geek in heels

When I first read about the Heineken Beertender on Geekologie back in January, I almost fell out of my chair. Because not only do I love beers, Heineken is my favorite common beer. And Krups is one of my favorite kitchen gadget brands. Put the two together and…wow I think I just had a mild orgasm.

Today, Gizmodo announced the official release date of the Beertender.

TOMORROW.

Anyone have an extra $299 they want to donate to the “Help Keep the Geek Hydrated and Happy” cause?

You may find it surprising that I was in a sorority in college. I was not only a member of this sorority, but I was very involved, having held three VP positions, a pledge mom one semester, and chapter president for two consecutive semesters. I can go on and on about my sorority days, but I’ll save that for another day.

One of the many things that the general public knows about the greek system is that when a member stars pledging, he/she is given a nickname. This nickname may be based on the pledge’s personality, looks, hobbies…almost anything!

My nickname was Mona Lisa. I will not divulge the exact meaning behind this name on the world wide web, but if you really want to know, ask and I’ll tell you. ;-)

Although I have studied art history extensively and is an avid art lover, I have never really liked da Vinci’s masterpiece. When I visited the Louvre in Paris, I found the painting underwhelming and could not understand why it was so popular. However, after gaining this new nickname, I naturally became more interested in the lady with the mysterious smile.

I knew that art historians and critics have varying, sometimes outrageous theories on the portrait and its model but the one thing that everyone seemed to focus on was her smile. Why is the Mona Lisa’s smile so intriguing?

And today, I discovered that there may be a scientific explanation: because da Vinci painted her in colors that play tricks on the eye.

Margaret S. Livingstone is a professor of neurobiology at Harvard who studies how cells in the visual system process information: form, color, depth, and movement. She explains that the Mona Lisa’s smile is almost entirely in low spatial frequencies, and so is best seen by your peripheral vision.

The three images above show the Mona Lisa’s face filtered to show selectively lowest (left) low (middle) and high (right) spatial frequencies.

So what does this mean? When you look at the Mona Lisa’s eyes or the background, you will associate the painting with a smile like the left or middle panels and think she is smiling. However, if you look directly at her smile, you will see the smile depicted in the right panel, where her smile has vanished.

In other words, she always seems to be smiling but doesn’t when you look directly at her. All due to an optical illusion.

How awesome is that?!?

Via Collision Detection.

Yesterday, New York’s MoMA began an exhibition called Design and the Elastic Mind, which, according to their website, “focuses on designers’ ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and social mores, changes that will demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior, and convert them into objects and systems that people understand and use.”

In other words, geek art. Right up my alley.

Here are three works from the online gallery that particularly caught my eyes:

“Attracted to Light,” from the Long Exposure series, by Geoffrey Mann

“Attracted to Light narrates the erratic behavior of a moth upon the stimulus of light,” explains the designer. The trajectory is captured through cinematic technology and the echo of the path, materialized through rapid prototyping, forms a delicately poetic hanging lamp. The Long Exposure series, which features the trace of a bird in flight and the echo of another taking off and landing, captures the transient beauty of time and motion.

I usually cannot stand moths, but this piece is so fluid and beautiful. I love the fact that it resembles a high-end designer lamp, because the piece itself is centered around light: the moth swirling around a light source, and imagining the scene as captured through a long exposure camera.

“Newton Virus,” Troika

The Newton Virus applies the laws of gravity to computer interfaces, causing desktop icons to fall down as if subject to the earth’s gravitational pull. Troika is developing other computing viruses as “an under-exploited art form,” using them for poetic purposes far from their traditional destructive and obstructive goals. The designers invite anyone with programming skills and imagination to participate in this challenge through their Web site.

Totally geekalicious. Need I say more?

“Lily Impeller,” Jayden D. Harman

The Lily Impeller is a mixer “designed using the elegant and effective geometries found in natural fluid flow,” explains its designer. Its shape, based on the logarithmic curve known as the Fibonacci spiral found in nautilus shells and whirlpools, accommodates a centripetal flow of liquid with a little friction. As a result the device is capable of circulating millions of gallons of water with a minimal amount of energy. Used in municipal reservoir tanks, the mixer prevents drinking water from stagnating, reducing the need for disinfectant additives.

I’ve been fascinated with the Fibonacci spiral ever since reading about it in a textbook back in elementary school. And to use the spiral to streamline and make better a simple process, using crude metals nonetheless…genius!

Design and the Elastic Mind will run through May 12, 2008. Go check it out!

An article in today’s NYTimes caught my eye:

Starship Kimchi: A Bold Taste Goes Where It Has Never Gone Before

Ko San, the first Korean astronaut, blasts off into space onto the ISS on April 8, and he will be bringing a hefty supply of kimchi.

While bringing a cherished food on a long journey might seem like a simple act, taking kimchi into space required millions of dollars in research and years of work.

“The key was how to make a bacteria-free kimchi while retaining its unique taste, color and texture,” said Lee Ju-woon at the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute, who began working on the project in 2003 with samples of kimchi provided by his mother.

Ordinary kimchi is teeming with microbes, like lactic acid bacteria, which help fermentation. On Earth they are harmless, but scientists feared they could turn dangerous in space if cosmic rays and other radiation cause them to mutate.

Another problem was that kimchi has a short shelf life, especially when temperatures fluctuate rapidly, as they sometimes do in space.

“Imagine if a bag of kimchi starts fermenting and bubbling out of control and bursts all over the sensitive equipment of the spaceship,” Mr. Lee said.

He said his team found a way to kill the bacteria with radiation while retaining most of the original taste.

Kim Sung-soo, a Korea Food Research Institute scientist who also worked on “space kimchi,” said another challenge was reducing the strong smell, which can cause non-Koreans to blanch. He said researchers were able to reduce the smell by “one-third or by half,” according to tests conducted by local food companies.

As a Korean I’m all for the proliferation of kimchi. Kimchi should be served at all restaurants. In fact, one of my favorite pizza toppings is kimchi (I’m 100% serious here - the next time you’re having a plain cheese pizza, slap some kimchi on top of that bad boy. It’s an epicurean delight.)

However, spending millions and dedicating years of research? I’m not so sure about that. Couldn’t the time and resources be spent elsewhere?

If you are at all familiar with design, printing, and/or publications, you should be aware of Pantone and its Pantone Matching System (PMS). (Pantone touts itself as the “global authority on color” and its PMS is the professional standard for design industries.)

And, as we all know, I’m a color freak.

So imagine my delight when I saw the 2008 Pantone Calendar featured in Black*Eiffel. Created by Swiss designer Moritz Zwimpfer, this desktop calendar features a different PMS color every day, with plenty of space below for appointments, notes, or doodles.

I also love that the pages are spiral-bound, which makes for easier writing.

The Pantone Calendar is available on Amazon for $28.