Category: Historical Perspectives

Impact Lab > Historical Perspectives
Analysis, Entertainment, facebook, Historical Perspectives

How Your Facebook Info Would Sound in the Real World

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeP7AFwqHcQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Trying to imagine our online behaviors in an offline world has been the subject of many a viral video.

The latest installment in this vein is “The Offline Social Network.” This clip comes from Australian comedy show Hungry Beast and personifies the ubiquitous Facebook as the sort of earnest evangelicals who ask passers-by about the eventual destination of their eternal souls.

And the result? Let’s just say “What is your sexual orientation?” is as awkward a point-blank question as “Do you know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?”

This video reminded us of a few other funny Facebook-as-real-life videos, so we’ve put together a brief gallery of viral clips for your enjoyment…

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Analysis, Animals, Breakthrough Thinking, Education, Entertainment, Historical Perspectives, Latest News

The Buttered Cat Paradox

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How would you solve this paradox?

We know that a piece of toast, if dropped, will fall butter-side down. We also know that a cat, if dropped, will land on its feet. What happens when you strap a piece of buttered toast to a cat’s back and drop them both is called the Buttered Cat Paradox, and there’s an extensive amount of research on the internet devoted to just this conundrum…

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Human Behavior, New Discoveries, People Making a Difference

Daniel Kish Uses Sound To See

Daniel Kish Sound To See

If you had no eyes to see with, how would you navigate your surroundings?

Daniel Kish had both eyes removed at the age of 13 months after being diagnosed with retinoblastoma, an aggressive form of cancer. He didn’t let that slow him down. Though blind he can mountain bike, navigate the wilderness alone and recognize a building as far away as 1,000 feet. Kish is president of a nonprofit organization called. World Access offers training on how to interact with one’s environment, using echolocation as a primary tool. Kish hears echos and interprets their meaning to visualize objects, similar to the way bats, beluga whales and dolphins  ”see” objects…

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Architecture, Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Globalism, Historical Perspectives, Human Behavior

Argentine Farmer Makes Giant Guitar With 7,000 Trees

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Extreme guitar tribute to Argentinian farmer’s wife.

Pedro Martin Ureta, a 70-year old Argentine farmer from General Levalle, has used 7,000 cypress and eucalyptus trees to create a giant guitar in memory of his late wife, Graciela, who died in 1977, when she was only 25. He consulted a number of landscapers, but none of them were interested in such a daring endeavor, so the farmer just had to do it himself…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Ecological Products, Great New Product, Historical Perspectives

One Day Will People Be Living In Shroom Houses?

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New construction material will be made out of mushrooms.

Construction material manufacturing often produces hazardous byproducts that are either toxic or difficult to recycle, as are many of the materials themselves. Brooklyn based Planetary ONE is experimenting with the idea of grow-your-own construction materials by making bricks from mushrooms.

Their latest project, Mycoform, places mushroom roots known as mycelium spores into a mold and feeds them with agricultural byproducts like buckwheat husks. In just over a week at 80 degrees, the spores grow to fill the form, resulting in a light yet solid structure. The brick is heated to 100 degrees when complete to kill the spores, preventing further growth.

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Animals, Current Events, Ecological Products, Great New Product, Green Friendly, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Human Behavior

CDC Confirms Lemon Eucalyptus Oil as Effective as DEET

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Mosquitoes can be a huge problem.

It’s easy to say you’ll never use DEET, that is until you come down to South Carolina. My home state boasts mosquitoes that rival your house pet in size and stature. But even still, many fear the toxicity of DEET and try to avoid it even with those mini-monsters landing on you noon and night. According to the CDC, lemon eucalyptus oil could be a much safer and more natural weapon.

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Breakthrough Thinking, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, New Discoveries

Antihydrogen Could Lead to Anti-gravity

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Are Anti-gravity Devices Just Around the Corner?

The Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) at the CERN particle physics laboratory announced that they have been able to hold 309 atoms of antihydrogen in a magnetic trap for 1000 seconds, approximately 10,000 times longer than before.

When they experimented with the anti-atoms last year they verified that they were in fact antihydrogen atoms by releasing them from the trap and observing them being annihilated by hydrogen atoms. During that experiment they were only able to contain the atoms for 170 milliseconds.

They have repeated this experiment, but have made a few changes. By cooling the antiprotons that create the antihydrogen they were able to lower their energy, this allowed for more atoms to be contained with a longer life span. The longer life will allow scientists to do more experiments, like checking if antihydrogen has the same energy level as hydrogen…

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Art, Historical Perspectives, New Discoveries, New Viewpoints

Pre-Fractal Art

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Fractal art from before computers were doing it.

Benoit Mandelbrot was a Polish-born mathematician. He received a doctorate from the University of Paris and emigrated to the U.S. in 1958. He is best known for his work with fractals, geometric patterns that are repeated at ever smaller scales to produce irregular shapes and surfaces that cannot be represented by classical geometry.

But before anybody knew Mandelbrot, artists were seeing fractals in nature and transfered the patterns in painting, design and sculpture…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Great New Product, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, New Discoveries

Future High-Speed Trains Could Ride on Cushions of Air

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaN7Kxk1_e8&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

A Japanese research group looking into ways to build the next generation of high-speed trains has set their sights on ground-effect vehicles, or vehicles that move just fast enough to fly at very low altitudes and use the fast-moving air under them as a cushion to keep them airborne. In this case, when we say “ground-effect,” we don’t mean neon lighting on the underside of the chassis.

We already know a lot about high-speed rail, and in European and Asian countries, high-speed trains are the best and even preferred way to travel long distances. Still, the speed of today’s breed of high-speed trains is limited by the fact that they ride on rails that they’re physically connected to. Trains that use a rail or track only as a guide, and hover or fly over it could potentially travel much faster and farther on less fuel…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Historical Perspectives, New Viewpoints

Porsche 911 GT3 Hybrid Racer has the Most Complex Steering Wheel Ever

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Wow is that complicated!

My car is much more focused on performance and power than it is on creature comforts. When I get into my wife’s SUV, it takes me a while to acclimate to all the gadgets and gizmos the car has. I can only imagine the shock to the system having to drive the Porsche 911 GT3 Hybrid at normal speeds would have with all those buttons on the wheel…

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Big Problems, Crazy Stuff, Current Events, Entertainment, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Internet, Latest News

Anonymous Infighting

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When a headless organization attacks itself, change is in the air.

While Sony is busy pointing the finger at the hacker group Anonymous for the on-going PSN and SOE hacks, Anonymous has problems of its own. This weekend AnonOps, an IRC network where some of the members congregate and plan operations, found itself under a denial-of-service attack. That attack finally ended with a number of its IRC servers being taken over.

The culprit: one of their own, a former IRC Operator (IRCop) named “Ryan.” Depending on who you believe, Ryan was power-hungry and wanted control over AnonOps for himself, or he was tired of the autocracy of the few Anonymous members who made up the group’s loose leadership structure…

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