Out of Site

­A Minimalist Quiz Donald Judd or cheap furniture? ­

Print, Fold, Paste Dozens of downloadable paper cut-outs to make ­­

­­­­Stealing Beauty­­ Trailer for Guy Ben-Ner's family sitcom shot in Ikea during store hours

­GI Pamphlets ­Preparing US soldiers for the postwar world

­A History of IBM Typewriters Ralph Ellison, John Irving and David Sedaris all used the IBM Selectric! Ready to start fetishising typewriters?

A Protein Primer An epic on the cellular level ­­

­­­A Treatise on the Astrolabe Chaucer's 1391 masterpiece-- an early example of the technical manual genre

­This Truck Makes Wide Right Turns "An incomplete look at the role of variation in capitalist society." Or...a big collection of those signs on the right rear bumpers of big trucks. ­

­­A Financial History of Art "Art as an investment and the underperformance of masterpieces": an historical study comparing the performance of art and more traditional markets (free registration required). ­

­A European Cycling Holiday, 1953 Diaries, photos, and other documentation of a cycling tour, a half-century later. ­

­Dutch Comics "Illustrated sequential narratives" from the middle ages to the present. ­

Women in WWII British Posters and Ads Dig For Victory! Women! Farmers can't grow all of your vegetables! You must grow your own! ... Etc. Etc.

Roadside Peek Disappearing architectural wonders of the American road.

Scanning Tunneling Electron Microscope Construction Kit DIY at its best.

Build Your Own Balancing Scooter DIY Segway, and (slightly) less annoying. Just don't drive it anywhere near us on the sidewalk...

­Rolling Ball Sculptures... ...and other curious machines, automata, and kinetic art. Exhibitions and links. ­

­­Surf Movie Posters of the 1960s Slippery When Wet, and other classics. ­

­French Proverbs of 1611 1,552 of them, with translations. All taken from Randle Cotgrave's famous 1611 French/English dictionary. ­

­Trans-Atlantic (Model) Flight 1900 miles from Newfoundland to Ireland on 5.5 lbs of fuel. Impressive!

­The Films of Thomas Edison 341 downloable motion pictures (courtesy of the Library of Congress and the public domain). ­

­Lyre Bird A bird that mimcs all sounds ­

­Dead Logos A cemetery of logos, and a book of condolences where you can let them know they're mourned. ­

­When Only Screaming at a Human Being Will Do A cheat sheet for how to talk to humans at various companies ­

­The Iowa Electronic Markets A classic site-- bookmark it if you haven't already. ­

­American Idol A cockatoo dances to Backstreet Boys ­

­Heraldic Dictionary A complete guide to emblems, chargers, achievements, and all the other myriad mysteries of heraldry. ­

­How to Create a Golem A complete guide to everything you'll need, except how to achieve a pure heart. ­

­American Architecture A digital archive of American architecture from the 17th century to the present. ­

­Dirkon—The Paper Camera A functioning cut-and-paste paper camera, reprinted from the 1979 Czech original.

­This Is Not a Handle! A gallery of bad designs. ­

­New York Underground A guided tour for infrastructure fans. ­

­Girl Scout Calendars - 1944 to the Present A history of girl scout marketing, and uniforms. ­

­Seeing Double A history of photographic dopplegangers. ­

­Military Maxims A library of (public domain) military classics, collected and annotated online. ­

­The Imperial War Museum A link to the war museum's online collections, which include photographs, essays, and lots and lots of archived audio-recordings of oral histories of British soldiers. ­

­An Infinite Regression of Cats A mise-en-abyme involving kitties! ­

­Ellis Island Passenger Arrival Records A no-cost searchable database ­

­Russian Aviation A photographic history (care of the Moscow House of Photography). ­

­Play the Rhythmicon A playable simulacrum of Theremin's 1931 synthesizer. ­

­How can I encourage my cat to paint? A pressing question for troubled times. ­

­Hitler’s Mountain Home A puff-piece from Homes & Gardens magazine, November 1938. Creepy.

­Dead Man Eating A recipe guide to last meals ­

­Impressionism, 1874 A reconstruction of the original group Impressionist show. ­

­Church Plans Online A searchable archive of over 15,000 church plans. ­

­Flash Mobs A strange phenomenon, or is it really a phenomenom at all? Either way, cheesebikini has lots of information. ­

­Project Horizon Report A U.S.Army study for the establishment of a lunar outpost (9 June 1959). ­

­Video Game Fonts of the 1980s Downloadable, in case you've been feeling nostalgia for the classic 8-bit fonts of yesteryear... ­

American Social Hygiene Posters, 1910 - 1970 Enough said. (Brought to you by the University of Minnesota.)

­The Bait Car Entrapment?!? ­

­The Nature of Chance Essays brought to you by Innumeracy.com ­

­The Value of the Public Domain Ever wonder why everybody these days is so worked up about the public domain? ­

­Industrial Art Gallery Everything from measuring instruments to practical descriptive geometry. ­

­Knitwear Everywhere Everything must be cozified ­

­Victorian Robots Featuring Steam Man (1865), and more. ­

­The Robot Hall of Fame Feel free to make nominations (fictional and real robots are equally welcome). ­

­The Virtual Color Museum Fifty-nine different color theories, explained and illustrated. ­

­­Chess Boxing Fight for two minutes, play for two minutes, and repeat, and repeat some more. Mind boggling.

­The Gutenberg Bible Finally available in its entirety in a more up to date digital medium. ­

­Illuminating the Renaissance Flemish manuscript painting, 1470-1560. ­

­The Museum of Marine Timetables For when your trainschedulespotting days are over. ­

­Aerial Photography From kites. A primitive tradition, updated.

­Transit Posters From the 1920s, commissioned by the Chicago Rapid Transit Corporation. ­

­Ghosts on Film From the American Museum of Photography, a collection of early spirit photographs. ­

­West German Bunker From the Cold War Archives. ­

­Anarchist Texts From the Friends of Durruti to the Krondstadt Committee, and much more. A great site. ­

­Ted Nelson’s Computer Paradigm Expressed as One-liners From the inventor of hypertext. ­

­Old Computers From the pages of the obsolete technology website. The computer ads from the 70s and 80s are particularly entertaining... ­

­Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory Get your latest hurricane research (and maps) here. ­

­Visual Index of Science Fiction Cover Art Goes way beyond Amazing Stories. An impressive archive. ­

­Finnish Last Names Guess which one is Cabinet's favorite. ­

­Plush Uterus safety recall Hazardous! Ovaries fail pull test! ­

­For Our Matchless Friends Highlights from the golden-age of the matchbook as advertising medium. ­

­Knitting Hyperbolic Spaces How to knit mathematics' most convoluted topologies ­

­Vintage Paperbacks Hundreds of paperback covers of the 1940s-1960s, searchable by author, artist, genre, etc. ­

­The Center for Land Use Interpretation If you can't make it to Utah anytime soon, check out their exhibits here. ­

­The Skyscraper Page If you like photos and diagrams of really tall buildings, here's where to go. ­

­The 1910 Paris Flood Il faut un pont ­

­The Statute of Anne, 1710 Images and transcription of the first copyright act. See where all the fuss began. ­

­German Imperial Standards, 1871-1918 In case you've been having trouble keeping track of the Hessian, Saxon, Prussian, and all the other flags that circulated in Imperial Germany. Our favorites: the flags to signal the emperor's various indispositions. ­

­­The Circus of Disembowe­led Plush Toys In the stuffed animal kingdom, life is nasty, brutish, and short. ­

­­Diderot's Encyc­lopedia Including advertisements and errata, all searchable via the PhiloLogic tool. ­

­Cabinets of Curiosities (XVI - XVII centuries) Interesting. More interesting if you can read French, but the pictures are pretty too, and we've always thought of these as precursors to Cabinet. ­

­Convict Internet In-the-pen pals ­

­The Scottish Ordnance Survey Large scale town plans, 1847-1895. ­

­The Mercury Theatre on the Air Legendary radio play producer of the 1930s-- War of the Worlds and many more classic broadcasts available here as audio downloads. ­

­International MarsWatch Linking amateur and professional Mars watching communities.

­Webcollage - Exterminate All Rational Thought Looking for a continuously updating collage of visual links from the web? ­

­The Avalon Project Looking for old laws, treaties, declarations of war? Find them here. ­

­Explorers’ Web Looking for the latest weather on K2? The news from Antarctica?

­Antique Seed Packets Lost treasures... ­

­The Library of Congress Map Collections Lots (and lots) of beautiful maps. ­

­TV Ads From the 1980s Lots and lots of them to download and enjoy. Too bad none (well, almost none) of the products are still for sale. ­

The Golden Age of ComicsLots of covers.­

­The Internet Public Library Lots of links, on many subjects. ­

­The World Processor Lots of lots and maps, graphs, and data about the world—­and it's really nice looking. ­­

­The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 Lots of maps, essays, and galleries of photographs (before and after). A fascinating site. ­

Optical Illusions Lots of them-- guaranteed nausea if you spend too long here. ­

­Great Buildings Lots of them-- photos, 3-D models (free viewer download), and essays. ­

­­Bureau D’Etudes Mapping bureau­cracies, and other networks. ­

­The Secret Life of Numbers Mapping the popularity of integers ­

­Alan Smithee discusses his oeuvre Mario Garcia Torres helps Smithee garner some recognition for his 40-year career ­

­Designing War of the Worlds Martian evolution in a nutshell: 126 book covers, from 1898 to 2002. Via MoOM. ­

­The Birdhouse Network MENSA members, the Goddess Athena, and Chris Marker all check this site on a regular basis ­

­Paper Sculptures Modernist origami ­

­Greasel.com Modify your diesel SUV so it runs on waste kitchen grease!

­The Gallery of Monster Toys (1960s - 1990s) Monsters for every taste and age. ­

­Railroad Maps, 1828 - 1900 More fun from the Library of Congress collections. ­

­The Geometry Junkyard, Sorted into Piles... More geometry than you can shake a stick at (or a sphere, or a cone, or a cube...). ­

­bios [bible]: The Bible Scribe My, that robot has good handwriting ­

­The Erotics of Type Naked word smiths. ­

­The Insect Company Normally we try to avoid linking to commercial sites, but the thousands of photographs here were just too nice to pass by. ­

­­The Watergate Tapes Not suitable for children... (but perhaps they should be required listening anyway...)­ ­

­The Evolution of Alphabets Obviously, a core concern of ours. ­

­Romance Book Lovers One perfect night, the passion Navy SEAL Jack Singer had felt for Melanie Patterson had burst the seams of his restraint... ­

­Corporate Board Member Cluster Diagrams Or, Monopoly the board-game! ­

­Making Animals from the Alphabet Or, When graphic designers are out of work. ­

­­FEMA for Kids Disaster Masters! ­

­Famous Curves Index Our favorite: the Cissoid of Diocles. ­

­The California Coastline Over 12,000 photographs, documenting the California Coast in its entirety (well, they're not quite done yet, but they're working on it). ­

­Naval Aviation in World War II Paintings from the naval historical center. ­

­The World in a Frame Photographs from the age of exploration, 1865-1915. ­

­Ship Tracker Piracy in the Age of Technology? ­

­Lego for Fans of Social Theory Play with Michel Foucault in his San Francisco S/M dungeon. Discipline and Punish! ­

Decade of Protest Political posters from the US, Cuba, and Vietnam, 1965-1975. ­

­By the People, For the People Posters from the WPA. ­

­Spam Prepare to meat your maker ­

­How Stuff Works Pretty self explanatory, and very informative. ­

Flying Machines of the Past Preview one of Cabinet's themed obsessions! ­

­Stair Dismount Push the Stickman down the stairs! (Free Download) ­

­Health Physics Historical Implementation Collection Radiation for everyone! ­

­Shocking People Reactions to receiving a mild electric shock! ­

­Stewardess Uniform Collection Really comprehensive. Almost frightening. ­

­The Ancient World Mapping Center Refresh your memories of Aegean political geography. ­

­The Particular Judgment Register with the White House as a US patriot ­

­The Origins of Modernity Reproduced plates from classic books—­check out the Francis Bacon.

­The Essential Vermeer Reproductions, essays, timelines, even fakes. ­

­Rocking Chairs A visual history. ­

­A History of Sampling A visual representation of a cultural trend ­

­Public Lettering A walk in central London. ­

­Drainspotting A website devoted to manhole covers. ­

Aviation Museums A whole summer vacation's worth of virtual tours, all gathered together in one handy site. Check out the Aviation Armaments Museum.

Flight Aware An American aviation farm

Graffiti Archeology An archive of time series photos

Cease and Desist An entertaining gallery of cease and desist letters, along with helpful commentary and notes on copyrights, file sharing, and a host of related subjects, brought to you by the Berkman Center for Law and Society.

Modernism An illustrated timeline.

Find a Grave An indexed photo archive of more than five million graves.

Public Library of Science An ongoing experiment in open-access scientific publishing. Just the kind of thing we like to see.

Ancient Manuscripts From the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu An online exhibition from the Library of Congress.

Paper Wizardry Animation using paper and only paper

The Museum of Anti-Alcohol Posters Apparently all-Russian, some great designs.

The Blackout History Project Archives from 1965 and 1977; they're already gathering material on 2003.

Commercial Animation of the 1950s and 1960s Art from Ray Patin Studios

Lost and Found Sound Artifacts gathered by NPR in its quest for rare recordings.

WET: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, 1976-1981 Bare bones archive of the late 70s LA avant-garde magazine

Virtual Drum Set Be sure to pump up the volume. A sense of rhythym doesn't hurt, either.

The Medici Archive Been looking for The Massacre of the Innocents? Your search is over.

The Chicago 7 Trial Bios, trial transcripts, and more! "We demand the Politics of Ecstasy! We are the delicate spores of the new fierceness that will change America."

Astronomy Picture of the Day Brought to you by NASA.

The Solar System Generator Brought to you by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (the rest of this site is well worth exploring).

Virtual Delft Brought to you by the Johannes Vermeer House.

Zoomorphic Architecture Brought to you by the Victoria and Albert Museum. Woof.

DIY gauss pistol Buy a good pair of safety goggles before you try this at home! A variety of home railgun projects can be found here (includes photos).

The Car Free City Cabinet doesn't like cars, even though our editor-in-chief drives one.

The Albert Einstein Archive Cabinet likes Einstein.

Project Gutenberg Cabinet likes free e-books!

The Modern Compendium of Miniature Automata Cabinet likes machines, particularly tiny and impractical ones.

Martian Atlas Cabinet's land is there somewhere. Drop us a line if you find it.

Feminine or Masculine? Cast your votes here.

Castles Casteland-- "a virtual universe of French medieval castles".

Atomic Movie Posters Celebrating the radioactive enemy.

Customized Classics Classic paperbacks featuring your name instead of Captain Ahab, Ebenezer Scrooge, etc. Choice of two different happy endings for Romeo & Juliet. Custom photo covers $15 extra. Corporate gift discounts.

Banana Museum Closed on Sundays?!?

Leaflets Dropped on Iraq Collect and read every one-- scroll down the linked page for the images.

Prokudin-Gorskii Color photography in Imperial Russia. Marvelous technology, and beautiful images (care of the Library of Congress).

America's Overvalued Real Estate Consoling apartment renters and homebuyers throughout the country

A realtime map of Amsterdam Constructed by tracing the collective GPS locations of volunteers going about their daily lives. Fascinating, and ominous when governments decide to get into this game.

Weight Watchers Recipe Cards of 1974 Cook them at your own risk.

Motel Postcards Create your own 1950s family vacation.

Cartoon Research Dedicated to cartoons, past, present, and future.

Morphases Design a face.

City Creator Design your own (tiny) city-- a little like Sim City, but faster, and without having to deal with budgets or those annoying Simpeople.

ImplosionWorld - Where Demolition Comes Alive Designed for the professional...lots of fun for everyone else.

Traffic Simulator Designing a highway system? Test it for bottlenecks first...

DIY Pulse Jets, and Other Projects for the Ambitious Garage Tinkerer Detailed photos, plans and project diaries for things that go fast, all built with (relatively) unsophisticated materials.

The Museum of Unworkable Devices Devoted to devices which amaze onlookers and annoy engineers. Or which would, if they actually worked.

The Optigan Devoted to Mattel's 1970s foray into the optical organ business (actually, they invented the market, and it died when they abandoned it). Join the search for the elusive disk of sitar samples...

The Mannahatta Project Resituating your urban-centric understanding of Manhattan

The Hermitary Resources and reflections on the solitary life

Patricia Waller's Crocheted Objects Return of the repressed in traditionally feminine crochet works

Robodex 2003 Roland Piquepaille reports on the latest in robot fashion. Lots of pictures!

Artificial Life Set the rules of competition, then watch thousands of generations of high-speed evolution, all in a digital petri-dish.

The Microbial Evolutionary Net So much more pretty than the evolutionary tree

Miniature Books Some of them are quite old.

How big was that number? Statistics made visual

The NYPL’s Digital Gallery Stupendous collection of free images. Hooray for the NYPL for recognizing what the P in their name stands for.

Style Stylish (and interesting) in every way.

Computer Magazines of the 1980s Sweet nostalgia for the geeks among us.

Historical Fencing Manuals Swordplay, all the way back to the Rennaissance and beyond.

Implicit Association Tests Test your hidden assumptions, and contribute to an ongoing research project by Harvard, UVA, and the University of Washington.

Language Removal Services Testing the boundary between static and ecstatic language...

Getting the Picture The art of the illustrated letter (archive organized by senders, and by recipients, which makes us very happy).

A Human Clock The best years of your life are being written away

The Jackson Sister’s Doll Games The complete dossier

Frog Calls The countryside beckons

Ghost Towns The database of ghost towns is so impressive that we forgive this site its aggressively annoying popup ads.

Concept Spacecraft - Plastic Kits of the 1950s The dawn of the golden age of imaginary spacetravel.

Today's Front Pages The face of world news

Missing Masterpieces The greatest art show you'll never see.

Mapping the Web The holy grail.

Hollywood Babylon The Kenneth Anger tour of Los Angeles

Paper Enigma Machine The kids love playing Nazi Cyptologist

In Pursuit of Simplicity The manuscripts of Edsger w. Dijkstra.

Extracting Video from the Brain The neuroscience of mind reading

String Theory The official website!

Leadholder The online drafting pencil museum.

The Payphone Project The place to go if you've ever wanted to call a passing stranger.

Quotation Marks Gone Wild The proliferation of the use of quotation marks (for everything except citations, that is) is now well documented. "Enjoy".

Pick up the Phone Booth and Die! The reductio ad absurdum of Zork. Not for the faint of heart.

Reverse Speech The rhyme and reason of reverse speech analysis, along with a selection of famous (and not so famous) speeches played backwards.

Building the Chrysler Building The social construction of the skyscraper.

Bus Stops of the Ukraine The title speaks for itself.

The Basics of Type The Typographer's Dream.

Fires The U.S. Forest Service's active fire maps, updated daily.

Lots of Scrolling 360 Degree Panoramas The view from the summit of Everest is impressive.

Centre for Global Development Their Commitment to Development Index is particularly eye-opening. Lots of other interesting material here, even for our readers who aren't economists.

Your Most Beloved Diamond They were precious in life. So why not in death?

The Museum of Hoaxes They're all true.

Eddy’s Ships in Bottles They're very small. Those in the know call them SIBs.

Scale Things compared to each other in size. Large things, small things, and really small things (and some even smaller than that).

Electronics Ads from the 1950s Things have gotten much smaller over the past 50 years.

The Prelinger Archives Thousands of ephemeral films-- ads, instructional videos, psa's, and more-- dating back to the early 20th century.

U.S. Steel Gary Works Photograph Collection: 1906-1971 Thousands of photographs, indexed by date and subject. Factory floors, industrial laboratories, corporate picnics, and more, all taken in and around U.S. Steel's plant in Gary, Indiana.

Historical Japanese Maps Thousands of them, going back centuries. A beautiful site if you like maps (we do).

Institute of Holistic Computer Wellness Throw away that old rubber chicken!

Fractal Growth in Bacteria Timothy Leary meets Scientific America

The Elizabethan Costuming Page The print-your-own Elizabethan dressup paper doll is particularly nice.

WordSpy Track words as they first appear in the mass media. Learn about the leather spinster, the earworm, and more.

The Four Dimensional Rubik’s Cube Try to beat the current record solution...of 495 moves.

The Toaster Museum Until the museum finishes renovating in Charlottesville, its website is far and away the best place to learn all about toasters.

Zombie Infection Simulation Urban planning meets Night of the Living Dead.

Under Foreign Eyes US foreign policy from a foreign point-of-view

A Day in the Life of Air Traffic in the Continental US Utterly mesmerizing animation

Cellular Automata Watch tiny worlds come to life.

Table of Condiments that Periodically Go Bad We had no idea that tabasco sauce in our office cupboard was still edible...

The Visigothic Code We prefer to think of it as barbarian law.

Everything About Herbs and Spices Well, maybe not quite everything, but lots and lots of information.

Herding Cats We're not too sure how realistic the model is, but it seems to nicely capture the spirit of the exercise-- and Cabinet's predisposed to appreciate cat games.

Extreme Pumpkins What can we say? They're in season.

A Case of Curiosities Where art meets science...automata, taxidermy, reliquaries, and more.

Shiseido Women Women's fashion in Japan, 1870 to the present.

Wharram Percy Yorkshire's lost medieval village-- an online archeological and historical guide.

National Bureau of Economic Research You all probably have this bookmarked already (well, maybe not)-- lots of fascinating material here.

Creative Commons You all probably have this site bookmarked already, but just in case...

Safety Sign Builder You can also build dangerous signs with this.

Procrastination Central You could also look at this tomorrow

Atlas ObscuraA compendium of the world's wonders, curiosities, and esoterica

Just MagazineLiterature under severe constraint