Digital Ruler
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At the first sight of this ruler concept by designers Shay.Shafranek the thought of ”this must be one of those ‘mesh-up-digital-and-physical-objects-experiment-again” sprang into my mind, almost in a knee-jerk reaction. But upon further consideration, it does have quite a lot of merit (if a little indulgent) in this combination.
This is a work done in conjunction with a PCB-manufacturing company. The most interesting bit, in my opinion, is the idea that with this digital-sensing modules lined up along the sides, you don’t have to line-up a “zero” point. You can start to pick and draw from anywhere, and the reading is automatically calculated from where your pencil first contacts the paper.
More advanced use of the idea also includes: adding distances (you can keep drawing and the ruler adds up the sum of the lengths); having units in different dimensions automatically (e.g. mm, inches);
Intuitive, simple, elegant solution that still retains the familiar a nalog ruler – you can be as advanced as you want with this ruler.
Great concept!
Nothing to Hide (Air New Zealand)
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At first it looks just like any normal in-flight safety briefing video, perhaps just a little cheerier and more upbeat than usual. If you look closer, however, you’d realize that all the crews doing the briefing are… naked!
Fear not of indecent bits though – while they’re naked, they’re body painted with their usual uniform to still look very much un-naked; and of course, all their camera takes are cleverly angled and timed to avoid any sensitive exposure.
And why go through all these? The airline behind it – Air New Zealand – is promoting their tagline of having “Nothing to hide” (no hidden charges for checked baggage, refreshments, etc.). I suppose this somewhat gimmicky video just about captures this spirit and eyeballs!
(PS: the guy loading the baggage in the video is actually the CEO Rob Fyfe – I don’t suppose many CEOs have this sense of fun and involvement with their company!)
Photography – Nailed it!
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Czech photographer Vlad Artazov does great photography here with something as lifeless as nails – with dramatic lighting effect, props, angles and a deft hand to bend the nails into anthromorphic shapes, he seem to be able to extract emotions and human-expression out of the cold iron:
Quite many more here!
Guaranteed to Wake you Up
If you’re the type that needs a whole lot of cajoling before waking up, this may just be for you!
Marching Band
Segway was meant to change the face of transportation forever. Unfortunately, that promise didn’t seem to pan out. One unexpected application, however, is found in this video – the mode of movement for an eerily creepy “marching” band. The smooth glide of Segway gives off a ghost-like aura, as if these were wandering spirits making music.
It’s a segment from the street performance “Glissendo” at a French art festival: “Lightning” by Philip Glass. Concept and technical design by Ulik (the mechanical clown).
Folding UK Plug
This concept design for the UK plug’s been making the rounds round the web like wildfire – probably as a testament to how much people loathe the big, fat bulky UK 3-pin plug. Here’s how it works:
Sounds like a student concept project (anyone knows who I can credit?) It’s a concept design by designer Min Kyu Choi. There are certainly still many technical issues to resolve – putting numerous moving parts and hinges into that small an area will probably require a hell lot of (costly or difficult?) engineering to realize in a large-scale, cheap manner; the live wire looks really perilously close to the neutral wire in the assembly, etc. The final comparison for the 3-way plug was also somewhat unfair as the bulkiness of the plug-heads were also due to the transformer-circuits (e.g. in Apple’s plug).
That said, I loved how the design has approached this prickly problem and tackled it with an elegant and innovative solution (loved the fuse idea – makes it easier to change too!), while still maintaining the compatibility with the current sockets. Kudos to the designer!
Hiding Pregnancy on TV
Writers for TV shows or movies often need to blend real-life events/changes to the actors/actresses into the script – for example, when a character’s actor has died in real life, or when they’ve suddenly stopped acting for one reason or another, where the writer has to invent a plausible reason for the absence;
In this case, the ‘problem’ was pregnancy. The lead actresses (2 of them!) on How I Met Your Mother got pregnant, and the crew has to find funny and yet ingenious camera angles and props to help conceal the fact. Quite cute, isn’t it:
The interventions ranged from loose clothings, scarves, strategically-placed props, you name it!
More pictures from Darren Barefoot.
Milky the Marvelous Milking Cow
Blast from the past – commercial in 1978 advertising Milky the Marvelous Milking Cow – you (more likely your kids) put water in it, and pretend-milk comes out of the udder. I wonder if we still have this type of … weirdly attractive toys around the aisle nowadays…
The Way Girls Are
A rather humorous short film about how a 8-year old attempts to understand the fairer sex through his observations and encounter.
Painfully Obvious Photography Tips
Perhaps it’s a reaction against the endless photography tips or ‘rules’ like the Rule of Thirds – Ivars Gravlejs compiled a series of painfully obvious tips for better photography – those shown above are just 3 out of a whole lot more. Though I must say (perhaps it’s the psuedo-artistic “I am cooler than you” vibe in me speaking out) I do prefer some of the “wrong” ones occassionally.
The collection here.
