Make: Online: Culture jamming Archives

Archive: Culture jamming

October 31, 2009

Pinwall facade pinball marchine

Turning the front of a building (via projections) into a pinball machine.

October 26, 2009

Graffiti marker disguised as cigarette

I recently ordered some refillable paint pens from Art Primo, and this was in the box as a freebie. It's the exact size, shape, and color as a cigarette, and among a dozen real cigarettes in a pack it'd likely pass any search completely unnoticed. It took me a minute to figure out its nefarious purpose: If you get caught in the vicinity of a fresh tag, after all, it's best not to be found with a marker on your person. They're manufactured by Germany's On The Run, but you won't find them on their website. The one I got was gold; the silver ones below were photographed by Flickr user $30,000.

October 22, 2009

Mud graffiti is fun, eco-friendly

I'm not normally a huge fan of graffiti, but I like Jesse Grave's this technique of using mud stencils to make temporary graffiti. It seems like a nice, low impact alternative to moss graffiti, plus you get to play with mud! He seems to be getting good results, however I wonder how well it holds up as it dries out. Anyone else try something like this? [via inhabitat]

October 9, 2009

1W TV-B-Gone in a flashlight

Here's the translation of a page about a DIY TV-B-Gone inside a flashlight/torch, looks great! [via adafruit]

October 8, 2009

You say "looks like somebody has too much time on their hands"

Pt 2225
You say "looks like somebody has too much time on their hands"...

Previously:
3228218938 7Dc3B3683B B
Your time vs Jason's time...

Happy Friday, what are making this weekend?

Public staircase turned into piano keyboard

If you're impatient with the preamble and want to see it work, scan forward to about 0:39. [via Hack a Day]

September 28, 2009

TXT a beaver - Amphibious architecture

Nycriverb
Amphibious architecture, I TXTed a beaver in the East River, neat... You can too, just text "EastRiver" or "BronxRiver" to 41411

Amphibious Architecture is a visual interface floating on the water’s surface, a veritable looking glass into the aquatic ecosystem. This manufactured point of connection submerges ubiquitous computing into the one element that covers 90% of the Earth’s inhabitable volume and which envelops New York City but remains under-explored and under-engaged.
Installed at two sites along the East and the Bronx Rivers, this project is a network of floating interactive buoys housing a range of sensors below water and an array of light emitting diodes (LEDs) above water. The sensors monitor water quality, the presence of fish, and human interest in the river’s ecosystem, while the lights respond to the sensors, creating feedback loops between humans, fish in their shared environment. Additionally an SMS interface allows homo-citizens to text-message the fish and receive real-time information about the river, contributing towards the collective display of human interest in the aquatic environment. The aim of which is to simultaneously spark a larger public interest and dialogue about our local waterways.

Distinctly moving away from the pervasive ‘do-not-disturb’ approach to urban environmentalism, the project encourages curiosity and engagement. Treating the river water as a reflective surface to mirror our own homo-image and architecture, establishing a two-way interface between the terrestrial and the aquatic. The project thus creates a dynamic and captivating layer of light above the surface of the river, making visible the invisible through real-time mapping of the new ecology of people, marine life, buildings, and public space.

September 15, 2009

"Umbrellas for the Civil but Discontent Man"

Umbrella 1
Umbrella 3
Umbrellas for the Civil but Discontent Man designed by Bruce and Stephanie Tharp of Materious... via Core77.

In Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud contends that aggressiveness is a fundamental human instinct whose inhibition is a necessary obligation of social life: “Men are not gentle, friendly creatures wishing for love, who simply defend themselves if they are attacked, but that a powerful measure of desire for aggression has to be reckoned as part of their instinctual endowment.” Fundamentally there is a tension between the freedom to gratify these natural desires and the conformity demanded by civilization. What results is a muted, guilty, and ultimately a discontent populous in which the possibility of a more complete happiness has been traded for a degree of security. Umbrellas for the Civil but Discontent Man combines a symbol of gentlemanly refinement—the full-sized, dark umbrella—with an element of more manly sword-bearing times. The umbrellas offer brief psychological respite from the dictates of social amiability; aggressive fantasies are allowed and encouraged on the daily commute to the office. The effete civilian’s grasp of the handle takes him into the world of the masterful samurai, the medieval barbarian, or the triumphant cavalryman.

September 8, 2009

New York City Garbage by Justin Gignac -- Thank You for Littering.™

Pt 2138
New York City Garbage by Justin Gignac -- Thank You for Littering.™... Limited edition garbage.

September 5, 2009

Never too early to start modding

Mod
A MAKE reader sent this is with the title "never too early to start modding" !

September 3, 2009

Eyeborg

Eyeborg Press Parts2
This was making the rounds a couple months ago, but I don't think we posted it on MAKE - Rob Spence is a filmmaker who lost his eye and decided to replace it with a wireless video camera...

September 2, 2009

How-To: Moss graffiti

Over at CRAFT, Goli posted up this moss graffiti tutorial by Helen Nodding, featured in CRAFT Volume 04. It's a fun way to spread some green around the neighborhood.

August 26, 2009

Intern's Corner: Making my own magazine

MAKE: Intern's Corner
Every other week, MAKE's awesome interns tell about the projects they're building in the Make: Labs, the trouble they've gotten into, and what they'll make next.

By Ed Troxell, photo intern

When I landed my internship here at MAKE it was my real break into the magazine industry. I remember telling myself that if I could just get my foot in the door, the rest would fall into place. Well, it did. Since joining MAKE over a year ago, my life has not been the same -- not only have I worked at a great magazine, I've launched my own magazine, MIX IT UP.

I was hired a MAKE editorial intern, which really helped me get a sense of what goes on when putting together a magazine: finding topics to write about, finding writers, assigning deadlines, making sure people meet those deadlines, fact-checking articles, proofing them, all while having staff meetings and conference calls with those who work in other locations.

While learning all this, I was finishing up my studies in communications at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, Calif., where I was photo editor on the school newspaper, The Star. About 6 months later, I was switched over to become MAKE's photo intern, which turned out to be perfect since I was already doing photography.

Read full story

August 25, 2009

World's smallest pistol - Austria 2mm pinfire miniature guns

There are many like it but this one is mine...

Originally made by Austrian watchmakers as decorative pocket watch chain fobs or as cufflinks, these miniature pinfire pistols are now prized collector's items. These are some from my own collection dating from 1904 to the 1970's. All of them fire 2mm blank pinfire cartridges. The revolvers are the world's smallest working double action blank firing pistols. They measure just 38mm in length and are smaller than the famous Swiss Mini Gun which measures 55mm.

August 19, 2009

New TV-B-Gone works all over the place

Hate having to flash your chip to bring your TV-B-Gone to Europe? Well, cross it off your packing to-do list, the new TV-B-Gone turns off TVs in North America, Europe/UK, and Asia.

More:

August 14, 2009

Elegant wooden bikes by Renovo

A family-owned and operated company, Renovo sells custom-built frames forged from two halves of hollowed out wood that are bonded together. The result is strong and absolutely stunning!

From their website:

Some folks view these frames as works of art, too nice or delicate for daily use, but they aren't your Brigitte parks oh-so-carefully ... mom's dining room table. We chose wood for it's ride quality and sustainability, and got beauty as a bonus; but it's not a weakness. An impact that will dent and ruin a butted metal or carbon frame merely bounces off the Renovo frame leaving a small dent.

Wood is tough stuff; a good example is the walnut stock of the 1903 Springfield rifle. Used in warfare from WW1 through the Korean conflict, they were thrown from trucks,dragged through sand, rivers and hell, used as pry bars, clubs, crutches and occasionally, rifles. But after the wars, civilians bought these battle-scarred relics and refinished the stocks into gorgeous sporting rifles.

Calling them Functional Art is fine with me.

Renovo (via Inhabitat)

More:

Long Live the Bicycle

Wooden Bike

Wooden Bicycle from China

August 12, 2009

Skateboard stools

I spotted these nifty stools on the Inhabitat blog and immediately had two thoughts -- these are super cool(!), and there's gotta be a way to use the 6 or so skateboards scattered in my yard to make one myself (or a close facsimile thereof).

After these thoughts, I immediately went to the maker's website to see how much one of the stools, just as a fallback you understand, would set me back. After all, the seat on top looks a little tricky to fabricate. I thought the $199 price tag was extremely fair for the workmanship involved, but it was just high enough to make me carve out a few hours in the coming weekend to do some experimenting. If I bring myself to actually cut the end off a couple of decks, I'll report back in the Comments. And if I prefer, I can always send my old boards to Deckstool for a custom job (and a 20 buck discount).

July 31, 2009

Hacking parking meters

Pt 2081
Our pals released a very interesting presentation about smart parking meters at the Black Hat Briefings USA, Las Vegas, Nevada, yesterday... Good presentation to review on how they figured out the security (or lack of) on parking meters...

Throughout the United States, cities are deploying “smart” electronic fare collection infrastructures. In 2003, San Francisco launched a $35 million pilot program to replace approximately 23,000 mechanical parking meters with electronic units that boasted tamper resistance, payment via smart card, auditing capabilities, and an estimated $30 million annually in fare collection revenue. Other major cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, and San Diego, have made similar moves. This presentation details our evaluation of electronic parking meters, including hardware disassembly, smart card protocol emulation, and silicon die analysis.

July 18, 2009

How-To: Read George Orwell's 1984 on your Kindle

Sany2305
Citizen! If you bought a copy of George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-four," (1984) for your Kindle it was deleted. It appears that the publisher changed its mind about digital versions (update, they were never allowed to publish them in the first place) and Amazon reached in and removed it from your reader. Sorry for the inconvenience! So, what to do? Let's assume you're going to go on a nice trip, like Australia, and you really wanted to read 1984 - once you get there, you can easily reload your Kindle with a copy of 1984. "Little Brother" will show you how...

Read full story

July 9, 2009

Urban planter

Interesting urban design pops up in Toronto. A really creative approach to guerrilla gardening. The planter is made from layers of old advertising flyers!