robotmonkeys

the monkeys know all

  • Mechanical Digital Watches

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    De Grisogono Meccanico DG:

    Devon Treadmill:

    Sometime in my childhood, maybe during junior high, I decided there were three things that were symbols of adulthood: coffee, leather wallets, and analog watches. These weren’t just symbols of adulthood, but symbols of The Establishment™. I swore them all off. In late high school or early collage, I surrender to coffee, but I have held on to my digital watches, and my cloth wallets.

    It hasn’t always been easy. I recently carried a leather wallet for a few days last August, and I have been flirting with the idea of an all mechanical analog watch. (It must have a spring. It must need winding. Like the Akribos XXIV AK406SS, but only more durable.) Why mechanical? Because it’s classy, and testament to precision engineering. (Interestingly enough, Wikipedia describes how the number of jewels in the a mechanical watch is essentially meaningless ad copy.) Still, a mechanical watch is analog, and the rule 12 year old Jonathan made was “no watches with hands.”

    These watches from De Grisogono and Devon get around that rule. They’re all mechanical, yet still digital. Ironically, the De Grisogono Meccanio DG is the most digital, yet also the most analog. It uses a series of cams to drive the seven segment displays. It’s ingenious. The Devon Tredmill on the other hand uses belts and geneva drives(?) to display the time directly.

    Yes, both of these watches are extremely expensive and constitute a luxury good, they’re goods I’d love to have, just to admire how they work.

  • Detroit

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    In the original Sim City there were these scenarios that you could play. You were given a city and problem to solve. San Francisco 1906? Earthquake. (Remember, in the even of a major disaster, you may need to be self sufficient for up to 72 hours. Are you prepared? I’m not.) Tokyo 1961? Monster. You get the picture. They were all fairly straight forward, except one. Detroit 1972. Problem? Well… Detroit.

    It’s become a contemporary American past time to bash Detroit. I’m not looking to do that. All I will say that I’ve been to Detroit, and it’s the only place I’ve been where the nightlife was in suburbs instead of the city, and peeking over the sound barriers on the freeway never revealed a nice part of town. It’s clearly a city that has seen better days, and has earned its distinction of being a “donut city.”

    Its historic buildings are either falling apart, or are being looted for new development elsewhere.

    Detroit’s population has steadily shrank since the 1970s, but it still rated as the 11th most populous city, just between San Jose and San Francisco. Unsurprisingly, the city hasn’t depopulated in a controlled manner, so there population is spread thin across the 139 square mile city. This means that Detroit has to maintain an infrastructure for the population 2 million, when less than a million actually use. 40% of the city is fallow. (Of course, this isn’t Detroit’s only problem.)

    For years now, one proposed solution to this problem has been to shrink the city. Unoccupied buildings would be condemned, occupied ones bought, and the population relocated closer to downtown. A more controlled Devil’s Night, if you will. Surprisingly, the talk turned serious last year, with the mayor proposing to shrink the city by a fourth.

    Today, they started.

    Will it work? In 1961, Jane Jacobs described the city as being “largely composed, today, of seemingly endless square miles of low-density failure.” If that’s true, then there’s no core to build around.

    Good luck Detroit.

  • Memes

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    Since I deactivated my Facebook account, (I’m debating about actually deleting it.) I’ve been wanting a way to share (and by “share,” I mean “post to a blog that no one reads anymore”) useless memes. So I created the meme category. It’s hidden from the main page, but it should still show up in the RSS feeds.

    Now you are properly prepared for one half of the battle.

    Update: Fri May 21 23:20:39 PDT 2010
    I’ve had some content-free posts before. I’m killing the meme section. I’m going to reconsider using del.icio.us for links sharing though. Everything should appear on the main page now.

  • The Burlesque-Tattoo Divide

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    You’ve seen the show, now own the tattoo.

  • The Mundane-Awesome Divide

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    Mundane:

    Awesome:

  • LED Sea Urchins

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    Evil Mad Scientist combined some LED throwies with sea urchin shells to create these interesting little lights. Throwies show up a lot on Make, probably because they’re brain dead simple, and like everything with LEDs, fun to look at. Wikipedia even lists some throwie derivatives.

    I guess this means LEDs are the new candles. They’ve already taken over floaters, but at least the tea lights still have hot air balloons.

  • Lego Space Shuttle

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    I loved Lego growing up. I still love Lego. It’s terrific fun. When Star Wars Lego came out, I said if it had come out 15 years earlier, my mind would have exploded. Still, I long for the great blue and grey color scheme of the Classic Space sets. I’d love for them to reintroduce them, or at least make the parts available again, or at the very least, have astronauts wear oxygen tanks again. Apparently, I’m not alone, with these feelings.

    But that was yesterday, and this is today. Lego has announced that for the retirement of the Space Shuttle, they are releasing set 10213 Space Shuttle Adventure. The set features, detachable SRBs and ET, working cargo bay doors, a Canadarm, a satellite, and even deployable landing gears with realistic shuttle slope. (See demo after the jump.) Unfortunately, no oxygen tanks, and the space logo isn’t the same. But, at least the astronaut lives on in some form.

    So why do I mention this? Around last Christmas, my mom was wondering if I wanted an exorbitantly desktop model of the Space Shuttle since I was a huge space geek growing up. I passed. This however, I want.

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  • Pinball Coffee Table

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    When I first saw the Pinball coffee table back in 2006, I thought it looked cool (colored lights shining up on people’s faces always brings a warmth to the heart of this scifi geek.), but at the same time, I couldn’t imagine actually having one.

    A couple of years ago, I went to Shorty’s in Seattle. This bar has booths where the table has a lit pinball playfield in it, just like the pinball coffee table. (In fact, Shorty’s was the inspiration for the coffee table.) Suddenly, I thought that pinball coffee tables were actually feasible!

    I talked to some friends about it, but they’re all against the idea. As Ming put it, “It would look like a kid’s room.” It’s hard to really argue with her, when you see Ed Cheung’s table in the living room.

    I’m not criticizing the build, but I guess the idea. (Even though, I still kind of want one. Especially if it remained playable.) It’s a party piece, but not everyday piece. That’s what I’m saying.

  • Electree

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    Ah, Vivien Muller! Is there anything you make that I won’t post? Above is Electree, his latest creation. It’s a purple Photonsynthese, and is being presented at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris on the occasion of the 1.618 sustainable luxury fair.

    Limited to 1000 editions. Price €4950 (~ $6354).

    I like it. I like the blue of Photonsynthese more though. Don’t like the price at all. More disturbingly, it’s just too derivative of his earlier work. It seems like the big change in this one is that it uses rare earth magnets instead of headphone jacks to mount the solar cells. Really, really don’t like that price.

  • Diaspora

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    I ditched Facebook. I’ve grew tired of:

    1. RSS feeds not updating.
    2. Being frequently mysteriously logged out
    3. Having applications being added just for accidentally clicking on a damn Farmville-esque wall post.
    4. Being straight, and yet being served ads for gay dating sites.
    5. Applications getting all your information.
    6. Seemingly,. everyone getting your information.
    7. Being tracked.

    Facebook always gave me that shit tasted walled garden feeling of the late 90s. I hated how it how it seemed that more and and more techsavy people actually used it to send messages, rather than – you know – email. I like that status updates. I liked that sharing of links, but when I visted CNN.com after viewing Facebook, and seeing my friends’ activity on CNN, I flipped. There’s no reason why that information should be shared. I don’t think I got one of those damn pushed malware apps from Facebook, but I don’t know. Sure, I could have just configured some firewall to block a bunch of stuff, but voting with my feet is much more satisfying.

    Still, I like the social aspect. I am going to miss Mike and Lisa‘s comments. I really will. I like the sharing, but I want an archive of my activity. I want control. What should I do?

    Enter Diaspora.

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