The character of Batman (or Bat-Man) was introduced in comic books during the late 1930s after the popularity of Superman had created a market for other colorful superheroes.(Check it out via Red Eye)
"We're farming the wind, which is something that we have up here," Crawford said. "The payback on a per-acre basis is generally quite good when compared to a lot of other crops, and it's as simple as getting a cup of coffee and watching the blades spin."(via Live Science)
"Royal Device has on its own developped and built in Italy the biggest subwoofer of the world for an AUDIO/VIDEO room that can be also considered as the greatest AUDIO ROOM for private music listening of the world. The Royal Device audio room belongs to Roberto - the audio designer who made it.Link
The audio reproduction is focused on the speakers output capability more than electric power output of the amplifiers with no need of KWatts power supply lines, releasing more than 110 dB/1W/1 meter sensitivity starting from below 10 Hz focused on the listening position."
"This 100,000-year-old skull was found in a cave in Qafzeh, Israel, along with other fossils, including a horse tooth and burned flints. Cutting-edge techniques were used to date the fossils —revealing that modern humans left Africa much earlier than had been thought, even coexisting with Neanderthals, once believed to be our ancestors."(National Geographic)
"Apparently Apple completely underestimated the load on their servers for activation and ALL COMPUTERS in the Boston Apple store are stuck" "I was in the first group of 30 to get an iPhone 3g at the biggest AT&T Experience store in Houston, Texas. The staff couldn't get anyone's phones to activate"Link
"Evo projector is an affordable solution for a projector and does not have costly bulb replacements like most projector, bulbs only around $20. Once you have the projector build yourself a coat-hanger HDTV antenna that works better than most store bought ones. Finally, connect it all together with some cheap cables bought off of monoprice.com."Link
"Unfortunately, Angular Momentum is pretty brief in its press release, only saying that the Axis Time Spiral comes with a two-body circular stainless steel case with downturned lugs, and satin finish. The bezel is polished, though. The watch’s crown features the AM logo inlayed in the same black enamel that the crystal is coated with. The movement is some ETA automatic with 25 jewels."Link
"About two years ago I was looking at a map of the world and noticed that Britain seemed disproportionately large.Link
My companion remarked that this was because in days of yore whoever was drawing the map always made their country look bigger and more important. This nugget of information sticks in the brain.
So for the last two years I've been taking pictures of Britain on world maps. Not accurate maps, but drawings or illustrations of maps. The differences are amazing. You might assume that all maps were accurate, or at least accurate-ish. But no, designers play fast and loose with the truth making the host country bigger, more important or more central."
"Turtle Airship just might be the future of air travel - if it delivers on all of its promises. This airship doesn't look anything like the Goodyear blimp. It has a rigid exterior shell that resembles, well, a turtle shell. The shell is covered in solar panels that provide the ship's main source of power. When solar energy is not available, the Turtle is designed to run on back-up, biodiesel engines. Here's all of the good things I've heard and read about this marvel:Link
* It runs on solar, so emissions and energy costs would be low.
* It takes off and lands like a helicopter, and can land just about anywhere on land or water. It can touch down in the middle of the ocean or the middle of the desert.
* It can travel at speeds of 200 mph, which, though a third of the speed of a traditional airplane, is still pretty quick. You can spend your extra time on the ship thinking about how much carbon emissions you saved."
"Weddings in space could be right around the corner, and experts figure the inevitable cosmic consummation will be just around the next corner.Link
The Japanese firm First Advantage and the U.S.-based private spaceflight firm Rocketplane Global, Inc., announced last week they will host weddings in space for about $2.3 million (240 million yen) apiece.
For all we know, sex in space has already taken place. But NASA officials aren't talking about that much.
Beyond space tourism as a platform for steamy shenanigans, space missions are the perfect petri dishes for close encounters, and this year NASA certainly has a busy flight schedule, with five missions planned. And more countries than ever are now venturing into space, with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata slated to become Japan's first long-duration space flyer this year and China gearing up for its first spacewalk scheduled for October."
"The HiRISE has uncovered a wealth of information in a canyon bank at Chasma Boreale at Mars’s north pole. Here, the canyon has eroded to reveal layers of minerals and other materials. The layers are rich in water ice, while the dark material toward the bottom is most likely sand dunes. These layers are helping scientists decode Mars’s recent climate variations."
This might be one of the biggest, if not the biggest spiderweb ever found. This huge web was found covering 180 meters of trees and bushes by the employees of park Lake Tawakoni in Texas. It’s not yet clear if this “work of art” has been made by a single or a colony of spiders. The web was initially white, but turned dark when all the mosquitoes got caught in it. Also, nothing was said about the species of spider found at the location. Until further information is provided, here is the huge white web.
The heat shield that will protect the new Orion space capsules as it sends astronauts back and forth between Earth and the Space Station, and later between Earth and the Moon, Mars, and other places, has arrived at the NASA Kennedy Space Center for testing.
Based on technologies from the space shuttle and Apollo, the new crew exploration vehicle (CEV) aft heat shield for the Orion space capsule is one of the first pieces to be developed for NASA’s new Project Constellation.
The heat shield is called a manufacturing demonstration unit (MDU), which means it is not hardware that will go out into space, but only a full-scale test hardware that will simulate how the real shield will look and work.
"For all you chicken lovers out there, this list should help out your cause. I personally love chicken, but this gave me a little insight and a good laugh.
1. ‘Bird Brain’ Is a Compliment
Several recent studies have shown that chickens are bright animals, able to solve complex problems, demonstrate self-control, and worry about the future. Chickens are smarter than cats or dogs and even do some things that have not yet been seen in mammals other than primates. Dr. Chris Evans, who studies animal behavior and communication at Macquarie University in Australia, says, “As a trick at conferences, I sometimes list these attributes, without mentioning chickens, and people think I’m talking about monkeys.” Dr. John Webster of Bristol University found that chickens are capable of understanding cause and effect and that when chickens learn something new, they pass on that knowledge (i.e., they have what scientists call “culture”)."
Today is a good time as any to scare your friends. And here’s a new trick on how to get a few good screams. You simply need the fence you would normally use around your house. This should be easy to shape and stand up on its own. Now simply follow the pictures, shaping is the easy part. Whenever on a picnic, fishing or hiking, you can place your ghost in the forest and wait for the effect!
Sound proofing wooden floors
A lot of people think that wooden floors are very noisy and cold, this is no longer the case. Before central heating this flooring could make the house very cold due to the inefficiency to hold the heat in and hence your heating bill would be quite large.
New, modern flooring does not suffer from these problems.
The flooring sold now comes tongue and grooved on all 4 sides which means the boards slot firmly together without leaving large gaps for the breeze to come through. This immediately eliminates any drafts from below the sub floor. Even when laid directly onto joists, the insulation is very good and no cold can be felt coming through the joints.
"It turns out that train tracks in Tibet aren't where the antelope play. Earlier this week, Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, issued an unusual public apology for publishing a doctored photograph of Tibetan wildlife frolicking near a high-speed train. The deception was uncovered by Chinese Internet users who sniffed out a Photoshop scam."
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"Cinematical has just received this exclusive final poster (click on the image for a larger version) for Morgan Spurlock's new doc, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? The film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival back in January, marks Spurlock's directorial follow-up to the mega-entertaining Super Size Me. This time around, and with a baby on the way, Spurlock travels to the Middle East in an attempt to find the man no government or special-ops team has been able to track down: Osama bin Laden. I love the whole Indiana Jones look to the poster, and you know Spurlock is always good for a couple hours of pure entertainment. He's just so huggable! For more on Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, check out James' review from Sundance, as well as his one on one interview with the man himself, Morgan Spurlock."
"It's happened again. Someone has found something in the shape of the Virgin Mary. And they're trying to sell it on eBay.
This one is a pretzel, that looks like the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus. Michael Fleming found it in a bag of Rold Gold pretzels 3 years ago, but he's been holding onto it since then.
His co-workers posted it on eBay Wednesday, and in the first hour, bidding reached $1,000."
"Why is transforming furniture so alluring? Does it appeal to our sense that innovation is progress, the fact that fewer materials for more uses is sustainable or simply a return to the childhood love of things that we can actively change and shape as we wish? Whatever the reason, these designs range from humorous and impractical to jaw-droppingly cool. Be sure to scroll all the way down: the best (pictured briefly above) has been saved for last!"
The Onyx Liscio is an ultra compact and very lightweight handset designed specifically as a second phone. The oddly named Liscio weighs just 60 grams and measures on 90 x 35 x 18mm. Compare that with 91 grams and 106 x 44 x 12mm for the popular Nokia 6300, or the 128 gram Nokia N95 8GB and you can see how much smaller the Liscio is (see the image on the left for a size comparison with the Nokia 6300).
PostcardViewer is a free Flash image viewer. The interface is based on the real world metaphor of a set of postcards shuffled onto a surface.
"It seems that youtube.com is down for more than 30 minutes. No, its not because
of my internet connection. It’s a problem at youtube 100%(see pictures below)
It seems that large sites can also have major problems, even if we would
think that this is impossible. Who would have taught that this would happen.
I bet that many people are pretty pissed now and they are cursing their
ISP because they can’t interact on youtube.
After asking some friends to
check if youtube is working I also did a check using internetsupervision, just
to make sure that i won’t write stupid things on my blog."
