We could go on about how empty pools, once awash with liquidity and fun are a metaphor for the wreckage left after the credit bust. But then again, there is something cool about empty pools, period. Here are our faves.

Although making a 3d image is more dramatic than increasing its resolution, say, the technology is fairly primitive. Because of this, stereo cameras are something of an interesting retro curiosity. These days, custom made stereo cameras with twin lenses at eye separation are usually replaced by custom rigs for digital cameras, with appropriate software.

Here are a range of videos of some bizarre automated drawing machines, from an instrument that draws mushroom clouds from the dust from nuclear test sites, a large industrial robot used to automatically draw what it sees and a variety of increasingly odd contraptions.

Some machines that punch, stamp, strike or print money. What everyone needs these days, and what central banks will be using a lot of.

You may be amused to find out that even the J-98 Bank Note printing press is made in China.

Custom machinery designed for harvesting vast amounts of produce very quickly, has a particularly hellish quality. This list shows the variety of designs around a common theme, each for gathering a different product: carrots; beans; spinach; coffee; lettuce; cranberries; grapes etc. But then then there are our special favorites such as the worm harvester or the machines that eat trees, including a video of the infamous spider-like walking tree harvester.

A list of unusual snow vehicles, from Sno Cats and bizarre Russian snow cars to the amazing antarctic snow cruiser which is powered by a aircraft which is literally bolted to its roof.

Unlike regular snowmobiles, these vehicles shuttle groups of people around the barren wastelands of places like the antarctic.

Toilet design says a lot about a culture.

In the US public toilet cubicles typically have a quarter inch gap which allows people to see in, although a pissoir, which is a partially open air urinal is almost unknown. The reason for this irony is possibly prudery. The gaps are to prevent impropriety, but the enclosed toilets are because of a general American shyness about toilet matters. A small gap allows monitoring a large one encourages voyeurism. Political correctness due to the fact that pissoirs can normally only be used by men is undoubtedly also part of the reason, although recently funnel based womens pissoirs have been developed.

Pissoirs first became widespread in France but exist throughout the world, from Scandinavia to Australia. They fell out of fashion in the late 20th century, but have seen something of a revival, with ultra modern versions being built in places like Berlin. Britain, which shares anglo-saxon prudishness with America has recently relaxed its taboo against open air urinals, due to the problem of binge drinking and subsequent al fresco urination. In the south of England, cylindrical pissoirs which are hidden during the day, telescope out of the ground at night, for the relief of marauding drunken hordes.

Although the term galvanometer is often used to refer to things other than devices which measure electrical current (such as charge or resistance), there are an amazing array of early designs for this instrument, considering their simplicity.

Many of these design differences are to do with the cases that surround what is basically a twisting wire, however there is something definitively analog in their mechanism and 19th century amateur scientist in their variety.

Early galvanometers represent the extreme opposite of todays high energy physics, which requires giant multi billion dollar apparatuses and extreme digital processing for measurement. A long way off a compass and a battery.

The trend for dull or matt black motorcycles originated in “Rat Bikes” as a reaction against stock vehicles with bright colors and overblown fairings. For the purist a rat bike is never washed and ridden till it falls apart, a purely practical and functional idea that ends up creating a particular look.

Painting bikes matt black was originally part of this utilitarian idea but was appropriated by people who create “Survival bikes”. These have a deliberately designed post-apocalyptic look that traces back to things like the Max Max movie series. The line between rat bikes and survival bikes is sometimes blurred as people who consciously create the menacing, industrial look of survival bikes borrow from distressed and naturally aged rat bikes.

What made this list particularly interesting from a design curation perspective was how a simple thing such as the type of paint has come full circle through various subcultures and into the mainstream.

The 2007 Triumph Speed Triple, shown here, is a production motorcycle that is available in matt black, with a look and feel inspired by rat bikes. It completes the design cycle where a reaction of something mainstream becomes a mainstream fashion.

Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich donated money for a giant tunneling machine to build a tunnel between Russia and Sarah Palin’s house, when he was governor of the adjacent region to Alaska.

The Wikipedia entry for Tunneling Machines and the entry for Civil Engineers in the UK Yellow Pages have something in common, they both read: “see boring”. Doubly ironic, since boring is one of the most interesting projects for civil engineers, and the machines used to do the job are spectacular.

The set here includes a variety of shield tunnel boring machines, TBMs, including those for celebrated projects such as Yucca mountain or the Channel Tunnel. Perhaps the most ironic of all is the Air Force TBM, a machine for digging deep underground, owned by the people who defend the skies.

The design history of snowmobiles starts with propeller driven sleds, including the amazing Russian combat version and migrates to half track vehicles with rear engines. Today’s front engine vehicles were pioneered by Polaris, and are represented here by the Arctic Cat F6 600, which is driven by Sarah Palin’s husband. This list of personal snowmobiles also contains two state of the art concept single track motorcycle style vehicles by Keller and Schlootz.

You can pick up an old Boeing jetliner for the price of scrap, and turn it into the ultimate trailer home. Here are some of our favorite examples of recycled planes used as houses and restaurants, including a former Irish airliner that ended up as a bar in Syria and a Jumbo Jet that is a restaurant in South Korea.

The picture of people hunched over radar screens is the ultimate image of the cold war. Here are a collection of various radar consoles, from land air and sea and from round analog displays with orange, green or blood red displays, to today’s computer monitor versions.

Carbon Fiber matches wood in terms of flexibility of form and surpasses steel in terms of strength. Because of this it is beginning to be used as a decorative item, replacing walnut in car dashboards, for example.

This consciously decorative use can work well, but where carbon fiber is used for pseudo functional design, like the carbon fiber letter opener shown here, the choice is inappropriate and ridiculous.

The point of this list was to find interesting fountain designs that are truly modern, something that is rare, since fountains are luxurious, flowing and decorative by nature.

For example Rome’s Trevi fountain may be a masterpiece, but trying to recreate classical splendor today always looks awful and kitsch. The horrid water display at the Vegas Bellagio is a case in point, opulence without craft. In fairness, its designers, WET design have produced many other much more interesting designs which balance fun with restraint.

Here are some of our favorite designs, from computer controlled fountains such as the wonderful animated version at Detroit Airport to Chicago’s celebrated screen based Crown fountain

For high speed chase scenes or a low speed horse back rides, the film industry’s cameras occasionally have to go mobile and when they do, they rely on specialist high tech. cars and trucks.

Usually wearing intimidating matte black paint (to reduce glare) these vehicles are often engineering wonders, employing after market performance upgrades, elaborate electronics, exotic materials and even gyro-stabilizers to keep a subject in frame. With companies like Pursuit Systems, AP Cam Cars and a handful of others fulfilling Hollywood’s high speed needs, the vehicles they create are rarely seen but hard to overlook.

Here are some of out favorites including the amazing Go system, used for The Bourne Supremacy.

Curated by Chris Hull

If there is one kind of hammer that you don’t want to get your thumb stuck under, its a steam hammer, a giant hellish machine that defined the industrial age.

There are several claims to its invention in the mid 19th century, to hammer steel into shape and smash out impurities. One of these is Creusot, who exhibited a version at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1878.

Looking at the Creusot Hammer, I would argue that it was the inspiration for the Eiffel tower, ten years later.

Here are a variety of hammers including the mechanical or hydraulic versions that replaced steam, but still have the same titanic look.

Obviously the design criteria for four wheeled vehicles are somewhat different on other planets. This has yielded some of the most bizarre and fascinating vehicles ever proposed, from the giant Mobility Test Article test driven by Wernher von Braun to todays rovers which have ditched the most expensive component of all, the driver.

Here are a variety of some of both classic and unusual space rovers from prototype to flown.

Ever since the flat screen, trading rooms and trading desk setups have become more and more extreme, a symbol of the culture of leveraged trading that disappeared in today's meltdown.

Here are some of the most interesting trading places and trading gear, from the slick, modern Frankfurt stock exchange, Geneva's weird trading ring that (appropriately) looks like the set for the Weakest Link game show and a ridiculous 20 screen setup for a spotty-adolescent looking Hedge Fund manager.

If you are looking to get a tricked out multi screen trading setup to browse the web, the second hand market is going to look pretty good.

When gold prospectors first ventured to California, the equivalent of a hot tub meant farting in a zinc trough full of tepid water. Today it means an object reminiscent of CERN’s LHC particle detectors, with several hundred jets, built in 40 inch plasma TVs and seating for ten.

We put this list together largely because there is something fascinating and supremely gadgety about the variety of arrangements of body shaped molds and strategic placement of jets, that when laid out side by side, in a gallery, seems particularly impressive.

This type of space ship like hot tub design seems like something unusual enough to define a time and place, like fins on 50s cars or undulating water beds from the 70s.

Get into a car anywhere in the world, and if you can drive you will know how to use it. The car dashboard is the perfect user interface, something that puts computer interfaces to shame.

Here is a collection of our favorite car dashboards from the ergonomic simplicity of the 40s Willys Jeep, minimalist design excellence of the early Porsche, Maverick innovation of the Citroen DS and Baroque exuberance of the 50s Corvette. Vote for the top car interface of all time.

As I write this, I am surrounded by custom designed furniture and lighting, and the only thing that ruins the overall effect are the ugly power strips. A ubiquitous gadget which is often very cheap and badly designed.

Here are a collection of well designed power strip ideas from sliding, plugin-anywhere systems, that have been available for high end office design for decades but haven’t been available in consumer markets, to a $3500 audiophile power strip based upon quantum Resonance technology.

There is a strange beauty to slow motion videos of car crash test dummies and airbag deployment, but these don’t compare to the similar, but far more extreme safety measure of a fighter jet ejection. Here are videos of various aspects of their deployment testing and training. Some of these are absolutely mesmerizing.

It is no accident that very few production gull-wing door cars have ever been built. It is a design gimmick that looks superficially interesting but is highly impractical. Most gull wing cars are concept designs, and the company that made the most famous of all, the De Lorean DMC 12, went bankrupt. The Mercedes 300 SL is a lone example of a wonderful looking gull wing car, but even that was deemed dangerous, and nicknamed “the widowmaker”.

The gull wing’s marginally less impractical sister, the scissor door, has actually become a signature feature for Lamborghini. How fitting that a symbol of bad design should represent a, once great, car producer that has reduced itself to churning out expensive kitsch, since the mid 80s.

Somewhere in between a scissor and a gull wing are the doors on the cheaper Toyota Sera, which is a car that looks like someone’s grandmother trying to be cool.

Vote for your very worst.