Are Your pencils Sharp Enough?

This guy says you're doing it wrong...



David Rees, artisanal hand sharpener of Number 2 pencils, is at least partially serious about all of this.  The New Yorker had a good rundown on the project and Rees's book a while back...

But Rees isn’t messing about—or, at least, “messing about” is an inadequate phrase for the kind of immersive seriocomic undertaking he’s involved in here.

There's plenty more fun to be had on Rees's personal website (this isn't his only project) and his pencil sharpening site as well.

Happy sharpening!

(via LS)

Get Out Of Your Car & On The Bus

Or why mass transit makes so much sense...

 

Kind of speaks for itself doesn't it?

(via AC)

Metric vs Standard

Ostensibly this video is about why A4 is the perfect paper size (and system), but really it's a brilliant takedown of the inch...



I bet you didn't even know A4 was a system for sizing paper (I sure didn't know it was the metric system, or how cool it is).  This is another one of those examples where it really feels like we (the US) should join the party already and get on the metric system.  At the same time it's another great example of why we never will; can you imagine the headache of trying to convert all of the printers (well, most of them will run A4 I think) and filing systems (wait, maybe A4 will fit in standard files too)...

(via Digg)