The Cryoscope by Robb Godshaw is a solid aluminum connected to a peltier, which is in controlled by a computer. The cube heated and cooled to indicate the temperature forecasted tomorrow. The cube doesn’t directly give the predicted temperature, since at room temperature, the metal cube is perceived as cold. Instead, a 73°F outside temperature is mapped to 85°F on the cube, since that temperature was perceived as neutral.
Luzinterruptus is at again, this time putting glowing jars around water fountains throughout Madrid. Agua Potable Corriendo por las Calles (Drinking Water Running Through the Streets) is their protest to fact in last 30 years more than half of the public water fountains in Madrid have either been removed, disconnected, or allowed to fall into disrepair. 200 glass bottles were strung together and placed at four of the cities dilapidated water fountains in such a way to mimic water.
Designed by Naoki Hirakoso and Takamitsu Kitahara, the Kai Table has multiple internal compartments, but with the twist that each of them takes the form of a hidden compartment as seen on other furniture.
I’ve always been a sucker for hidden compartments, and although the location of the compartments are quite obvious given the size of the piece, it still presses all the right buttons for me.
Jie Qi at the High-Low Tech lab at MIT’s Media Lab, posted a HOWTO on nitinol and origami. In the HOWTO she mentions that you can’t solder the nitinol directly, and so you’ll have to have create a soldering pad for it. (She used a craft crimp bead.) Another tip she gives is the need to preheat the nitinol by running a 9 volt charge through it for five seconds. When the wire relaxes, it will become be longer than it was originally, and so you’ll need to retention the wire. Last of all, she warns against keeping the wire energized too long, lest your “burn out” the nitinol. In another project, Qi mentions she used 0.006 inch flexinol for the origami, but used 0.01 inch for the more rapid vine/snake project.
I have had a fairly long interest in synthetic plants and was thinking if nitinol could be used to in a heliostat or some sort of dinural deployable structure, but I never knew the reaction time of nitinol. Seeing it used understanding what voltages are required was helpful. (Poking around just now, I also ended up finding a handy nitinol wire width-voltage-time-force table.) While I doubt that I will ever actually build whatever vague idea idea I have for synthetic plant, I’ve come to conclusion that nitinol perhaps isn’t the best choice of materials if you want it to hold position for any considerable length of time (or at least not without some sort of mechanical latching).
The always entertaining and informative show Radiolab, brings us the strange case that according to Marvel Comics, mutants aren’t human. Which is ironic because the entire undercurrent of the X-Men universe is the bigotry and right of mutants to be seen as equals.
Why did Marvel do this? Tariffs. “Dolls representing only human beings and parts and accessories thereof: Dolls whether or not dressed: Other: Not over 33 cm in height” are taxed at 12%, while “Toys representing animals or other non-human creatures (for example, robots and monsters) and parts and accessories thereof” are taxed at 6.8%. Toy Biz, the company manufacturing the toys for Marvel, argued in court that since some of the X-Men were blue, they weren’t human, and therefore the “action figures” were “toys” and not “dolls.” Yglesias is right, in pointing out that there is absolutely no logical reason why there would be this discrepancy, but there it is.
When I heard this, I immediately thought of customs agents thumbing through containers and putting Wolverine in the 6.8% “toy” pile, putting Nick Fury in the 12% “doll” pile, and woe to the agent that puts Juggernaut in the “toy” pile. Cain Marko’s powers are magical, so he’s not a mutant. (However, Ultimate Juggernaut is a muttie.) Alas, I suspect customs just throws everything marked “Marvel” in the 6.8 pile.
Architecture firm Tetuo Kondo, installed A Path in a Forest, elevated walkway through part of the Kadriorg forest located inside Tallinn, Estonia. 95 meters long, it is supported solely through straps fastened to the trees. It was created as part of LIFT 11, a “festival of urban installations.”
At first I thought this was a wooden walkway, but it looks like it’s entirely metal, which is kind of disappointing, but probably inevitable because of weight restrictions. It is also very reminiscent of their 2010 Venice installation, Cloudscapes, only outdoors.
Miya Kondo BDes project from the Eindhoven Design Academy are picture frames that emit a diffuse white light into the middle of the empty frames. Called “Composition Light,” she asks whether light itself can be object instead of an just a way to characterize concrete objects.
Personally, I think make nifty accent lights.
via matande
Taking parts from other motorcycles, Roongrojna Sangwongprisarn built this xenomorph queen motorcycle. (Actually, given the mouth, it looks more like a predator infected xenomorph queen.)
Via Hacked Gadgets.
Tyler Riewer‘s friends gave him this inspired gift. The outside reads: “Sack up — Life is a daring adventure or nothing.” Inside is a bottle of bourbon and a set of brass knuckles.
Inspiring. It’s the kind of gift you’d expect from Tyler Durden. As Major “King” Kong (Slim Pickens) in Dr Strangelove said, “Shoot, a fella’ could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.”
d&@le Concepts concepts (nomme de art for Alessandro De Ambrogio and Carlos Basanta) have created the GUL Two, a solar powered LED plant that lights up at night. Currently installed at in the Elemental Gardens at Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver.