Author Archives: Stirling Matheson

Playing Tennis with a Bokken: Probably Took a Few Takes

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Tennis is a difficult game as is. Even though your ball-bludgeoning instrument is large and paddle shaped, it’s still quite hard. When your bludgeon is sword shaped, because it’s a bokken you carved out of a paddle in the style of Miyamoto Musashi, it’s probably really hard. Hitting a person with a sword can be difficult enough, and a tennis ball is significantly smaller.

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Yes, we’re sure this Cup Noodle commercial took a lot of takes, but that fact that this dude is actually wailing on that ball with his bokken makes him cool, even if it did take all day. It’s like an insane version of baseball where the pitcher doesn’t have to throw the ball near you and it’s cooler because swords.

The player in the video is Ken Nishikori, who is currently fifth in the world tennis rankings. Sadly, he doesn’t normally dress as a legendary Japanese swordsman when playing.

Montblanc E-Strap: A Smartwatch That Hides Behind a Real Watch

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If you like watches, you probably have strong feelings about smartwatches. On one hand, you’re probably in favor of watches that do as much as possible, even if it’s not something you’d use (what lunar phase is it?), but on the other hand, an electronic device is so far divorced from most of the elements of horology that you love. As a result, you may have briefly considered one of the sexier examples, like the Asus ZenWatch, but then decided to just stick with your existing watch.

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Montblanc clearly feels similarly, and has announced the E-Strap, which attaches to your existing watch and has a small device that sits under your wrist that performs some basic smartwatch functions. It works as the obligatory fitness tracker, shows email and SMS previews, caller ID, alerts the wearer based on calendar apps, and give social media updates. It’s compatible with Android and iOS, and will cost around €250 (~$300 USD) when it goes on sale.

[via A Blog To Watch]

There’s a “Shaun of the Dead” Stage Show Coming

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Blood and ice cream have proven to be a great combination. As great as Hot Fuzz was, however, nothing can top the OG Shaun of the Dead. Since there are so many fans of the film, it gets the tribute treatment fairly regularly. We’ve already covered a sweet Left 4 Dead campaign, and now we’re happy to introduce you to this: the stage show version of the classic story.

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While it looks like it would certainly be good fun to go see, I’d rather audition for it. Being a part of a show with Queen sing-alongs and a record throwing scene just sounds like too much fun. All the yelling, movie references, and audience participation seems like it should be a huge hit with the slightly overzealous fans of the show like myself.

Almost Legal Productions got the rights by simply asking, and Simon Pegg is totally behind the project. Right now, there are only plans for performances in Britain, but if it’s at all successful, I could see it coming across the pond.

[via YouTube]

R2-D2 Laser Keyboard Available for U.S. Pre-order

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Normally, I think the general idea of a projected keyboard is pretty cool. A small device can use lasers to simulate a much larger device; it’s very sci-fi. Sadly, the total lack of physical feedback from the keyboard means that it’s awful to actually use. It’s usually an unforgivable flaw. That said, this one takes the sci-fi theme and runs with it, making the fantasy aspect the main attraction in such a way that I’d be willing to deal with it as a travel keyboard for a tablet or phone.

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It does this by looking like R2-D2, a holy figure in the geek community and my wife’s patron saint. We first saw this droid keyboard back in May, but it was only available in Japan. Now, Big Bad Toy Store is taking pre orders for the useful droid at $299.99(USD), so we can have it here in the U.S. too.

Plenty of people spend hundreds on R2 figurines that don’t work as a keyboard for iOS 4-6, Android 4.0 and up, Windows XP and newer, Mac OS X, or Blackberry 10 devices, so we think this will still manage to fly off of shelves. R2 will arrive in January of 2015.

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The World’s Second Coolest Grandpa Made This Death Star Fire Pit

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If you want to be a cool granddad, make cool stuff for your grandchildren. Mine made me a waxed Captain America shield that protected me from water balloons, thrown dirt clods, and many other projectiles, as well as a tree house, and a ton of other stuff that kids love. Moreover, he’s more or less a Clint Eastwood character; when I went to visit him shortly after his 87th birthday he was climbing a tree while one-handing a running chainsaw upon my arrival. As such, the titles of “World’s Coolest Granddad” is taken.

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A different granddad has taken building cool stuff for his descendants to heart, and is now the runner-up for that prestigious title on account of this awesome Death Star fire pit. Redditor Bandia5309 just received this as a present and took to the web to show it off. We’re all thankful, and a bit jealous. Why couldn’t grandpa have also made a picture tutorial?

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[via Reddit]

Replace Star Dust with Cheeto Dust in This Apollo 11 Sweat Suit

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You want to be an astronaut. If you don’t still admit that to yourself, you should realize that you did when you were a kid, until the stupid, adult ideas of practicality and “being reasonable” infiltrated your brain. You still want to be an astronaut. Sadly, your opportunity to get into a space suit has probably sailed on by by now, but this might be the next best thing.

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It’s a little pricey at $139, and some commenters say that the seller wants $85 to ship this, because they presumably swapped out the weights of the sweatsuit and Armstrong’s actual space suit when calculating that. Seriously, is it dropped off by a Saturn V? Or maybe by Armstrong himself? Does it come in a box made out of actual Apollo capsule scraps? Or is it just a ripoff?

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That said, it’s still cool, and when the seller realizes that none are moving because this shipping cost is absolutely stupid.

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[via Fancy via Fashionably Geek]

Forget 3D Printing, 3D Sketching Looks Awesome

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3D printing is all the rage right now, and I’m mildly (read: dangerously) obsessed with it. It’s an awesome tool for design and engineering, which are both things that my brain likes to latch on to. Of course, creations made on computer are often weirdly perfect, and can miss the “soul” that comes with a human touch. That’s why the Polyes Q1 pen looks so cool to me: it’s for 3D sketching.

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The pen deposits resin in one of many colors (and scents, weirdly enough), and cures it nearly instantly with a specialized LED light. This allows the pen to operate without the heat often associated with 3D printing (or other 3D sketch pens), which is kinda a big deal when you’re firmly grasping the printer throughout the entire creation process. I can see it being used not just for freeform object making, but also for quickly building armatures for other projects.

The Kickstarter destroyed its $50,000 goal in just a few days, and it has now broken $70,000 with 36 days to go. The $59 super early bird specials are gone, but you can still grab a pen for $69 here.

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NASA Wants to Send People to Venus on Space Zeppelins

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NASA is getting really metal, as of late. Mars is boring, so we should actually be going to Venus which is full of ultra-high pressures, searing temperatures, and a thick layer of clouds that are made mostly of sulfuric acid. Also, rather than sending a little robot that moves slower than a manatee that’s OD-ing on opium, NASA wants to send a manned zeppelin. More still, this zeppelin would be called HAVOC, because it’s clearly a Hydra project.

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“HAVOC” actually stands for High Altitude Venus Operational Concept and it would be preceded by an unmanned balloon. After that, the proper HAVOC would launch with two astronauts on board for a 30-day mission. This could even theoretically lead to a permanent floating city, because the main reason people join NASA is Star Wars.

This proposal hasn’t been approved yet, but it is an actual proposal, which is pretty cool/nuts.

[via Extreme Tech]

This Nobel Winner Claims Prize Decked out in the Neurons She Discovered

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This is May-Britt Moser, and she, along with husband Edward Moser and colleague John O’Keefe, just won a Nobel Prize for discovering a specific type of neuron. Moser is a leader in spacial reasoning research, and that’s what lead her to this awesome discovery.

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Matthew Hubble is a British fashion designer who thinks that scientists should be “as celebrated as movie stars” and that’s why he designed a dress for Moser to wear when she accepted her award. Yes, it was a nice looking dress, but what’s awesome about it is that the bead work and piping form an accurate depiction of the neuron she discovered.

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Showing up wearing your discovery is pretty badass, and a very cool move, unless you’re Marie Curie. PRO TIP: radiation poisoning is more of a Halloween costume than a formal gown.

Regardless, Moser made a huge contribution to science, and she accepted the award for doing so in absolute style. She’s a boss.

[via Startorialist via The Mary Sue]

Monkey Resuscitates His Electrocuted Friend with CPR

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You should know how to perform CPR, just in case your friend mostly drowns fighting a water elemental, nearly suffocates tossing sawdust on a fire elemental, or steps on a live wire in an Indiana train station. This monkey in Kanpur, India knows how to perform something not unlike CPR, and because of that his friend is alive today.

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Human EMTs aren’t allowed to bite patients, bang their heads on pipes, or drop them into bodies of water, but monkeys are also a lot less likely to press charges over the fact that an EMT gave them a concussion while saving their life. Now that people are calling this monkey “Monkey Doctor,” we can only imagine that overbearing monkey moms are pressuring their young to become monkey doctors and yes, monkey lawyers. It’s only a matter of time until life-saving monkeys face the same pitfalls that we do.

[via YouTube]