I'm in the market for a new MP3 player -- my second-gen iPod Nano is finally dead, and I don't want to buy another iPod, or any other player with DRM built in. I figure that any company that wants to devote its engineers to figuring out how to frustrate my desires doesn't really want my business.
W... More.
That is not Batman's boat but rather Earthrace, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's ultraslick bio-diesel-powered anti-whaling speedboat. It's 80-feet long and very stealthy. Next month, it will head out to the seas around Japan to, er, protest the country's whaling industry. Life magazine ... More.
This is a kea. Isn't he cute? Happy, little green parrot...tra la la.
This little parrot will mess your s**t up. If you are a sheep. Image courtesy Flickr user PhillipC, via CC.
Happy, little green parrot who calmly burrows through the still-living flesh of sheep and dines upon their kidney fat w... More.
Skeptics who believe that a university is actually a diploma mill often prove their point by enrolling their cats in the university's program and seeing whether the cat can get a degree. Some enterprising Wikipedians have assembled a list of several such cats.
Colby Nolan is a housecat who was aw... More.
Christian sez, "Just now it has been announced in the press by the official Danish Anti-Piracy agency, Antipiratgruppen, that they are throwing in the towel and will seize their operations completely; to find and prosecute music copyright offenders.
Here is a translation of the first published arti... More.
Because nothing helps me focus like the smooth curves of the walls closing in on me...
Worker bee on the half shell.
1. Why no integrated desk lamp in the top?
Seems like a waste of space to me.
2. Is the Sonic Youth poster mandatory?
problem is, the internet's still in there. concentration = over.
prototype? meh. want egg desk now!
can you hear the ocean in there?
i love it, but if it were located in a public facility the anxiety of being robbed or passersby staring at your crotch would keep you out of perfect work mode.
also light should be considered as well as ventilation.
Look, Daddy! A whale egg!
Why exactly is this considered "futuristic" again?
It's considered futuristic because it looks like something from the 1960s silly.
Oh those would be cool in a library and over time you'd get lots of extra sound insulation from all the wads of gum that would inevitable accrete all over the inside. Why oh why must you torment us with these prototypes that we can never have!
I actually like it. I go to school and they've recently "updated" a section of the library. They've added these clear panels that are supposed to allow for light but instead all I get is a twisted window onto my neighbour. I also like the idea of insulating for sound, but I'm thinking gum isn't the best way to do it.
You can have one, just saw a fiberglass bathtub in half and stick it on a table. Then you will be in the future.
Explain why this is futuristic?
Is Sonic Youth going to make a comeback in 2050?
Will we all find that dorm room desk lamps are timeless?
I like the fact that it comes with an electronic toilet paper dispenser. With the right kind of chair, you never have to leave your desk.
agreed. that thing cannot block teh 4chanz.
I wouldn't be able to resist the temptation to doodle on the inside of this with a Sharpie, no matter how expensive this is.
This is a good start but not encompassing enough.
I personally would like something that wraps around more and is a bit more encompassing with maybe an opaque but translucent top
I remember having rows of reading desks back in elementary school. They were like cubicles, but barely small enough to open a notebook. Yeah, those were great, in an "OH GOD, THE WALLS ARE CLOSING IN ON ME!" sort of way.
We don't need to isolate ourselves within bubbles, we just need a little more space. In my university, we had breakout rooms where a few people could sit and work together. It was like having your own office. Sure, it took up more room, but it was a lot better for your sanity.
If you think cubicles are bad, this "workspace" will be ten times worse.
And it's not futuristic, it's just rounded. Our school had these same things 20 years ago.
There was nothing more stifling in all my educational experience that those damn study corrals. I'm not claustrophobic, but the desks were always way too small, and the loss of peripheral vision, together with the deafening silence always created a distractingly oppressive environment.
These are called carrels.
I've occasionally seen them in university libraries, but never used one myself.
Now, if only you can fit this into a steamer trunk...
We had inkwells. Most desks are futuristic to me.
Cozy! This thing would suit me just fine.
Creepy and worrying. I doubt I'm the only one suffering from 'never sit with your back to the door' paranoia, and this is even worse as it obscures your view completely. You actually have to get up every time you want to see what's going on around you! Eek.
I don't get the smooth rounded walls either. Maybe they're pretty but not very useful. I need shelves and containers around my workspace, a place to stack books and place pens. Look at those file folders on the right, they look like they're about to slip and annoy whoever's working at that computer (which they can't push back further into the cubicle because the lamp takes up all the space.)
Eh, this thing seems pretty bizarre to me. Rounded objects don't sit too well with the stark fact that the vast majority of things we work with have right angles.
Me, I'd much rather have a nice solid mahogany pedestal desk in a library somewhere.