A phone booth with a new purpose.
The days of the phone booth may be numbered in New York City: with the flood of smartphones, vandalism and lack of maintenance, it may be time to re-think how else they might be used. Local architect John Locke’s proposition is to convert them into communal libraries or book drops, complete with brightly coloured shelving, much like your bricks-and-mortar institutions…
Continue reading… “Neglected New York City phone booths converted into communal libraries”
Young teenagers who drink alcohol have typically been exposed to drinking on-screen.
Ten to 14 year old children who watch a lot of movies featuring alcohol are twice as likely to drink, according to new research.
Continue reading… “Underage drinking linked to movies featuring alcohol”
Sing all you want and don’t annoy others.
Are people getting tired of hearing you sing, and now they’re starting to shoot dirty look daggers into your heart, causing you to lose faith in your future career as a singer?
Then you need to get this plunger looking thing and strap it on your noisemaker. It’s called the Noiseless USB Karaoke Microphone and it just might save your life…
Continue reading… “The noiseless USB karaoke microphone can be a lifesaver”
Java monitoring control thru technology.
Two doctors at Penn State University have developed Caffeine Zone, a free iOS app that tells you the perfect time to take a coffee break to maintain an optimal amount of caffeine in your blood — and, perhaps more importantly, it also tells you when to stop drinking tea and coffee, so that caffeine doesn’t interrupt your sleep.
Continue reading… “How to optimize your caffeine intake: there’s an app for that”
Social networks have grown beyond what Facebook offers.
With the pending public offering of Facebook anticipated to be the largest tech IPO in history, it’s an interesting time to think about where we go from here. Some say “social is done,” Facebook is all the social media anyone would ever want or need. Unquestionably, as it nears one billion accounts, in the solar system of social media, Facebook is the Sun — the gravitational center around which everything social revolves.
But while some may pronounce that Facebook is all the social we’d ever need, users clearly haven’t gotten the memo. Instead, users are rapidly adopting new interest-based social networks such as Pinterest, Instagram, Thumb, Foodspotting, and even the very new Fitocracy…
Continue reading… “Beyond Facebook: The rise of interest-based social networks”
Student loans are very risky and can be contagious.
Before you engage in risky grad school enrollment, remember that you run a high risk of contracting a student loan. And once you’ve come down with one of those, it’s almost impossible to clean up.
If this applies to you, your partner, or you just like laughing about horrible indebtedness, full video after jump…
Continue reading… “Student Loan STDs”
The chefs at Alinea, very probably the best restaurant in Chicago, have cooked up a super fun dish that’ll brighten up any dinner table: an edible helium balloon. Yep, the entire balloon is edible, right down to the string which is “obviously dehydrated apple”.
22.6-foot reticulated python, shot by Kekek Aduanan (in hat) on June 9, 1970. Photo by Thomas N. Headland
Earlier this week a team of scientists from several universities and the US Geological Survey released a study documenting the dramatically declining numbers of small and medium-size mammals in Florida – including raccoons, opossums, white-tailed deer, bobcats, rabbits and foxes. These population drops all occur in the same areas where pythons and other large, non-native snakes have taken up residence after escaping from one stop or another in the wildlife trade supply chain.
Anyone who’s even heard only the most basic facts about constrictor snakes knows that they’re formidable predators and take down prey by grasping it in their powerful jaws, coiling their bodies around it, and squeezing until it suffocates. Devouring bunnies and possums isn’t even the half of it, though. These big snakes aren’t shy about going after much larger, more dangerous game, too. Like men. And bears…
Continue reading… “Scientist Catches Bear-Eating Snake in the Act”
Breakthrough project.
If you played PC games in the 90s, chances are you played some of Tim Schafer’s work. He worked on the Monkey Island Series and Day of the Tentacle, later going on to create such classics as Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. He recently took to Kickstarter to try and score some funding for a new point-and-click adventure game, as most publishers would consider the genre more or less untouchable these days.
He figured there were enough people out there who wanted a new adventure game that they could scrape together $400,000. That was last night. They hit their goal in 8 hours, and are likely to break a million dollars before the end of the day. In fact, just since I started this post, I’ve had to adjust the headline to reflect an additional $50,000 $70,000 $100,000 that has been pledged…
Can science detect hit songs?
Obviously, there’s a lot of money to be made from hit pop songs. But can you predict or even make which songs will make it ot the top of the charts?
Bring in the scientists! Artificial Intelligence researcher Tijl De Bie and colleagues analyzed 50 years’ worth of hit songs on Britain’s top 40 charts and came up with a formula.
From an interview over at The Los Angeles Times…
Continue reading… “Scientific formula for hit pop songs”
I just learned about Ferrofluid today. It can do some amazing things, like this video shows. After the jump is a second video explaining HOW ferrofluid works.
From the YouTube descriptioin:
A steel sculpture with changing magnetisation is coated with ferrofluid.
The fluid is pulled in the direction of increasing flux density and forms peaks, which become smaller in higher flux density. At an accumulation of fluid at ridges, the flux density at the surface decreases. The flow and the distribution of the fluid can be observed at several characteristic locations…
It’s called “Circus Galop” or “Death Waltz”, and it’s used to test the performance of player pianos. No single person has ever played it…so far. But if we can put a man on the moon, surely we can genetically engineer a superhuman species that can perform it…
Continue reading… “Unplayable piece used to test player pianos”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.