OVERCUP BLOG — cole gerst

Father’s Day wasn’t declared an official nationwide holiday until 1972, which is 58 years after Mother’s Day found a spot on our calendars. So, unless you’ve been stalling for fifty-some-odd years, there’s no need to feel guilty if Dad’s present is a tad delayed. This year, you’d like to send a little something with that greeting card, but he’s already got a “World’s Greatest Dad” mug and a closet full of ties. Dads can be especially tricky to shop for. But don’t worry just yet! Check out some of our titles to see if one of these books will float Dad’s...

You may have thought today was an ordinary day. Little did you know, something extraordinary happened 57 years ago: a man with a dream took steps to make that dream a reality. The man? Buckminster Fuller. That dream? To make an underwater island. That’s right—on June 8, 1959, Buckminster Fuller filed his patent for his “Submarisle,” or “underwater island.” While this idea might seem outlandish, Fuller actually developed the idea for purely practical reasons: he wanted to develop a less expensive way to conduct offshore drilling. This “island” would be floating and fully submersible, attached to a fixed rig dug into...

In 1975, when Buckminster Fuller was almost eighty, he gave a series of lectures on his life’s work. These talks span over forty hours and cover science, mathematics, architecture, design, philosophy, history, education, and more. They are collectively called “Everything I Know” and were unrehearsed, delivered “completely extemporaneously,” as Fuller describes. He says, “I'm working on a mental tapestry, and I am introducing thoughts, and so forth, and I am bringing in threads and you'll find me continually weaving.”  You can get a taste of the lectures in this lightly edited version of the first session:Full recordings of all the...

Every day, you hear about a new way that humans are harming our planet, whether it's through earthquake-causing fracking, ozone-obliterating pollution, or ecosystem-destroying business practices. Whew. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts. Today, on Earth Day (April 22nd) we turn our focus to positive thoughts about the future of Planet Earth. Photo Credit: Siemens Germany by Christian Kuhna Maybe that’s one reason why we are so smitten by the great Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller, a legendary 20th century polymath and a steadfast advocate for sustainable innovations. We wondered how many people felt as dismayed as we did by this destruction and were working, like...