Offbeat

Finnish Gentleman Shows Off His Impressive VCR Collection

This impressively geeky guy, who could either be a Finnish gentleman or Moe from The Three Stooges, I haven’t quite decided yet, shows off his impressive VCR collection in this video, which has a play time long enough to rank well into the scale of creepy. Featuring an over-abundance of awful green screen effects and background music from the soundtrack ...

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2001: A Space Odyssey Monolith… The Action Figure?

Featuring a grand total of zero points of articulation, one of the most iconic images of sci-fi film history is now available in “inactive” figure form. Capable of spurring evolution amongst your other action figures, the 6.75″ monolith is made of “semisynthetic, organic, amorphous, solid materials.” In other words, plastic. But don’t get too excited just yet, the Monolith Action ...

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Writing Ball Typewriter: The Curvy Steampunk Word Processor

The Malling-Hansen Writing Ball was originally unveiled in 1867, featuring a keyboard layout which has long since been buried in the depths of time. Did you know that QWERTY keyboards were originally designed to deter typewriter users from overburdening the keyboard with speedy typing, which would, in turn, jam the keys? But who cares. The star of the show is ...

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10mm of Perplexity: World’s Smallest Rubik’s Cube

I don’t care how big or small the thing is, I still won’t be able to solve the damn thing. Evgeniy Grigoriev beat his own previous record of 12mm by creating this homemade fully-functioning 10mm-across Rubik’s Cube, which comfortably earns the honor of smallest Rubik’s Cube in the world. Perhaps even cooler, a 3D-printing company named Shapeways lets you buy ...

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When Potassium Chlorate Meets Gummy Bear

If you’re unfamiliar with potassium chlorate, don’t feel bad. I was too before I heard about this. Potassium chlorate is a strong oxidizing agent that reacts violently with sugar, any sugar, including gummy bears. Man, what is with gummy bears and our apparent hate for them? We’re always doing something to torture our gummy comrades. When potassium chlorate meets gummy ...

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Chilean Miner Rescue: The Video Game

It took a team of engineers and a massive battalion of supporters 69 days to pull 33 Chilean miners from nearly half-a-mile beneath the Earth’s surface. How long will it take you? Chilean design firm Root33 created this flash game adaptation which brings gamers through the process of Plan B. If you understand Spanish, biographical information about every miner is ...

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Nespresso Capsules Used to Create Coffee Powered Batteries

Vienna designers Mischer�Traxler, also of Automatic Cake Decorator fame, used 700 used Nespresso coffee capsules, coffee grounds, strips of copper and salt water to create these coffee powered batteries. The batteries were used to power clocks at the 2010 Vienna Design Week. Six of the batteries connected together are enough to power a tiny clock. The whole collection of batteries ...

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Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly: The Original Back to the Future Fading Photograph

Over the last few days, original archived footage has been unearthed of the original Marty McFly, actor Eric Stoltz, playing the role before Michael J. Fox was called into replace him five weeks into shooting. Oddly enough, what I find most compelling is this alternative fading photograph shot featuring Stoltz instead of Fox. There’s something oddly surreal about seeing someone ...

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Transformers: The Boring Version

Megatron, such a naughty transformer. I wonder if Michael Bay director of the Transformers Saga would be up to the challenge of creating a literal Transformers movie. Come on, man, there’s definitely an opportunity for some major sparks and explosions, perhaps even some light electrocution. This version of Transformers might not be quite as exciting as the real deal, but ...

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