wacky

Evolver

Posted by _tango! on October 12, 2009
Posted in: art, design, ideas, inspiration, materials, wacky. 1 comment

showcase_evolver_main

“Evolver is an architectural artefact intervening on the panorama surrounding Zermatt. It was designed and executed by a team of 2nd year students from the ALICE Studio at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. In an effort to take full advantage of the site’s extensive and astounding views, the project sits strategically next to the lake Stelli at an altitude of 2,536 m (8,320 feet).”

very cool project, and the site helps out quite a bit =)
via archinet

tons more pics mirrored after the jump.

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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

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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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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

The Font War: Ikea Fans Fume over Verdana

Posted by _tango! on September 2, 2009
Posted in: brand, design, information, me, style, thoughts, wacky. 2 comments



IKEA’s 2009 online catalogue uses the old typeface. (Futura)


IKEA’s 2010 online catalogue features the Verdana font.

Unbelievable! IKEA switches up their long lasting Futura font that everyone has grown to love to Verdana which though great, just quite doesn’t do the trick for me for an icon like IKEA! Outrage I say =)

Much like the whole Tropicana rebranding disaster that got rejected by consumers once it came out, I’m not sure this is a good move, though change and understanding take time… I’m sure ther was a reason for this… wait, isn’t Verdana a free font from Microsoft? I’ve had recent troubles in license agreements with font foundries.

Article:
“Thumbing through his local Swedish newspaper, Göteborg resident Mattias Akerberg found himself troubled by a full-page advertisement for Ikea. It wasn’t that the Grevbäck bookcases looked any less sturdy, or that the Bibbi Snur duvet covers were any less colorful, or even that the names given to each of the company’s 9,500 products were any less whimsical. No, what bothered Akerberg was the typeface. “I thought that something had gone terribly wrong, but when I Twittered about it, people at their ad agency told me that this was actually the new Ikea font,” he recalls. “I could hardly believe it was true.”

full article after jump via Time.

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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

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

Alicia Martin: Streaming Books Installations

Posted by _tango! on August 5, 2009
Posted in: art, entertainment, experience, fun, ideas, inspiration, materials, style, wacky. 6 comments

Installation artist Alicia Martin sure has a thing for Streaming Books. This would have been a great PR piece for the Amazon Kindle!  a little kindle at the end of the book rainbow…

Reminds me a ton of the always fun zippy wooden Tunnel House here.

A few more pictures of her work after the jump including a video.

via urbanprankster

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