Need to Adjust Something? Put a Knob on It!

Does your office mate talk too loud on the phone? Is your dog barking too much when the doorbell rings? Or do you have a kid that just won’t stop whining about some toy they want you to buy them? Wouldn’t it be great if you could just slap a knob on all of them to turn down the volume?

These fun capsule toys from Japan let you slap a knob wherever you need one, giving you smooth analog control over the intensity of anything. They’re designed to look like the heat control knobs on a stove, but the only limit to what they can control is your imagination. Use them to adjust the height of the flame on candles, turn down the foul perfume odor in the elevator, or stick one in your car and use it instead of an accelerator pedal. These dials are way better than a universal remote control!

Seriously, though, these dials don’t actually do anything, but they do make a fun fidget toy, and are also great for pranking people by adding a random dial to things that don’t normally have one.

[via Toy People]

This McDonald’s in China Has Exercise Bike Dining Tables

When it comes to healthy living, McDonald’s is one of the last places that comes to mind. I mean, did you ever see the movie Super Size Me? Well, at one McDonald’s location in China, you can work off a little of your high-fat and high-carb lunch while you eat. Yes, these unique tables have a workout bike built into them. Take a bite of your Big Mac, then pedal. Eat a french fry… pedal again. Peloton has nothing on this!

The TikTok video below shows one satisfied customer as she chows down on her burger and gulps down a Coke while she pedals. Surely she burned off at least five calories of the 500 she just ate, right?

@cris13yu

mc da China kkkk amei a ideia

♬ som original – cris13_u

Apparently, the exercise bicycles weren’t designed for fitness but instead are meant for wirelessly recharging gadgets while you eat – which makes a lot more sense for today’s tech-dependent society. The bikes are installed at the environmentally-friendly McDonald’s Jieyang Wanda Plaza restaurant, which opened last September.

[via Gizmodo Japan]

This Keycap Looks Like a Teensy Nintendo Game Boy

Recently, I wrote about the Thumby, a teensy Game Boy-inspired gaming system that you basically need to be Ant-Man to play. If you like the idea of a miniature Game Boy, but your thumbs aren’t small enough to play that thing, you might want to consider the ZMKC Pocket Game Console Artisan Keycap instead.

These unique keycaps have an awesome retro look that apes the Nintendo Game Boy but stretched into the shape of a truncated pyramid, also known as a frustum. Yep, we all learned a new word today. If you’re typing on a mechanical keyboard, you have a whole bunch of frustums sitting there right in front of you. But I digress. These awesome artisan keycaps come not only in a retro beige color but in bold egg yolk yellow, a muted black, and several other hues in case you don’t care for the classic Game Boy color scheme.

Another neat thing about this keycap is its see-through window, which lets a keyboard backlight shine through like the old Game Boy Light screen.

The keycap is available for pre-order for $35 over on Drop, which means it’s actually more expensive than the playable Thumby game system. But I wouldn’t try gluing one of those onto your existing keyboard. It’ll start playing every time you type, plus you’ll probably get Krazy Glue stuck to your fingers when you’re doing it. Just think, for $35 each, you could replace all 85 of the 1U keys on a standard 104-key keyboard with these things for just about $3000!

Store Your Floppy Disk Coasters in a Wooden Floppy Drive

Do you long for the days when software shipped on a bunch of floppy disks? Yeah, me either. But I do have a soft spot in my heart for collecting retro technology and art that celebrates it out of a sense of nostalgia. A while back I used my laser cutter to make myself some wood coasters that look like 3.5-inch floppy disks, but they just end up sitting out all over the place. I think it would be better if I had a disk drive to keep them in. Well, thanks to Lazerjammer Studios, that’s now a possibility.

This wooden coaster storage box looks like a vintage disk drive, with a slot in the front where you can deposit up to four wooden 3.5″ coasters. The box has a hinged top for retrieving the coasters, and its interior is lined with felt to protect them. Now I’ve tried inserting my floppy disk coasters in a real 3.5″ drive and they just get stuck, and I need a bunch of tools to yank them back out. And never mind what happened when I tried jamming four of them in there. This is a much better solution.

As I mentioned, I made my own wood floppy disk coasters, but the ones that Lazerjammer sells look much more professional than mine, and will definitely fit inside of the storage box/disk drive. So I recommend buying those to go with. They’re sold in a set of four for $24.95. The disk drive also sells for $24.95, so you’re looking at a great gift for under 50 bucks. And don’t forget to flip the write-protect tabs so your important files don’t get overwritten when you put your coffee cup on top.

These R2-D2 Leggings Are a Good Motivator

It’s been a few months since I’ve seen R2-D2 rolling around, but the last thing I remember, he was still shaped like a garbage can on wheels. Well, I guess our little Astromech droid has been hitting the gym because he’s looking quite slim and leggy these days.

Oh, what’s that, you say? That’s not the real R2-D2, but a model showing off her stylish R2-D2 leggings? I guess that makes more sense.

I found these leggings among Etsy shop FringeGeek’s many fun and fanciful wearables, including Wesley Crusher sweater shorts, Ace Ventura’s striped pants, and a Sexy Candy Corn Dress. But I digress. We’re here to talk about this R2 unit. I must have been distracted by some kind of Jedi mind trick.

The stretchy R2-D2 leggings are made from 82% polyester and 18% spandex, which is what all droids are made of. Though I have it on good authority that they’re actually 81.98% polyester and 18.02% spandex because C-3PO had to correct me. That’s what he does. Also, a hologram might shoot out of your butt if you wear these. If these are the leggings you’re looking for, you can grab a pair over on Etsy for $44.99.

Turkey Dinner Candy Corn Is Like Willy Wonka’s 3-Course Dinner Gum

Remember that scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when Violet Beauregard chomps down on the 3-course dinner chewing gum? Well, this is kind of like that, though it’s not going to turn you blue when you get to dessert. Honestly, when I first saw that Brach’s had come out with Turkey Dinner, Apple Pie, and Coffee Candy Corn, I had to double-check that it wasn’t April 1st. But nope, It’s October 3rd, and this stuff is real.

Apparently, they also worked in the flavors of green beans, cranberry sauce, and stuffing. I’m assuming that each candy is a different flavor, and they didn’t manage to cram them all into a single piece of candy corn. I think that would result in the same sort of grey mush that you get when you mix all the paint colors together, only with flavors instead of colors.

I know lots of people hate candy corn, so I’m doubtful that changing them to taste like a complete Thanksgiving meal will change their minds. On the other hand, if candy corn is a guilty pleasure for you this time of year, then maybe you’ll want to try a bag of these. They’re available for $2.49 a bag from Walgreens. I wonder if these make you sleepy after you eat them too.

[via The Green Head]

Darth Vader Chrome Ceramic Mug: The Shiny Side of the Dark Side of the Force

What’s better than sipping coffee from a Darth Vader helmet mug? Sipping coffee from a chrome-finish Darth Vader helmet mug. The Sith Lord’s black outfit is so shiny you could comb your hair in its reflection, but this mug is even more reflective thanks to its mirrored ceramic finish.

I like to imagine Vader walking around his Imperial Star Destroyer like Bill Lumbergh in Office Space, sipping coffee from this mug while micromanaging the crew about missing cover sheets on their Imperial TPS reports and asking them to come in and work on the Death Star II on the weekend.

If you like your coffee dark, like your favorite side of The Force, you can grab the Darth Vader chrome mug on Amazon (affiliate link) for $19.99.

Excel at Sipping Coffee with the Spreadsheet Shortcut Mug

I like to think I’m pretty adept at Microsoft Excel.  Whenever I show some neophyte how to use a Pivot Table, I feel like a spreadsheet god. Despite my skills at manipulating rows, columns, formulas, and macros, I don’t have all the Excel keyboard shortcuts memorized. I mean sure, I’m a master of Copy, Paste, and Undo, but after those, I don’t remember most of them. Now, every time I go to take a sip of hot coffee, I can brush up on my spreadsheet shortcut knowledge.

Firebox sells this Excel Shortcut Mug which lists a number of the available keyboard shortcut sequences for Excel, including classics like “Ctrl Shift +” and “Alt F1.” I had no idea that you could copy a value from the cell above with “Ctrl Shift Quote.” Heck, I’m already smarter and I haven’t even bought this thing yet. Next stop, creating complicated and abstruse financial models that make venture capitalists throw fat stacks of cash at me.

Like all ceramic computer reference materials, the Excel Shortcut Mug holds 12 oz. of your favorite hot or cold beverage and is dishwasher and microwave safe. You can grab one for your desk today over at Firebox for just $11.

 

The Thumby Is the World’s Smallest Game Boy

The whole point of game systems like the Nintendo Game Boy was to make them small enough to carry in your pocket and play on the go. But what if you’ve got really tiny pockets?.. or really tiny fingers? Then you need the Thumby!

Created by TinyCircuits, the Thumby is by all accounts the world’s smallest handheld gaming system. It measures just 1.2″ x 0.7″ x 0.3″ and packs a Raspberry Pi RP2040 processor, 2MB of onboard storage, and a tiny 72×40 OLED screen. It’s also got a really small D-Pad and two buttons, but there’s no way I’d be able to push the right ones with my ape-like digits.

It comes pre-loaded with five retro-inspired games so you can start playing right away, but it’s also fully programmable. Connect the Thumby’s Micro USB port to your computer, and you can create your own custom games using MicroPython or the Arduino IDE. Plus, it’s built on an Open Source platform, which means modding and tweaking are encouraged. TinyCircuits also made it so you can play head-to-head by connecting two Thumbys with a link cable.

Best of all, Thumby won’t break the bank. You can pre-order a Thumby on Kickstarter now for just $19 for the classic grey color or $24 in a color case.

 

This Skull-Shaped Toilet Wants You to Sit on Its Head

When is a toilet not just a toilet? When it’s the best toilet ever! An eagle-eyed shopper spotted this skull-shaped toilet at a hardware store somewhere in Europe, and now I must have one for my bathroom. Only I need it in time for Halloween, so I’m not sure that’s going to happen. But where can one buy a skull toilet? Well, upon further investigation, it looks like this is sold by a French company called WaterThrone, and it’s not just a skull toilet, but it’s also a Bluetooth speaker and has light-up eyes! SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

The WaterThrone is available in other colors, like gold, black, and grey, along with custom colors, but I think the original off-white is the best since, um, our bones are that color. At least I think mine are, but I haven’t been able to check. The product listing doesn’t say how much it costs to sit on this head, but it does let us know that it can support up to 400 kilograms or 881.85 pounds, so that’s good news.