From Russia's Freezelight comes one of the most beautiful uses of long exposure I've ever seen (that is, aside from all of your slow shutter shooting challenge submissions). It's honestly just wow.
All it took was a Canon 5D, about 300 photos, and I'm guessing loads of patience to put this incredible work together. The follow-up, below, features everything I look for in a piece of art: a ghost, a giant chicken, and slow shutter flower blooming out of nothing.
[Vimeo via Random Good Stuff]
Has anyone made a really simple clapper circuit with only flipflops, and LED and a microphone? I want to see if mine really is simpler than all of the other designs I have found
Valleywag is offering up to $100,000—yes, One Hundred Thousand United States Dollars—to anyone who can provide them with pictures or video or one hour of touching and licking with the Apple Tablet. Here's the juicy menu:
• $10,000 for bona fide pictures.
• $20,000 for video of one in action.
• $50,000 for pictures or video of Steve Jobs holding one.
• $100,000 to let us play with one for an hour.
The money will be paid after the tablet is revealed and the material is proven to be the real McCoy.
I've to say that we are all pretty excited at the idea of any Bothan spy breaking the Cupertino blockade and running away with one of the prototypes. [Valleywag]
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Intel Labs have developed a system of "whack gestures" that could allow any phone with an accelerometer to be silenced with a punch. This is brilliant.
Tap gestures as a concept aren't totally new, but the new software promises a much lower error rate than previous solutions, as well as a much simpler philosophy. Chris Harrison, developer:
I think for whack gestures to be commercially viable only two gestures might be desired: one to silence the phone, and a second to postpone an alert, ask the caller to try again in 5 minutes or snooze an alarm.
The potential here, in you haven't noticed, is huge. Imagine the time you'll save, with this shortened call-killing routine! Not to mention the instant, visceral gratification. It would take this process:
1.) Receive call during funeral
2.) Panic, violently strike outer thigh
3.) Calm down, internalize shame
4.) Remove phone from pocket, interrupting somber moment further
5.) Switch off phone in conspicuous way, as if to apologize
6.) Sit through the shutdown jingle you totally forgot about, because who switches off their phones anymore?
7.) Continue mourning, now tinged with embarrassment
and condense it into this process:
1.) Receive call during funeral
2.) Don't panic, violently strike outer thigh.
Perfect. The project is still in research and presentation stages for the time being, though any company run by people who've owned a cellphone, ever, will license this technology. Obviously. [New Scientist]
I am entertaining the idea of BI WIRING my main speakers.
Looking for discussion on this. Anyone have startling results by doing this???
By now, we're all painfully familiar with my repeated, personal problems with new, yellow-tinged iMacs—but luckily, our readers have taken the cause beyond one man's whining. Today is the first of (hopefully not too many) weekly iMac updates.
In a word, nope.
We've received at least 15 tips to our submissionsATgizmodo.com line, all users who've received yellow-tinged iMacs since January 1st and documented the problem with photos. (And I've received twice that many personally from irate customers with whom I'm extremely sympathetic.)
It seems that, despite the extremely well-documented problem(s), Apple refuses to do the right thing and simply stop shipping these faulty iMacs out. Last I checked, the public's view of the iMac's "ultimate display" was not one with pee-like stains at the bottom. Then again, I haven't run a focus group on the matter.
And you should note, yellow screens are just one element of production problems. According to readers, firmware updates have not completely fixed other screen problems, like black outs or flickering.
I have yet to hear from someone who has successfully replaced a yellow iMac with one that's perfectly functional. That's a bad, bad, bad sign for Apple's current yield. (Hopefully, a few of you will keep attempting, so we can see if Apple gets their act together.) However, it seems that Apple has been pushing more users toward repairing their systems rather than getting them replaced. I didn't settle for getting a new product (that should be in mint condition) repaired, and imho, neither should you—in which case, some of you will be stuck only with the option to return.
After being refused a replacement, my iMac stopped booting altogether. It just went dead. Unsure that I could get the inevitable next (broken) version replaced, I simply returned it.
As long as you keep demanding exchanges, checking on new iMacs, I'll keep posting about them. You can test your iMac here.
I'll also be including bitchtastic quotes of the week in these updates. This one, from Laura:
"I want the imac purchasers, who have already paid their money AND spent countless hours being fruitless with their machine set-ups and troubleshooting attempts, to be put on the top of the list for receiving brand new WORKING machines. An added bonus would be for Apple to do this kindly, respectfully, and without any attitude. We should not be out of pocket, taking time off work and energy to lug these heavy ibeasts across town looking for a repair; it's a lemon, Apple — you made it, so please replace it. And please do it kindly, respectfully, and communicate to us the process, so that we can all stay in love with all things Apple. "
The Faulty iMac Saga will run every Wednesday on Gizmodo. That is, until Apple fixes and/or admits the problem.
Kolelinia—a system that allows you to ride your bike above the traffic—looks like a crazy idea until you check out the engineering behind it. Then you will realize that it's not only cool, but it can work too.
Here's how it works.
Kolelinia has two elements, a half-pipe—this is where your bike's wheels run—and a cable above that pipe. The cable is at the same height as your bike's handles, and it provides stability and safety while you fly over the cars. The cable connects to the bike's handle using a special hooking device. This divoce also has a hole for a carabiner, so you can use a harness and safety line for extra safety.
On first sight, it looks like the props for a circus act. But unlike in the circus, Kolelinia doesn't involve any risk thanks to the safety cable system. It may seem convoluted, but it's actually quite simple, and a much better and safer option than having to deal with the dangers of traffic, or flying with stranded extra-terrestrial beings. [Kolelinia via ArchDaily]
Is anyone has software that take data from controller: foxborow 760 and also powers 535. I just want to be able to process data in Excel.
In case you haven't heard, Google has delivered a big "screw you" to the Chinese government by refusing to censor their search results. It appears that some citizens are already in mourning—even before the hammer comes down.
[ziboy]
Hello What exactly is this stuff? Does anyone know? Thanks
You might have heard the news out of last week’s American Astronomical Society meeting, that the Hubble Space Telescope had found evidence for the most distant galaxies yet discovered. Using the newly-installed Wide Field Camera 3, HST did a close-up examination of some likely candidates in the Ultra Deep Field, and found galaxies at redshifts of 7 or 8 (meaning the universe is now 8 or 9 times bigger than it was when the light was emitted). That corresponds to about 600 million years after the Big Bang, which pushes back the era of galaxy formation quite a bit.
But wait! Over at Science News, Ron Cowen points out that a team led by Rychard Bouwens and Garth Illingworth of UC Santa Cruz already has a paper on the arxiv that uses similar techniques to identify three galaxies with a redshift of 10, corresponding to only 450 million years after the Big Bang. And, as Cowen mentions in a blog post, the paper was available since last month.
Constraints on the First Galaxies: z~10 Galaxy Candidates from HST WFC3/IR
Authors: R.J. Bouwens, G.D. Illingworth, I. Labbe, P.A. Oesch, M. Carollo, M. Trenti, P.G. van Dokkum, M. Franx, M. Stiavelli, V. Gonzalez, D. MageeAbstract: The first galaxies likely formed a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Until recently, it has not been possible to detect galaxies earlier than ~750 million years after the Big Bang. The new HST WFC3/IR camera changed this when the deepest-ever, near-IR image of the universe was obtained with the HUDF09 program. Here we use this image to identify three redshift z~10 galaxy candidates in the heart of the reionization epoch when the universe was just 500 million years old. These would be the highest redshift galaxies yet detected, higher than the recent detection of a GRB at z~8.2. The HUDF09 data previously revealed galaxies at z~7 and z~8… [snipped]
So why are galaxies at redshift 8 considered news, if galaxies at redshift 10 have already been discovered? As Charlie Petit talks about at the Knight Science Journalism Tracker, the difference seems to be that the former were announced at a press briefing, while the latter just appeared on arxiv.
For better or for worse, conventional science journalism has been cut back to the point where most reporters have no choice but to wait for press releases to appear to write a story. They don’t have the resources to scan through arxiv postings every day — and even if they did, the precious newsworthy nuggets are rather sparsely scattered through the mass of Kuhnian normal science. And let’s not even think about the idea that journalists should spend time (and money) going to lots of conferences and talks and chatting with scientists about what’s hot in their fields these days — the resources just aren’t there.
There is some room for blogs to help out here. A blog by a respectable scientist can point to interesting stories that didn’t appear in any press releases, and journalists can follow up. (I know it’s happened here before.) But the thing about blogs is that they’re remarkably non-systematic; bloggers mention things because they personally find them interesting, not because they feel a duty to the wider public. The nature of journalism is changing rapidly, and it’s not clear how things will eventually shake out. I certainly hope that we continue to enjoy the work of people like Cowen, who make the extra effort to find good science stories and spread them widely.
The Elders, a global council of retired leaders formed by Nelson Mandela, speak out against the discrimination against women in the world's religions.
This seems to be the decade of "I don’t like what you say, so instead of refuting it with evidence I’ll sue you to shut you up!" for the alt-medders.
First, it was Simon Singh being sued by the British Chiropractic Association, and now it’s Barbara Loe Fischer from the ironically named National Vaccine Information Center, who is suing writer Amy Wallace and vaccine researcher Paul Offit about an article Wallace wrote in Wired magazine. The article is one of those rare ones that actually uses facts and evidence rather than anecdotes and hearsay, so of course shines a very ill-received spotlight on the antivaxxers, showing them for what they are: a public health menace.
As usual, Orac has the details. One thing that Orac notes is that Fischer chose to file her suit in Virginia which does not have SLAPP laws, designed to prevent lawsuits intended to silence critics. So it really really looks like she is suing simply to silence critics. Others think so too.
That is enough for an interesting story all by itself, of course. But the thing about people who deny reality, though, is that eventually they find themselves having to believe seven different things before breakfast, and at some point the irony meter can get pegged as they twist and spin. In this case, Ms. Fischer blows the gauge because she is asking for a "fearless" discussion about vaccines in 2010.
Yes, you read that correctly. She wants this because open and fearless conversation is so well-supported by libel lawsuits tossed around specifically to silence your opponents.
And people wonder why I think the mouthpieces for the antivax movement are so awful.
Skeptic Rebecca Watson agrees. Here’s what she has to say about this:
You can read Ms. Fischer’s complete statements on the NVIC website, but I’d make sure you clean your computer with bleach afterwards; who knows what you might catch from going there. You might want to protect your brain, too, since she somehow manages to link vaccines with terrorism and 9/11. When it comes to terrorism, I think the antivax movement fits better than vaccines, since fear is something they use all-too-well to scare parents into not vaccinating their kids.
Of course, if they used such things as evidence and scientific research, they’d have no movement at all.
The best thing we can do is keep shining this light on the hypocrisy and distortions of the antivax movement. They will continue to push garbage like this, and we have to make sure that the public sees it. The only alternative is to wait for kids to start dying from measles, pertussis, HiB, and other preventable illnesses in greater numbers than they already are… an event which, tragically, is already underway due in part to the antivaxxers.
There's a really funny blog named Running From Your Camera. For this week's Shooting Challenge, we're unabashedly stealing their idea.
The challenge: set the self-timer on your camera to 2 seconds, then get as far as you can away from it before the shot using any means you like—judging will be based as much on composition, creativity and general effect as mere distance.
The rules:
1. Submissions need to be your own.
2. Photos need to be taken the week of the contest. (No portfolio linking or it spoils the "challenge" part.)
3. Explain, briefly, the equipment, settings and technique used to snag the shot.
4. Email submissions to contests@gizmodo.com.
5. Include 800px image AND something wallpaper sized in email.
Send your best entries by Sunday at 6PM Eastern to contests@gizmodo.com with "Running" in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs or GIFs at 800 pixels wide and larger, and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. Include your shooting summary (camera, lens, ISO, etc) in the body of the email. [Photo]
Coal is a killer in so many ways. Not only are the CO2 emissions adding enormously to climate change, but the mercury emissions are poisoning people, fish and the environment, mountaintop removal is decimating forests and mountains in the southeast and toxins in water from mining are causing severe human health hazards. Recently reported is the fact that coal miners are getting black lung disease at twice the rate they did only a couple of decades ago.
“Black lung disease is the common name for coal workers’ pneumoconiosis. It is caused by breathing coal dust over an extended period of time. As coal dust accumulates in the lungs—the body is capable of neither dissolving nor expelling the coal—lung tissue is destroyed, reducing lung capacity and leading to fibrosis and a greater risk of emphysema, chronic bronchitis and other respiratory illnesses. There is no cure for this extremely painful and incapacitating disease. As lung tissue hardens, miners become short of breath and suffer excruciating pain each time they breathe.”
The rise in black lung is directly related to the push by coal operators to extract greater profits by extracting more coal in a shorter time with fewer workers.”
Want to see what black lung disease looks like? After the break there are a couple of photos of it. It will make you quit smoking and/or mining coal, if you do either one.
The problem now is that coal miner lung disease is on the rise. In Eastern Kentucky, “the disease persists — and is far worse than federal health officials anticipated it would be by now.” Coal company owners are trying to get more work out of fewer people, and even with mountaintop removal happening (which takes less workers) coal mining underground continues. Imagine working in a coal mine for 20-30 years, and what your lungs would look like. Is it work it to these people to become incapacitated with lung disease at the ripe old age of 42 or 46, the age at which some of these men have to retire because they are literally dying? I’m sure if they had it to do over again, they’d rather do just about anything but mine for coal!
“More than 10,000 miners have died from black lung in the past 10 years, compared to 400 miners who have died from accidents over the same period. The number of fatalities is expected to rise as more miners become incapacitated by this debilitating disease.
According to figures released by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), nearly 9 percent of miners with 25 years or more experience tested positive for black lung in 2005-2006, the latest year for which published data is available. This compares to 4 percent of miners in the late 1990s. The rates also doubled for miners with 20 to 24 years in the mines, many of whom are in their late 30s and 40s.
This is what it looks like.
(Click for larger pictures. Sorry they are so [...]
If you live in a place that is cold and dry right now, do yourself a favor and pick up a humidifier. This particular model from Japan definitely has an elegant "ancient tech" kind of charm.
Carved out of Japanese Cypress, the Mast Humidifier absorbs water from the hull and diffuses it through the air—along with the natural lemony-scent of the wood itself. Its rot resistant and, naturally, electricity free. Plus it's really nice looking. [Masuza via Spoon and Tamago via Mocoloco]
DO YOU HAVE EXPERIENCE MACHINING NYLATRON GSM? I HAVE MACHINED IT BEFORE AND IT'S LIKE BUTTER BUT BETTER!
THIS TIME, I NEED TO BE CONCERNED WITH SURFACE FINISH ON THE CYLINDER WALL FOR FRICTION REDUCTION AND SEAL.
WHAT IS THE BEST METHOD TO DO THIS ON NYLON, AFTER THE BORING BAR IS FI
The best way to make a point about privacy and “invasive” body scanners at the airport–is to strip down to your underwear and then publish that video to YouTube so the whole world can see you in your nearly naked glory. Might sound strange at first, but we are covering it in Discoblog, so I guess it worked.
Warning: This video has mild nudity and so may be NSFW.
German activists from the Pirate Party thought organizing a “fleshmob” of people to strip down to their skivvies and converge on the Berlin-Tegel airport was a great idea. The activists were protesting the use of what the Germans call the Nacktscanner, or naked scanner–a body scanner that may increasingly be used for airport security, in the wake of the botched underwear bombing on Christmas Day.
As Wired reported:
The protesters marked their bodies with a number of messages such as, “Something to hide?” and “Be a good citizen — drop your pants.” One woman has the word “diaper” scrawled on her lower back with an arrow pointing to her underwear and the word “prosthetic” printed on her leg. The word “piercing” and an arrow point to one of her breasts. Another woman dressed in a beige sweater and flesh-colored tights wears a sign reading “pixelated.” (To address privacy concerns, security officials say the scanners can be programed to produce a blurred, pixelated image of passengers to protect their modesty.)
The full-body scanners work by using high frequency radio waves to produce an image of a passenger’s naked body beneath clothes. So anything strapped to the body–explosives, drugs–would be exposed. But if you chuck something in a body cavity the scanner fails to detect that. The scanners have raised concerns about passengers’ privacy, as pointed out by the semi-naked activists, but German authorities are pressing ahead with their plans to deploy them across the country’s airports over the next two years.
Related Content:
80beats: 5 Reasons Body Scanners May Not Solve Our Terrorism Problem
80beats: Are Digital Strip Searches Coming Soon To Every Airport Near You?
80beats: TSA Threatens Bloggers Who Published Security Info, Then Backs Off
Dear Members,
I would like to know and how to make or use Fly Ash or some other sort of cement replacement or using less cement but same strenght.
I would like to use less cement since it is a polutant material.
Upon refilling my < one month old butane torch lighter, I am having a problem with getting a flame.
The chamber fills up with the fuel from the can, and sometimes a small flame sputters for a moment, but it does not last long. I tested the lighter by keeping the valve open and passing
