It's called the Pavlok. It's an alarm accessory that you control from a smartphone or tablet computer. Slip it onto your wrist when you go to bed. When it's time to wake up, it will gently vibrate. If that's not enough, it can also sound an alarm or even give you an electric shock. Brian Heater of TechCruch describes his experience testing the Pavlok:
It’s…intense. It’s not painful, exactly, but it’s a bit more of a jolt than I was anticipating. Honestly, it’s not my preferred method for getting out of bed in the morning, but until someone builds a smart alarm clock into a puppy that will lick my face until I wake up, it’ll have to do. And besides, this is Pavlovian conditioning we’re talking about here.
A puppy-licking based alarm clock would be awesome!
As it should! When you're desperate to go, a urinal or toilet can seem like a godsend.
Rocket News 24 reports that this urinal is in the men's room at the Warehouse arcade in Saitama, Japan. When you flush it, a heavenly light shines down upon it and the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah plays.
Mario the plumber thinks that he can journey to a magical kingdom by traveling down the pipes. Has he eaten the wrong kind of mushrooms? Not a bit, thanks to Troy Goho. This handy gamer installed functional Super Mario Bros.-inspired pipes beneath his kitchen sink.
Leia Organa wants a seat in the Imperial Senate. She presents herself as brave and intelligent. But can we trust her? This thoughtful ad by concerned, loyal citizens barely touches upon the many problems that the leadership of Leia Organa will bring. It's a promotional video for Bloodline, a new Star Wars novel.
These mailboxes are so kawaii! I want to go to Japan just to mail letters in them.
Sarusawa has compiled photos of more than a dozen eccentric mailboxes, many of which are shaped like characters and one that is actually underwater. You can view them all here.
People with impaired hearing may use sign language. But so may people who can normally hear, but are in noisy environments, like an industrial workplace.
In a fascinating article at Altas Obscura, Sarah Laskow describes a sign language that developed among the sawmill workers of British Columbia. It was an elaborate language that could, beyond the practicalities of sawmill work, convey insults, profanities, and relationships.
In the chart above, 125 expresses "weak." 126 means "What time is it?" 128 means "woman." Laskow writes:
The researchers witnessed a sign language system complete enough that workers could call each other “you crazy old farmer,” tell a colleague that he was “full of crap,” or tell each other when the foreman was “f*&%$@& [profanity edited] around over there.” […]
The core of the sawmill workers’ sign language was a system of numbers, standardized across the industry. Those signs were shared in a technical notebook, and, the linguists wrote,”in the view of the management, that was about all there was to the language.” But it covered much more ground than technical communication. Workers could talk about quitting time, lunch time, and cigarette breaks. They could talk about sports and the bets they placed on games. They could talk about their wives, cars, and colleagues. They could tell jokes and comment on what was going on around them without their bosses ever knowing.
These industrial languages were fading by the 1950s and appear to be extinct now.
Both the IKEA bag and the Swedish national folk costume are icons of Sweden. Heidi of IKEA Hackers shows how to combine them. You'll need 4 blue bags, 1 yellow bag, and an IKEA brand Dvala sheet to turn into the hat.
The mysterious British street artist Banksy got his start making graffiti in Bristol, UK in the early 1990s. The kids at Bridge Farm Primary School in Bristol decided to honor their native son by naming one of their new buildings in his honor.
Sometime last night, Banksy sneaked onto campus and painted a mural on the building. It shows a stick figure image of a child, a house, and a flower. The child is playing with a hoop, but the hoop is a burning tire!
That's an appropriate choice for the rebellious Banksy. He left a note for the children explaining himself. Colossal quotes him:
Dear Bridge Farm School, thanks for your letter and naming a house after me. Please have a picture, and if you don’t like it, feel free to add stuff. I’m sure the teachers won’t mind. Remember, it’s always easier to get forgiveness than permission. Much love, Banksy.
Pictured above is Thingiverse member SexyCyborg, who previously showed us her 3d printed hidden hacking kit. She's back with a wrist-mounted launcher that she designed and built herself for her Cheerson CX-10D nanocopter drones. You can see a complete gallery of her photos here, as well as the downloadable 3d printing files here.
On reddit, she explains that she designed the components in Tinkercad (which I can personally recommend as a starting point for designing objects for 3d printing). Magnets anchor the drones into the launcher. Her belt buckle holds the controller for the drones.
This is the Marie Antoinette. It's an enormous and ornate coiffure of cotton candy inspired by the hairstyles of Queen Marie Antoinette, who lost her head to a guillotine blade during the French Revolution. Now the Barton G. restaurant in Los Angeles serves it to you on a platter.
Go to the Trevi Fountain in Rome and toss a coin into the water with your right hand over your left shoulder. You'll have good luck. You'll also help feed the poor in Rome, as all of the money collected from the fountain is used for that purpose.
What about other fountains? Adam Chandler of The Atlantic investigated what happens to coins thrown into them. In New York City, the maintenance workers or the city government sometimes keep it. In Kansas City, homeless people usually retrieve the coins. Private fountains, though, such as those in malls, often donate the money to charities. For example, the Mall of America in Minnesota gives the $24,000 it collects from fountains every year to non-profits.
Why do people build bear-proof yoga studios? This is why. It's just not safe to do it otherwise.
Kristen Jones of Lake James, North Carolina says that last week, she visited her parents at their lakeside home. She rose early in the morning to do yoga by the shore. While Jones was in position (perhaps the balancing bear pose), a she heard something sniff her shoulder, then felt something lick her neck and ear.
Jones turned around and saw a bear. This alarmed her, as she told WNCN News:
“I stumbled backwards into the water and he ran up the hill,” she wrote online.
“The entire thing happened so fast. Sixty seconds and it was done,” Jones said. “I was absolutely terrified. I wouldn’t have been able to defend myself against a bear like that if he had attacked. There was an overwhelming sense of being powerless.”
Jones says she immediately started taking photos of the bear, “in case something happened and people found my mauled body.” She followed behind the bear until she got to the street and watched the bear go back into the woods.
If you're a Siberian Husky, then you do whatever it takes to stay cool in the summer. For Maya, that means blowing bubbles through her nose in her water dish. It's fun, too!
Ayako Kurokawa is a pastry chef and sculptor in New York City. At Pâtisserie Burrow, she offers cakes that blend the influences of French, Japanese, and American cuisine. I'm especially tickled by this macaron assembly that looks like a cactus.
