Weird

14:59

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Nice new concept from the urban dictionnary:14:59: It comes from the "15 minutes of fame" catchphrase coined by Andy Warhol. A celebrity that is 14:59 is on the cusp of losing their relevance and falling out of fame.
"Madonna's attempts to become a children's writer is a sure sign that she has gone 14:59."

Use a mannequin hand to get a Nintendo DS!

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A weird contest ran by Nintendo: Give Me a Hand. The point is to personify that touching is good, by incorporating a spooky detached mannequin hand!

What do you like to touch? Sand, silk, snot? Ever notice how real life can sometimes look like a game? Grab a camera (and a mannequin hand), create something cool and enter our contest. Who knows, you might even make it into the Gallery.

Plus, we'll pick a few of the best and send them a Nintendo DS or... some cold hard cash... which feels real good when you touch it. e

very creepy and odd! The best thing is that you can even ask Nintendo and they give you one (this is for people like me who does not have a spare mannequin hand in my backpack!).

Don't have a mannequin hand laying around to use in your pictures and videos? We had a couple thousand ourselves, but you guys cleaned us out! We'll see if we can get more, but in the meantime...

You don't need to start tearing the hands off the poor mannequins at your local department store, there's a much better way to get yourself a hand. Just click on the icon [No I put the gzip hand here] below to download your very own digital hand. Then all you have to do is print it, cut it out, and start touching.

An electronic fly-swatting device

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(via), The fly catcher is an electronic fly-swatting device based on the idea of the Venus fly trap.

A non-toxic bait based at the bottom of the jaws lures the insect inside. As the insect crawls into the mouth of the trap, two sensors detect the insect causing the mouth to shut, swatting the insect dead. As the jaws open for the next victim Fly Catcher emits a loud burp, indicating satisfaction from catching a juicy bug. Nice one!! Fly Catcher is no ordinary pest control device. It is safe for children, making it fun for all the family (Adult supervision is recommended for children under 13 years of age).

Nice toy!

An chinese egg with a tail

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(via), an egg in China has been found with a tail:

The egg, found by chef Wang of at his restaurant in Anyang city, Henan province, is normal size, but has a tail that is 3 cm long. It is not known why the egg has the tail reports Dahe Daily. Wang says he wants to hatch the egg and see what will come out.

A ski heads-up display with a speedometer

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Some hackers propose to put sensor under your ski so that you can have a measure of your speed displayed on your goggles!

Using optical mouse technology, you could mount an LED and an optical sensor to the underside of a ski or snowboard to measure the speed you are travelling over the snow. A numerical LED readout could be mounted to the top of the ski or projected in a heads-up display in your goggles for easy reading.

The device could also store your max speed, average speed and total distance travelled (so you could know just how much skiing you're getting in for that incredibly expensive lift ticket).

The comments are insightful and apart from giving a name to this project ("Obvious name: Skeedometer"), they raise numerous questions about it (i.e. surface granularity or calibration). Some are really doubtful and propsoe using a GPS instead of this mouse crap. It's too bad there is no mock-up!

People doing stange things with brain waves

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Well I should really create an "intangible" category here! If your are into neurofeedback, EEG biofeedback, brainwave interaction or brainwave controller, you should have a glance at the openEEG project:

The OpenEEG project is about making plans and software for do-it-yourself EEG devices available for free (as in GPL). It is aimed toward amateurs who would like to experiment with EEG. However, if you are a pro in any of the fields of electronics, neurofeedback, software development etc., you are of course welcome to join the mailing-list and share your wisdom.

Right now, this site is mostly about the hardware; schematics, part lists, building instructions etc. However, a few members have developed some useful software which is hosted on their own websites. You can find these through the software pages.

Why do I blog this I am wondering whether there will be a post-dorkbot trend: instead of "people doing strange things with electricity", the motto would be "people doing stange things with brain waves". Here are the already existing apps. I am looking forward to see crazy applications with tangible feedback created/controlled by intangible brain waves!

Awareness box: a camera that does not take picture

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The Awareness Box is an art project by Alain Bublex (funded by Samsung). It's about designing a camera that does not record images. As the artists claims:

At the beginning, this project considered the result: the photographic image; then, evolved to center exclusively on the act of taking pictures. The act of taking pictures is about observation and awareness of one surroundings. As such, the object that I intend to conceive to heighten one awareness and attention should not be considered a camera at all, but is a new type of product, an electronic product that helps one observe better. My new product can be considered an "Awareness Box". I notice that in my case, as in the case of many photo enthusiasts, I take many pictures but rarely look at them afterwards. (it is the same case with video, which I watch even less frequently. As an artist, I also use photography in my work, and there again, I take many more pictures than I print or enlarge afterwards. I then asked myself the following questions: Why do I continue to take new pictures? If I continue to photograph, it is perhaps precisely for this reason, because it obliges me to go 'there' (...) Therefore I naturally imagined an electronic object specifically conceived for this use : an Awareness Box that allows you to capture an image once in presence of the subject, but without recording it, since this is unnecessary. (...)Why do we take so many pictures, is it to produce images or is it because it forces us to go somewhere. .. what is really important for us, the images, or simply observing the world?

RFID tag implanted in one\'s hand

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Some crazy folk implanted a RFID chip in his hand as depicted in this Flickr picture: Here is explained the point of this.

FAQ (frequently asked questions) Q: can't they track you?! A: no. the read range is only 2 inches max. even with a high powered reader, the chip itself does not have the capability to transmit farther than a couple inches tops. this makes it very difficult to scan my RFID chip without me noticing, and it's definitely not possible to scan it just by me walking by a sensor or something. It has to be pretty deliberate.

Q: why the hand, and your left hand to boot? A: well, I reach for my car door handle with my left hand, and I can get used to opening my front door with my left as well. plus, being right handed, my left hand is far less likely to get crushed, mutilated, or otherwise damaged... and I'm sure granules of crushed glass, silicon, and other metals could cause health complications, aside from having a crushed hand.

Q: did you do it yourself? A: hell no. a client of mine is a doctor and we traded services.

Well, it's crazy :( Some odd experiment...