NEI Nuclear Notes

Talk about suffering for your art. Or energy consumption. Swiss-born artist/inventor Annina Rüst has developed Project Thighmaster , a device which allows consumers to measure, and experience, the effects of their energy consumption. From Rüst's artist statement , The system consists of a personal techno-garter -- inspired by the Opus Dei cilice popularized in Dan Brown's Davinci Code -- worn on the thigh, communicating wirelessly to a set of low-power sensors measuring the wearer's personal energy consumption. If the wearer's electricity use exceeds a certain limit, the device plunges stainless-steel thorns into the wearer's thigh, a reminder of their complicity in the planet's demise, and perhaps their own mortality. Stocking stuffer, anyone? (h/t Jascha Hoffman , New York Times .)