2.06.2009

Emergency Cuff-Links



I love French cuffs on my shirts. Love. Unfortunately, I have never had much success holding on to cuff-links because I'm careless and I lose things. Fortunately, Spunique has provided these handy backups. They come in packs of 6 and are, unfortunately, single use.

12 GBP here.

2.05.2009

Geeky Graffiti

Kontraband has about 30 "geeky" examples of graffiti/outright vandalism and some of them are funny. Plus I am super busy today but I feel bad about the 3 posts the week before last so I'm overcompensating, possibly to the overall detriment of the blog, but I mean seriously do you really care? What difference does it make to you, off in your ivory tower? I'm on the streets. Pounding the pavement. In the trenches. Getting shit done. Yeah.


SaveTheWords.org

SaveTheWords is a neat little site from Oxford University Press which allows you to "adopt a word" (obviously a very obscure word) and thus prevent it from being lost to the English language forever. As someone who loves words, I find this endearingly futile, but fun.



If you adopt a word, you will receive a neat certificate like the one Newrosis just got for adopting the word vampirarchy, which means an archy of vamps. I kid...it is a society ruled by vampires! well, the technical definition is a society ruled as if by vampires, but this obviously calls into question the existence of actual vampires, which I don't approve of.

There is also a "word of the day" feature and some other stuff you can sign up for.

2.04.2009

Core77 Greener Gadgets Design Competition



So this is an industrial design competition by my favorite design site (core77, duh) that is geared toward making use of green technology in gadget development. The top 50 entries are listed here. Check it out and vote. I'm pretty impressed with some of these ideas, but others make me wonder what kind of crap was submitted and didn't make the top 50.

Like this thing which you build yourself and use to wirelessly publish your power usage in kWh on a Twitter account. Couldn't you just look at your electrical bill? Maybe the meter? I mean its an interesting concept, but I can't see any real beneficial effect other than providing people on Twitter with statistical data regarding your power usage. Do the denizens of the internet really want to publish these things about themselves? I guess they do, but I think it is lame and stupid. No offense to the designers or voters, though I suppose 'lame' and 'stupid' are generally accepted as being offensive words, and therefore perhaps I should go the whole nine? Screw you and your stupid design.

On the other side of the equation, we have a sweet idea with a really bad name: Blight, which is a Venetian blind system in which the outer edge of the blind (the one facing the sun) has solar cells attached which store energy in batteries located in the top of the blind during the day to power the electroluminescent foil which covers the inside of the blind at night. Pretty slick.



Finally, my submission** is a solar-powered hologram generator placed on the moon which disguises the earth as a giant planet-shaped space monster. I have no solutions on how to create this machine or how to get it to the moon, but it would seem to me that in the grand scheme of things, protecting the earth from alien attack is just as important as curbing CO2 emissions or composting our own feces.


Check out the rest of the entries here.
**my design was neither submitted nor approved...

The Sharpie Show Presented by Crewest


I'm a big fan of marker/pen and ink drawings, it is my preferred medium, and so I will be sad this weekend because The Sharpie Show will be going on in Los Angeles while I am lurking in my apartment scowling at the weather.

Check out the poster below for a roster of the artists, but I'm almost positive that nobody will know any of the names because I don't even know any of the names. Anyway, the show kicks off Saturday (Feb. 7) and runs through March 1 at the Crewest HQ located at 110 Winston St. in LA. Sponsored by Sharpie... so jealous...



News for Nerds: Denver Man Robs Convenience Store With Klingon Sword



via Channel 7 News, Denver CO:

"COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Colorado Springs police are looking for a man who hit two 7-Eleven convenience stores early Wednesday, armed with a Klingon sword.

The first robbery was reported at 1:50 a.m., at 145 N Spruce St. The clerk told police a white man in his 20s, wearing a black jacket, blue jeans and wearing a black mask, entered the store with a weapon the clerk recognized from the Star Trek TV series.

The robber demanded money and left with an undisclosed amount."



Yes, the clerk recognized the weapon. I am not going to lie, Star Trek isn't exactly at the top of my nerdy pile of favorites, but I respect both the act of recognition and whatever drugs it requires for a man to rob a convenience store with a TV prop.