Year: 2009

Categories
Cautionary Tales Gadgets Science & Technology

These Carnivorous Robots are Powered by Bugs

The day you thought would never come has, erm, come. No it’s not free Internet for Africa, or nekkid Megan Fox photos, rather a series of robots that can consume flesh and live off it.

UK-based designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau have created a series of robots that ensnare hapless insects and digest their remains to power themselves.

In this flycatcher/timepiece, the device possesses a sticky roller to trap insects and transports them to the microbial fuel cell. Bacteria within the sell digests the insects and produces energy to run the clock and keep the roller moving.

See two more robots after the jump.

Continue reading “These Carnivorous Robots are Powered by Bugs”
Categories
Flash Games

Play This: Dynamic Systems

Inspired by the Rube Goldberg process of creating machines, Dynamic systems is an addictive puzzler that has you fabricating elaborate machines to perform a simple task – in this case it is to make the little metal ball go in the bucket. There are 40 levels to complete.

Play Dynamic Systems at Kongregate.

Categories
Awesomeness Movies

I am Your Illustrator: Awesome Darth Vader Images

As iconic villains go, Darth Vader is surely one of the greatest. Falling to the dark side of the Force, the Sith Lord not only possessed a face for radio, but also became the scourge of the Jedi.

Given his supremely awesome powers (the Force Choke being my personal favourite), it’s no surprise to find Vader immortalized in some way or another. And here are some illustrations of the dude getting down with his bad self.

See more at Abduzeedo.

Categories
Cautionary Tales Video Clips

A Deaf Girl Learns to Play the Violin

In this video from Thailand, a young deaf girls goes through a gamut of emotions and even physical pain in her quest to play the violin at a recital.

As a tale of the underdog, I thought it was very touching and my eyes went a little moist…until I go to the end of the video, whereupon I felt a bit cheated. See what I’m talking about below.

Let us know what you thought about it.

[via chinaSMACK]

Categories
Competitions Site Announcements

Friendly Reminder: Win a Mooks Hamper!

Note: This competition has ended.

Just quick reminder of our latest competition where we’re giving away a fantastic Mooks hamper worth R2000. We’ve got a great response thus far and if you want to stand a chance of winning head to our Mooks competition post and get your entries in. The competition will end at midnight July 5th.

Also, if you’re in Joburg and fancy some new kit, Mooks will be having a sidewalk sale at The Zone @ Rosebank – it starts today and ends on Sunday. See the flyer below for all the details – click to embiggen.

Categories
Site Announcements

And we’re Back!

Overnight, the Onelargeprawn blog seems to have suffered a cardiac arrest of sorts, and I was greeted with the dreaded Bandwidth Limit Exceeded error as I tried to log on today. Needless to say, we’re back from the dead thanks to the resuscitate hands of our hosting company Texo – cheers lads  ;-) Transmission will resume shortly.

In case you somehow missed it, the Interweb is awash with news of Michael Jackson’s death. Doctors were unable to revive the king of pop when he experienced a cardiac arrest earlier this morning. His unexpected death has not only devastated fans, but also started speculations as to what killed him. The jokes have begun as well, and it seems Horatio from CSI Miami is on the case.

Is it a little too early for the jokes? Probably, but this is the unstoppable force of the Internet.

[R.I.P. image credit: Typecut]

Categories
Cautionary Tales

Adventures in Sexism: Vintage Volkswagen Ad

Sexism in advertising wasn’t such a troubling issue back in the day, especially in the 60s. In this gem from 1964, Volkswagen would have you know that whilst women can be soft and gentle, they tend to hit things. See the ad below – click to embiggen.

If she does have a prang in a Volkswagon, it won’t hurt you very much at all because VW parts are easily replaceable and cheap, like your wife. OK, so they didn’t add that last bit, but I’m surprised they didn’t go the extra mile and do that.

BONUS: See nine disturbingly misogynistic old print ads at Blog of Hilarity.

[via Buzzfeed | Image credit: malcontentdiary]

Categories
Arty Awesomeness Featured Inspirational Designs

Shohei Otomo’s Badass Manga Illustrations

Artist Shohei Otomo combines traditional Japanese art with modern style to create some amazing manga illustrations. From geishas in bondage gear to ninjas playing baseball and a fair dose of sex and violence tossed in, Otomo’s work is pretty odd to say the least. As regular commenter Macross would say, “The bomb really did affect them more than they care to admit.“

Here’s a small gallery. Click the images to embiggen.

See more of Otomo’s badass illustrations at www.hakuchi.jp [some content NSFW]. Pity it’s all in Japanese, I’d surely like to what he was smoking when he made them.

[via Popwhore]

Categories
Movies Video Clips

The Basterds are Coming!

We ain’t in the prisoner-taking business. We in the killing-nazi business, and cousin, business is a’ booming!

In Quentin Tarantino’s war film, Inglourious Basterds, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as “The Basterds” set out to scalp and kill Nazis, and blow up a couple of things along the way. This is the latest trailer – see it below or watch it in HD at YouTube.

It’s due for release the US in August ’09.

Categories
Awesomeness Mindlessness Music Video Clips

Enter the ToneMatrix

Andre Michelle, the creator of ToneMatrix describes his lab experiment as a “Simple sinewave synthesizer triggered by an ordinary 16step sequencer.” That’s geek-speak for what is a fun and addictive music maker that sounds awesome no matter what you do.

ToneMatrix comprises a 16×16 grid where each block in the grid represents a specific tone. Click a block to light it up and it starts pulsing a single musical note. Click on another block and you’ve started to make a loop. Create your own patterns or just fool around for a while. It’s a simple concept that can result in some amusing compositions.

Give it a try at lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix.

I’ve made a little start on a tune of my own. If you’d like to listen to it, copy the following set of numbers, right-click anywhere in ToneMatrix, and select Paste.

65536,0,65792,2064,73728,0,65664,1024,65544,0,65664,4608,98304,128,67584,0

BONUS: Hit the jump to check out songs other YouTubers have made.

Continue reading “Enter the ToneMatrix”