pirate

We've seen the robots that mow your lawn, save your life, hit on your girlfriend, make you an omelet, dispense Kleenex, even make abstract artwork--but where are the robots that help make you filthy rich? We found two robot contenders today that should at least pay for themselves over time.

First off, John Corney from Wiltshire, UK, has spent the past seven years perfecting a remote controlled metal detector. Inspired by robotic land-mine sweepers, John adapted a wonderfully selfless and humanitarian idea into something far more personally rewarding. Although he spent approximately $3,800 to develop and build … Read more

The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent file tracking site based in Sweden, hinted in a blog post on Friday that it has begun navigating the high seas of streaming video. The site had been hyping up a "surprise" in recent weeks, and still won't give much detail, but it has confirmed that it is indeed a video project. "As a treat I can tell you--YES--we're going to do a video streaming site," the blog post wrote. "It's true. It's in the works being done right now and as usual we put a … Read more

I like toasters. I really do. And I like it when they're creative. I've spent some time this week researching Instructables tutorials for how to hack my own toaster in order to make it a pirate toaster that brands my toast with a skull and crossbones. (Stay tuned on that one.)

But this is too much. I'm not terrified of Hello Kitty or anything, but I think the cat should stay the heck off my toast. Even if it's only $19.99, I do not have any use for a Hello Kitty toaster. Like all other … Read more

Considering our "love" of all things Hello Kitty and all things pirate-related on this blog, you might think that this post is a joke. In fact, when Tim Moynihan heard about it, he said "holy s-burgers!" and expressed the emotion that perhaps this is the Crave gadget to end all Crave gadgets. And Erica Ogg said, "I think Crave might explode when you post that."

(I said no. It would be the Crave apocalypse if it were a Hello Kitty pirate toy that changed color when you plugged it into a USB port. So … Read more

Back in February, when I fell head-over-heels for the German pirate toaster, I had absolutely no idea that "art toasters" would become such a phenomenon. Yesterday, GeekSugar wrote about Your Name On Toast, which is a gimmicky little service that will customize toast for you at a ridiculous fee--but I guess it is for charity. Nevertheless, it was certainly more accessible than the hacked toast printer. So I suppose it was a step in the right direction.

But now, to beat the pirate metaphor into the ground, I think I see the "x" marking the buried … Read more

To those who stepped in late: I'm on a quest for a pirate toaster. I'm looking for something like the skull-and-crossbones appliance sold in Germany that will allow me to brand a thoroughly awesome Jolly Roger into my morning toast. But at this point, it doesn't look like I can locate one here in the States. When we last left the Quest, readers, I had just learned about the Pop Art toaster sold at Target, which is a good try, but there are no pirates involved. I have no use for a toaster that can brand snowflakes … Read more

Pretty much every one of my friends has been subject to hearing one of my many lamentations about why the insanely awesome pirate toaster is only sold in Europe. It's tragic, really, that us statesiders can't experience the joy of morning toast with a skull and crossbones branded into it.

But recent developments show we may be headed in the right direction. An item on Notcot.org has clued me into the fact that you can, in fact, get toasters in the U.S. that will brand your bread with various symbols. They're called the 'Pop Art' … Read more

Arrr mateys! This week we welcome Donald Bell, senior editor of digital audio, to the Crave stage! Luckily, we had plenty of good content from the site over the past few weeks to make his first visit an interesting one! Here are the links, you landlubber:

Sorry for the late show this week, I was out sick for a few days! Won't happen again!

Download the Crave vodcast RSS feed, … Read more

We kind of really love pirates around these parts, but there are limits to everything. Take this 14-inch TV, for example, manufactured for Disney by Japanese electronics company Runat. It's got a skull and crossbones on top, a pirate-worthy set of buttons, and some additional swashbuckling decor, but I personally find it rather lame. It's possible to integrate pirate imagery into household gadgets in far more effective ways.

Besides, the makers of this TV should really get with the program. If you're going to make a Pirates of the Caribbean TV-DVD player, it had better at least … Read more