Core77

China's internet access has been plagued with rumors of restricted browsing, missing articles and even bloggers who can't publish to their personal sites.

The Freedom Stick gets around this problem. This €20 ($30) USB dongle is pre-loaded with software which will secure the communications of any computer it is slotted into. Made available by Germany's Chaos Computer Club, the stick uses the TOR (The Onion Router) network to cloak your connections, routing traffic around the world through anonymous computers, thus avoiding detection.

The name is a little antagonistic but that's the point, you can actually achieve the same hack with a software solution. Still how bad can getting detained by Chinese customs over issues of censorship really be.

via wired

Nike converted an amphibious armor-plated war-truck from 1959 into an extreme sports mobile HQ for Mountain Dew's Action Sports Tour.

The 8-wheeled ill-mobile is capable of crossing deserts, climbing mountains and taking the team to any secret spot. Racks for bikes, surfboards, wakeboards, skateboards, mean going anywhere for any scene. Rails to grind are featured on both sides, and a quarter pipe folds down for impromptu sessions. The stereo system requires 2 car batteries, a set of jumper cables and a little luck, but once it's blasting, it's like a stick of dynamite in your eardrum.

It's been picked up everywhere (that was the intention after all), via dvice.

Industrial Designer
Propane Creative
Atlanta, Georgia

Candidates must be motivated, independent and ready to rock. Skills required: Strong PhotoShop rendering techniques, compelling sketching with either a wacom tablet or traditional pen and paper. Nice to have: SolidWorks and 3D rendering experience.

» view

The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

Vectortuts has a step-by-step tutorial on creating a camera lens in illustrator, this might pedestrian for some but given the number of devices that now include a camera, it's a useful skill to master. There's also a great article on maintaining rhythm and flow in character design when translating sketches to vector art.

Continuing our fascination with imagery created from physical artifacts, this bus shelter ad for the Treasury Casino in Australia was made from 7563 pieces of dice. Gives a new meaning to dot rendering.

via notcot

We're a bit late on this but given that racing power tools has not been recognized as an Olympic sport--yet, we thought we'd give it a mention.

The Seattle Power Tool Race & Derby is an event where you modify a "power tool" into a racer and then compete against other people who have done the same.

check out the flickr pool.

I think we finally found our company car, only 77 will be built for a mere £1 million each. Based on a carbon fiber chassis with an aluminum body, the One-77 will be powered by a hand-built 7.0-liter V12 and customers will be able to customize their supercar order.

via autoblog

As advertised, Le Corbusier Le Grande weighs in at a whopping 20 plus pounds and measures 19.6 by 14.3 by 3.9 inches with over 600 pages. It stands (or lays) as a comprehensive archive of the work of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, otherwise known as Le Corbusier and arguably one of the most important modernist architects of the twentieth century. While I briefly wondered if the enormous dimensions were intended to be reflective of the architect's Modulor system of proportions (they were neither 3:4 nor the 4:5 of the Modulor, but closer to 5:6), the scale of the book more than reflects the enormity of Le Corbusier's ambitions and output.

Brimming with photographs of projects and crisp pictures of tattered notebook pages, Le Grande seems to compile every document from Le Corbu's life, leaving the reader with the impression that they've uncovered some lost shoebox of memories, and maybe a level of detail that they don't quite deserve to visit. I was unaware, for example, that Le Corbusier may have had an affair with Josephine Baker, or that his right thigh was savaged by a propeller blade in the Mediterranean. Those seemingly tiny details humanized an imposing historical figure. Stumbling into a casual photograph of a middle aged and pantless Le Corbu with visible leg scarring and hairless buttocks ... well, somehow it seemed that both he and I may have been victims of an unwanted intrusion into his private life. While many books have revealed the ideological themes of his manifestos or his constant ongoing struggle with politics and the press, the comprehensive scale of this tome illuminates the sorts of dark corners of life where the stark realities of human existence, foibles and all, tend to hide. Le Corbusier Le Grand works as a giant book full of little revelations.

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Air purifiers traditionally fall into one of two categories, the ugly sibling of the beige window mounted AC or the dorky neighbor of external desktop speakers. Korean company Coway set out to break this pattern with the Daan air purifier, a cylindrical unit styled to look more at home amongst contemporary furnishings.

The air purifier separates into 3 units that can be carried into other rooms and placed onto independent stands, it also features a mood lighting function--not a bad thing. There's no word on pricing at this stage.

via engadget

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Here's the first in our promised Ettore Sottsass Quote of the Day series:

I believe sensoriality is the most primitive, the most immediate thing. If I want to retread hypothetical origins, I must concern myself with the senses.

My childhood was sharply affected by the presence of what is summarily called Nature; by the smells and colours of the seasons, by the noises of water, of the wind, of rocks crashing down the Dolomites...During my childhood I had a vast sensorial landscape.

For me that experience of childhood and adolescence was decisive, leading me to think that the way you really interpret the world is mainly through your senses. Clearly, the senses are never pure, there is no pure sensoriality. Sensoriality in the moment it exists already has a form, a culture if you like.