“The Global Pursuit of Happiness, or: The Army of Luck” is an impressive piece of installation art by Boris Petrovsky, Georg Nagel, and Nina Martens.

The work is based around the Maneki Neko (aka Beckoning Cat; aka Lucky Cat/Money Cat), a common Japanese figurine which is believed to bring luck, attract customers and bring prosperity.

520 of the shiny, golden, XXL Lucky Cats are arranged in 40 rows and 13 columns on a ramp-like stand made of aluminum.

The Lucky Cats form a dot-matrix display, which consists of 520 waving paw grid points as its pixels. A servo motor in each cat controls the paws, and moves them exactly in position and speed.

Words and sentences up to 40 characters long can be entered into an attached keyboard, and are displayed with the paws, letter by letter, as a sliding text marquee. The Lucky Cats are also able to perform spontaneously as well, showing 25 different salutatory and signalizing gestures, as well as mass movements like the Mexican Wave or an ecstatic hyperkinesis.

It’s something that truly must be seen to be believed:

[The Global Pursuit of Happiness, or: The Army of Luck via Laughing Squid]

Rube Goldberg machines are frequently featured here on DYH, so when one appears that fits into two suitcases, and has a name like “Melvin the Magical Mixed Media Machine”, you can pretty much guarantee it’s going to get featured.

The machine, by a design studio called HeyHeyHey, was built in response to their first Melvin the Magical Mixed Media Machine, which was such a success that groups all around the world requested its availability for shows and festivals. Since it didn’t travel well, HeyHeyHey decided to build another Melvin, but this time, they wanted to make it portable.

The result is a Rube Goldberg machine that’s specifically built to travel the world, and even acts like a tourist when he gets there, ‘sending’ its own postcards and taking pictures of those around it.

It’s an impressive work of interactive art, and the website does a great job of detailing each step in the process, and documenting the journey that Melvin takes, so I highly recommend you check it out.

[Melvin the Magical Mixed Media Machine]

But what if you could turn each page turn into an event?

That’s what Joseph Herscher has done with The Page Turner, a Rube Goldberg machine that lets you sip coffee while waiting for the page to turn, and let the machine take care of the rest.

Zombie Plush Slippers are guaranteed to be the grossest things you can stick on your feet.

Featuring non-skid soles, embroidered details, and ‘interactive’ elements like eyes that pop out of their sockets and extra long tongues, they’re both comfy, and fun.

[Zombie Plush Slippers]

But doing tricks on a vintage ladies bicycle? Impossible, right?

Apparently not:

Consider me impressed.

In addition to t-shirts, Threadless has branched out into notebooks through a partnership with Scout Books.

The covers feature popular designs from the community, including “Bone Idol” by Stuart Colebrook, “Poker Hand Values” by Tan Nuyen, and “Music Business Remastered” by Dale Edwin Murray, as seen above.

Inside each book is 16 pages of graph paper to help you organize your thoughts, and all materials are made in the USA.

Just $9 for a 3 Pack.

[Threadless - Notebooks]

The Tool Tank is a multi-tool keychain that features 3 screwdriver bits cleverly disguised within the tracks of a tank.

Each bit magnetically attaches to the turret, which rotates up for use. Just pick your bit, rotate the turret and you’ve got yourself a clever little screwdriver that’s always ready to do ‘battle’ with chores around the house.

[Tool Tank]

[Via: Neatorama]

Sled is a company out of Boston, Massachusetts and Brooklyn, New York that crafts handmade leather and wood products into classic and distinctive accessories using natural materials.

Their flagship product, the Runner, is a cowhide and birch wood back housing bezel that completely replaces the glass back of the iPhone 4 and 4S.

It works with both Verizon/CDMA and AT&T/GSM, and adds an unmistakable warmth and unique character to your phone.

[Sled]

What you see here is a Ferrari F430 that has been covered in cowhide and then tattooed by French artist Phillipe Pasqua.

It sounds ridiculous, but the end result is rather impressive, so I’m sure this isn’t the last time we see a leather covered supercar prowling the streets.

[Via: Jalopnik]

Artist Mary Ellen Croteau proves that recycling can be beautiful with her work, titled Close, made entirely of bottle caps.

According to Mary:

Plastic bottle caps – like bags, a plastic product that can’t be/isn’t recycled. I conceived of an “endless column” of these caps, after Constantin Brancussi’s iconic modernist sculpture. One became two, and two became many. While making these columns, I noticed the smaller caps tended to nest inside one another, and the color combinations reminded me of Chuck Close’s painted portraits. So I got sidetracked and started on a large self-portrait made entirely of bottle caps. The piece measures 8 feet by 7 feet. No paint is used, except to delineate a few shadows where white board was showing through. In a few cases, the caps are trimmed in order to fit a tight space.

See more detailed photos at her site.

[Mary Ellen Croteau]

Check this out:

[Via: Geekologie]

The Little Printer from BERG Cloud is a compact, inkless, thermal printer that uses wi-fi to connect to the web and print out a timely, beautiful mini-newspaper based on subscriptions that you set up using your smartphone.

When you’re ready, just hit the print button, tear off the latest ‘issue’ and take it with you, giving you information on the go and turning your digital life into an analog journal.

Check out the demo video below for a preview:

The device won’t be ready until 2012, but you can give them your email on the BERG Cloud site to get notified of when they’re ready to ship.

[BERG Cloud - Little Printer]

Before serving your guests a freshly made Cherpumple, you’re going to need a main course worthy of such a delicious desert.

So what goes well with pie-on-pie pandemonium?

How about the tarDunkin’, a turkey brined in Dunkin’ Donuts Coolattas, stuffed with Munchkins and served with coffee gravy and mashed hash browns?

Yup; it doesn’t get much better than that.

[Instructables - tarDunkin']

What the Turducken is to birds, the Cherpumple is to cakes.

A Cherpumple is an apple pie, a cherry pie and a pumpkin pie each cooked inside of a cake, and then combined into another cake and then covered in frosting.

The example you see here weighed in at more than 20 pounds, and took 200 guests more than 4 hours to finish.

[Charles Phoenix - Cherpumple]

Wired put together this delicious looking pie chart to compare sales data, and show you how your favorites stack up: