art

Gadgetoff 2009: Boom!

Posted by _tango! on October 7, 2009
Posted in: art, conference, design, entertainment, experience, food, fun, ideas, information, inspiration, materials, me, misc, style, tech, thoughts, wacky. 3 comments

gadgetoff.2009_deka.arm2

gadgetoff.2009_mondo.spider2

Gadgetoff 2009 unleashed an intense series of kabooms,  zaps, chomps, and kerplurks rattling 400 attendees on the beautiful 83 acre Staten Island grounds September 25th while slinging Lenovo laptops with a trebuchet,  cooking hot dogs with Telsa Coil Towers, riding jet fueled 5g merry-go-rounds, writing code drunk for autonomous cars legally, and thrashing a series of incredible lectures and demos throughout the day! Welcome to the Gadgetoff 2009 Experience: Boom!

Robots rumbled in every corner ranging from dancing tai chi robots to tiny micro toy hex bugs that jittered their way into everyone’s pockets. The gigantic mechanical Mondo Spider chomped it’s way through the lunch gardens while on lookers enjoyed delicious alcohol infused sorbet.  Dean Kamen of DEKA brought his breathtaking and ingeniously engineered “luke” arm (video) and toy inventor Brian Walker tinkered with large crossbows and rockets made to launch humans 20 miles across the air! Invisible inks, toys, gadgets, art, fire, illusions, magic, and disruptive ideas scorched the island while participants roamed in excitement and curiosity!

Just as I experienced last time, Gadgetoff invited the coolest hand’s on creatives to celebrate the Smart and Useless for an unforgetful day in disruptive goodness!

My adventure brief after the jump! (lots of pictures and videos)

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Chris Lefteri: Ingredients Books

Posted by _tango! on September 12, 2009
Posted in: art, design, information, inspiration, materials, me, tech. Leave a Comment

ingredients.books

Chris Lefteri has some of my favorite books on materials on plastics, wood, ceramics, metals, and many others. I’m not as aware of his books series called Ingredients, but as Ingredients No.4 is released September 24th, it seems his previous ones are FREE to download! How awesome! If Ingredients is anything like his other materials books, be prepared to be floored both visually and with information about each. Download the other 3 here:

– Plastic Ingredients No. 1 (PDF format, 3mb)

–  Ingredients No. 2 (PDF format, 2,9mb)

– Ingredients No. 3 (PDF format, 2,1mb)

Media Diet Pyramid

Posted by _tango! on September 9, 2009
Posted in: art, design, entertainment, information, inspiration, me, tech. 1 comment

media diet pyramid wired

I found this an amusing info graphics from Wired:

“Practicing good nutrition keeps your mind sharp, your body fit, and your life long. The same could be said for consuming media. (Seriously, knowledge is power.) When you add it all up, the average American spends roughly nine hours a day glued to some kind of screen, and like your diet, quality is as important as quantity. Here are Wired‘s suggested servings for optimal media health.”

Heidi Swanson: 101 Cookbooks

Posted by _tango! on August 24, 2009
Posted in: art, food, information, inspiration. 1 comment


I’ve been following our friend Heidi Swanson’s delicious blog 101 cookbooks for awhile now and every time I glance at her photos my mouth drops and eyes widen in jealous curiosity wanting to try everything she cooks up and creates.

Heidi’s also an incredible photographer which makes her food flare just as much as her insight. Above is the result in making Buckwheat Cheese Straws.  I’m not sure how she has the patience to capture her creations before diving but I’m glad she has the time to share it with the world to drool over. If I were to describe a digital visual meal to anyone, go to 101cookbooks and be prepared for some great tips, tricks, and recipes from Heidi!

101Cookbook
Buy her books.

Weekend Links

Posted by _tango! on August 22, 2009
Posted in: art, design, entertainment, fun, green, ideas, information, inspiration, materials, style, tech, thoughts, wacky, weekendlinks. Leave a Comment


Thought: Whoever taught us wine taste better in a glass container over  plastic, paper, or styrofoam container? Did we learn, or just observe and accept the norm?  Do we drive our own opinions, or just accept the norm?

Weird: San Paolo subway Fat seats.
Tech: ThisWasExpensive.com Info Viz chart, domain price vs visits.
Architecture: Wooden House
Trick: How to fix a car dent, with hair dryer and can of air video.
InfoViz: How different groups spend their day

TEDx YouTube Channel

Posted by _tango! on August 20, 2009
Posted in: art, brand, conference, design, entertainment, experience, food, fun, green, ideas, information, inspiration, materials, me, misc, music, style, tech, TED, thoughts. 1 comment


The TED conference has transformed dramatically over the years thanks to the launching of TEDtalks which I’ve posted on several times. This past year, TED launched another brilliant event called TEDx which allows individuals to host their own local unofficial TED like events. Since March 2009 several events have taken place around the world. How awesome!

A few weeks back, I attended the TEDxBoston event which I wanted to post about, but had no videos to share. As of today, TEDx videos from around the world can be viewed and shared on the TEDx YouTube Channel as well as play lists from each location like TEDxBoston. I’ll post the TEDxBoston videos after the jump, and make sure to watch the last video with our favorite Ben Zanders conducting the Youth Orchestra of Americas.

TEDx YouTube Channel

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Weekend Links: SF

Posted by _tango! on August 13, 2009
Posted in: art, brand, design, entertainment, experience, fun, information, inspiration, materials, me, misc, style, tech, weekendlinks. Leave a Comment


I’m off to San Francisco for a Weekend Wedding, so I’m posting my weekend links a bit early. If ya’ll have any must see, eat, go to events in SF this week, please let me know.

– Travel: Jetblue offers a all you can fly month pass, Sept 8-October 8 ) for $599! hmm, I do need a break, perhaps each weekend!
– Graphics: Incredible digital flowers by Macoto Murayama! very cool, I want the larger images!
– Fashion: Socks are fun, go get happy socks at happysocks.com
– Tech: Nerdy cool web2 pillows! haha, I want I want!
– Fun: Colored bubbles! yah, colored I said…and no stains! its magic!

James Reynolds: Far Foods

Posted by _tango! on August 11, 2009
Posted in: art, brand, design, experience, food, fun, green, ideas, information, inspiration, materials, me, tech, thoughts. 6 comments


Far Foods by Designer James Reynolds

“Alternative packaging for supermarket produce, highlighting the distances that some foods travel from and the resultant carbon dioxide released during the journey. The receipt features a boarding card style tear-off strip.”

Awesome! I’ve always wondered when food labels would change my buying decisions.  Some receipts tell you how much to tip , but none have been more eco-educational than this concept.  Forget calorie counting, lets count carbon miles from food transportation. I’d definitely buy something for a bit more, knowing it used less carbon miles than another product. Think how the word Organic or Local has become such a  buzz… hopefully one day, the carbon food miles will do the same =)

via swissmiss

Bobby McFerrin Crowd Sources the Pentatonic Scale

Posted by _tango! on August 11, 2009
Posted in: art, conference, entertainment, fun, ideas, inspiration, music, thoughts. Leave a Comment

Awesome! Music is a universal language for sure!

“Bobby McFerrin, a master in the possibilities of the human vocal chords, recently demonstrated the common understanding of the pentatonic scale at this year’s World Science Festival.  The playful and simple demonstration uses audience participation to recreate the scale even when it goes beyond the given instructions.”

via psfk(rest of article)

Video above or here.