Dorkbot Alba's Waldflöte vs Kazookeylele - Dueling Banjos

Stuart and his kazookeylele
Dorkbot Alba's Waldflöte

via Oddstrument.com

stray bullets

Never bet against a pro “The more you do something, the more it is embodied in you,” Grafton says. “It doesn’t just change your muscle memory, it changes the way you see the world around you.” (via)

Tech visionary Wayne Green: Still on a mission Starting in the early 1960s with an army of can-do, build-it-yourself amateur radio fans behind him, Green encouraged readers of 73 magazine (73 means "best regards" in ham radio lingo), his first and longest-lived publication, to push the limits on the electronic bits and pieces that would evolve into today's e-mail systems, cellular networks and PCs. Interview with the founder of 73 and BYTE magazines.

Moustache protector, anyone? Weird inventions on show A grenade that puts out fires, a self-pouring teapot, periscope spectacles, a peach peeler and a moustache protector are among oddball inventions on show at the British Library. (via)

also:
Top 10 Cell Phone Etiquette Rules People Still Break (via)
Frank Deford: The Swimming Legend You Never Heard Of
How to Tap a Phone Line
How to Shoot Light Trails (via)

viddy:
Dynamic Painting - San Base's Amazing Computer-Generated Art
Cleveland Smith: Bounty Hunter (starring Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi)
The Meters - Tippi-Toes

The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices

Table of vibrators:

Until the 1920s, female patients thought to be hysteric were treated by having their genitals massaged until the patient had a "spasm". Obviously, this was actually an orgasm. Doctors welcomed the introduction of mechanical devices to achieve the same effect, because they made it much easier and less fatiguing for their hands. (!) Early Sears-Roebuck catalogues contained a page of vibrator devices that could be ordered.

Yeah, right... "Mrs. Pinswiggle, I am afraid we must induce another spasm."

They sure have streamlined the design over the years.

The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices
The 10 Weirdest U.S. Museums
via The Presurfer

The devious deceptions of David Jones

Unworkable Devices as Fine Art:

There are two kinds of perpetual motion machines: those that don't work as the inventor intended, and those that seem to work because fraud and deception has been used. Both can be considered works of art, the former for their ingenuity and the latter as kinetic illusions that "fool or perplex the mind".

via Everlasting Blort

The Scrotal Radiendocrinator

From the always excellent Environmental Graffiti:

The Radiendocrinator was intended to be placed over the endocrine glands to invigorate sexual virility and consisted of seven radium soaked pieces of paper, about the size and shape of a credit card, covered with a thin piece of clear plastic and two gold-wire screens. Men were advised to place the instrument under the scrotum at night like an ‘athletic strap’. The inventor of the Radiendocrinator (and Radithor), William J. Bailey, had so much faith in his products he claimed not only that he regularly used them, but that he had drunk more radium water than any living man - he died in 1949 of bladder cancer.

10 Radioactive Products That People Actually Used

Explosion containment net

U.S. Patent 6854374, Explosion containment net, by O. Alan Breazeale. Issued Feb 15, 2005.

Since when were there hippy suicide bombers?

Top 10 Strangest Anti-Terrorism Patents

The Laocoon Loudspeaker

Some Less Successful Projects
Odd Audio Projects
via this isn't happiness

Sunday Excursions: Short and Sweet

Lots going on in meatspace today, so this Sunday's Excursion is going to be brief.













photo D.L Stupski
via Ursi's Blog
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I Met the Walrus

From Mental Floss:

In 1969, 14-year-old Jerry Levitan managed to snag a brief interview with John Lennon in his hotel room in Toronto. Using his reel-to-reel tape recorder, Levitan asked Lennon a series of questions about peace, popularity, and messages in music. The answers give us a portrait of Lennon at the end of his involvement with The Beatles.

In 2007, Levitan collaborated with director Josh Raskin, illustrator James Braithwaite, and animator Alex Kurina to produce I Met the Walrus, a short animated film featuring a condensed version of the Lennon-Levitan interview set to sprawling stream-of-consciousness animation. The resulting film has won an AFI Award and was nominated for an Academy Award.

Wise and sensible words from John Lennon. I think today's peace activists would be well served to pay attention.
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Our buddy across the Pond, The Presurfer dropped a goodly number of gems on us this past week. Here's a couple of them:

First this:

The Museum of Unworkable Devices is a celebration of fascinating devices that don't work. It houses examples of the perverse genius of inventors who refused to let their thinking be intimidated by the laws of nature, remaining optimistic in the face of repeated failures.

and then:









The Amen Break and the Golden Ratio

The 'Amen break' was a drum solo performed by Gregory Sylvester Coleman. The drum solo is frequently used as a sampled drum loop in hip hop, jungle and drum and bass music. It is 5.20 seconds long and consists of 4 bars of the drum-solo sampled from the song 'Amen, Brother' as performed by the 1960s funk and soul outfit The Winstons.

Mathematician Michael Schneider became intrigued when he saw an image of the audio waves because he immediately recognized the Golden Ratio in the structure of its timing. And he was surprised to find an even deeper relationship to the structure of the human body.

Below is a good introduction to the history and use of the Amen Break. The video is a bit long for our purposes, but the first few minutes should give you a good idea. Listen to it all for an excellent and comprehensive profile.



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Out

ZiL 29061: Russian screw-driven armored vehicle

Guess this guy didn't make it too far past field tests.

They sold the prototype to Race Bannon.

more here
YouTube
via Disinfo.com