John Farrier's Blog Posts

This Business Card is a Fully Functional Keyboard

Ricardo Daniel de Paula is an engineer. But like every working person in the world, he's actually into sales. He's selling himself to prospective employers and this business card is an ingenious way to immediately stand out among his competitors in the job market as an inventive and skilled engineer.

At Hack A Day, de Paula describes how he designed and built this PCB board with a USB-C interface that turns this business card into a peripheral keyboard. It demonstrates capacitive touch technology, which is one of de Paula's specialties, and is inexpensive enough that, in limited numbers, de Paula can give it away.

-via Nag on the Lake


12 Jails Converted into Restaraunts

A good dinner out with friends can be a captivating experience. Choose the right venue for your meal, final or otherwise. Consider some of these restaraunts built out of jails and rounded up by The Takeout.

Among them is the Old Jailhouse of Sanford, Florida. As the name indicates, the restaurant directly markets itself after the former use of the building. Until 1959, it was the local lockup. Now it offers traditional Southern food.

The menu doesn't mention boiled eggs. I think the managers should offer a meal of 50 of them that are free if you can eat them within an hour without throwing up.


Interior Design Trend: Decorative Wasp Nests

The Newburgh Vintage Emporium is a shop in Newburgh, New York filled with wonderful household goods and decorations for every flavor of eccentricity. Misty White Sidell of the New York Times visited to learn about a growing trend in interior decoration: wasp nests.

These paper-like textured nests bring an aspect of wild nature into the controlled world of the home. City dwellers are especially taken with wasp nests, as they provide a sharp contrast to the human-centered world of the urban environment.

Would you like to have one? If a wasp nest isn't available for free in your area, you can purchase one off eBay or Etsy. But be prepared to spend hundreds of dollars for a quality wasp nest.

-via TYWKIWDBI | Photo: University of Montana


Extremely Realistic Car Alarm Performed on a Khene

The khene is an instrument used by some ethnic groups that live in the highlands of Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. It's a reedless mouth organ, so the khene is in the same instrument family as the harmonica.

Pat Fernandez of Pat's Soundhouse is a multi-instrumental musician whose skills include the use of the khene. He begins this original composition for the khene with honks that sound exactly like a car alarm. He then transitions into a melodious song that surrounds the car alarm beat.

-via Laughing Squid


World's Largest Spiderweb May Have 111,000 Spiders in It

Are you a member of a band of adventurers that would like to level up quickly and are willing to take risks? I know the perfect dungeon you can go to grind up some experience points.*

Live Science reports that scientists have discovered an enormous spider colony in a sulfuric cave on the border between Greece and Albania. The dense web covering the interior of the cave stretches across about 106 square meters, which is approximately the surface area of skin of 73 humans if the skin is removed from those bodies.

-via Daddy Warpig | Photo: Urak et al., Subterranean Biology

*The loot is probably poor, though--aside from what's left behind by previous adventurers.


Bear Steals Chainsaw

X user BowTiedBroke shared security camera footage of a bear stealing a brand new $500 unattended chainsaw from his home during the night.

Why does a bear need a chainsaw? Well, he can probably sell it on eBay. But in the Tennessee woods, a chainsaw could also be practically useful.

UPDATE: BowTiedBroke provides updates. He retrieved the chainsaw from the mouth of the bear's den.


Absurd 3D Printed Drill Bits

Nick Sharpes is known across the Internet as the 3D Wizard. He can design and print amazingly creative and useful objects, such as Incredible Hulk hands for his cat and thongs for AirPods.

One of his most recent design series consists of specialty drill bits for unusual conditions, such as drilling around corners, or cutting square holes, or drilling two holes at the same time.

Sharpes is a genius. It's amazing that no one ever thought of these inventions before.

-via Core77


Yukon Cornelius in Real Life

Halloween is over, so we are now fully into the Christmas season, as that holiday is a mere fifty days away.

Let us prepare by watching Christmas specials, such as the classic 1964 stop-motion animation film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. To fans, a favorite character on it is Yukon Cornelius, a prospector who befriends Rudolph.

Can't find the original online? That's okay: voice actor Cameron Cortinas performs a Yukon Cornelius scene with perfect physical acting and improvised props.


PlayPhrase Searches for Phrases in Movies

PlayPhrase is an fun online tool that allows users to search for almost 40 million phrases and locate their usage in thousands of different movies. Choose from six different languages or thousands of particular actors. Watch the video results of the first five within a search for free and then subscribe for unlimited access.

As an experiment, I searched for "look at what you made me do," figuring that, as a commonplace term of psychological abuse, it would appear in films. It shows up in at least ten films, including the 2019 South Korean animated feature Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs.

-via Nag on the Lake


The Vulgar Chef Cooks with Candy Corn

Kyle Marcoux is the world's greatest chef. He thinks of new food products that are not simply innovative, but revolutionary. I mean, who would ever have thought that Pepto-Bismol could be consumed in slices?

This Halloween, you're probably going to recieve a lot of candy corn. It's the most popular of all Halloween candies. You--or at least Marcoux--can accomplish much with it, such as this candy corn grilled cheese sandwich.

Continue reading

Playing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on Rubber Chickens

Fabrício André Bernard Di Paolo, who goes by the name Lord Vinheteiro, is a Brazilian musician who is a classically trained pianist. It's worth noting that he is not actually a member of the nobility of the defunct Empire of Brazil. He is, though, a princely master of many musical instruments, including the rubber chicken.

In the past, we've seen Lord Vinheteiro play "Total Eclipse of the Heart" on a single rubber chicken. Now he plays the most famous work by Nirvana on an array of 14 rubber chickens.

Question: what kind of instrument is a rubber chicken? Some people on the web says that it's a percussion instrument, but I think that the sound comes from the movement of air inside, not the striking of the rubber itself.


Isopod Leather Purse

Redditor /u/amp123 made this beautiful handbag that's shaped like an isopod. Given its size, it closely resembles the giant marine isopods that are so popular in Taiwanese cuisine.

She comments that it's functional as a small purse, but will not take large items. She also suspects that it will be an effective deterrent against pickpockets.


123 Instruments in 123 Seconds

Luke Pickman is a composer and multi-instrument musician. And by multi-instrument, let's emphasize the modifier multi. He's an avid collector of instruments from around the world. As his collection grows, he adds their use to his repertoire.

In the past, we've seen him perform the 7-note piece known as "The Lick" on 92 instruments (including mayonnaise) and a longer original piece on 111 instruments. For this video, Pickman performed the C major scale on his expanded collection. The instruments now include a double ocarina, a toy piano, a double bawu, a piccolo trombone (which apparently exists), and an Aztec death whistle.

-via Born in Space


There's a Parallel Parking Championship

Christi VanSyckle of Car & Driver magazine learned about and then entered the Pittsburgh Parallel Parking Championship. Dan Leber founded this annual contest in recollection of watching his mother expertly slip the family car into parallel parking spots.

The contest rules are precisely calibrated to handicap cars by length, although all must slide into a standard 20-foot long space bounded by two of Leber's own cars. Scores are a combination of speed and precision. Each contestant maneuvers until shouting "Done!" to mark completion.

The winner this year was Ephorm, who is pictured above. VanSyckle placed 25th among 183 contestants, which isn't bad for a first timer.

-via Instapundit | Photo: Pittsburgh Parallel Parking Championship


Swiss Army Knife Crossbow

Fit to Survive is a YouTuber and maker of custom survival gear for everyday carry. Years ago, he restored a few Swiss Army knives and realized that he could improve upon their designs. He modified them in practical and sometimes fanciful ways.

I'm not sure which category this particular knife fits. A crossbow is not a standard tool that folds out of a knife case. But this tool is so precisely engineered and machined that it's functional as a weapon under unusual circumstances. With a carbon fiber bolt, it's able to puncture a soda can.

I wonder if it would be possible to add a ghost ring sight to improve accuracy of fire.

-via The Awesomer


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Profile for John Farrier

  • Member Since 2012/08/04


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