Tesla & Twain... BFFs?!?

Weird, two Tesla posts in the same week. I just found out that Tesla and Mark Twain were close friends in the late 1800's! How cool is that? I can't believe I didn't know this earlier... Check out the Wikipedia section on his personal life. Also, I found a cool article by Katherine Krumme from 2000 which shows Twains interest in Tesla's invention and their shared theory that weapons of immeasurable power would be a natural deterrent to war (yikes!). Click here to read the pdf.

I love this picture from Tesla's lab, notice how the mad scientist is lurking in the background.

Letterheady

I can't remember the last time that I actually wrote a letter and mailed it... 1994? Most of you know that I'm a huge Nikola Tesla fan. I stumbled upon a site that has a copy of his company letterhead - pure geeky goodness. The real discovery here is www.letterheady.com, a clever site that showcases interesting letterhead designs. Some personal faves - Johnny Cash, Robot Salesmen, Converse Rubber Shoe Co., and the man who dominated Saturday night TV Lawrence Welk (tank yew, tank yew). Lots of cool stuff to look at here...

Antiques Road Show Gone Awry

This clip has been making its way around the interwebs. I like how confident the owner of this frightening pig appears to be, as if everyone owns a rolling franken-pig. It amazes me that this horrifying pork toy can still claim $2k+ at auction. Where are these mythical auctions that offer these prices?

Otamatone by Maywa Denki

Hacking up the last of the fur balls from my four week bought with a killer virus - I promise to be better at posting now. I digress... The folks at design/art/music/funkystuff house Maywa Denki have come out with a really cool electronic musical instrument named "Otamatone". I love this thing. It looks like a musical note, plays like a Theremin... and it's got a mouth! Those of you who speak Japanese will get more of a demo than others:

Years ago I bought some musical toys from their Knockman series. These guys are always doing something interesting and fun. Check out http://www.maywadenki.com/

Boiling the Super Bowl Down to Live Action

Sorry for the lack of posts. Work, Christy's book, and three weeks of flu have rendered me blogless... In between racking coughs I watched the Super Bowl yesterday - highly satisfying to see the Saints beat the Colts. I thought the onside kick defined that team and its coach. They are confident and bold. Recently the WSJ exposed that most football games can be boiled down to just an average of 11 minutes of actual game playing.

Gawker TV did the hard work for you. Here's over 3 hours of Super Bowl in a tight 14 minute clip... Click the pic to visit their site: