Glowing Liqour Pour Spout

This LED lit pour spout for your liquor is more than just a flashlight on top of a bottle. It uses the same physics as a fiber optic cable. The total internal reflection of the light in a fluid with a higher refractive index than air will keep the light inside of the liquor lighting up the curving stream and the liquid in the cup rather than lighting up the table. They make a great gift for anyone with a bar. Chances are they don’t already have one, and amazon has them cheap enough that you can afford to give away a bottle of liquor with it. Video of a green one below:

Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose

Dan Pink gives a Ted Talk in the above video that touches on the nature of inspiration and how our actions to motivate its inception are actually stifling ideas. A good watch for inventors, artists, and anyone in a management position.

A similar Ted Talk recently spoke about the ethhical nature of autonomy.

Spoof Art | M. C. Escher Hands

CrunchGear had an unusually short and sweet caption on this photo, and I must admit, I don’t think I can improve upon it:

“Give a robot repairs, and it will operate for a day. Teach it to repair itself, and it will touch off a Robocalypse.”

The combination in machines of the dexterity for self assembly and the intelligence for self improvement will undoubtedly herald some very interesting and fast paced times. As apocalypses go, I can think of worse.

Trash Bag Topiary

Joshua Allen Harris is a street artist who has truly created something that is more than the sum of its parts. With nothing but a bit of tape, some trash bags, and a subway vent, he creates some of the most crowd stopping street art I’ve seen.

Inspiration Fail

Some ideas come in a sudden flash, as all of the pieces come together in your mind. This is great unless it happens at three in the morning waking up from a drunken stupor, as illustrated below:

Winkers Jeans. For those who would really like their butt to be the first thing people notice about them, and the last. This almost seemed like it had potential, but no, it’s just weird, and not in that good way.

Glowing toilet paper. Funny, but why not make something that isn’t a consumable glow, like the holder? It just seems like a good way to end up with people asking you why your butt is glowing.  (via Geekologie)

A scooter attached to your dog. There are so many accidents waiting to happen here I shudder to think of them all. (via Gizmodo)

Ahh, the never ending battle between people trying to price gouge captive consumers on their beer, and crafty(ish) guzzlers trying to find sneaky ways of smuggling in cheap beer. There have been some interesting attempts over the years, this is not one of them. You fill the seat with beer and then you can sit on it while you drink it, resulting in a cold butt and warm beer, followed by a warm butt on a hard seat. What happens when some lard ass sits on one of these and explodes beer all over the nearby populace? (Via CrunchGear)

This is a live-feed App for the IPhone called E-Mail and Walk. It turns your backgrond into a live view from the camera. This will be great to keep people from falling down manholes while texting. I think it will more often be used while driving. (Via TheRawFeed)

Books for Dummies

If you are the computer geek of the family, you’ll appreciate the above clip. The disconnect between technophobes and technophiles isn’t a recent occurrence, but lately it is becoming less about class and more about interest and aptitude. Computers are constantly conquering previously analog realms, from calculations, to games, to news to photography, to shopping, dating and socializing, it is getting hard to be a member of society without a certain amount of proficiency. Those who are only now finding something that engages them on the computer are having a tough time of it. A small group of them take to it like a duck to water, but the rest often find themselves utterly lost in a set of conventions that, while sensible and simple, are completely alien. The video above seems at first glance to be a ridiculous spoof, but it’s a little scary just how close it comes to the truth.

Segway Unicycle

If the Segway is so great at balancing itself, then why does it need two wheels?

This is the Enicycle, a Segway-like unicycle built by Aleksander Polutnik, a guy who couldn’t ride a real unicycle. There is some good design here, like the steering mechanism of leaning to pivot the wheel and shocks to keep the ride smooth, but I’m skeptical about the unicycle-like stance. That stance half way between standing and kneeling hardly seems natural. Here it is in action:

(Via Geekologie)

I’ve had the pleasure of racing on an off-road Segway, and I think they are a great concept with plenty of room left for innovation.

Related Post:

Cajun Crawler, the Segway with legs

Rubber Band Gatling Gun

I’ve seen a lot of rubber band guns in my day, but this one comes out far above the rest. The difference is in the ingenious firing mechanism. It works by coiling a robe around the barrel of the gun, and then hooking rubber bands to hooks along the same path. When an electric drill unwinds the rope, it sequentially knocks the back of each rubber band off of its respective hook and fires a shot.  The elegance of the design makes it easy to build, easy to load, easy to fire, and the results are impressive.

(via boingboing)

Security Camera Light

This lamp by A2591 is made to look like a security camera and can be used either as a desk lamp or wall mounted.

I’m not at all sure I’d like this as an indoor lamp, although it looks nicely adjustable, but I do like the concept as outdoor lighting. If I find an old broken down security camera somewhere, I’m tempted to tear out the guts, replace them with a light, and wire it up via a wireless motion sensor kit, and use it outside to make criminals think twice, day or night.

It would be the opposite concept of this security light with hidden digital video camera. They might even work well in concert, serving to obsfucate the true nature of the security.

(via the always awesome geekologie)

Steampunk Lamps | Frank Buchwald

The artist who created these lights , Frank Buchwald, has a design trait I commonly see among the greatest of machine oriented designers: He doesn’t so much see himself as an artist creating art, but as  evolving the design of an object to the point where the form becomes inseparable from the the function without becoming a slave to it; a state morre often seen in nature than machine.