Mythbusters, our favorite show, did a remake of Korean ancient rocketry called Hwa-cha (Fire cart). They fire 200 gun-powder propelled arrows! Yes it is an old episode, but who cares?! We just watched this via Netflix last week! This is awesome!
From NPR News: 4 Conn. Officers Arrested Over Treatment Of Latinos
That is terrible! Hope they get what they deserve! Supposed to PROTECT the people! Sheesh…
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The officers were arrested Tuesday by the FBI on charges that they assaulted Latino immigrants and created false reports to cover up abuses in a New Haven, Conn., suburb where a federal investigation found life was made miserable for Hispanics.
from News
From Latest Items from TreeHugger: DIY Solar-Powered Bird House Tweets When Birds Arrive
Human ingenuity at its finest!
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Using B-Squares, you can build a bird house that will alert you via Twitter when birds arrive.
From Gizmodo: Lego Minecraft Is Happening! [Lego]
From Engadget: Researchers use lasers to supercool semiconductor membranes, blow your mind
Whoa!! Hot laser was used to cool semiconductors?! o.O
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Ah, lasers. Those wonderful, super intense beams of light that we’ve seen used in headlights, projectors, and naturally, death rays. Like us, researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen figure there’s nothing lasers can’t do, and have figured out a way to use them to cool a bit of semiconducting material. This bit of black magic works using a membrane made of gallium arsenide and is based upon principles of quantum physics and optomechanics (the interaction between light and mechanical motion).
Turns out, when a one millimeter square membrane of gallium arsenide is placed parallel to a mirror in a vacuum chamber and bombarded with a laser beam, an optical resonator is created between them that oscillates the membrane. As the distance between the gallium arsenide and the mirror changes, so do the membrane’s oscillations. And, at a certain frequency, the membrane is cooled to minus 269 degrees Celsius — despite the fact that the membrane itself is being heated by the laser. So, lasers can both heat things up andcool them down simultaneously, and if that confuses you as much as it does us, feel free to dig into the science behind this paradoxical bit of research at the source below. In other news, left is right, up is down, and Eli Manning is a beloved folk hero to all Bostonians.
from Engadget
From MAKE: Kinect Controlled Android 4.0 Projection
It’s not quite as dramatic as Minority Report, but this ad hoc presentation by Kinect hacker DDRBoxman of Recursive Penguin seems to have recreated something strikingly similar to the gestural interface from the 2002 blockbuster running on a Galaxy Nexus handset. [via Phandroid]
from MAKE
From Gizmodo: It’s Time for Apple to Stop Patent Trolling
My sentiments EXACTLY!!
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Intellectual property is important. There’s no denying that. But there’s a line between protecting yourself and just trying to kill everybody around you. It’s one Apple has already crossed, and it’s not doing anybody any good. Time to knock it off. More »
from Gizmodo