Category: Curiosities

Invention fail

Being an inventor is such a glamourous career path. Coming up with new and exciting things seems so noble – every one of the products I post here as an inventor or designer.

Sometimes inventions go bad. Sometimes they kill their creator. Here’s a list of people killed by their inventions courtesy of list repository “Listables“…

A couple of my favourite dead inventors…

Franz Reichelt

He invented a parasuit – a parachute in a suit. It didn’t work.

William Bullock

In a bizarre accident, Bullock was killed by his own invention. On April 3, 1867, he was making adjustments to one of his new presses that was being installed for the Philadelphia Public Ledger newspaper. Bullock tried to kick a driving belt onto a pulley. His leg was crushed when it became caught in the machine. After a few days, gangrene set in. On April 12, 1867, Bullock died during an operation to amputate the leg.

And now, some of my favourite lists from listables:

List of words you should never, ever say.

Fonts most used by designers.

List of words only journalists use.

List of words containing the letter x.

I believe I can fly

If you’re a mad keen Asterix fan you’ll no doubt want a set of these head phones designed for a Nokia competition. A competition to design Headphones inspired by your favourite song. This guy’s favourite song was I believe I can fly.

Other winning entries are photographed here.

Hot plate

Little sister number two suggested I should check out designbloom. I did, but didn’t think much of it. Until another site sent me to these awesome plates that aims to do away with any other cooking appliance. Except perhaps a weather forecasting toaster

Shirt of the day: Invisibility cloak

Anyone who uses Photoshop regularly will no doubt appreciate this novel approach to removing unsightly stains…

The Invisibility Shirt – get yours today – you won’t see them tomorrow…

UrbanTrend: Let the word dwell in you

This post will no doubt see me excommunicated by the Southern Baptists. Oh well. I’ll drink to that. From my awesome bible flask.

Our daily Fred: eye want candy

If you’re not convinced that Fred and Friends are the producers of the coolest range of product range available on the interwebs then maybe you should take a lolly from this bag jar, and sit back. They just get cooler from here.

But all that lolly munching will be costly to your teeth – so you’ll need to go to the dentist. Who’ll no doubt be storing their own stash in something as innocuous as this… sweet tooth.

A bunch of links – March 26, 2009

UrbanTrend: Get the party started

Always be the life of the party with by bringing disco to every context. Life is better with disco. Maybe. Try this hat and let me know.

Our daily Fred: The breakfast edition

Two products for today’s email – they’re not sold as a set but will no doubt bring countless minutes of joy to your breakfast routine.

By the way, did you hear the one about the little burnt cornflake?*

Here’s the milk jug… in a convenient half pint size.

And now, the cereal bowl – remember, no crying over spilt milk, but how could you if the spillage was permanently capture in such a stylish fashion.

*I can’t tell you the rest this time… it’s a cereal.

Whoops

Sometimes letting a computer do all your work for you seems like a good idea. Other times it just gets you in trouble.

“The parents of a girl who died suddenly two months ago have been sent a letter from her school demanding she improves her attendance.”

“The letter – dated March 16 – said `students must have at least 92 per cent attendance and Megan’s is currently 60.4pc”

“At the time of her death, headteacher Mr Ward led tributes to Megan. He said: “Megan was a popular, bright girl, with a promising future ahead of her.”

For the full story click here.

Tetris in real life…

This microscopic Tetris was created using 42 glass microspheres (1 μm or 0.001 mm diameter) in a 25 μm x 20 μm sized area under a microscope. They’re then pulled around through the miracles of modern computer technology. I for one am glad research dollars are being spent on this sort of thing.

A bunch of links – March 25, 2009

Convenience store convergence

This week I’m all about convergence devices – toasters printing weather forecasts and the like. One day there’ll be a gadget that does just about everything. Oh wait. That’s an iPhone. Apparently I’m getting my work one soon – fingers crossed…

Anyway. I give you. The Trolley Bike. And instructions on how to make one yourself. Thanks to instructables…

Keep on truckin’

What does it say about me that this made me laugh? A lot. On the third, fourth, fifth and subsequent viewings…

UrbanTrend: cardboard cut out


Gambit was always my favourite X-man as a child. And I was never sure how to recreate his flying cards of death. Cardboard just didn’t cut it.

These would cut it. Just about anything in fact.