Category: Random

Some random posts. Whether it is funny, interesting, stupid, disturbing, or simply random, it has a place in this category.

Microsoft Worldwide Telescope

Post author By Sebastien
Post date May 12, 2008

Microsoft released today what you may call a “space version of Google earth”, a free software application called WorldWide Telescope that allows everyone from space novices to astronomy professors to easily explore galaxies, star systems and distant planets.

The WorldWide Telescope stitches together 12 terabytes (the data equivalent of 2.6 billion pages of text) of pictures from sources including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

The experience is similar to playing a video game, allowing you to zoom in and out of galaxies that are thousands of light years away. It allows seamless viewing of far-away star systems and rarely-seen space dust in breathtaking clarity.

The software allows users to develop their own guided tours of the universe to share with others or take part a guided tour created by astronomy experts.

Download it here.

Tags Microsoft, Tech

Random

Shark Surfing

This guy takes extreme sports to the next level… Pretty crazy!

Tags Crazy, Surf

Health Random

Beer Bottle Solar Hot Water Heater

Post author By Sebastien
Post date May 12, 2008
4 Comments on Beer Bottle Solar Hot Water Heater

“I invented this for my mother. I wanted her to shower comfortably,” says Ma Yanjun, a Chinese farmer. The bottles are connected to each other by a plastic tubing so that water flows through them. Sunlight heats the water as is passes slowly through the bottles before flowing into the bathroom as hot water. He apparently gets enough water for 4 of his family members. His invention is such a success that some of his neighbors replicated it.

Tags Green, Health

Opinions Random

Dongwang, the 100% solar town

Post author By Sebastien
Post date May 10, 2008
2 Comments on Dongwang, the 1002 solar town

Donggwang, a little Korean town, has achieved what even the most powerful countries in the world are still struggling to accomplish: total energy independence with clean technology. The villageâ€™s forty houses and the school all have large solar panels covering their roofs. In 2004, the government helped to install solar systems in Donggwang, paying 70% of the installation fees. A great initiative that we ought to replicate everywhere.

Thanks MetaEfficient for the finding.

Tags Green

Random

Giant NES Controller Coffee Table

Post author By Sebastien
Post date May 9, 2008

Some people definitely have too much time on their hands…. like our friend Kyle for example who made a gigantic NES controller coffee table. The best part is that the controller actually works! Check out his blog for more pictures.

Tags Art, Funny

News Random

Never seen before pictures of Hiroshima

Post author By Sebastien
Post date May 9, 2008
17 Comments on Never seen before pictures of Hiroshima

These pictures were taken on the ground, from the inside of the disaster. It is far from the abstract image of the nuclear mushroom. These pictures show Hiroshima a few days after Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb, on August 6th 1945, at 8.17am. These pictures have not been revealed to the US general public yet…

These photographs, taken by an unknown Japanese photographer, were found in 1945 among rolls of undeveloped film in a cave outside Hiroshima by U.S. serviceman Robert L. Capp, who was attached to the occupation forces. Unlike most photos of the Hiroshima bombing, these dramatically convey the human as well as material destruction unleashed by the atomic bomb.

Please contact Sean L. Malloy (smalloy@ucmerced.edu) if you have any information that might help identify the original photographer.

Click on the pictures to enlarge them

Tags News, Photos, War

News Random

Using a skull as a bong… wew gross

Post author By Sebastien
Post date May 8, 2008

The news just fell. Here is a copy/paste from the Associated Press. What kind of sick bastard would do this?

Authorities in Texas have filed corpse-abuse charges against two men who allegedly removed a skull from a grave and used it as a bong.

The Harris County District Attorney’s Office confirmed on Thursday that misdemeanor abuse of corpse charges have been filed in the case.

One of the men allegedly told police they dug up a grave in an abandoned cemetery in the woods, removed a head from a body and smoked marijuana using the skull as a bong.

Police found the cemetery and a grave that had been disturbed but are still investigating the rest of the story, officials said.

Tags Gross, News, Stupid

Random Travel

Say hello to their little friend

Post author By Sebastien
Post date May 8, 2008
23 Comments on Say hello to their little friend

This huge shark is so scary! Photo taken off the coast of Australia:

Tags Scary, Surf

Art Random

The Zero Energy Media Wall

GreenPix – Zero Energy Media Wall – is a groundbreaking project applying sustainable and digital media technology to the curtain wall of Xicui entertainment complex in Beijing, near the site of the 2008 Olympics.

Featuring the largest color LED display worldwide and the first photovoltaic system integrated into a glass curtain wall in China, the building performs as a self-sufficient organic system, harvesting solar energy by day and using it to illuminate the screen after dark, mirroring a dayâ€™s climatic cycle.

The project was designed and implemented by Simone Giostra & Partners.