The Joys Of Peace And Freedom Of Choice...

I realise how fortunate I am, how lucky to be freedom camping at Tokerau Beach in New Zealand's Far North.
As I've said before, it's one of the most beautiful places on the planet.
We've just recently enjoyed the winter solstice and a period of short days and long nights.
There's been the usual storm or two but as you can see, there's been calm, sunny,
summer-like days too.
No matter the weather, nature's beauty nourishes my soul and provides a buffer and a stark contrast to the storms of man's inhumanity to man that prevails in much of this so called civilized world.
Where others are protesting to pursue their own preferred way's of life, peace and freedom of choice...

Beautiful Winning Images From Miami's Underwater Photography Contest...

The University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science hosts an annual underwater photography contest.
From its inception in 2005 the now increasingly popular contest is open to photographers who earn no more than twenty percent of their income from their art.
This year more than seven hundred entries were submitted by folk in twenty three countries.
There's more of the best here...

Peter Durand Produced Canned Food In 1810 And Forty Eight Years Later Ezra Warner Invented The Can Opener...

It was a long time to wait and you'd have been very hungry if you had a few cans of food and lacked the inventiveness to open the things. They would've been well past their use by date.
In 1795 Napoleon offered a cash prize of 12,000 francs for a new way of keeping and preserving food for the French military.
Nicolas Appert was onto it with his method of placing food in glass jars and heating them.
The process was underway with inventor Peter Durand producing the first cans made of iron and tin in 1810.
The canning method was successful and having stocks of canned food became a status symbol in Europe's middle class homes.
But there was a problem. Opening the cans required brute strength or ingenuity or both.
Fortunately for the hungry masses, Ezra Warner of Waterbury, Connecticut, came along in 1858 with the first basic can opener.
Then in 1878 William Lyman invented the can opener variety that most of us use today.
Bill, what would we've done without you... 

The Stuffed Chair. Ingeniously Made From Recycled Bicycle Parts...

The Stuffed Chair, so I'm reliably informed is named for the phenomenon of a head on bicycle collision resulting in the aforesaid bicycle attaining a compacted dimensional state.
To wit, stuffed.
And when a bicycle is stuffed, it's usually best to replace the damaged frame. The bike remains the same bike of course no matter how many parts are replaced.
A bit like the axe that has its handle replaced a few times and the head replaced too. No matter how many times, it's still the same axe.
But back to The Stuffed Chair, designed and very cleverly put together by Andy Gregg and who you can find here.
One of the bikes in the Stuffed creation, the Serotta, hit a cattle grate and the Rossin had the misfortune to hit a deer.
Oh dear...

Waiter. There's A Face In My Food...

It's one thing to have a fly in your soup or a crawly thing in your salad.
And it's not unknown to have egg on your face or a message in the tea leaves but some apparitions that appear can really put you off your lunch...

Diogenes - A Tiny Minimalist Living Unit By Renzo Piano...

This tiny living space conceived by Pritzker Prize winning architect Renzo Piano, was named after the philosopher Diogenes who it's said, lived in a barrel because he considered worldly luxuries superfluous.
It's a minimalist living space and as such functions completely autonomously as a self-contained unit, independent of its environment.
The 2-5 x 3m Diogenes says Renzo Piano is the result of a long journey partially driven by desires and dreams but also technology and science.
Diogenes has everything needed for living, all reduced by design philosophy to the minimum.
There's more to know about less here and here...

You Can Never Have Too Many Carparks Says Boston's Lisa Blumenthal After Spending $560,000 For Another Two...

You can never have too many carparks says Boston's Lisa Blumenthol.
She's recently paid $560,000 at auction for two weed bordered carparks behind her palatial home on Commonwealth Avenue.
Which already has three carparks.
Now she has five and that's a nice round number but will they be enough if some friends call in.
And is enough ever enough...