i love innovation

The iPod® Gramophone from Hammacher Schlemmer

Handcrafted entirely of slip-cast ceramic to replicate the curvature and passive amplification of a French horn, this is the iPod® gramophone that augments sound from an iPod® without requiring auxiliary power or speaker components.

I received my Hammacher Schlemmer catalog this week and was taken by what was on the cover. There are so many iPod accessories/companion electronics out there now, that finding anything that is even mildly original is tough. The iPod Gramophone from Hammacher Schlemmer, however, stands apart by being a one-of-a-kind accessory. In this product, there is a juxtaposition of the old and the new. It is interesting, fun, cool, and even useful as it doesn’t require additional power for the amplification component.

Nice.

Geneva drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Geneva drive or Maltese cross is a mechanism that translates a continuous rotation into an intermittent rotary motion. It is an intermittent gear where the drive wheel has a pin that reaches into a slot of the driven wheel and thereby advances it by one step. The drive wheel also has a raised circular blocking disc that locks the driven wheel in position between steps.

Maybe I’m a nerd, but this is really cool to me. The animation is kind of mesmerizing. I like it.

This is an amazing bridge in Langkawi, Malaysia. It’s all supported on one center column. While it’s a pretty amazing engineering feat, it seems like it might be a little bit nerve-racking to spend much time on it.

For more pictures and a detailed article about the bridge, check out this post at deputy-dog.com.