Weird

Odor Alarm Clock

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I was unaware of this kind of technology (I am not so much into odor stuff, maybe I should contact my friends in this domain...). I stumbled across thisscent-based alarm clock.

"This clock is essential to a refreshing morning. It begins emitting a fresh morning fragrance 30 minutes prior to the alarm to create an atmosphere ideally suited to waking. Two fragrances—lemon mint and eucalyptus mint—evoke a morning freshness."

Well, just 2 fragrances... it's not enough. I think some pranksters might hack this in a nice way :)

Johnny jetpack

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Do you know Johnny jetpack?

Johnny Jetpack is a 7 and a half foot tall puppet/dummy attached to a giant water rocket backpack. When launched, he obtains heights of 70-90 feet and speeds of 50+ miles per hour in about one second. He then plummets earthward in a dramatic fashion. This plummet includes a complex system of "parachute for Jetpack", pilot ejection, screams and flailing limbs, and on-board explosion with head detachment. The crowd is then welcomed forward to the safety line to inspect the wreckage.

They also did an Air Witch and a Johnny Non Ambulatory which seems interesting. Besides, the way the jetpack works is amazing:

AfterLife

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AfterLife is a project by Auger and Loizeau that aims at "exploring faith and bereavement for griveing atheists through an electrical intrepretation of life after death". The project basically aims at using cadavers as a resource to produce some energy. More information in the pdf report. their motto is "“Remember, old electrons never die, they just move on.” ". There are crazy scenarios:

The applications of the battery are numerous; it can be translated as music in Sony Walkmans or MP3 players, or thinking devices such as calculators or Power-books. Light and enlightenment have often been associated with religious meaning and those who have had near-death experiences often talk of a brilliant light, often blue, which renders the torch as an ideal receptor and conveyance for the afterlife battery. The user of the torch may feel a level of security and comfort through enlightenment, this is an attribute normal with any provider of light this is however, more poignant when the light is provided by a loved one.

Scenarios:

  • Mass acts of collective adoration by Christians to illuminate giant Madonna.
  • Ghoulish behaviour as collection of celebrity batteries becomes popular. Douglas Adams body goes missing.
  • Madhur Jaffreys publishes first compiled book of recipes for the last supper, stating that the recipes are not only for the dying, and can be enjoyed by any lovers of spicy Indian cuisine.
  • New range of Tamagotchi in production powered by biological batteries made from cows.

    • Electro therapy used to induce laughter for bereaved wife.

Why do I blog this Designing stuff based on weird ideas is appealing ;) I like the usage scenarios. What about an UML use of "Mass acts of collective adoration by Christians to illuminate giant Madonna".

3M Innovation: highly protected dollars

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(via)

3M recently completed an amazing poster-stunt in Vancouver, Canada. They prepped a bus shelter ad with a 3M product called Scotchshield, a see-through film that you can apply to glass which makes it near bulletproof, and filled the postersite with lots of play money, and 500 real Canadian dollars for good measure. As passers by did their best to put the Scotchshield to the test, kicking the glass, taking sledgehammers to the glass and going all sorts of crazy over it, the glass withstood the pressures and did not budge. It did not break, it could not be broken

Mobile learning is so mobile sometimes

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Ran across this Mobile Learning Labs website. It's impressive! It is a "fully equipped Technology Learning Centre available for training whenever you need it, wherever you need it".

Our mobile labs are completely self contained, with their own power, climate control and broadband access. Labs can be delivered to any location with road access, and can be located in the space required to park two full-size cars. Put an end to day-long learnathons.

I cannot believe it!

My hand as a whiteboard

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I cannot refrain myself from writing stuff on my hand. It's ugly and dirty of course and everybody tells me that I should not do that. A colleague came up with the idea of putting a small piece of whiteboard on my hand. Of course, since we're morons, we wrapped it with plastic and bubble wrap to protect the thing. It turned out that it's still ugly, dirty and useless.

Faked LinkedIn Personas

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Yesterday, I was thinking whether linkedin has already been severely hacked. Are there any folks here who created fake linkedin identities/networks (others than jeff nolan) or pretending to be a french president (well it's too obvious here) or a well-known journalist (to gather a wide load of VIP emails?). Then lots of ideas popped into my mind, like the creation of fake network made up of people with crazy background.
This raises important question about communities, trust relationships and so on...

PLAN random quotes and buzzwords

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Here are few funny things I heard at <a href="- white/grey/black shadows - thin versus thick interaction - "I bluejack my students phone!" (russel beale) - "mc-gyver type of ubiquitous computing" (lalya gaye) - consensus-based location (?) - "we don't believe in HMD's " (cliff randell) - "The word interaction not so applicable in a wireless environment - how can you interact if you don't know what you're interacting with? We should talk about resonance" (Rob Van Kranenburg) - "phone is the concrete mixer of the 21st century" (andrew wilson)">PLAN:

- white/grey/black shadows - thin versus thick interaction - "I bluejack my students phone!" (russel beale) - "mc-gyver type of ubiquitous computing" (lalya gaye) - "we don't believe in HMD's " (cliff randell) - "The word interaction not so applicable in a wireless environment - how can you interact if you don't know what you're interacting with? We should talk about resonance" (Rob Van Kranenburg) - "phone is the concrete mixer of the 21st century" (andrew wilson)

Are OutRaGeouS jobs the jobs of tomorrow?

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Just got this from my tribe account:

Hi tribers, We know our members have cool & unusual interests and talents. So to make the most of that, we've created a new jobs category called OutRaGeouS jobs. This is the place to list non-mature stuff that you need to hire for (or have to offer) that might be considered a little wacky, bizarre, or just plain unusual. For example, listings like:

Midget courier wanted (Los Angeles) Need Psychic to perform dog seance, $50 (SF Bay Area) OFFERED: I will clean your chimney dressed as a gargoyle $110 (SF Bay Area) Dial-A-Bedtime-Story (Los Angeles)

[Weird] Student Internship about algorithm to find fake watch websites

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Incredible internship proposal: The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry ("Fédération horlogère suisse") needs some tools and methodologies to find web sites proposing fake watches. (It this link does not work, use the one in the google cache).

Project 5: Hunt fake watches The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry ("Fédération horlogère suisse") needs some tools and methodologies to find web sites proposing fake watches. Once these sites have been located, it is necessary to find all possible informations (isp, country, operating system of the server, registrar of the domain name, etc) that would help to bring an actions against the owner of the web site.

[Weird] A Tokyo Firm Plans Underground Farm

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A very environmental-friendly news:

A 1,000 sq metre former bank vault under an office building in Otemachi, a central Tokyo business district, has been chosen as the site for a high-tech farm growing lettuce, tomatoes, herbs strawberries and rice, the national daily Asahi said on Sunday. The project is aimed at helping the Japanese capital's jobless to train for careers in agriculture, the paper said. The underground location will allow complete electronic control of the environment with artificial lighting and heating. Plants at the "vegetable factory" will be grown hydroponically, or in a solution of nutrients, rather than soil, the Asahi said. If the farm is a success after its first harvest in the spring, Kanto Employment Creation Organisation together with recruitment agency Pasona plan to open more basement farms, the Asahi said

[Weird] Structure of chocolate unravelled with a synchrotron

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There seems to be chocolate-addict research: Structure of chocolate unravelled at the ESRF

A team of scientists from the University of Amsterdam, with help of the ESRF, has made a major step forward by identifying for the first time the crystal structure of one of the three main triglycerides that make up chocolate butter (...) “This work is expected to be highly relevant to confectionary research and industry and the first step to a better understanding of the mechanism of the fat bloom phenomenon at the molecular level.”