Tab Sweep 7

The World's Longest Pier: 6.5 km long! There's a joke here somewhere, but I can't seem to find it.

Those nifty carbon nanotubes that are supposed to revolutionize next-to-everything? Turns out they may act just like asbestos in the lungs. Nifty, indeed. (via Engadget.)

A professional photographer was in the midst of photographing a wedding in Sichuan, China when the earthquake hit. What does a photographer do in an earthquake? Keep shooting a series of incredible and disturbing pictures. If you can read Chinese, you can get the full story here. (via Kottke.)

Continuing on the photography topic, we have this series of Polaroids: one a day from 1979 to 1997. They are presented without comment, but you can read the full story over at metal_floss.

Buy an iPhone, get a plastic bag... delivered... in its own box... via DHL 2nd day.

Pretty and imminently impractical wall outlets by Bocci. More here. (via BoingBoing Gadgets.)

I've been pretty thrilled by the low-light performance of my cheap little 50mm f/1.8 lens. Stanley Kubrik wanted to film the candle-lit scenes in Barry Lyndon using only candle light, so he use a specially adapted 50mm f/0.7 lens. Wow! The full story was told in this article from American Cinematographer. (via Coudal via Daring Fireball.)

Why settle for a table lamp on a timer? If you really want to convince Mr. Burglar you're home, you need a FakeTV, a little LED light panel that flickers like a real TV. (via BB Gadgets.)

A beautiful gallery of vintage classical album covers.