Hasta La Gadget!

No other art form transacts with us the way literature can. It’s very accessible yet it demands and invites us to add depth to the world and the ideas it conjures. Devin Montgomery tries to capture the joy of discovery and exploration that we get from reading with his unique invention. He calls it the Midnight Clock. It’s a functional timepiece, but it also has a secret. If you follow the riddle engraved on its body, you’ll find a hidden book compartment.

The Midnight Clock is made from either birch of bamboo, with a shatterproof acrylic cover and a quartz movement. To reveal the hidden compartment, you have to remove four pegs along with the acrylic cover in the right order. Naturally, you’ll need to decipher the riddle to find out the right order. It’s not hard to solve, but that’s not really the point of the clock.

Pledge at least $85 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a Midnight Clock as a reward. Naturally once you solve the riddle the Midnight Clock’s magic is drained, but I prefer to think of it as a functional and very creative gift wrap. I think it’s a good way of foreshadowing the wonders that await the recipient in the gift itself.

I do find it somewhat of a missed opportunity though. I think that art is man’s attempt to express that which cannot otherwise be shared using words. Which is why I find the writer a very funny and also valiant class of artist: he uses the very thing that he hopes to transcend. It’s like a vaccine, not because it cures something but because of the audacity of its composition. So wouldn’t it be funny if instead of a clock, you had a book that, when read in a certain way, opens up to reveal another book?

Thanks to it8bit, I’ve found one of my new favorite artists: Billy Butcher. His collection Come Play My Game, I’ll Test Ya! is an edgy and lively mashup of pop culture, headlined by my favorite pastime: videogames. Can you name the references in each illustration?

My favorite has to be the Akira/Pac-Man/Ghostbusters mashup. “Tetsuoooo!!! Waka-Waka!!!”

Head to Red Bubble to get prints, posters, clothing, stickers and greeting cards featuring Butcher Billy’s artwork. You can also check out his Tumblr blog for more of his art.

[via Behance via it8bit]

Illustrator Josh Mirman takes his word-shaping talents to the Galactic Federation. As he did with Mario and other classic videogame characters, Mirman drew the heroine Samus Aran in his Very Wordy style – her body parts are made of words related to her.

As with his previous creations – including these awesome Mega Man posters – you can buy Code of a Bounty Hunter printed on paper or on a T-shirt.

You can order a Code of a Bounty Hunter poster or t-shirt from Zen Monkey Studios for $10-$20 (USD) depending on the size of the poster. The t-shirt sells for $17 to $19 depending on size as well.

[via Gamefreaks]

As the recent NSA leaks have proven, a lot – if not all – of what you do, say and store online can be examined and archived by other people and organizations without your knowledge or approval. That’s why Adafruit Industries put together a DIY kit for those looking to add an extra layer of anonymity and security to their online activities. It’s called the Onion Pi, a plug and play device that creates an anonymous access point.

As you may have guessed, the device is based on the popular Raspberry Pi computer. When you connect it to the Internet via an Ethernet cable, it creates a Wi-Fi access point that is connected to the Tor network. In simple terms, the Tor network encrypts your connection and routes it through a random series of relays. This makes it harder – but not necessarily impossible – to identify your location as well as the data that you’re sending or receiving. You can listen to the folks at Adafruit talk about the Onion Pi at around 11:50 in the video below:

Stage a PRISM break and order the Onion Pi kit from Adafruit Industries. The kit with a small antenna is available for $90 (USD); there’s a kit that comes with a large antenna but it’s out of stock at the moment. Adafruit donates part of the proceeds from the sale of the Onion Pi to the Tor Foundation. Sadly the Onion Pi logo is not included in the kit.

[via OhGizmo!]

The last cosplay I featured was very faithful to its source material. It was also legitimately creepy. This Toothless quad suit on the other hand may not be the most polished costume out there, but it is one of the most adorable ones I’ve ever seen.

Based on the protagonist’s best buddy in the animated movie How to Train Your Dragon, the suit was made in 2011 by Jessica Angus aka Monoyasha. She says it’s quite comfortable and can easily be removed for transport or storage. In case you’re wondering, the wearer sees through an opening on the costume’s neck.

You can find out a bit more about Jessica’s costume on her deviantART page, where she also posted a few in progress shots.

[via GeekTyrant]