(YouTube Link)

Kyle Evans created a electric didgeridoo that can be performed wirelessly through a bluetooth transmission to his computer:

I created this instrument to experiment in the combination of the organic sound qualities of a didgeridoo with the advanced signal processing capabilities of modern computer programming and sound synthesis. This custom built didgeridoo features externally mounted modules that allow the performer to process and manipulate the sound of the instrument in real time. All control data is transmitted wirelessly via blue tooth and is controlling several audio processes created in a custom-built software environment.

You can view complete schematics for the instrument and videos of live performances at Evans' blog.

via Make | Evans' blog about the project

Photo: Martus & SilvioWith this fist warhammer, you'll be the talk of any LARP session that you attend. The design studio Martus & Silvio in Grand Rapids, Michigan made this fist-styled, three foot long, cast iron hammer. They've got other cool items of metal work at their site, too, such as a monkey wrench that looks like a human hand.

Link via Make |Monkey wrench that looks like a human hand

Photo: flickr user Sifter

This Mona Lisa made out of motherboards decorates the headquarters of the computer maker Asus in Taipei. It serves as an expression of that company's desire to retake its position as the world's largest motherboard manufacturer. More pictures at the link.

Link via Make | PBS news report

Blogger Kenny Pearce is developing a bibliography of works of science fiction that are particularly noteworthy for expressing a philosophical worldview or premise. He presents several categories, such as Mind, Solipsism, and Sex and Gender. Some of the stories that he lists are available online, like Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question" -- a confrontation with entropy.

Pearce asks readers for suggestions. What would you add to the list?

Link | The Last Question | Image: NIH

In 1971, Gerald Mayo sued Satan in U.S. District Court, alleging that the Dark One had interfered in his life, causing him harm. Judge Weber dismissed the case, arguing that Mayo had failed to serve process of the suit to Satan, and that the court lacked jurisdiction over the defendant. Kevin Underhill's legal humor blog has a copy of the decision:

Civil rights action against Satan and his servants who allegedly placed deliberate obstacles in plaintiff's path and caused his downfall, wherein plaintiff prayed for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. The District Court, Weber, J., held that plaintiff would not be granted leave to proceed in forma pauperis who in view of questions of personal jurisdiction over defendant, propriety of class action, and plaintiff's failure to include instructions for directions as to service of process.

Prayer denied.

The case was later used as a precedent during a case against God.

Link via Grow A Brain | Photo: flickr user Forever Wiser

Photo: Marcus Tremonto

Designer Marcus Tremonto created a lamp made out of carbon fiber. He selected this material for the Carbon 451 Lamp because it is strong enough to support its own weight but thin enough to present the aesthetic qualities Tremonto wanted:

When asked by art gallery owner Patrick Brillet to design a piece out of Carbon Fiber, we decided to celebrate and utilize the best of the materials true physical properties, its strength and lightness. The complexity of curves and required thinness could not be duplicated in any other material while still maintaining its ability to support itself completely[...]

More pictures at the link.

Link via Gizmodo | Artist's Website

Photo: Unica

Andreas Dober's wall clock for the German luxury shop Anthologie Quartett cycles a bicycle chain to display the hour with copper digits at the top. A custom job, it prices out at $2,338.

http://www.unicahome.com/catalog/item.asp?id=47558 via Make | Anthologie Quartett

Photo: Design Boom

In 1979, Japan built its first capsule hotel -- an inn with rooms consisting of little more than a bed, and certainly not enough room to stand up. Now developers in Kyoto are contrasting that minimalist approach with luxury furnishings at the 9h Hotel, which will open in December. It's called 9h because users are expected to shower, sleep for seven hours, and then rest in a nine-hour period -- although you can rent your room for up to seventeen hours at a time. Each pod comes with customizable lighting to help lull you to sleep and then gently wake you.

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/8111/9-h-nine-hours-capsule-hotel-in-kyoto.html via Fast Company (where there are pictures of a similar endeavor in Manhattan)

Image: d-barcode

The Japanese graphic arts firm d-barcode creates customized barcodes for clients who want to use them to grab customers' attention. In Fast Company, Cliff Kuang writes:

They've even begun selling their wares to anyone who wants to license them, starting at $1,500 for the design, and $200 a year for licensing. A custom or exclusive use code will run upwards of $4,000--but given that companies spend millions on designing a single package, why don't we see more detailed thinking like this? Middle managers spend weeks arguing about kerning--it'd be better if they spent more time rethinking every inch of such highly prized real estate.

Link via Fast Company

Image: Jeff Brunner

Jeff Brunner offers this scathing critique of the values that the Disney Princesses teach girls. At the link, you can view a response about what Disney teaches boys.

Link via Popped Culture

Photo: Kibardin Design

Prague-based Russian designer Vadim Kibardin created the Deep Forest Lounge Chair out of 374 wooden dowels, carefully molded to seat a person comfortably. Each is custom-made and priced at $6,584. More pictures at the link.

http://www.kibardindesign.com/collection/collecton3/deep-forest-chair.aspx via Gizmodo

Photo: flickr user Prince Roy

Deck Chair has compiled pictures and videos of seven unique golf courses, including one that floats, one that sits astride a motor speedway, and another that is 1,365 km long. Pictured above is a scene from the golf course at Coober Pedy, a small mining town in Australia. The land is so desolate that golfers must carry around a piece of turf from which to tee off.

http://www.deckchair.com/355/ via The Presurfer | More about the Coober Pedy golf course

Photo: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, best known for its aggressive tactics against whaling vessels, had added a stealthy, high-speed boat to its fleet. At The National Post, Jeremy Barker writes:

The Ady Gil, a bio-diesel powered trimaran, can hit 40 knots and Captain Paul Watson plans to sail it quickly into harms way....The Andy Gil, which has circled the globe in a little over 60 days, has been coated with radar blocking black paint, which will be used as an 'intercept and blocking' weapon against the Japanese fleet.

More pictures and video at the link.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2009/11/09/anti-whalers-sea-shepherd-buy-record-holding-powerboat.aspx | Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

(YouTube Link)

Three computer scientists at Colorado University programmed several Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners to act like Pac-Man and the ghosts which chase him. Jack Elston, Cory Dixon, and Maciej Stachura did so in order to demonstrate the unmanned aerial system that they are developing. Click on the link for more videos, pictures, and schematics for this project.

Link via CrunchGear

In old Western movies, heroes often wore white hats and villains wore black hats. Why? Wray Herbert wrote in Scientific American about a new study that investigated why people often associate the color white with righteousness and black with wickedness:

In Sherman and Clore’s version of the Stroop, volunteers read not the names of colors but words with strong moral overtones: greed and honesty, for example. Some of the words were printed in black and some in white, and they flashed rapidly on a screen. As with the original Stroop, a fast reaction time was taken as evidence that a connection was mentally automatic and natural; hesitation was taken as a sign that a connection did not ring true. The researchers wanted to see if the volunteers automatically linked immorality with blackness, as in black ink, and virtue with whiteness.

And they did, so quickly that the connections could not possibly be deliberate. When moral words were printed in white and immoral words in black, reaction time was significantly faster than when words of virtue were black and sin were white. Just as we unthinkingly—almost unconsciously—“know” a lemon is yellow, we instantly know that sin and crime are black and that grace and virtue are white.

The researchers conducted further tests and determined that this color-moral association may stem from concepts of physical cleanliness:

This result offers pretty convincing evidence in itself that the connection between black and bad is not just a metaphor we all have learned over the years, but rather it is deeply associated with our ancient fear of filth and contagion. But Sherman and Clore wanted to look at the question yet another way. If the association between sin and blackness really does reflect a concern about dirt and impurity, then this association should be stronger for people who are preoccupied with purity and pollution. Such fastidiousness often manifests as personal cleanliness, and a proxy for personal cleansing might be the desire for cleaning products. The researchers tested this string of psychological connections in a final study, again ending with the Stroop test.

Link | Image: Republic Pictures