Previously, I have introduced you Bathsheba Grossman and her charming geotmetric metal objects which are a perfect combination of symmetrical art and mathematics.

Today, I have discovered another great master who is very active in this field. Prof. George Hart at New York States University has a lifetime hobby of constructing geometric sculptures and assembly puzzles from any material you can imagine; plastic, wood, paper, metal etc. He is also a very active education volunteer arranging workshops worldwide to give young people curiosity about geometry and construction.

Here are some of his works and photos from workshops with students.

A large Zome construction built in Princeton University Math Club

Attractive Red Assembly Puzzle

Another Big George Hart Geometric Construction

Visit George Hart’s HomePage here

George Hart’s book about Zome Geometry available at Amazon – Illustrated

I was lately much thinking about some of the strange ways of technology development. In near future, even robots will begin to talk like people, but we can’t get rid of some very OLD habits. The sound of mouse is the most irritating one to me. Klik! Klik! Klik!… goes to eternity. This should be optional for people who want silence. If you are in a company working around you plenty of people using computers, it becomes a really nightmare. So, I at last decided a way to find my and my wife’s ear-saver legendary silent mouse because I also often write at nights at home. Yeah, a dedicated click monster I am.

I could find a handful useful resources. The first one is Quiet Mouse website. They have both USB and wireless mouse variations which they prefer to name as QuietSmooth. I guess, they just replaced the mouse switch inside with another non sounding material.

My second discovery can shock you a bit. It is a Silent Mouse Software. No need to click on the screen. With the help of the program, when you stay on a link  it will show you a tiny window where you move and pause your mouse just a second and it will do the click. There are all variations like click, double click, right click, scroll etc. Honestly I didn’t try the product. It is what they say on their website.

Another (hopefully) much silent mouse called as Thanko. It is advertised that click wheel and the mouse buttons have been silenced to one-fifth that of a normal mouse that I consider enough for normal day usage, but I wanted to have a real full silence! Do I want much? Gizmodo reviewed Thanko with the result of disappointment too.

Second is Buffalo USB Silent Mouse. This one also lowers the noise but doesn’t eliminate completely. Unit does not work with Vista (yet).. Hmmm let’s look further.

So, here is another powerful candidate! Apple Mighty Mouse Wireless Kit. Everything is superb. No clicking at all. Everything is touch-sensitive. Wireless, cool design. Positive reviews. But, as you can expect from Apple, it only works with Mac OS X. So, you will need a Bluetooth-enabled Macintosh computer. I continued my search further as a poor PC user.

I see that it is a big empty market still except the first one I mentioned. Some smart guys tell us how we can make silent mouse ourselves. My current champion is DIY Silent Mouse. I will try to do it in my first spare time.

Making life-size replica crafts from super cars is a popular subject amongst designers. We have seen even an extraordinary application before, a life-size knitted Ferrari TestaRossa. Now, Michael Salter, a very active graphic designer and sculptor who is an associate professor in Digital Art at the University of Oregon, created a stunning stryofoam replica F1 car. It looks really attractive and detailed. I think many real F1 drivers would like to put this Styrofoam gadget on their gardens.

If you want to know more about styrofoam and its applications please visit Styrofoam wikipedia and Stryofoam Crafts websites.

Some green life enthusiasts perfectly blend their obsession for eco-friendly environment with contemporary art styles. Here are 4 successful examples of creativity.

Rotating Eco Dome Home

360 degrees rotatable and built strong enough to resist natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes. The energy for rotation comes from solar panels. Originally from France but now available to US by Solaleya.

Hundertwasserhaus Green Architecture

Designed by Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser and finally built in 1986 by architectors after a 3 years of effort. Grass and trees are everywhere including the rooms. Now, a perfect tourist attraction and protected as a cultural heritage.

Free Spirit Sphere Tree House

One of the most successful tree house applications are located among the marvelous trees of the west coast rain forest of Vancouver Island, Canada. Free Spirit Spheres can be rented or even purchased. Suitable for elves to meditate and trolls for wild attacks.

Amazing Hobbit Home

Maybe, this home is the one which deserves the most praises. It was built by an amateur constructor in Wales spending only £300o. He just got the help of his father-in-law and a few visitors. A happy Tolkien powered hobbit style home life is the essence.

Being a newsletter reader to high quality green blog Inhabitat can bring you surprising prizes. I don’t talk about regular stuff where you can find in any shop. It is about $950 valued winning a Strida 5.0 SX Limited Folding Bicycle. All you have to do is joining their newsletter and telling them why you are the correct person who should grab this gadget with a photo in their original post about the bike. If you liked the idea, be fast! The contest will end in Friday, June 19th at midnight EST

The traditional day for pleasing and spoiling our Dads will arrive very soon. I have listed here a few Father’s Day Gift Ideas while I was looking for what can be bought something interesting, useful and unique except belts, watches, car repair kits, perfume or usual electronics stuff.

Mr. Beer Premium Gold Edition Home Brew Kit
Especially for creative fathers who love to enjoy themselves and reveal the gourmet inside. Suitable for both beginner or advanced beer home brewers. The kit includes every item (including re-usable keg & bottles) to prepare 2 batches (4 gallons) of beer at home in 1 to 2 weeks. Inexpensive, easy to use kit.

Theo Gray’s Mad Science : Experiments You Can Do At Home – But Probably Shouldn’t !
He doesn’t need to be a chemistry professor to enjoy Burning, Freezing, Exploding, Loud, Toxic Science! All experiments are clearly explained with large colorful photos. Alert ! Your dad can be so dangerous after reading this.

I Love Coffee!: Over 100 Easy and Delicious Coffee Drinks
Unique Coffee recipes, artistic coffee design, history, brewing techniques. Authored by an expert in this field, Susan Zimmer. It is all about espresso, latte, mocha, cappuccino coffee with various sugar syrups, cinnamon sticks, chocolates, martini, other liquors etc.

Orion SpaceProbe 130ST EQ Telescope
You would not surely prefer to buy a junk science toy which he will be bored of it very soon. A serious intermediate class telescope to be able to identify planets, moon craters, saturn rings and stars. Plus you get Starry Night astronomy software for free. Expensive but a really special gift for astronomy and science curious dads.

I am addicted to building blocks like Lego Bricks and Kapla toys. They provide limitless imagination possibilities for fans and hardworking artists. Nathan Sawaya is one of those talented guys who create art of the brick. This Lego Cello sculpture is one his works which couldn’t escape from the eyes of cool gadget lovers.

How does the Lego cello sound or sound at all? The answer is on the following DIY cello video.

I compiled also some other useful links about Lego Musical Instruments :

1. Flickr Lego Instruments Group : They built really small compared to this cello, but there is fun still.
2. Real Functioning Lego Guitar : All parts including bridges, pick-ups etc. are claimed to be functioning properly.
3. Strange Musical Instruments : There is a playable tiny Lego Harpsichord at the end of the article

I guess real old school anime fans would scream out if they had a chance to see a nearly 60 foot size giant RX-78 Gundam robot tower in Tokyo Odaiba Shiokaze Park. It was built to celebrate 30th anniversary of Mobile Suit Gundam, originally a Japanese TV anime series which has become crazily popular also in other media like movies, comics and video games including several rip-offs.

Perfectly authentic Gundam can be seen in this Tokyo park until the end of the summer.

Here are impressive photos of the giant.

I have embedded a Gundam youtube video here to show how it looked like as an anime.

Thanks to Pink Tentacle for great photos

Amazon is working hard to develop new better versions of Kindle. While the storm of Kindle 2 didn’t become silent yet, Amazon made another surprise by introducing 9.7″ version of Kindle Wireless Reading Device and accepting pre-orders. The device named as Kindle DX will be released this summer and will be sold according to first come first served principle. According to Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, this big version will help reading newspapers, maps, graphs and magazines better. The text and images are much sharper and PDF format is now naturally supported without any need of conversions. You can see the size difference in the photos below.

They have added also an iPhone-like function. When you turn the device the display will follow it. Portrait to landscape or the opposite, and all the text and images will be resized accordingly automatically. It has advantage of viewing graphs in more detail and easy way.

All old features of Kindle are reserved including 3G, WiFi and text to speech technology. The storage size is now around 3500 books. Kindle 2 had around 1500 books capacity.

The only negative I can say that Kindle DX weighs almost double of Kindle. Exactly 535g. But, I think many people will neglect this and buy Kindle DX because of its high quality and features where other hi-tech companies can not even approach to compete against.

Link : Amazon Kindle DX

Actually I had written in one of my previous posts about controlling devices using mental power. Brainloop mental machine was a good example of this technology.

I think you already know about Honda corporation’s famous robot Asimo. Now, their hardworking engineers developed a system to control Asimo using sensors which measure the electrical activity on the brain and the blood flow. Namely, EEG and NIRS. All you need to wear this helmet and think about the several parts of the robot including left-hand, right hand, feet or tongue. Asimo robot will move the part accordingly. It is known that Honda is already investing on brain controlled applications for more than four years.

Such products are still in the early stages and we should wait for an unknown time to see the robot armies clashing each other. (which surely will be operated remotely by evil mind forces)

Source : CrunchGear