Today the world’s tallest building is opening in Dubai. There have been a number of “world’s tallest” titles handed out in recent years. Some of the titles have been contested on technicalities…apparently antennas don’t count but spires do. But there is no question that the Burj Dubai deserves to be called the world’s tallest. It has 160 floors and reaches an amazing 2,717 feet up.

But what does this new record holder mean? What does it symbolize?

A brief history of the record holding structures reveals the economic, political, and cultural shifts of the last 200 years. Consider that for most of recorded history the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt, was the tallest structure. It was not surpassed until the Lincoln Cathedral was built in the UK in 1311.  The record…

I shared my affection for Honda’s on this blog in the past. The automaker’s “man-max, machine-min” engineering philosophy helped me rethink my own understanding of church programming. How many car companies have inspired your ecclesiology?

In high school I worked at a Honda dealer as a porter. My first car was a Honda Prelude. And in the years since I’ve owned six different Hondas-from a sports car to a minivan; an SUV and a scooter. So, yes, I’m a fan of the fuel-efficient, ergonomic, and very reliable vehicles.

But lately I’m beginning to wonder what they’re smoking over at Honda’s design studios. Honda has never been known as a cutting edge design company. They’re notoriously conservative. That means they’ve never produced anything as beautiful as a Jaguar E-type, but they…

Last time we looked at the 2016 Summer Olympic candidate city’s logos. Now we turn to the other unifying element of each bid-the city mottos. I admit up front that Olympic mottos tend to be both corny and forgettable. But they may indicate something about each city’s tone, as well as the themes we might see expressed in the opening ceremonies and marketing of the games. As with the logos, here are the mottos and my comments.Chicago“Let Friendship Shine”Sappy? Yes, but it could be worse. I do like the notion of friendship. It communicates the warmth of the city and the hope that athletics can bring diverse people together and bind them in friendship. It may also be a useful value to highlight as the games have become…

In just a few weeks, on October 2, the International Olympic Committee will select the host city for the 2016 summer games. The four finalists are Madrid, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, and Chicago.Living in the Chicago ‘burbs, and having been born and raised here, it’s obviously a big deal to think that the Olympics may be coming here. In the weeks leading up to the final decision, I want to spend a little time comparing the four candidate cities and their bids for the games. There’s nothing deep, theological, or even informed about this analysis. Just my opinions with a heavy bias in favor of Chicago.This week we start with each city’s logo design.ChicagoThe US bid city has gone with an unconventional design. Most stay away for gradation…

Next Tuesday the new President will take his first drive in his new limousine down Pennsylvania Ave. The recently unveiled custom built Cadillac is described as a luxury tank. It’s not as elegant as the Mercedes-Benz popular with European heads of state, but those cars probably could not withstand a direct asteroid hit either. Here are a few of the more bizarre features of “Cadillac One.”

-Armored doors weigh as much as a cabin door on a Boeing 757.

-Tires are shred and puncture resistant and can still run when flat.

-Night vision cameras.

-Bottles of the President’s blood are kept in the car for emergency transfusions.

-Only the driver’s window can open, and only three inches, to communicate with Secret Service agents outside.

-Armour plated fuel tank with special foam preventing explosion even…

Remember Kramer’s coffee table book about celebrity coffee tables? When presenting the book to Regis, Kramer demonstrated how the book could spout legs to become a coffee table.

Well, these bookshelves share that same Cosmo Kramer brilliance. These two additions to the “Really Cool Bookshelves” library are different takes on the book as bookshelf.

In this first example, it appears the books (in this case J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series) have sacrificed their lives to become an immortal shelf. There’s nothing particularly strange about the design…your standard brackets and horizontal shelf. But it’s fun nonetheless.

The second shelf is more interesting, in my opinion. The simple metal bracket is used to hold a single book to the wall. Other books are then stacked on top to give the impression that the books…