Category: Weirdness
Finger scissors – concept design lets you cut with a gesture
These finger scissors are the work of Effrat Gommeh at Yanko Design. Slip these on, then make the rock-paper-scissors snipping gesture, and you’ll be able to cut paper like it was… er… paper. Brilliant.
Also brilliant on the Yanko Design site: a laptop mousetrap for those with prying roommates, a beautiful and elegant transparent iron, and the customizable peel-off light. I think I’ve found a new favourite group of designers…
Yanko Design (via Gizmodo)
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YouTube Video of the Week: Insane Japanese Water Jetpack
Whoa – this is awesome. Supersize a simple bottle rocket, and strap it to a terrified-looking Japanese bloke. The most impressive thing? The science involved, neatly summarised by PopSci. In short, this bloke leaves the launchpad at over 200MPH, experiencing acceleration of approx 10gs! Don’t try this at home, kids.
PopSci (via Digg)
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CES 2009: Sansa slotRadio – 1000 "hand-picked" songs, you'll hate 95% of em
I’m developing a bit of a love/hate relationship with Sandisk. They swing wildly from releasing great, innovative stuff, to wasting plastic on awful products. Unfortunately slotRadio falls into the latter category.
Sansa slotRadio is an MP3 player that comes with 1000 songs pre-loaded. It’s essentially a music player for people who’ve got absolutely no interest in what music playing, as long as there’s something in the background. The songs come on a Sandisk microSD card, but they’re tied to the card with DRM, so you can’t do anything else with them. If you work your way through the thousand, then you can buy 1,000 more for $40 (£26).
My advice? Save your cash and stick to Last.fm. In the meantime, go check out our other CES coverage here.
(via PC Mag)
Twadio – silent radio station launches on Twitter
Are you listening to music? Turn it down, or off for a moment. Now go visit @tweejay on Twitter, and sing along in your head for a moment to whatever’s at the top. Congratulations, you’ve just enjoyed the delights of Twadio.
It’s the first ‘silent radio station’, where every five minutes, a song is posted. Listeners who sign up are notified via @tweejay, and across the world, the same song suddenly gets stuck in millions of people’s heads. Brilliant, or an evil plot to get “U can’t touch this” in your head? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Tweejay (via @dubber)
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New developments in the Tetris world – now it helps reduce mental trauma
Tetris. Always with the bloody Tetris. We’ve had Tetris ice cubes, Tetris chocolate, another kind of Tetris ice cubes, Tetris watches, Tetris furniture and even Tetris MADE REAL – now it’s time for life-affirming Tetris making people better news.
Basically, some doctors have been using the timeless obsessive/compulsive block-tidying puzzle game to relieve the symptoms of stress sufferers. They found that playing Tetris 30 minutes after being exposed to harrowing imagery…
Britney, Obama and Fox News' Twitter accounts get hacked
Last night, the Twitter accounts for Britney Spears, Barack Obama, Fox News, Facebook, the Huffington Post and 28 other decreasingly famous people were hacked to display a variety of messages, from spammy to hilarious.
It started with Fox News, who posted a message about one of their anchors, saying “Breaking: Bill O Riley is gay”. Rick Sanchez from CNN was then hit, with a message saying “i am high on crack right now might not be coming into work today”. Then Barack Obama (who hasn’t posted since the election) posted an affiliate marketing survey. Then Britney’s incredible missive came through. Find out that said over the jump (mildly NSFW).
Star Trek Command Chair now shipping!
Remember the Star Trek command chair that Gary lusted over back in August? It’s now shipping!
It can be yours for a paltry $2,717.01 (£1,880 or so) plus $400 (£280) of shipping and handling. Just in case we need to remind you, it’s fully licensed, has a ‘working swivel design’, light-up controls and sound effects from the original TV series. Tribbles not included.
SkyMall (via CrunchGear)
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VIDEO: 49 microwaves play "Jingle Bells" – one note each
If this video is legit, then it’s right up there with staggering works of artistic genius like the Mona Lisa, the Taj Mahal, and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. It’s a series of microwaves timed perfectly to go ‘ding’ so as to play Jingle Bells. If they actually managed to do it, I’m enormously impressed, but I have a lingering suspicion that it might not be entirely real. If anyone’s able to prove it, either way, then let us know in the comments.
(via Core77)
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Twitterer liveblogs his own plane crash
On Saturday night in Denver, Colorado, Continental Airlines flight 737 slid off the runway during takeoff. One of the engines caught fire, but passengers escaped out of the opposite side on slides. Although 38 people were hurt, thankfully no-one was killed.
However, one of the passengers was Mike Wilson, aka @2drinksbehind. He live-Twittered the crash(!), and so if you’re phobic of flying on planes, then you might not want to click over the jump.
Blog of the week: Fuck You, Penguin
Do you know an animal that needs a good talking to? Fuck You Penguin does just that. Quoting from the strapline, it’s “A blog where I tell cute animals what’s what.”
There’s quite a bit of swearing, but it’s wonderful to see someone so apoplectic with rage at the concept of a beaver wearing a shirt, or calling Mooses dorky. My favourite though? That’ll be this one.
Fuck You, Penguin (via @laurent_fintoni)
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