A Tool Used For Firing Clay in a Kiln Transforms into this Minimalist Bird Feeder!

When considering useful design, we typically begin first by denoting which problem the product claims to be capable of solving, and then we consider the process and ultimate product innovation. Created by the designers at Studio Kononenko, Maverick, a ceramic bird feeder, doesn’t present a new solution for bird feeders but does present an approach for sustainable product manufacturing that solves a problem faced by many designers: the scrap material used during construction, like rings in clay kilns, that is discarded once the product is finished.

In collaborating with Ceramika Design and creating furniture items for the brand, the thinkers at Studio Kononenko wanted to make use of ceramic rings used when firing clay in kilns. On the process, the designers share, “Considering that the reserves of this clay are limited, we thought about extending the life of these elements. We wanted to create a useful thing out of this. This is how a feeder for wild birds appeared.”

The main element of the bird feeder is formed from ceramic – the frame and body of the bird feeder. Covering just about a quarter of the round frame is a plastic plate that functions to store plenty of food for the wild birds. Extending from the middle of the plastic plate is a wooden peg that works as a perch for birds to enjoy their seeds. Industrial, strong metal bolts and nuts hold it all together. The bird feeder itself comes with little frills, as the main purpose of this design rests not in aesthetic intricacy, but usability and sustainability. Another aspect of Maverick that enhances its eco-friendly design method is that the designers at Studio Kononenko made it so that each component of the bird feeder is replaceable on the off-chance that one is damaged either by hungry birds a little too eager for snacking or weak tree branches.

Up north, birds rejoice at the sight of backyard bird feeders as food in the winter months can be hard to come by with frozen topsoil and frost-covered plants. It seems the design of Maverick encapsulates a method of sustainability that inspires a cycle of feedback. In collaborating with Ceramika Design, Studio Kononenko produces items for human’s ease of life, then, the waste acquired is used to produce a bird feeder, which benefits an animal’s ease of life, heightening the natural artfulness of landscape design where the bird feeder is situated, and so on. While the design behind Maverick might be simple, the ecological commitment to recyclability is both bold and clever.

Designer: Studio Kononenko x Ceramika Design


The feeder consists of four materials: ceramic, wood, metal, and plastic linings.


Through an intuitive hanging method, Maverick can be suspended from any sturdy tree branch closeby where birds feed.


“While creating items for [the] brand, Ceramika Design, we paid attention to the rings used in the technological process. They are used when firing clay in kilns, and at the end of the process, they are disposed of. Considering that the reserves of this clay are limited, we thought about extending the life of these elements,” Studio Kononenko shares.


By incorporating plastic plates that enclose bird seeds, the designers at Studio Kononenko successfully transformed a ring-shaped tool used during clay firing into a functional bird feeder.


On Maverick’s aesthetic appeal, Studio Kononenko says, “The object is created in the style of minimalism and will be a cool addition to landscape design, and can also please the eye outside the window on the balcony.”

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The Cavalier Maverick is Amazon Echo’s hipster cousin

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In a market filled with tech companies building smart speakers to leverage the increase in voice-input to their favor, Cavalier’s Maverick stands out as a speaker designed for performance first, and for smart-features later. Built by a team of designers, engineers, and overall music aficionados, the Maverick stays true to its name by being one. Stepping away from the usual plastic and metal construction, the Maverick uses cutom-knit fabrics, distressed leather, and genuine wood too, to give you a speaker that conforms yet doesn’t. The speaker comes with Alexa built into it, making it like every smart speaker, but visually, and performance-wise, a class apart.

The Maverick comes with a 20W performance featuring two active drivers and dual passive radiators that fill the entire room with a sound that most smart-speakers can only dream of. Made with Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities, the speaker is fully portable, boasting of 9 hours of play time, and even comes with a charging dock of its own, complete with a leather finish. Built with Amazon Alexa and far-field voice activation, the Maverick lets you control it the way you’d control your smart-speaker, using voice input, accessing all the services Amazon’s Alexa gives you access to. For the analog-lovers, the Maverick comes with a control panel on it too. As far as playback is concerned, the Maverick comes with Cavalier’s partner app, allowing you to connect multiple Maverick speakers to one another and create a sound-stage around your house.

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Designer: Cavalier Audio

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NVIDIA unveils Tesla K40 accelerator, teams with IBM on GPU-based supercomputing

NVIDIA unveils Tesla K40, teams with IBM on supercomputing in the data center

NVIDIA's Tesla GPUs are already mainstays in supercomputers that need specialized processing power, and they're becoming even more important now that the company is launching its first Tesla built for large-scale projects. The new K40 accelerator only has 192 more processing cores than its K20x ancestor (2,880, like the GeForce GTX 780 Ti), but it crunches analytics and science numbers up to 40 percent faster. A jump to 12GB of RAM, meanwhile, helps it handle data sets that are twice as big as before. The K40 is already available in servers from NVIDIA's partners, and the University of Texas at Austin plans to use it in Maverick, a remote visualization supercomputer that should be up and running by January.

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Source: NVIDIA