Hasta La Gadget!

Ilija Stjepic wants to do for photographic printing what Instagram did for Polaroid. Ilija and his friends made the Enfojer kit. It lets you develop the images in your smartphone into black and white pictures using traditional techniques. You’ll need a darkroom, chemicals, the works. It’s the perfect gift for the budding hipster.

The most important part of Stjepic and company’s kit is the Enfojer itself. It’s an enlarger – a projector used in printing from negatives – that uses your smartphone as both the light source and the film. The Enfojer projects an image from your phone to a piece of photographic paper. Then you’ll dip that paper into a couple of chemical baths, and in about 6 minutes you’ll have a black and white photo.

The Enfojer is supposed to work with most smartphones. As shown in the image above it will also have a complementary app that provides guidance as well as basic editing features. The other parts of the kit are indispensable as well – the photographic film, the safelight, the chemical trays – but you can get those items elsewhere. Still don’t get how it works? Watch the video. Brace yourself: annoying background music is coming.

Seriously Ilija, how in John Herschel’s name did you think that music was okay? In any case, if you made it through the whole video you must be really interested in the Enfojer. Pledge at least $200 (USD) on Indiegogo to get the Enfojer as a reward. You’ll need to pledge at least $350 if you want the entire kit, which includes 100 sheets of photographic paper, trays, tongs, a safelight and a tray rack. You’ll still need to buy the required chemicals – and find a space to convert into a darkroom – even if you buy the full kit. You gotta work hard to be hip.

I’m not sure if the USPS approves of this, but this awesomely unusual mailbox by Roger Buchko is currently making the rounds on the Internet. Understandably so, since instead of the usual plain box, this one is in the shape of a giant.Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum handgun.

It takes up considerable space on Roger’s lawn in rural New Jersey. It’s mighty heavy, too. The gun part weighs about 350 pounds, while its base is much heavier – weighing in at a whopping 1,200 pounds.

Roger supports gun rights but he said that he didn’t build the huge letterbox to send some sort of message. Being a semi-retired cabinet maker, he just wanted to make one after seeing others post similar designs on the web.

Of his unusual mailbox, Roger says: “I  put it out there to try to get some work and because I needed a new mailbox. At least 500 people have taken pictures of it already. They love it. I haven’t had one hater yet, except one night somebody threw eggs on it. I’m lucky. I expected everybody was going to hate me but turns out everybody loves me.”

[NY Daily News via Craziest Gadgets via Oh Gizmo!]

American history is among the richest in the world. I’m not just talking about what went down in the real world, but also everything that transpired in the realm of science fiction, horror, and fantasy.

In an attempt to map the most notable of these fictional events, Chop Shop has launched a Kickstarter project called the “Altered States of America.”

It’s essentially a print project, where backers can make pledges to receive buttons and posters featuring the parts of the map or the completed map itself.

Putting the map together will require a lot of work. In fact, the Chop Shop team is already on it, but they’re inviting anyone who wants to contribute to send in their suggestions of which events to include on various parts of the map – especially those states with a shortage of otherworldly occurrences.

A minimum pledge of $5(USD) will get you two one-inch buttons featuring the state (and its corresponding artwork) of your choice.  Contributions between $30 to $40 will score you an individual state print, while $70 will get you the full 36″ x 24″ silkscreened print.

The project wraps funding on September 23, so you’ll want to head over to Kickstarter now if you want to get in on the action.

[via io9]

Of all the movies I watched this summer one of the most surprising was Pacific Rim. I went to see this movie mostly because my son wanted to go check it out, and it turned out to be a fantastic movie. The first creature we see the giant robots in the movie fighting is something called a Knifehead.

It looks like a cross between a swordfish and shark with four arms and legs to me. Now, an enterprising geek has taken a bunch of LEGO bricks to construct his own LEGO Kaiju – and the result is quite impressive. I’m always amazed by the high-quality LEGO recreations that builders are able to make without any sort of instructions.

The builder of this awesome creature is OliveSeon, who unfortunately gives no details on exactly how this massive work of geek art was created. It’s hard to tell exactly how large this LEGO beast is, but I’m betting some glue was used to hold the finished creation together. How else could it stand up to a beatdown by a Jaeger?

[via Brothers-Brick]

Dungeons and Dragons fans will be disappointed that they never had a birthday cake like this one made for them. It’s a dragon laying on an ancient spell book, with it’s tail twisted around a bright blue D20 die.

Reddit user Nateosis’ sister made this sweet looking cake. I love the details on the dragon. She is super talented and obviously a dragon lover. Believe it or not, even the D20 is cake! Critical hit? No, I’m taking a critical bite!

Damn, why don’t I have a sister who does cool things like this? Probably because I have no sister. And look at what sisters do? Awesome job. Dragon cakes rock!

[via That’s Nerdalicious]