After several years of traditional drawing and painting, artist Danny Murphy decided to parlay his way into 3D artwork as an alternative way of expression. His sculptures are made from Strathmore Bristol papers– cutting, bending and gluing the three-dimensional forms together until the desired shape, often a butterfly, is formed. He uses acrylic washed to stain and varnish each piece, forcing light, shadow, and a bit of realism to each piece. His portfolio, for whatever reason is full of butterflies in funny places: Inside tins, atop Starbucks cups and in cages. Very nice work!

Have you ever beheld such a beautiful sight as this? Sure, it’s not Uranus, but it is every bit as remarkable. This is a real photo that was taken by the Cassini Probe which is currently ‘chilling’ in orbit around Saturn. It is part of a mosaic of 165 shots taken from within the shadow cast by the planet itself (I’m guessing it is analogous to an eclipse, and that the sun is directly behind lady Saturn in this shot). The probe swooped further-in for a little look-see and took some shots of the lakes of liquid methane on Titan–which is Saturn’s moon. Sexy stuff. It is stuff like this that hammers home the fact that we are but a blip on the radar. Finally, I know this post is about Saturn, but how about a little Uranus trivia (it is my favorite planet after all): my memory is telling me that Uranus has vertical rings. Is my memory correct? Leave a comment if you know.

Via BoingBoing

Move over Hallmark. These cards are way better. Inspire Company makes Simple Words greeting cards that say everything that needs to be said–without the cheesiness, verbosity, and junior varsity design. I found this get well card, entitled ’soup, naps, pills, better’ — to be especially witty. In the past, I hated shopping for cards. It was always either a half hour endeavor–to find one that was good, or a 12 second endeavor–to grab one that was ‘in the ballpark’ of what I wanted so I could move on with my day. Inspire Co. cards make me feel confident in my card purchase. They don’t leave me with that ‘what the hell are they talking about’ feeling.

Via notcot

While it is not statistically likely that you — a loyal JoshSpear.com reader — live in a trailer, these abodes serve an important role in our society. With ever-increasing wage and wealth disparities in our economy, many American families look to the mass-produced mobile home as an affordable and convenient place to live. Unfortunately, a trailer park stigma exists due to the consensus that these things are horrendous looking and could be blown over in a second by the ‘big bad wolf.’ Thanks to Trailer Wrap — a project initiated by the University of Colorado at Boulder College of Architecture and Planning — the trailer park stigma may begin to subside. The idea behind Trailer Wrap is to provide simple and affordable solutions to improve the condition of mobile home–addressing lack of comfort, inefficiency, and poor aesthetics. Trailer Wrap comes in the form of a simple, affordable kit that can be assembled easily by just a few people. Thanks to hard work by students, dedicated faculty, and help from a wealth of sponsors, Trailer Wrap continues to build steam to become a widely implemented concept. Thanks to Boulder-based architect and buddy Brian Nelson for a heads up on this one.

The Fish Loft is a transparent tube for fishes to swim above water level– pretty much the hottest thing to enter your aquatic-life since, well, the Fish Pod (pictured here on the right), which we covered back in ‘04. The Fish Loft site is in German (might as well be Greek to me), but the instructions look fairly simple: Put the glass tube on a socket into the pond, suck the air out of the tube with a swimming pump and replace with water, and voila– more swimming real estate for fish who like a view.