So now that we have removed wallpaper from the house…
…I have found some that I would love to put back up (as much as I hate wallpaper). A designer named Jonas Samson has created some “light emitting wallpaper” that can be formed into designs. It is getting ready to be shown in the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan soon, so I wonder if it would ever get produced in a larger scale?
If I could remove overhead lights and use the walls to light up a room, that would almost be unique enough for me to place it in the “man cave” in my house!
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Designer Info -Jonas Sampson-
Retrieved from -Engadget-
So for those who are truly unaware the size of a smart car…
…get a look at this slide that I found on the Smart Car of America (SCoA) site. Someone had posted this picture comparing the smart car to other vehicles. The one I get the biggest kick out of is the comparison to the Mini Cooper. One of my good friends from work got a one of those last week with British Racing Green and racing stripes. I had a similar experience with it as with the smart car when I got into it. From the outside, it looked like it would be too small to be comfortable sitting inside, but once you got in there, you had plenty of room. The only difference between the two…the smart car only seats two!
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Sometimes, contractors can really take you too literal…
…to outcomes that are nothing more than laughable. To those who are not engineering literate, take a look at the image below (click to make bigger), and notice the excerpt from the plans on the right-hand side. If you see that callout for a detail that says 2/A6.10, there is what is called a leader line pointing to the circled area for which the detail applies to. So, the contractor took the plans, and formed stairs to fit where the leader line is and for the detail bubble. I have a feeling that the true humor behind this is lost on those who have never dealt with engineering plans, but trust me, this is a very ludicrous mistake!
I’m no lighting expert…
…but I actually like the ingenuity of the person who came up with the lighting arrangment shown below. A fellow co-worker and I were discussing lighting on a local project and I learned quite a bit about fluorescent lighting and the different methods of diffusing the light. The cheap option (like my kitchen) is to use the plastic screen to diffuse the light throughout a room. The much preferred (and more expensive) option is to use aluminum diffusers set at slight angles to reflect the light in all directions. Now, this isn’t diffused at all, but I would think with at least 14 lights, what’s the point of a diffuser?
As always, click on the picture to make it bigger!
Speaking of steampunk…
Just published this week on the internet was the Steampunk Workshop’s Victorian style modification of a PC. Check out all the brass and wood and try to not get scared when the guy takes a bandsaw after a brand new widescreen LCD monitor!
Geeks in the wild…
A while back, the wife and I were driving to Sunday brunch to celebrate Lent being over so that she could actually eat bread again. As we were driving, a car passed us on the right, and I glanced over…and then had to do a double take. It’s not often you seean older fellow with a huge white beard, but that isn’t what the double take was for. This was one of those times when I wish I had a camera in the car, but alas, I didn’t. He had a license plate that read “G&ALF”. It took a few seconds, but it slowly registered after the second take. Then I noticed in the back window that there was a campaign sticker that said Gandalf/Aragorn 08. You can’t get much nerdier than that. So not only did he feel strongly enough to have a personalized license plate and bumper sticker, he had to look like Gandalf as well.
Anyway, when I stopped at Lowes on the way home to pick up drywall repair materials, I parked behind a car that was about as nerdy as the previous…not quite so much, but nerdy nonetheless.
Now, how many Lord of the Rings nerds are there out in the world? I mean sure, I’m one, I mean two tattoos with Tolkinesque images puts me up there, but I’m sure there have to be others!
No commentsOkay, so now everyone knows I have a watch fetish…
…but I can’t help it. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), my fetish is usually only with affordable watches. I have been pleased with my Casio G-Shock watch that I bought over four years ago. What’s hilarious, is that with only minor changes to the aesthetics, there “brand new” watch is the exact same as mine. And I love the fact that it is solar and syncs to the atomic clock so that I never have to set it or change the battery.
Now, from the OhGizmo! website, I see that there is a new watch coming out by Urwerk. Have you ever heard of a watch with dual turbines in it to act as a motion damper to prevent damage to the mechanisms? Me neither. Here is an excerpt from the OhGizmo! post about it…
The first thing you’ll notice is that the UR-202 communicates the time with three hands that rotate around the center of the watch. The number blocks on the ends of each hand rotate to provide the hour, and the minute is shown by that little metal pointer, which telescopes in and out as the hands rotate, allowing for a smaller overall case since the pointers not in use are able to retract themselves as they circle back around the watch. The two dials alongside the minute bar show the moon phase, and whether it’s day or night. The watch is powered by kinetic energy; it winds itself as you move your wrist around. Kinetic watches work best (and last longest) when they’re wound with gentle, consistent motion, and heavy wrist activity (ahem) can put a lot of strain on the mechanism. To combat this, the UR-202 contains two little turbines, which are coupled to the winding rotor. The turbines act as shock absorbers, using air pressure to cushion the movements of the rotor. A switch on the back of the watch lets you adjust the air pressure passing through the turbines to compensate for “vigorous” and “extreme” activity. They’re using air inside the watch to do all this, so the whole thing remains waterproof.
Just amazing…I’m sure expensive, but very amazing…
No commentsAnyone else ever heard of “Sweding”
There was a movie that came out earlier this year that I wanted to see but missed. Undoubtedly, it created a new term to the public’s vocabulary that I haven’t heard of before…sweding. According to the ever infallible Wikipedia, sweding is the process of recreating a film using amateur resources. The movie it came from was “Be Kind, Rewind” in which the owners of a video store accidentally destroy all of their VHS tapes by magnetism. So, they recreated all the movies by themselves. Since it was slow to create and cost a lot to rent, they claimed the movies were from Sweden.
Anyway, while cruising over at ExtraLife, Scott Johnson had posted about a sweded movie version of “The Empire Strikes Back”. This really is a very fascinating 1 minute summary of the movie. Click on over to take a look!
Who all has ever heard of the Steampunk movement?
For the past 9 months or so, I have gotten real interested in the steampunk movement as it pertains to fantasy and science fiction. Family and friends would be surprised to hear this since they usually depict science fiction themes involving the steam era…normally in the Victorian times. Some great examples of this are by an artist known as Eric Poulton. By his own admission, he is a perfect subject for my website…
I’m an art nerd, a computer geek, and a grammar dork.
A few examples of his work can be seen below.
I’ll give friends and family a subtle hint, get used to seeing steampunk images, you’ll probably see more! But as I was cruising the internet, Engadget hit me again with a truly nerdy watch. It vaguely reminds me of the steampunk movement in its execution. Introducing, the watch that is truly a mouthful…the De Grisogono Meccanico DG all-mechanical digital watch.
Yeah, sounds very contradicting. It is a windup watch that is analog as well as digital, but they way they do the hands is just really fascinating. More info can be found at Wrist Fashion. Too bad it will probably be a fortune since they are only making 177 total.
1 commentMovie Spoilers!
Wouldn’t it be fun to walk around and ruin everyone’s enjoyment of a particular movie? If your answer was yes, the following is the t-shirt for you!
Granted, most of the movies on there are quite old and shouldn’t spoil anything for anyone, but hey, it’s still funny!
1 comment