The saga of the magicSHELF continues. I received my own magicSHELF in the mail yesterday, courtesy of linkydinky, and put it up today. Here I am posing with it. I placed it across from my desk. It's definitely odd to look over and see some books floating there. But I like it. It's kind of cool.
I added a short review of the magicSHELF to my
original post about it. While I don't reveal how it works in the review, I do try to strike a balanced tone, pointing out that you could make one of these yourself with enough effort (and time spent searching around hardware stores). I also add a disclaimer, noting that in return for letting linkydinky quote me as saying that the magicSHELF is real, he links back to this site and mentions my book. So hopefully that steers clear of any ethical pitfalls.
The saga of the magicSHELF continues. I received my own magicSHELF in the mail yesterday, courtesy of linkydinky, and put it up today. Here I am posing with it. I placed it across from my desk. It's definitely odd to look over and see some books floating there. But I like it. It's kind of cool.
Comments
Thanks for noticing! (And thanks to Alex for the great pictures!)
Uncle Url
http://www.magicalshelf.com
"For some reason, I always thought Alex was a girl."
Two answers (pick your favorite):
1: That's an urban legend.
2: She IS a girl.
I would not mind so much if they didn't lie about the shelf
Video of MagicSHELF box contents
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzngqCWOQYM&search=newsletter
http://www.linkydinky.com/haunting.txt
and many other text like this
did a belive no did i wonder yes.
This is the orignal post from museumofhoaxes.com
magicSHELF Mystery Solved
{summary!!!!!}
Status: The magicSHELVES are real
Greg Cason broke down and ordered one of those LinkyDinky magicSHELVES that I posted about last week (I was tempted to do the same), thereby learning the secret of how they work. It turns out it's not a photoshop trick, nor are the books glued to the wall. Actually, they work almost exactly as I theorized. A shelf is anchored into the dry wall, and then the shelf itself is concealed by covering it with a book and gluing the book shut. Greg notes: "It's nothing but an L bracket with some sticky stuff. Cute idea, but not worth ~$18. You should be able buy the parts yourself for about 3 or 4 dollars at any hardware store."
Update: Uncle Url himself (of Linky Dinky) sent me an email in response to the Museum of Hoaxes's ongoing magicSHELF investigation. Here's how it begins:
Alex -- You spilled my beans!
Well, all I've got to say is that I'm glad you concluded the story by allowing that our MagicShelf is, in fact, a "real" product and that it does exactly what it says it does. However... don't think so fast that the parts can be had at any local hardware store for 3 or 4 dollars.
For the full email click here. (It was a bit too long to post in its entirety on the front page.) Well, I hope Uncle Url doesn't harbor any bad feelings towards me for revealing the secret of the magicSHELF. It would kind of suck to get on Linky Dinky's blacklist. (There are many people whose blacklist I would be proud to be on, but I actually like Linky Dinky. They did come up with the Lovenstein Institute, after all.) But what can I say? The mystery of the magicSHELF was too tempting a puzzle not to try and solve. Anyway, I'm sure there are many products that can be constructed by do-it-yourselfers for a fraction of the cost, but since most of us aren't do-it-yourselfers, I doubt the market for the magicSHELF will be threatened by people buying the parts at the hardware store and making their own. Actually, I'm still tempted to buy one, since it would be an interesting conversation piece to have in my office.