Today on Boing Boing Gadgets

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets we saw this pretty and entirely pedestrian HP Calculator; the Konami code for Google Reader; a industrial shredder eat an Asteroids cabinet; GPS-maker TomTom's intention to make iPhone software; the mystery of Macbook Air's optical illusion beveled design (and other nice laptop design tricks); a way to project trippy Hello Kitties all over your ceiling; a fancy shisha maintenance kit that looks like a espresso maker; fancy Italian asymmetric sunglasses; a whole bunch of alarm clocks; beautiful Pac-Man-inspired art; and a way to store your shoes that has a better name than execution.

We also glanced at Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard; saw not one but two different all-in-one desktop PCs; discovered a way to cheat at Guitar Hero with a machine; played Star Wars 'Imperial March' on a floppy drive; shuddered at a phone shaped like a giant butterfly; saw that Bob Moog's company has a guitar with infinite sustain; applauded a outdoor router from D-Link used in a Native American wind generation system; saw a vending machine that crushes fine china (yup, it's art!); and found another DIY project we'll never make: a bank of Commodore 64 SIDs made into a big synthesizer.

But the best thing we found all day? (At least in my opinion?) The Little Red Riding Hood’s Zombie BBQ game for the Nintendo DS.

An evening of confusion with Dell customer service

Photo: ndevil I got my Dell Mini10V in the mail yesterday. It's small and red and pretty, but I had one minor issue with my order. When I was personalizing my order online, it asked me if I wanted a 24WHr 3-cell battery or a 56WhHr 6-cell battery; the 6-cell was just $35 more, but had double the lif... More.

Y2K ten years later

Farhad Manjoo writes in to tell us about his Slate series looking back on Y2K, ten years later, "In the first part, which is up now, I look into how Y2K changed the tech industry, and whether it was all a waste. In the second I look at the unacknowledged success of Y2K--it was one of the only times... More.

Mark Dery on 2012 bunkum

2012 angst got you down? Hankering for another harmonic convergence? Former BB guestblogger Mark Dery has got just the medicine for you. Over at h+ Magazine, he shreds the 2012 "carnival of bunkum" spread by folks who are banking (literally) on people believing that some sort of spiritual singular... More.

Antony Gormley - let's all go barefoot

Artist Antony Gormley took his shoes off a year ago and hasn't put them on since. He recommends it to others as a world changing idea. Artist Antony Gormley advocates we all give up shoes and go barefoot to get closer to our planet. With naked feet you can actually feel global warming. He has go... More.

The birth of District 9

Fascinating interview at The Wrap with the creators of District 9. The film was the alien love child of Halo, and Blomkamp's Alive in Joburg, a short film I blogged here on BB in 2003. "The only area of contention was he wanted to kill off little CJ, [the baby prawn]... He actually wanted to write ... More.