SpidoLite Watch by Linde Werdelin

This is a high performance(?) timepiece from Danish designer Linde Werdelin that was originally designed for a famous mountain climber named Morten Linde before he climbed Everest. The design blends a lightweight exoskeleton with fancy shmancy watch guts to provide a design that is both rigid and durable while providing a striking, incomplete appearance.

I think this thing looks like a watch I would wear, but unfortunately since this particular timepiece will be produced in a batch of only 44, it will probably not work out for me. Sort of like the time I wanted to experiment with stopping bullets with my mind, or jump over that moving car. Actually its nothing like that. Anyway, the thing costs 9,000 euros, and I don't calculate monopoly money, so you'll have to do the legwork for that one on your own.

via CH

Scratch Calendar by Mr. Tom Design

A great calendar concept by Madrid-based Mr. Tom, AKA Agustin Zea. Instead of crossing off the number of days left until you can remove the bandages without risking horrible infection, you can scratch them off! Hooray!

via designboom

Pocket Shark = Scary Pen Made by Scary People

The Cold Steel Pocket Shark is a pen that... well i mean it is meant to... ummm... look I am just gonna plagiarize here because there is no way I can do this little bit of American crazy the justice it deserves, and I also do not want to be forced into an uncomfortable and super lame pen-mightier-than-sword quip:

"As the saying goes, "the pen is mightier than the sword." Indeed, Cold Steel makes some mighty strong swords, but this little pen makes for some clever competition. It's the biggest, baddest, permanent marker around!

Superficially, it shares many features common to most markers, but appearances can be deceptive. For starters, it's made from the glass-reinforced plastic, Grivory, the same tough material we use in our NIGHTSHADE SERIES, and features walls that are 4 times thicker than similar markers. This means it's built for impact and, in a self-defense emergency it can become an efficient Yawara stick for driving off an attacker. Plus, the screw-top cap will stay in place and won't pop off like a regular marker's cap would when you strike a percussion blow, or when obtaining joint locks or submission holds."

I thought at first that perhaps there was some sort of hidden knife blade, but it appears after some rudimentary analysis that the only stabbing portion of this device is, in fact, the pen tip itself, and the purpose is not really to stab, but to use the blunt nubs on either end to stun, bruise, jab, and generally hurt your opponent.

If you have a moment, I recommend looking at some of the Warrior Lifestyle videos on the Cold Steel website. Not because they are really good, or even entertaining. You may want to watch them simply because it is important to know what sort of people you might be dealing with out there in the wide world. People who make and/or use crazy knives.

via boing boing

M.I.A., Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Kanye West, T.I. “Swagga Like Us” @ 51st Annual Grammy Awards

So maybe Kanye can't design shoes, but when Big K, the Jigga Man, Lil Wayne, T.I. and an ULTRA PREGGO TO THE POINT OF CREEPY M.I.A. hit the stage together it is gonna be epic every time.

Sweet fancy Moses where does one shop for maternity clothes like that? If anyone knows, I'll make a couple calls and have the place firebombed immediately.

via hypebeast

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.

via uncrate

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.

via gizmodo

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.

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...

via hypebeast

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.

via slashdot