Tuesday, August 31, 2010
NASA brings historical photos to Flickr Commons
The Commons is one of the more viable destinations on Flickr for information-seekers. The focus of The Commons, according to the description on its home page, is "to firstly show you hidden treasures in the world's public photography archives, and secondly to show how your input and knowledge can help make these collections even richer." The site allows users to tag photos and leave comments discussing their historical significance.
Aside from NASA's new gallery, The Commons features content from the Library of Congress, Smithsonian, and the New York Public Library, among many other institutions.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Leaf tie
The Leaf tie is easy to use. It is simply used in the same manner as the cable-tie. All you have to do is wrap the Leaf Tie around the loose cables. The design of the Leaf tie makes the cables look like wrapped twigs. For young children or people that live in the city that tire from the artificially modern environment, the Leaf tie can for a short while let them experience a hint of nature.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
BMW Brings Back the C1, and This Time It’s Electric
As a study for a safe urban motorcycling project, BMW Motorrad has resurrected their C1 covered two-wheeler for a one-off electric concept they call C1-E.
The C1-E was designed to highlight safety in low-emissions “single track” vehicles designed for urban use. As such, it sports the same roll cage, seat belt and windscreen as the erstwhile production C1. While BMW said that future single-track production vehicles may feature low-emission gasoline engines or electric motors, the C1-E swaps the original C1’s Rotax 4-stroke gas engine in favor of a Vectrix electric motor and lithium-ion battery.
Like Arrested Development, the Apple Newton and Tom Waits, the original C1 was an oddball that didn’t quite fit in to an established category but still received critical praise. A sit-down scooter with a crumple zone and aluminum roll cage, the C1 was intended to entice minicar buyers with an even smaller alternative that offered the same level of crash protection as most European small cars. It didn’t quite turn out that way.
Originally intended to be ridden without a helmet, the C1 turned into a sales flop after several European countries refused to exempt C1 riders from existing helmet laws. Despite the bike’s roll cage and studies that showed helmet-wearers who also used the C1’s integrated seat belt had worse neck injuries in low-speed crashes, the British government mandated helmet use. Sweden paradoxically required C1 riders to wear helmets but outlawed them from wearing seat belts. Partially as a result of lost sales in Britain, the C1 was discontinued in 2002 and was never offered in the United States.
The concept shown above will most likely never be seen in a showroom, but BMW hasn’t abandoned their interest in safe urban scooters. “This BMW Motorrad study is likely to remain the only model of its kind,” the company said in a statement. “Nevertheless, findings from the project will find their way into other future developments in the field of single-track vehicles.”
BMW will contribute the results of C1-E testing to the European Safer Urban Motorcycling (eSUM) program, a collaboration between BMW and Piaggio that’s active in cities where motorcycling is most prevalent and most dangerous. By making single-track vehicles safer, eSUM hopes to further increase their popularity in order to decrease pollution and traffic congestion.
Photo: BMW Motorrad. The C1-E is an electric reinterpretation of the original C1 single-track vehicle.
Tiny Houses
Jay Shafer’s amazing 100 square foot house features a compact fireplace, a tiny kitchen, a tiny bathroom, and a loft that serves as a tiny bedroom.
Because the house is on wheels, it is classified as a trailer and does not require a building permit.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Ford Fiesta test on Top Gear
UNfcukinBELIEVABLE =DDD !!! Looking how things are going, they'll soon be doing tests on the fcukin Moon, the Spacestation and in the fcukin LargeHadronCollieder, making a burnout that'll launch a fcukin black hole who sucks up the universe and fcukin kill everyone =DDD
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
TUBE
Tube is a compact touch-pad based personal media player together with mobile phone. It's focused towards trendy youngsters, mainly for watching and sharing videos online. Its form has been inspired from the retro TV sets from the last century.
The blend of the vintage from in combination with contemporary color material and finish gives it a unique appeal. It has one directional key in the front panel that works as nav and home button, the rest of the real-estate of the front panel is used for large speakers grills that adds to it’s ‘analog‘ styling.
Although from the front it looks quite retro because of the resemblance with old picture-tube based TV sets, but the slim side profile makes it look contemporary.
The slightly jutting out frame in the front-bottom provides grip for horizontal viewing and also adds to the retro look.
Two 'large' stereo speakers in the front also adds to the retro TV look.
The back cover has soft touch finish, the graduated texture provides grip when the phone is held horizontally.
The back cover has soft touch finish, the graduated texture provides grip when the phone is held horizontally.
Although it's a small phone it has comparatively large display for it's size, making it suitable for watching videos.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Sunday, August 08, 2010
The first underwater photo
Louis Boutan was the first underwater photographer, who took pictures at a depth of 164 feet in 1893. Above — a self-portrait depicting Boutan in a full diving suit, airlines and metal helmet — was his first successful photo, and it offers us what a cumbersome chore it would have been to dive (and of course take pictures underwater) in those days.
Boutan, who was trained as a marine zoologist, conducted most of his underwater photo-experiments in 1890s at the Arago Marine Laboratory at Banyuls-sur-Mer, on France’s Mediterranean coast. He identified many problems of contemporary cameras that rendered them useless in extreme conditions. He tried encasing his cameras in strongboxes (including barrels); he tried completely flooding the interior of cameras. Lastly, he built a watertight massive equipment that was able to withstand pressure (on land, three men were needed to lift it), and battery-powered underwater arc lights, he was able to take photographie sous-marine. But still, there was no high speed film and his exposures lasted 30 minutes. Boutan had to remain underwater for sometimes as long as three hours and suffered nitrogen narcosis. Eventually, Boutan used a magnesium powder “flash” that greatly hastened phototaking.
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