Friday, September 30, 2011

Daily Links: September 30, 2011


Warranty Void If Seal Is Broken by LM4K


6 Images of Abandoned Weaponry You Won't Believe Are Real

The 10 Best Jobs for Adrenaline Junkies

Ever wondered if you have an accent to other Americans? Here's a map of North American English Dialects, Based on Pronunciation Patterns. Speaking of accents, last summer the BBC did a series on "Americanisms," or how American English was "infecting" the Queen's English. Ben Yagoda responds and documents how in fact it's the other way around. He documents "Britishisms" on his blog.  


Science:
10 Things You Didn't Know About Light stories: A week ago, who among us would have guessed that light, the universe's ultimate speed demon, would be observed getting outpaced by a bunch of reckless neutrinos?

This new system could produce hydrogen anyplace that there is wastewater near sea water," said Bruce E. Logan, Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering. It uses no grid electricity and is completely carbon neutral. It is an inexhaustible source of energy.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Science: Neutrinos faster than Light



Neutrinos discovered to be faster than light at CERN. If confirmed, these results will overturn a century of one of the most basic assumptions in modern physics. 'Thousands of experiments have been undertaken to measure' the speed of light 'ever more precisely, and no result has ever spotted a particle breaking the limit. But Antonio Ereditato of the Orion collaboration and his colleagues have been carrying out an experiment for the last three years that seems to suggest neutrinos have done just that.'

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Video Distraction: Kitchens of the Future


Selections from two industrial films from the 50s. First, the Frigidaire kitchen from General Motors' "Design for Dreaming," a promotional film for the 1956 Motorama. Second, a section from film coverage of the Monsanto "House of the Future," located in Tomorrowland in Disneyland. Just one word: "plastics."

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Daily Links: September 21, 2011



The moral of this infographic is that you should always try hitting
on the girl with the iPhone first, she's libel to be the sluttier choice. 


10 Things You Didn’t Know About Witness Protection

50 Expert Networking Tips You Should Start Using in School

America currently has a higher poverty rate than at any time in the past twenty years. The line is drawn at $22,113 for a family of four, so if you make more than that, you’re officially not poor.

Check out this Best Buy flyer from 15 years ago
 
Death industry reaps grim profit as Japan dies: Corpse hotel with refrigerated coffins the latest trend

SFSignal has posted a list of Songs About Zombies

Simple Ideas That Are Borderline Genius (35 Pics)

What's the best non-sexual sensation ever? A Reddit thread.

Video Distraction: Electric TRON Lightcycle


"All New Full Scale Electric Tron Lightcycle driving in the daytime as well as night time. This bike has had extensive reworking on the body as well as Lithium Ion batteries and a 96volt electric motor."

After charging the battery for around 20 minutes you can get yourself about 100 miles of TRON lightcycling. Plus, the motor is no joke and can reach a top speed at 100 mph. But wait!! get this... they are trying to make it street legal and I am going to attempt to win the lottery so I can own one.

Source: Parker Brothers Choppers

Photo: Milky Way over the Annapurna



Photographer Anton Jankovoy captured this stellar shot of the Milky Way in the skies over the Annapurna section of the Himalayas — a massif with a peak elevation of over 8,000 meters.

Source: Bad Astronomy

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Gadgets: Conquest Vehicles



The Knight XV from Conquest Vehicles: For when you absolutely, positively need a luxury ride that can withstand the Apocalypse. With a limited production run of only 100 vehicles, this luxury armored SUV - inspired by the Gurkha military vehicle - costs a paltry $310,000 USD; its nearest competitor, the Dartz Pombron, has no base price listed (estimated cost: $1.5 million USD).

Architecture: Sleepbox


Sleepbox is a modular sleeping capsule that offers many of the comforts of a hotel room in a box about the size of a small garbage dumpster. Intended for use in airports, train stations, and hostels, the capsules feature wifi, luggage storage, and up to three self-changing beds. Sleepbox is manufactured by the Russian Arch Group Architectural Bureau.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Featured Site: Show Me Non-Stop



Show Me Non-Stop is a video player that will play a continuous stream of videos based on the user’s search term. It is powered by VHX, a new platform for watching online video. Show Me Non-Stop is by Jamie Wilkinson, Casey Pugh (both co-founders of VHX) and Chad Pugh. The site was created during last weekend’s hackday.tv, a 24 hour video hackday. Previously we wrote about another project from that event, Casey Pugh’s Music Video Genome.

Tech: Thing-O-Matic




The New York times is running an exploded view of a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic 3D printer illustrated by Frank O’Connell.  We’re extremely excited about how well it explains our pride and joy to a wider audience.

It also mentions the Stepstruder Mk7 in a dual configuration.  That’s right folks — the compact size of the Mk7 is going to make experimental dual extrusion possible for the first time.  Stay tuned for details, or come to World Maker Faire NYC this weekend to see a them in action!

Science: The Science of Fire


 
 
 
Why fire is red, gas flames are blue, why you’re too cool to glow, and why fire moves in an upward, dancing manner.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Exploration: Living Bridges

Photo: Daily Mail

Deep in the rainforests of the Indian state of Meghalaya, bridges are not built, they’re grown. For more than 500 years locals have guided roots and vines from the native Ficus Elastica (rubber tree) across rivers, using hollowed out trees to create root guidance systems. When the roots and vines reach the opposite bank they are allowed to take root. Some of the bridges are over 100 feet long and can support the weight of 50 people.  Check out Architizer for even more pictures.

Featured Site: Music Video Genome



Music Video Genome by Casey Pugh is a site powered by VHX that generates a music video channel focused on an artist chosen by the user (in a formula that will be familiar to Pandora users). Pugh created the site during last weekend’s hackday.tv, a 24 hour video hackday.

Video Distraction: Daleks Chasing a Turtle


Random Daleks tied to a random turtle (tortoise) were spotted meandering around geek.kon Madison, WI last weekend, and it just might be the most randomly awesome thing you will see all week.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Daily Links: September 14, 2011


Timeline of the Universe infrographic by Omid Kashan

Absolutely stunning depiction of the Big Bang and many of its splendid afteraffects (hint: us and like, everything else). Makes me wish I lived there and not in the alternate pocket dimension I currently reside in. But the view sure is nice from this graph. Look at the massive (almost as big as the universe itself!) version at this link. Via: Boing Boing



Nerdy Day Trips aims to bring you the best in disused power stations, abandoned nuclear bunkers, lighthouse museums and solar observatories from around the world.

Those stories about Ikea abandoning bookcases because people don't buy books anymore were nonsense: "As it turns out, not only had the 15 inch bookcase been in development for a period of eighteen months to two years. Ebooks didn't factor at all into the decision."

News: 
U.S. Poverty Rate, 1 in 6, at Highest Level in Years (NYT) - An additional 2.6 million people slipped below the poverty line in 2010, census officials said, making 46.2 million people in poverty in the United States, the highest number in the 52 years the Census Bureau has been tracking it, said Trudi Renwick, chief of the Poverty Statistic Branch. That represented 15.1 percent of the country. The poverty line in 2010 was at $22,113 for a family of four.

Science:
What does a Higgsless universe mean for science? The Higgs Boson is quite important to the standard model of physics. If it exists, it plays a major role in explaining how particles acquire mass. There’s a distinct possibility that the Higgs Boson may not even exist. Stephen Hawking made a famous bet that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) wouldn't find it. So far both the LHC and Tevatron, another massive particle accelerators have both searched much of the energy ranges we expected to find the Higgs with no luck. So, then, what does it mean if we don’t find the Higgs at all?

Featured Site: Two of Us



Project Popcorn, an in-house project for creative agency, The Barbarian Group, has developed Two of Us, a new website where you take a smiling picture using your computer’s webcam and share it with a complete (but smiling) stranger.
The premise is simple: take a webcam pic of your best smile to brighten someone else’s day, and get a smile in return!
And no cheating, we’ve got special smile detection software to make sure you’re sending a smile and not…something else.
According to Caelin Cacciatore, a junior designer for The Barbarian Group, “The site is built in NodeJS, a cutting edge event driven web server and MongoDB. The smile detection software was written by Sebastián Alvarez…”

Via: The Barbarian Group

Video Distraction: Baby Chasing a Laser


Laser chasing isn’t just for cats, as demonstrated in this video by our friends David Calkins and Simone Davalos of their daughter Emma Danger tracking down an ever elusive laster dot.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Daily Links: September 13, 2011


Sometimes anxiety can lead Freshmen to be a bit over-prepared.
Via: Reddit


10 Famous People Who Battled Alzheimer’s

15 Facebook Etiquette Tips Every Baby Boomer Should Know

"A former police officer for the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia has admitted to stealing $2.4 million worth of 'error' coins and selling them to a coin distributor in California."
 
Kids today won't know the shrill cry of a 9600 baud, or the magical "doodleeedoo" of a 28.8 modem. Help preserve our digital history. Join us in recording your best impression of a "modem handshake" sound.



"US researcher Eric Poeschla has produced three glowing GM cats by using a virus to carry a gene, called green fluorescent protein (GFP), into the eggs from which the animals eventually grew." (If scientists admit to creating stuff like this, what have they done and kept secret?)

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Link Round-Up: September 11th


This word cloud was made in Worldle using editorials from a number of national newspapers, including The New York Times, the New York Post, the New York Daily News, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Sun-Times.

9/11 Encyclopedia (New York Magazine )
New York Magazine's editors chose the encyclopedia format to explore topics as diverse as missing person posters, the people who jumped, the PATRIOT ACT, the families, the memories of the kindergarteners at the nearby school, the hijackers, the flight attendants, counting the dead, the artifacts left behind, and more.

9/11 Mystery Solved
Ten years later, one of the greatest mysteries arising from 9/11 has been solved: the guy who faked the 'tourist guy atop the WTC while the plane approaches' picture has come forward.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Daily Links: September 9, 2011



The 50 Best Twitter Feeds for Math Geeks
 
Nine Hours is an ultra-modern capsule hotel in Kyoto, Japan.

Soldiers marching can damage bridges due to resonance, the wind did the same to the Tacoma bridge. Glass can be broken using sound but gym rats wobble a skyscraper

Ten Strange Places People Live. They look like pretty nice homes, except for the ones from which you could plunge to your death.

Vision Hacker Uses Front-Facing Camera to Create Kinect-Like Experiences on iOS

Whedon, Black, Oswalt, Savage etc.: How to Survive High School Rookie, the new blog/magazine from fashion's darling, 15 yr old Tavi Gavinson, asked various "grownups" for advice about high school. (Read Joss Whedon's advice for getting through high school here.)

Science: The Saturn Pulsed Power Accelerator



Located at Sandia National Labs in New Mexico and sounding like the secret weapon of a mad scientist, “Saturn is specifically designed to convert as much electrical power as it can into X-rays, in order to simulate what happens during a nuclear detonation. To do this, the accelerator channels its output pulse through a tiny cylinder made of very thin tungsten wires. As each wire essentially gets hit by its own lightning bolt, it gets turned into a plasma, which is instantly driven inward by the intense electromagnetic field. This implosion releases hundreds of thousands of joules of X-ray energy, which is as close as we can get to seeing what happens when a nuke goes off without actually, you know, setting off a nuke.”

See more glamour shots of the Accelerator in action at Sandia’s Flickr.

Via: dvice

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Tech Tree-Climbing Robot


Instructables user Technochicken built this cool tree-climbing robot:
"After I got comfortable programming and building with an Arduino, I decided to build a robot. I did not have any particular type in mind, so I wracked my brain (and the internet) for cool robot ideas. Eventually, somehow the idea popped into my head to build a robot that could climb trees. At first I dismissed the idea as beyond my skill level, but after further thought, and some time in Sketchup, I decided to take a shot at the challenge. This is the result of my efforts."
Via: Arduino

18 Signs That U.S. Public Schools Are Now Essentially Prisons

1. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has announced that school officials can search the cell phones and laptops of public school students if there are “reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school.”

2. It came out in court that one school district in Pennsylvania secretly recorded more than 66,000 images of students using webcams that were embedded in school-issued laptops that the students were using at home.

3. If you can believe it, a “certified TSA official” was recently brought in to oversee student searches at the Santa Fe High School prom.

Science: First Realistic Simulation of the Formation of the Milky Way


For almost 20 years astrophysicists have been trying to recreate the formation of spiral galaxies such as our Milky Way realistically. Now astrophysicists from the University of Zurich present the world's first realistic simulation of the formation of our home galaxy together with astronomers from the University of California at Santa Cruz. The new results were partly calculated on the computer of the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS) and show, for instance, that there has to be stars on the outer edge of the Milky Way.

See also the interview with Lucio Mayer from the University of Zurich explaining the relevance of this research.

Tech: The Future of Gaming


In the following video, Freddie Wong gives us his vision of what the future of gaming may soon be like.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Daily Links: September 5, 2011


A half hour driving behind this jerk, and he refused to let me pass...
In retrospect, I should have known.
Via: Reddit

22 Fascinating and Bizarre Classes Offered This Semester

James Bond's 50th Anniversary: Largest Exhibition Of Bond Movie Cars Ever

New York based Google engineer decides to go 'a little bit over the top' and propose to his girlfriend via Google maps and a treasure hunt. Awww....geek love. [Via]

Robert Reich talks at Google about the biggest problem facing the US economy. (SLYT)

Ten Strange Places People Live. They look like pretty nice homes, except for the ones from which you could plunge to your death.

Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Time.

News:

Tech: Swarminoid


The Swarmanoid developed by Dr. Marco Dorigo is an amazing demonstration of robotic teamwork. Swarmanoid uses a group of different robots to accomplish a goal, but the robots are divided into classes with separate skills. Their heterogenius makeup and redundant nature means that Swarmanoid is better suited to repetitive or distributed tasks more reliably than individual robots or even homogenius swarms.

There’s the spy, eye-bot, which can hover and attach to ceilings. Using its cameras, eye-bot tracks down the target and sends the intelligence to the rest of the team. With this information, rolling foot-bots create a ground-based network based off eye-bot intelligence. To complete their task, two foot-bots team up with a hand-bot — the sticky-fingered acrobat of the team. Together, the foot-bots carry the hand-bot into position, which climbs and grapples to obtain their goal.