A lot of yuppies like to claim that the business card is dead, instead pointing you towards their Facebook or Twitter accounts to get in touch with them. But I still think they’re alive and well, and are a far more succinct means of giving someone your contact details than making them endure your snide comments about your local coffee shop. And depending on your line of work, they can be a really good way to make a great first impression. We have a pretty big soft spot for particularly unique and original business card creations, as long as they’re still effective at what a card is supposed to do.
So I’m not doubting that Jared Foster is a skilled and creative electrical engineer, I would just find his circuit board business card, which uses persistence of vision to display his name, phone # and website address, to be incredibly annoying. I’m certainly impressed that he made the cards entirely by himself (for about $2 each) and created an Instructable outlining the process, but having to wave it around in the air every time I wanted to contact him would get old real fast.
Sometimes you need a bit of an ego boost to start your morning. And those motivational pep talks you give yourself in the bathroom will feel all the more important with this Press Conference Mirror from Perpetual Kid($26.99). You’ll feel like you’re the center of attention in a media scrum, surrounded by reporters shoving mics in your face, trying to capture your every word.
At 11×15 inches in size it’s probably not big enough to replace the larger mirror already in your bathroom, but you can use the included hanging hardware to put it anywhere you feel inspired to deliver a rousing state of the morning address.
I’m not saying it will never be useful, I’m just saying I’m finding it hard to see how anyone could justify dropping $1,300 on a decorative morse code lamp, even if it is fully functional. It’s got seven louvers covering the 13 1/2-inch lamp which are controlled by a metal handle, and the aluminum and brass finishes give it an authentic look that I’m sure any family member who served in the Navy in the late 1800′s will appreciate. Though in lieu of the carbon arc lamps of yesteryear it uses a single 100-watt bulb of your choosing for your illumination. So purists beware! Available from where other than Hammacher Schlemmer.
Besides adding a little ‘bling’ or pizazz to your bathroom, color changing LED-equipped shower heads are often touted as having chroma-therapeutic benefits. Whether or not that’s true is beyond my area of expertise, but I know for a fact that this particular LED shower head most definitely has medical benefits, in that it will prevent you from accidentally getting a nasty burn.
Instead of flashing in random discotheque-like colors and patterns, the LEDs in this shower head indicate the temperature of the water. Oddly enough green is used in to indicate temperatures below 90°F, blue covers 91 to 105°F and red is about 107 to 113°F. Anything above 114°F will cause the shower head to flash red, letting you know it might be wise to add some cold water into the mix. And don’t worry about having to run power to the shower head. An internal generator powered by the flow of the water provides enough electricity for the temperature monitor and LEDs to do their thing. Available from Chinavasion for ~$13.
There are countless ways you can support the relief efforts currently underway in Japan, even if you’re on the other side of the planet.
Our good friends at Tokyoflash have decided to help out where they can as well, and for the next two days all of the proceeds from every sale will be donated to the Japanese Red Cross Society. That includes the entire cost of your order, even shipping. So if you’ve ever been interested in picking yourself up a really slick looking watch, now is definitely as good a time as any to do so.
It has been more than a week since a major earthquake and tsunami struck the north eastern coast of Honshu, Japan. The Japanese government and aid organizations are still struggling to provide basic necessities to hundreds of thousands of displaced residents in the affected areas.
Please consider supporting the emergency relief efforts through Tokyoflash Japan. For the next two days, until March 24th at 5PM Japan time, when you shop at Tokyoflash Japan, 100% of the value of your order including shipping costs will be donated to the disaster relief fund at the Japanese Red Cross.
There’s a sucker born every minute, but without them who would keep designer luxury brands in business? We all know the iPad costs far less to build than its $499 price tag, but paying a bit of a markup is ok since deep down we all know a lot of R&D and design went into its creation. This Circdiscover iPad Bag from Acronym though? Not even close.
It’s made from something called ‘Dimension Polytant® Superlight X-PAC’ fabric reinforced with Cordura, but that, and the fact that it can be worn horizontally or vertically and allows for ‘handsfree’ iPad usage, doesn’t even come close to justifying its ludicrous $483 price tag. If it was made from another iPad, maybe I can see some justification for it costing so much, but it’s not. You’re basically just paying for a brand name I’ve never heard of. And I’m a guy obsessed with bags and cases.
LED-based lightbulbs are superior to incandescent and even CFL bulbs when it comes to energy efficiency and overall eco-friendliness, but they’re not a perfect alternative, at least not yet. In order to produce the equivalent amount of light as other bulbs, they use a cluster of small LEDs to boost the overall luminosity. But apparently those clusters create multiple shadows, and a projected silhouette (when the bulbs are shining on a wall for example) that’s not as aesthetically pleasing as incandescents or CFLs. Not exactly a huge issue plaguing most consumers given LED bulbs are still considerably more expensive than the alternatives, but apparently enough of one for Panasonic to dedicate some R&D dollars to improving their design.
What they came up with is a new LED bulb that features a single core resulting in cleaner shadows and more aesthetically pleasing silhouettes. Something I’m sure most consumers will demand one day. As far as I can tell they still use a multiple LED technique on the inside, they’re just being brought together in a new way that improves their overall performance. Like most LED bulbs the One-Core uses about 50% less power than a CFL, but apparently they also use about 15% less power than a traditional LED bulb, so the improvements are win-win all around. They’ll be available starting April 21 in two versions, with more options including different color temperatures and dispersion types coming later on.
This is definitely one of those times when you should keep your personal best personal. And trust me, NO ONE wants to know your high score. Awful, but also $6.99 per roll from Perpetual Kid.
Smartpens like the Livescribe have gained a lot of extra functionality over the past few years, but their core duty, the ability to digitally record and store hand-written notes, is still their greatest strength. And these official Livescribe sticky notes are the best use of the technology I’ve seen to date.
Sticky notes tend to be the catch-all for random notes or information, and even though they can be ‘stuck’ they still have a tendency to go missing. And when they do, knowing that a digital copy is stashed away safely in your pen will save you from having to frantically search for that important phone number. As an added bonus, you can add audio notes to them as well, making them a handy way to add literal comments to a document. $12.95 available directly from Livescribe.
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By Andrew Liszewski
