8-bit Invaders - Autopsy T-shirt

Space Invaders are really grotesque aliens, nothing like us, flying spaceships in a war they plan to win at all cost. I hope at least we can learn their weakness.. (SPOILER: It's a scalpel & latex gloves... but then again, who doesn't have a weakness for latex. I know I do!)

T-Shirt is available for $18 from [Threadless]

8-Bit Space Invaders - T-shirt

All these years, we pegged the Space Invaders for grotesque aliens. Really, they're men and women just like us, flying spaceships in a war they neither want nor understand. Retails for:$18. [Threadless via FashionablyGeek]

Hi-Def Data - from shrimp

 In the marvelously sensitive eyes of mantis shrimps, scientists have found cells that could inspire an overhaul of humanity’s comparatively clumsy communications hardware. [wired]

Mantis Shrimp can see 100,000 colors, 10x the number we can, and are the only animals to see circular polarized light. Scientists think that mantis shrimp eye tech could lead to a new age of telecom and optical devices.

Let me explain. The same biological structures used in the mantis shrimp—a strange creature with 500m years of lineage—to see circular polarized light are used in modern satellite communications and the laser/lens setup in DVD and CD players. The fundamental hardware in our tech are called quarter-wave plates. They both do a 90 degree shift to wave patterns, and quarter waves are ideal for our tech because they are part of high compression, lossless data signals. But mantis shrimp eyes can work this magic on a broad array of light spectrum with their tightly packed tube shaped cells, while our clumsy human tech can only do it to a few frequencies. The potential for new higher bandwidth devices is there. [Gizmodo]

For more info: goto:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/10/mantis-shrimp-eyes/

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/3ylqE5dcyzQ/shrimp-eye-tech-could-improve-gadgets

A-TEAM - comeback movie (fresh faces)

A-Team, the movie based on Stephen J. Cannell's famed TV series, is being directed by Joe Carnahan. Liam Neeson will be Hannibal, Sharlto Copley as Murdock, Quinton Rampage Jackson as B.A. Baracus (Mr. T), and Bradley Cooper as Face.

I just hope it doesn't ruin my childhood memories..

Clown's Last Supper

This may very well be the scaryest thing ever!

iMac Remote gets Shaft'd

New iMacs come with an (optional) Apple Remote that comes in a light ray and black. It's $19 whether you buy the iMac or not.

Now, Jeff Li has transformed the iMac remote into a persona, that, to me, resembles a cartoon version of Shaft, with various hairstyles for the 21st Century.

“Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus”

The “Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus” is a drawing machine illustrating a never-ending story by the use of patent drawings.

 

The machine translates words of a text into patent drawings. Seven million patents — linked by over 22 million references — form the vocabulary. By using references to earlier patents, it is possible to find paths between arbitrary patents. They form a kind of subtext.

Over time a serendipitidious narrative is created.

I think it's beautiful! Reminds me of those old-school plotters that still used pens, before the days of laser plotters and inkjet.

Click here for more of the project.

Wire Lamp

Amazing re-issued table lamp by Verner Panton for Louis Poulsen. Originally launched in 1972 the lamp has a cylindrical wire framework that widens into a hemisphere at the top with a hemispherical plastic shade.


Materials:
Chrome wire, plastic shade.

Dimensions:
Height: 540mm Diameter: 400mm


Price: £760.00 !!! WTF

Mars Mission Infographic

Though most missions to the red planet have failed, the success rate is improving.

We here at TSOMSCL love infographics!

I guess it's better to go out in a fiery blaze on that planet than slowly turn to dust on this one.

The Bouwkunde School Building

The building that looks like a skate ramp covered in photovoltaic panels... kinda takes my back to my Boukunde days.


Designed by Adam Wojtalik, the Bouwkunde is meant to replace a burned down building on the Delft University of Technology campus. With the usual auditorium, offices, and coffee bar wrapped up in a curvy design like that with a hidden lawn area to boot, I don't see why it shouldn't be approved. 

see more at: Dezeen

iTeufel Radio iPod Alarm Clock

German audio company Teufel has launched a new iPod dock clock radio, the iTeufel Radio iPod Alarm Clock.

The iTeufel Radio iPod Alarm Clock features an AM/FM radio with 10 memory presets, and it can pump out 50 watts through the built in speakers.

see more here: http://www.teufel.eu/iTeufel/iTeufel-Radio.cfm

a drop of water

bas van der veer: a drop of water and bioplastic planter
Bas Van Der Veer won a prize this weekend for this combination rain collector and watering can.
The system connects to a hose's gutter system, storing rainfall in it. It looks similar to a projects that I once did.. 'few years back, but I still love it.

Check it out at: Designboom

The system connects to a standard RWDP (rain water down pipe).

Constructed from fibreglass, it would be nice to see this in other materials...

The form is both sensual and primordial.

The finished product & matching watering can.

solar decathlon winner

The surPLUShome finished first in an incredible upset victory! The German team took top honors in the Net Metering and Engineering categories this morning, steamrolling the competition to secure their second Decathlon win. This year’s home features a sleek, dark facade that is almost completely covered in photovoltaic panels (reminds me of 2001:Space Odyssey's monolith). It and can provide more than twice the amount of energy it needs, powering neighbours' homes.

for the full story goto: Inhabitat

Balloon Boy hoax

The mp3 of the 911 call from the "Balloon Boy" hoax. (the one police/medical services chased down that now infamous—and empty—Mylar balloon over Colorado.)

for the full story goto: CNN

2010 Olympics

even*cleveland

i like this blog

Spoiler T-shirt

Nixie clock

Bitter and disillusioned Liewe Heksie packing for Perth

BLOMMELAND. They call her Liewe Heksie but Lavinia is her name. She's the cleverest witch she knows, and she's even been to the moon. But for Liewe Heksie, 56, these words ring hollow. "It sounded much better in Afrikaans," she says. "Now everything is in English or Xhosa." Middle-aged, bitter and disillusioned with the new South Africa, Heksie is emigrating to Australia.

Lavinia is the first to admit that the years have been unkind to her. The dirty blonde fringe is streaked with grey and the black velvet dress is pockmarked with cigarette burns.

"It's been a real struggle since they canned the show," she says, lighting one of the Lucky Strikes that have left her with severe emphysema.

"If I still had the show, flip, oke, I wouldn't be eating pilchards off a Tupperware lid now, genuine."

But, she says, the loss of stardom and wealth has paled into insignificance next to the loss of her dearest friends. Her eyes fill with tears as she recalls her beloved cat, Matewis.

"We put him to sleep in 1997," she says. "He got cancer in his brain and stomach, and on his nose, and in one ear, plus his tail went sort of vrot."

She blames the asbestos in the walls and ceiling of the council flat she's called home since her television show went off air in the late 1980s.

"It's also why Blommie doesn't come here any more," she adds. "He visited a few times in about 1991, but he said it was giving him migraines, and then he stopped coming."

She says she finally lost touch with her oldest friend after the elf announced his homosexuality in 1999.

"It still makes me very heartsore when I think about how we parted," she says, lighting another Lucky Strike.

"I'm not homophobic. It just came as a surprise. So when he said, 'Heksie, ek is 'n gay stoute kabouter!' I said 'Haai oe, Blommie, di's nie mooi nie'.

"He totally took it up the wrong way. Ag nee, wait, that also sounds homophobic. But you know what I mean."

She says she will always love Blommie, and hopes he can forgive her in time.

However she believes Australia will provide fresh opportunities and a chance to start again.

"I still love South Africa, and it's great that we've got democracy now," she says. "Even if it did kill my show."

But, she adds, the advent of affirmative action has been a "bitter pill to sluk".

"I used to be the only good witch in the whole Gauteng-Blommeland region," she says.

"But after 1994 there were suddenly spell-quotas and magical Sotho snakes and tokkeloshes and fokken Liewe Swart Heksies wherever you looked.

"Skuus dat ek so vloek," she adds hastily. She is also quick to insist that she is not a racist, adding that she enjoyed working with many black actors such as Karel Kraai on 'Wielie Walie'.

She dusts off a yellowing photograph of her with Matewis and carefully packs it into her small suitcase, before heading for the door for the last time.

"I think South Africa is a wonderful country with a great future," she says.

"Just not for white 56-year-old Afrikaans-speaking practitioners of the occult."

- TAKEN FROM: http://www.hayibo.com/articles/view/844

my life is a tepid sea

my life is a tepid sea of mediocrity and discontent

a savanna of apathy and indecision with rage lurking in the undergrass.

dry desiccated remains turn to choking dust underfoot as it makes it's quarry.

I can feel it.. hunting me, stalking my people.
come quick.. under my wing, out of way of harm
for it's skill is keen - the word is haste, and the action.. sharp
my want is to protect, yet... somehow.. i secretly hope.. i quietly wish..

I feel the guilt gnawing. out spot, out. it knows i want this, all of this.

i relish the roar and screams and viceration.

i see it, staring. eyes cold and empty and dark,
creeping closer.. sinew and muscle strained tense and flexed in anticipation..

i do not pity them.



..i call to them in stead..