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oobject: 'daily user-ranked gadget lists'
As flat screen TVs become ubiquitous, vintage TVs look more and more interesting and unusual. From early mechanical TVs consisting of a spinning disk and lens (which look even better without an enclosure), to Sony's original transistor TV and portable LCD sets from as early as the 80s. Here are some of our favorites from collector sites around the web.

28 fantastic vintage tvs

Resqtec make instruments that prise open cars after a crash or find people in the rubble of buildings after an earthquake. What's amazing about this equipment, however, is quite how beautifully designed it is.

6 resqtec emergency devices

A Sky Hook is an impossible item that interns were traditionally sent out to buy , as a prank. These eight flying cranes, seven helicopters and one blimp, are as close to reality as sky hooks can get. The blimp proposal is actually named the Sky Hook.

8 Sky Hooks

Included here are regular freeway loads over 100ft in length, which you would probably not want to get stuck behind. However, our favorites are the unbelievably large coker oven trailers which have 160 wheels each, and the specialized boeing transporter, with its secondary cab beneath the trailer, at road level.

8 extreme truck load videos

There is a strange beauty to slow motion videos of car crash test dummies and airbag deployment, but these don't compare to the similar, but far more extreme safety measure of a fighter jet ejection. Here are videos of various aspects of their deployment testing and training. Some of these are absolutely mesmerizing.

10 videos of ejection seat tests

Bang and Olufsen are famous for their superior design in electronics in the period prior to the 80s, yet there are no designers employed by the company. Instead, all design is traditionally outsourced and the Bang and Olufsen heyday, when their products were must have items for the homes of architects and designers is largely due to one man Jacob Jensen who designed a range of classic products between the late 60s and 80s.Like Apple today, Jensen obsessed with build quality and finish, and eschewed visible buttons wherever possible, using below glass illuminated controls and even proposing gesture based interfaces.Most satisfyingly, unlike current trends in design from double curved car shells to rounded corner boxes on web pages, Jensens trademark was ruthlessly squared off edges.

10 classic jacob jensen gadgets

Proving that expressions like point and shoot are not just mere metaphor. Here are some examples in the history of camera design that have lead for one reason or another to items which look exactly like guns, from early experimental cameras to sniper style Paparazzi kit to toys.

14 cameras that look just like guns

They don't make cheesy electronic board games like they used to. You might remember playing Clue with your friends in your adolescence, but these 12 retro electronic board games are under the radar and long forgotten. Whether it's racing against the clock to overcome the Omega Virus or shopping in the clearance section in Mall Madness, these games are sure to bring back some fond memories.

12 retro electronic board games

Moving walkways are the machine that made many sprawling airports viable. Because moving walkways allow for corridors that are unusually long, places that require them are often spectacular and understated pieces of architecture with very exaggerated perspective. These are most often at airports or places that require nudging people along, such as aquaria or exhibits such as the British crown jewels. From a visual perspective, they make a great list.

moving walkways of note

This year is special, in theory it is the first year since 1982 that keytars have not been mass produced as musical instruments, and that would have been something to celebrate if Guitar Hero and Rock Band hadn't brought them back, with a vengeance in the form of game guitars.This list is a warning reminder of what people really look like when they play Rock Band. It features keytars from their earnest debut to parody, to some kind of post-post-modern resolution with self aware but not-really-joking keytarists like Ben Folds.After the Moog Liberation was introduced in 1980, a variety of performers from Thomas Dolby to Jan Hammer made keytars a staple of 80s music, with Devo being the first to seize the ironic potential. Later weird Croation keytarist Belinda Benekovic became an internet meme and more recently Flight of the Conchords took a jab at a Roland Axis player.Her are some videos of keytars in action from classic 80s synths to circuit bent toys. Vote for your worst.

worst keytar (videos)

Flying helmets are interesting because they demonstrate the rate of technological progress over the 20th century, from primitive, almost medieval looking leather caps to sophisticated cyborg like devices packed full of electronics. They also show different air force cultures, from spartan Soviet styles to individualistic, decorated and painted US fighter pilot helmets.

flying helmets

Electric tattoo machines are based on a modified version of an engraving device invented by Edison, which had a 2 coil vibrating mechanism similar to an old fashioned electric doorbell. Samuel O'Reilly added a needle and ink reservoir to this to create a dedicated tattoo device in the 1890s.The particularly fascinating thing about these items is how their design has evolved towards the Victorian retro technology aesthetic that has now become fashionable elsewhere, however the beautiful machines designed by designers like Bernhard outclass many of the products design labeled Steampunk.The Bernhard machines are so magnificent, they warrant a list all of their own.

tattoo machines

The fetish aspect of external, insect-like skeletons has made them a staple of science fiction. However, the utility is real, from the incredible Japanese Enryu rescue exoskeleton, which looks like a loader from the Aliens movie, to brain controlled limb enhancers for the para or quadraplegic.

exoskeletons

If you have a hi-fi a TV, cellphone, computer and digital camera you already own several sets of speakers, amplifiers, microphones, screens and cameras. The idea of modular gadgets appeals on multiple levels, from Zen minimalism to the joy of playing with Legos.Here are some of our favorites.

lego like modular gadgets

Although the term galvanometer is often used to refer to things other than devices which measure electrical current (such as charge or resistance), there are an amazing array of early designs for this instrument, considering their simplicity.Many of these design differences are to do with the cases that surround what is basically a twisting wire, however there is something definitively analog in their mechanism and 19th century amateur scientist in their variety. Early galvanometers represent the extreme opposite of todays high energy physics, which requires giant multi billion dollar apparatuses and extreme digital processing for measurement. A long way off a compass and a battery.

different types of galvanometer

Balloons formed the origins of what became the USAF, have been used for stratospheric parachute jumps, bungee jumps and even to test nuclear bombs. Vote for your faves.

12 interesting balloons

Halloweenerdy is a term often used to refer to costumes favored by geeks. These costumes appear at events such as Sci-Fi conventions, Burning man and, of course, Halloween. Halloween is like Burning Man but without the corrosive dust, a perfect excuse to spend three and a half thousand hours building a hollywood quality prop and to gawk at co-workers in marketing, wearing bondage gear.Here are our all time favorite costumes. Vote for yours.

17 best halloweenerd costumes

There is something intensely creepy about submarines, not least because, as we found out from the two that had crashed into each other recently, they carry a thousand times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb in a claustrophobic metal sarcophagus powered by the same stuff as the bombs. Because of this, and because of their featureless exteriors which hide immense complexity they provide the same kind of kick that a complicated gadget in a smooth case provides. Just like gadgets its interesting to see how they work when they are being assembled or taken apart. Here are our favorite views from the science fiction like decommissioning of Soviet attack subs to rotting reactor cores to components being wheeled through English roads.

submarine construction and decommissioning

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Category: 'lists'

pictures of the lego house construction progress

August 24th, 2009 link to (permalink)

5 months ago
Architect of the Lego House built for Top Gear presenter James May, Barnaby Gunning, has sent us pictures of the construction progress so far. We'll post more as we get them.

12 very disturbing paintball teams

July 24th, 2009 link to (permalink)

6 months ago
Some people take paintball very seriously, and the boundary between harmless fun, unintentional irony and plain creepy is blurred. Here are paintball teams that look like outright militia, and some are. They include a church team in full combat gear a German group that re-enacts LAPD swat team offensives, and three very disturbing teams: a Japanese paintball re-enactment of the Yugoslav civil war complete with Serbian militia uniforms; an US vs Iraq shoot em up in Jordan and a sinister third Reich Team with Eagle T-shirts. Vote them down.

Top 10 Moon Rocket Models

July 16th, 2009 link to (permalink)

6 months ago
The Saturn V rocket was something the size of a skyscraper could survive being thrown into orbit, undamaged. 40 years after the Saturn V powered trip to the moon, nothing as powerful exists today.Years ago Airfix made a model of a Saturn V which I lusted after as a kid and Revell have now re-released their original 1:96 version and a 1:144 one which is the same size as the old Airfix. We tracked down the best Saturn V models that you can buy or have been built, culminating in auto repair man, Steve Eves' completely insane home built 40 foot high, 1600 pound monster which he actually launched, in April.

buildings in converted silos

July 13th, 2009 link to (permalink)

7 months ago
Being tall and thin means that one of the common but nevertheless unusual uses of old silos is to house climbing walls. Old silo structures, from underground missile silos to towering grain stores are often interesting pieces of industrial archaeology and make unconventional architectural conversions.

IKEA in Hell

June 29th, 2009 link to (permalink)

7 months ago
The interior design of Sweden's giant nuclear bunker.In the mid seventies, when ABBA topped the music charts, Sweden was just putting the finishing touches on its giant civil defense nuclear bunker outside Stockholm, called the Elephant.Traditionally neutral Sweden made this a priority due to its close proximity with Russia, but the Elephant is unlike any other cold war bunker - because it looks rather like an underground IKEA.In order to prevent claustrophobia, fake horizons were painted on the walls of recreation areas, with green below and blue above, representing sky and grass. Even lamps were painted yellow to represent the sun. In the business parts of the bunker, such as briefing rooms and control rooms, shades of gray relieved by red were used.Unlike other bunkers which used the same tactics, with murals of mountain or countryside scenes the obsessive schematic nature of the Swedish bunker is like a children's bedroom in hell.Urban explorers have visited and documented the Elephant bunker. Here are our picks from a wonderful set by Bill_R on Flickr. Click through any of the pictures for more.

12 primitive b movie style robots

June 23rd, 2009 link to (permalink)

7 months ago
A perfect example of nothing dating like the future, the garbage can robot is a retro-futuristic cultural icon. Some of these were cheap props for cheap movies, but others were serious visions of the future. If nothing else they demonstrate quite how imaginative the Metropolis robot that stands the test of time was.

15 images of not so secret secret service buildings

June 19th, 2009 link to (permalink)

7 months ago
The original British Secret Service headquarters was just that, secret. But the increase in importance of electronics meant that it was more important for a building to be invisible to electronic eavesdropping. as such the current M16 HQ in London is about as obvious a giant sign saying 'secret building here', yet it is enclosed in a giant Faraday cage to protect its communications.Not all Intelligence agencies have had a discrete architectural past, Franco's House of Screams, or the Soviet Lubyanka are demonstrably terrifying. Mossad's HQ, until the 60s or the current Australian Secret Intelligence Service look quite modest compared to the hardly known Ministry of National Security of Azerbaijan, which houses its intelligence service, in a large and monolithic building of dramatic proportions.

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