entertainment

PBS Everyday Edisons Season 2: I’m on TV!

Posted by _tango! on June 19, 2008
Posted in: art, brand, design, entertainment, experience, fun, ideas, information, inspiration, me, style, tech, wacky. 26 comments
Everyday Edisons pbs show TV aaron tang

Hey all! I’ve got a little secret to spill that I’ve been keeping hush for almost a year! I’m in a TV show and it premieres on PBS today!!!!

The shows called “Everyday Edisons“:
“Everybody has a great idea that could change the way we work, the way we live or the way we play. Everyday Edisons documents the development process of 14 inventions and the parallel stories of the people who invented them. Selected from thousands, the 14 Everyday Edisons learn how their extraordinary ideas are taken from a sketch on a napkin to a store shelf.”

Check out the EverydayEdisons.com page or the PBS page. Find out your local PBS air dates and times here. (I’m in the 2nd half of the season but will appear at the beginning I think)

It’s a thrill to be one of the dozen inventors hand picked from thousands to be on the show. This adventure continues a project I invented while at RISD back in 1999 which made the blogsphere rounds in 2004-5.

I’m not sure what to expect nor how the show ends (good or bad) but that’s all part of the fun. It might not be as entertaining as reality TV, but you’ll get to see my goofy serious self!! And no, it’s not like the “other” reality show I’ve been on… this one is much more professional. There is no competition, the US patent office sponsors the show, and they actually spend over a year developing each inventors idea!

I’ll post a few articles that have been published about the show and myself after the jump (fun pictures)! Please watch and let me know how it goes, cause I don’t receive the channels it’s being broadcast on (booo).

update: episodes posted after jump
Continue Reading

Kung Fu Panda!

Posted by _tango! on June 17, 2008
Posted in: art, brand, entertainment, me. Leave a Comment

Kung Fu Panda

I finally got to watch Kung Fu Panda this weekend! How awesome! GO watch it! I’m not sure where Dreamworks pulled this movie from but the animation, composition, characters, story boarding, sounds, graphics, message, and just about everything else rocks! Stay through the credits, there’s a short extra which seems to be a common thing in movies these days. I’d love to see the making of this movie! DVD buh yah!
DVD available here.

400,000 Balls Dropped into Ivanhoe Resevoir

Posted by _tango! on June 11, 2008
Posted in: art, entertainment, fun, information, inspiration, materials, style, tech, wacky. 7 comments

LA Silver Lake Ivanhoe lake black balls
Sweet goodness, this rocks! Tossing 400,000 plastic black Caviar like balls into a reservoir with 3 million to follow in an attempt to shade off the reservoirs exposed water from sunlight for the next 4-5 years.

“The water needs to be shaded because when sunlight mixes with the bromide and chlorine in Ivanhoe’s water, the carcinogen bromate forms, said Pankaj Parekh, DWP’s director for water quality compliance. Bromide is naturally present in groundwater and chlorine is used to kill bacteria, he said, but sunlight is the final ingredient in the potentially harmful mix.”

Reminds me of the beautiful Sony Bravia Bouncing balls commercial. I want to by a pool of spheres now!

Tons of fun pics after the jump.
Source via LA TIMES with video, Curbed, and CBS and video.

Continue Reading

Weekend Links

Posted by _tango! on June 8, 2008
Posted in: brand, design, entertainment, experience, fun, ideas, inspiration, style, tech, wacky, weekendlinks. Leave a Comment
Dreaming of Flying

Here are some semi super hero links…. I saw Iron Man finally which was awesome. Later on Indiana Jones, Incredible Hulk, Batman, Hancock, Kung Fu Panda, Get Smart, Love Guru, Hellboy II, and filming for Transformers 2 just started! What a Super Hero summer this is going to be!

– Japaneses Talking watch!($20)
– Finger Blasters or Finger Missiles! (Makes anyone a kid again)
– Explore the Universe through World Telescope!
– Skin Footwear!
– Crazy Fun Slip n Slide!(video)
– A poorly designed Batman squirt gun… haha

Ads in Times Square

Posted by _tango! on June 6, 2008
Posted in: entertainment, information, tech. 1 comment


A tour of Times Square from Keyframe on Vimeo.

hmmm… I want to make use of that empty space! The owner should convert it into his mansion or something! I hate wasted prime space!

“The One Times Square building is empty. Why? Because the owner can afford it by selling ad space alone. It costs $300,000/month to advertise on that structure — one of things you’ll learn in this behind-the-LED-screens look at Times Square. ”

via boingboing

wikipedia about Building, yup, it’s empty!!!

Erik Nordenankar: Biggest Drawing in the World

Posted by _tango! on May 27, 2008
Posted in: art, entertainment, fun, ideas, information, inspiration, tech, wacky. 1 comment
Erik Nordenankar biggest drawing in the world dhl

Artist Erik Nordenankar has created the “Biggest Drawing in the World” according to his webpage.

In short, he had a grand vision to draw a huge self-portrait. He sent away a briefcase containing a GPS device around the world through DHL which plotted it’s journey in 55 days. The end result, a pretty sweet self-portrait. The GPS container became his pen and the world became his canvas.

However true or fictional this may be, it’s a pretty cool idea. He has a good documentation of it online, and a youtube videos here.

via hackaday

GEL, Art Center, Pangea Day!

Posted by _tango! on May 4, 2008
Posted in: design, entertainment, experience, fun, information, inspiration, me, thoughts. 3 comments

pangea day sony studio LA

It’s been an incredibly busy week of travel and work and I apologize for not posting as much.

First came the wonderful GEL (Good Experience Live) conference in nyc, which made me ask “why” every time I experienced something bad in this world, rather than just letting it happen. Why do voice mail avatars talk for sooo long before I can leave a message, why do the same avatars talk for so long when I want to hear my voice mails, Why does technology direct 2 people calling each other at the same time to each others voice mail rather than connecting them, why is the nyc train system so confusing for a newbie… this world is full of bad experiences, and as a designer, discovering, revealing, and disrupting the norm is needed…especially when it comes to sustainability and health care experiences. I’ll post about GEL later on, but here is a great recap collection.

Anyhow, this week I venture off to the “Art Center: Serious Play” Conference in LA. It’ll touch base on user experience, design, and bits of everything. I’ll bring my laptop, but no promises on live blogging.

After that, I’ll be experiencing the incredible Pangea Day on May 10th at the Sony Pictures Studio in LA. If you didn’t catch my last post, this is MUST do…invite a bunch of friends, family, or even strangers over…gather around, watch this global event for 4+ hours, get inspired, and make change! There will be 24 films, live music, and several fantastic speakers very much like TED.

I’ll be twittering most of my journey on the sidebar..feel free to follow me on twitter, or just on this blog… I’ll post when I can, but for now, a few late weekend links below:

Use Whatever Clock: Pretty cool, sell the function, let customer create looks.
Wearable Chair: I had this idea sometime ago, but executed a bit differently.
Twistori: Following Twitter by emotions.
Scrapile: Using wasted wood to make cool wood composites! Very sustainable!
Sunlight Poem Projector: Public Poem based on sun location. Pretty neat!
Soba Machine: Make you own soba at home. I’m in soba mode after going to Soba Koh nyc.
A billion Pennies: What does 1 billion pennies stack up to be.
Momofuku Ko restaurant: reservations only online! Brings the experience beyond the restaurant.

Pangea Day: May 10

Posted by _tango! on April 29, 2008
Posted in: brand, entertainment, experience, information, inspiration, me, tech, thoughts. 1 comment

Filmmaker and 2006 TED prize winner Jehane Noujaim made a wish to “Create a day in which the world came together through film.”

That exciting day is this May 10th, gathering a global audience to watch a series of films made by the world for the world, which will broadcast around the globe live at the same time.

Gather a community of your family and friends and watch this amazing inspirational film together. Host an event in your home, backyard, office, or any other location to share this extremely rare experience with all.

Watch Jehane’s wish during TED here, host an event, check out the Pangea Day webpage, or watch a few more videos on their Youtube site.

I’ll be in LA during this event… this is a must do, watch, spread event.

Weekend Links

Posted by _tango! on April 19, 2008
Posted in: art, entertainment, fun, ideas, inspiration, misc, style, tech, thoughts, weekendlinks. 4 comments

wii guitar hero shirt
– an awesome Wii Guitar Hero shirt above.
– DIY sawed off USB stick..seriously nerdy awesome!
– A great intellectual interview(mp3) to Bruce Schneier on Security and Beyond Fear.
– Paparazzi for the rest of us: the service in getting photographed secretly!
– Visualization of our current space debris!
– Hilarious iphone review! (video).

Japanese Automated Bicycle Park

Posted by _tango! on April 19, 2008
Posted in: design, entertainment, experience, ideas, tech, thoughts. Leave a Comment

In a period where bikes are just as congesting as cars comes the invention field in storage. Watch the above video for an automated bicycle parking facility in Japan which is pretty cool! It reminds me of the VW car storage system.

Either way, very cool, though for the biking system, I’d prefer it to be a tower like the VW rather than a big tunnel underground. I’m also not sure what would prevent someone from sitting on their bike while the robo machine jolted ya down to the lower levels…love the camera work in the video!

via gizmodo