Ninjabread Men - $8.95
Is your Mom a warrior in the kitchen? This Mother's Day get her the Ninjabread Men from the NeatoShop! She will be able to make some killer cookies with these fabulous little cutters.
Be sure to check out all fun-tastic Cooking Gadgets available at the NeatoShop!
Society6's Greg Koenig created the Steve Jobs in Carbonite iPhone case, but got a Cease and Desist letter from Apple's lawyers. So from now on, this piece of awesomeness will live only as images on countless blogs and websites.
Too bad. Via FireWire
Photo: StevenM_61 [Flickr]
Galaga. Centipede. Pac-Man. If these words mean anything to you, then take a trip down memory lane (and straight into your local Chuck E. Cheese's) with the Flickr pool Growing Up in Arcades: 1979 - 1989: Link - via Dangerous Minds
Presented without comment, via World of Wonder.
I don't understand cooking shows. You get to watch gourmet food being made and judges being fed, but you don't even get a whiff of the food, much less a taste. Yet, they're obviously very successful.
One such show is Iron Chef America, which is hosted (in a style so over-the-top it's fantastic) by Mark Dacascos (presented as the "nephew" of the original Japanese Chairman, though they're not related). I admit that I watch it sometimes just for the opening, where he announces - with gusto - the secret ingredient that the contestants will be cooking in the Kitchen Stadium.
Well someone must've thought that's also the best part, so allow me to present. Today's Secret Ingredient is .... EVERY IRON CHEF AMERICA'S SECRET INGREDIENT VIDEO CLIP (O_o / cue in the head turn sound effects):
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Things I Thnk Are Kinda Cool
Psst! Ever heard about the professor who tries to explain every joke ever told?
No, that's actually not a joke. Joel Warner of Wired explains how Peter McGraw attemps to explain what makes things funny.
A lanky 41-year-old professor of marketing and psychology at the University of Colorado Boulder, McGraw thinks he has found the answer, and it starts with a tickle. “Who here doesn’t like to be tickled?”
A good number of hands shot up. “Yet you laugh,” he said, flashing a goofy grin. “You experience some pleasurable reaction even as you resist and say you don’t like it.”
If you really stop to think about it, McGraw continued, it’s a complex and fascinating phenomenon. If someone touches you in certain places in a certain way, it prompts an involuntary but pleasurable physiological response. Except, of course, when it doesn’t. “When does tickling cease to be funny?” McGraw asked. “When you try to tickle yourself … Or if some stranger in a trench coat tickles you.” The audience cracked up. He was working the room like a stand-up comic.
Many would assert that this tickling conundrum is the perfect evidence that humor is utterly relative. There may be many types of humor, maybe as many kinds as there are variations in laughter, guffaws, hoots, and chortles. But McGraw doesn’t think so. He has devised a simple, Grand Unified Theory of humor—in his words, “a parsimonious account of what makes things funny.” McGraw calls it the benign violation theory, and he insists that it can explain the function of every imaginable type of humor. And not just what makes things funny, but why certain things aren’t funny. “My theory also explains nervous laughter, racist or sexist jokes, and toilet humor,” he told his fellow humor researchers.
Link (Photo: Andrew Hetherington)
Machinery, glass and fire - this video by Philip Andelman of how watchmaker Ikepod makes wonderful hourglasses has got it all. Take a look over at Random-Good-Stuff, you won't regret it: Link [embedded YouTube clip]
One night, Robert Majkut had a dream. That dream was to recreate the piano in a grander form. So Robert took this whale of an idea and created this: an electric keyboard called the Whaletone:
It seemed to me a little imprecise, fuzzy. Shapes were looming, fading away, then replacing one another. Maybe it was the whales I saw during the day, maybe the smooth motion of waves, or maybe just many things have overlapped and blended into one animated sequence of pictures. What I saw was a grand piano – yet totally different from all I have seen before. As though it was challenging the classic notion of a piano. Soft, flowing, frozen movement of a gigantic animal.
Although I was moved by the dream, I did not appreciate its meaning at first. I realized how little had changed in this instrument over so many years. Intrigued with this discovery, I began to chase the dim picture trapped in my memory. At first, my mind lead me astray, struggling with habits, experience, intuition and beliefs. It took me a long time to sketch the form, which came across as something vaguely imitating the vision concealed in my mind. And then, one day, while working on this concept already a bit obsessively, my mind unlocked and my hand drew the piano from my dream. I immediately recognized it. I instantly knew I got it.
Monumental – like a whale emerging from the water, slow – like the movement of a giant. Charming, majestic, delicate and melodious, like romantic calls of coquetting whales…I knew it called for being made.
From that moment on, I have known that in the depths of our minds there are ready-made, complete, good ideas. Concepts, forms, choices that are beyond our comprehension until we release them. This is one of them – Whaletone – my version of a singing whale.
Link - via Doobybrain
Photo: Stephen Alvarez [National Geographic]
Hello Kitty Angry Face Clutch - $27.95
Do you know someone who is cute, quirky, and has a slight anger management problem? Get them the Hello Kitty Angry Face Clutch from the NeatoShop. Remember, nothing softens a person up like a great gift from the NeatoShop!
Be sure to check out NeatoShop'sCute Store and Hello Kitty and Sanrio items for more adorable gifts.
Photo: juliana santacruz herrera [Flickr]
Forget asphalt! The artistic way to fix potholes is with some colorful fabric. That's what artist Juliana Santacruz Herrera did for the sidewalks of Paris:
artist juliana santacruz herrera has transformed the streets of paris through her visual intervention using braided strips of colourful fabric. seeing the many cracks and potholes of the city as the 'canvas' of her project, the site-specific pieces are a playful addition to the grey urban setting.
long lengths of dyed fabrics are braided and then coiled into the shallow breaks in the street. often made up of a combination of bright colours, the resulting effect creates a graphic and visually-arresting contrast to the city's palette.
Chris Balcombe, 51, has spent one week decorating his Dalek to tie in with the occasion. The Doctor's nemesis has been painted red, blue and white and is covered with Union Jack flags and photos of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
Furthermore, Chris attached a mechanical grip to the Dalek so it can hold trays of food and drinks.
