But there is some controversy over the legs’ use. While they only put out a 95% return of force as compared to the normal human legs’ 200% return, the running prosthetics also give the user a springing gait and increased stride distance, which could lend them an unfair advantage as well as a jaunty disposition. Considering that this story took place in the ancient days of the year of our lord, 2000, and the fact that the legs have since gone through countless permutations by a myriad of companies, many designs endow abilities well beyond typical human capacity. But there is a great tragedy being overlooked in this story: Brian Frasure, the previous world record holder, actually helped design these prosthetic carbon-fiber feet, and he was the one who gave them to Pistorius…who promptly proceeded to wipe Frasure from the record books with them.
2. Bullet Proof: D3O is an exciting new development in the area of bullet proofing material and not, as it sounds, a generic brand version of a Star Wars robot. Or rather, it’s an impact proof material which, in conjunction with already existing bulletproof materials, could provide true invulnerability to most gunshot wounds.
As it stands now, you can survive many gunshot wounds with traditional Kevlar, but are likely to feel pretty poor after words, as the distributed force causes flesh wounds, broken bones and large concentric bruises – like getting your ass beat by the atmosphere. Oftentimes the impact from surviving a gunshot will temporarily knock the victim unconscious as well, leaving them vulnerable with a guy that has already made his feelings clear through the administration of bullets.
3. Invisibility: Scientists are getting damn close to inventing a true invisibility cloak. Previous efforts, like the one pictured before – while still scarily advanced – are nonetheless always slightly inaccurate, because they rely on a camera/projector technique.
We can not only render things invisible in theory by bending light waves around an object, but have even progressed so far as to be developing the meta materials needed to bring the theory to life.
4. Spiderman Webs: Some of us, as children, saw Spider-man’s amazing agility and web-swinging prowess and were immediately struck with jealous awe. The desperation even had some of us – who shall remain unnamed and are in no way me– microwaving spiders in an attempt to harness their radioactive bite (all right, so some of us were a little more retarded than others.) Not like Liming Dai, and Zhong Lin Wing, two professors at the universities of Dayton and Georgia Tech, respectively, who invented a material.
The true awesomeness of the material, however, is that the nanotube spatulae (basically microscopic hairs) design also allows the material to pull free with a well-placed tug, letting you adhere to virtually any surface as well as quickly remove from that surface for redeployment. Or, as your childhood selves would understand it: Holy Shit! We get to swing on webs now!
5. Super Sight: Rob Spence, a filmmaker from Canada, had his eye wounded in a shooting accident as a child. Presumably furious at its weak character and lazy work ethic, Spence asked doctors to just completely remove it a few years ago, and now he’s getting it replaced with a small camera (of the type normally used for colonoscopies,) a battery, and a wireless transmitter – effectively turning him into a human documentarian capable of recording, broadcasting, and relaying literally everything he sees, as he sees it.
Clearly this is an advantage over other, larger, more expensive filmmaking crews, as it not only gives Scott a completely secret way to record, but makes him basically the world’s smallest, cheapest studio. But god, consider what he’s sacrificed to get here! Not only has he been shot in the eye, but he’s demanded that said eye be removed, years later, and then replaced with something that normally goes up your butt. The man’s got a butt-eye for christ’s sake! Van Gogh may have cut off his ear, but until he replaces it with a dick, Rob Spence wins for craziest gesture in the name of art, hands down.
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]]>The first edition Kobe Luminarie took place in December of 1995, as a memorial to the lives lost in the terrible earthquake of January 17. It was entitled “Dreams and Light” and was a message of hope that two and a half million people came to see, on the first day. Following the success of the first festival, Kobe Luminarie became a yearly event that celebrates Kobe’s remarkable recovery from disaster.
Various light decorations are created from millions of small light bulbs and LEDs, from bright arches to citadels and whatever else Italian designer Valerio Festi and his team decide on. Since the name of the festival comes from the plural of the Italian “luminaria” -which means light decoration – the decision of employing an Italian team must not have been incidental. Every year, the theme of Kobe Luminarie changes, and that has people from all over the world coming back year after year, to see the new light structures. Approximately five million people attend the Kobe Luminarie every year.
Apart from the beautiful light structures, another impressive aspect of Kobe Luminarie is that it relies on its audience to keep going. Visitors support the event by putting coins in the donation boxes set up around the brightly lit structures, and this assures the funding for next year’s festival. A great way to show appreciation, considering the entrance if free of charge.
Just to be clear, Kobe Luminarie has nothing to do with Christmas, despite the common colorful-lights theme. This year, the festival of light took place between December 2-13, and was named “Il cuore nella luce” (The heart in the light).
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Coffee Cup Calendar: The Creation Gallery in Ginza, Tokyo, has an exhibition at the end of each year where they ask a couple of hundred designers from around the world to design or decorate a product. This coffee cup calendar was designed by Takeshi Nishioka.
Modern Art Perpetual Calendar: Designed by Gideon Dagan for the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1998, this boldly conceived calendar was designed to be used year after year. Simply move the two magnetic balls to mark the date and month. Made for the Museum using injection-molded plastic and magnets, it can be wall-mounted or used on a desktop.
Circle The Date Stickers: These are so fun! You’ll be organized and having fun all at the same time with these Circle the Date Stickers. Use them on your photo boxes, scrapbook pages, journals, cards – you can even use these in your pantry! Or, bring them to school or work and use them on your reports or projects that have due dates! The possibilities are endless.
Post-it Note Calendar: Paper company Fedrigoni turned to Studio8 Design for their 2010 calendar, which takes the form of a post-it style calendar with a page-per-day, a colour-per-month and the user can fold the day (number) stand up everyday, for a whole year.
Calendar Wallpaper: This is a wallpaper that functions like a calendar. Designed by Christiaan Postma. With this at home, is impossible to forget a birthday.
Eternal Magnetic Calendar: This calendar was awarded the Bronze prize at the Kiev International Advertising Festival. The magnets can be stacked on top of each other to display changing deadlines. Very cool.
Calendar Made of Matches: Designed by Yurko Gutsulyak, the idea was to create as unique a calendar so that the process of its presenting would become an outstanding event. Each page is a month and it looks like a comb made of matches that correspond to the days. The matches are real and the construction of the calendar is absolutely safe.
Dupont – Corian Calendar: This beautiful desk calendar is a design of Niels-Kjeldsen for Dupont. Its name is “The Corian Calendar.” The great thing of it, is that it’s a forever lasting calendar, so you only have to purchase one for your whole life time. 
Creative Calendar 2010: Creative Calendar 2010 By Andrew Ackroyd. The typographical treatment of the calendar is based on the instantly recognizable eye charts, familiar to anyone who has visited opticians. The individual days can be identified using a magnetic magnifying glass. The back page will be a magnetic sheet which the magnifying glass will stick to. The pages and magnetic sheet will be wiro-bound together at the top, and there will also be a hole in the middle for the calendar to be hung from.
Timor Perpetual Calendar: Timor perpetual calendar by Enzo Mari. Inspired by the childhood memory of train signage, the timor is an interactive flip calendar that will instantly give your desk a retro modern face-lift.
Ink Calendar: Ink Calendar designed by Spanish designer Oscar Diaz is an unusual calendar that uses the capillary action of ink spreading across paper to display the date. Each day the ink spreads across a sheet of paper of a month displaying new date the ink is absorbed slowly and therefore numbers are displayed every day. So you need to change paper and ink every month. Moreover the inks are of different colors, depending on our perception of the weather on that month (3 shades of green in spring, orange and red in summer, yellow in autumn, dark blue in December).
After Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, new security measures and improvements eventually will enable about 200,000 people a year to get inside Lady Liberty’s head.
Presented to America by the people of France in 1886, the statue sits on 12 Acre Liberty Island in New York Harbor. It is just over 305 feet tall from the ground to the top of the torch flame. The crown has 25 windows and seven spikes.
Here are some some interesting facts about Statue of Liberty:
- Spike That Fact: The seven spikes represent the seven seas and seven continents of the world, according to the websites of the National Park Service and the Statue of Liberty Club. However, some people says, the spikes are sun rays and the circle is “simply a halo or what in art is called a nimbus, showing she is divine.”
- Weight: The statue is fashioned from copper atop an under girding of steel. The copper in the statue weighs 31 tons, the steel weighs 125 tons and the concrete foundation is 27,000 tons.
- Do Not Torch: The statue’s torch has been closed to the public since the “Black Tom” explosions in 1916. German agents sabotaged a munitions depot on a nearby island on July 30, 1916, and shrapnel damaged the statue’s torch and skirt. Today, members of the National Park Service must scale a 40-foot ladder to tend to the floodlights in the torch.
- Winds of Change: When the wind blows 50 miles an hour, the statue sways three inches and the torch shifts five inches.
- Give Me Liberty and Give Me Death: Though the statue symbolizes hope and optimism to millions, it has been the setting for at least three suicides over the years, says Moreno. He believes the first may have been in 1929, when a young fellow, turned down by his girlfriend, threw himself from the crown. In 1997, the New York Daily News reported that a 30-year-old man from Senegal plunged 100 feet to his death. “All indications are that it was a suicide,” said Manny Strumpf, the National Park Service spokesman at the time. There have been no murders that Moreno is aware of, but there was a 2006 novel titled Murder at the Statue of Liberty — by Manny Strumpf.
- Liberty Goes Hollywood: The Statue of Liberty has starred in films since cinema’s early days. Charlie Chaplin featured it in his 1917 film The Immigrant. And Alfred Hitchcock used the statue as a backdrop for his 1942 feature film The Saboteur.
- The Statue’s Trident: Vandalism is a perennial problem, park service officials say. When the crown was open, people put chewing gum all over the place and wrote their names with lipstick.