bookofjoe

Robot Bambi

Long story short: A remote-controlled zombie deer decoy is being deployed in sting operations to foil poachers.

Watch the video up top to see the imposters in action.

Ben Paynter's story in the December issue of Wired magazine has the details about how taxidermist Brian Wolslegel of Custom Robotic Wildlife makes the robotic fauna.

Heart Umbrella

Sure, you could wait till it's closer to Valentine's Day.

But then you'll wish you hadn't 'cause they'll be long gone.

Purple, Ivory, Black,

White, Magenta,

Silver or Yellow.

Red's already history.

Fair warning.

$60.

Music in the key of iPhone

Long front page story  — by Claire Cain Miller and Miguel Helft in the December 4, 2009 New York Times — short: "... the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra, with its avant-garde compositions and electronic renditions of popular songs like Led Zeppelin’s 'Stairway to Heaven,' is trying to push the frontiers of the four-decade-old field of computer music."

More: "Ge Wang, the assistant professor of music who leads the two-year-old Stanford group, says the iPhone may be the first instrument — electronic or acoustic — that millions of people will carry in their pockets. 'I can’t bring my guitar or my piano or my cello wherever I go, but I do have my iPhone at all times,' he said.... Professor Wang said he would like to democratize the process of making music, so that anyone with a cellphone could become a musician."

And: "In the future, Professor Wang said, a music ensemble could be made up of any group of people playing music together, no matter where they are physically.... Professor Wang has talked to the San Francisco Symphony about a joint performance, with traditional and iPhone instruments, and he hopes to someday host a concert with musicians and amateurs from across the globe playing their iPhones all at once."

Newspaper Laptop Sleeve

Homage to what was from what is.

Choose from four different European papers (La Vanguarda, Le Pais, Herald Tribune or La Gretezza Dello Sport).

Made of vinyl and designed for the MacBook Pro.

15" x 11" interior.

€60.

[via The Gadgeteer]

Lapham's Quarterly

Former Harper's editor Lewis Lapham started his magazine in 2007, a year after leaving Harper's, with a focus on "people who wish they had paid more attention in school," wrote Tim Arango in a December 1, 2009 New York Times story.

Lapham told Arango, "The idea was to bring the voices of the past up to the microphone of the present."

Each quarterly issue focuses on a single topic, such as money, nature, war or crime; the current issue is about medicine.

Circulation is 16,000 paid subscriptions and 9,000 sold in bookstores, pretty impressive considering it costs $60 a year.

Each of the seven individual back issues costs $26. 

I love the look of the magazine's website , clean and crisp and easy to look at it.

Bonus: a number of articles from each of the magazine's issues are available on the website, along with an abundance of graphics (exemplar up top) including charts, tables and maps related to various subjects explored in the articles and essays.

Free, the way we like it.

OWLE Bubo

From the company: "The OWLE Bubo is a camera mount that brings the best features of a camcorder: stability, optics, microphones and tripods, to the iPhone 3GS... by combining a solid billet aluminum body, a wide-angle lens and an adjustable mic."

After all the hype, finally shipping.

$129.95.

What does OWLE stand for?

I thought you'd never ask.

Optical Widget for Life Enhancement.

Pop-Up Magazine — A Live Event

From the website:

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Pop-Up Magazine is the world’s first live magazine, created for a stage, a screen, and a live audience. Nothing will arrive in your mailbox; no content will go online. An issue exists for one night, in one place.

Pop-Up showcases the country’s most interesting writers, documentary filmmakers, photographers, and radio producers, together, on stage, sharing short moments of unseen, unheard work. Books, films, journalism, photography, and radio documentaries in progress. Obsessions and digressions. Outtakes, arguments, and live interviews.

Each evening of Pop-Up unfolds like a magazine. Short reviews, dispatches, and provocations anchor the front, longer features follow in the back. Our theme is no theme. Pop-Up seeks to explore the varied world around us, through stories and ideas. Science, music, politics, art, business, food, literature, design, nature—all in a 75 minute show.

Then we move to the lobby bar, and invite audience and contributors to stick around late. A Q&A is more fun with drinks in hand.

Football Sausage — Mamma mia, that's a spicy football

 

From the website:

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Fans love this award-winning salami.

Made with fresh beef and pork, cured and slowly smoked over hickory wood, this uniquely-shaped salami is sure to be a hit with any sports and/or sausage lover.

Measures 7" long x 4" diameter at center.

Weighs 28 oz.

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$26.95.