Check out Sneaker Freaker for The History of Skate Shoes part 1 and part 2 for some great product shots of old school skate shoes. My first memories of skate shoes are the Airwalk Velocity, but this goes way back before those.

And if you can ever get your hands on it, ON Video Summer 2002 has a nice little feature on how skate shoes are designed and manufactured. It’s hosted by the Muska when he rode for Circa, before he fell victim to the party.

Steve Winter’s “Snowstorm Leopard” won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008 award. He spent over ten months trying to photograph the endangered snow leopard, which lives in the Himalayan Mountains. He set fourteen “camera traps” and shot over 30,000 images in an attempt to photograph the elusive animals. This image was shot at 13,000 ft. in Ladak’s Hemis High Altitude National Park. Only 3,500 snow leopards currently live in the wild.

Other winners:

Man and whale size each other up. – Brian Skerry.

A black colobus monkey has its fur singed in preparation for sale at an illegal bush-meat market in Gabon. – David Maitland.

“Deadlock”, a rare Morelet’s tree frog doggedly refused to become supper for a cat-eyed snake. – David Maitland.

Hunting chimpanzees in the dense forest of Tanzania’s Gombe National Park. – Cyril Ruoso.

Black-crested macaque. – Stefano Unterthiner.

A snowy clash of white-tailed eagles during a Polish winter. – Antoni Kasprzak

La Pianta Grande di Roma, created by Giambattista Nolli in 1748, represents a milestone in cartography. For architects it is one of the most important and earliest mappings of public and private space within an urban setting. Piazzas, fountains, courtyards, churches and gardens are all represented as part of the streetscape of Rome.

Images are taken from the Interactive Nolli Map of Rome, setup by a research team at the University of Oregon. The map project is a great way to explore the map if you don’t have access to an original almost 7′x7′ version.

Josh Spear linked to a really interesting website – SayHear.org, a non-profit, non-partisan site that asked voters to leave an audio recording explaining why they were voting for (or now, why they voted) for a particular candidate. So, regardless of how you feel about the outcome today, you can speak up (anonymously) about why you cast your ballot the way you did in the election, and you can listen to what other people had to say. The recordings are fascinating…

Fatih Baltas sent over his work, and I love his take on the old Rock Paper Scissors game…This would put an end to all those cheaters who don’t come down right at 3!

The Experimental Pavilion, designed by a team of architects, engineers and concrete material engineers at TU Kaiserslautern, pushes the limits of ultra high-performance concrete. The thinness and forms achieved contradict the heaviness and thickness that we think concrete is limited to. And in their experiment, they designed a beautiful pavilion both architecturally and technically.

via Opus C

Today and Tomorrow reminded me of Sandra Backlund’s amazing knitwear. She has a new collection out – Last Breath Bruises. Sandra takes knitting to a whole new level, creating complex, sculptural pieces through her heavy wool collage knitting technique. From the artist:

I am really fascinated by all the ways you can highlight, distort and transform the natural silhouette of the body with clothes and accessories. I build my garments by hand from a couple of basic bricks which I multiply and attach to each other in different ways to discover the shape that I want. In that sense I approach fashion more like a sculptor than a tailor.

The Parque Biblioteca España in Medellín, Colombia by Giancarlo Mazzanti Arquitectos casts a striking presence on the hills of Santo Domingo Savio barrio. A community facility, the library serves the neighborhood by providing classrooms, library, auditorium and other educational spaces for an area struggling to regain economic prosperity and stability.

via Architectural Record

Hard Graft, previously known as Working Class Heroes, came out recently with a new line of accessory covers for your laptops, phones, ipods, and notebooks. Made with leather and 100% wool felt, they are well detailed and affordably priced (especially if you get paid in euros or pounds!). I especially love the Pocketwallet from their Dapper Collection.

Via Notcot.

The Rinse&Chop and Grip-top cutting boards by DesignWright serve two everyday functions very well: collecting cut veggies and a non-slip cutting board. The two are both time and finger savers. If only they were combined into one single product…