Walking is apparently underrated. So University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student Matt Tomasulo decided to engage in some “guerilla urbanism” in January with fellow fans of bipedal activity, posting 27 signs at three Raleigh, NC intersections as part of the “Walk Raleigh” project. The cardboard and vinyl signs contained snippets about how many minutes it would take to walk to must-see destinations like Raleigh City Cemetery, as well as QR codesfor downloading directions. Like the activity it promotes, Tomasulo says the idea behind the project is simple: It’s OK to walk. Apparently, Tomasulo and his buddies did such a great job with the signs that it took the sharp folks at the city government a month to catch on and take the stuff down. The city has since walked back its opposition to the signs, however, and put them back up as part of a 90-day pilot project. In the meantime, Walk Raleigh has turned into a Walk [Your City] Kickstarter campaign to put your wallet where your feet are.
You know what we’ve always wondered? Why doesn’t Boeing just hurry up and release a phone? Joking aside, this is really happening. The news comes via National Defense Magazinewhich reports that the airplane manufacturer is developing an Android handset which will have strong security credentials. Currently dubbed “the Boeing phone” we hope the firm puts more thought into its aircraft than its project codenames. Before you start folding out your green, however, be warned that despite running Google’s popular OS, and being a cellular device, the price point is still likely to be more jumbo jet than paper plane, with a Boeing exec pointing out that competitor offerings typically float around the $15-20,000 mark. He goes on to point out that it won’t cost as much as this, but will still likely be out of our reach back here in coach. No word on any sort of specification at the minute, but if you fancy yourself as a high-flyer (or more likely, you work in defense) keep an eye out for this landing later on this year. Now, what if Samsung made a plane..
Google Inc. plans to split its stock 2-for-1 to preserve its leadership’s control over the company and maintain its long-term focus. The online search leader said it is issuing a new class of stock to shareholders. Google also announced a 61 percent jump in profits for the first quarter.
Pothole Repairs Pothole repair usually involves pouring hot asphalt into holes as a temporary patch. Alan Stanton via Flickr
Sometime soon, when you spot a pothole in the street, you won’t have to swerve around it and curse when your wheel dips in. Instead, you would deliberately drive over it, so the pressure of your car tires will stiffen the little plastic baggie the city dropped in there as a temporary fix. A little non-Newtonian fluid pothole filler could spare your wheel alignment after a harsh winter, saving municipal money and traveler troubles.
Non-Newtonian fluids are those that ooze in some conditions and stiffen in others as they respond to forces applied to them. Newtonian fluids, by contrast, act like fluids no matter what’s done to them. The classic mixture of cornstarch and water is one example of a non-Newtonian fluid. A group of students at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland decided to use these mixtures as pothole fillers, as part of a contest by the French materials company Saint-Gobain, according to ScienceNow.
Here’s how it could work: Instead of driving around with a mixture of hot asphalt, road-repair crews or even police cars would carry plastic bags full of a water-powder mix. The students plan to patent their idea, so they haven’t divulged their recipe, but they say it’s biodegradable and even edible. When a city worker comes upon a pothole, he or she would drop a baggie into the hole, and then cover it up with black tape so a driver wouldn’t mistake it for an obstacle. When a car drives over it, the fluid behaves like a solid – voila, a filled pothole.
This is because it’s a shear-thickening fluid, as ScienceNow explains. Where shear-thinning fluids will squirt and flow when a force is applied, shear-thickening fluids will stiffen up, behaving more like a solid. Like this.
The students have already road-tested their plastic bag trick and say it holds up well, even after a week of continuous use. They are meant to be sturdy enough to last weeks at a time, even in wet and salty-road conditions, until pockmarked roads can be properly filled and smoothed over, the team said. The city of East Cleveland plans to help with further testing, ScienceNow said.
Artist Lorenzo Bravi ran a drawbot class for kids as part of the Minimondi Festival in Parma, Italy. His design uses a battery powered milk frother with pens velcroed to it, making some lovely Spirograph-esque art.
A nine-year-old who built a games arcade from cardboard has earned enough cash to fund his way through college.
It’s a story that’s almost too perfect to be true, but if it’s some sort of stunt or hoax, I don’t really want to know.
Caine Monroy first built the arcade last summer as a way to keep busy while hanging around at his father’s auto part store in East LA. The games aren’t electronic, but rather mechanical, with the main materials being cardboard boxes and packing tape.
Playing on the arcade costs $1 for four games, though frankly you’d be a fool to take that option. Instead there’s a $2 fun pass that offers 500 games within a one month period. To prevent counterfeiting, each pass has a short PIN code and a lengthy validation number: the passes can be checked on a security device attached to each game on which you type in the PIN code, press a check key and make sure the displayed number matches that on the pass.
(Spoiler: the device is a calculator and the check key is the square root function.)
The story goes that with the arcade located in an industrial estate and most of Monroy’s father’s business now being done online, there was little passing trade and a man named Nirwan Mullick became the first customer of the arcade when visiting to collect some spare parts in person.
Mullick happens to be a filmmaker and began making a short documentary about the arcade. He attracted some interest from his own online followers, some of whom even organized a “flash mob†where several hundred people visited the arcade last October.
The lengthy editing process is now complete and the documentary debuted online on Monday, since which time it’s attracted nearly 400,000 views at the time of writing.
Seeing the huge interest, Mullick then suggested viewers could donate a dollar towards a college fund for Caine, pondering “Imagine what this kid could build with an Engineering degree.†That appeal smashed an initial target and has so far raised well over $70,000 and looks likely to hit a near target of $100,000, designed to fund a full four-year degree.
Confession time: I am a very picky man when it comes to appreciating spaceship design. I am also glad I have one of the few forums on Earth where I can say that and not be given a wide berth. More »
