Living

Jul 27, 2012 12:20 PM   If you walk into any thrift store from coast-to-coast and wander over to the electronics section, you're likely to find an old bedside radio castaway amongst the discarded tube televisions, and 100-disc CD changers. This German company's taking those vintage audio electronics and turning them into gorgeous speakers for your smartphone. These individually hacked-together speakers from Tombox are all about aesthetics. The company takes old speaker boxes and guts, and adds a simple volume dial to the side as well as a 1/8th-inch cable that plugs right into the headphone jack of your favorite gadget. Each unit is individually numbered and carries its own unique specs depending on features of the original enclosure. Do you want a wood, metal, or plastic? One speaker or two? The Tomboxes cost $250-$300 plus $20 shipping in Europe. You can expect to pay a little more if you want one sent to the United States. [Diefabrik via TechCrunch] View the original artic...

Jul 27, 2012 12:20 PM   If you walk into any thrift store from coast-to-coast and wander over to the electronics section, you're likely to find an old bedside radio castaway amongst the discarded tube televisions, and 100-disc CD changers. This German company's taking those vintage audio electronics and turning them into gorgeous speakers for your smartphone. These individually hacked-together speakers from Tombox are all about aesthetics. The company takes old speaker boxes and guts, and adds a simple volume dial to the side as well as a 1/8th-inch cable that plugs right into the headphone jack of your favorite gadget. Each unit is individually numbered and carries its own unique specs depending on features of the original enclosure. Do you want a wood, metal, or plastic? One speaker or two? The Tomboxes cost $250-$300 plus $20 shipping in Europe. You can expect to pay a little more if you want one sent to the United States. [Diefabrik via TechCrunch] View the original artic...

Jul 22, 2012 6:00 PM   Do you drink your booze faster when you're out at a bar or a restaurant than you do just sitting at home? You probably do, and apparently it's because bars and restaurants have learned that loud, fast music makes you eat and drink more, at a faster rate. Here's a quote from a New York Times piece on the subject: In 1985, a study by Fairfield University in Connecticut reported that people ate faster when background music was sped up, from 3.83 to 4.4 bites per minute. Nicolas Gueguen, a professor of behavioral sciences at the Université de Bretagne-Sud in France, reported in the October 2008 edition of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research that higher volumes led beer drinkers in a bar to imbibe more. When the bar's music was 72 decibels, people ordered an average of 2.6 drinks and took 14.5 minutes to finish one. But when the volume was turned up to 88 decibels, customers ordered an average of 3.4 drinks and took 11.5 minut...