Start with inexpensive green beans and roast them in an air popper. Yes, an air popcorn popper. You can save a lot of money:
Here is another rendition, demonstrating the first crack and the second crack:
If you’ve ever seen the movie Waterworld, you know that Kevin Costner had a small, simple hand-cranked device to recycle urine:
The surprising thing about this machine is that it purified urine rather than, say, seawater, which is visible as far as the eye can see in that clip. Also note that Kevin’s machine is fictional.
But they need a machine like that on the space station. With a half-liter of water costing about $15,000 to boost into orbit, every drop of water counts. So NASA has built a machine to recycle urine (as well as shower water and water in the air). Although, as you can see in this article’s photo, that machine is somewhat larger than Kevin’s:
The Official NASA Guide To Drinking Your Own Urine
As you read the article you will realize that it is not a simple process. See also Turning Urine Into Water For Space Station Recycling for more detail
The Segway was going to change transportation forever, and didn’t quite live up to the hype. Toyota is taking another shot at “Personal Mobility” with its new rolling chair. Top speed is 20 MPH:
See also:
Lockheed is getting ready to exploit the temperature difference of deep ocean water to produce electricity:
Plumbing the oceans could bring limitless clean energy
From the article:
First, warm surface water heats a fluid with a low boiling point, such as ammonia or a mixture of ammonia and water. When this “working fluid” boils, the resulting gas creates enough pressure to drive a turbine that generates power. The gas is then cooled by passing it through cold water pumped up from the ocean depths via massive fibreglass tubes, perhaps 1000 metres long and 27 metres in diameter, that suck up cold water at a rate of 1000 tonnes per second. While the gas condenses back into a liquid that can be used again, the water is returned to the deep ocean. “It’s just like a conventional power plant where you burn a fuel like coal to create steam,” says Cohen.
Also:
Cohen believes this could eventually lead to 500 MW OTEC plants on floating offshore platforms sending electricity to onshore grids via submarine cables, and factory ships “grazing” the open ocean for power.
These two videos help explain the idea in more detail:
It’s the world’s first fuel cell sports car:
See also:
The video points out that it won’t ever be built, but it is different:
Given that everything we’ve heard about vitamins has been good for decades, it is hard to imagine that vitamin pills don’t do any good. Yet that seems to be the case. In fact, vitamins may do more harm that anyone might have imagined:
News Keeps Getting Worse for Vitamins
The findings summarized in the article are surprising. Vitamin C doesn’t work, Vitamin E doesn’t work, beta carotene may actually increase lung cancer, vitamin A causes hip fractures, multi-vitamins have no effect, etc. etc.
After decades of Centrum and One-a-day ads telling us how wonderful vitamins are, it is amazing to think they have no effect at all.
Results of one vitamin C and E study on 14,000 doctors over 10 years:
Here’s an introduction that shows you some of the possibilities in Google Sketchup:
Lots more tutorials on Sketchup here:
In Linux there are many hidden ways to destroy your machine. Here are 7 of the deadliest:
If you are new to Linux, chances are you will meet a stupid person perhaps in a forum or chat room that can trick you into using commands that will harm your files or even your entire operating system. To avoid this dangerous scenario from happening, I have here a list of deadly Linux commands that you should avoid.
“What if I were to tell you that there was a secret code on all of these [printed] documents?”
Enter the world of printer tracking dots:
Written instructions on how to see the dots:
Yellow Dots of Mystery: Is Your Printer Spying on You?
See also:
Why doesn’t Mars have a magnetic field? Here’s the answer:
Did an asteroid kill Mars’ magnetic field?
And a cautionary tale:
Boulder, CO is lighting up the nation’s first “Smart Grid”:
Boulder, Colo.: America’s First ‘Smart Grid City’
From the article:
“We like to think of Smart Grid as bringing the world of Thomas Edison together with the world of Bill Gates,” said Ray Gogel of Xcel Energy, a utility company involved in the system’s installation.
Xcel, along with several green high-tech companies, has invested $100 million to transform Boulder into a living laboratory.
“We’re doing something that the whole world is looking at right now,” Gogel said.
University of Colorado Chancellor G.P. “Bud” Peterson and his wife, Val, were the first to let Xcel transform their home. Xcel energy put solar panels on the house, gave them a new smart meter and a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that literally plugs in to their house.
Also:
These high-tech gadgets make the Peterson’s home so efficient that they are not just using less power, sometimes they save so much power that their meter is essentially spinning backward. The excess power is stored in the house, charging the batteries in their car and supplying them with about two days’ worth of backup power.
See also:
1) Scientists Recommend Permanent Method For Carbon Sequestration: Turn CO2 into Rock
Mirror’s Edge has gotten some great reviews, and the trailer released in the summer looks fantastic:
The problem is that many people who play it get “car sick”. But why does that happen? Here’s the answer:
If you are looking for a new car in 2009, this article points out the most efficient models that are available in the U.S.:
2009’s Most Fuel-Efficient Vehicles
From the article:
To find the most fuel-efficient cars of 2009, we looked at each model’s combined city and highway gas mileage provided by Environmental Protection Agency site fueleconomy.gov (or Edmunds.com, if the EPA didn’t yet have the information), and checked those findings against the manufacturers’ gas-mileage claims. The figures were compared in 10 market segments, with the best in each making our list. In the case of a tie, both vehicles are included.
Having said that, this video is fascinating. It shows the top 20 most fuel efficient cars in England, all of which get more than 60 MPG and all of which are diesel. It then compares them to the top 20 in the U.S., the best of which is 41 MPG:
Mother-of-two becomes first transplant patient to receive an organ grown to order in a laboratory - “Claudia Castillo, who lives in Barcelona, underwent the operation to replace her windpipe after tuberculosis had left her with a collapsed lung and unable to breathe…”
Pushing the Limits of Windows: Virtual Memory - “This time I’m turning my attention to another fundamental resource, virtual memory…”
Asus to Launch World’s ‘Fastest’ Smartphone - “The Asus P565 does indeed have some impressive specs with an 800MHz Marvell processor. That should give the Windows Mobile OS-based smartphone ample power to multitask a number of Microsoft Mobile Office apps at the same time…”
A gift or hard graft? - “We look at outrageously talented and successful people - the Beatles, Mozart, Rockefeller, Bill Gates - and assume there is such a thing as pure genius. Not necessarily, argues Malcolm Gladwell…”
Discovered: Cosmic Rays from a Mysterious, Nearby Object - “An international team of researchers has discovered a puzzling surplus of high-energy electrons bombarding Earth from space. The source of these cosmic rays is unknown, but it must be close to the solar system and it could be made of dark matter. Their results are being reported in the Nov. 20th issue of the journal Nature…”
Intel’s Wireless Power Technology Demonstrated - “Intel claims it has improved the efficiency of a method for powering devices wirelessly. Intel’s “Wireless Energy Resonant Link” (WREL), technology was demonstrated by transmitting electricity wirelessly to a lamp on stage and lighting a 60 watt bulb, which consumes more power than an average laptop computer…”
The LoseThos IBM PC Operating System - “LoseThos is for programming as entertainment. It empowers programmers with kernel privilege because it’s
fun. It allows full access to everything because it’s fun. It has no bureaucracy because it’s fun. It’s the way it is by choice because it’s fun. LoseThos is in no way a Windows or Linux wannabe — that would be pointless. LoseThos is not trying to win a prize for low resource usage or run on pathetic hardware. Low line count is a goal, though. It’s 100,000 lines of code including a 64-bit compiler, tools and a graphics library…”
E-prescription for IT disaster - “The federal paperless prescription mandate is a model for pathetic planning that will leave users and IT blamed for failures…”
PC Mag Moves to All-Digital - “Ziff Davis Media’s PC Magazine is the latest monthly magazine to quit print and become a purely digital operation. The January issue will be its last print edition. The move eliminates jobs for seven people who had been associated with print production…”
Cars Of The Future - Opel Siderium Concept - “This concept was created with style in mind and this is why it was awarded the Best Conceptual Interior at Interior Motives Design Awards 2008…”
Recycling By the Numbers: The Truth About Recycling - ”
Americans haul 82 million tons of trash to recycling centers each year—but that’s still just 32.5 percent of what we throw out. Here’s how much energy recycling saves and how much that’s worth…”
The fastest non-classified computer system is the Jaguar at Oak Ridge National Lab:
Computer can crunch a quadrillion calculations per second
From the article:
In June, Jaguar, a Cray system, was rated fifth-fastest in the world by researchers who track the 500 top supercomputers. The Oak Ridge lab, a Department of Energy facility, announced Monday that it had upgraded Jaguar since then, and achieved its four-year goal of 1 quadrillion calculations per second - or 1 “petaflop” - six months ahead of schedule.
Jaguar recently achieved sustained performance of more than 1.3 petaflops while churning out calculations on superconductivity and has hit a peak speed of 1.64 petaflops, the lab said.
More on the Cray XT5 Jaguar:
Here’s what it looked like going together:
Yes, it is huge. In a few decades, the entire thing will fit in your pocket.
This article on high-end trucks contains a section at the bottom on Dekotora, or Japaanese art trucks:
Here is a video tour of these trucks:
See also: Dekotora
The Intel 4004 was the world’s first microprocessor. It was used to make the first microprocessor-based calculator. By today’s standard, this calculator was huge and simple, but it was a revolution at the time. Here’s what it looked like inside:
Replica 4004 Calculator Features First Intel Microprocessor Used by Mankind
More on the history of the 4004:
Here’s the answer:
< ahref="http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/11/17/why-is-hulu-more-valued-by-advertisers-than-youtube/">Why is Hulu more valued by advertisers than YouTube?
This page demonstrates tilt-shift photography, where real-world scenes are made to look like miniatures:
50 Beautiful Examples Of Tilt-Shift Photography
This is a real miniature of NY City for comparison:
See also: Tilt-shift photography
Depression 2009: What would it look like?
From the article:
By looking at what we know about how society and commerce would slow down, and how people respond, it’s possible to envision what we might face. Unlike the 1930s, when food and clothing were far more expensive, today we spend much of our money on healthcare, child care, and education, and we’d see uncomfortable changes in those parts of our lives. The lines wouldn’t be outside soup kitchens but at emergency rooms, and rather than itinerant farmers we could see waves of laid-off office workers leaving homes to foreclosure and heading for areas of the country where there’s more work - or just a relative with a free room over the garage. Already hollowed-out manufacturing cities could be all but deserted, and suburban neighborhoods left checkerboarded, with abandoned houses next to overcrowded ones.
Google has released its voice search app for the iPhone. Here is Google’s description:
A review:
Hands On: Google’s Voice Search App for iPhone
A good question:
This video shows you how to extract the blue laser from a DVD player and build a circuit to control it. The laser is powerful enough to pop a balloon or light a match:
Firestrike: World’s First Solid-State Battlefield Laser Now Available - “Northrop Grumman has just announced that the first ever high-energy, solid-state lethal laser for actual war applications is now available for ordering. This means that you can pay now a few millions and get yours for Xmas. The new Firestrike units offer 15 kilowatts of power, but can be combined to offer 100 kilowatts of technological terror, capable of actually destroying the enemy…”
Are Our Brains Becoming “Googlized?” - “The objective of the study was to see if regular internet usage was more effective than other intellectually stimulating tasks in keep the brain limber in aging test subjects….”
40 Years Later, It’s Moon Race 2.0 - “By 2015, to hear NASA tell it, a new manned spacecraft–the evocatively named Orion–will be carrying crews to Earth’s orbit. By 2020, Orion will be paired with the lunar lander Altair. That same year, fresh American bootprints will be made on the lunar soil–the first since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972…”
Scientists scratch heads over why we itch - “As many as 10 percent of the people in the world endure chronic itching, said Ben Maddison, a researcher at Unilever, a multinational consumer-product corporation…”
10 Futuristic Concept Laptop Designs - “Compiled below is a list of the most futuristic concept laptop designs, some of which have won achievement awards while the rest are just too cool to know about…”
Adaptive Reuse: 20 Brilliant Recycled Buildings - “Recycling discarded materials into new buildings and adapting disused structures to new uses is not just about sustainability - it is also about savvy innovation and stylish adaptation. Some architects build modular wonders from existing units (such as shipping containers). Others draw from recycled, found and local materials (or entire old buildings) to create aesthetically amazing designs that brilliantly blend old and new…”
Detecting Disease In Less Than 60 Seconds - “Chemists and immunologists devised a new rapid system for detecting and identifying viruses. It uses surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy to measure the frequency of near-infrared laser light as it scatters off viral DNA and RNA. After a swab of a person’s nasal passage, the technique can detect individual virus particles quickly and identify many types…”
Tech Watch: Nukes In Your Yard and Fuel Cells In Your Pocket - “Two companies are doing two very different things to address the energy problem in America. How about a mini-reactor giving your neighborhood nuclear power? Or would you like thin fuel cell chips to give your gadgets juice?”
Why Apple is great at interfaces when others are not - “That Apple thinking is still apparent: it’s why the Mac metaphorically shakes its head at you when you get a password wrong. Similarly it’s why the iPhone’s icons wobble when you want to uninstall something…”
Race on to build world’s first space elevator - ” AUSTRALIA could play a key role in the 21st century space race, with competition heating up between Japan and the US to build the world’s first “space elevator”…”
The Floating Aerohotel: A Modern Aquatecture Marvel - “As fears of global warming induced population displacement are steadily realized, the allure of waterborne aquatecture becomes more and more enticing. Designed by Alexander Asadov, this incredible floating Aerohotel features a lighter-than-air aesthetic that sits serenely atop an elegant system of supports. Conceived as an elevated aquatic structure replete with hanging gardens, the space-age floating island preserves the entire extent of the ecosystem beneath it, contrasting with man-made islands that disrupt their immediate environment with tons of gravel fill…”
66 vehicle mods for better fuel economy … - “Below is a list of well understood mods you can do to your vehicle to squeeze more distance from each drop of fuel. They range from mild to wild, free to expensive. Some admittedly split hairs, while others can make a significant fuel economy difference. EcoModder members have done most, if not all of these…”
Deleting your digital past — for good - “Can you erase your tracks online? We tried to get a few bad mentions off the Net forever. Here’s how we did…”
iPhone Rideshare App To Cut 73.6 M Tons of CO2 Annually - “In an attempt to save the planet—and possibly just to piss off Canada—the company Mapflow is bringing a ridesharing app to the iPhone. The app is called Avego and Mapflow hopes it will help save the world. Hey, they had me at pissing off the Canadians…”
How did they build the Great Pyramid? We still don’t know, because exterior ramps don’t seem to explain it, and there is no evidence that the ramps existed.
So how might they have built the Great Pyramid without external ramps? Here’s the answer:
Great Pyramid Mystery to Be Solved by Hidden Room?
Very nice visualization:
As soon as you look at the picture, it seems obvious…
Honeycomb Tire: Bomb-Proof, Bullet-Proof, Idiot-Proof
Here’s a nice description of the tire from SEMA 2008:
Can you cut down a tree with a machine gun? Here’s the answer:
(Not funny, but related if you are interested in the music industry: Music industry library)
If you’ve ever seen a bouncy castle at a carnival or a kid’s birthday party, you know that these are strong structures, large structures and they inflate very quickly. Here is a sampling of what is possible:
What if you took this technology and used it to create emergency shelter? That’s the idea here:
Tricked-Out Inflatable House Provides “Instant Survival”
From the article:
In tough circumstances, sometimes all you need is hope, but other times you need a blow-up survival shelter featuring a bed, a couch, freeze-dried food, a 50-gallon water bladder, a first-aid kit, a radio and a cookstove.
More info: Inflatable World
[See #21]
An attempt to simplify the financial crisis into a graphic:
A Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis
See also:
For more info see:
