Getting free beer doesn’t get any easier than this. All you have to do is stand in front of this vending machine and do nothing for three minutes. It’s that easy. This is the latest in a series of advertising stunts done by various companies using a vending machine that doles out free goods in exchange for a random or sometimes unusual action by the person.
The one set up by beer company Amstel is called the Amstel Pause and it definitely stays true to its name. Anybody who wants a cold one only has to press a button to start the timer and stand on the designated spot in front of the Pause. Once the three minutes is up, the machine dispenses a can of booze.
The Amstel Pause was set up in a busy location in Sofia in the capital of Bulgaria for 16 days. During that period, the machine doled out 1,344 free beers, which totals up to about 67 hours.
VIA [ C|NET ]
Making homemade beer is more than just mashing and mixing stuff and letting it sit. It’s sort of like an art form that involves technique aside from the technical. For example, temperature is a really important thing to keep track of so you’ll end up with professional-quality and good-tasting beer. One tool that can help you monitor the temperature when you’re brewing is the BrewBit Model-T.
The BrewBit is a WiFi-enabled temperature controller with open source software, so you can hack it and modify it to perform other functions, if you’re not a homebrewer. It’s equipped with dual independent temperature probes and dual independent outputs. You can choose to control one, both, or none of the outputs for logging purposes. Its makers explain that the BrewBit can help “keep your fermentation and mash temperatures where you want them to be”, resulting in high-quality, great-tasting beer.
The BrewBit Model-T is currently up for funding on Kickstarter, where a minimum pledge of $160 will get you one of your very own.
When you said someone was “social” fifty years ago, they were probably friendly, outgoing people who would talk up a storm and go out of their way to get to know everyone in the room. When you describe someone as being “social” nowadays, you probably mean they have accounts on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Foursquare.
This is one change brought about by technology that isn’t all good. Sure, it’s great that you can talk to people and connect with them through the Internet, but people often take it a bit too far, choosing to go on their online networks when they’re out and about, ignoring the people they’re actually with instead.
Brazil’s Salve Jorge Bar, for instance, wasn’t too pleased with this anti-social social phenomenon, so they had design firm Fischer & Friends create the “Offline Glass”, which was meant to “rescue people from the online world” and bring them “back to the bar tables.”
At first glance, the Offline Glass looks just like any other glass, except for the smartphone-shaped notch at the bottom. Turns out this little notch makes all the difference, because the glass is highly unstable because of it. The only way to make the glass stand up straight is if the patron inserts his or her smartphone into the notch, stabilizing the glass and forcing people to keep their hands off their phone sat the same time.
So the glass design is more of a novelty, because I doubt people would regularly put their phones at risk of spillage or breakage on a regular basis.
The Offline Glass kind of makes you think about how “social” we’ve all become, which was the main purpose of creating the glass in the first place.
[The Telegraph via TAXI via Food Beast]
Sometimes, you go to a party and end up drinking more than you should have. You probably know better than to drink and drive, so your best bet would be to crash at a friend’s place until you’re sober enough to go home.
Most people aren’t really good judges of even their own sobriety, and that’s where the BACtrack Breathalyzer comes in.
BACtrack is a compact breathalyzer that you can take with you on the go. It can accurately measure how much alcohol you have in your system, thanks to its internal air pump that can provide you with precise and consistent results. It then sends its data to your iOS device over Bluetooth. Being true to the ‘track’ part of the breathalyzer’s name, the BACtrack will track your blood alcohol content (BAC) over time so you can gauge and maybe even re-asses your current drinking habits.
The companion iOS BACtrack app also serves as your personal drink diary, and even lets you snap photos of what drinks you’ve been imbibing. It doesn’t skimp on social features either, as you can share your results with other people, like your designated driver.
The app also has a feature which will estimate how long it will take for your blood alcohol level to return to 0.00 so you know approximately when it will be safe to drive, bike, walk (or text).
The BACtrack is available on ThinkGeek for $149.99(USD).
[via Gadget Review]