Gravitational Displacemats
/gravitational-displacemats-30248.jpg "Gravitational Displacemats")
Hey, it's a trick placemat! Either that or a new line of cast iron dishes and silverware. Nah, it's the placemat. The Gravitational Displacemat, as they're called. These optical illusions for the dinner table add a few curvy tweaks to a straight grid pattern that, positioned under plate and cutlery, create some trippy visuals for those using them.
Gravitational Displacemats won't make the most stylish additions to your table decor, but close as we are to January, it probably isn't a bad idea to drill the concept of heavy, heavy, HEAVY into your guests' minds as they go in for that third helping of mashed potatoes. The matheMATical roots of the placemats may also win the favor of anyone looking for gifts for geeks.
Pyro - Open Palm Fireball Shooter
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. I know because only Santa could make a hidden wristband that allows me to launch fireballs from my open palm, and only Santa could make it available for my mama to purchase for me...
True Mirror - How Others See You
The True Mirror idea is simple (and old; it was first patented in 1887): place two mirrors at right angles and have a look-see. Its effect, though, elicits the complexities of realization spanning everything from Whoa!...
HOLHO - Smartphone Hologram Generator
HOLHO. It's like a portmanteau of Holla! and Jai Ho! And the contraption is an Italian design, so we've got some real cultural diversity going on here in the world of holograms. A pyramid-shaped structure that sits on...
/fun-with-anatomical-optical-39428.jpg?mode=crop "Fun with Anatomical Optical Illusions (NSFW)")
Fun with Anatomical Optical Illusions (NSFW)
I've found some choice anatomical optical illusions for your viewing pleasure this evening (or morning with your computer rearview mirror on your monitor at work). Most are just momentary illusions whose true nature is...
/leidenfrost-effect-ring-23711.jpg "Leidenfrost Effect Ring")
Leidenfrost Effect Ring
I love the dude who makes Grand Illusions' videos. I think his name is either George or Hendrik. Both because George Auckland and Hendrik Ball are the two Brits who founded and run Grand Illusions out of an 18th century...
/matrix-melting-rug-61273.jpg?mode=crop "Melting Rugs")
Melting Rugs
These Melting Rugs are affordable tributes to (i.e., cheap copies of?) Azerbaijani visual artist Faig Ahmed's original surreal designs. The funky runners come in a variety of colorways and sizes, including custom requests...
Shtox Ever-Spinning Glass
The German-made Shtox glass, a Red Dot Design Award winner with a bottom primed for rotational movement, has the patented capability of spinning into infinity at the flick of a wrist. Just like Euler's Disk. Also like...
The World Upside Down Goggles
The trickery of prisms strikes again! Here two hunks of Dove plexiglass fit over a pair of glasses' eyepieces to invert all images the wearer sees. Reversing Goggles make for interesting school science experiments, as...
Infinite Dungeon Corridor
The Infinite Dungeon Corridor. Enter at your own risk...and inevitable peril. Ow! I think I jammed my finger on a mirror!...
Slow Dance - A Frame that Slows Down Time
Imagine a club in Vegas. A go-go dancer. Strobe lights. It's a spectacle of stop motion animation, the fluidity of movement altered by the way the flashes of light play with your eyes. Now scale that scene way down and...
Optical Illusion Growing/Shrinking Ring
Dude, I am such a sucker for things that regale and mesmerize without requiring me to determine which geometric proofs or laws of physics or wonders of nature make them work. That's why I fare so much better with optical...
/things-that-make-you-go-mmm-52103.jpg?mode=crop "Things That Make You Go Mmm: 19 Food Gifts for 2021")
Things That Make You Go Mmm: 19 Food Gifts for 2021
My 19-course collection of food gifts for 2021 isn't just a meal of highfalutin foods for foodies, it's a meal of things that make you go Mmm even if you're just a normal human being who likes to consume food. Or cook...