Rob Beschizza

CPUs for Scrap Gold Recovery

"There's even a bunch of white ceramic DIPPs and some RISC processors."

Rob Beschizza

Pointless earbud keychain

Rob Beschizza

Barbie's gadgets

This collection of Barbie's gadgets, of late 1980s vintage, could be yours for as little as eight quid. Among the cargo cult delights are a computer, a stereo, a popcorn maker, a TV with cassette player (always tuned the the Ballet Channel!), a cine camera and a broken toaster. [eBay]

Steven Leckart

Review: O'Neill SL Gloves [Verdict: Wipeout]

I bought O'Neill's SL gloves for three reasons:

1) The water is frigid in San Francisco, so 3mm neoprene seemed like the way to go.
2) $40 seemed reasonable at the time.
3) The model name boasts my initials (SL = Steven Leckart).

I've worn these gloves while surfing, on average, twice a week since February. At first, I loved them: The fit is great and allow for reasonable dexterity; the gloves enhance paddling; and they really keep my hands warm... well, kept my hands warm.

After the jump, check out why I'm embarrassed to share initials with this product...

READ THE REST

Steven Leckart

Contest: Last Chance To Win The Fighting Space Chicken

The fighting space cock-bot contest ends today, August 7 at 11:59pm PST.

So far, my fave was submitted by Alli.

For more info, check here.

Good luck!

Steven Leckart

Contest: Win My Fighting Cock-Bot

I stumbled on this Fighting Cock-bot at a junk shop in San Francisco that was having an everything-must-go sale. The box is dated 1986 and indicates the robo-chicken was manufactured by the Chi Land Plastic Manufacturing, Co in Taiwan.

Aside from stumbling on a .gov that lists the manufacturer, I haven't had much luck tracking any more of these down online. (Feel free to Google "fighting cock" and let me know if you find one.)

Battery-operated, the 12-inch toy is supposed to fire little plastic discs ("bullets") that you store in little plastic "eggs." To be honest, I don't really care what the thing does.

The packaging is what sold me on it [sic for everything below...]:

• Head with colorful lamp

• Chest with colorful lamp

• Attached with 2 eggs. There are 12 bullets in each egg.

• Walkable feet for advancing

• Wings can wave and shoot the bullet.

• The cock can turn it body for 360°

• Never let a child swallow the bullet

Enter To Win:

Get creative. PhotoShop the art (here's a larger version). Create an original painting, drawing, watercolor of or inspired by the Fighting Chicken. Write a song. Shoot a video of yourself singing said song. Create a claymation music video for said song.

Post a link to your stuff in the comments below or email me: steven AT boingboing DOT net ; The winner will be chosen based on the merit, effort, and originality of his/her creation. Go nuts.

...And remember: never, ever swallow the bullet. Unless, of course, you are an adult.

Steven Leckart

Digital Abacacus Worthy of Count Chocula

Brando's $10 Soft Solar Chocolate Calculator comes in three flavors, er, colors: dark, coffee, and strawberry. If you buy one for a Valentine, I suggest also throwing in the white chocolate keyboard.

Rob Beschizza

USB hub in the shape of an octopus

At last! [Gadget4all via technabob]

Rob Beschizza

Fire bell alarm clock

There's a plastic look to it, which suggests a jaunty headline like "Try sleeping through this!" would bear its fixed grin weakly. Vat19's "Fire Bell" alarm clock clearly offers only the lesser bedlam of a looping, 4-bit sample of a fire bell. Repurposing the real thing would be a superb product to rival a screaming meanie; this, however, is just another $15 'gift for the inner child.' [Vat19 via Red Ferret]

Xeni Jardin

Vintage Tech archives in Bay Area seek moving volunteers today.

Phil Lapsley, vintage computing history buff, writes:

VintageTech, the organizers of the Vintage Computer Festival, are moving their warehouse of historical computers, equipment, software, and documentation from Livermore, CA to Stockton, CA. Volunteers are needed today (Sunday) and tomorrow (Monday) in Livermore to help pack and palletize all their wonderful machines and related ephemera. It is an amazing chance to help a good cause and get up close and personal with a bunch of interesting historical stuff. I have posted a set of photos of some of their wonders at this Flickr link. If you can spare some time, even an hour or two, please contact Sellam Ismail at sellam@vintagetech.com.

Steven Leckart

Gallery: Automated Tie Racks Still Exist?!

"It's smooth. It purs like a kitten. It won't wake up the wife when you're coordinating an outfit for work in the morning... So if you or someone you know is looking to embrace push-button living that would make even the Jetsons envious, this little gem of a gadget is for you."

I remember getting my Dad a motorized neck tie rack back in the 1980s. It ran OK for a while, but the motor died or, at the very least, he never bothered to replace the batteries. Probably because he found the thing useless.

20 years later, there are a handful of these contraptions still being sold. I haven't used any of them personally, but if the quality of the videos, websites and images advertising them are any indication, well, I'm not too certain you should rush out to buy one.

After the jump, check out racks capable of holding more than 70 ties!*

*What fashion forward fella has six dozen ties, belts and/or scarves?!

This post is part of a theme day: BBG on Fashion

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

USB Retro Vacuum Cleaner

$13 plus shipping [Gadgetshop bia Technabob]

Rob Beschizza

Facebank 2 removes the original's creepy eyes.

The new:

The old:

Rob Beschizza

Finally Fast!

FinallyFast.com is unappetizing system cleaning software for Windows. What makes it special is the ubiquitous TV ads, which feature all sorts of silliness.

The current run has the Mac suffering a blue screen of death. You imagine it must be a little wink to geeks, saying "Yep. Yep. This isn't for you."

And here it is in British:

Rob Beschizza

Power On Self Test: It's for you

Running the Numbers [Chris Jordan via Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Brando "Spy Ear" is a tiny cell phone that always picks up

Calling this little box the "Tiny SIM Card Spy Ear" is confusing literalism the way only crapvendor Brando can do it. Here's what it does: It's basically a cellphone in a box with a microphone, letting you call in to its phone number and listen to whatever it can hear.

It works on GSM only and charges over USB, so I'm presuming that means it has a built-in battery, as well. At $65 it's not exactly cheap for all that it actually does, but spy craft is not a poor man's game. (Unless it is.)

Rob Beschizza

Rota-Rota USB hub

From (who else!) Brando, this absurdist USB confabulation not only provides three ports for thumbdrives, but a fully-featured card reader and analog dials. The analog dials display the temperature, unfortunately, not something interesting like the ratio of used-to-available space on the attached drives. For $15, though, what a cutie.

USB 3-in-1 Rota-Rota Combo Hub [Brando Technabob ]

Rob Beschizza

Gragraph, the home seismograph

Gragraph does not rock your world, but it at least beeps when something else will.

It is $150 and does not have English instructions.

Gragraph Home Earthquake Seismograph [GeekStuff4U]

Rob Beschizza

Ia, Ia, USB Cowthulu ftagn!

Oh Gizmo's Evan Ackerman plugged four USB Cat Tails into the USB Cow Hub. This cuddly abomination--which has 8GB of storage--is the result.

Update: Guy Jin improved the headline.

Rob Beschizza

USB Cat Tail

Faintly disgusting and completely wonderful, GeekStuff4U's USB cat tail has 2GB of memory. Unfortunately, it does not swish. [Akihabara News]

Rob Beschizza

Pen with four SD card slots

How is it that the universe can produce this, but not real-life light sabers?

Thanko's Latest Four SD Slot Pen [Akihabara News]

Rob Beschizza

Airplane-shaped flash drive

A startlingly expensive $24 at Chinavision. [via Coolest-Gadgets]

Rob Beschizza

Third Eye video camera

Hammacher Schlemmer's $300 "Third Eye" camcorder looks silly planted in the middle of the model's head. I, however, will be wearing it as an eyepatch.

The Third Eye Video Camera.

Joel Johnson

Brando is not just a crapvendor, but a real person

Who knew? Besides Elaine Chow, who interviewed him and toured the USB-festooned workshop?

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

iTurtle dances to your tunes

iTurtle is a $46-ish speaker that dances to the tunes it plays. Developed by Tiger electronics, it has seven multicolor LEDs and works with portable music players (but obviously with anything else, too!)

Source (machine trans) [Robot Watch via Dvice]

Rob Beschizza

This is not William Shakespeare's head

This is a bust of William Shakespeare which tilts back to reveal a remote control switch. See if you can remember where it came from—and hence why the makers believe they can get $315 a copy—before visiting the link!

Source [Redhotphones via Dethroner]

Rob Beschizza

R2-D2 Aquarium

For this you can thank Hammacher Schlemmer:

Modeled after the most well-known astromech droid in the galaxy, this R2-D2 holds a 1 3/4-gallon aquarium tank in his central compartment, ideal for a small freshwater family of goldfish, gouramis, or tetras. The domed head rotates with any vocal command you issue and he utters his familiar "bleeps" from the Star Wars movies.

It's $130, twenty inches tall, and plugs into the mains. It even comes with a two-sided cardboard insert so that your fishes can enjoy scenes from the movie.

[HS via Wired]

John Brownlee

Crash calculator constantly crashes, costs more than a functioning one

This jumbled, curiously laid-out CRASH calculator is described by its manufacturers, the Takumi Corporation, with a random squirting of Engrish:

Everybody has an impulse to CRASH! We seek for the excitement of crashing in this calculator. You will be driven to crashing with the unpredictable action it makes. Calculate to crash, get an answer to crash… Enjoy yourself by operating this uncontroll”

I think that's actually a quote from J.G. Ballard run back and forth through the intestines of an English to Japanese babelfish.

crazy calculator constantly crashes [technabob]

John Brownlee

Firebox offers Crap Wrap for the authentic lazy wrapping touch

Perhaps my favorite thing about living in an age of ubiquitous online shopping is almost never having to wrap things anymore. This is not to impugn my wrapping abilities. I actually take pains to wrap things crisply and cleanly, matching the pattern at the fold and taping discreetly. This is largely a reaction against my parents, who are both somewhat sloppy wrappers, and favor gift bags in their dotage, which I utterly loathe: a Christmas gift should appear as it were generated by magic, tearing open Christmas paper is an integral part of the ritual, and besides, where does it all end? A new toy train pulled out of a moist potato sack?

But I digress. I am good at wrapping, but there's no denying it's a pain. But when you ask Amazon to wrap your gifts for you, it inevitably comes in Amazon.com branded wrapping paper, immediately alerting everyone of both your laziness and the origin of the gift. This violates my "gifts should appear on Christmas morning as if by magic" dictate.

Oddball gadget makers Firebox seem to have the right idea. They are offering a wrapping service that is not only devoid of branding, but has all the hallmarks of an honestly wrapped gift: brown parcel tape, uneven edges, sloppily cut paper. The end result will presumably lead family members and friends to believe you wrapped it yourself. Unfortunately, short of having a stroke sometime during the next month, I doubt any of my friends or family will buy it: I am a wrapper of renowned talent, after all.

Crap Wrap [Firebox via Foolish Gadgets]