The more common, well-known, Flat and Phillips screw heads are just two of some 28 varieties of screw drive type… you may therefore need to expand the range of screwdrivers you own in case you encounter any of the not so common sorts. Image via Apartment Therapy.

Originally published Wednesday 15 December 2010.

Since I can’t get enough of minimal design and illustration… graphic designer Eric Slager’s Minimalist Muppets illustration series.

No Cookie Monster then?

(Thanks Jessica)

Originally published Monday 6 December 2010.

After the German cities of West Berlin and East Berlin were completely partitioned following the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, accessing one side of the city from the other — was at first — pretty much out of the question for all but a small number of people.

One group unaffected — to a degree — by the separation of the city were West Berlin train commuters who used a small number of underground services whose lines crossed into parts of East Berlin, as they travelled from one area of West Berlin to another.

While trains still ran through East Berlin, they did not stop at stations on the eastern side of the border. Many of these stations closed during the period the city was divided by the wall were dubbed “ghost stations”, and were usually heavily guarded by East German troops.

The YouTube video, above, contains footage filmed from the driver’s compartments of West Berlin trains as they passed through a couple of East Berlin’s ghost stations.

Update: unfortunately the original YouTube video has been taken down as a result of a copyright claim.

Originally published Monday 6 December 2010.