bookofjoe

"Walking in Fabrizio Viti's Shoes"

From Trendland: "Fashion dolls have been a central inspiration for Fabrizio Viti, Louis Vuitton's shoe style director. He has been collecting dolls since he was three years old and as a result today has a collection of around 500 pieces. Dive into his colorful universe with this stop-motion film produced by Les Courtisans for New Now, Louis Vuitton's online magazine."

"The shoe department at Louis Vuitton is inextricably connected to the sphere of dolls. Exactly the same workshop in Fiesso d'Artico, Italy — where the Louis Vuitton shoe collections are created — is entrusted with the task of fabricating parallel miniature versions for Fabrizio Viti's private doll collection. The attention to detail is striking and in this short animation, his dolls and shoes come to life."

Power Lines

Created by Daniel Ballou who wrote, "There are hundreds of miles of power lines strung across the California desert landscape. A miniaturized version in bent, chromed wire works well for the desk."

Those shown are prototypes.

Get in touch with him (dan@danielballou.com) and tell him I sent you and who knows, he just might decide to make up a bunch.

Stranger things have happened (but not many).

ShortList (UK) — "Inside the Mind of a Formula 1 Driver"

Striking cover of the latest issue of this weekly, which calls itself "Europe's largest upmarket men's magazine."

Reminds me of Homer Simpson's:

And then there are the echoes of Goofy — "As you've never seen him before."

[via Coverjunkie]

Wine Dater

What with the retrograde amnesia, you may not have a clue as to when you opened that bottle of wine.

This device puts paid to that problem.

But you'll pay a pretty price.

From the website:

.............................

• Silver metallic design is heavy and rests firmly in bottle spout, making sure wine stays fresh

• Easily and quickly displays day and month wine bottled was opened

• Fits Bordeaux-style wine bottles (opening 17.8mm-18.45mm)

• Made from 18/10 stainless steel and food-grade silicone

• Easy to grip and pull out of bottle

• Also functions as stopper

• 0.85"Ø x 2.79"H

.............................

$45.

"The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism"

In Dr. George Akerloff's classic above-titled 1970 paper, "he noted that the prospective buyer of a used car knows far less about that car than its seller, a phenomenon he called asymmetrical information."

"He reasoned that a buyer must assume that any used car is a lemon, because he has no way of knowing for sure whether that car has been abused or crashed. So a buyer, on average, is only willing to pay a below-average price. But the owner of a good used car knows that it is reliable, that he has driven it carefully, changed the oil regularly, and maintained the car well."

"If the owner of the good used car is not offered what he thinks it is worth, he won't sell it, Dr. Akerloff reasoned. The overall quality of used cars goes down, because only below-average cars are offered, which drives down the value of used cars as a whole. The market is, in economic terms, broken, because the best cars in it are undervalued and are seldom offered for sale."

WikiSummary of Akerloff's paper here.

Origin of the word "lemon" to describe something sub-standard here.

Akerloff shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics with Joseph Stieglitz and Michael Spence.

I remember a wonderful jingle I used to hear on late night TV over and over and over back in the last century when I lived in L.A., the words to which were "You won't get a lemon/From Toyota of Orange."

[via Dexter Ford and the New York Times; cartoon up top by Mike Baldwin]

Wall Clamp

"A C-clamp designed to screw into the wall. The asymmetrical jaws and tightening screw allow you to turn any flat material into a shelf."

Cast iron, threaded steel rod, beech wood.

[via Hello. We Are]

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Note added at 7:22 p.m. today: Reader Ken did the heavy lifting my Crack Research Team®™© just couldn't be bothered with, bringing news that this clamp is for sale.

Wrote Brendan Ravenhill, the designer: "Great for those hard to hold driftwood logs."

Clamp measures 5" x 8" x 0.75".

Set of two clamps: $75 (all mounting hardware included; shelf not included).

On the fence?

Watch the video, it'll clarify things.

BackUpMyTweets.com

"Did you know that Twitter only gives access to your most recent 3,200 tweets? Our service will keep your tweets forever*!"

Free, the way we like it.

Does Jeri Dansky know about this?

She will.

*Or until it goes dark, at which time you'll be happy you still have Twitter's 3,200.

Cloud Pen

Just the thing for making notes on your thought cloud sticky pad.

$6.