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Posted Launder clothes in a giant kickable candy-striped ball to Boing Boing
A Munich-based design studio is proposing a unique alternative to washing clothes by hand in developing countries. Swirl is the concept design for a giant candy-striped ball that you can stuff your clothes in; roll it around using removable handlebars or by kicking it around, and that rolling motion launders the clothes inside. It has the added benefit, the studio claims, of doubling as a giant soccer ball and a water transporter. What do you guys think? Good idea? Bad idea? Swirl main page (via Inhabitots)...
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Posted Scifi "disaster" Valentine cards to Boing Boing
(by Garrison Dean for io9)...
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Posted Toledo strip club gives "lap dances for Haiti" to Boing Boing
Under its "lap dances for Haiti" fundraising initiative, an Ohio strip club donated $1,000 towards a local charity that provides food and clothing for the relief effort. It probably would have been more effective if they had donated cash directly, even if it came in the form of 1,000 $1 bills. Still, as the general manager of the club says: "You don't hear much about strip clubs giving back to the community."...
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Posted A place for rear load garbage truck fetishists to Boing Boing
This is part of a series of over 2,000 photos in the Flickr group called World of Rear Load Garbage Trucks. There's a group for front load garbage trucks, too. (via Telstar Logistics) Photo via Pip Wilson's Flickr...
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Posted Enter button doormat to Boing Boing
This lovely gray Enter key-shaped doormat is made of recycled crumbed rubber. Link...
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Posted PopSci article on "mind reading" to Boing Boing
I wrote an article in the February issue of PopSci about visual cortex neuroscientists who are figuring out how to read our thoughts....
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Posted Tech can be romantic: ask Ryan and Veronica to Boing Boing
This is the first time I thought a Q&A about IM, press events, and World of Warcraft was really romantic: read Geeksugar's pre-V-day interview with tech journalists Ryan Block and Veronica Belmont....
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Posted Donate your old yoga mat to Haiti to Boing Boing
This sign, spotted by James Fallows of the Atlantic in the Marina district of San Francisco, reminds me of that scene in Clueless where Alicia Silverstone donates her skis to the Pismo Beach Disaster. (via @1bobcohn)...
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Posted The penis shrine (NSFW) to Boing Boing
I had dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Tokyo last week where I was seated in front of some very interesting hanging art. It wasn't the only thing about the decor that was conspicuously phallic......
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Posted Hello Kitty pancake shop to Boing Boing
Sometimes, a bag full of bite-sized, custard-filled, Hello Kitty-shaped pancakes is all you need to be happy. At this storefront in Harajuku, a woman in a pink bandanna in a small pink Hello Kitty-ed out room takes your order through a Hello Kitty head-shaped window with a giant pink ribbon. When she hands you the bag full of Hello Kitty pancakes, she says: "Please take your Kitty-chan!" Why do Hello Kitty-branded businesses always have to go for overkill?...
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Posted Alcoholics and girls are bad news at discos to Boing Boing
More random wall art from Kathmandu's Patan Hospital: two newspaper clippings circa 2002 and 2003 that remind us that alcoholism is very bad for society. According to these snippets, alcoholism (and in the former case, girls too) cause disco brawls and premature death. I left this bulletin board itching to know what the continuation of the first article was. What is it that boys usually do at Babylon disco?...
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Posted Video: Annual bean-throwing festival in Japan to Boing Boing
In Japan, February 3rd is Setsubun no hi. Technically the day symbolizes the first day of spring, but this year, with snow from Monday night still lingering on rooftops, it hardly felt like it. Most of us who grew up here think of Setsubun simply as the annual bean-throwing festival. It's a sort of follow up to New Years — to bring good luck in and keep bad luck out, we throw roasted soybeans inside and out while reciting the mantra: "Oniwa soto! Fukuwa uchi!" or, Demons out! Good luck in! After the ceremony, everyone gets to eat the same number of soybeans as his or her own age. This year, for the first time in at least a decade, I happened to be home in Tokyo for Setsubun so I took a short pilgrimage to a shrine in the city where celebrities gather every year to throw good luck soybeans at the crowds. That's where I took this video just a few hours ago. The people in ceremonial coats on top of the balcony are TV stars, athletes, and singers who have been invited to partake in the festivities; the guy in the shiny cone hat is the head priest at the shrine; and the dozens of paper bags and hats being held up from below belong to those of us who went there in hopes of scoring some extra luck for the year 2010. The video is a bit long, but if you stick around (or skip) to the end you can see me pick up a bean from the ground and eat it....
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Posted Taste Test: dragon fruit to Boing Boing
What a beautiful specimen this thing called the dragon fruit is! Its skin looks like the feathers of an exotic bird or the petals of a tropical flower. Cut it in half and you get the most simple black-and-white interior imaginable. It's so... interesting. I have to admit that I didn't know anything about it until I got a serving of crappy fruit salad on my Hong Kong-Tokyo flight earlier this week. Maybe it was just the airplane food thing, but I found it to be pretty bland-tasting. Many of us associate dragon fruit with Southeast Asia because of its prevalence in the region and the use of dragon fruit in some Thai recipes, but it actually has its origins in South America. The fruit is mostly made of water and makes for a great low-calorie snack; it's also a great source of fiber and vitamin C. I have yet to experiment with dragon fruit in my own kitchen, but my instincts tell me it would be great in a martini glass. Try mixing the mashed-up pulp of a dragon fruit with a spoonful of sugar and some vodka in a cocktail shaker and let me know how it tastes! By the way, Febreze announced yesterday that they've just added the fragrance Thai Dragon Fruit to their lineup. I'm assuming that it's made based on the smell of the white dragon fruit flower, not the actual fruit part. Image via John Loo's Flickr...
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Posted Mute button to Boing Boing
I visited my friend Lara at her home in Tokyo yesterday. She just had a baby boy, who is the proud owner of this adorable little pacifier that doubles as his very own mute button. Update: You can buy it on Amazon for $6....
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Posted Buy a modern treehouse for $25K to Boing Boing
Where I grew up in Tokyo, there was never enough room to build a treehouse; I was always envious of kids in America, who all seemed to have one in their giant backyard. (Of course, I know now this is not true.) Looking through the portfolio of German architecture firm Baumraum as me wishing once again that I had one — they've created a series of beautiful modern treehouses made with simple materials for fancy clients. Commissioning a treehouse from these wood construction experts costs upwards of $25,000 and takes three to seven months to build, depending on the health of the tree and complexity of design. Baumraum (via Apartment Therapy)...
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Posted A Nepali child's drug awareness drawing to Boing Boing
This drug awareness illustration drawn by a Nepali child is displayed on a bulletin board in Kathmandu's Patan Hospital. Aasara means "shelter"; the drug addict appears to be bottled up in a shelter crying while two men point weapons at him — one appears to have already fired off a bullet....
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Posted Visual representation of global aid to Haiti to Boing Boing
Using statistics from Reliefweb, GOOD Magazine has created a neat interactive infographic that shows who has given aid (money and resources) to Haiti so far.* Haitian Aid (GOOD) *Data accurate as of Jan 19....
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Posted Video: one possible scenario for the future of dating to Boing Boing
In this kooky video, Finnish interaction designer Mikko Pitkänen imagines a future in which augmented reality helps us find romantic partners through a cone-shaped device called the Love-O-Scope. Perfect for those of us who hate dating... I think. The Love-O-Scope (via NotCot)...
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Posted Human-powered ferris wheel in Nepal to Boing Boing
At the Hindu Swasthani Mela festival held in Kathmandu earlier this month, I spotted a small ferris wheel that appeared to be non-functional. It consisted of four octagonal open-air cages and a simple metal frame. When two kids climbed into one of the octagons, though, a man got up on the other side and started jumping up and down, eventually getting the thing to turn like any other ferris wheel. Apparently this is pretty common in parts of Asia where electricity is not always readily available — like this much bigger two man-powered version filmed in India. The merry-go-round you see in the right corner of the above video, by the way, was powered by a used car battery....
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Posted Advisor: Should chatty cell phone users stick to social networking? to Boing Boing
Last month, while waiting to get my typhoid vaccine for travel to Nepal at the immunization clinic in San Francisco, I found myself sitting across from a super chatty thirty-something year old woman with a cell phone. In the next 15 minutes, I learned more about this woman than I ever wanted to know, about ten times over. That's because she made multiple phone calls in which she had the following conversation, over and over, really frigging loud: "Hey, it's ____, I'm getting my flu sot today, you know, because I work near kids, and because I also work around old people. I've been running around all day, sorry if I'm talking really fast, it's just been crazy and I had a lot of caffeine. But hey, do you want to come over for Christmas dinner? I totally understand if you already have plans, and if you don't end up coming over for Christmas dinner, you're welcome to come over for wine at my house tonight!" When I went home and told Brian about it, he said: "She should stick to Twitter." Which got me thinking — should she have stuck to Twitter, or is there still value in repeating the same information over and over by voice to give the semblance that the message is personalized? The fact that she was in a clinic waiting room made what she was doing super inappropriate. But her loud annoyingness aside, was her archaic method of inviting people over better than a Tweet, an Evite, a Facebook event, or a mass email? My two cents is that it, for something as simple as inviting people over for drinks, an email or text message would have been enough — it would have saved her time, saved her friends time, and been easier to respond to. No matter how crazy advanced communication tech becomes, though, for me there will always be value in non-productive phone conversations with people whom I really care about. Image via Samantha Celera's Flickr Advisor is a column about how to juggle technology, relationships, and common sense. Got a story to tell? Email me at lisa [at] boingboing [dot] net. Previously:Advisor: What should I do with my high school CD collection?Advisor: Was it cruel to let poor kids in India play with my iPod? Advisor: Deleting emails could make you happierAdvisor: What will happen if I clone my dog?Advisor: Are you an Internet addict? Advisor: My husband has a virtual girlfriend Advisor: Don't let social networking ruin your social skills Advisor: Why my GPS is bad for my brain Advisor: The case against iPhones in the bedroom...
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Posted Taste Test: Kabosu to Boing Boing
Kabosu is a citrus fruit that tastes kind of like a cross between a lemon, lime, and yuzu. It gets harder to find the further you get from Oita Prefecture, on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, because 98% of all kabosu production takes place there. Legend has it that the tree first arrived in Oita when an Edo period doctor from Kyoto brought a branch to the region and planted it. Like most other citrus fruits, kabosu is a great source of Vitamin C. People in Oita believe that the vinegars from kabosu are critical for liver health and to stabilize blood pressure. My father is from there, so I grew up eating fish dipped in kabosu-infused soy sauce thinking this was completely ordinary. Because it has a distinct salty flavor, it's confident enough to go solo as a seasoning. Try it sometime! By the way, if you have any ideas for Taste Test items — unusual fruits or vegetables, fun recipes for in-season produce, or a special condiment — send me an email: mango [at] tokyomango [dot] com. Image via cabosu.com Every installment of Taste Test will explore recipes, the science, and some history behind a specific food item. Previously:Taste Test: ginkgo nutsTaste Test: watermelon daikon Taste Test: raw eggsTaste Test: togarashi Taste Test: persimmon Taste Test: red kuri squash...
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Posted Art exhibit examines ancient medical gadgets, dead babies, and George Washington's dentures to Boing Boing
There's a fascinating exhibit at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo right now called Medicine and Art: Imagining a Future for Life and Love. It showcases 150 works of art that represent our fascination with the human body, both as a living machine that we're constantly trying to understand and as an artistic medium. The iconic example of this is Leonardo Da Vinci's cranium drawings from the 15th century (pictured right), part of the Royal Collection belonging to Queen Elizabeth II. But there's a lot more than that. Let's just say this was the first time I'd seen a 1650 amputation saw, George Washington's dentures, and a 19th century English male anti-masturbatory apparatus all in one place. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to explain it in words, so I'll show you some images after the jump. Warning: some of these images are graphic, possibly NSFW, and definitely not for the faint-hearted....
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Posted Tokyo's first "complaints choir" sings of greedy bosses and balding to Boing Boing
Complaints choirs are groups of people in different cities who sing about things that are bothering them. It started in Helsinki and has infected ranters all over the world, in St. Petersburg and Philadelphia and Singapore. Tokyo is home one of the newest (and funniest, in my opinion) complaint choirs. In their official music video, seen here, dozens of Japanese people ranging from young women to businessmen in suits sing about everything from screwed up pension plans to unwanted hairs....
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Posted Advisor: What should I do with my high school CD collection? to Boing Boing
My parents are moving out of the home I grew up in next month, which means I have to go through all my stuff and get rid of most of it. I'm donating my old clothes and manga and stashing away photo albums in a storage box, but my biggest dilemma is this: what should I do with my high school CD collection? It's not even like I have that much left — just a boxful that survived room changes through college and beyond. But as I scanned the song lists from Bon Jovi's Cross Road, The Notorious BIG's Ready to Die, and Paula Abdul's Spellbound, I started to feel overwhelmed. What was I going to do with all this music that I don't really listen to anymore but I still hold dear somewhere in my heart? I don't even have a CD player anymore, except for the one in my car. Here's what I ended up doing: I sat down on my floor and dedicated a good hour to looking through the entire collection and mentally bookmarking the songs that I would maybe listen to again. (Queen Latifah before she went CoverGirl? Maybe just a song or two... or not. The Cranberries? No thanks. Arrested Development? Definitely.) Turns out there weren't that many. Then, I inserted each CD into my MacBook and ripped those songs on iTunes. I could not, in good conscience, throw away the original self-titled Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey or Janet (I must have had those from way before high school), or chuck the cover art for Bad even though there was no CD in its case, so I kept those. I also kept a few cassette tapes to play on the vintage tape player-radio thingy I picked up in my friend's garage. Everything else went in the trash. I'd love to hear what everyone else is doing. If you've faced a similar dilemma as me and found a good way to solve it, please leave a comment! Image via Corazon Girl's Flickr Advisor is a column about how to juggle technology, relationships, and common sense. Got a story to tell? Email me at lisa [at] boingboing [dot] net. Previously: Advisor: Deleting emails could make you happierAdvisor: What will happen if I clone my dog?Advisor: Are you an Internet addict? Advisor: My husband has a virtual girlfriend Advisor: Don't let social networking ruin your social skills Advisor: Why my GPS is bad for my brain Advisor: The case against iPhones in the bedroom...
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Posted Taste Test: Ginkgo nuts to Boing Boing
I love ginkgo nuts. They have a nutty, ever-so-slightly bittersweet flavor and a punchy-soft texture reminiscent of jelly beans that is, in my experience, quite unmatched by other nuts. They're also beautiful to look at — tiny egg-shaped beads that are a pale yellow when raw and take on a translucent, golden-green glow when cooked. When I was in elementary school in Tokyo, my friends and I used to walk past a really stinky ginkgo biloba tree. The stink is one of the reasons why the trees aren't seen near busy streets in the US, even though it's the oldest tree specie in the world. When you buy ginkgo nuts, they usually come shelled, with a light brown casing. The easiest way to prepare them is to fill a frying pan with oil, just enough to cover the nuts, and cook for about three minutes until they're shiny and translucent, and the brown casing starts to fall off. Make sure you pat away excess oil with a paper towel before serving, and sprinkle some good coarse salt on them. My aunt prepared the ginkgo nuts in this picture for dinner last night. My brother and I both love them, so we immediately started popping them in our mouths. Then my mom and aunt both told us that we shouldn't eat more than 10 at once. My mom said it was bad for digestion; my aunt said it would give us nosebleeds and make us stupid. I wasn't sure if this was just folklore if there's some scientific truth to it, but my brother and I both counted back, stopped at 10, and saved the rest for later.* As a supplement, ginkgo biloba extract is thought to improve blood flow and memory. Ginkgo contains antioxidants, which gets rid of free radicals in the body that can contribute to heart disease and cancer. *Later, I found that my mom and aunt's warnings were in sync with side effect warnings that accompany ginkgo biloba extract. I'm sure the chances are low, but as with everything else in life, moderation is the key to staying healthy. Every installment of Taste Test will explore recipes, the science, and some history behind a specific food item. Previously:Taste Test: watermelon daikon Taste Test: raw eggsTaste Test: togarashi Taste Test: persimmon Taste Test: red kuri squash...
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Posted Japanese space food to Boing Boing
In Tokyo yesterday, I bought three packs of Japanese space food at a science museum. Pictured here are a pack of daigaku imo (candied sweet potatoes) and takoyaki (balls of batter with octopus in them). I tried takoyaki, chocolate cake, and pudding. They were all pretty decent, but the pudding — advertised as not too sweet, with a smooth, melting texture — was the only one that I could actually see myself wanting to eat again. For six bucks, though, I think I'll stick to real food as long as I'm on earth....
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Posted Study finds link between house chores and sex to Boing Boing
A study published by the Journal of Family Issues has found that there is a link between household labor time and sexual frequency — the more men help out with chores at home, the more sex a couple tends to have. Lead researcher Constance Gager: "We're not saying that housework causes sex; rather there are groups who 'do it all' and other groups who do not."...
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Posted Vases that look like plumbing pipes to Boing Boing
A French design firm has created a series of flower vases inspired by plumbing. They're made of PVC, and really beautiful — I'd love to have a set like this in my living room. [via Dezeen] Image by Fred DuMur...
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Posted Original blueprints of the Eiffel Tower to Boing Boing
At the Eiffel Tower's official web site, you can check out scans of the original blueprints created by Gustave Eiffel in preparation for the 1889 World's Fair. The famous tower in Paris was the source of much controversy (many thought its skeletal design ruined the classical cityscape) and remained the tallest structure in the world until the Chrysler Building in 1930. [via Gizmodo]...
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