Category Archives: Concepts

Bill Hicks “I don’t do drugs” 6-way message pen concept

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I made this animated GIF for a forthcoming MAKE post about personalizing these rotating “message” promotional pens to make super-cheap, memorable, functional gifts for friends. But then I stopped short of actually using it, (at least with this particular set of messages) because I don’t want to have to fend off a bunch of enraged comments about a “pro-drug” message.

In point of fact, I like this classic stand-up line from comedy God Bill Hicks not so much because I am particularly drug-addled, nor even because I think it’s such a great knee-slapper, but rather because I admire its rhetorical craftsmanship. Properly delivered, it manages a complete semantic one-eighty in the course of twelve words—eight if you allow for the fact that the first four, “I don’t do drugs,” really just establish the starting point.

It’s one of those jokes that almost has to be spoken, to be effective. Even the most artful and creative punctuation fails to capture the effect in written words, because the speed at which most people read gives little time for anyone to be surprised between the first of those dozen words and the last.

But the 6-way message pen with its time-delayed, line-by-line scrolling marquee, opens up a new dimension not available in straight prose, and can make the joke work again, IMHO. And it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Why are there no wheel locks like these for bikes?

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A couple years back it occurred to me that it would be cool to have wheel locks for my bike like those that are already available for cars. They’re just special lug nuts that are sold four to a set (you only need one locking nut per wheel, after all). Each set features a unique pattern of interlocking circular grooves (the “lock”) that is pseudorandomly generated by the machinery at the factory, together with a mating wrench (the “key”). The profile of the nut is round everywhere else, so as long as you don’t lose the key you’re the only one with the proper tool to remove the nut. Of course, like pretty much all tamper-proof fasteners, it can still be defeated by casting, but that extra effort is probably enough to deter the average street thief.

Anyway, they’ve got ’em for cars already. You can buy a set at AutoZone. I did. And I wish I could get them for bikes, too, but nobody makes them. This prototype is my attempt to hack a car lug nut onto a bike axle, and although I did make it work by ordering a replacement axle with an unusual thread and using a pipe fitting as a thread adapter (plus a couple of odd washers) it was pretty wonky and probably unsafe.

3D analog to Nob Yoshigahara’s “Dualock” puzzle

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I just hit this post by Instructables user Phil B over at Make: Online. It describes the construction of Nob Yoshigahara’s “Dualock” two-step centrifugal take-apart cross puzzle, one of which I built several years ago from instructions in Slocum and Bottermans’ New Book of Puzzles. It occurred to me while I was writing about it that it might be possible to produce a 3D analog of the puzzle, with an additional centrifugal pin detachment step on the third axis. The SketchUp model shown animated above is my first concept rendering. Internal pins (centrifugal locks) and bearing balls (orientation/gravity locks) are indicated in red. Solving would require spinning, rotating on the correct axis, spinning again, rotating on the correct axis again, spinning a third time, and then physically separating the two halves.