Sunday, January 30, 2011

Aimee Mullins and her 12 pair of legs

This is simply incredible. Every parent should show this to their kids.


Athlete, actor and activist Aimee Mullins talks about her prosthetic legs -- she's got a dozen amazing pairs -- and the superpowers they grant her: speed, beauty, an extra 6 inches of height ... Quite simply, she redefines what the body can be.


Saturday, January 22, 2011

Syyn Labs and that neato OK Go thingy

I'd been hearing about some new music video by the band OK Go, the ones who made the now-infamous choreographed-dancing-on-treadmills video a while back that by now even your grandmother has seen:



But I'd never seen their newest concoction, a Rube Goldberg contraption that's timed to the music, and kept forgetting to look for it until I read a little bit about it in the latest issue of Fast Company Magazine. According to the story, this video took 85 takes to get the functionality and timing just right, and the final result is one video take with no editing and no tricks. Sheer awesomeness.



The contraption was built by folks at Syyn Labs, a sorta-kinda company made up of artsy nerds who love bringing things to an obsessive level.

Oh, but wait - there's more. Syyn Labs was then tapped to make another Rube Goldberg contraption for the Google Science Fair, seen here: