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How a Semi-Submarine Works – A cheaper way to build a sub
by Marshall Brain | February 22, 2011
Submarines tend to be expensive, even if they are small. That’s because any sealed container full of humans presents problems with oxygen supply, CO2 removal and humidity. Then when you stick that sealed container underwater in the form of a submarine, the problems multiply because of water pressure. The container (including its windows) has to [...]
Blow Your Mind: Defeat Your Doppelgängers
by Robert Lamb | February 22, 2011
I’ve devoted several recent posts to the doppelgangers in your life and how best to defeat them. You know what I’m talking about: the unexplainable twin you keep running into on the train or that stranger who looks just like your mother but doesn’t know how to cook a pot roast.
This is no conspiracy, however. It’s all in that brain of yours.
Like Tracy, I was slightly enraged by Kay S. Hymowitz’s smug deconstruction of the modern “pre-adult” male she described in her Wall Street Journal piece, Where Have the Good Men Gone?. But not so much because she incorrectly paints men with a love of ‘Star Wars’ and Cartoon Network programming as overgrown college co-eds but [...]
Our office was closed for President’s Day yesterday, which means I’ve had a whole extra day to mull over the Wall Street Journal’s Saturday essay, “Where have all the good men gone?” It’s a look at gender and relationships that might ordinarily be more at home in Stuff Mom Never Told You, but a quote, early on, caught my eye. Kay S. Hymowitz quotes from a book by Julie Klausner called “I Don’t Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters and Other Guys I’ve Dated,” which describes “guys” and seems to make a link between being a geek and not being an adult.
Over the weekend you may have seen this very cool optical illusion of an Escher waterfall brought to real life: How do we know it is an illusion? Because it is impossible. Therefore we seek an explanation. Watch the video and see if you can decode what is going on. When you think you have [...]
If you looked at YouTube this weekend, you came away with one solid impression – slam dunks in basketball are incredibly popular. Millions of people were watching slam dunks on YouTube. And Blake Griffin was getting most of the views for his performance in the slam dunk contest. Here are three of the most-viewed videos [...]
The situation in Wisconsin certainly has caused an uproar. And there are at least three fronts for the uproar: 1) the idea of union busting, 2) the idea of political warfare, and 3) The idea of handing valuable power plants over to billionaires for “pennies on the dollar”. 1) the idea of union busting The [...]
If you’re a fan of the TV game show “Jeopardy!” or even if you’re not, perhaps you tuned in last week to see the much-hyped matches between former champions Ken Jennings, the person who has won the most games in a row in the show’s history, and Brad Rutter, the all-time earnings champion. The third spot was filled by a supercomputer from IBM known as Watson, named for the company’s founder.
Robotic hand nearly identical to a human one (w/ Video) – “When it comes to finding the single best tool for building, digging, grasping, drawing, writing, and many other tasks, nothing beats the human hand. Human hands have evolved over millions of years into four fingers and a thumb that can precisely manipulate a wide [...]
FanStuff Guide to Fan Etiquette No. 4: No Spoilers in the Queue
by Tracy V. Wilson | February 18, 2011
Here’s a story I’ve heard a couple of times in my local fan community. A group of friends was in line to see “The Empire Strikes Back” on opening night. One of the group was reading … the novelization of “The Empire Strikes Back.” And, in a moment instantly burned into the minds of everyone around, the reader asked aloud …
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