Archive for August 8th, 2011
The Bite Counter is a watch-like device that counts how many bites of food you take. Working like a pedometer that counts your steps, it counts the number of times you bring your fork up to your mouth. The Bite Counter tracks wrist motion. In order to pick something up, the fingers must be aimed [...]
Black Market Bizop: Incandescent Lightbulbs?
In just a few months, incandescent light bulbs will be illegal to purchase in the United States. Many people have no idea that most traditional light bulbs are about to disappear. For those in the know, it’s time to start hoarding: O’Neill keeps her stash under her basement stairs and figures she’s got a three-year [...]
The History of the Keurig Coffee Maker
In 1995, John Sylvan was drinking 30 to 40 cups of coffee per day. Not just because he loved the stuff, but because he and his business partner, Peter Dragone, were working on a new kind of coffee maker. They named their invention “Keurig,” a word meaning excellence that Sylvan pulled from a Danish-English dictionary. [...]
The Library Hotel, on Madison Avenue at 41st Street, in New York City is a one of a kind hotel: it’s like a library with beds. Each floor of this luxury establishment is devoted to a different subject, and the rooms on that floor are equipped with books and works of art dealing with that [...]
Making Money With Online Mugshots
When Philip Cabibi Googled himself, he found a very upsetting result in the 10th place: “Philip Cabibi Mugshot,” read the title. The description was “Mug shot for Philip Cabibi booked into the Pinellas County jail.” After clicking through, he saw his mug shot and book information from a 2007 drunk-driving arrest in Florida. He had [...]
Wow! A Real Undersea Restaurant!
Main entry Ithaa is an undersea restaurant at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island Resort. The restaurant is located 16 feet below the surface of the ocean. CNN has more: The six-course dinner menu often features French dishes from executive chef Nicolas Boutin and is priced at $320 a person. A lighter three-course lunch menu is [...]
House of Air: Indoor Trampoline Park
The House of Air is an indoor trampoline park in a former aircraft hanger in San Francisco’s Crissy Fields. Unlike most trampoline parks, House of Air doesn’t just target kids for birthdays and play dates. Goth and 80s nights are frequently on the schedule. The company has introduced adult dodge ball, early morning workout classes [...]
What good is it to bake something amazing, if you can’t store it to take with you to parties and events? That is the premise behind the Baker’s Sto ‘N Go. It allows people to easily store their goods, like brownies, to take on-the-go. I recently spoke with the inventor, Angela Horevitz, about her creation [...]
A Pennsylvania man, with no pest control experience has invented his own trap to kill the stink bugs that have inundated his home. By his count, he’s killed 17,000 stink bugs in the last year. It used a combination of light, which attracts stink bugs, and a fruit-and-vegetable mixture that acts as a lure. He [...]
Cutting Cars in Half to Avoid Import Duties
In the Ukraine, they cut cars in half before they import them to get out of paying import duties. Once in the country they’re welded back together. Today I received some tax saving wisdom from a taxi driver in Ukraine. He told me that people who import cars to Ukraine sometimes cut the car in [...]
Crazy Ideas That Kickstarter Has Funded
NY Times: So what kind of “creative projects” does Kickstarter enable? Well, a couple of artists raised $2,181 to send funny handwritten letters to every household in Pittsburgh’s Polish Hill neighborhood; someone pulled in $8,441 to help finance the creation of “a searchable ethnographic database built from the lyrics of over 40,000 hip-hop songs”; a [...]
Dog Massage: Makes Everyone Feel Better
Science has shown that petting a dog releases a hormone called oxytocin in both the dog and the petter, which makes everyone feel better. Oxytocin, called the “love hormone”, is the naturally occurring chemical in the body responsible for bonding between mother and baby in humans. Do you know what feels better than just feeling [...]
Farmers Markets Popping Up Like Weeds
USA Today: If it seems like farmers markets are popping up like weeds, it’s because they are. New data out from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that more than 1,000 farmers markets have opened in the past year, up 17% from 2010. The newly released 2011 National Farmers Market Directory shows a total of [...]
