Fake unfinished concrete wallpaper
ConcreteWall is a Norwegian company that sells wallpaper silkscreened to look like unfinished concrete in a variety of textures. I guess it's more "street" than drywall over 2x4s?
ConcreteWall.no (via Beyond the Beyond)
John's Phone: the minimalist anti-smart-phone
John's Phones sell no-frills mobile phones that send and receive calls and pretty much nothing else (though there's a place to keep your pen). Warren Ellis likens it to a phone from minimalist Japanese housewares/clothing company Muji.
John's Phones (via Warren Ellis)Finally a separate unit with no frills and conditions. A simlock free phone with large keys, an address book, a pen and over three weeks time standby... John's Phone is simple and easy for young, old, holiday, grandfathers, grandmothers, athletes, national and international business traffic.
Apple's iPod harvest: hands-on with new Shuffle, Nano, Touch
As predicted last week in the Boing Boing agricultural almanac, Apple this week releases three new varieties of iPods for the fall crop.
All three bear improvements over earlier generations of this familiar fruit, but some of the new additions—and in some cases, what's missing—may surprise you. Following are snapshots of the new iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, and iPod Touch, with taste-test notes.
You can find them all in your local farmers markets soon, or order them now at the online Apple store.
HOWTO make shotgun shell candles
Here's Instructables user Sunbanks's simple HOWTO for making candles out of discarded shotgun shells, just the thing for your William S Burroughs-reviving seance!
Shotgun Shell Candles (via Make)
Cheap, portable personal 3D printer: the UP!
The UP! personal 3D printer from China retails for $1500, with goop running at $50/kg. From this early adopter's review: It runs at 0.3mm resolution, and the finished models show striations from successive layers of goop, but light sanding produces a smooth finish. For objects with funny extrusions and sitcky-outie bits that aren't stable until they are fully printed, the printer calculates and adds support struts on the fly, and these have to be removed with a hobby knife after printing.
Personal Portable 3D Printer (via Futurismic)
This 1936 Henderson motorcycle was given a superb Art Deco mod by Frank Westfall of Syracuse, NY and displayed at last summer's Rhinebeck Grand National Meet. The Knucklebuster blog got to see and photograph it in person there, and has a thrilling account of its performance: "The bike is a fantastic piece of history, the craftsmanship is absolutely stunning and it's surely more of a museum piece than a daily rider. Frank has obviously spent an incredible amount of time meticulously restoring and rebuilding the bike to its current gorgeous state."
1930 Art Deco Henderson (Thanks, Littledragon!)
Sweet little steampunk automaton
Cory Doctorow at 6:11 AM Sat 
Kamill1 sez, "My first attempt at an automata, I think it turned out pretty well! Super fun build. A little wink to Jake Von Slatt, sitting down to play the pipe organ. Huzzah!"
Steampunk Automata "Orchestra Von Slatt", Completed Friday, Sep 3 2010 (Thanks, kamill1, via Submitterator!)
For all your puzzlement needs: the self-inking WTF stamp.
Jewelry made from laminated, polished cross-sections of books
Cory Doctorow at 1:26 PM Fri
UK designer Jeremy May makes jewelry by laminating and polishing pages from old books together to make striking pieces: "The beauty of the jewels extends within the piece: text and images pass all the way though the object, only exposed at the surfaces - giving a tantalising glimpse of the book within."
LITTLEFLY (Thanks, Irene Delse via Submitterator!)
Tonio de Roover's East meets West sofa is meant to evoke flying carpets. I can't figure out how comfortable it'd be, but it looks great.
East meets west (via Craft)
Old tabriz rug becomes bear rug
An unnamed artist transformed a worn antique tabriz wool rug into a wonderful, fanciful bear rug. I imagine the reported "repaired knots and moth damage" just enhance its charm. 87" x 59", $1800 from CS Post.
Adafruit Industries has posted a pair of terrific videos in which Apple's "Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs talk about their short career building illegal telephone equipment, aka 'blue boxes.' Interesting how their two stories differ...the engineer and the marketer." Bonus: Cap'n Crunch! — Xeni • Comments: 4
HOWTO: Tiny BBQ out of Altoids Sours tin
Instructables.com contributor vmspionage built a tiny BBQ grill out of an Altoids Sours tin and computer fan grates. My 4-year-old (and I) would love this for making s'mores, one bubbling, tooth-decaying marshmallow at a time. Altoids Sours BBQ Grill
Etsy seller Buster and Boo does a nice line in vintage, moderately priced jewelry and decorative art made from vintage typewriter keys from the 1920s and 1930s.
Here's video of the triumphant success of an elaborate kids' Rube Goldberg machine, created at an "informal Rube Goldberg summer camp for kids ages 3-8." I know nothing about this summer-camp, but it seems like one of the great Good Things of our era -- especially judging from the awesome elation of the kids after the successful run!
How to Get a Beach Ball Into a Galvanized Bucket (the Hard Way)
Here's a mesmerizing three-minute tutorial on cutting erratic "organic" gears that spin freely despite their odd shapes. After watching it, I was left wondering how you'd make a third (and fourth, and fifth) gear that could mesh with the system without repeating the earlier gear forms, to create an enormous, improbable Rube Goldberg display.
How-To: Make Organically-Shaped Gears
Laser cut and 3D printed decorative objects derived from geography
Fluid Forms is a 3D printing and laser-cutting company that produces a wide range of objects based on maps, satellite images, and other photos. They started off with topographical maps of physical places printed in sterling silver with pinbacks, and now they've expanded their repertoire. The new offerings include necklaces with steel charms based on your photos, or maps (inexplicably, these are marketed as "necklaces for men," though I can't imagine why they're not unisex -- the same charms are also available as earrings) and acrylic/wood clocks with finely cut lines reproducing streetmaps.
I love the idea of using "emotionally significant" places as motifs for jewelry and other decorative items. On the 3D printing side, it's a clever way of giving everyone a ready-made, personally important 3D mesh to use as the basis for an object.
Pedal-powered farm machinery for use in rural Guatemala
Cory Doctorow at 1:45 PM Thu
Maya Pedal is a Guatemalan NGO that works with international volunteers and local experts to remanufacture old bicycles to serve as "people-powered farm machines." The dozens of "Bicimaquina" designs include bike-powered washing machines, blenders, grain mills, water irrigation devices and animal-feed mills.
Up to ten volunteers from around the world take up residency in San Andreas Itzapas each year for several weeks at a time. Based on bicycle parts contributed by their partner organizations around the world, they work with Mr. Marroquin and his staff to produce between five and ten bicimaquinas a month, and up to fifty over the course of a year. Roughly half the working time at Maya Pedal is devoted building these machines, and the remainder is directed to an extensive bicycle maintenance program for the residents of the city. The bicimaquinas are sold locally for the cost of manufacturing. Several family-run businesses have developed from the bicimaquinas program including a shop that grinds different grains for customers, and a building contractor that uses a bicycle-powered concrete compaction machine at construction sites in the region.Maya Pedal (Thanks, Hughadam, via Submitterator!)
Designer Art Donovan has a lovely line of handmade steampunk lighting that he sells direct (inquire within, as they say). No idea how they're priced, but they sure are purdy.
Donovan Design (Thanks, Art, via Submitterator!)
Mechanical wall-hung clockwork sculptures
Here's more wonderful stuff from Brett Dickins, AKA MechanicalSculptor, who makes wall-hung mechanical clockworks that explode/disintegrate/transform and reform. I'm absolutely besotted by the self-sawing piece around 1:55.
Kinetic Wall Sculptures - Dizzy
These Woody Guthrie-themed pencils are emblazoned "This Machine Kills Fascists," the motto Guthrie famously inscribed upon his guitar. Not sure how they compare to Blackwings, though!
These machines kill fascists (Thanks, Sara the Teacher!)
Golf company has Ping trademark, domain (UPDATED: There's a deal)
Apple's name for its new social network, Ping, is interestingly generic. With a long association to the sport of table tennis and a computer networking utility whose function resembles it, it carries a natural association with communication, responsiveness, and so on. But like many generic terms, if you do a search for "Ping" at the trademark office's website, you'll find many, many entries. Most recent filings are from Karsten Manufacturing Corporation, which makes golf gear. Interestingly many of its filings go beyond the sticks to include computer and internet-related stuff.
This mark, for example, is for goods and services concerning "Communications software for electronically exchanging data." Though filed on April 7, 2010, it's already been abandoned. Most of the "Ping" trademark filings from Karsten, however, remain live.
Ping.com is a well-manicured corporate site that touts the corporate twitter account. It even has an iPhone app.
Then there's Ping.fm, a bona-fide social networking tool even closer to Apple's new thing. Owner Seesmic.com don't seem to have filed for any related trademarks.
Here's some of Karsten's trademark filings for Ping:
85003420 Wireless communication devices for voice, data or image transmission.
85010415 Computer software, namely, file sharing software; communications software for electronically exchanging data, and graphics accessible via a computer network, etc.
85009569 Computer services, namely, providing search platforms to allow users to request content from and receive content to a mobile device or a computer; Providing user-defined generated content, etc.
85014001 Entertainment and educational services ... Providing an internet website for dissemination of historical information and current news relating to golf etc.
85003420 Broadcasting of video and audio programming over the Internet ... Electronic mail; Providing on-line communications links which transfer the web site user to other local and global web pages .. Providing an on-line forum relating to the subject of sports; Consumer telecommunication services, namely, communications services for electronically exchanging data and graphics via telecommunication networks, including mobile and wireless networks.
UPDATE: There's a deal between the two companies. Press release follows after the jump! Thanks, Kristopher!
Hands-on with new Apple TV and iPods; and notes on Ping, the iTunes social network
Apple showed off the latest editions of its iPod lineup and the Apple TV earlier today. The new iPod Nano loses the physical controls and adopts a multitouch display. The iPod Shuffle, however, gets them back.
Apple event, September 1: The Boing Boing Liveblog
Xeni's in San Francisco for Apple's press event today. Watch this space for live commentary from the event, and tune in to the live streaming broadcast from Yerba Buena at apple.com (the short version: to watch the HTTP Live Streaming, you gotta have a Mac/iPhone/ipod/iPad. But following Boing Boing? Pick any OS and hardware you like.)
Liveblog archive after the jump.
Boing Boing's live coverage of Apple event Wednesday, Sep. 1, 10am PT
Apple is holding an invite-only press event Wednesday, September 1, in San Francisco. Above, a snip from the invitation that went out to journalists. If only we had some clue what this is all about? Look at that guitar. Just look at it. It's trying to tell us something. What does it mean?
Anyway, Boing Boing will be represented, and we'll be providing some sort of live color commentary from the goat rodeo.
Apple is live-streaming this one, for the first time in many years, too—so you can watch along from wherever you are at apple.com. As long as you aren't using a Windows box or an Android phone:
"Viewing requires either a Mac running Safari on Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard, an iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad."Do join us in the morning. I'll be there in person, and Rob will no doubt be lending his acerbic wit and gadget-savvy to make our coverage worth tuning in to.
This flying drone possesses a rubbery hand that can swipe your beer if you're not watchful. (Technology Review via Bruce Sterling) — Xeni • Comments: 6
Xeni Jardin at 8:43 AM Tue
"Power/Strip is a 12 outlet cruciform surge protector that easily accommodates oversize adapters while providing comprehensive protection from evil, power surges, and AC contamination." Designed by Alexander Pincus. Alas, it seems to be a proof of concept only at this time.
(via BB Submitterator, thanks Arts & Leisure!)
Delightful paleo-gadgets of 1959
From the November, 1959 issue of Mechanix Illustrated, a delightful foursome of new inventions, including a wristwatch/tape measure; a vibrating car-seat; a two-seat personal gyro-glider and a revolutionary paper boiler-suit: "ROLL this strikingly unusual Swiss-made jeweled-lever wristwatch on any standard scale map and you can measure the distance in miles or kilometers. As you roll the watch along the map's highway, the mileage is recorded and seen through an aperture on the face of the dial. The watch is designed for the world traveler, sportsmen or even for the week-end driver who likes to keep track of the distance he travels. Bauble is scheduled for export to the United States sometime within the next year."
Victorian "rather sinister" artificial arm and hand
This Victorian artificial arm and hand is part of the London Science Museum's collection: "Made from steel and brass, this unusual prosthetic arm articulates in a number of ways. The elbow joint can be moved by releasing a spring, whereas the top joint of the wrist allows a degree of rotation and an up-and-down motion. The fingers can also curl up and straighten out. The leather upper arm piece is used to fix the prosthesis to the remaining upper arm. The rather sinister appearance of the hand suggests the wearer may have disguised it with a glove."
Artificial right arm, Europe, 1850-1910 (Thanks, Mista J, via Submitterator!)
Sink made out of recycled tires
Minarc's RUBBISH sink is made out of recycled tires -- it just won an award from Architect Magazine: "The rubber from the tires is melted down and cleansed of debris, and the tiny inherent metal fibers that give a tire its road resistance are then formed into a sheet. This sheet is stretched over a base frame--made of wood, metal, or any other material out of which bathroom furniture can be fashioned--and anchored down by the drain collar. This creates a shallow-sloped surface for water to be siphoned away, but not a clunky profile; in fact, the material used is so minimal that, the manufacturer claims, the sinks use less than one pound of rubber. Two options are available, the most basic being the 1/8-inch-thick sheet of rubber adhered directly to the cabinet underneath. The other is a framed option, in which the sheet of rubber is sandwiched between two sheets of aluminum around the edges. The firm is in the process of developing two standard sizes for commercial distribution: a single sink at 36 inches wide and a double basin measuring 5 feet across."
Back To School Art Competition: De-CGI something and win prizes from HP/AMD
HP has offered three splendid "Back To School" machines to give away to Boing Boing readers:
First prize is an HP dv6 15.6" laptop with an AMD Phenom Quad Core Processor
Second prize is an HPE Elite 210f desktop computer with an AMD Phenom Quad Core processor.
Third prize is an HP 2509 monitor.
The competition theme is De-CGI. Take something that is characteristically computerized and render it with natural media. For example, the pixelated layout of an old-school video game represented as bottletops, or a mandelbrot fractal drawn with crayons. Be imaginative!
You retain the copyright in your entries. Only legal residents of the U.S. aged 18 and above and Canada can win the prizes. Read the contest rules. You've got until midnight next Monday to get your entries in!
To enter the competition, simply upload your entry online somewhere and post a link to it in the comments below. Alternatively, email it to me (rob át boing boing døt net). Good luck!
UPDATE! Attention Canadians! HP can ship prizes north of the border. This means entries from oop north are eligible in this contest to receive prizes.
Homebrew 1/10 scale Cray-1 supercomputer
Cory Doctorow at 6:59 AM Mon
Chris Fenton has knocked together a "1/10-scale, binary-compatible, cycle-accurate Cray-1" as part of an ongoing "computational necromancy" project: "What's the point of owning a Cray-1 if it doesn't *look* like a Cray-1?? Unfortunately, the square-shaped FPGA board isn't conducive to actually making it the traditional "C" shape, but I think it turned out pretty cool anyway. My friend Pat was nice enough to let me use his CNC milling machine to cut out the base pieces (and help with assembly). It's a combination of MDF, balsa wood and pine. There was also a healthy dose of blood, sweat and tears (and gorilla glue) involved."
Homebrew Cray-1A (Thanks, Chris, via Submitterator)
Aeropress: fast, portable, cheap, easy, delicious espresso
When I decided to take a month off life and hide out at a cottage, I knew I wanted to rough it, but I wasn't about to give up on my morning espresso. So, thinking of Mark's beloved Aeropress machine, I picked one up. I found mine on the shelves at the genuinely excellent Crema coffee-shop in Toronto, and had them grind a couple pounds of each of their espresso roasts for me to try (this coffee went so fast that we ended up sending relations who were joining us later on detours to Crema -- we eventually killed something like 10 pounds of espresso, and I've brought home a couple pounds to enjoy in London).
The verdict? I give it an A, and on a good day, an A+. It's a very simple design: a plastic sleeve with a hollow plastic plunger that is tipped with a tight-fitting rubber tip. You screw a mesh lid onto the sleeve, insert a paper filter (these are reusable, but they're also tiny and cheap, and you get 350 of them with your Aeropress), and pile dry espresso grounds on top of the filter, and rest the whole thing on a sturdy cup or mug. Then you add a measured amount of 175°F water, stir for 10 seconds, and gently but forcefully depress the plunger. The espresso that emerged was uniformly delicious -- sweet, dark, and without a hint of bitterness.
The theory behind the Aeropress is that you can get a better shot of espresso if you extract your coffee quickly, and at low temperatures. In order to do that, you need to really get the water into contact with the fine-ground coffee (hence the stirring step), so that you get a nice shot even without a lot of heat or time.
This is not without its drawbacks: I never managed to get any crema onto any of my shots (looking at Aeropress message boards, I can see I'm not alone). Also, the shots that the Aeropress delivered were really short -- I found myself increasing the amount of water about one third above their recommended levels. Finally, the business of getting your water to 175 Fahrenheit is very fiddly (I used a $6 meat thermometer from Canadian Tire and clipped it to the mouth of the electric kettle). What's more, the Aeropress comes with a couple of largely useless accessories (a funnel and a stand for the filters), but omits the absolutely vital thermometer, which seems ill-considered.
But the disadvantages are vastly outweighed by the advantages. As I said, the coffee is great (everyone who visited us or vice versa got a shot or two, most asked for seconds). The cleanup is really simple: the piston scours the sleeve clean of all grounds and oils, so all it wants is a rinse at the tip when you're done. And the setup is compact, portable, and requires no electricity (though you need some means of heating water). We combined it with a microwaved milk frothed with a little battery-powered whizzer, which was no substitute for properly frothed milk, but beat most chain-store milky espresso drinks hands down.
At $30, the device is a very cheap way of making espresso, and despite the thermometer fiddling, I found it much easier to use than my traditional steam-driven machine in my kitchen. If you're trying it out, pay close attention to the instruction not to press too hard on the piston: just push in an inch or two, wait while the water permeates the grounds, then push the rest of the way in.
I've put my Aeropress in my permanent travel kit.
AeroPress Coffee and Espresso Maker with Bonus 350 Micro Filters
Lady Clankington's Cabinet of Carnal Curiosities sells steampunk raygun vibrators for sexy steampunk bedroom fun. You can play stern neo-Victorian explorer and naughty morlock, or any variation that tickles your fancy.
Lady Clankington's Cabinet of Carnal Curiosities! (via JWZ)
Home entertainment center predictions, 1959
Here's a vision of an "electronic home library" from a 1959 edition of Closer Than We Think, a futuristic newspaper strip drawn by Arthur Radebaugh: "Some unusual inventions for home entertainment and education will be yours in the future, such as the 'television recorder' that RCA's David Sarnoff described recently.
With this device, when a worthwhile program comes over the air while you are away from home, or even while you're watching it, you'll be able to preserve both the picture and sound on tape for replaying at any time. Westinghouse's Gwilym Price expects such tapes to reproduce shows in three dimensions and color on screens as shallow as a picture."
Kisai Traffic: telling the time with stylized animated traffic-maps
The latest gloriously impractical Kisai watch from TokyoFlash is the Traffic, a watch that displays the time as an animated traffic map -- the $170 LED-watch recharges with USB.
One-eyed cyborg filmmaker seeks woman who desires paintball machine gun prosthetic leg
Xeni Jardin at 11:14 AM Thu
Via the BB Submitterator, Boing Boing reader davidjoho says,
One-eyed film maker Rob Spence's EyeBorg project involves putting a wireless video camera into his eye socket. He's now advertising for a one-legged woman who wants a machine-gun prosthetic, a la Grindhouse's Cherry Darling. Although Time named his vid-eye as one of the best inventions of 2009, the odds are longer for the new prosthetic making the list, especially since it only shoots paint pellets. Also, no Quake-style rocket jumps.
Convert an iPhone into a little pinball machine
Best Buy is selling a fun-looking little gadget that turns an iPhone or iPod Touch into a pinball machine. It would be neat to have one for the iPad.
This Pinball Magic [App]cessory includes a miniature pinball machine and a free application for realistic pinball gaming action, compatible with select Apple iPhone and iPod touch models. The LED lights light up during multiball play.
New Potato - Pinball Magic [App]cessory for Apple (Via TUAW)
Behold! Samsung's Galaxy Tab. It's an iClone with a 7" display and looks lovely: shown off in the video are Android 2.2, voice calling and a camera. — Rob • Comments: 38
The return of the Blackwing pencil
Photo: Dan Cole
In 2007 I reported that Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencils were selling for $30 each on eBay. The manufacturer stopped making them in 1998 (the retail price at that time was 50 cents). Since then, the price has gone up to about $40 per unsharpened pencil. Here's a good article about the history of the Blackwing and why it was discontinued (in short, it was because of low demand and high machinery-repair costs).
I recently learned that the Blackwing, with its distinctive blocky ferrule, is coming back. On August 5, 2010, California Cedar Products Company acquired the Blackwing trademark. A few minutes ago I received an email from California Cedar addressed to me and a dozen other people, which read, in part:
Here at California Cedar Products Company, we are all extremely excited about the re-release of Blackwing pencil. In order to show our appreciation for the biggest Blackwing fanatics, we would like to send pre-production, never been seen, Blackwing pencils to a select group of people... We would like for you to try out the pencils and comment on various aspects of the new product.
I'm very curious to find out how well the California Cedar Blackwing 602 performs against my Eberhard Faber Blackwing (a gift from Mr. Jalopy that I use sparingly). California Cedar is the same company that makes the excellent Palomino pencil, so I have high hopes that the new Blackwing will live up to the slogan that was stamped in gold foil on the original: "Half the Pressure, Twice the Speed."
I'll keep you posted.
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