After being commisioned to cover an entire train station consisting of 8-bit artwork, Finnish artist Lars Arrhenius went to work. The Thorildsplan Tunnelbana station, a train station in Stockholm, Sweden, was redecoratred in 2008.
The entire station is covered in artwork inspired by early 1980′s Nintendo games. The artowrk consists of Dig Dug, Pacman, Super Mario Bros, and Legend of Zelda.
It is a quite the popular piece of artwork. It has even been used in a video. MadCraft, a punkpop band from Finland, used the creation as a backdrop for the music video for the song NeverAgain.
The tone of tonights show was different right up until the time we had to record it. Am I going to spend the whole episode rehashing and talking about it? No, but things deserve their due. And a man as great as Steve Jobs deserves no less than our admiration, respect and condolences to his family. He created a great many beautiful things, some will stand the test of time and others will not. his spirit will live on in the company he helped found and the choices he made. Let us all hope there is another crazy cocky genius in their garage tonight planning to take over the world one shiny gadget at a time.
A phrase I unabashedly derrived fromt he term Cowboy Up, indicating that the person was about to do some hard work. Same thing but for creative endeavors there is less likely to be a physical rammification for a poor performance, but any effort needs to be maxed out.
Only one way I know to burn the candle at both ends, throw care to the wind and get funky with some design. And that, quite simply is to Coffee Up!
Bet you never thought a whole lot of thought went into that did you?
If you were like me, you would always hear the phrase, “No skating in the house!” With a house built for skating, what would parents say?
In Malibu’s Las Flores Canyon section, in California, a house is being constructed for the purpose of skating. The idea was given to architecture, and author of “Air Architecture”, Francois Perrin by Founder/CEO of Soul Technology Inc., and world-renowned skater Pierre-André Senizergues. The name of the house is “PAS”, is in honor Pierre, who will be the occupant of the home.
The house, when finished, will be measure at 2,200 sq ft. and will have virtually no corners. It is considered a skaters dream house. It will have all the rooms a normal house would have: master bedroom, kitchen, and lounge. All the interior furniture, which is designed by Gil Le Bon Delapointe, will be skateable. The furniture will come from the Skate Study House collection.
Take one part greek humor, and two part industrial design innovation and you get the unlikely marriage between a soup ladle and a coffee mug. brain child of DEDE DextrousDesign, this is a bit of whimsy i could get being. I’m not one to quibble about the shape of your mug as a functional device. As long as it holds coffee I’m all for it. And this one seems to be specifically designer for Soup Slurpers. The site hosting the project CKIE (Seeky) is a crowd-sourced design project source. So if you like the slurp mug and you think the financials are sound head on over and give them a commitment.
If there is one game that would revolutionize gaming to what it is today, it would be Space Invaders. To this day, it is still one of the most popular games from when gaming began. However, there are some facts that you may not know, so let’s give some facts.
Believe it or not, Space Invaders almost had a different name. The game’s creator, Tomohiro Nishikado, originally wanted to call it “Plane Invaders.” However, because he had some problems with design, Tomohiro was looking for inspiration for some changes. At the time, Star Wars was the biggest movie that was out, and the popularity of it was growing. As soon as he knew which way to go with the idea, he needed a design. That is where H.G. Wells came in. His book, The War of the Worlds, gave Tomohiro the image he wanted. That is when Space Invaders was born.
Although There were plenty of games to play before Space Invaders, they all lacked one thing…High Score. Games would be played just for the fun of it. However, once high score was introduced, gaming became a competition. This would give the gamer a goal, get the highest score. Even today, this is considered the number one reason to continuously play the same game over and over again.
Before Space Invaders, the Atari system was selling at a good rate. However, when Space Invaders starting to sell for the home system, sales for the Atari 2600 quadrupled more than their normal rate. It is considered to be the first of many “killer apps.’
And believe it or not, Space Invaders is being considered to be made into a movie. The only problem, that I assume many see with this, is that there isn’t much of a story line behind it. Although, with how creative writers are these days, I think it would could turn out to be a must see movie.
I have writers block, not the little kind were you can think of a special fun word for the correct shade of orange but the honest to goodness stare at a blank page and wonder where all the win went. I had so many ideas, and now i swear i hear an echo. but thank goodness for the kindness of friends and contributors. Steve and Tara filled in some great stories for this week when the words were not only not flowing but I think they migrated south. All that aside we have a metric ton of fun and interesting things to talk about today, and some more interesting stuff in the pipeline.
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Thanks for Listening & Stay Caffeinated!From the Chief Bean @ The CaffiNation Podcast“High Octane Caffeine Culture & Technology News” Phone 215-240-1319 | Twitter@caffination | Facebook Fan PageSubscribe via | RSS | iTunes | ZuneThe CaffiNation is a Puzzle Piece Production
So there are plenty of things to talk about today, information security, LED’s, Zombies, Espresso, hacking and iPhones, because what would round out a fun old fashioned mish mash of an episode like a complete 360 of internet and caffeine culture?
This show runs the gamut of geek culture and coffee nerdness, From Legos and Zoo animals to pranks gone wrong, we have a good deal of retro fun in this episode with tributes to all the classics you know and love as well as some you may have forgotten
There are a great many obstacles in my way when it comes to net books. One being the system specs are a little low for something I would use. Because i tend to run a ton of different applications all at once, it comes with the scatterbrained territory, deal with it. And the other being the size of many hands and fingers. Small little keyboards, no matter how well designed just don’t work with my hands. I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland at the wrong Tea party.
So the system specs aside, I can always try to work at either a slower pace or just doodle on the side while the computer catches up wouldn’t be the first time that happened. But the keys are addressed in this spiffy concept design from Yanko. The iWeb has a fold-able keyboard and so many other features, if they got rid of the nubbin mouse and had a trackpad I’d be all set! Make sure to check out the full specs at Yanko
If you have been listening in or reading this site for very long you know I love the steampunk aesthetic but even more than that I love clockwork devices. The beauty, the symmetry and the precision required to create a functional timepiece that goes beyond most tech. Yes computers are intricate but their beauty is in programming. The beauty of a well machines or crafted clock goes beyond that. Is it something about the craftsmanship and skill required, I’m not sure. But either way I’d love to be able to make one some day.
Conner Boyle has made it that much easier to do so. On his website he has wooden clock plans for sale, the design is his and the skill needs to be yours. Someday I’ll give it a go when I can devote the time and the resources needed to build one. In case that describes you head on over to his website and try your hand. If you happen to be good enough to do it, there are “Master” level clocks, in a place he calls Masochist’s Corner, that the only way he’ll sell you the plans is if you send him a picture of one of his simpler clocks or sculptures completed. Amazing stuff. Hit after the jump to see a video of one of the clocks in motion.
Why would a Talented woodworker like him share these gorgeous plans? Well I’ll let him explain
“Selling plans for the clocks on this page goes against my basic philosophy of trying to spread joy in the world through creative woodworking. However, I have come to the conclusion that I should not stand in the way of a woodworker’s desire for additional frustration in his/her life when they obviously want it so badly.“
I have finally found a soup to nuts Steampunk machine / design concept that I can really get behind. From the looks of things each and every little detail is taken care of. I hate it when the aesthetic doesn’t extend correctly and seamlessly to the peripherals. With this design shown over at Yanko Design, they thought of everything. From the speakers to the mouspad having a tiny little desk lamp over it. Even the cabling is wrapped to look the part.
The machine appears to be a mac mini, and is inscribed with The Apple Company, Gearless Calulating Device. The best part is if you follow through to the original designer and you have the extra coinage you too can have one of these beauties built for you by Old Time Computers.
I’m a sucker for well made and well designed tools. And one of my most frequently used tools of late is my sketchbook. My sketchbook however is almost used up and in quite poor condition, So i’ve been looking around for another to replace it.
I came across These beautifully constructed Xylobooks by Container Corps. Using reclaimed woof from a local furniture factory. these 128 page books are a stunning example of handcrafted, hand-bound design. For such quality they don’t seem to be overly expensive at 45.00 per. The selection of woods obviously varies with the availability of the resources
Rethink Hanger uses plastic bottles to hang clothes. Imagine cutting down on plastic entering the waste stream and at the same time making something useful for yourself. This contraption allows you to screw two bottles into a plastic hook creating an item thatis in need.
The unit will cost 8 dollars per hanger, which is quite a nut to crack when you consider trying to fill a closet. Also you need to consider the extra room the bottles would take up over the dread wire hangers. If there was some way to melt or flatten them slightly this would be a fantastic idea.
Michael Deal Charts the Beatles. For a band that made a consistent hits. Its a well know fact that i have a serious weakness for Infographics and so call “infoporn” in general. I aspire to see things as these artists do.
The above chart is an example of splicing the authorship of different Beatles with color coded bars. Seeing the authorship and the control over the musical direction over the course of their run visually gives a different sense as to how the band was creatively organized. In this case it’s not just about the band, which i like, but rather the different ways of conceptualizing the information that represents the band.
Eventually this larger infographic collaboration is going to be housed at http://www.chartingthebeatles.com/ so if you’re like me and dig yourself some infographicskeep it on your radar
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