And you thought your dark, cramped, dusty workspace was depressing. Have a look at the winners of the Wired News Saddest-Cubicle Contest, and get ready to appreciate your own scrappy little cube anew.
David Gunnells toils away in a windowless conference room, his desk hemmed in by heavily used filing cabinets.
(Credit: David Gunnells, courtesy of Wired News)After all, it doesn't get too much worse than David Gunnells' cubicle (or does it?). The first-place winner of the contest, an IT guy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, spends his days in a windowless conference room, his desk hemmed in by heavily used filing cabinets. He sits near a poorly ventilated bathroom and shares a wall with a parking garage. His mother-in-law was so depressed by his dingy cube that she gave him a lamp.
At least the world will now know his plight. For winning the contest, Gunnells gets a RoboMan Webcam so he can broadcast from his bland little corner.
The runners-up may not get a Webcam, but they do get the validation of knowing Wired News' readers share their pain. One soul-crushing submission shows a cube with a single fluorescent light, paper clips as cubicle hooks, and overturned boxes as shelf space. Nyet on the windows and working landline.
Another shows a picture of an IT contractor's desk, tucked away in a 40-foot steel cargo container that he calls "the hamster cage." To get electricity, he runs a 100-foot extension cord to a power substation. In winter, he tries unsuccessfully to get warmth from a small electric heater. There's nary a plant, poster, or picture of the kids in sight--it practically makes Dwight Schrute's desk look like an interior decorator's showroom.
Do you eat ice cream when you're sad? I sure do. When I saw that my nasty co-worker Tim Moynihan had pitted the Beer-Launching Fridge against Keepon the Dancing Robot in his artificial intelligence showdown, I got totally emo because I had no idea who to vote for. Then I bought myself a pint of Phish Food and ate it for breakfast with a side of Kleenex, sunny side down.
But technology is always making our lives easier, and here's a gadget that can help me figure out just how much self-pity eating I'll need to do next time I get really sad. This prototypical ice cream machine, whose name is Mr. Whippy, can tell just how much you hate yourself, and dole out the appropriate amounts of ice cream in response: the more harangued you are, the more ice cream you get.
It's simple. Mr. Whippy, who is at the moment a project from the Ars Electronica festical (which means, basically, that you can't buy him), asks you some questions. You answer them. Then, he measures the level of stress in your voice, and distributes those tasty feel-good treats accordingly.
It could also, presumably, ask you questions that would indicate just how off-the-charts your Emo Fever is, you know, like "Just how much does Jared Leto encapsulate your existence right now?" or "If you watched Steel Magnolias, would you start laughing hysterically at how happy and upbeat it is?" Plus, there could be a Mr. Whippy 2.0 that can determine which flavors are best for really sad people. If you're only just kinda sad, maybe it'd give you something pseudo-healthy like mango sorbet. If you're kind of ambiguously mad at your mom, it'd give you plain old vanilla. But if you've gone all Sylvia Plath on the world, hello double chocolate heart-clogging caramel crunch!
(Switched via Boing Boing)
(Credit:
Hollywood Gadgets)
The solar-powered hat fan taught us how to survive the summer heat, but what about the winter doldrums? Enter the "Feel Bright Light" from Hollywood Gadgets. A set of LED bulbs affixed underneath the brim of a visor bathe your face in happy light to help ward off seasonal affective disorder, for a mere $200. Our take: We'd rather stay in a permanent funk.
Alternative energy companies may be politically correct, but that doesn't mean they don't know how work a capitalistic marketing system. As winter approaches, for example, many are wasting little time to circulate word of products that provide some form of natural light to help fend off seasonal affective disorder.
The latest product making the rounds is the Suntracker One, which runs on a solar-powered motor and uses three heliostatic mirrors that reflect sunlight into the interior of a building. "Every ten minutes, the mirrors move to keep up with the sun as it moves across the sky, maximizing natural light in winter months when days are shorter and the sun's path is closer to the horizon," Treehugger reports. Or you can just book a flight to Maui.
(Photo: Nature's Lighting)
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