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.

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Flute Hero, Flute as Video Game Controller

Using Rock Band / Hero Games as Instrument Trainer

With the flood of dumbed-down instrument games like Guitar Hero that do wonders for your button pushing but don’t do much for your guitar skills, there has been a flood of innovators trying to rig controllers that will make real instruments work in the game.

In the above video, we see a simpler solution. Instead of focusing on the instrument, focus on the sound. By using the Rock Band mic, she is able to control the game via flute.

Obviously, this would be better if the game were designed for such, but I don’t see much chance of that coming from the big developers. What we need is a good open source program to do for the mic what StepMania did for the dance pad. If anyone out there knows of a good equivalent, let me know and I will update this post accordingly.

(via Neatorama)

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)

Extreme Slow Motion Bullet Video

The above video was taken at one million frames per second, so fast that you can watch the individual cracks forming as a bullet shatters a sheet of glass. The video is much art as science; both mesmerizing and illustrative of just what a narrow realm of matter and velocity we exist in. At these velocities a bullet deforms like a lump of butter, a sheet of steel no more substantial than paper.

(Via Geekologie)

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.

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.

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Cajun Crawler, the Segway with legs

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