ideas

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)

Continue Reading

Pancake Picking Robot! (with beats)

Posted by _tango! on October 1, 2009
Posted in: entertainment, food, fun, ideas, information, inspiration, me, thoughts, wacky. Leave a Comment


I’m quite familiar with the manufacturing world, but I’ve never seen a smart robot arm made for picking up pancakes for stacking! (FLexpicker). Seriously this robotic arm is quite impressive.  Let’s yank this arm out and use it as a poker dealer,  street trash picker, or something like a burger flipper! Keep the idea flowing with fast smart automated robots, just like the fun Robocoaster!

video
via boingboing

Duplex Bag

Posted by _tango! on September 20, 2009
Posted in: design, experience, food, ideas, inspiration. 3 comments

duplex.bag.side
duplex.bag
Student Designer Noémie Cotton brings to us a very simple double sided bag used to both contain  and trash something, such as whole peanuts.  I’m craving to find olives-to-go after seeing this,  same goes for Wings, or other likes.  If I had this bag when I was younger, I’d be eating just the peanuts minus shells. I’ve grown up learning to  eat the whole peanut with shell making life a bit easier.

via bookofjoe

Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation

Posted by _tango! on August 27, 2009
Posted in: conference, experience, ideas, information, inspiration, tech, TED. Leave a Comment


Great talk by our favorite Dan Pink.
How work cultures should change for motivation, activity, and progression.

“There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does. And here is what science knows. One: Those 20th century rewards, those motivators we think are the natural part of business, do work, but only in a surprisingly narrow band of circumstances. Two: Those if-then rewards often destroy creativity. Three: The secret to high performance isn’t rewards and punishments, but that unseen intrinsic drive. The drive to do things for their own sake. The drive to do things cause they matter.

And here’s the best part. Here’s the best part. We already know this. The science confirms what we know in our hearts. So, if we repair this mismatch between what science knows and what business does, If we bring our motivation, notions of motivation into the 21st century, if we get past this lazy, dangerous, ideology of carrots and sticks, we can strengthen our businesses, we can solve a lot of those candle problems, and maybe, maybe, maybe we can change the world. I rest my case.”

Watch the entire video above, or here.

Craigslist Extreme Makeover

Posted by _tango! on August 25, 2009
Posted in: brand, design, ideas, information, inspiration, me, tech, thoughts. Leave a Comment


Above images:
Pentagrams Luke Hayman with Lisa Strausfeld  and Matt Willey of Studio8 Design.

“The craigslist team isn’t interested in updating the site, so Wired asked leading designers to give it a user-interface lift.”

I love Craigslist but I’ve always wondered about their interface. Do I like it, hate it, or is it just right? As a designer I’ve always craved images, but also as a designer I love the directness in raw text.  They’ve made subtle changes over the years but if they launched with a more visual design would they have been more successful, worse, or the same?  What role does design actually play a part of in our society for sucess, what do people latch onto, what makes it work, and is great design about differentiating from the rest of the world?

Anyhow, I’m not sure what I’d do to improve Craiglsit since it’s just that good, besides all the spam which often becomes part of the culture.

More at Wired

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

Continue Reading

Apple Store as Your Office

Posted by _tango! on August 18, 2009
Posted in: brand, design, entertainment, experience, fun, ideas, information, inspiration, music, tech, thoughts, wacky. 1 comment


Awesome. If you can’t afford it go use it at the Apple store!  Computers, Programs, the Internet, Cameras, etc!  Nicholi created several Youtube Videos and probably all his graphics using equipment inside the store on 5th NYC. Nothing like a young entrepreneur figuring out how to get things done, now getting him spots on TV shows. Watch the video above… I love the public’s reaction in the background.

“This little dude Nicholi has shot dozens of lip sync videos at the 5th Avenue Apple Store. And why not? Plenty of desktops. Free wi-fi. Solid tech support.

These are the same reasons model and self-marketer Isobella Jade wrote her entire memoir in the SoHo Apple Store. (Sound uncomfortable? Consider that Hemingway also wrote while standing up.)”

via boingboing

How Colors May Affect Your Productivity and Success

Posted by _tango! on August 18, 2009
Posted in: design, experience, food, ideas, information, inspiration, me. 1 comment


I use read all kinds of books about colors and how they affect behavior, appetite, emotions, and all kinds of other odd phenomenons. The strangest one was about McDonalds using yellow, which is an inviting color initially but uncomfortable over time, hence wanting to leave, leaving more seats at Mcdonalds which included their not so comfy chairs, which yes, are made to be semi uncomfortable so you don’t just hang out in them.

Anyhow, I just came by this great little update on how colors affect your productivity and success. Not as detailed, but a nice glimpse into colors. Red makes you more productive and detailed, blue makes ya more creative and less critical, blue will make you eat less, and green is rather zen like. Give it a quick read, then go spice up your work space with stuff.

via dirjournal

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