John Farrier's Blog Posts

How to Cook Salmon in Your Dishwasher



MacGyver Chef is a new series at the gadget blog Gizmodo about attempts to cook meals without conventional cooking implements. Author Dan Nosowitz has previously poached chicken and couscous in a coffee maker. In his most recent post, he experimented with steaming salmon and cilanto sauce in a dishwasher. You can view read a step-by-step guide and view photos of the process at the link.

Link

MacGyver Chef archive

SpiderBot Walks on the Ceiling by Shooting Retractable Suction Cups



The robotics lab at Ben Gurion University in Israel has created a robot that walks on the ceiling. SpiderBot has suction cups tethered to the ends of its four legs.  It aims a leg at a spot on the ceiling, then shoots the cup at it.  Then it reels itself toward the spot, releases a rear leg's suction cup, and slowly repeats the process.  Video at the link.

Link via DVICE

An Eco-Friendly, Bicycle-Hauled Travel Trailer



Paul Elkins built this lightweight travel trailer for his trip to the Burning Man festival. It has a roof-mounted wind turbine for electical power, as well as a solar cooker and water heater. It weighs only 100 pounds dry, so he can haul it around with his bicycle:

The skin is 1/4" flutted plastic like whats used for election signs. This was riveted and screwed onto 3/4" square aluminum tubing salvaged from an old satellite dish. The base was made of 2x2 fir. The 30" square door frame, made of 1x2's was skrewed to the side panel, cut on the sides and bottom. The upper part was left uncut to act as a hinge. The bed hinges in a lounge attitude. On the outside resides an herb flower box, a urinal funnel (sanicans were a ways off) and 13" wheel barrel wheels on a 1/2" axle mounted with 1/2" square tubing made up the running gear. I used 3/4" steel for the tow bar, A recycled card table for the corner camper supports, and misc this and that. It's whatever I had kicking around at the time, and that's how anyone would have to do it if worst came to worst.


There are many pictures at the link.

Link via DVICE

Tezcatlipoca


(YouTube Link)


Tezcatlipoca is a three-minute animated short film by Robin George that uses music from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake to tell the story of the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca:

Like other Aztec deities, he could be both helpful and destructive. As a god of the sun, he ripened the crops but could also send a burning drought that killed the plants. The patron god of helpless folk such as orphans and slaves, he was also the patron of royalty, and he gloried in war and human sacrifice. Another of Tezcatlipoca's roles was to punish sinners and cheats, but he himself could not be trusted.

Although associated with the sun, Tezcatlipoca was even more strongly linked with night and its dark mysteries, including dreams, sorcery, witches, and demons. Legend said that he roamed the earth each night in the form of a skeleton whose ribs opened like doors. If a person met Tezcatlipoca and was bold enough to reach through those doors and seize his heart, the god would promise riches and power in order to be released. He would not keep his promises, though....

As a trickster god, Tezcatlipoca delighted in overturning the order of things, causing conflict and confusion. Sometimes, these disruptions could also be a source of creative energy and positive change. Tezcatlipoca's ultimate trick was one he played on his fellow god Quetzalcoatl. After introducing Quetzalcoatl to drunkenness and other vices, he used his mirror to show Quetzalcoatl how weak and degraded he had become. Quetzalcoatl fled the world in shame, leaving it to Tezcatlipoca. He did, however, promise to return at the end of a 52-year cycle.


The YouTube video isn't bad, but for a full-screen, high-resolution version, click on the link.

Link via The Presurfer

Daniel Pelletier, Paraplegic Skateboarder


(YouTube Link)


Sixteen-year old Daniel Pelletier is paralyzed from the waist down and has endured twenty-five surgeries during his recovery, but he doesn't let that stop him from being an accomplished skateboarder. Pelletier hopes to get corporate sponsorship with this video. More videos at the link.

Link

Linux Baby Rocker


(YouTube Link)


YouTube user macjonesnz programmed his CD-ROM tray to repeatedly open and close. Then he tied a string between the tray and his child's car seat. Result: sleeping baby.

Via Bits & Pieces

The Poo Trap: An Alternative to Scooping Up After Your Dog



I'm afraid that this product is exactly what it looks like: a bracket that holds a stringed plastic bag while attached to your dog's tail. At the expense of your dog's sense of dignity, you get to avoid scooping up after him:

People invented many useful technologies to make people's life easier. All these inventions (car is among one of them) are to make people's life more convenient. With our "PooTrap", no need to worry that dogs will cause environment pollution, and as dogs owners may know, actually it's difficult to pick up poop.


Link via CrunchGear (where there is a video)

Wood-Faced Clock and Speakers



A company called Evergreen sells wood-faced LED-lit alarm clock radios with speakers. There are two versions available, with either one or two speakers. It sells for about $25, but so far, only in Japan. More info at the link (if you speak Japanese).

Link via CrunchGear

ElectraPour Illuminates Your Drinks



Attach this spout to a bottle of liquor. As you pour, a LED light will illuminate the liquid. Unlike similar gadgets, it only lights up when liquid pours through it, adding a cool visual effect to bartending during its four-hour battery life. Video at the link.

Link via Nerd Approved

The World's Largest Chocolate Fountain


Photo: John Locher


In 2005, pastry chef Jean-Philippe Maury created this enormous 25-tiered chocolate fountain for the Bellagio hotel and casino in Las Vegas. It's 27 feet tall and circulates 120 quarts of chocolate per minute:

It wasn't, you see, quite as simple as constructing a waterfall.

"Water doesn't change," Maury said. "Chocolate is complicated."

It must be at the proper temperature to flow properly, for starters. Then there's the issue of the chocolate's viscosity, which affects the flow. And the viscosity of chocolate changes with every little bit of moisture in the air.

"The envy of chocolate is humidity," Maury said. With an increase in the humidity, cocoa butter and coconut oil must be added to the 2,100 pounds of chocolate in the tank. Maury takes viscosity readings every two or three days.

The 25 glass vessels from which the chocolate flows are each unique, and each handmade in Montreal. Maury and Oliver tested the system there for seven months.


Link via Gizmodo (where there are videos of the fountain)

Cockney ATM


Photo: Times of London


Bank Machine, an ATM operator in Britain, now has five cash machines in London that offer users the opportunity to conduct their business in the cockney dialect. It's a promotional gimmick designed to amuse customers:

“Readin’ your bladder of lard”, read the message on the screen. It asked for his “Huckleberry Finn”. Then more bewildering questions: did he wanted to see his balance on the Charlie Sheen? Did he wish to change his Huckleberry Finn or did he simply require sausage and mash, with or without a receipt?


Link via DVICE

Time Travel Propaganda Posters



826LA is a non-profit organization in southern California that teaches kids how to engage in creative writing. It's known for innovative workshops and clever marketing. We previously featured their time travel store on Neatorama. 826LA has applied that same theme to traditional propaganda posters, producing ten, including the above poster warning time travelers about the dangers of the Butterfly Effect.

Link via io9

Plans for the World's Tallest Wooden Building


Illustration: Reilulf Ramstad Architects


Norway plans to construct a wooden building 16-17 stories tall with carbon neutral construction techniques. The Norwegian Barents Secretariat will use it for a cultural center for the nation's northern coast. It will house a library, a theatre, and art studios in its approximately 10,000 square meter interior space and will highlight sustainable development:

The idea is to construct a building which will be CO2-neutral, where the concept of the cycles of nature will be preserved. The innovative solutions on modern wooden constructions will stand as a token of the level of competence in the region, says architect Reiulf Ramstad.


As far as I have been able to determine, the record for tallest wooden building in the world is currently held by the 43-meter tall St. George's Cathedral in Guyana.

Link via Gizmodo

Twisted Disney Princesses



Jeffrey Thomas is a California-based artist and character designer. He plays with pop culture in twisted and amusing ways, such as his latest series on eleven of the Disney Princesses. Pictured above is an Ariel more sinister than the one in The Little Mermaid.

Link via GearFuse

Artist's blog

Custom Pizza Cutters



Frankie Flood is an artist and professor of jewelry and metalsmithing at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. He makes custom pizza cutters inspired by American motorcycles, such as the one above apparently modeled on the work of Mantis Choppers. Flood writes:

My work investigates one of a kind objects and their role in a world based on mechanical reproduction. Industry has removed the aura from objects and stripped them of their individuality. My pizza cutters seek to demolish the sterile conformity of mass produced objects and represent the stylistic and flamboyant embellishment of groups who live on the fringe of popular culture. The outlaw biker image is a break from the conformity that has taken over America since industrialization. My machined pizza cutters draw inspiration from chopper motorcycles and attempt to reclaim the mythology and economic usefulness of the American worker as patriarch; translating machine or functional object into flesh and blood. The outlaw as defiant nonconformist, as well as social outcast, parallels being an artist who makes functional objects and being an individual who takes pride in the power of invention and skill.


Link via Geekologie

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