Link About It: This Week’s Picks

Vibrating panties, Nendo's chopsticks, ancient brewers and more in our look at the web this week

1. The Culture of Counterfeit Shanzhai refers to the massive counterfeit market in China, encompassing everything from imitation smartphones and sneakers to bootleg shampoo and Coca-Cola. With the sustained rise in consumer culture in China, along with the confluence of globalization and the internet, Shanzhai has recently begun to transcend commerce into its own culture—and even a form of art. In Chinese culture, copying is …

Discovering A Time Capsule Apartment

Vibrating panties, Nendo's chopsticks, ancient brewers and more in our look at the web this week

Fleeing Paris for the south of France in 1942, French socialite Madame de Florian had no idea if she would ever return to her glorious apartment near the Opéra Garnier. She never did go back and, because of that, her recently rediscovered apartment was left preserved as a true testament to its time. Entirely untouched and now showing half a century’s worth of dust, the …

Rethinking Chopsticks

Vibrating panties, Nendo's chopsticks, ancient brewers and more in our look at the web this week

While chopsticks have remained relatively the same for centuries, Japanese design firm Nendo (founded and led by Chief Designer Oki Sato) has been exploring ways to make them even more comfortable and functional. Finding round chopsticks slippery to hold and overly square ones uncomfortable, Sato and his team have created several new designs that are as practical as they are visually intriguing. The Hanataba chopsticks …