Brian Cantin » cool stuff

Excuse Me, Is Your Shirt Glowing?

Brian — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:07:00 +0000

LumiGram in France has come up with some pretty cool fiber optic fabrics. Clothes, table cloths, bags and pillows are lit up with battery powered LED’s running through fiber optics woven into the fabric.

Naturally, this means that all their products need to be carefully hand-washed and can only be folded parallel to the optics to prevent damage. I think this explains why the clothing seems to be oriented towards females since most of their clothes requires special care anyways. Still, I really like the light-up table cloth they have.

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Lasse Gjertsen’s Creative Videos (Or The Evils of Modern Pop Music)

Brian — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:42:00 +0000

There is a young man in Norway who has caught my attention due to just how inspired and creative his videos are, as well as his actual talent. Below is a video he created made from editing tapes of himself hitting various pieces of percussion and some simple notes and chords on a piano.

What he does is cuts them together into a song without actually needing to know how to play either instrument. Sadly, the audio concept this utilizes this is how idiots like Paris Hilton can release a steaming pile of crap and call it music while lacking any talent (or purpose for that matter) entirely.

A final nice touch is the reversal of outfits one might be seen wearing while playing the instruments shown.

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Jet Powered Beer Cooler

Brian — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 15:21:00 +0000

As anyone who knows me can attest to – I like beer. Anyone who knows beer, knows that like revenge, it is best served cold.

I came across one the best examples of overkill in a technical project that I’ve ever seen – the Jet Powered Beer Cooler.
I thought I’d share this, as it’s an interesting project (a home-made jet engine) and one of the craziest applications of jet technology I’ve ever heard of.

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Geek Toy – Roomba

Brian — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 19:13:00 +0000

I’m not much for toys – but sometimes something catches my eye as being a handy thing to have. The Roomba robot, created by iRobot is one such device. Put it down, press a button and this little robot traverses your home vacuming on it’s own. It can go under furniture and has automatic room discovery software that allows it to get a picture of the area to be cleaned and figure out the most efficient way to do so.

It even has the ability to detect areas that are extra dirty and gives them a little extra attention. This is great, for someone like myself – I have a tendency to operate in my own little world and that sometimes leads to unintentional neglect of such tasks such as floor cleaning. Advanced models allow for scheduling of the little cleaning beasty and the Roomba can even park itself in it’s charger by itself.

Imagine you can go about your daily life and this small droid takes care of your floors for you. Replace frequent cleaning tasks such as vacuming and sweeping with merely picking up the Roomba and emptying it’s dirt chamber occasionally.

Of course, at $300 and up (although a refurbished model goes for $200) such convenience is not cheap.

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Beauty, A Mouse Click Away

Brian — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 18:57:00 +0000

Next time you look at a model on a billboard, keep in mind that what you are looking at is not just somone who had a team of professional astheticians dolling them up, but a digitally maniplated image.

Ogilvy & Mather’s – a world famous advertising agency shows just how unatainable the look of most billboard models really is in this very telling video.

The above video is hosted by youtube.com and requires the shockwave-flash plugin for your browser.

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