Take a peek at this psychedelic time lapse video of various molds and mushrooms. It’s complete with techno music that’s sure to make your hallucinogenic experience one to be remembered. Remember folks, eat fungus responsibly; there is no telling what could happen.
Sometimes size doesn’t matter. But we all know that only men lacking in the trouser snake department say that. For example, don’t buy a Ferrari because you have a tiny penis. Sure, you’ll get a date out of it but, once you drop your pants, that girl will be singing to the whole town about what you aren’t packing.
Why not show her something worth talking about that isn’t connected to your body, like the Little Lamp. What makes it so little? The fact that its power source is also its stand, which happens to be a D-cell battery. It packs quite the punch for such a tiny lamp and one battery provides 150 hours of light from an LED bulb that’ll outlive the next 40 batteries you use on it. At $35, it won’t confuse your lady friends at the dinner table like the lamp candle and it’ll also give them a hint of what’s to come.
Some Russian modders managed to rip themselves away from South Ossetia for a few minutes and got to messing around with an iPhone. The end result? They made the Apple logo glow when the phone is on. A difficult mod? Hardly. All you need is a white LED with a resistor. Hook it into a power source and a ground on the iPhone and you’re good to go. The only problem is finding someone willing to give up an iPhone for surgery. Good luck with that.
In the future everything is microscopic. We’ve got robots that can get inside your intestines to distribute medicine with their tiny robot hands, but what about solar race cars no bigger than a quarter? Now we’ve got those too. This 33 x 22mm car runs on light, artificial or otherwise. Just chase after it with a flashlight and watch it go. You can grab your own for about $23. Try not to lose sight of it.
Alex Weber is firefly crazy. He’s so fascinated by the synchronization of fireflies that he programmed these Amtel ATtiny chips to simulate the harmony of blinking light that fireflies are known for. At first, the microcontrollers blink in no particular rhythm but as time goes on, they are able detect the flashes of their neighboring LEDs and sync themselves in unison. It makes the unsynchronized LED cape look so yesteryear.
He’s posted DIY instructions and the algorithm for the microcontrollers on Instructables.com for anyone who wants to duplicate a jar full of fireflies. Now if only LED body piercings would blink in unison.
Sometimes you stumble across a piece of gadgetry that can really help brighten up your home (both figuratively and literally). Essentially, the Smoon Ombrella is a device that acts as a light source and vaguely resembles a glowing moon in the sky when placed on your Manhattan rooftop or sun room or dungeon, etc. The product of furniture designers Beau & Bien, this LED lamp runs off solar energy and can go a whopping 6 days on just 10 hours of charge.
This Plexiglas beast won’t come cheap. At $2200, it’s most certainly catered to the rich. Something tells me you could design a similar non-solar version for much cheaper.
What better way to translate audio signals into light patterns than with this DIY project from Electronicpeasant.com. Throwing a few parties at your house while your rents are in Tahiti? Build a bunch of these, throw on some jam band music and take some hallucinogens to pay tribute to the late great Albert Hoffman. Perhaps some of your friends could bring over their DIY E-bolas to turn the party into a real rave that’ll have the police there (partying with you) in hours (they were busy). With LEDs for lights, the color organ was designed for extended battery use and doesn’t burn too much power. After all, no one wants to change a battery whilst under the influence.
Not much is known about this red lamp that’s shaped like a huge cupcake diamond. It’s produced by IARF (Interior Adventures For Real) who I assume has quite a sense of humor. For real.
The picture above is Microsoft’s new fortress of solitude for Bill Gates. Just kidding, it’s actually a fire station in Mexico City. It was designed by the companies At 103 and BGP Arquitectura. It’s not much of a looker during the day but at night, light shines through the slits in between the chrome-like plates for an impressive light show you’re guaranteed not to find at any other fire station.
Why such a fancy fire station? Well, it also serves as a recruiting center. As such, you’ve got to have an appealing environment if you want to attract heat-craving lifesavers that are not only crazy enough to wear a fire hose, but also crazy enough to take a job that’s about as dangerous as it gets.
Santa Monica recently held its first GLOW festival on July 19th, an all-night event of media art, performances, music, and sculpture. The most memorable of all was perhaps Usman Haque’s art installation called Primal Source. It looks like a smaller-scale northern lights, being made up of a large water spray screen that projects light patterns aided by the perfect backdrop of a darkened sky.
The coolest and most engaging aspect of the design was Haque’s idea to use microphones around the installation that allowed the crowd to alter the display through their reactions and the noises they were making. The cheers and shouts of the crowd made way for a wickedly impressive light show.
