How to Put an End to the Pen Thievering

I’ve got a problem with people wandering off with my pens. I can’t stand those awful bic pens wihth their gummy ink and tendency to fail at crucial moments, so I buy good pens. Functional pens. Pens that disappear long before they die. When I find them, their new owner always says something like, “Oh, I don’t remember where I got that”

It’s Payback Time.

Fluteboxing: Instrumental Beat-boxing

Music has continued to be re imagined at an ever increasing pace throughout the ages. With the advent of social media, every nut has their own personal stage. Combine the two and throw out the inevitable million monkeys trying to write Shakespeare, and you are left with some real gems, like Greg Patillo, the beat-boxing flautist. Give the video a watch, he is genuinely entertaining.

Related Post:

Flute Hero, Flute as Video Game Controller

Garden Jawas

Want to make your favorite landscaper green with…wait, thats envy, right? You aren’t just going to be sick on my shoes? Well, never mind then!

If you have a rather tacky nerd in your life who has everything, surprise them this Christmas with a garden jawa. Crafted from sturdy, solid, painted resin, this little guy is sure to find the droids you’re looking for.

Unfortunately only available at the Star Wars store, because Lucas is stingy that way.

Advertising With Houseflies

Advertising with flies has to be simultaneously one of the ingenious and disturbing marketing tactics in history. Watch the above video of the Frankfurt book fair to see unsuspecting people’s minds blown as a house fly buzzes by trailing a tiny red advertising banner like one of those planes at the beach. I don’t know how effective it would be once the novelty wore off, but in this instance, there were bookworms aplenty stalking flies with their fancy digital cameras, hoping to get a picture. If you have the kind of business where any publicity is good publicity (check your spam box), then this may be your next gimmick.

Before you run off to rile up PETA, the flies were supposedly not harmed, and were only attached by a small amount of wax which fell off in time. You might think I’m kidding about PETA, but they already went after Barack Obama earlier this year for swatting a fly that landed on his arm. I’m not a fan of cruelty to insects, but a swatted fly is hardly cause for a national incident.

I wonder if this adverfliesing was inspired by the recent Bill Gates talk where he released a swarm of mosquitoes on the crowd at the beginning of his speech about the death toll of malaria.

(via Geekologie)

Awesome Case Mod

This case mod (origin unknown, likely Russian) is like an AtomPunk Norman Rockwell, or the Barbie geek dream house.  I love the little LED lamp, the cozy looking couch and chair, the little touches of home. I think that rug is one of those mouse pads.

I’d love to come up with a case mod, but I’ve got a case curse. As soon as I put a case on a computer, it breaks and I have to take it apart and fix it again. My microchips live wild and free.

Jedi Animals

The empire of cute animal sites continues to grow. Sometimes the domain name says it all. AnimalsWithLightSabers.com is a site that needed only be thought up to be a success.

The content is user driven, so if you have some animal pictures or a desire to brush up on your Photoshop skills with a fun little project, check it out and make a submission. I did.

Related Posts:

Upside Down Dogs

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.

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.

Kinetic Sculpture Race 2009

We sent zogdo senior video correspondent and garden coach Genevieve Schmidt to the 2009 Kinetic Sculpture Race (Humboldt, California) and caught the above footage of the race. Humboldt County hosts this race every Memorial Day weekend, and it draws quite a crowd of bizarrely dressed spectators. Many of them dress like this on  daily basis. The star of the show for the second year running is the dragon built by Duane Flatmo out of hubcaps and similar materials. This year it has a fiery new trick, and it’s a real crowd pleaser. 

 

 

I had the pleasure of helping to make some of these possible, mostly by machining various gears and other parts. This is one of those races where if you are entering to win, you’ve already lost. Corruption and bizarre rules are built into the race so deeply that it seems clear they are there to prove the point that this race is about the journey and the fun,  rather than the finish line.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been to at least a dozen of these races now, and the quality of the entries and the size of the crowd varies wildly. I’d say the best one I went to was about four years ago, back when Yakima was still a leading competitor.They were connected with sculptures like an early variation of the Hippypotamus, which this year came complete with sage smoke billowing out of its nostrils. In the past couple of years, the race has vastly increased in notoriety, making the front page of Digg last year, and the front page of CNN two days before the race began this year.

 

Some of the new arrivals this year included The Octomom, complete with eight tentacles for grasping her young.

The Glory Hogs would occasionally stop to barbecue and hand out free hotdogs to their adoring fans. We got a great rooftop view of the race. 

I hadn’t seen this beetle (firefly?) before, but I didn’t catch its name.

 

 

 

 

 

The symbol of the race is the Kinetic Chicken, personified in this sculpture that arrived with great fanfare last year. It came into the race at the last minute with a huge entourage of chicken headed cyclists, towering over the crowd in chromed glory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also new was this skunk.

Quite a crowd of people follow the race on bicycles and skateboards, and give quite a representation of local color, like this dog, and this protester with a noble message about personal responsibility and smog reduction.

I’ll end here for now with a giant angler fish, a closeup of the dragon head, and a great show of Flatmo helping Twinkle light their star.

Update: Dead Man’s Drop and the dunes

All of the more interesting sculptures managed to make it to the sand dunes this year. 

I don’t have the weight specs for thedragon, but it’s nothing you want to be pedaling up a sand dune.  Here, the pit crew helps out a bit.

 

Dead Man’s Drop is a steep section off the back of a sand dune leading to a small trail through the trees. The dragon made it down safely, unlike Big Top (red and white in the  right corner of the picture) . A note to anyone considering purchasing a Flip Video Recorder: they have a nasty habit of suddenly dead batteries, which loses the enitre currently recording section of footage, however long it may be. It cost us a great film from right below big top as it rolled down the hill.

 

 

The spashdown in the bay:

We arrived at the bay to an icy windy day, spectators shivering in their down coats, while Zog, true to form showed up in a T-shirt.

 

This guy in the parking lot had his dog jumping through a bicycle tire ad nauseum; why? because he could I suppose. I have a cat that will retrieve thrown asparagus, but you don’t see me bringing him to perform at events.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bay crossing portion of the race takes place with the racers going down a ramp into the 50°F waters of Humboldt Bay, many of them submerged to the knees in barely seaworthy craft. The most notable difficulty I saw this year was this giant picnic basket. As soon as it hit the water, we could hear loud cracking noises as something went horribly wrong inside. The side panel of the float (using the term loosely) was meant to open up as their escape hatch, but it was obstructed by the dock. Everything turned out ok, but I doubt they made it upwind with such poor aerodynamics and some obvious structural issues.

 

While it is more mechanically interesting than truly sculptural, I’ve been quite impressed with Twinkle (formerly The Patriot Act). They’ve had some time to perfect things, and what they have ended up with is a machine that made the race over land and sea both look effortless. I didn’t spot them in the dunes, so I don’t know how it fared in sand, but the back wheel is used for steering on land and as a rudder at sea, and those big wheels with the paddles on the sides really worked great.

 

 

 

 

 

The Flatmo Dragon took to the water like a swan. A terrible fire breathing swan of DOOM! A great improvemnt over last year making the headlines worldwide after capsizing. This has truly become a remarkable machine that would draw crowds in any event on the planet.

 

 

 

 

I’ll likely more or less end this post here for the season, but if you were in the race or would like to see more of a particular entry, I do have a lot more photos. Feel free to comment below.

Next Page »