The Consumer Category
We bring you the chic and unique, the best and most bizarre shopping offers both online and offline. We offer you tips on where to buy, and some of the less mainstream and crazy, individual and offbeat items on the internet. Anything that can be bought and sold can be featured here. And we love showcasing the best and worst art and design.
1925: the Isolator helmet by Hugo Gernsback
FLASHBACK to 1925:
The Isolator is a bizarre helmet invented in 1925 that encourages focus and concentration by rendering the wearer deaf, piping them full of oxygen, and limiting their vision to a tiny horizontal slit. The Isolator was invented by Hugo Gernsback, editor of Science and Invention magazine, member of “The American Physical Society,” and one of the pioneers of science fiction.
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Posted: 2nd, February 2013 | In: Flashback, The Consumer | Comment
The solid platinum dummy is must for Liverpool mums, like Coleen Rooney
IN readiness for the birth of Coleen Rooney’s child – Mrs Wayne Rooney once tweeted “Stressful nursery run! #jetlag”, leading us to wonder how far the rich got to educate their children – Liverpool jewellers Russell & Case has produced a solid platinum dummy. The dummy weighs more than two hundred and fifty grammes, and is yours for £54,000. Of course, given the experience, it would be any idea to secure the dummy to the child’s ermine babygrow with a something suitable, like a string of pearls or the contents of Mr T’s safe…
Posted: 2nd, February 2013 | In: Celebrities, The Consumer | Comment
How to use data to get a date
EVER been on a date arranged online? Amy Webb has. Lots of them. She wrote a book about her experiences called Data, A Love Story: How I Gamed Online Dating to Meet My Match. Webb says dating sites fail because they’re “computing our half-truths and aspirational wishes”. We show a highly selective, idealised version of ourselves. Maria Popova reviews:
After a series of bad dates following a major heartbreak, mathematically-driven Amy decided to take a quantitative approach to the playing field and started systematically recording various data points about her dates, revealing some important correlations. After one particularly bad date, she decided to formalize the exercise and wrote down everything that was important to her in a mate — from intellectual overlap to acceptable amount of body hair — eventually coming up with 72 attributes that she was going to demand in any future date. She then broke down these attributes into two tiers and developed a scoring system, assigning specific points to each. For 700 out of a maximum possible 1800, she’d agree to have an email exchange; for 900, she’d go on a date; for 1,500, she’d consider a long-term relationship.
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Posted: 2nd, February 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment
RIP Regretsy: Some of the maddest, baddest items sold on etsy
SAD to say that Regretsy, the site that documented the “objects d’fart” for sale on craft site easy? Etsy sells handcrafted and vintage things. Well, so it says. Much of the stuff is good. A lot of it is haunting. And it still sells:
Posted: 1st, February 2013 | In: Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment
The Electrical Baths of the early 20th Century
THE Electrical Bath would steam your cares away.
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Posted: 31st, January 2013 | In: Flashback, The Consumer | Comment
Volkswagen and Algernon want Super Bowl fans to say OOOOOOKKKKAAAAYYYYYY to Jamaica
FEW things are more entertaining that people looking for offence and finding it in dust. Volkswagen has produced an advert to be screened during the Super Bowl (tip: fast forward to the ads) that features a white Midwesterner expressing his chilled-out lifestyle in a faked Jamaican accent.
USA Today finds the upset:
“It’s pretty horrific,” says Ricki Fairley-Brown, president of the multicultural marketing agency Dove Marketing. “Why do they have a white guy from Minnesota faking a Jamaican accent?”
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Posted: 31st, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment
Dolce & Gabbana’s I Bambini is the smell of babies
DOLCE & Gabbana have opened up new avenues in bottled smells with I bambini or Children, a perfume for kids, adults and pets who want to smell like warm babies. The unisex smell is “designed to cuddle and pamper every little boy and girl”. (Not be drunk without mixers by mums.)
Anorak recalls Patrick Süskind’s book Perfume, in which Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is deemed possessed by the devil because he smells of nothing. In search of the perfect smell, the walking perfume tab happens upon virgins, whom he kills with much inhaling. Finally, he stumbles upon a scent that can end his pain. He sprinkles it over his body, and is ripped to pieces and eaten.
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Posted: 31st, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment
Hominid: X-Ray animation
HOMINID is an animated teaser based on the Hominid series of photo composites by Brian Andrews. The series has been exhibited internationally, including at SIGGRAPH, in the Hong Kong Exhibition Center, and at numerous galleries. This animated teaser was produced at Ex’pression College for Digital Arts. Be on the lookout for future Hominid animations. (When I saw this I kept thinking of Cherie Blair.)
Hominid from Brian Andrews on Vimeo.
Posted: 30th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment
What is the future for home organs in Norfolk?
WHAT is the future for home organs? Well, it’s funny you ask. Allens Music Centre, of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, has the answer. The Lowrey organ. It was always the Lowrey. With Allens and the Lowrey, you re in safe company. The chap in the back get to speak (and blink) just after the 4 minute mark:
Spotter: @thedeadflowers, via Popper
Posted: 30th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment
Anti-drone Stealth Wear: the anti-conformist hoodie
ADAM Harvey has designed anti-drone Stealth Wear. Hoodies are useless, says Harvey:
Conformity is what surveillance wants and fashion is anti-conformist. And I think the decision to conform or not happens on a personal level. The projects I’ve been working on act upon surveillance in a way that exploits a vulnerability and makes this vulnerability accessible through using something ordinary (hair, makeup, or fashion) in a non-conformist and legal way.
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How to grow a human baby from an egg (photos)
EVER wondered what a human baby would look like if it wer grown from an egg? Right now in Hollywood, you just know this is being trialled. No scarring! No stretch marks! No need to eat! Just add water and watch junior hatch. (PS – tastes great with toast!):
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Posted: 29th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment (1)
Specsavers mock Chelea’s Eden Hazard for ballboy incident
WHEN Eden Hazard kicked a ballboy in the ribs, it was… and let us all be perfectly clear on this… really funny. No-one got hurt, both looked like berks and, coupled with all the giant-killings that have gone on this week, made for the most interesting week of football in aeons!
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Posted: 28th, January 2013 | In: Sports, The Consumer | Comment (1)
Your terrible client comments are now posters
IRISH graphic designers Mark Shanley and Paddy Treacy took their “favorite worst feedback” and turned into posters.
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Posted: 28th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment (1)
How Las Vegas casinos show Britons the future of CCTV
TED Whiting is director of surveillance at Las Vegas’s Aria casino in Vegas. The control room works like London: everyone is observed in a hunt for the cheats:
Despite that, Whiting says facial recognition software hasn’t been of much use to him. It’s simply too unreliable when it comes to spotting people on the move, in crowds, and under variable lighting. Instead, he and his team rely on pictures shared from other casinos, as well as through the Biometrica and Griffin databases. (The Griffin database, which contains pictures and descriptions of various undesirables, used to go to subscribers as massive paper volumes.) But quite often, they’re not looking for specific people, but rather patterns of behavior. “Believe it or not, when you’ve done this long enough,” he says, “you can tell when somebody’s up to no good. It just doesn’t feel right.”
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Posted: 28th, January 2013 | In: Technology, The Consumer | Comment
Mary Kay Beckham sues match.com for introducing her to a women killer
MARY Kay Beckman, 50, of Las Vegas, is suing dating site Match.com for leading her toward Wade Ridley, 53.
The couple dated for ten days before Ms Beckham ened it. Four months later, Ridley stabbed her ten times and kicked her in the head. Ms Beckham required surgery to her skull. Her sight and hearing were saved.
Ridley is now dead. He killed himself in prison. Before dying he admitted to the murder of Anne Simenson, an Arizona woman he met on Match.com.
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Posted: 28th, January 2013 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | Comment
Boozy teens: the cheery vodka skittles drink
BOOZY teens presents the cherry vodka Skittles drink. It sounds disgusting. But to anyone looking to start out on boozing, it’s a must. The older generation mutter dark things. In their day it was different. In their day you had to learn to drink with a proper bloody drink. None of this namby-pampy mulied pick ‘n’ mix. You did your apprenticeship on warm, left over Blue Nun and sucking the lemon slice at the bottom of a glass of Gin and Orange:
Posted: 26th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment
The creepiest adverts from the 1980s
THE creepiest adverts from the 1980s:
Spotter: SmashTV
Posted: 25th, January 2013 | In: Flashback, The Consumer | Comment
1974: Truck & Bus Transportation reviews Bimbo’s
FOOD has become such a hot topic in the rich West that we are offended by cheap protein in cheap meat products, and hipsters take photos of fine dining meals for tasteless blogs. Once upon a time, it was different. In 1974 Australia, for instance, Bluey Tucker used to write food reviews for Truck & Bus Transportation.
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Posted: 25th, January 2013 | In: Flashback, The Consumer | Comment
Nevada Rose: Inside the American Brothel: photos of the sex shops
WHAT’S it look like inside an American brothel? Marc McAndrews can answer that question without you having to visit one. He spent five years capturing 33 of Nevada’s brothels on camera. He’s published the images in a book, Nevada Rose: Inside the American Brothel. He says:
“I had all these preconceived ideas running around my head about what they were like and what went on inside a desert brothel … The women had final say if they wanted to sit for a portrait, and if they said ‘no’ that was that: no asking twice, no cajoling, no pressuring … I approached the brothels the same way I would any other project or assignment, and when I photographed the women (or owners or customers, for that matter), I didn’t want to demonize them for what they did, but I was also careful not to glorify them. I think the fact that I became and remain friends with many of the women that work or have worked in the houses speaks to the honesty of the project.”
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Posted: 24th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment
Contest: Find Momo the dog in these scenes
Can you find Momo the dog in these pictures? Momo lives with Andrew Knapp. Momo is a 4-year-old border collie, who likes hiding fetch sticks.
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Posted: 24th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comment
The ban on tasteless diners taking photos of their meals
EVER taken a photo of your meal and posted it to a social media site? No, not pictures of terrible food, like this RyanAir disaster. This is about those pictures of fine dining. Some eateries in the US have banned diners from photographing their dinners. Rebecca Jane Stokes is delighted:
I don’t like people taking photographs of their food at restaurants because it takes the food out of its context. Whatever people might say — and I’ve heard it so many times from so many diet proponents — food is inherently social. Do you need to have food around to have a good time with someone? No, of course not. But there is something primal and nourishing in sharing a meal with people you enjoy. Social interaction sustains us, so does ingesting food — and when both are of the highest quality in a place designed with respect for that, taking a quick pic with my iPhone feels like giving the entire event short shrift.
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Posted: 24th, January 2013 | In: Technology, The Consumer | Comment
AVN corporate sex awards 2013: winners and photos
TO the 30th AVN Awards Show at The Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Penthouse Video’s Kelly Holland assures us:
Posted: 24th, January 2013 | In: Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment
Shergar’s DNA found in Burger King burgers and Waitrose pork pies?
“SHERGAR KING!” yell the Sun. Burger King is to “dump millions of burgers in dodgy meat alert.”
Managers have been told to box up Whoppers, Angus burgers and patties in a safe area and mark them with an X to ensure they are not sold to customers.
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Posted: 24th, January 2013 | In: The Consumer | Comments (2)
Mirror ignores Simon Fox in its biased story of how HMV died
THE Daily Mirror live blogged HMV’s demise. One day the old media will live blog a record as it’s being played in an effort to look up-to-date.
Mirror columnist Tony Parson knew who to blame:
It took a lot of people to kill the great British high street. Spiv bankers who drove capitalism to the edge of ruin, internet giants who don’t pay their fair share of tax, greedy landlords who want sky high rents even during a recession, a Government incapable of making our economy grow and – yes – hypocrites like me, who wipe away a tear for HMV with one hand while one-click buying from Amazon on the other.
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Posted: 23rd, January 2013 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | Comment (1)
