fine."

"This is a dedicated smartphone clean screener. The replaceable cleaning pads only cost $10 for a two-pack! Once you buy one of these, you'll wonder how you ever got by without…you know what, screw this. I'm not reading this goddamn copy. No, fuck you, I quit."

Graphic designer Mariyan Atanasov may hail from Bulgaria, and Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov hailed from Soviet Russia, but Atanasov found an amusing way to connect their two cultures. Atanasov captured images of the Brutalist apartment buildings in his native Sofia, isolated repeating elements, and retouched them to look like they're part of a massive game of Tetris:

Texas-based Atanasov does graphic design, photography and image retouching. If he also had game development skills and created a building-based version of Tetris, I bet it'd sell like hotcakes.

I was complaining to my wife about shitty design after this happened:

That's the mouth of the chute for our riding mower. The slot is meant to fit over a protruding metal tab on the mower deck. Because the slot is perilously close to the edge of the mouth, with no reinforcement whatsoever, it split last July after less than one year of use.

The following day my wife fixed it with a plus-sized zip tie and a piece of brass, and it's lasted to date:

I've learned that living on a farm entails many DIY repairs. A lot of shit breaks, and re-breaks, so you keep fixing and re-fixing. Unlike when I was living in the city, there is no nearby place where you can quickly acquire materials; if I have to drive off-farm to a nearby town for supplies, it's a minimum two-hour commitment. So it's desirable to do repairs with whatever you have on hand.

Then there's the stuff you cannot possibly repair, like this:

All of you know what that is, all of you have seen that, all of you know how it happened. Few, if any of you, can actually fix the damn thing yourself.

Apple and other manufacturers don't want you to be able to fix a broken smartphone or laptop, nor bring it to an independent repair center. They cite some bullshit about "user experience" and do not release the parts and service manuals that were once common with appliances in this country. If those manuals were out there, you could conceivably fix the things yourself, and little mom-and-pop repair shops would be far easier to start.

"People just want to fix their stuff. We are tired of manufacturers price-gouging for repairs, selling us disposable electronics and pushing us to buy new instead of fixing what we already have," says Nathan Proctor of U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups, an organization that combats malevolent special interests.

"Electronic waste is the fastest-growing waste stream in the world. It's high time we stopped manufacturers from blocking repair, which keeps devices working and off the scrap heap. It's better for consumers and better for the environment, and whether or not manufacturers like it, more and more people agree: We deserve the right to repair our products."

But the companies aren't interested in releasing such documents, and the federal government doesn't give a damn. That's why a handful of states (20, last count) are considering legislation this year to compel these big-dog companies to cough up parts and service information.

Colloquially referred to as "Right-to-Repair" bills, they face a pretty uphill battle, because the manufacturers all have tons of lobbying money. Also, idiots in Congress. New Hampshire's right-to-repair bill was just voted down*, with State Representative John Potucek uttering this incredible sentence:

"In the near future, cellphones are throwaways. Everyone will just get a new one."

*(The details, according to the New Hampshire Business Review: "The New Hampshire House Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee overwhelming voted to send the controversial measure to interim study. If, as expected, the full House backs the recommendation, it will kill the bill, at least for now." In other words, sending the bill to "study" gets it off of the books for the next session.)

Motherboard took the temperature of a local businessperson, who indicated why that kind of thinking is a problem:

"At our three locations throughout [New Hampshire], we serve tens of thousands of our neighbors and visitors each year," Chad Johansen, president of NH iPhone Repair, said in an email. "Many of our customers are happy with their devices and would rather spend $100 to fix their current device instead of $1000 for a new one with little to no updates or added features. Now the [manufacturers] such as Apple and Samsung are making it harder for residents of NH to repair the devices they own."

This is one area where we can exercise our right to vote. First off, check to see if your state is among the 20 listed below:

The full list of states with active legislation in 2019 includes

- California

- Hawaii

- Illinois

- Indiana

- Massachusetts

- Minnesota

- Missouri

- Montana

- North Dakota

- Nevada

- New Hampshire

- New Jersey

- New York

- Oregon

- South Dakota

- Vermont

- Virginia

- Washington

- West Virginia

The links will bring you to the name of the bill in that particular state. Then you can call or e-mail your local congressperson to see if they support the bill. If they don't, and you're for it, perhaps you can correct the error during the next election.

No one is more terrified of robots than I am, so when I heard that Corridor Digital created a militarized parody of those Boston Dynamics robot videos, I watched it with one eye open.

Surprisingly, it was more funny than terrifying. And there's a terrific twist at the end, which I don't want to spoil for you:

Now that desktop 3D printing has become widespread, there's another production method crossing over into the DIY realm: Desktop injection molding. It's now possible "to create molds in-house to produce small, functional parts in production plastics," writes Formlabs.

"For low-volume production (approximately 10-100 parts), 3D-printed molds save time and money. They also enable a more agile manufacturing approach, allowing engineers and designers to easily modify molds and continue to iterate on their designs with low lead times and cost."

With a stereolithography (SLA) 3D printer, you can produce molds that are smooth and strong enough--at least with a little help--to use for injection-molding small runs (10 to 100 parts, Formlabs reckons). What they've done in their testing is placed the molds--which have cavities, gates and sprues, they're the real deal--into aluminum frames, which prevent the mold from warping. You can work with standardized aluminum frames from injection molder manufacturers, or spend the bread to have something custom fabricated at a machine shop.

For the mold material they used both clear and high-temperature resin. Obviously you need something that can withstand a higher temperature than the plastic that's going to be squirted into it.

Next they used a desktop (okay, benchtop) Galomb Model B-100 Injection Molder, which is relatively affordable at about four grand. They squirted low-density polyethylene into the mold--LDPE was specifically chosen for its low-melt temperature--and were successfully able to produce these parts:

It's worth noting that the LDPE didn't stick to the molds, i.e. they didn't require any release agents. They did, however, get a little flash. And they report that the cycle time was three minutes per shot.

If you want to read the details of the process, along with info on some of the other plastics they tested out…

…Formlabs has released their findings as a white paper, "Injection Molding from 3D Prints."

While it's free to download, there is a catch--you need to enter your e-mail address, and they openly state "We will also opt you into other relevant marketing communication," so you can presumably expect some spam.

Mid Century Modern fans with average budgets hunt through flea markets and secondhand stores, hoping to find that undiscovered, dust-covered gem. What I wouldn't give to stumble across a Wegner with a broken leg, so I could get it on the cheap and patch it up in my shop.

Not so the rich, who want things that aren't in fixer-upper condition. So when Christie's held their "Design" auction earlier this month, the MCM pieces on show were all pristine--and clocked up to £72,500 (USD $93,220) for a single piece!

I'll give you a taste below. (Not all of the pieces shown are chronologically Mid Century Modern, but then again, that label didn't exist until author Cara Greenberg coined it in her 1984 book, "Mid-century Modern: Furniture of the 1950's.")

Finn Juhl (1912-1989)

Description: A pair of armchairs, model no. FJ45, designed 1945

Materials: Teak, fabric upholstery, leather piping

Notes: Executed by master cabinetmakers Niels Vodder, Copenhagen, Denmark

Dimensions: Each 33 x 26 ¾ x 29 ½ in. (84 x 68 x 75 cm.)

Sold for £72,500

Description: An early 'Chieftain' armchair, model no. FJ49, designed 1949

Materials: Teak, leather

Notes: Executed by master cabinetmakers Niels Vodder, Copenhagen, Denmark

Dimensions: 36 ½ x 41 x 35 ½ in. (93 x 104 x 90 cm.)

Sold for £56,250

Description: A pair of armchairs, model no. FJ53, designed 1953

Materials: Teak, upholstery, brass

Notes: Executed by master cabinetmakers Niels Vodder, Copenhagen, Denmark. Underside of each branded CABINETMAKER NIELS VODDER/COPENHAGEN DENMARK/DESIGN FINN JUHL

Dimensions: Each 29 x 28 ¾ x 31 in. (73.5 x 73 x 78.8 cm.)

Sold for £37,500

Hans Wegner (1914-2007)

Description: A rare cherry 'Valet' chair, model no. JH540, designed 1953.

Materials: Teak, cherry, brass, leather

Notes: Executed by cabinetmakers Johannes Hansen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Underside branded with manufacturer's mark and JOHANNES HANSEN/COPENHAGEN/DENMARK

Dimensions: 37 x 20 x 19 ¼ in. (94 x 51 x 49 cm.)

Sold for £21,250

Description: A set of ten 'Cowhorn' chairs, model no. JH505, circa 1952

Materials: Teak, rosewood inlays, cane

Notes: manufactured by master cabinetmakers Johannes Hansen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Dimensions: Each 28 ¾ x 23 ¼ x 18 in. (73 x 59 x 45.5 cm.)

Sold for £118,750

Description: A pair of 'China' armchairs, model no. 4283, designed 1943, executed 1969

Materials: Walnut, leather upholstery

Notes: Manufactured by Fritz Hansen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Underside of each with manufacturer's foil label printed FH/MADE IN DENMARK/BY FRITZ HANSEN and dated 1169

Dimensions: Each 32 x 22 ¼ x 22 in. (81.5 x 56.5 x 56 cm.)

Sold for £24,375

Description: An extendable dining table, model no. JH 567, designed 1952

Materials: Teak, oak, with three extending leaves

Notes: Executed by master cabinetmakers Johannes Hansen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Dimensions: 28 ¼ x 144 x 51 ¼ in. fully extended (72 x 366 x 130 cm.)

Sold for £23,750

Description: A 'Long-Horned Bull' chair, model no. JH518, designed 1961

Materials: Oak, leather upholstery

Notes: Executed by master cabinetmakers Johannes Hansen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Underside with manufacturer's metal label JOHANNES HANSEN/COPENHAGEN-DENMARK/DESIGN:* H.J. WEGNER

Dimensions: 28 ¾ x 28 ¼ x 19 ¾ (73 x 78.5 x 50 cm.)

Sold for £10,625

Description: An 'Architect's desk', model no. JH571, designed 1953

Materials: Teak, oak, chromium-plated steel

Notes: Executed by master cabinetmakers Johannes Hansen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Underside of tabletop branded with JOHANNES HANSEN/COPENHAGEN/DENMARK

Dimensions: 28 5/8 x 86 ¾ x 37 3/8 in. (73 x 220 x 95 cm.)

Sold for £72,500

Ole Wanscher (1903-1985)

Description: A desk, 1960s

Materials: Rosewood, rosewood veneer, macassar ebony

Notes: Executed by master cabinetmaker A.J. Iversen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Dimensions: 28 ¾ x 59 ¾ x 30 in. (73 x 152 x 76 cm.)

Sold for £30,000

Ib Kofod-Larsen (1921-2003)

Description: An 'Elizabeth' armchair and ottoman, model no. U 56, designed 1956

Materials: Teak, leather

Notes: Executed by master cabinetmakers Christensen & Larsen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Underside of armchair branded with manufacturer's mark

Dimensions:

Armchair, 27 ¾ x 31 1/8 x 30 ¼ in. (70 x 79 x 77 cm.)

Ottoman, 14 ½ x 22 ½ x 17 ¼ in. (37 x 57 x 44 cm.)

Sold for £12,500

Description: A pair of 'Seal' armchairs, designed 1957

Materials: Teak, original leather upholstery

Notes: Manufactured by master cabinetmakers Olof Persons Fåtöljindustri (OPE), Denmark

Dimensions: Each 24 x 26 ½ x 24 in. (83 x 80 x 63 cm.)

Sold for £12,500

Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971)

Description: A set of twelve 'Grand Prix' chairs, model no. 4130, designed 1957

Materials: Stack laminated teak, teak, leather

Notes: Produced by Fritz Hansen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Dimensions: Each 31 ½ x 18 ¾ x 19 ¾ in. (80 x 47.5 x 50 cm.)

Sold for £12,500

Flemming Lassen (1902-1984)

Description: A pair of lounge chairs, designed 1940

Materials: Stained beech, sheepskin

Notes: Executed by master cabinetmaker Jacob Kjær, Copenhagen, Denmark

Dimensions: Each 29 x 30 x 29 in. (73.8 x 76.2 x 73.8 cm.)

Sold for £45,000

Kaare Klint (1888-1954)

Description: A three-seat sofa, model no. 4118, designed 1930

Materials: Cuban mahogany, Niger leather, brass nailheads

Notes: Manufactured by master cabinetmakers Rud. Rasmussen A/S, Copenhagen, Denmark. Underside with manufacturer's paper label RUD. RASMUSSEN/SNEDKERIER/45 NØRREBROGADE/KØBENHAVN pencilled with order number 30925 and architect's monogrammed paper label

Dimensions: 34 x 78 ½ x 30 in. (86 x 199 x 76 cm.)

Sold for £60,000

Description: A rare custom-made double stool, 1950s

Materials: Cuban mahogany, Niger leather

Notes: Executed by master cabinetmakers Rud. Rasmussen A/S, Copenhagen, Denmark. Underside with manufacturer's paper label RUD. RASMUSSENS/SNEDKERIER/45 NØRREBROGADE/KØBENHAVN handwritten with order number 25660A

Dimensions: 15 ¾ x 75 ½ x 28 ¾ in. (40 x 192 x 73 cm.)

Sold for £62,500

______________

See you guys at the flea market!

Most of my friends think this is crazy, but I refuse to drink hard liquor in cocktail form. If I'm drinking Scotch whisky or regular unleaded whiskey, I'll do a piece of ice; if it's gin, the craziest I'll go is that drop of vermouth. Anything else I either drink straight or not at all.

This has nothing to do with hard living, and everything to do with honoring people's creations, and the history of the cocktail. Cocktails became popular during Prohibition because people had to drink bathtub gin. It tasted so bad that they had to dump sugar and fruit juices into the stuff just to make it palatable.

Then the booze ban was lifted and we could get the good stuff again--but people had gotten hooked on disguising booze as a kiddy drink. To me, drinking a cocktail is like throwing a cheap sheet over a nice Mid Century Modern chair--you can't enjoy the form of what the original creation was. There are families that spent centuries getting their malts and blends just right, and now you go dumping pomegranate juice and chocolate milk into it?

Here's another weird one: Scotch is a booze that's meant to be savored, you can't enjoy it if you shoot it, slam it or guzzle it. So I'm puzzled that Scotch brand Glenlivet has created a special blend that they're serving in capsule form.

They've wrapped the booze in a sachet made out of seaweed (I hope they at least managed to get rid of the seaweed flavor). At 23mL per "dose" that's less than an ounce, or about half of a shot, so I suppose it could be likened to a large sip; but isn't part of the romance (for lack of a better word) of drinking, well, the drinking part? Isn't it preferable that you can control the amount you sip, rather than taking a pre-measured dose?

In the bar of the future, you walk in and the bartender is wiping down these marble tablets

Call me a Luddite, but I'll stick with liquid in glasses. These things look like "get drunk pills" to me.

By Studio Incendo - CC BY 2.0

On the one side are riot police armed with tear gas cannisters. On the other side, unarmed protestors wielding common household items and now a groundskeeping tool.

As the Hong Kong protests stretch into their fourth month, resistors have developed a series of clever DIY defense methods. "Demonstrators have formed special 'units' in charge of tackling tear gas who leap into action as soon as a canister is fired," the AFP reports.

By Studio Incendo - 20190825 Tsuen Wan March ??????????, CC BY 2.0

First off is respiratory protection. Handkerchief-held-to-face appears to be the default, but the more prepared protestors prefer 3M respirators, of the sort that you and I wear when we're spraypainting something in the garage. "Online forums host discussions about which models of 3M respirator filters work best against tear gas and which local hardware stores still have the preferred models in stock."

Pepper spray can irritate the skin, so, sandwich wrap to the rescue. "Some wrap their arms and legs in cling wrap to prevent the painful skin irritations that the gas and pepper spray can cause.

Those tear gas canisters are hot, so you can't just grab them with bare hands to throw them back at the cops. The solution? Oven mitts or other "heat-resistant gloves."

If you don't have the gloves, you can at least contain the tear gas. One way to do this is to drop a traffic cone over it, then extinguish the can by pouring water in the top of the cone.

Another object being used to cover the canisters is "a cheap aluminum wok lid."

The latest addition to the resistance arsenal is wielded by this guy below, who's figured out how to blow the tear gas back long enough for a fellow protestor to cover it:

______________________

Also see: Everything You Need to Put Together Your "Hong Kong Protestor" Halloween Costume

(Title image credit: By Studio Incendo - CC BY 2.0)

It's always fun to guess which subversive "ripped from the headlines" DIY Halloween costume will show up at NYC's annual parade. I think on Thursday you're going to see at least a few "Hong Kong Protest" outfits.

What would that entail? Since the actual protestors are improvising gear out of household items, most of the props are things you probably already own, or will find useful enough to buy. Here's our recommended list:

3M Respirator

$12.50

Combination protection against getting gassed and having your face recognized by a CCTV camera. 3M's tried-and-true half-facepiece 6300 comes in Small, Medium and Large sizes for a comfortable fit.

3M Multi Gas Vapor Cartridge Filter

$22 for a 2-pack

Whether for costume use or actual use, a respirator's no good without the filters. For hipster-level accuracy, go for this pair of 3M's 60626 cartridges, which offer protection from "Organic Vapor, Acid Gas, Ammonia, Methylamine, Formaldehyde." (Those are the closest items we could find to tear gas.)

Steampunk Metal Goggles (with alternative)

$15.99

Costume variety

Real deal

Regular safety glasses don't offer side protection from pepper spray, so go for these canister-style specs, which seal all around your eyes. (Note that the cheapies in the first image are the costume variety; if you want the real deal for use in your shop, drop $34.95 on the German-made variant that welders use.)

Oven Mitts (with alternative)

$9.88

Oven mitts

Barbecue gloves

This is what the protestors use to pick up those burning-hot tear gas canisters, to throw back at the riot police. (If you want something with more dexterity, i.e. discrete fingers, you can spend $29.99 on these heat-resistant, insulated gloves for barbecuing and grilling.)

Cling Wrap

$3.99

Protestors have been wrapping their arms and bare skin in sandwich wrap, to avoid the irritation caused by pepper spray. With 250 square feet per roll, you'll have enough to wrap yourself and a bucketful of sandwiches.

Traffic Cone

$16.85

For covering those tear gas canisters, so that you can pour water into the hole to extinguish them. The IRL protestors have been grabbing these off of the streets for free, but if you do that while marching in NYC's parade, you might catch a beatdown from someone you think is wearing a police costume and who turns out to be an actual cop.

Wok Lid

$14.99

An alternative to the traffic cone, HK protestors have dropped these over tear gas canisters to contain the gas. May or may not be effective at deflecting baton strikes.

Cordless Leaf Blower

$79.00

The latest, most innovative tool in the HK protestor's arsenal. The leaf blower is used (as we saw here) to blow tear gas away from the canister long enough for one of your compatriots to cover and douse it.

__________________

Whether you're protesting or parading, stay safe!

It's encouraging to see innovative designers experimenting with materials to create something clever and useful. It's even more fun to watch those designers continue to evolve, rather than resting on their laurels. One company we've found that's a great example of this is Oru Kayak.

In 2012, designer Anton Willis figured out how to make a lightweight, sturdy, folding, origami-inspired Kayak out of corrugated plastic. By transforming something traditionally very difficult to transport into an easy-to-move-and-store object, Willis changed the game. Oru Kayak was born.

In the years since, Oru has continued refining and expanding upon the original design, releasing four different models to suit differing conditions (day-trip, long-haul, ruggedized, two-person). Now they've pushed themselves to create a fifth variant, this one requiring extreme imagination. "We wanted to push all of Oru's key attributes- portability, weight, foldability- to the absolute max," the company says.

The result is their new 10-foot Inlet Kayak, which required devising a new fold pattern in order to hit their benchmarks. "Every crease was designed from scratch, through dozens of paper and cardboard models. Every fold had to be designed to nest and fit perfectly, to eliminate wasted space and make the smallest box possible."

The resultant watercraft is pretty impressive:

The Inlet has already garnered $979,554 on Kickstarter, and has racked up another $988,477 on IndieGogo. The campaign is still live on the latter platform, and I'd be surprised if they didn't hit $2 million total. Congratulations to the design team!

At YETI, we believe that time spent outdoors matters more than ever and our gear can make that time extraordinary. When you work here, you’ll have the opportunity to create exceptional, meaningful work and problem solve with innovative team members by your side. Together, you’ll help our customers get the high-quality gear they need to make the most of their adventures. We are BUILT FOR THE WILD™. You are a highly motivated self-starting Industrial Designer with a proven track record of bringing consumer products to market. You thrive in fast-paced environments with entrepreneurial DNA, and are comfortable charting new territory. Your creative chops allow you to research, strategize, synthesize and develop concepts across any platform or category.