The designer (http://zelfkoelman.com/) is Dutch, and the name is actually a pun in Dutch. The word 'Ferrolic' is pronounced almost the same as the Dutch word 'vrolijk', which means 'happy' or 'joyful'.
I wonder why that is. Given that the container is sealed properly, and they use electronics with magnets, I just don't see any part that is subject to such massive wear.
Ferrofluids are fundamentally unstable. They're colloidal suspensions that rely on surfactants to keep the particles apart, and as the surfactants degrade, the particles start clumping together and falling out of suspension.
As a practical demonstration of this, there's an ancient ferrofluid exhibit (80's?) at a local science museum. While the fluid itself kinda-sorta "works" in that you get the pretty spiky shapes when zapped with an electromagnet, the edges and bottom of the glass case are thickly coated in viscous black gunk.
Ferrofluids are magnetic nanoparticles, usually iron oxide, with small molecules called surfactants stuck to their surface. These stop the nanoparticles aggregating. Eventually the surfactants themselves will come off, causing aggregation. Lumps of iron oxide precipitate out of the liquid and sink to the bottom. No doubt better surfactants will be developed that take a very long time to degrade.
Could you confirm or deny that you are using the word "nanoparticles" carefully?
I think that the ferrous particles in ferrofluids are mere particles. They'd have to be very, very small to be classified as nano, and we've seen before that making particles of an ordinary material that small can change its properties, ala "transparent titanium dioxide".
"Ferrofluids are composed of nanoscale particles (diameter usually 10 nanometers or less) of magnetite, hematite or some other compound containing iron." - Wikipedia
At first I thought 'this is so cool' , but then after thinking about it for a while, I realised that it's no cooler than any of the 200 videos or pictures with 'cool stuff' that I see every day.
I think it's a pretty useless expensive gimmick created out of toxic materials to excite the numb neurons of the bored inhabitants of the digital realm for 2 minutes or so.
Then we'll all forget about it and move on to the next thing.
I'm already looking for something else :).
The problem with reductio ad nihilum arguments like this one is that you can make them about absolutely everything and anything in life. It's a slippery slope.
Yes, I am doing that and it's a shitty way to see things, because it makes me sad and angry and everything is gloomy.
Probably a phase I'm going through right now - my bullshit-filtering glasses are broken.
I go through this phase after a startup or project that I've been working on is over. Without a project to focus on, I see the world as it is - a sharade of people bullshitting each other and hiding from who they are.
I need a new project :).
You might like to read the transcription of Sartre's lecture "Existentialism is a Humanism." It's available online at https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exis... . He wrote a lot on how to reconcile living in a world that he believed was devoid of inherent meaning and the sense of despair that this causes most people.
Sometimes we get so caught up in our little computers and programming languages and internet that we forget that there's a much bigger world out there.
Go sailing. Learn how to carve wood. Make out with another human on a beach. Go take pictures in a foreign country. Learn how to play an instrument. Grow some vegetables. Volunteer in your local community. Go to a bookstore/library, pick a completely random fiction book, and force yourself to read it from cover to cover.
Self fulfilling prophecy. If all you do all day is sit at home and think about how the world is pointless, it'll look pointless. If you engage it (for ideas, see my previous post), it will quickly appear less so.
To me, it's like a dog chasing its tail (or, rather, I am like one!): In order to engage and find meaning I need to find meaning so I get inspired to engage. Do I just jump out of this cycle of thinking and pretend I find meaning in something so I can escape?
(Damn, I sound so lost! :D)
P.S: Your comment on the Tinder topic a couple of days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10019527) was spot on, you really nailed it. Thanks for sharing all these thoughts.
You are right again, it's a self fulfilling prophecy - the more you dwell on it, the more pointless the whole thing becomes.
But as sebkomianos said, it's like a vicious circle: In order to engage and find meaning I need to find meaning so I get inspired to engage.
The solution is, I guess, to pretend for a while and just do something and then it will start making sense again.
I'm doing that, trying to produce sparks to ignite the fire, I'm almost there....
All too often I see children playing on the playground, and I always do my best as an adult to inform the children of their pointless immature meandering. /s
The second tab: 'Where digital meets Nature' has a brief summary of how it works. Sounds like a grid of magnets:
"In the front, the display has a basin comparable to an acquarium in which Ferro Fluid can move freely. Behind the scenes powerful electromagnets enable Ferollic to influence the fluid’s shape, to pick it up and move it around. Both modules, the basin and the electronics, sit secure in an aluminium frame."
This is brilliant .. a wonderful piece of artwork and technological whimsy in a way that playfully pushes the edge of display as an art-laden tool, and of course makes me wonder the difficulties of emulating it in software, so that everyone can have one and so that the ferro-fluid part isn't necessary (runs out of magnet-juice, requires containment, is icky in real life, etc.)
Same thought here... Funny thing, if I put such app on the wall with a state-of-the art flatscreen display, I should be as mesmerized, if you consider how extraordinary such a device is. Chances are it won't have this effect at all. We got used to wonders.
If you have seen Ridley Scott's Prometheus, this might be a bit unsettling to have in your home. Last thing I need is a Xenomorph running around the house!
Art has the practical application of being interesting to the beholder without necessarily being otherwise functional. Although with this piece, a clock is practical and it also seems natural that it could become a programmable display platform like a Pebble Watch.
The designer (http://zelfkoelman.com/) is Dutch, and the name is actually a pun in Dutch. The word 'Ferrolic' is pronounced almost the same as the Dutch word 'vrolijk', which means 'happy' or 'joyful'.