If you have a habit of putting sticky notes on the edge of your monitor. This website, StickyScreen.org by Jack Cheng, takes the note off the edge of your monitor and puts it smack dab in the middle. The idea is to set StickyScreen as your homepage so that your ‘note to self’ shows up whenever you open a new tab or browser window.

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love this tree

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Socket Deer outlet covers let you put your mobile phone on the wall as it recharges. The antlers for all three types of deer are already the perfect shape to hold things, so Nendo hardly had to modify the forms at all. The tough urethane rubber they used for the cover holds handsets tightly, and also protects the antlers from breakage should you bump into them.

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This is by far the best star wars MOC, and possibly the best MOC ever seen. Simply amazing. This is a lego layout of the battle on Hoth from Star Wars episode IV The Empire Strikes Back.

It took four years, a gazilion bricks and $3,000 to complete.

You can check out all 90 pics over at flickr

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At the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) AirVenture show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in August, Randall Fishman’s ElectraFlyer-C made a virtually silent pass over the audience at a mere 200 feet. What they were seeing (but not hearing) might be the world’s first fully electric-powered airplane. A true alternative the fossil fuel powered airplane.

Fishman, a retired jeweler from New Jersey, has been flying planes and gliders for 30 years. In the mid-1990s, he put together a motorized glider kit, but it was noisy and undependable. It sat in storage until two years ago, when he replaced its gas engine with an 18-horsepower electric motor he and a colleague designed to minimize noise and vibration. He then raised the plane body eight inches off the ground to accommodate a 45-inch propeller, increasing the prop’s thrust by more than half. He also designed battery packs to hold two 75-volt lithium-ion-polymer batteries, which can juice up in midair and propel the plane at 70 miles an hour for 90 minutes on a single charge.

Now Fishman is taking his creation to the public. He sells kits on his Web site (electraflyer.com) that include the batteries and electrical propulsion components. By mid-2010, he plans to offer ready-to-fly electric two-seat planes.

How the ElectraFlyer-C Works

Motor Controller
Located behind the propeller (along with the motor and one of the battery packs), the computerized controller loses only 2 percent of the energy that passes through it from the batteries to the motor, contributing to an overall efficiency of 88 percent (a comparable two-stroke gas engine operates with about 15 percent efficiency).

Regenerative Motor
Flipping a switch in the cockpit turns the propeller into a wind-powered generator, converting its motion into electricity. While cruising, the propeller spins up to 2,400 rpm, charging the lithium-ion-polymer batteries mid-flight.

Digital Gauges
The voltmeter tracks how much juice is left. (Fishman suggests landing if you get down to 60 volts.) Underneath that, the ammeter shows how fast the battery is being sapped. In regenerative mode, a minus sign indicates that the propeller is pumping energy back in

Propeller
Fishman’s original propeller revved between 5,000 and 6,000 rpm, making a terrible racket. The larger (45-inch) direct-drive prop spins at 3,100 rpm at full power and goes easy on the ears.

Battery Packs
For safety, the batteries are surrounded by fireproof ceramic and a thin layer of stainless steel. It takes six hours to charge the pack and costs Fishman just 70 cents on his electric bill.

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A 46 year old Chinese farmer, Wu Yulu, has built his own robot army over the past 30 years. As time went on, his skills at designing robots improved, and while his first model, affectionately dubbed Wu No. 1 could barely shuffle along with small steps, Wu No. 25 is actually capable of pulling Wu around in a rickshaw for up to 6 hours on a single charge.
Now the question is why use them for such boring tasks, if I had 26 robots I would use them in a fiendish plot for world domination, or at least a bit of shoplifting.

via coolbuzz

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The late japanese-american architect isamu noguchi took the concept of water supported foutains to another level when he created this incredible looking set of fountains for the world expo in osaka, japan. the effect is stunning and surreal, the boxes looking as if they are taking off under the force of their own water jets.

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The Tomy xiao is an integrated digital camera and printer that allows consumers to capture, view, and immediately print their digital images without ink, anywhere.  Just like Polaroids of old, photos can now be viewed and shared right away - anywhere and all from one device.  The xiao produces borderless, full-color, 2×3 inch prints in less than 60 seconds. Available only in Japan, hopefully, this will be available for purchase everywhere soon.

via SwissMiss

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Henry Selick’s, the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, is making Coraline, adapted from Nail Gaimans book of the same name. Neil didn’t write it for the screen, only Selick did, which is why he is credited with the adapted for screen writers credit. Selick went as far as to ask Neil whether he approved, and Neil told him to add his own characters/spin on it. In fact Nail asked Selick if he would like to adapt and direct the story before it was even released as a book.

If you usually find stop motion animation movies kind of creepy then this will be the perfect blend of wonder, creepy and fanatasy escapism that all movies should have, but usually don’t.

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