Rare vintage globes are being digitized so you can spin them online

The University of Southern Maine's Osher Map Library is making some of its oldest and rarest globes available in online models so you can rotate them from the comfort of your computer screen. The collection includes the library's two oldest: 1603 and 1607 celestial globes by Dutch cartographer Willem Janszoon Blaeu. Of course, there's nothing like spinning the real thing. But vintage globes are pretty fragile (usually made of plaster wood and paper), and some are in storage and out of reach.

[h/t: Motherboard]

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Gilbert Legrand turns mundane stuff into delightful characters

Gilbert Legrand doesn't see the world like the rest of us. You see a scrubbing brush, he sees an Apache chief. You see a a pair of scissors, he sees smooching lovers. The French artist's imagination is so wild and unrestricted that he can turn the most ordinary objects into unexpected sources of delight. I just spent half an hour lurking on his website, and you should, too.

Nick Smith creates NSFW prints using Pantone color chips as pixels

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The Salimbaa

Here's a strange tribal instrument I never heard of before now. Originally from the Tinananon tribe of southern Philippines, the bowl-shaped Salimbaa is made of metal and wood, has 30 bronze wound strings, and is played using two small sticks. Caleb Byerly, who makes lost/extinct musical tools in his North Carolina workshop, has an interesting story on how he made his first Salimbaa. WATCH: More details about Caleb and his craft over at Our State .

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