Rob Beschizza

Electro-luminescent butterfly lamp

Hidden Art's Butterfly Lamp lives up to the store's name, sketching the topography of an unlit alien world in lines of printed, electroluminescent phosphors.

Shop [Hidden Art]

Xeni Jardin

Global Game Jam continues! Live video (without kittens)

Boing Boing Video, Offworld, and Boing Boing Gadgets have been on the scene at the Global Game Jam in various cities around the world, and we'll be bringing you some fun post-Jam documentary LOLs next week. For now, check out this meta Flickr photoset, which contains lots of sleepy developers, half-consumed energy drinks, and funny things people think up when they're hyperconnected and under-slept -- international dance-offs, for example.

Above, Boing Boing Video colleague Jolon Bankey is also organizing the Global Game Jam Costa Rica, and this is the live stream for CR. Pura Vida, guys!

Update: Here's the link for their liveblogging -- fun stuff afoot.

Below, Jolon writes:

Hey Xeni! We're at the site of the Global Game Jam in Costa Rica, and all the teams are going strong! We have a few casualties curled up in a corner behind me, but for the most part people haven't slept, or did so for 15 minutes sitting in front of their chairs before jerking awake and getting back to rocking their virtual world in the short time left.

With only 27 short sleepless hours ahead of them, everyone is surprisingly energized. We have had continuous communication with the other locations around the world via webcams and projectors everywhere, which has been a lot of fun. There have been Macarena dance-offs between Costa Rica and the rest of the world, we lost a contest with Brazil, but Scotland gave us a 10 for our efforts.

We polished off some giant tubs of Gallo Pinto and huevos revueltos earlier, and now people are just trying to push through with an unending stream of Sobe Adrenalin Rush (*cough* sponsors Thank you Sobe!)

-jgb 12.04.29 pm Saturday January 31st, 2009
Offices of Schematic, Costa Rica
PLaza Roble, Escazu, Costa Rica

Xeni Jardin

Interactive photo-hunt game on YouTube

Boing Boing reader Joe Sabia says he's created the first ever interactive photo hunt on YouTube. "There are 30 levels to the game, recapping all the big nominees for the oscars. 64 videos in all. i made use of youtube's annotations... thought you would enjoy." The subject matter may or may not be something that interests you, but I loved this clever and effective use of a mass-market web service feature (annotations) for a purpose other than the one for which that feature was originally developed.

Start here.

Rob Beschizza

Turing machine built with Lego

In 1972 a crack unix programming unit was sent to prison by a military court for a hack they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Berkeley underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. [via YouTube]

Rob Beschizza

Miniature retro-tech ray gun

Pew pew pew, I say.

Made all from wood or mostly wood unless otherwise noted it has a neat look and feel, almost like an old world toy. It comes complete as shown with plenty of fine details and a place from which to hang. ... This creation is about 3 1/2" (inches) or so long with gold and silver metallic finish dish and non metallic purple body. Comes with metal hanging hardware / findings.

Only twelve bucks, too!

Sonic Dish Blaster Retro Ray Gun Wood Pendant Ornament Science Fiction Dangle [Etsy]

John Brownlee

Vertical backflip on a Big Wheel

Courtesy of Brandon West via the BBG Faucet, the most bitching thing you'll see all day: what starts as a firework fight between two dudes dressed only in their underpants quickly becomes a vertical backflip on a Big Wheel plastic toy trike.

Xeni Jardin

Global Game Jam has begun! (live video stream)

Global Game Jam is under way. A live stream from the Costa Rica team is above, more about the event here and in this previous Boing Boing blog post. Boing Boing Video, Boing Boing Gadgets, and Offworld will be popping up in various cities, give us a shout in the comments if you'd like to give us a shout-out from your location, and send us a video! We'll reach out with upload info.

(Thanks, Ustream, Jolon Bankey, and Global Game Jam Costa Rica crew!)

John Brownlee

Trilo Temporalis, the clockwork trilobyte

Jud Turner's the same gruesome metal worker who was responsible for the Skeleton Bicycle we posted the other day, but I like his black iron cogwork trilobyte more: it looks like something that would scurry out of the irradiated wreckage of an industrial holocaust, abiogenetically spawned from the broken and burnt gears and blades of metal of a self-destroyed civilization.

Jud Turner [Artist's Site via io9]

John Brownlee

Kittens chillax on a Roomba

A variation of Last Man Standing played with kittens on a Roomba. All these kittens are just champs: none seems particularly dispirited to lose the game. Teeth-gratingly irritating LOL Cat captions in the comments, if you please, my droogies.

[via POETV]

Rob Beschizza

Space Invaders watch

The increasing speed and menace of an invading alien fleet. Evasive maneuvers behind scant shreds of pixel-shield. That primal and pagan bassline march -- now on your wrist!

Ah, but no: it's just an unplayable animation that begins when you push a button. Adds John: "They need to make one that actually PLAYS space invaders."

Brandon is planning to to buy one all the same: "I am perfectly happy with it being sexy and unplayable."

Product Page (Japanese) [Ebten via Gamovr]

Rob Beschizza

Cassette Wallets

Here are $43 wallets made from old cassette tapes.

Casette Wallet [Design Boom]

John Brownlee

Web design sketchbook

This web design sketchbook — which gives brainstorming web designers sheaths of blank Firefox web browsers and advertisement windows — looks rather swish, but you'd think it'd just be a lot more affordable to print off a bunch of these on your printer than pay for a bound notebook of them.

Web Design Sketchbook [Paraniv via Cool Hunting]

Rob Beschizza

BBC hoodwinked into running ad for magical cell phone

A top-secret project developed by a tiny ejector seat company, the Zumba Phone cracks one of the holy grails of artificial intelligence: perfectly accurate voice recognition. It also becomes "instantly useless to anyone else" when you lose it, according to designer Dean McEvoy.

Unfortunately, the BBC elected to run this promotional story without including standard elements such as demonstrating that it even exists as a functioning product: the reporter simply waves around a model and describes the magic!

Engadget commenter CooperFBI did a little research, and found that Mr. McEvoy is apparently a party promoter by night.

You know, if the story here was "local business has cute high-tech product, employs 40" it'd be great: small western businesses source blank gear from big Chinese factories all the time. But here we have wild product claims echoed as news by credulous reporters under a very respectable masthead.

They're mass-producing a cutting-edge handset from a light-industrial warehouse in Hereford, but no-one's allowed to see it? Oh, beeb.

Here's the logo:

Zumba phone report [BBC via Engadget]

Rob Beschizza

Hammers made from engine parts

A visitor to a quarry in Uganda notes a versatile type of hammer, hand-made from old mechanical parts, used by workers engaged in a truly gruelling job.

The “hammers” are an ingenious marriage of a stick and an engine gear. The one on the right has been worn down. Just think of how many swings it takes to wear down an engine gear by slamming it against stone. It’s a repetitive, depressing way to earn a meal.

Project Diaspora Visits the Women of Kireka [via Afrigadget]

John Brownlee

What path did sci-fi writers in the 50s think technology would take?

I was really struck by this little thought experiment over at the Pajama Guy blog in a post about Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics:

Back in the 40s and 50s, I suppose people were noticing so many mechanical problems being solved, while computing as we understand it was in a primitive stage. It would have been great if someone sat down the top sf writers in 1950 and asked them in what order will these three events happen? 1) The invention of a machine that can walk around your house picking up after you. 2) A spaceship that takes us to the moon and back. 3) A small machine that can beat you at chess.

I don't really know what their answers would be, but I suppose that's the point. I wish someone had had the foresight to ask that question at some early con.

It's a slow news day, so let's see if we can't put together a similar question to ask sci-fi writers now in the comments... one that, fifty years from now, would really juxtapose the actual path of future technology with our own subconscious expectations of which way that path will wind.

Me Robot [Pajama Guy]

John Brownlee

The Macintosh Software Dating Game

Steve Jobs hosts the MacIntosh Dating Game back in 1983, and three software CEOs awkwardly shamble out to try to seduce: Fred Gibbons of Software Publishing Corporation, Mitch Kapor of Lotus and a young Bill Gates, who announces to riotous applause that in 1984, Microsoft will generate half its revenues from Macintosh software. Then Jobs begins asking all three CEOs very pointed questions of all three gents about their favorite place to make whoopie.

Exquisitely lame.

Rob Beschizza

Sixteen Birds: fabric robots

Sixteen Birds is an installation of 16 fabric robots designed to resemble simple brush drawings. Designed by Chico MacMurtrie of Amorphic Robot Works, they're on display in Pittsburgh's Wood Street Gallery until April

As viewers enter the room, the tapered, joined cone-shapes gradually inflate with air, lengthen and take form, eventually reaching out with a graceful wingspan, robust with life. The Birds then begin their stationary journey with a slow, elegant flapping motion, all 16 in a randomly generated sequence. The pneumatic mechanism that animates the work creates a constant, rhythmic breathing sound.

Here's how they made them. I went to check these out the other evening, but arrived too early: they were just re-inflating them!

John Brownlee

Retro Prodigy ad evokes blogger nostalgia, endorses finger banging for money

The Prodigy service was my first exposure to the online world, and for many years, I lived a thriving online life on their web forums discussing horror movies and science fiction books with fellow proto-Internet nerds. Watching this vintage ad, I get a bit nostalgic for those days, before emoticons went anthropomorphic and a sarcastic or teasing remark was softened by a <s> or a <g>.

But that's not to say this isn't vintage late 80s awfulness. The two businessmen's conversation is particularly interesting: "I'm making money, I'm making money... with THIS finger," one enthusiastically says, and waggles. The camera cuts away as his colleague leans in for a sniff.

John Brownlee

Rumor: Dell smartphone coming soon?

It's pretty much inevitable that Dell's going to jump in the smartphone game, and while a couple years back, that would have conjured visions of Axim X5-like monstrosities, Dell's been paying attention to attractive design lately. A Dell smartphone is no longer a concept to make design-minded gadget buyers blanche than blecch.

According to the Wall Street Journal, we might be close to seeing that phone soon. They claim that Dell has had a group of engineers working on a smartphone phones for more than a year (let's hope there's some designers working with them) and that they've built two prototypes: one using Windows Mobile, the other using Android. The two prototypes are also structurally different: one is a slider, the other a touchscreen.

Of course, Dell is always fiddling with prototypes, so this alone implies nothing. But the Wall Street Journal seems confident that the Dell smartphone development team has spent a good chunk of the last year meeting with phone component and software.

So let's see it, Dell: a nice Android smartphone that takes its design cues from the Adamo, not the Inspiron or the Optiplex.

Dell's smartphone [WSJ]

John Brownlee

Pixel art book jackets

I don't think much of the idea of wrapping all my books in custom jackets, and I'm deeply distrustful of anyone who would meticulously arrange their bookshelves as a reading lover, but that all said: these pixel art dust jackets do make a neat little effect, at least to see once or twice.

Books Help to Create Icons [Icoeye via Geeksugar]

John Brownlee

Retro electro magnetic spectrum chart is rainbow science geek porn

This awesome old chart color codes and diagrams in one madly chromatic sunrise all the known frequencies (at the time) of the electromagnet spectrum,including everything from the range of the human eye to gamma rays to the transparency of quartz., I've been looking at this thing for an hour, and I still can't believe how much information is packed in here. This is science geek chart porn.

The Electromagnetic Spectrum [Copper Alliance via Crunchgear]

John Brownlee

Samsung packs 32GBs into DDR3

Samsung has just crammed a few more gigs of capacity into DDR3 memory modules. Their new 4 gigabit DDR3 DRAM PC memory chip not only consumes 40% less power than its older offerings, but make DIMM modules of up to 32 gigabytes possible, and we should start seeing modules of 16GB for servers and 8GB for desktops and laptops later this year.

Samsung Touts Highest Density Memory Chip [Information Week]

Brandon Boyer

Today on Offworld

Today on Offworld, we didn't see much better than this: 2D Boy co-founder and World of Goo maker Kyle Gabler (right) channeling... Tyra Banks? and giving his top 7 tips for indie devs about to make their first rapidly developed game, in his keynote for the inaugural Global Game Jam.

Elsewhere, we heard about a new version of EA and Steven Spielberg's Wii title Boom Blox and prepared for the release of an updated version of iPhone tower defense hit Fieldrunners, and dug through the huge number of winners of JayIsGames' best of 2008 games list.

We also danced to all of the things that Left 4 Dead's Francis hates (most of all, Ayn Rand), saw BAFTA announced an award for Pong/Atari head Nolan Bushnell, and saw Ico creator Fumito Ueda look back at the development of PS2 cult classic Shadow of the Colossus.

Finally, we saw a brilliant looking new PSP game that will give players 30 seconds at a time to fulfill their RPG quests, and, because I could, watched a fantastic new retro-pixel music video for Offworld favorite band Deerhoof.

John Brownlee

Unrippable, paper-thin wallet made out of Tyvek

This "sustainable wallet" is made of Tyvek, which is the same thing FedEx and Priority Mail make their nigh-unrippable packages out of. Sure, it's just an envelope repackaged as a wallet, but I like the pitch.

[via Treehugger]

Joel Johnson

Chalkboard + Beer Tap == Tap Boards

Tap Boards are brilliant little chalkboards inside wooden taphandles, making it simple to mark what beneficent liquid will flow from the spout below. They were made with the homebrewer (and pro-am homedrinker) in mind, designed as they were by the fellow who runs Kegerators.com*, but they'd be great for any busy bar that changes its selection often.

There's a whole site for the Tapboards, but if you want to actually just buy them, they're currently at an introductory price of $22 a pop plus shipping.

* Remind me to start hitting him up for review units.

Joel Johnson

You can have sex with the Muji Tenga Egg

Muji, the austere Japanese lifestyles retailer, something like Ikea meets American Apparel, purportedly sells trays of six Egg Masturbation Aids. Unwrap the Cadbury-like foil, douse the ridged inside with the included lubricant, and scramble. Update: Oops. Turns out it's not Muji, but Tenga. Too bad!

I'd have chalked them up to a clever photoshop were it not for this video [embedded below] of one being prepared for use. (It's safe for work, but weird.)

Fascinating. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the shells were compostable? And perhaps I'm strange, but I would feel far less creepy putting my waist whisk into one of these than into a Fleshlight.

Muji also sells socks.

[via The Frisky!]

Joel Johnson

Reutersvärd Heärt

It's not yet Valentine's Day, but our friend Renzo just created this Oscar Reutersvärd-inspired heart and we thought it might be good to share it with you now, the better for you to incorporate it into the pulsing center of your homemade card or cake. If you use it to make something clever for your sweetheart, let me know!

Some suggested companion phrases to seed your imagination: "My love knows no bounds"; "Our love is infinite"; "Intertwined forever".

Alternately: "Our love is an illusion"; "My love for you is impossible in reality"; "This is how you make my cremasters feel".

(Thanks, Renzo; Thanks, Kokogiak!)

John Brownlee

Behold! The Triceratopter!

The Triceratopter is a 1977 sculpture by artist Patricia Renick subtitled "Hope for the Obsolescence of War" but I secretly hope its how the triceratops left the planet before the meteors hit, "So long and thanks for all the fish" style.

Triceratopter: If Only Evolution Had Worked Out Differently [Gizmodo]

John Brownlee

House defeats digital television delay

Finally. Sanity reigns in the House of Representatives:

Two days after the Senate unanimously approved a four-month delay of the digital television transition, the House of Representatives did not pass the same proposal on Wednesday, “leaving the current Feb. 17 deadline intact for now,” the Associated Press reports.

“The 258-168 vote failed to clear the two-thirds threshold needed for passage in a victory for GOP members,” according to the A.P.

The legislation’s failure means that the nation’s television stations will have to switch from analog to digital broadcasting by Feb. 17, unless Congress takes other steps to delay the transition.

Fuck yes. There's simply no way to get everyone caught up to speed, and something absurd like four-fifths of Americans have cable anyway, making a digital converter box unnecessary. Just flip the switch and let the laggers sort it out.

House Defeats Bill to Delay Digital TV Switch [TV Decoder]

John Brownlee

What happened to iPhone push?

Hey, so whatever happened to iPhone push notifications? Weren't we supposed to have them by now?

Dan Moren theorizes on some reasons why Apple conveniently forgot about it. This one has the ring of truth to it though, given the MobileMe debacle:

It seems plausible that, having learned from that experience, Apple wasn’t sufficiently confident in launching yet another online service, especially one that might have been more complicated than the company first anticipated. One developer I talked to opined that Apple might not have thought the whole idea through, given the issues of scale that the system might encounter in the real world.

iPhone push notifications: dead and buried, or waiting in the wings? [Macworld]

John Brownlee

Server logs report new iPhone 2,1?

According to Mac Rumors, developers have started to notice a new iPhone popping up in their server logs: 2,1.

Apple uses these models numbers to distinguish between different hardware models. The original iPhone carries the model number of "iPhone 1,1" while the 3G iPhone is labeled "iPhone 1,2". These numbers do not change for simple storage increases and instead represent functionally different devices. Similarly, the iPod Touch was originally introduced as the "iPod 1,1" and the most recent hardware revision was labeled "iPod2,1". The 2,1 iPod Touch added a speaker, volume controls, microphone support and a much faster processor than the 1st generation model. This new model number can be found in the USBDeviceConfiguration.plist in an unencrypted firmware.

Not that I doubt Apple's working on a new iPhone, but wouldn't they be smart enough not to browse on it on external sites while reporting itself as one?

Next Generation iPhone Model Revealed in Firmware [Mac Rumors]

John Brownlee

3D Star Wars kites

These kites can do the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. $40 bucks each.

3D Star Wars Starfighter Kites [Think Geek]

Rob Beschizza

The gadget tribes of technology

Technology was once about big things, but smallness rules the day: we are the gear that gets us through it. Augmented and assisted by the gizmos we buy, break and make, we're taking tech culture out of the tubes. How to spot a species? Look inside the gadget bag!

READ THE REST

Joel Johnson

Outlander, this year's best movie about Vikings led by a space messiah to kill an alien dragon

Strange days are upon us. Outlander—a movie about a humanoid alien who crashes lands in Scandinavia, meets up with some Vikings, and then has to explain to them that he sort of brought a monster along on his ship—actually looks kind of awesome. (Then again, so did Pathfinder, and that ended up being dreadful...I mean more dreadful than is within operating spec of a Viking movie.)

The official Outlander FAQ is hosted on a Wing Commander fan site, which may be because Chris Roberts, the creator of the original Wing Commander videogames (and the laughably bad movie adaptation which pitted plucky teen space-submarine pilots against angry cat people dipped in molasses), is a producer. There's a literalness to the answers that could imply a disturbing lack of self-awareness from a person working on a movie about space vikings, but the trailer itself actually gives the impression that the movie will be a heartwarming tale of barbarians who finally learn the true meaning of lase.

And this:

Extra tidbit: Kainan's Alien language is in reality Old-Norse, a dead language that is the precursor to modern Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish. The production brought in some professors from the region and one of the few people that can actually speak the language to translate the dialogue and to teach the actors to speak it.

Outlander is in very limited distribution right now in theaters. I wouldn't really expect to catch this one until it's out on DVD.

John Brownlee

Four gadgets to help you quite smoking (but not Charlie Sorrel)

You only need to take one look at Gadget Lab's Charlie Sorrel to know he is a hopeless slave to the nicotine industry. It's not simply his brown, carcinogen-smeared teeth, nor is it the tar dyed blade of both palms, which could easily be another brown encrustation. It's the stench, the visible smell waves oscillating off of him, the way his yellow eyes rheumily run when he's gone five minutes without scratching the itch of the tobacco beetles crawling under his skin. Kissing him, Rob tells me, is like kissing a porn theater ashtray.

Charlie wants help. He wants to quit. He'll never make it, but right now, he's deluding himself that he can through the use of various gadgets like the NJOY fake cigarette, and the iPhone, which wouldn't even begin to fit in his prim, purse-like mouth. For a lesser addict, though, Charlie's suggested gadgets might be helpful in quitting a one to two pack a day habit. Too bad Charlie's urethra alone smokes four.

Gadget Labber quits smoking [Gadget Lab]

John Brownlee

Russian keyboard stones

Spotted in Ekaterinburg, Russia: a keyboard layout of concrete stepping stones. Doubtlessly all the strange Cyrillic characters have been rubbed off by the skipping feet of vodka-swigging hooligans.

Spotted: Literal Keyboard Stepping Stones [Geeksugar]

Rob Beschizza

Photoshop Competition: What will this liquidated Circuit City become? (UPDATE: WINNERS!)

The challenge: Would happen to this dead Circuit City following the chain's liquidation? We received a ton of fine entries (past the jump!), but we like these two the most! Winners email rob at boing boing net with your addresses for the loot.

Winner: BJacques' remedy for depression:

Winner: Anonymous builds us a new office:

READ THE REST

Joel Johnson

Once Was Our Future: Apple wearable prototype (1991)

From Japanese mag Axis' collection of Apple concept devices, kindly scanned by zacislost. [via ★]

Joel Johnson

LeapFrog Tag Junior frogbot reads books to your toddlers

The LeapFrog "Tag Junior" is a plastic frog that sits atop proprietary children's books and reads the story aloud, punctuated by sound effects and music. It is relatively inexpensive at $35, but each of the books cost about $11 a pop.

John Brownlee

The LG Renoir is virtually immortal

The Unbreakable of cellular phones, the LG Renoir: freezed at sub-zero temperatures for 12 hours, thrown against the floor, jumped upon, spun-dry for fifteen minutes, drowned in wine, run over by a Ford Focus... and still working fine.

LG Renoir Crash Test [Mobile.mail.ru via Engadget]

John Brownlee

Spanish steampunk clock

A great clock by Tenerifean artist of Gonzalo Álvarez. It looks something like the center timepiece of a steampunk Swiss Family Robinson.

Gonzalo Álvarez [Artist's Site via Steampunk Workshop]

Joel Johnson

Interview with Nvidia chief shows where netbooks, smartphones, and game consoles may be going in a "1-watt world"

Dean Takahashi's interview with Nvidia head honcho Jen-Hsun Huang offers a glimpse into what to expect from low-powered internet-enabled devices of the future. Nvidia's new "Ion" platform, which weds an Intel Atom processor to an Nvidia graphic chip, probably doesn't make Intel very happy—they'd rather be selling the GPU, too—but Huang knows that Intel might still be too big to throw their weight around to prevent Ion from getting to market.

Some highlights that indicate Huang has his head screwed on straight:

Q: Is there a place for a $250, full-keyboard device that uses ARM processors?
A: I think there is, but I think the price is less than $199. It has a full keyboard, it’s thin and it runs for a long time on batteries. It has a one-watt microprocessor. I believe this whole segment will have versions like the iPod Touch, the Sony PlayStation Portable and the Nintendo DS. I believe mobile internet devices will access the internet and come in a lot of different form factors, like phones, notepads and game player.

...

Q: There is only one proof point for that. It’s the iPhone. From one company. Why will these devices succeed across the board?
A: There is the Google Android. The Palm Pre. A few points makes a line.

...

Q: You don’t think it will be one chip?
A: I don’t think so. Intel has slipped its schedule on its (code-named) Havendale single-chip chip set. The problem is that CPUs and GPUs are both progressing. You can’t catch up on both with just one that tries to do both. And why not try to do it at the low end? AMD’s problem is that they are putting the high-end CPU with the high-end GPU. Who’s going to buy that?

Q: Microsoft, for the Xbox 720?
A: That’s cold. (laughs). That’s cold.

Rob Beschizza

Analysis of Apple's iPhone interface patent claims

Engadget's Nilay Patel posts an exhaustive and excellent analysis of the patents surrounding the iPhone's user interface. It's the perfect antidote to this weekend's relentless mainstream media hype about the "brewing" legal between Palm and Apple.

Joel Johnson

iSteamPhone: iPhone exploded by 15th Century ingenuity, steam

From the people who sold you the "Exploded iPhone" schematic t-shirt comes this off-white remix, the "iSteamPhone", in which the iPhone is reimagined as some sort of anachronistic da Vinci invention.

$26 for the shirt; $16 for a poster, with shipping. (They're $20 and $10 if you can somehow make them materialize at your corner matter maker.)

Rob Beschizza

USB Lock

Pitched as a way to lock up USB drives, there's no reason this lock wouldn't work on anything USB at all, be it humping dogs or high-end studio gear. Slip it onto the plug, roll the numbers, and voila: no USB for them.

Though no deterrent to a committed scoundrel, especially one who knows the dark art of splicing, it should do very well in the Teenage USB Diary segment. Note: useless but amusing on items where the USB cable is plugged in at both ends.

Combination Lock USB Thumb Key Solution [Akihabara News]

Rob Beschizza

Maglev on your desk (but it won't take you to Tokyo)

Arrange these magnets just so, and they float in thin air. Forty bucks from Scientifics Online!

Use your knowledge of magnetism and your scientific skills to arrange the magnets on a thin sheet of sheet metal so that alternating poles create a strong magnetic field gradient.

This gradient centers the pyrolytic graphite material of the magnets for levitation. Pyrolytic graphite is 10,000X more diamagnetic than most common diamagnetic materials like water, and these thin slices are extremely light and can be made to levitate.

Diamagnetic levitation kit [Scientifics online via RGS]

Rob Beschizza

If CS4 came on floppies...

Antrepo Design imagines a world where things still come on 3.5" floppy disks. For reference, Adobe's CS4 Master Edition would arrive on about 6,400 of them.

You could, of course, stash an awful lot of flash in the form factor. I wonder if anyone's invented a magnetic panel that could "fake" output the way one of those MP3-player-to-cassette-deck adapters do? But then you still have the speed limitations of the drives and their controllers. WELL IT WORKED IN THE MAGIC WORLD IN MY HEAD.

A poster of the concept is available at the high high price of $100.

Set of 4 posters [Anterepo shop via Technabob]

Xeni Jardin

Global Game Jam (48 hour videogame dev marathon) this weekend!

From 5:00pm Friday January 30th through 5:00 pm Sunday, February 1, over a thousand college students, faculty and industry members will join together for a 48 hour game building marathon popularly known as a Game Jam. Participants will be given the details of the game design theme, constraints and mechanics allowed when the clock hits 5:00 p.m. in their local time zone. As the time zones change, so will those constraints, to mitigate any advantage global location might give one team over the other. While individual and regional Game Jams have been held wherever gamers congregate in the last few years, never has there been one of such size and scope as the Global Game Jam (GGJ).


[Keynote Speaker] 
Kyle Gabler (...) indie Developer of the popular game “World of Goo,” said, “The next big transformation in gaming won't come from a large game studio with million dollar teams and marketing budgets, it will come from some kid in their bedroom with a few pieces of free software and a never ending supply of caffeine and motivation. I can't wait to see the scraggly, brilliantly hacked together beginnings of some of the next great games crawl out of these 48 hours.”

Here is an overview on how it works. Snip:

The theme and constraints for participants in the Global Game Jam will be announced at 5:00PM on Friday, January 30, 2009 in your time zone. Each local jam is allowed to manage things the way the see fit, but we hope that everyone will follow our recommendations so we share a common experience and everyone is working from a level playing field. Please show up to the jam on time. Below is a typical set-up for a game jam, each jam will vary, please check with each jam to see their schedule. Do not come to the Jam with a team. Everyone will have some time to think and pitch an idea. Collaborate with new friends or peers you admire.

(Thanks, Jolon and Global Game Jam Costa Rica crew!)

John Brownlee

Emtec announces strange new netbook with removable OS drive

Emtec is largely just a supplier of laptop peripherals, but they are jumping into the Netbook game with the Gdium.

Interestingly, it doesn't contain a built-in hard drive, which probably explains its slim, attractive looks: instead, it runs from a 16GB removable USB thumbdrive, which I'm guessing will allow you to boot your netbook's OS and files from your desktop or laptop, if you so choose.

With such a weird configuration, don't expect this to run XP: it's using a flavor of Linux called Madriva, and will ship with Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin and a blog editor.

The sole product shot certainly looks attractively svelte, and I like -- in theory -- the ability to load my netbook's OS on another computer without a hitch. But that all adds up to a package that's going to be too confusing for most consumers... expect to stop hearing about this one quick.

The GDIUM should cost $400 when it is released, which is pricy for a netbook effectively without a hard drive, and come in black, white or pink.

Entec debuts Linux-based netbook with removable SSD [Crave]

John Brownlee

Gallery: BBG readers' laptop art

Image: fortybillion

We asked for your sticker-slathered laptops, and we got a slew of them. Analysis: most of you guys use Macs, and you sure do like your Obama stickers. After the jump, a small gallery of some of our many favorites.

Don't forget to add your own stickered or laser etched laptop to the Boing Boing Gadgets Flickr pool, tagged "bbglaptopart."

READ THE REST

John Brownlee

Great visual timeline of 25 years of Mac

25 Years of Mac: Product Timeline [Wired]

John Brownlee

Self-stapling paper pad

A simple but gorgeous idea by designer sherwood Forlee: die-cut pads of paper, the corners of which can be easily folded over to staplelessly stick them together. I wish someone would actually start selling pads like this.

A little bit of college ruled genius [Yanko Design]

John Brownlee

HP ships Mini 1000 six-cell battery

A common way for computer manufacturers to keep the price down on netbooks is by only providing a three cell battery over a six cell, then releasing the six cell as an aftermarket accessory. Since netbooks are, to me, entirely about being long-lasting writing and browsing machines, shipping a three cell battery is basically all it takes for me to lose interest in a netbook forever.

HP has just started selling the 6-cell battery for their HP Mini 1000, and it's pretty much case-in-point for why this practice annoys me. They are selling it for $153.90, which is almost half of the netbook's $350 starting price.

If you can get away with a 3-cell battery on your netbook, that's great, but for people like me, that makes the cheapest HP Mini 1000 a $500 proposition... and if you're going to be spending that much on a netbook, the Samsung NC10 is still best-of-class, and ships
with a 6 cell battery standard for $50 less.

HP Mini 1000 6 Cell Battery Now Available [Portable Monkey]

John Brownlee

Articulated bedside lamp meets alarm clock with the Lamplight

I love this articulating bedside lamp with built-in alarm clock designed by Avery Holleman, although it really does look more like a desk lamp. Either way, a great space-saving design, and I like the idea that I can turn off my alarm by just swatting the articulated arm to shatter against the wall, tetherball-style. I usually have to pick it up and dramatically hurl it against the wall.

Timelight Alarm Clock [Coroflot]

John Brownlee

Rob Galbraith: Dell Mini Inspiron 9 a "budget gem" for amateur photographers

The notoriously chromatically-sensitive Rob Galbraith has written up a review of the screens of three top-of-their-class laptops: the unibody MacBook Pro, the Lenovo W700 and the Dell Mini 9.

But it's his thoughts on the Mini 9 that are most interesting: not only does he think it has a better screen than the MacBook Pro, but he's made the machine a standard part of his photographer's bag.

To have a computer this capable, that is also small enough and light enough to slip into pretty much any camera bag, it has been a workflow-altering experience. Thanks in part to the Mini 9, I've personally switched to using the Think Tank Photo Streetwalker Pro for light duty gear carrying. As you can see in the photo below, the diminutive Dell slips easily into this compact, narrow photo backpack and leaves plenty of room for a carry-about camera kit (the Mini 9 is on the left side of the bag in the photo on the right).

Our infatuation with the Mini 9 extends to its 8.9 inch (diagonal), 1024 x 600 pixel, LED-backlit display. For a computer that starts at about US$300 in the U.S. right now, we had modest expectations. As it turns out, the display profiles well, neutrals are reasonably neutral with minimal colour shifting in whites, grays or blacks and overall colour accuracy is very good for a laptop. Overall hue accuracy, in fact, is better than the late-2008 MacBook Pro 15 inch.

Ultimately, he describes the Mini 9 as a "budget gem" for amateur photographers. I wonder if we'll see this become a whole new class of netbook in the coming months or years: the photographer or video professional's netbook. That would certainly differentiate these machines from each other.

A look at the evolving laptop display [Rob Galbraith]

John Brownlee

DIY lighting solutions for photographers

After losing my little Sony Cybershot at CES and mourning the absence of a Smile Shutter in my life to pick up my friend's most accidentally contorted rictuses, I decided I would buy myself a Canon G10 in the hopes that it would bridge me from retarded point-and-shoot territory into the world of DSLRs.

What I've learned so far has been laughable, but I'm pleased with myself: I no longer have to smugly nod when people talk about ISO or aperture to mask my ignorance. I actually know how to manually focus a digicam now, which is leading to some more interesting photographs. And, biggest lesson of all: I've learned using the flash on a camera almost always results in photographs that just suck.

This guide to DIY Lighting Hacks for digital photographers is good fodder, then. Granted, it's mostly aimed at the DSLR crowd, but stuff like the DIY flash diffuser and party bouncer card is still stuff I could fit into my Canon G10. And if you're a more advanced photographer than me — and it's almost impossible to imagine that you aren't — there's sure to be at least a few tips here that will save you a couple bills in equipment costs.

DIY Lighting Hacks for Digital Photographers [Digital Photography School via Crunchgear]

John Brownlee

The Love Trainer: Better sex through Sega

A failure as a product, Sega is repackaging their Body Trainer / FiTrainer MP3 player and heart monitor as the "Love Trainer."

Inept as a lover? Wrap a strange cyborg headset around your ears while a GLaDOS-like gynoid voice leads you through the carnal act with helpful advice like: "At the beep, make love much harder." Look, lady, I'm already trying here... shut up!

The video's just perfect, implying a gag: from the t-shirt wearing schlub with erectile dysfunction as main protagonist to the hilariously unhelpful Love Trainer "instruction" to the occasional, staccato-flashes of a single erect nipple (NSFW, FYI). But you can actually order the Love Trainer from the site, so maybe it's not an elaborate joke. Maybe it's just hilariously stupid.

Love Trainer [Official Site via Engadget]

John Brownlee

Vintage, Vietnam-era camera gun

This fantastic movie camera with a rifle stock was apparently made for a Vietnam War reporter, and one can only wonder why: while it perhaps makes sense as a stabilizer, you'd think it would behoove the embededded film journalist to not look like he's packing when the Viet Cong suddenly pop up from their sub-cthonic burrows.

Either way, it is absolutely gorgeous. It's up for sale on eBAy right now for about $1,318. As the lyrical maestros over at Born Rich explain: "No doubt, the gun is a notion synonymous to death, but a movie camera in the shape of a gun is really a pleasing idea." It sure is, you guys. Nuff said!

Paillard Bolex H9 Mi Gun outfit [eBay via Born Rich]

John Brownlee

Segway face plant

To be fair, Segways do this a lot less often than I would love them to.

John Brownlee

USB flash drive showdown

It's easy to forget, but all USB thumb drives are not created equal. There's a difference between the plastic cheapies tech companies are constantly ennuggeting and then crapping their press releases into and, say, a Super Talent 200x... and even amongst the big boys, different file systems get wildly different results.

Kristofer Brozio took nine of the best USB flash drives around and put them in a head-to-head performance test. Overall, the OCZ and Super Talent drives come out ahead. This may all seem pretty useless: you usually don't need a flash drive to do more than transfer a document or two between colleagues. But as someone who has been installing a good chunk of OSes on his Asus 1000HA netbook lately (more to come!), this has me looking to pick up a Super Talent.

USB Flash Drive Comparison [Test Freaks via Engadget]

John Brownlee

iPhoto 09 recognizes faces... even cats'

I don't know why it surprised me, but one of the best things about upgrading to a new unibody MacBook Pro was finding a new version of iPhoto installed on the machine. Oh, sure, I knew I could have technically upgraded iPhoto at any time: it's part of the iLife package. But I guess it just never occurred to me that Apple would spend time improving it, so I was delighted to discover how much better the new iPhoto kept untagged photos organized. I promised to keep my eye on future upgrades.

A month later, another update to iPhoto comes down the pipe, this time with facial recognition technology, which automatically searches your photos for faces, asks you to identify each one once and then easily bring up any past or future photos that feature a certain visage, no matter how dollsome or hideous.

It sounded pretty neat, but this is even better: it also works on felines. I imagine a great project here: drag in every LOLCat photo on the Internet and finally compile a definitive "Who's Who" off quasi-illiterate, cheeseburger loving doofus cats.

iPhoto's Faces recognizes cats [Maclife]

John Brownlee

Bandia limited edition speaker begs for Gojira mascot

Bandais' limited edition speaker has an automated diorama of Tokyo's Ginza district circa 1955 on the top. I don't care how it sounds, I just want to march my little rubber Godzilla monster all over the top while making roaring noises with my mouth.

1955 Speaker [Bandai via Akihabara News via Gizmodo]

John Brownlee

MacBook Mini mock-up is interesting Applification of the netbook concept

Apple has been unambiguous about the fact that they aren't just going to plunge into the netbook market. If they ever do release a netbook, expect them to go the Sony route of denying they are releasing a netbook at all, which at this year's CES came so much across like the most fabulous guy at the George curling up his nose in disgust and shouting "I'm not gay... call me metrosexual!" at the top of his lungs. The term netbook implies cheapness, and Apple's not going to go that route.

But here's someone's optimistic imagining of what a MacBook netbook could look like. Like the Vaio P, it would have a full size keyboard, with a surprisingly wide screen. Unlike the Vaio P, though, the MacBook Mini would feature a fold down leaf for a full track pad... no clitoral nub! All with MacBook Air thickness.

I like this design quite a bit.

MacBook mini [Wired]

John Brownlee

Power On Self Test: People Toothbrush

Image: Thomas Keeley

Brandon Boyer

Today on Offworld

Today on Offworld, we saw a number of fantastic fan created work: from the latest in Olly Moss's Penguin Classics-inspired cover art, this time the pure essence of Valve's Half-Life, to an amazing Photoshop-meets-MadWorld faux magazine ad for Sega's upcoming hyperviolent Wii game.

We also heard news of two new Wii channels we hope make it to the states soon: an enhanced Wii Fit channel that connects users directly to health professionals and an extension of the photo-printing service that lets you print business cards featuring your Mii.

Elsewhere we again went behind the music of cult RPG Mother 3 and its classical influences, heard that we'd be playing more remade Banjo Kazooie on Xbox Live Arcade in April, downloaded new free indie game soundtracks from our new favorite net-label, considered buying a new Sam & Max resin statue, and best of all, saw that classic EA strategy/board game Archon is officially heading to the iPhone.

Rob Beschizza

Mundane Gadget Spam of the Day

John Brownlee

Big man, tiny netbook

Forgive the distance of the picture — the surly, leather-clad man working on the tiny Asus notebook looked like he could hit me so hard my whole family would die, and I didn't want him to know I was snapping him — but I think this, right here, is the image marketing problem netbook manufacturers have: put a bulky man in front of an Eee and it immediately makes him look like a Lenny-like manchild.

John Brownlee

Alphabetical keyboard for QWERTY phobes

Almost 140 years after Christopher Sholes solved the typebar jamming problem in alphabetically organized typewriters by creating the QWERTY alignment comes the Fast Finger Keyboard, which will prove maddeningly unusable to all but Luddite grannies and time-traveling Gutenburgians. $27.95, comes in whore red.

Fast Finger Keyboards [Official Site]

John Brownlee

High-res cockpit view of space shuttle

[via NASA]

Joel Johnson

Video: Samsung Show phone has a pico projector inside

PopSci got their hands on the Samsung Show, an upcoming phone with a built-in pico projector that will be released in Korea this year.

I'm completely enamored of pico projectors, despite knowing that it'll be years before they'll emit enough lumens to really show a nice display during the day. But as a fun little adjunct to a phone, a little trick to impress your friends? Totally into it.

(Fast forward to 5 minutes or so to see him using the projector.)

Joel Johnson

ThisWay recumbent bicycle concept

The latest example of "beautiful spindly things that will never be built", the "ThisWay" bike by designer Torkel Dohmers, is imagined to be built of flax fiber and carbon fiber with a clip-on battery charged by rooftop solar panel for assisted recumbent cycling.

Had it not first caught my eye as wooden (it is not) and then intrigued me by color choice (it's a very ranch-style '60s shade) I probably would not have linked to it. Caramel might look good on plastic.

You know what vehicle some Scandinavian design needs to reimagine in sinuous simulation? The Big Wheel. I'd ride a modern version of that around town.

Joel Johnson

Device Stage: Windows 7's friendlier face of device drivers

Gearlog takes a look at "Device Stage", a new feature of Windows 7 that adds a series of XML-based indices that try to unify the interaction of using devices that may have lots of different functionality. Which is a jerky way of saying that it'll make it easier to see what your magic-do-all printer is doing in one menu, while at the same time allowing the vendors to integrate ominous menu items like "Buy Ink" into your Windows 7 context menu.

Color me deeply suspicious.

John Brownlee

Kim Jong Il to drag moon back to North Korea

It's testament to the moon-eyed insanity of Kim Jong Il's regime that I didn't realize this was from the Onion until about a minute in. I think my favorite line is: "The plan is perfect. We have already succeeded."

John Brownlee

Hack multitouch into a T-Mobile G1

Luke Hutchisonw as able to make a hack to the Android kernel and browser and enable usable multitouch support on the T-Mobile G1. Since Apple claims to have patented multitouch colon-deep the wazoo, I wonder if this user's hack makes T-Mobile liable. Clearly the hardware is capable of it, which might imply — to Apple — a patent violation, and give reason for a lawsuit. I doubt it, but it's neat to imagine: the Hot Coffee lawsuit of the gadget world.

Get Multi-Touch Zooming Support on your T-Mobile G1 [Luke Hutch]

John Brownlee

MyRacer MP3 player has adorable OLED pixel-art UI

Oh, you know no one's going to buy one of MyRacer's cute little Lisse S10 MP3 players over an iPod Shuffle... but christ, isn't that pixel-art OLED display just gorgeous? Too bad it's unlikely to ever come out over here.

MyRacer [Official Site via Engadget]

John Brownlee

Netbooks need better resolutions for browsing, not text entry

Crunchgear and BBG are basically J.O. buds in the vortex-fantasy of professional gadget blogging, but I'm not sure I understand their argument that netbooks should forego other improvements in favor of screen resolution.

Not that higher resolution is a bad thing: it's part of what makes the Vaio P so gorgeous. But this argument doesn't make a lick of sense:

Why don’t I buy a regular notebook, you ask? I arrange letters into words for a living. I could do this with a DX2/66. All I need is a cheap, light, portable computer for word processing that lets me see most or all of the three or four paragraphs I’m cobbling together. My life is almost entirely “in the cloud” so don’t need a big hard drive, a fancy OS, or lots of RAM — just a decent screen.

The word processing experience is not significantly improved by higher resolutions. It's part of why I'm totally fine with netbooks current resolutions: I agree, netbooks are primarily writing machines. It would be nice to see them amped up for better browsing, but most of my time in my netbook is spent in DarkRoom anyway.

Opinion: Netbook makers should stop adding fluff and focus on screen resolution [Crunchgear]

John Brownlee

Beer tab corset

For the next time you're at Oktoberfest, the beer tab corset. I'm something of an alcoholic, and I date a bartender, so I think this is incredibly sexy.

The Art of Can Tabistry [Blog]

Joel Johnson

BB Video: Inside Electro-Harmonix, guitar pedal engineers and vintage vacuum tubes

After we noticed the Voice Box FX pedal from Electro-Harmonix, I noticed that they were based in Long Island City, just a short train ride away from my place in Brooklyn. Since I'm getting ready to move to Oregon—Hello, Eugene!—I figured I ought to get up there and check out one of the last family-owned music gear companies in America.

Turns out that EHX also manufacturers a huge percentage of the world's vacuum tubes in its factory in Russia, which are then sent back to New York for testing and pairing before being sold to vintage and high-end audio fans, as well as manufacturers like McIntosh.

I had a really good time checking out the factory floor to see the hand-made vacuum tube testing machines, as well as talking to the engineers that sit around all day and try to figure out how to get the ideas for new FX processors out of their crazy boss's head and into working hardware.

And thankfully for you, Derek and Wes edited out all the footage where I was wanking around with FX boxes, looking mournfully at the camera and whining that "Hey, this box doesn't make me sound as good as it does when people with talent use it. What gives?"

Flash video embed above, click "full" icon inside the player to view it large. You can download the MP4 here. Our YouTube channel is here, you can subscribe to our daily video podcast on iTunes here.

Rob Beschizza

Accel Pedal does nothing except make acceleration noises

Thirty bucks in Japan, the Sound Accel Pedal issues engine noise at three levels, depending on how hard you push it.

Product Page [Nodaya via CrunchGear]

Rob Beschizza

Waterproof Lumix point-and-shoot records 720p

Panasonic's new Lumix DMC-FT1 camera is a waterproof, rugged machine with a 12 megapixel 1/2.33-inch sensor, 28-128mm Leica lens with 4.6x optical zoom, and the ability to record 720p high-def video, albeit in a highly-compressed version of the AVCHD format. It can cope with 5 ft drops and submersion in up to 3 meters of water.

What I like about it is the look of solidity, and the bright metallic colors. Check out the blue:

Not cornflower. It also comes in green, according to the leaked PDF. But again, it is an unpleasant one: olive drab.

Also announced were various spec bumps across the existing lineup.

Source [Focus Numerique via 1001 Noisy Cameras via Engadget]

Rob Beschizza

Anti-radio paint developed

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have created paint larded with aluminum-iron oxide, which block electromagnetic waves.

This is nothing new though, as RF-blocking paints have been available for a number of years now. Indeed, EM-SEC Technologies successfully tested its own RF-blocking paint back in March 2007 to shield wireless devices and other electronic equipment within a building.

But what the New Scientist is reporting is that existing technologies are becoming increasingly obsolete as companies are now using new, higher frequencies to send data. For example, the best wave absorbers commercially available today are only effective up to around 50GHz.

It'll be cheap, according to the scientists, as they collaborating with a real paint company to make the stuff in the first place: about $14 a kilo.

Block Wi-Fi Intruders with a Secure Paint Job [PC World]

Rob Beschizza

Jeeves and Wooster Lampshades

Hidden Art's Jeeves and Wooster lamps, inspired by P.G. Wodehouse's novels, are jolly good. They are also jolly expensive: £450.

Jeeves Wooster (pair price) [Hidden Art via Selectism and Coolhunting]

Rob Beschizza

Report: PSP2 to feature touchscreen

Sony's much-rumored and oft-denied PlayStation Portable followup will have a touchscreen and an "interface comparable to that of the iPhone," according to IGN.

I have no idea where the mockup comes from, but it's definitely just a mockup!

Rob Beschizza

Vaio P ships

Did you pre-order one of Sony's thin new notebooks? It's on it way to you about now: customers are receiving shipping notification in their mailboxes. ^[Crunchgear]

Weighing 1.4 pounds and having a near-full size keyboard, the Vaio P is smaller than a netbook but packs features rarely found on them, such as GPS, a high-def display and big SSD options.

Brandon Boyer

Today on Offworld

Our day on Offworld started out deep inside gaming's roots, with a look back at a text-only MUD version of Pac-Man, and then, even more gloriously, got news of Champion of Guitars, a brilliant working text adventure version of Guitar Hero, after the parody mock-up we featured earlier in the month.

We also had a whack at Hack-Boy, a single serve site that helps you hack Fallout 3's computers, saw that Metal Gear strategy card-game spinoff Ac!d was coming to mobile phones, browsed through the finalists of the Independent Games Festival's 2009 Mobile competition, and heard news that a downloadable version of Tetris Attack was coming to DS.

Finally, we heard one -- very likely drunk -- Japanese man give us a hilarious play-by-play of Game Boy's Super Mario Land, got sucked into repeatedly watching hypnotic homebrew VJ kits produced for the PS2 and Game Boy Advance, and, best of all, played Legend of Princess (see above), a souped-up raucous sidescrolling arcade version of Legend of Zelda by Noitu Love creator Konjak.

Joel Johnson

Tettix's Rites, free electronic album "remodeling" Stravinsky

One of my favorite chiptune* musicians, Tettix, has released a new album for download. (I used one of his tracks as the background music to my LEGO Millennium Falcon time-lapse video.) It's called "Rites", and it's ambitious. He explains:

I'm hoping this album will be a bit of a surprise to most of you, it's unlike anything I've done before. The entire album is a remodeling of Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" - a ballet that caused riots at its 1913 debut because of a brazen use of dissonance and polyrythms. It was a symphony that changed the very definition of music and I hope I've done it at least some justice. If you're unfamiliar with the original, I highly recommend you check it out (there's full videos on Youtube of the symphony).

The artwork for the album was done by a close friend, Kymia Nawabi. There's a link to her work on the album page, I swear you won't regret clicking it. There are also four wallpapers of the artwork available to download on the album page!

* Or at least chiptunes-inspired; I think he uses Reason, not gaming hardware, and this particular album isn't very chippy at all.

Joel Johnson

Battle of the Planets Thunderbirds | manga by Artgerm

There's a lot of generally wonderful sci-fi-tinged work in this gallery of 54 "mind-blowing digital paintings", but I'm especially partial to this piece from Artgerm reimagining the Battle of the Planets cast Thunderbirds as a coterie of Storm Shadowesque ninja.

It's this sort of stuff that makes me afraid to ever start giving substantial attention to Deviant Art; I'm worried I'd lose too many hours delving.

Update: Can you tell that I've never seen Thunderbirds nor Battle of the Planets before? (Title fixed.)

Joel Johnson

Video: Time-lapse baby squirmings

I'm just as interested in the stuff we make with our gadgets as I am them gadgets themselves, especially when they give us a look at something in a way we'd never have noticed before. Such as! Francis Vachon's time-lapse sequence of his 9-month-old son Charles-Edward playing in his room, squirming around from toy to toy like a little monkey larva.

John Brownlee

Sears upsells plasma television "recharging" service (Hint: no such thing)

I just bought a Plasma TV from Sears. I declined to buy the $300/3 yr protection plan because of the price. Sears called me at home a few days later. The sales lady asked my why I chose a Plasma TV instead of an LCD. I thought this odd, but just answered the truth - there was a deal on this TV. She then told me a personal anecdote about her friend who repairs Plasma TVs who told her that Plasma TV's needed to be recharged every 5 years for a cost of $500 or so. She then tried to sell me the protection plan that would cover this service (the same one I declined before, which would expire before the 5 year recharging date anyway). I declined, ended our call, then got on the internet and discovered rather quickly that this is a myth about plasma tvs that lots of salespeople are propagating.

I am certain that there are people buying these protection plans to cover their plasma tv's future "recharging" which they will discover never happens.

lolwhut?

Sears Calls Several Days After Purchase To Upsell Unnecessary Protection Plan With Lies [Consumerist]

John Brownlee

Mouse netbook introduces DVD burner into depressingly standard equation

[netbooktextexpanderscript]1.6GHz Atom processor, 160GB hard disk, 1GB RAM, 10.2-inch (1,024x600) display, and Windows XP Home Edition.[/netbooktextexpanderscript]

And thus my post would usually write itself. But hold on a minute, lazy blogger! Mouse's latest netbook, the LB-5100W, comes with a built-in DVD burner.

God help you, Mouse Computer, if you make me edit my Text Expander netbook script. I am a lazy, lazy blogger.

This Netbook has an onboard DVD burner [Crave]

John Brownlee

The many watches of Barack Obama

There's an absolutely fascinating biopsy over at On the Dash in which President Obama, as a horological entity, is split up the gullet, his innermost cogwork guts examined for hidden tourbillions.

Watch nuts (and I mean it oh-so-lingeringly, oh-so-affectionately) have poured through the stock photo archives, watching for the telltale piece on Obama's left wrist for each shot. I find their obsession remarkable and laudable.

I think there's something interesting in microcosm here about Obama's great strength as a public figure, a leader: his ability somehow to be an identifiable, sympathetic fellow man to so many disparate groups.

My admiration for Obama is not knee-jerk liberal worship — I like him quite a bit, but I found his campaign promises depressingly nebulous, his campaign irritatingly messianic and his most slavish campaign followers fervent to the point of idiocy — but this admiration is largely inspired by Obama's ability to get as introverted, as obsessed with the minute mechanical mannerisms of time as amateur horology enthusiasts to embrace him in their arms and ask, "What watch are you wearing?"

Or, for that matter, smartphone obsessives to wonder about his Blackberry? Who ever cared what watch Bush wore? What phone he used?

This quality of spiritual identifiable-ness won't make Obama a good president by itself. I have no idea if he will be, in fact, and would not care to speculate on it... although he couldn't possibly be worse than Bush. But this sympathic quality of Obama's does make him an exemplary politician, not in the weasely sense, but as a representative of humans. It's not why I worship him — I don't — but it's why I like him. And it's certainly nice to like a president again.

Barack Obama's TAG-Huer [On The Dash]

Joel Johnson

Were LEGO Space minifigs based on 2001?

While perusing the gorgeous "HAL Project" web site, full of simulations, screensavers, animated desktops, and audio samples from the seminal 2001: A Space Odyssey—for my money, Orson Welles' finest film*—I had a flash of duh: Are the original LEGO Space minifigs in red, blue, and yellow because of 2001? (I've asked LEGO, but that might be a hard one for them to track down.) [via ★]

* It's a tie between 2001 and Porky's.