`”We’ve got them in Nebraska; that’s as far north as we have any records,” said Lynn Robbins, a biology professor at Missouri State University. “They’re adapting, filling in so many places.”
To Robbins, the prehistoric-looking armadillo Spanish for “little armored thing” is here to stay.
Exactly how many of Texas’ official state mammal have made their way into the Midwest remains elusive. But observers say the remarkable advance may have been aided by the region’s lack of predators and the abundance of favorable habitat such as forests and river valleys.’
Orcas are fucken cool. Smart too. 🙂
see it here »
‘Swiss man takes to the skies with wings and a jetpack. The dream of flight has dominated man’s imagination since time began. Now Yves Rossy from Switzerland says he has become the first person to gain altitude and maintain a stable, horizontal flight thanks to aerodynamic carbon foldable wings. The wings which have a 3 metre span have two kerosene-powered engines attached which propel the passenger.’
see it here »
‘This dude gets dual jet engines and attaches them to his bicycle and takes it out on the highway.’
see it here »
‘This thing is friggin awesome. This guy custom built a paintball gatling gun that shoots balls out at 1200 psi.’
see it here »
`After World War II, there was little money for defense spending while the nations of Europe rebuilt their industry and society. When there was some cash to spend, one had to be creative to stretch it as far as possible. The French probably accomplished the most astounding example of that with the ACMA Troupes Aeról Portées Mle. 56. Deployed with their airborne forces, this was essentially a militarized Vespa scooter outfitted with a 75mm recoilless rifle.’
`In order to run down and kill wolves, the people of Ireland bred the powerful and long-legged Irish Wolfhound. When they needed something to chase ill-tempered badgers into their holes to exterminate them, Europeans bred the feisty, short-legged dachshund. But five hundred or more years ago, the people on the northern coast of Norway had a different kind of prey to contend with: humble puffins. [..]
In order to fill this unique niche, the Norwegians bred a unique dog. The resulting Lundehund was an extraordinary animal with some unparalleled gifts. For all its uniqueness, the Lundehund is vanishingly rare. It has been so close to extinction that at one point there were only five of them in existence.’
`Fearless, ferocious and mightier than the world has ever seen, this is the new breed of super-lion.
Only one species of prey holds its attention: the buffalo — and in order to bring its powerful foe to the ground, it will take to deep water, use sophisticated hunting techniques and then silence the gigantic beast with a single swipe of a savage paw.
In a remote corner of Africa, an extraordinary evolutionary tale is unfolding, uncovered by the actor Jeremy Irons and an award-winning documentary team. A new film, Relentless Enemies, will tell the story of the emergence of a distinct subspecies of big cat on a tiny and isolated island in the Duba Plains of Botswana’s Okavango Delta.’
`The design studio behind the famed Optimus keyboard, Artemy Lebedev, has unveiled the initial price of the cut-back Optimus-103. It will cost US$1,200.
“RIP,” states one participant of the official Optimus keyboard log. “You mean $120?” one hopeful suggests.
Others seem to echo these feelings of doubt, one fan saying “I am in total shock,” and another declaring this as the last straw “That’s it. I’m out.”‘
Followup to Optimus keyboard.
Using some PVC pipes and a tank of LPG these people make a flame that changes with the frequency of sound waves in the pipe. It’s really very cool, especially when they start playing music with it.
(8.9meg Windows media)
see it here »
`Own the one and only prototype of the Moller M400 Skycar®. This test vehicle has flown repeatedly and demonstrated its hover capabilities in over a dozen flights at the Moller International facilities in Davis, California. It is our intent to offer it for sale by auction on eBay to raise capital for the Company.
This is the Real Deal – A working “Flying Car” prototype!’
At the time of posting, the auction is just above US$2mil and the reserve isn’t me. [sigh] Looks like I can’t afford it. 🙂 [Unless lots of people start clicking AdSense links. :)]
`In this article, we describe the construction of the Ultimate Linux Lunchbox, a 16-node cluster that runs from a single IBM ThinkPad power supply but can, as well, run from an N-charge or similar battery. The lunchbox has an Ethernet switch built-in and has only three external connections: one AC plug, one battery connector and one Ethernet cable. To use the lunchbox with your laptop, you merely need to plug the Ethernet cable in to the laptop, supply appropriate power-even the power available in an airplane seat will do-and away you go, running your cluster at 39,000 feet.’
`Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy — almost impenetrable forests of marijuana plants 10 feet tall.
General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana. [..]
Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.
“A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those [forests] did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action,” Hiller said dryly.’
`One of the CIA’s most bizarre Cold War efforts was Operation Acoustic Kitty. In declassified documents from the CIA’s super-secret Science and Technology Directorate, it was revealed that some Cold-War-era cats were surgically altered to become sophisticated bugging devices. The idea was that the cats would eavesdrop on Soviet conversations from park benches, windowsills and garbage containers. The cat was meant to just stroll up to the sensitive conversations, completely unnoticed. The clandestine cat’s electrical internals would then capture and relay the audio to awaiting agents.’
A robot you can drive around some guys room. With a webcam so you can see where you’re going.
I kept running into his legs, so I think he might have gotten annoyed. Oops. 🙂 Or, not oops, as the case may be. 🙂
‘It all started when my friend Jesse told me that if you get a strobe light fast enough, you can make it look like dripping water is going in slow motion or even backwards. This phenomenon happens because strobe lights can ‘capture’ an instant in time and allow your eyes to see it as lasting longer than an instant.
So if the strobe light captures consecutive instants of time just out of sync with a periodic occurrence such as dripping water from a faucet, it can appear that the drops are moving slowly or even backwards.’
see it here »
`No matter how played flying cars, kayaks, and other strange contraptions are, the allure of a jet pack strapped onto your back just doesn’t seem to lose its luster. Rick Herron, creator of Skywalker Jets, has devised a rocket pack that weighs about 90 pounds and can propel a 200 pound pilot around the air for what is likely the most invigorating 5 minutes of their life. The crazy part is this thing actually works, and it doesn’t get your backside all crispy in the process. Rick plans on producing a finalized model that has a range of about 4 miles and includes a GPS unit integrated into a HUD showing flight time and engine information among other things.’
‘Heliodisplay images are not holographic although they are free-space, employing a rear projection system in which images are captured onto a nearly invisible plane of transformed air. What the viewer sees is floating mid-air image or video. These projected images and video are two-dimensional, (i.e. planar) but appear 3D since there is no physical depth reference. While conventional displays have the benefit of being attached to a physical substrate, Heliodisplay projections are suspended in air, so you will notice some waviness to the quality of the projections.’
(4.1meg Flash video)
see it here »
`Located about 1 1/2 hrs from Spokane, 4 hrs. from Seattle, 5 hrs. from Portland.
360 Degree Views. Private water system. High Power lines on sight.
Hardened buildings built to withstand One megaton nuclear blast within three thousand feet!!
Wall thicknesses up to fourteen feet.
Three 155′ tall missile silos.
A dozen other large to huge buildings underground.
Thousands of feet of connecting tunnels.’
These people will build you a secret room for US$10,000 or DIY kits for US$1,500. Pull a fake book on a bookshelf, twist a candle on a fireplace, all the usual cool ways to open the hidden doors.
I want one. 🙂
This is pretty cool. If I’d had one of these when I was a kid I’d have been the coolest kid in the whole neighbourhood. No doubt about it.
(streaming video)
see it here »
`A professor from chair of quantum and optical electronics of the Ulyanovsk State University in western Russia has patented a method of making things invisible, Interfax news agency reported.
The so-called invisibility cloak, created by Oleg Gadomsky, is called “The method of conversion of optical radiation” in the patent.
Gadomsky had been long experimenting on nanoparticles of gold. Thus, he invented a sub-micron stratum of microscopical colloid golden particles that makes an object placed behind it invisible for an observer.’
`Felice Varini paints (lines, concentric circles, triangles) on things (tunnels, castles, groovy interiors). A seemingly random smattering of elements that, viewed from a specific point in space, coalesce into a tangible planar element.’
I want some of these painted in my house. 🙂 Very cool.
It looks like those very cool keyboards with OLED arrays in each of the keys are going to be released next month. 1st of February this site claims.
I want one. They’re probably going to be way more expensive than I can afford tho, for a few months [or years] atleast.
So, start clicking on some of the Google ads so I can get a shiny new keyboard, fuckers. 🙂
Update to Strutting onto the keyboard catwalk.
`Welcome to Cold War City (population: 4). It covers 240 acres and has 60 miles of roads and its own railway station. It even includes a pub called the Rose and Crown.
The most underpopulated town in Britain is being put on the market. But there will be no estate agent’s blurb extolling the marvellous views of the town for sale: true, it has a Wiltshire address, but it is 120ft underground.
The subterranean complex that was built in the 1950s to house the Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan’s cabinet and 4,000 civil servants in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack is being thrown open to commercial use. Just four maintenance men are left.’
`Its streamlined metallic bodywork is seriously easy on the eye, but the biggest attraction is the fact that each of its keys features a colour OLED screen. Cleverer still is its ability to store a number of preset images and configurations, enabling you customize the keyboard specifically for unique pieces of software, such as Photoshop or Half-Life 2 (click to enlarge gallery images below).’
‘Stack Rock Fort, about 800 yards off the west Wales coast near Milford Haven, is for sale for £150,000.
The 19th Century fort – complete with a couple of cannons – dates back from the time of Napoleon, when it was initially built as a defence for the river Haven.
But it has nowhere to sleep at present, and the new owner will have to sort out sewage, water and power. ‘
The photo looks kinda cool. I’d like to live in a place like this one day. 🙂 All you need is a generator and a directional wifi antenna to jump then 800 yards to shore, and you’d have you very own cyberporn island of doom.
` Make 2.4GHz parabolic mesh dishes from cheap but sturdy Chinese cookware scoops & a USB WiFi adaptor ! The largest (300mm diam)shows 15-18dB gain (enough for a LOS range extension to 3-5km), costs ~US$5 & comes with a user friendly bamboo handle that suits WLAN fieldwork- if you can handle the curious stares!’
I thought 2.5 gigapixels was cool, but 4 gigapixels is even better.
There’s a nice picture of Half Dome in which you can see two climbers from 2.5 miles away.
