Made By Monkeys

A clever handblown glass design by Jason Amendolara puts a glass void where the salt shaker would normally go, and the salt in the glass cylinder on the outside of the shaker.

Last time we picked on Burton upon Trent for this leaf-shrouded parking ticket machine. Now, we turn our attention to Herriman, Utah, where Jon Titus snapped a shot of this inconveniently-located solar-powered street sign. Wonder how tall those trees get?   

File this one under "mislabeled."

Nathan Herbert sends proof that he owns and uses a three pin, inline plug and has lived to tell the tale, though it's questionable as to whether he can get through airport security with it! He writes: 

"It's not quite the death trap artistic device as imagined by some people. Each of the plug-prong 'faces' is removable, and only one of the cube faces has live connection pins inside. The face opposite the live one has a standard UK socket on it. It's not bad (or lethal!) to use, just a pain to pack, as it's like packing a caltrop in your suitcase, and just as much fun to step on while jet-lagged in the night!"

Apologies to the artist who designed the HSBC advert!

                                                                                                         Thanks to Jon Titus another contribution to our photo gallery of cockeyed construction work -- or is someone just having fun with photoshop?

Besides loads of useful stuff over at www.microwaves101.com, the authors have posted what they call a "politically incorrect"  microwave slang glossary.  While it predictably features some of the usual crude and sophmoric lab humor, there's a lot of amusing terms that will ring familiar to most engineers -- myself included.

A Simpsons fan, I'm particularly fond of Bart's Head: 

"'Bart's Head' is the colloquial term for the waveform in the frequency domain of a CDMA signal as viewed on a spectrum analyzer. When operating correctly, it looks a lot like Bart Simpson's head. Square sides, kind of choppy on the top. You might hear something like; " I looked at the Bart's head at the antenna port, and it rolls pretty sharply, I think the duplexer is tweaked" "

No wonder banks are having such a tough time of it these days! Mike Meakin sent in this head-scratching HSBC advert from the Sunday Times:

"I'm fascinated by the 3 pin in-line plug - never seen one of these in my travels! What do you suppose the graphic designer thought this adaptor was supposed to do? Or am I missing something?"