Bamboo Toy Prototypes

15 toy design students from Shenkar College were invited on a 2 week trip to China to develop bamboo toy prototypes for Ha-Pe International. The most successful designs maximize bamboo's natural attributes rather than try to pretend it is wood. The sand bucket set is particularly wonderful.

Link

Mysterious Zombie! Hangover Grip of Iron!

Check out this superb Wall Street Journal article about the legendary hangover machine known as the Zombie:

The Beachcomber issued a Barnumesque dare -- declaring the drink so potent that he would serve no more than two to a customer. (Drinks author David Embury would later note that the "fear-inspiring slogan" simply guaranteed that "everyone except Caspar Milquetoast, of course, comes back for a third.")

Don the Beachcomber came to be nicknamed the "Zombie Palace," and Beach kept four Filipino barmen cranking the drinks out. They were relegated to the kitchen to keep prying eyes from discerning the mystery drink's ingredients. And even the bartenders were in the dark about the makeup of certain key ingredients, such as "Donn's Mix."

...

Syndicated columnist Lucius Beebe seemed to think the New York Beachcomber was an extension of the original California club, which he described as "a gloomy grotto of strong waters specializing in rum toddies of paralyzing dimensions." In a 1940 article headlined "Rash of Tropical Saloons Spreads Across Nation," Beebe wrote that it would soon "be possible to cross the continent without ever emerging from a Zombie swoon."

Oh, for the days of gloomy grottos and rashes of tropical saloons. The article is entertaining, as drunken debacles always are, but the spoiler top secret recipe is below for those amateur mixologists who want to get started right away.

ZOMBIE
1 oz fresh lime juice
1 oz fresh lemon juice
1 oz pineapple juice
1 oz passion fruit syrup
1 oz white rum
1 oz gold rum
1 oz 151-proof Demerara rum
1 tsp brown sugar
1 dash Angostura

Muddle the brown sugar in the citrus until it is dissolved, then shake all the ingredients with plenty of crushed ice. Pour, without straining, into a tall highball glass and garnish with a sprig of mint. And remember, don't even think about having a third one.

Link

Cocopunk roundup

Here's a gallery of unnecessarily expensive products made with bamboo.





Asus Bamboo laptop will go on sale in June for about $1700.




Dell CEO Michael Dell introduced the Eco mini computer at Fortune magazine's Green conference.




At $40, I am considering this bamboo mouse.




At $200, I am steering clear of these bamboo speakers, even though they're "housed in a section of Japanese SuSu bamboo that's been smoked and aged for nearly 100 years."

Cocopunk Curtain Openers

Another one for the cocopunk chronicles:


Rarely does it pay to be an idiot, but when it happens, I like to boast about it. I'm an idiot because I don't know what those sticks are called that allow you to open and close curtains. We needed a pair of those sticks for our new curtains, so I searched on Google, hoping I could order them online. I tried "curtain rods," which is the wrong term, of course. (Curtain rods are the poles that curtains hang from.)"Curtain pullers" and "curtain sticks" yielded nothing useful, either.

I gave up and was on the verge of driving to Home Depot to buy a pair of those hideous clear plastic sticks with a hexagonal cross section, which always remind me of a depressing airport-adjacent hotel. But I hate to leave my house even more than I dislike contemplating a problem, so my mind raced to find a way to get curtain sticks without having to leave the house and without having to keep guessing what they're really called.



Then it hit me. Bamboo! I have a patch of bamboo growing in the backyard and it has proven to be both an enemy and a friend. Enemy because it grows really fast and overtakes the storage shed, and it is really hard to dig up the root clumps. Friend because occasionally I find a use for the bamboo. I've used bamboo as stakes to give potted plants something to grab onto so they can climb, and I even used it to repair of one the "ribs" (is that what they're called? I don't know -- I'm an idiot) on a shade umbrella.



I found an old length of bamboo leaning against my storage shed, cut it in half, drilled holes in one end, and threaded a couple of extra shower rings I had.



Here's the result ((Click on image for enlargement):




Not too shabby! Bamboo is becoming more of a friend and less of an enemy as time goes by.

UPDATE: D+R blogger emeritus and cocopunk pioneer Steve Lodefink says: "Apparently they call them 'batons,' and check it out. It looks as though you just saved yourself $126.oo"

Hydronut Coconut and Bamboo Growing System

Ted Taylor of Melbourne, FL says:

I have built a growing system made only of bamboo and coconuts. It's fertilized with worm casting tea and is recycled. I did this for the people on some of the smaller islands in Fiji. They use the slash and burn way of growing food and are running out of land. My 2nd system is completely made of bamboo and coconuts, whereas the first model had a solar panel running a pump.

I grew lettuce, strawberries and super tiny banana plants - they get 18" high and make a nice bunch of bananas. The growing media in the coconuts is ground coconut husks mixed with worm castings and is better than peat moss in holding water. Coconut water is also a natural root stimulator. I hope to go to Fiji again this summer to build a large Hydro-Nut 2 for a village there near Savusavu.

I vote that we ditch steampunk in favor of cocpunk. Link

In Praise of the Coconut Shell

Although coconut shells do have some well established niche market uses such as novelty tableware and small caged-pet shelters, I can't help but to feel as though too many of them are going to waste.

The New Altoids Tin?

No I don't mean as a mint holder, but as an improvised homebrew electronics project enclosure. The Altoids tin does make a nice project case. It has a hinged lid, giving you easy access to your business, a great pocketable form factor, and of course they are everywhere for free. But despite these merits, I think that the ubiquitous mint tin has been used to excess, and its use may be nearing the saturation point. I have a hunch that the coconut shell might just turn out to be the next big thing.

When I was recently trying find an enclosure for the ukulele amp that I was building, a coconut came to mind, and I don't think that I could have found a better case. In addition to the obvious thematic tie-in with the ukulele, the coconut shell has a number of other redeeming qualities.

The shell is hard and durable, easily machined, has a pleasing organic texture which can be left hairy, sanded smooth, or anything in-between. The little brown dome of a half-shell is cute as a bug, bringing a smile to all who see it. The dome shape is extremely stable and tip resistant. I could go on all day.

Coconuts.