In this week’s From the Makery roundup: a long read about the art of secret stash compartments in vehicles, videos that explore our world’s landscapes through Google Earth, and what carefully controlled pouring can produce in a latte’s foam.
Set off some fireworks, don a costume, prepare the feast. From revisiting the past to welcoming new beginnings, celebrations are ingrained in every culture. Some remain fixed in traditions centuries-old, while others shift as they spread to new audiences and environments. But the biggest jamborees aren’t spontaneous; it takes serious [...]
In back alleys, street markets, and hidden workshops around the world, microentrepreneurs churn out new ideas and products to help them get by or improve the world around them. We could philosophize on this all day. But here in Observed, we ask our correspondents to say nothing. So for the [...]
Christmas is always around the corner for the residents of San Fernando. Recognized as the yule capital of the Philippines, the city harbors a cadre of craftsmen whose lineage dates back over a century, to 1908, when Francisco Estanislao first made a giant lantern 10 feet in diameter. Today, visitors [...]
A pile of children’s shoes marks the entrance to the Busia Community Library. The library walls don’t exactly shine white, and the ubiquitous Kenyan dust tints the floor a dull reddish-brown that no amount of scrubbing can erase. But the pile of shoes is significant—it represents the start of the [...]
This week, we bring you an intimate photo essay comparing the most prized toys of children around the world, a couple who took matters into their own hands to carve space for themselves in an expensive real estate market, and one masked man’s crusade to make Mexico City’s streets a little safer.
Soon, students anywhere in the world may be able to afford to build a robot. The African Robotics Network, or AFRON, conducted a budget build challenge: put together a kit using mostly off-the-shelf parts, with a price point of $10 or less.
This week’s From the Makery collection includes a photo essay documenting the impossibly cramped living quarters belonging to low-income Hong Kong residents, a low-cost manufacturing method using a centrifuge, and the best sea-creature-shaped children’s play center we’ve seen so far.
After the 2010 earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, tools like Ushahidi used the ubiquitous mobile phone as a platform, allowing remote volunteers to translate, triage, and ultimately direct aid to where it was needed most.
“Isso não funciona.” “Nós não sabemos como usá-lo.” “Os manuai stambé mestão em Inglês ou Espanhol.”“This doesn’t work.” “We don’t know how to use it.” “The manuals are only in English or Spanish.” These complaints were the first words I heard from nurses and doctors at Chicuque Rural Hospital in [...]