The Science of Scams is a new project from Channel 4 and mentalist/magician Derren Brown that aims to debunk the paranormal industry's lucrative claims about ghosts, fortune-telling, telekinesis and other assorted woo woo. Brown and C4 produced seven videos purporting to show the kind of "paranorm... More.
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Jason Brammer's hand-painted eyeball matrioshka, "The Watchers," is a fine addition to the genre of crazy-awesome stuff you can do with blank nested dolls.
"The Watchers"
(via Craft)
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The old See 'n' Say toys used a similar principle:
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/see-say2.htm
@OSCAR
So THAT's how those pull-string talking toys work! I can't believe I never wondered about that before now... Curiosity FAIL :(
That's pretty awesome. Write all you want about how programming computers to do these things takes skill, but coming up with ways to do them mechanically requires really being clever.
"A door is ajar"
Plus doing things mechanicly makes it immune to cylon control.
I remember these...I had to disconnect mine when a switch in my Datsun Nissan 200xs's door kept forcing the Door Is A Jar...Door Is A Jar...Door Is A Jar...over and over and over.
Never thought of pulling it apart to see how it worked. That's actually really cool...
It's not often that a technology developed for a toy is transformed into a useful automobile gizmo. Usually it's the other way around.
Whaddaya wanna bet that the engineer assigned with designing the voice playing module took apart his See & Say as a child?
Now for the bonus round. Hack it so it plays your own messages - i.e. make your own tiny record.
Kinda doesn't make sense to do so though with flash memory solutions.
When I read the headline I thought this was a maker project about constructing a record player from an old compact car.
...I'm expecting some MAKE guru to come up with a simple method for pressing your own Hot Wax replacement disks for this gem:
"Hey frackwit! You left your lights on overnight!"
"You are now entering the Ghetto. Make sure your doors are locked, your windows are rolled up, your seatbelts are buckled, and...whoops! Too late! Yo, bro! Welcome aboard! Enjoy your new ride!"
"I feel your pain. That's why I'm dripping oil on a copy of the Koran every time you have to fill me up!"
"Just in case you didn't notice, your car was jacked up last night..."
I bought a '72 Dodge Monaco back in the 80s. I remember looking at the owner's manual and discovering an option for an in-dash record player. If I remember it was sort of mounted in a cradle of springs to absorb shocks. It even had a list of available records! I think they were a proprietary and could only be played on that player. Unfortunately my car didn't have the player...
A friend nearly gave me his Datsun's voice box but decided to keep it. Shame. Something to keep in mind next junkyard visit..
my super cool 1982 Datsun 200SX used to repeat "The Door is Ajar"
a dear pal of mine from Greece looked at me and said "Next she will tell me the window is a Spoon?"
it took me a few moments to realize, in his mental translation, the door was A Jar like peanut butter comes in. and he had no idea why the lady always babbled such gibberish.
Adventure story #2: I roadraced motorcycles with Old Man James. (he is even older now) very retentive. everything has to be in its place, order is valued, etc.
We were coming back from a weekends races in Henderson, Tx, on our way home to Austin. "Fuel Level is LOW" repeated about every 5 minutes.
I passed TWO towns with the lady saying "Fuel Level is LOW" it was water-drip torture for Old Man James. third town he BEGGED me to stop for gas. I did, then I showed him the switch on the dash that turns the lady's voice off.
he beat me with a rolled up newspaper.
Fuel level is LOW
The Door is Ajar
i cannot remember anything else she said
13tales @2 So THAT's how those pull-string talking toys work! I can't believe I never wondered about that before now... Curiosity FAIL :(
I had a Chatty Kathy doll when I was a kid. It actually had removable records so that you could change the phrases she said. You inserted the records into a slot near her hip. For some reason, I never saw anything creepy about that as a kid.
I had a K9 (Doctor Who) toy with a very similar device, battery powered though. Too young to drive in '82, not too old now to still have the K9 (even if the record player has bust).
Wow, Jalopnik.com meets BoingBoing--I've lapped the internets!
I used to have an old ashtray that had a button which, when pressed, said "*cough cough cough* What?!? Another cigarette?!". When it stopped working, a friend took it apart, and lo and behold found a teeny tiny record player inside.
The Bag of Laughs toy available at joke-shops used to have a record in it too.
Is the common thread Japanese engineering or manufacturing?
When I was 8 I had a Talking He-Man Clock that played this:
http://www.starkgray.net/clock/heman_filtered.wav
This guy found one and sampled the tiny record inside, then added it to a "modern" alarm clock via a custom pcb and memory chip.
http://www.starkgray.net/clock/
I have no idea why. I could only stand it until I was 9.