The cardboard bicycle - just the right amount of crazy

Israeli designer Giora Kariv had his mind pretty much blown when he heard about someone who created a cardboard canoe - and then he decided that he was going to make a cardboard bicycle...


The project might well have been scuppered if he'd listened to the engineers he consulted: they told him that it was impossible. But he couldn't let the concept just die in his mind - and his wife said that if he didn't at least try, he'd drive himself mad, then her, then his kids.


Good thing he listened:

"Impossible", huh?

The resulting bike is strong (the video below illustrates how strong), water-resistant, looks like it's made of plastic, and can carry riders up to 220kg (that's 485lbs!). And the production cost is just $9 - the cost to the consumer is estimated at $60-$90 depending on what parts are added on.


Take a look at this awesome bicycle in action:






Thank goodness there are people like this in the world, who are unwilling to give up in the face of being told their plans won't work!

Danceth thou ye Hokey-Pokey?

If thou art feeling jaded in thine efforts at merriment and carousing, mayhap thou couldst try capering hither and yon in ye new dance sensation, Ye Hokey-Pokey.


Knowest thou not ye means by which thou shouldst moveth thine body? Then, cast thine eyes upon ye parchment below, and verily, thou shalt be educated henceforth:

Now, Mark maketh no claim to be an all-encompassing expert on ye rituals and customs of ye British populace. That particular fact notwithstanding, Mark possesseth a suffiency of pedantry enabling him to point out that, in ye land of Ye Bard, ye dance is named Ye Hokey-Cokey.


With that said, ye sonnet above pleaseth both he and his good lady in equal measure!




Thy humble scribes at Sense Deprivation giveth thanks to BoingBoing, who in turn sourced this from Neatorama, who located it at Geeks Are Sexy, who saw it on Shakespeare Tonight's Facebook page.

Teachers Dancing Behind Students

We were linked to this video by our awesome friend jessartisan - the teaching faculty of Abby Kelley Foster Charter Public School in Worcester, MA getting down and funky, during what appears to be the filming of a student documentary...

Our favorite is the bald-headed guy with the goatee - he really gets into it! Wish we had teachers like this at our schools when we were the kids' age...

An unusual way to survive the Zombie Apocalypse...

What with increased talk of the Zombie Apocalypse, we were very amused by Doghouse Diaries' take on how to stay safe:

At the very least, there's a video game in this...

The small size of the toilet aperture is a little unnerving, though... Maybe I'm over-thinking this.


Source: Doghouse Diaries
Found at: Nerd Approved

Most awesome marriage proposal EVAR?

The love-struck guy in this video wanted to propose to his girlfriend - which is fair enough. But how to propose in a way she'll remember? How about getting more than SIXTY friends and family members to lip-sync to Bruno Mars' I Think I Wanna Marry You?





Oh, and there's a nice little play on words: Mars' lyrics include "Or is it this dancing juice?" - watch out for what shows up at those moments in the song...


I know one thing: If you're going to put on a production this big, you'd better be damn sure she's gonna say "yes"...


Originally posted at The CHIVE.

Guinness' novel way to present a QR code

Guinness' advertising bods came up with an interesting way of getting their product talked about: pint glasses specially printed with a QR code...

When the glass is empty, the code's unreadable:

... and even if you fill it with (for example) beer, the code still can't be read:

But if you were to fill it with a dark fluid - Hey! What about filling it with GUINNESS? - then all becomes clear:

Then, provided you're still able to hold your smartphone up to the thing without bobbing and weaving all over the place, having the phone scan the QR code apparently results in status updates on Twitter, 4square, and Facebook - as well as downloading coupons, inviting your friends to join you, and even downloading exclusive Guinness content.

Of course, if you're having a sly one (or three) during your lunch hour, the last thing you'd want is for your drink to snitch on you...

Picture source: The Dieline

Where we found out about it: Boing Boing

3D printed chocolate brain... yummy!

Inition, a 3D-printing company based in the Shoreditch district of London, England, recently decided to have a little play with the MRI scan of a colleague's brain: They used the resulting data to create a chocolate replica!

Mmmmm.... brains.

What's more, they even went to the trouble of providing a how-to on the process, over at Instructables, together with a Creative Commons-released copy of the MRI scan in question, which is rather nice of them.

The Zombie Apocalypse probably just became more delicious.

(Side note: I was going to use "Brains are quite rich in cholesterol" as a headline, quoting Laura Shigihara's lyrics from the game Plants vs. Zombies, but it turns out that even milk chocolate doesn't actually have that much "bad" cholesterol, so that made a mess out of that idea.)

Thanks to Boing Boing for pointing out this awesomeness!

A functioning Portal turret gun!

A student at Penn State University decided, for the finals of his Advanced Mechatronics class, to build a fully-functioning turret gun from Portal - though this one only fires NERF bullets (not sure whether to be unhappy or relieved about that). He does say, in the video below, that he's still to create the proper shell for it, which is why it looks a little odd.

There's only one logical step up from this: GLaDOS. Just make sure to use NERF Neurotoxin, okay?

Thanks to Geeks Are Sexy for bringing this one to our attention!

TARDIS for sale or rent...

It's inevitable, when you have a talent contest, especially something like Britain's Got Talent, that there are going to be... unusual acts. For example, why haven't they buzzed off that snarky so-and-so who sits at the end of the panel each week?


Well, this is definitely unusual: Martyn Crofts appeared on BGT with a saucepan on his head, and - without any electronic wizardry - proceeded to parody "King of the Road" as a Dalek.

And, sure enough, that nasty man on the right-hand end of the desk still needs buzzing off...


Thanks to BoingBoing for sourcing that little nugget!

You know what you can do with your tweets? (NSFW)

One of the authors of this blog (i.e. not the one typing this right now) just said, "Social media is a toilet". And nothing illustrates this better, perhaps, than the creation of Shitter, which takes a Twitter feed of your choosing, prints out the tweets onto four rolls of toilet paper, and then mails it to you.

The tagline for Shitter is "Social media has never been so disposable". Enough said, I think.


Original source: Laughing Squid.

Boinghenge!

Artist Jeremy Deller has created a full-scale inflatable version of Stonehenge, which is presently on display at the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. Named Sacrilege, the inflatable installation is free for young and old alike to bounce around upon to their heart's content.

The piece is on display until May 7, after which it will go on tour through Britain, arriving in London in time for the Olympics. Just keep the javelins away from the thing, please!

Source: io9 - Thanks to @Red_Headed_Nerd for tweeting about this!

Someone doesn't GET steampunk...

One thing that really turns our crank (pun intended) here at Sense Deprivation is steampunk, and one of our favourite all-things-steampunk sites is the excellent Xerposa. Today, they tweeted about an article by Ricky Lee concerning Turn Me On, by David Guetta featuring Nicki Minaj - although, oddly, the actual post is dated March 1. Anyway, Mr Lee does a highly impressive job of illustrating that, although the video for the song involves a lot of steampunk, whoever came up with the video's concept just doesn't get the culture. But rather than re-write Ricky's article here (and that rather defeats the object of this blog), I'll direct you instead to the article itself, as well as provide you with the video so you can see the thing before you read the biting critique.