As a teenager in a rural village in Nepal, Milan Karki knows just how desperately developing countries need an affordable, renewable energy source. But rather than whine about the availability of electricity or the cost of batteries, he sat down and came up with a solution: Low-cost solar panels with human hair conductors.

Solar energy isn't anything new, but solar panels themselves can be pricey to produce due to using silicon. Karki solved the cost issue by using human hair instead since it turns out that Melanin, a color pigment in hair, is a good conductor. Oh, and did we mention that it's cheaper than silicon?

Half a kilo of hair can be bought for only 16p in Nepal and lasts a few months, whereas a pack of batteries would cost 50p and last a few nights.

I don't know why they're selling hair by the kilo, but this idea is absolutely brilliant and I can't wait to see if it turns into something widely used. [Daily Mail]

The very first staff photo of Microsoft includes several bearded members totaling 7 out of 9 men, mostly programmers.

And I presume it wasn't 8 out of 9 because young Bill Gates looks incapable of sprouting much at this time. (The talented female programmer on the bottom center of the photo, Andrea Lewis, was respectfully left out of this count.) Snopes.com explains the photo was used in a email chain that went around asking if people would have invested money with such odd looking folks.

Apple's geeks have had a relationship with their mustaches, too.


Although from an earlier era then when the photograph of mustached Steve was taken, Andy Hertzfeld, early employee, tells a story at folklore.org about the belief that a bushy upper lip was an asset when gunning for a promotion. In It's The Moustache That Matters, Burrell, official a lowly tech, who was so amazing that he was filling in on engineering work for Woz, couldn't get the raise he deserved. Until he grew a 'stache.

It obviously wasn't a matter of talent or technical skill, since he was already far more accomplished in that regard than most of the other hardware engineers. It wasn't a matter of working harder, since Burrell already worked harder and was more productive than most of the others. Finally, he noticed something that most of the other engineers had in common that he was lacking: they all had fairly prominent moustaches. And the engineering managers tended to have even bigger moustaches. Tom Whitney, the engineering VP, had the largest moustache of all.

So Burrell immediately started growing his own moustache. It took around a month or so for it to come in fully, but finally he pronounced it complete. And sure enough, that very afternoon, he was called into Tom Whitney's office and told that he was promoted to "member of technical staff" as a full-fledged engineer.

But facial hair was in style at the end of the 70s, when these companies were being birthed. What about in recent decades?





Modern geeks, like those in the Python beard Flickr group, carry on this tradition. And here's an entire blog post arguing that languages developed by bearded programmers have higher success rates, with plenty of recent examples.



This isn't exactly conclusive evidence that mustaches make for more successful geeks, but it is strange correlation.

Not that it always looks good. I found this post on Deviant art with illustrated advice to geeks on how they can avoid looking like scumbags.

And Jesus Diaz teased me mercilessly for ruining the precious apple prom by arriving unshaven to a town hall event.



There's even a site asking people to try and guess if the photos displayed belong to programmers or serial killers, some of the examples sporting fine facial handlebars. But I don't believe any of us think looking good is the point here.

Being mustachio-ed myself, and putting on the amateur psychologist's hat, I'd say that facial hair could have its appeal in several ways. As a young teen I was always very slight, and had to eat a lot to even fit into regular clothes. One time, my mother, always great at creating embarrassing moments, asked a salesperson at the mall if there were any women's jeans that fit me. With softer, cherubic features, facial hair helped me feel more masculine, even when it was just a weak sliver. Now, as I round 30, it just works in a different direction. That is, to hide face and neck fat. I guess facial hair just makes the ugly, better. Or at least hides it. Or makes it hairier. Now, don't get me wrong. I think geeks are beautiful on the inside, but there aren't as many geek supermodels as there are ones with mustaches.

Unkempt, long facial hair on geeks might also signal an obsessive tendency to ignore everything but whatever a geek is geeking out on, whether that be blogging, designing, engineering, programming or making, at the sacrifice of haircuts, shaves, and showers. Although not necessarily in his moustache phase, early Apple employees complained about Steve Jobs' hygiene, finally getting someone to mention that he needed to bathe more often.

But I could be reading into this a bit much. And as I can only speak for myself, in the end, I'll stick with the theory that, I probably just want to be like Mario.

You've tried pills. (ICK!) You've tried topical treatments. (OUCH!) You've even tried sacrificing your first child to Aphrodite in hopes of a hair blessing. (OOPS!)

Now, for just $90 (that's just ten payments of under $10) you can regrow the hair on top of your head (or anywhere else!). Japanese scientists have discovered that the root of all hair loss is the clogged hair pathways in your skin. This uniquely engineered rubber shower cap captures shower water in such a way that it steams your scalp, allowing hair through.

Operators are standing by, but they might not speak English. So you'd better just order this one through the website. [Hair Doctor via Tokyo Mango]

Apparently some weaves are tighter than others. (Apparently, some relationships are tighter than others too.) After 20-year-old Briana Bonds told her boyfriend Juan she didn't love him anymore, the a-hole shot up the back of her mid-'90s Pontiac. The rear windshield was shattered, but she was still alive and without major injury, possibly thanks to that weave.

The ladies down at the beauty parlor are not totally convinced, though. Scientifically speaking, the weft (where the weave meets the hair) is where the fibers are interlocked most tightly. But whether or not that makes it any where close to the equivalent of a Kevlar mesh is beyond current beauty-parlor technology to ascertain.

Hair stylist Kim Walton told Kansas City NBC affiliate KSHB, "I never heard of weaves saving anybody's life." Still, if it turned out to be what saved Bonds, she added, "Thank God for weave."

Bonds herself told the news channel that it was more about God than the weave: "I think God was in my passenger seat." As of Thursday, Bonds had a headache; no word on what happened to that dick Juan. [WOAI via Geekologie]

Now, this is done on a plucked hair by steering a beam of gallium ions over the surface to etch the 20-micron logo into the hair cells. But imagine you really could have your hair tattooed. No-one would see it, it would be just like painting the pilot inside a plastic airplane model: you'd know it was there. What would you have?

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These two razors—Braun's Pulsonic and Gillette's Phantom—are actually quite different. The Pulsonic comes from the top branch of the electric shaver tree, whereas the Phantom is a regular blade razor with a vibrating twist (the twist is that it vibrates).

As I said before, I am a surprisingly hairy man. I'm consistently hairy around all of my body, face included. With the Pulsonic, however, it takes a couple passes to get rid of all the hair, leaving no rough patches. The neck pivots nicely, and the 10,000 "micro-vibrations per minute" really feel like it's working. The razor itself is heavy and has a nifty e-ink-like readout on the bottom that tells you how much charge is left, as well as how dirty the razor is. The first is self explanatory, but here's what the second is for.

The razor docks into the cleaning station, which allows you to automatically clean the razor with the touch of a button. Jets of cleaning fluid squirts into the tip while the razor sporadically turns itself on and off in a symphony of hair, facial oil and alcohol-cleanser. After an hour of this, your battery should be charged and the head should be clean. You don't even have to remove the foils beforehand.

Louis covered the Pulsonic a bit before, but I'm actually a dry-shave electric razor guy myself (as opposed to his blade razor preference). And from my point of view, it's pretty much the best electric razor around, and can get fairly close to a plain razor if you give yourself some time to master it. If you're still looking for a very last minute gift this year, you can't go wrong with the Pulsonic. That is, if you're shopping for someone you care enough to spend $200 on. [Amazon]

On the other hand, if you're a blade razor kinda guy, there's the Fusion Power Phantom. It looks like a Mach 3, but instead of three blades it has five. Not only is it 166% bladier, it's also got a vibration function. One flip of the switch and the thing starts trembling. This might sound like a bad thing—blades + shaking + face usually ends up like the elevator scene in The Shining—but it seems like it helps.

Being from the electric razor world, I'm usually pretty clumsy with the safety razor type. However, this Phantom seems to be the best of both worlds, meaning that I didn't cut myself silly when shaving. The next time you're on the road looking for a razor, check out the Fusion Power and try out them vibrating blades. It's only $10, and works slightly better than a standard razor. [Amazon]

Hit the jump for more, including the the most disappointing NSFW pictured instructions you've ever seen.

The product works by:

"tucking between your labia majora to cover your more sensitive labia minora, clitoris and blocks off the vaginal opening so no foreign materials may enter".

I'm insinuating nothing, but here's a link to Jason's suspiciously titled "Man Hair" post. [Product Page via Strange New Products]

Speaking of hair removal, I'm interested in what you guys use besides the three I tested. Any spectacular ones? How about for nose hair removal? Let me know in the comments.

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Let's start from the head down. First, the Flowbee. Even if you haven't had the pleasure of having this used upon you—that is the correct description of being Flowbeed—you probably saw this on late-night TV ads. If you're not familiar, the Flowbee is a combination vacuum cleaner and (head) hair trimmer. Both plug into the wall (you can opt to use your own vacuum and save a few bucks on the order) and work together to simultaneously cut and clean up the mess.

It's pretty unwieldy if you're doing trimming yourself, so your best bet is to get someone to help. There are different sized spacer attachments so you can get a variation of lengths, but the shortest you can get is probably a #2 or a #3 (in regular trimmer terms). In the end, the only time you'd really use this is if your kid doesn't care about how he—or help me Jeebus, she—looks or if you're the last man on Earth and there are no barbers, stylists or women of any kind around. But you do save money over the long run.

How well it works (1 to 10): 7

How good you look after it's done: 3

Then there's the Mangroomer. It looks like a cross between a backscratcher, a nunchuck, and an electric shaver. It allows you to reach behind your back (either overhand or sideways) and shave off the hair. In theory, it's great. In practice, you need someone else to help.

The performance of the razor is great. It gets all your hair off in one or two strokes if you swipe cleanly and evenly, which means you'll actually need someone behind you to direct—or even take over. Doing it yourself is alright (and is the point of the gadget), but without straining yourself with two mirrors it's hard to make sure you've gotten your entire back.

As for comfort, well, the blade's not really protected, which meant I had redness and some irritation after I was done, but cleared up after a good night's sleep.

How well it works (1 to 10): 6 (8 with a helper)

How good you look after it's done: 8

Last, and most importantly, the Bodygroom. Philips markets this shaver as a device that gets rid of all hair below the neck. This means your chest, your arms, your pits, your stomach, your legs, your crotch and even your ass crevasse can be hair free. We only tested this on four of those seven places—points if you guess which—and found it to be a great shave.

It's essentially a fancy beard trimmer with a fancy shave guard, which means you can stay far enough away from your goods to keep from injuring yourself and close enough to give you the freshness you're looking for. But like shavers, you'll have some itching afterwards. However, it's the most pain-free way to get hair out of your genital region and into wherever you keep excess hair.

How well it works (1 to 10): 9

How good you look after it's done: 9

The hair all grew back.

Product Page
Hands On [Gizmodo]
Lab Rat Week 1 [Gizmodo]
Lab Rat Week 2 [Gizmodo]
Lab Rat Week 4 [Gizmodo]

Lab Rat Week 1 [Gizmodo]
Lab Rat Week 2 [Gizmodo]
My Head on HairMax [Gear Log]

Wahl "Balder" Ultra-Close Haircut Kit
Wahl's 26 piece hair clipper piece holds the number one spot on Amazon, but this set of trimmers is endowed with an overbite that gets your fades and flat tops so close you can feel the heat of the metal teeth nuzzling into your flesh. The gold trim honors Britney's trailer-lifestyle heritage. Yee Haw!

IdealSalon's All-In-One Tattoo Kit
Includes a Tattoo gun, a rainbow of ink, a foot pedal, 4 stainless steel tips, 5 disposable tips for your skeezy friends, and an aluminum case anodized in black. That's easily enough gear and ink to xerox yourself wrist and hip with the lips, and jesus-cross Britney has.–Brian Lam

Wahl 79111-100 Balder Ultra-Close Haircut Kit [Amazon]
Tattoo Kit [Amazon]

The trick comes from the bit of velcro at the end, which when you spin the snake around, picks up hair and other particles from inside your drain. Pull it out, vomit at the disgustingness, and you're good to go. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Flexisnake via Strange New Products]

Despite some redness afterwards, the Mangroomer still managed to score a 4 out of 5 from the guy who used it. Sounds good to us. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Amazon]

Since the MANGROOMER is electric, your back-ne should stay intact as you nunchaku your way to a chihuahua-like sheen. It's only $39.95 on amazon, and comes personally recommended by Joel "Bear Rug" Johnson. – Jason Chen

A surprise bonus after the jump.

Product Page [Amazon via Dethroner]

Useful if you're going out and you get caught in Hurricane Katrina, or Dame Katrina as they call her in the UK. – Jason Chen

Vending that kills the frizz [Springwise via Popgadget]