10.07.2005

Brass knuckles that double as a graffiti printer?

I came across one of the most interesting devices this morning. It's called the FatJab, a printer that looks like a set of brass knuckles, using five print heads (or spraypaint nozzles) to spray on any surface. It's controlled entirely by hand, so the user can create effects like skew, distortion, rotation, etc. by free movement of the hand. This may be a fake, but I doubt it, because it was displayed on an MIT Media Labs art show, which gave it the following description:
A super-expressive spraying clicky-blaster that allows the empowered wearer to leave hypertraces in the four dimensions. The FatJab offers another perspective to the process of reclaiming public spaces. It's an expressive tool that enables the wearer to spray-paint letters, patterns and shadings wherever they feel appropriate.
So we may be seeing some pretty sweet-looking graffiti in the future when this thing goes mainstream. Still, I doubt that many taggers would incorporate a printer into their arsonal of tools.

Today I have my first Mandarin lesson in a long time! My goal is to learn how to say that I am a vegetarian, describe my hobbies, memorize the basic colors, and express the basic idea "X is more ... than Y." It's a language exchange with a Chinese woman I met in a group English lesson I taught a few weeks ago. I will report on the lesson later today.

Anna and I are hoping to go somewhere this weekend, maybe to an outdoor hotspring to enjoy the crisp early autumn weather and go hiking a little. Not sure where we'll go yet, so finding a destination will be my other task for today.