Have you ever looked up in the sky and thought “Hey! That cloud looks just like the McDonald’s arches”. If you have, there’s a good chance that cloud may have actually been engineered to look that way by a special effects company called SnowMasters. They’ve developed something they call Flogos, which are basically flying custom logos. Made from a proprietary soap based foam, the Flogos are filled with gases such as helium rather than air. As we all know, helium is lighter than air, so once the Flogo comes out of the machine, they just float away.
Depending on the soap mixture, the Flogos can last for just a few minutes or up to an hour. They can also travel 20-30 miles and fly as high as 20,000 feet, though the weather conditions (particularly wind speed) play an important factor in how far they go. The standard Flogos range in size from 24 inches to 48 inches, though the company is working on an even more impressive 6 foot generator. The Flogo machines can produce a flying logo every 15 seconds, and the soap based material is 100% environmentally safe.
A lot of animators will keep a mirror next to their drawing desk so they can use their own faces and expressions as inspiration for their work. Well here’s a product designer who also used themselves for inspiration. But instead of looking at his face, Alexander Lervik wanted to delve deeper into his head so he had an MR scan of his brain done at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. The image of his brain was then processed by a rapid prototyping 3D printer to create this bizarre looking lamp. It’s lit internally by a set of bright LEDs and apparently does throw off quite a bit of light, but I think he missed the opportunity to have a single illuminated lightbulb floating above his brain. Now that’s a good idea!
With the rising gas prices, it’s natural for people to look for alternative methods of transportation. This of course means that people are going to come up with some crazy contraptions. I can only guess that this is how the Magic Wheel was conceived.
Basically what this appears to be is a bike wheel attached to a rollerblade wheel with a couple of footrests. What you end up with something that is about as useful as a skateboard, without the ability to actually do cool tricks. If you’re looking for a different way to get around and don’t mind getting a lot of weird looks, then by all means drop $250 (plus $325 shipping from Singapore) on one. I’ll just stick to a bike.
Ha ha. This reminds me of The Simpsons episode ‘Team Homer’ where Otto is obsessed with getting that lobster harmonica out of the claw game at the bowling alley. But instead of a bowling alley, this claw game is located in Osaka, Japan’s Namba district, and instead of winning a lobster harmonica, you can actually win a real life lobster. Obviously you’d have to up your claw game skills if you expect to snag a moving target like a live lobster, but if you do happen to snatch one the arcade manager will at least give you a plastic bag so you can carry it around with you the rest of the night. I’ve also included a video after the jump of some tourists successfully scoring themselves a tasty lobster prize.
What kinds of things do you suppose you can do with a couple huge Tesla coils? Hmm… How about cooking a chain of a dozen hot dogs all at once?
Mmm, tastes like lightning. These coils are actually just 1/12 scale (!) prototypes of some absolute monsters that the Nevada Lightning Laboratory wants to construct. The 122 foot tall towers would be tall enough for people to be INSIDE them watching the discharges, kinda like this:
More pics of the 10 foot tall baby coils at Maker Faire shooting lighting bolts, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
There are countless books that will supposedly teach you how to properly raise your kids, but only one that takes the opposite approach. How To Traumatize Your Children is part of the ‘Self-Hurt Series’ of books and includes chapters that cover everything from narcissistic parenting to being your child’s best friend to the convenience of neglect and even how to enjoy the legacy of trauma you’ve carefully crafted. Because let’s be serious, what’s the point of putting all the time and effort into traumatizing your kids if you don’t end up becoming pseudo-famous thanks to a tell-all book or movie-of-the-week 30 years later?
At 192 pages with full color illustrations the book should provide more than enough guidance to keep your son or daughter living in your basement well into their 40’s. You can get it from Perpetual Kid for just $10.
It’s no secret that many Hollywood celebrities are happy to appear in ads and commercials in Japan, while absolutely refusing to back home. George Lucas on the other hand seems happy for him and his characters to appear in ads all over the world. StarWars.com recently published a collection of ‘10 Cool Star Wars Posters from Japan’ and among them are these ads from a Panasonic Star Wars campaign from the late ’80s and early ’90s. Seeing most celebrities riding a satellite dish with an Ewok and a Wookie would probably seem odd, but not so much when it’s George Lucas who’s awkwardly sandwiched between them. (And that’s awkward with a capital ‘A’ by the way.)
And here’s an ad with Yoda listening to a Panasonic personal stereo while he uses the force to float the earbuds next to his head. (He’s probably listening to Weird Al’s take on Lola.) Maybe if he’d done a better job of investing his money in the early ’80s he wouldn’t have had to shill stereos for Panasonic during his retirement.
If you’ve got a few minutes to spare you can head on over to StarWars.com and check out the other 8.
A battery backup device is a must-have accessory for those who forget to recharge their toys every night. But if you’re the type who forgets to recharge stuff, how are you going to remember to bring the backup battery with you? Well the obvious answer is to have it strapped to your wrist all day. This recharging bracelet might not win any points for design or subtlety, but it makes up for it with convenience and the fact that it can also be used hands-free.
The bracelet recharges over USB and stores enough juice to keep a PSP running for about 4 hours, or a Nintendo DS for almost 7 1/2 hours. It comes with the USB cable needed for charging and a secondary cable with interchangeable tips allowing it to be used with portable gaming systems, cellphones and MP3 players. It runs about $48 from the Rare Mono Shop and if you like the idea but are embarrassed about wearing it, you can always tell people it’s a security bracelet you were issued after getting out of prison. Just don’t let them see you playing Pokemon on the DS with it as it could diminish the credibility of your story.
I guess when I think about it, the problem of your fly accidentally coming open really only dates back to the invention of the zipper. But even if it’s not an ‘age old’ problem, it’s still a problem, particularly if it’s ever happened to you. So this simple solution created by Lisa Sjövall seems so obvious that you have to wonder why it hasn’t been thought of or even incorporated into pants already. (At least I haven’t seen it before.) The ZipHolder is basically an elastic loop that fastens to the pull tag on your zipper. When it’s done up, the loop is placed around the button on your fly which prevents the zipper from accidentally coming open. In fact it’s so simple there’s really nothing else to say about it, so to fill out this post here’s a collection of euphemisms for your fly being open.
- Your zip code is invalid.
- Your pod bay door is open, Hal.
- You’re flying low.
- I thought you were crazy; now I see you’re nuts.
- Paging Mr. Johnson…
- You need to bring your tray table to the upright and locked position.
You can get the ZipHolder from SmartaSaker for about $6.40.
If the above picture vaguely reminds you of something, you’re not crazy. Well, you might be crazy but not about this particular subject. We showed you a mouse/keyboard combo a couple of years ago that looks have evolved into what you see above.
This is actually a small computer that is about the weirdest thing I’ve seen in a while. The idea that you’d be able to have a full keyboard, trackball and even a touchscreen in a small device seems like it would be cool, but looking at the strange shape and tiny screen, I seriously doubt it would ever catch on. Honestly, I would half expect to get beat up if I walked down the street using this.
Related Tags: Advertising, Unusual
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