British jeweler Donald Edge was asked to create a gold, pearl, and diamond-encrustled bottle of Chambord raspberry liqueur. His work is estimated to be worth $2 million and contains 1,100 individual diamonds. It will be entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the "Most Expensive Bottle of Spirits." The bottle was created for promotional purposes at London Fashion Week, a design exhibition that ended today. It now moves to a display at a stage production of Breakfast at Tiffany's in London.

Link via Geekologie

Image: Vogue (UK)

Natalie Avon writes in Popular Science that between 1995 and 2008, 82% of people in the US killed by lightning were male. The experts that she consulted agreed that this was due to behavioral, rather than biological factors:

Peter Todd, a behavioral psychologist at Indiana University, suspects the difference between the sexes boils down to the basic risk-versus-reward systems that have been part of our biological wiring for thousands of years. For women, Todd explains, the priorities are to protect one’s reproductive role and to care for offspring, which outweighs any inclination to attract potential mates by exhibiting bold behavior.

But for men, Todd says, the risk of getting struck by lightning could be outweighed by the reward of proving to other men—and potential female mates—that they’re not afraid of getting struck by lightning. This is particularly true for young men, who have the most to gain by impressing others, thereby raising their status as attractive, daring, healthy mates in the dating pool. And then, zap!

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-09/are-men-or-women-more-likely-be-hit-lightning

Image: flickr user Kevin Miller, used under Creative Commons license.

A metaphor for life, I guess. Jeremy Hsu writes in Popular Science that Hiroo Iwata of the University of Tsukuba in Japan has developed robotic tiles that sense what direction a user is going in and move ahead to provide a place to step. With further development, it could be used in virtual reality simulators in order to imitate movement over distance:

The robot tiles emerged as the brainchild of Hiroo Iwata, a virtual reality researcher at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. A touch-sensitive conductive fabric covers each robot and gauges the pressure applied by a walking person's foot, which goes toward predicting the next step.

Ultrasonic sensors also help relay position and orientation of each tile back to a central computer that acts as the conductor. It's an oddly serene robotic ballet, even when two tiles have queued up to move down the line.

Video at the link.

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-09/video-japans-robot-tiles-create-infinite-walkway

Image: DigInfo Video News

Image: Job Voyager

Job Voyager is a set of interactive charts showing changing occupations reported to the US Census Bureau from 1850-2000. It was made by Jeffrey Heer of the University of California at Berkeley from data collected by the University of Minnesota's Population Center using the visualization software Flare. You can use the feature to examine the rise and fall of different occupations and gender roles in American history.

Link via Fast Company

Photo: Nathan Sawaya

Here at Neatorama, we're big fans of LEGO artist Nathan Sawaya. His latest project is a functional cello made out of LEGO bricks. At the link, there are more pictures and a time-elapsed video of the construction process.

http://www.brickartist.com/large-sculptures/cello-1.html via Geekologie

Image: Fred Beneson

Emoji are pictographs and emoticons common to text messaging in Japan. The scale of this language has grown so much that Fred Beneson of Creative Commmons wants to translate Herman Melville's Moby Dick into emoji. The novel has 6,438 sentences, and he hopes to crowdsource the translation project out to people interested in completing at least one sentence of the novel.

Link via BoingBoing

Photo: Kenny Irwin

The One Laptop Per Child Foundation (OLPC) has designed an inexpensive laptop computer that it hopes to distribute to children in developing nations. To promote the project, artist Kenny Irwin took one OLPC computer, microwaved it, and sculpted it into the OLPCSlug. It's currently on sale at eBay. Video of the microwaving process at the link.

Link

The blog Instant Shift has compiled pictures of 84 bizarre and unique buildings scattered across the world. A few have already been featured on Neatorama, but most have not yet been posted here. Pictured above is the Crooked House of Sopot, Poland. It was designed by architect Szotynscy Zaleski and built in 2004. Zaleski was inspired by the fanciful work of Polish artist Jan Marcin Szancer, a fantasy and children's literature illustrator.

Link via The Presurfer

Image by flickr user lostajy used under creative commons license.

Photo: Kevin Cyr

New York-based artist Kevin Cyr is trying to construct a functional camper that's built onto a shopping cart. It's an expression of his fascination with vehicles and an exploration of a simple lifestyle:

It's a functioning sculptural piece that seeks to explore aspects of housing, mobility, and autonomy. It is also largely about self-reliance and making due with less.

I have always been interested in bikes and vehicles and for many years they have been the subject of my paintings. My paintings document odd and derelict vehicles: old delivery trucks inundated with graffiti and rust, well-traveled RVs, Indian rickshaws and Asian bikes.

Throughout the last year, I decided to build my own type of vehicles. On a trip to Beijing, I conceived and built a CAMPER BIKE: an amalgamation of a Chinese 3-wheeled flatbed bike with an American cabover style camper. Interested in building a series of mobile vehicles and inspired by Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road, I started sketching plans for CAMPER KART: a mobile unit built into a shopping cart—an ubiquitous urban object.

Artist's Website

Link via Boing Boing

Photo: Montyfull

Craftster user Montyfull was a fashion major and a gamer, and so naturally combined the two interests with evening wear inspired by the video game Super Mario Bros. The above sequin dress took eighty hours of work and features a NES controller as a garter. There more pictures at the link, including a mushroom dress and a bob-omb dress.

Link via Geekologie

(YouTube Link)

The Obscura CueLight Pool Table, currently set up in Esquire magazine's ultimate bachelor pad, creates stunning visual effects as pool balls move around the table. Motion sensors detect anything on or near the surface of the table and reveal a shimmering image through an overhead projector. It was created by the San Francisco-based light effects company Obscura Digital and will probably cost about $125,000 per unit when and if it is marketed.

Company Website via Gizmodo

(YouTube Link)

Deep Green is pool-playing robot created by students at the robotics laboratory of Queen's University in Canada. Students have worked on it for the past three years, gradually improving its abilities against human opponents:

The system is currently playing at a better-than-amateur level. One current weakness, however, is with the break. The special purpose end effector is powered by a linear electric actuator, which can reach speeds of up to 3 m/s. For a strong break, however, a cue speed of ~ 15 m/s is required. The objective of this project is therefore to design an auxiliary subsystem for the end-effector to be used exclusively for breaks. The subsystem could make use of the current cue, or it could append an additional cue to the end-effector. It is likely that the subsystem will be actuated pneumatically, although other options may be considered. The subsystem must also be compact enough so as not to interfere with the other elements of the end-effector.

Link via CrunchGear

Weighing in at 400 pounds, this new design by Portland, Oregon custom bike builder Metrofiets is intended for mobile partying. Here are some of the features that owners Phillip Ross and Jamie Nichols included:

The cargo container is a metal keg bucket which holds two full sized kegs and 25 pounds of ice. Beer from the kegs run through a 50 foot cooling coil and then to your glass via two taps (made by Shimano and Chris King) which protrude from a wooden bar inlaid with HUB’s trademark lightning bolt.

A large, square rear rack is designed to fit a stack of pizza boxes. Below the rack is a sound system “pannier” with another lightning bolt inlaid wood panel casing and a speaker. The bike sports HUB’s colors, matte orange and black.

This party is entirely human-powered, with the help of nine gears — any more would allow a rider to go faster than would be entirely wise, explained Ross. Sturdy looking disc brakes and chunky tires with full fenders adorn both wheels.

http://bikeportland.org/2009/09/15/introducing-the-hopworksfiets-beer-pizza-music-and-true-portland-spirit-all-on-one-bike/ via Gizmodo

Image by flickr user Elly Blue used under creative commons license.

(YouTube Link)

The above video is a reconstruction of the Croatian city of Dubrovnik. Rebecca Boyle writes in Popular Science that computer scientists at the University of Washington's Graphics and Imaging Laboratory have been using Microsoft's program Photosynth to compile Flickr images of major landmarks in order to create 3-D digital models:

"The key difference is that Photosynth was aimed at doing a single monument or landmark, which meant that it was scaled to a couple hundred or a thousand photographs, after which it became too slow," said Sameer Agarwal, an assistant professor at UW who worked on the project. "We can now process truly huge data sets -- the big breakthrough here was being able to match the images fast."

A series of videos on the project Web site lets visitors fly through landmarks like St. Peter's Basilica, the Colosseum and Venice's San Marco Square. For much smaller Dubrovnik, you can see the whole city, including mountains in the distance.

Each video includes clusters of small diamond shapes, which represent each photographer and his or her vantage point.

http://www.popsci.com/gear-amp-gadgets/article/2009-09/building-virtual-cities-automatically-150000-flickr-photos

Image: Rick Watson, Kitten Rescue

Kevin Pereira of G4's Attack of the Show solicited contributors to a Keyboard Cat-themed art show and auction. Proceeds will go to the no-kill cat rescue shelter Kitten Rescue in Los Angeles:

In July, G4 sponsored an art competition, asking amateurs and pros alike to come up with their best masterpiece based on Fatso and his song. After selecting 18 winners, the network turned the works over to Kitten Rescue, who's auctioning them on eBay this month to raise money for their animal rescue efforts. Ranging from New Yorker-inspired covers to Warhol-esque shots, the works of art are definitely unique – and adorable!

eBay Auction

Link via Urlesque