Author Archives: Paul Strauss

Retro Arcade Squirrel Feeder: Insert Coin for Nuts

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Most people treat squirrels like unwanted pests. But if you’re among the animal lovers who prefer to feed the squirrels in your yard, you might want to get a squirrel feeder. And if you love classic arcade games, you’ll want to get this squirrel feeder that looks like a miniature arcade cabinet.

Etsy seller The Tree Rat Symposium makes this tiny arcade machine with its CRT display ripped out and replaced with a place for storing nuts and other snacks for squirrels. Now, if I were a squirrel, I might be disappointed if I saw a “Squirrely’s Arcade” machine and got to it only to discover I couldn’t play Pac-Man or Robotron 2084. But then I’d be like, “but snacks!” and forget all about the crushing disappointment of not being able to spend those quarters burning a hole in my furry squirrel pocket.

My only concern about this thing is that the squirrels will start lining up to play, and then I’ll have to build an entire squirrel arcade with 10 of these things, some squirrel pinball machines, and a squirrel bill breaker. But if you’re not worried about such things, you can grab one over on Etsy for $34.

Divoom Pixoo Max Takes Pixel Art to the Max

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Having grown up in the 1980s, I have a real fondness for pixel art. There are lots of ways to make pixel art of your own these days beyond using programs like Deluxe Paint, from melting Perler beads together to making images with 1×1 LEGO bricks. The Divoom Pixoo Max lets you make pixel art images and animations using a grid of colorful LEDs.

Its 9.6″ screen features a 32 x 32 grid of RGB LED pixels which can be programmed with a companion smartphone app. You can pick from numerous still and animated images in the Divoom Pixel Gallery or create your own. In addition, it can be programmed to display notifications from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram or to display the time or weather.

The Pixoo Max has a built-in stand or can be mounted on your fridge, a wall, or even your car windows. Since it runs on a rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery, you can use it on the road. It’s available from Amazon (affiliate link) for $109.99.

This Mini Wiener Dog Speaker Cranks Out Dachsounds

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The driver in a speaker cabinet that puts out the low frequencies is called a “woofer” or a “subwoofer,” but I’m guessing this 3″ long wiener dog speaker is more about his charm and cute looks than his abilities to produce deep bass. The little red dachshund connects via Bluetooth and requires no walks, dog treats, or rabies shots. And the next time someone asks “Does your dog bite?” you can answer with a very confident “No.”

If your landlord won’t let you have a real dog but will let you play music as loud as a 3″ Bluetooth speaker can play, this should be a great purchase. You can adopt your own wiener dog speaker from Firebox for $14.

 

 

NECA 1989 Batman Grapnel Launcher: Ever Dance with the Devil in the Pale Moonlight?

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When Tim Burton’s Batman came out in 1989, I thought it was the best version of Batman yet. Michael Keaton made a great Bruce Wayne, Jack Nicholson was an awesome Joker, and Burton’s dark vision of Gotham was a fresh take compared to the campy 1960s Batman I grew up with on TV. Plus, a soundtrack by Danny Elfman, with songs by Prince? C’mon. The movie had lots of quotable lines, too, like Joker’s “Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys?” Well, in the case of Batman’s Grapnel Launcher, the answer is NECA, who is now making a screen-accurate replica of the Dark Knight’s handy gadget.

The plastic Grapnel Launcher toy can launch its shiny gold grappling hook and makes sound effects and would look great as part of your Batman cosplay. Ixnine posted an unboxing and demo video which shows off its basic functionality:

It looks really cool, and for just $15 I think it’s a steal. But given its flimsy string attachment, I wouldn’t recommend using this to scale buildings or to wrap up criminals and toss them off of catwalks. At the moment, these are hard to find, but if you poke around your local Target or Best Buy store, you might be able to find one.

[via Toy People]

A Gallery of Clear Gadgets

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The first time I had an electronic gadget that I could see inside of without cracking it open was the original iMac G3. With its semi-transparent colored backside, you could barely make out the electronic components inside, and even then, most of them were hidden beneath massive RF shielding. But it turns out that there have been many gadgets, computers, and electronics inside of clear shells over the years. The guys at Computer Love Records got me thinking about these see-through devices and found a clear Apple Newton, a clear Polaroid 660 instant camera, a clear GameBoy Color, among others.

Polaroid 660 Special Edition Camera

While my initial assumption was that these transparent versions were meant to keep prison inmates from hiding contraband inside of them, it turns out that it’s common to develop clear pre-production prototypes so that engineers and designers can see the placement of components inside. Beyond that, sometimes brands release special see-through versions of their products, as Sony did with its Crystal DualShock controllers. Scroll down to see the complete our gallery of transparent computers, gadgets, and electronic gear:

Apple Newton MessagePad 110 Prototype

See-Through Prison TV

Game Boy Color Launch Edition

Apple Mac Portable Prototype

Sony Crystal DualShock 4 Controller

Vintage 1980s Unisonic Phone

Apple Vintage eMate 300 Laptop Prototype

Sony PlayStation 2 Slim (SCPH-9000x) Prototype

The Ghosts Give Chase in this LEGO Pac-Man Automaton

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Wakka Wakka Wakka, Everything is Awesome! It’s LEGO Pac-Man time! Do you love retro arcade games and LEGO bricks? Well, then, you’ll love this LEGO Pac-Man display that moves when you turn its crank.

The 1603-piece set was designed by LiteBricks and submitted to LEGO Ideas. Its modular design lets you rearrange its pieces so Pac-Man can be chased by ghosts, gobble dots, chase blue ghosts, or make a hasty escape as their eyeballs scurry home to regenerate. Or any combination thereof. The set features a mini Pac-Maze on its side, made up of 1×1 round LEGO bricks.

If you’d like to see this set go into production, you can show your support by casting a vote on LEGO Ideas. If it gets at least 10,000 votes, it’ll go to the LEGO Ideas internal committee for consideration. I’d love to see more LEGO sets inspired by classic arcade games. The plastic bricks gave us pixel art before pixel art was a thing, so it’s a natural fit.

If Animals Were Made from Bread

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Bread was meant to be eaten, right? Well, what if your bread had four legs and was kind of adorable? Would you become gluten-free right then and there? I might think twice, but probably not. These wacky toys are based on the concept of “Living bread.” The design for the quadruped bread started as a collection of handmade wool-felted creations by Atelier Hatena.

Apparently, the idea was so popular that they decided to make a series of less expensive bread “Gashopon” – which are the kinds of cheap collectibles you might find in toy capsule vending machines in Japan. The plastic toy series includes toast, pretzel, croissant, dinner roll, French, and pineapple bread, and every single one of them looks good enough to spread butter and jam on right now. They’re going to be available this November for ¥300 each – that’s about $2.75 a piece. But I’m hungry right now! Fortunately for the living bread, I’m on a low-carb diet, or else these things would be toast.

[via Toy People]

A LEGO Sony Walkman Sounds Like a Great Idea

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Back in the days before streaming, MP3s, and CDs (and dinosaurs still roamed the Earth), all the cool kids had a Sony Walkman. This portable cassette player was a revolution for those wanting to listen to their tunes on the go and sold more than 200 million units by the time Sony stopped production of its cassette-based Walkmans in 2010. Now, thanks to one clever LEGO creator, we could soon be carrying a Walkman again. This 1:1 scale replica is based on the Walkman WM-22, which wasn’t the first Walkman, but it was the first truly affordable model, and it also looks pretty great in this red color with matching LEGO headphones.

Of course, there are two big differences between brick-builder Jerac’s LEGO Walkman and a real Sony Walkman: 1) you have to assemble this one yourself, and 2) the LEGO one doesn’t play music. Of course, it’s possible that if LEGO decides to build this – and Sony decides to play ball with the licensing – that they could come up with a clever way for it to play music. Wouldn’t it be cool if it worked as a digital media player, and the controls actually worked? And to show your significant other that you love them enough to make them a mixtape? Well, I can dream, I suppose. But even if the LEGO Walkman doesn’t play music, I’d still buy one. I mean, look at it. It’s too cool not to.

If you dig the idea of a LEGO Sony Walkman, take a stroll over to the LEGO Ideas site and show your support with a vote. If the project gets enough votes, it could go into production. It’s already got more than 4,000 supporters, and once it hits 10,000 it goes to LEGO’s expert review team for consideration. Cast your votes and let’s see if we can help make it a reality.

[via Gizmodo Japan]

This Giant Chocolate Bar Is the Sign for a Japanese Chocolate Factory

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I’m currently on a low-carb and low-sugar diet, but I’ve been craving chocolates lately. And now that I’ve seen what is likely the largest chocolate bar on the planet, I really need a sugar fix. This gigantic chocolate bar is the facade of the Meiji Confectionery factory in Osaka, Japan. It measures roughly 544 feet wide and 91 feet tall, and holds the Guinness World Record for the largest advertising board made of plastic. I guess if they made it from chocolate it would quickly melt in the sun. I remember the time I left a Hershey’s bar in the glove box of my car. It wasn’t pretty.

The chocolate bar was installed back in 2011 but is not widely known as a tourist attraction to visitors outside of Japan. The massive sweet treat welcomes visitors to the factory and tempts them as they enter the building. I bet it smells like delicious warm chocolate outside this place too.

The wall of chocolate looks delicious, and if it were really edible, I’d break off a square and get to work on my snack fix for the month. If you need proof that this isn’t a Photoshop job, check out the Google Street View of the giant chocolate bar. You can also see how they assembled the display piece-by-piece in the video below:

Normally, the Meiji factory is open to the public for tours, but after the pandemic hit, they restricted access only to school groups and only those who reserve in advance. In the meantime, if you’re craving some Meiji chocolate, Amazon has a large selection (affiliate link) of these Japanese candies. I need to get myself a box of those Hello Panda cookies right now. Oh well, there goes my diet.


[via That’s It, I’m Architecture Shaming]

Modder Turned Nintendo’s Virtual Boy into a Handheld

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The Virtual Boy was Nintendo’s ill-fated attempt to create a 3D virtual reality gaming system back in the 1990s. The system required that gamers align their eyes with a tabletop viewer, much like those things they make you look into when you get a vision test at the DMV. It produced red-on-black images using LEDs and rapidly moving mirrors, and was controlled with an external joystick that you couldn’t look at while your eyes peered into the headset. Now, more than 25 years later, a talented modder has managed to build a completely working version of the Virtual Boy as a handheld.

Shank Mods says he spent almost a year on his “Real Boy” conversion, which incorporates an authentic Virtual Boy motherboard and is not an emulator. It takes real Virtual Boy cartridges, displays them on a modern LCD screen, and has a built-in controller with bright red LED backlighting. The build required creating several custom circuit boards and developing code for the custom controller circuit. The whole thing is wrapped up in a custom red and black 3D printed case.

Shank explains how the original Virtual Boy worked and the challenges in converting it to a handheld in the video below:

Awesome build, Shank!

[via HackADay]