The Simplest Motor In The World

There's loads of homopolar motor videos out there but this sums things up well. It's a battery, magnet and wire. I don't fully know why it works - it's not a simple Force-Field-Current explaination. I think there's some crazy quantum mechanics explaination. I'll find out and let you know. You are shorting a battery - don't have one blow up in your face.

Sony's Flexible Display

This prototype from Sony is pretty amazing, despite a few bad pixels.

Solar Powered Plane

More solar powered plane plans here, with the aim of building a plane to fly round the world by itself, all solar powered.

Telescope Shows Carbon Can Pimp Anything

This is a top-of-the-line Celestron telescope, but even a cheap and nasty 'scope is enough to give you a life affirming experience. Go on. You could get run over by a bus tomorrow and you'll never have seen the moons of Jupiter. This one has got a carbon fibre tube. Mmmm.

It's My Desire

Magnolia, decluttered home? I recommend you change all that, starting with an Electric Six Danger! High Voltage themed room with this wallpaper, spotted in a local boozer. Not a Gay Bar. Gay Bar.

Apollo 16

It's a panoramic print. PANORAMIC. On the moon. ON. THE. MOON. Check it out here. Starting at $59.

Flight of the Navigator

Here's Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor. 168 highly polished panels working out at £70,000 each by my reckoning is maybe 1000 times too much but anyway, the result's great.

Remember that film? It was great.

Bridge Building Game

Download from CripticSea.

Piggy Mirage

I saw one of these yesterday and it really is amazing. Your brain says the object is just sat there on the top in full, normal three dimensions and yet your finger goes right through it.

Egg Beaters

Yes. It is wrong to drool over bike pedals. These are Crank Brother Egg Beaters btw. You pervert.

Fixie

Here's Alta Bike's fixie offering. Bullhorns off-the-shelf. Genius.

New Feature - Knitting News

It's Bjork. In some kind of woolly jumper.

What is this?

Over here. Is it a design house that was used for the Nike Crab advert (by Neill Blomkamp of Tetra Vaal fame - see previous post)? Is it a Japanese website showing drawings of slightly scary robots? I don't know yet. Amazing photo' whatever.

GSX-R/4 concept (back in 2001)

The Suzuki GSX-R/4 concept featured an engine from their GSX-R 1300 'bike. Why do these works of art never go into production?

Imagining the Tenth Dimension

Book and associated Flash site here.

Biggest Engine for Biggest Ship

It the Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C which goes into the Emma Mærsk container ship. Look it up for more info, else just say "feck that's big".

All Is Full Of Love

Here's Bjork's All Is Full Of Love video, in fecking huge format if you're used to YouTube. Directed by Chris Cunningham (check his video of Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" - NSFW), the video received multiple awards including a Grammy nomination in 2000 for Best Short Form Music Video (it lost to Korn's excellent "Freak on a Leash").

Phew.

Tetra Vaal

Check out this excellent video short by director Neill Blomkamp. You might know the Citroen Transformer adverts - well that's this chap. The digital effects of dirt and texture are excellent. If you're not sure the first time you watch it whether it was computer generated or real then you know they've done a great job.

It's like a vision of the future. 50 years? 100 years? But with stupid rabbit ears.

Blender F1

Here's the 2006 winner of the Blender F1 competition. Blender is a free, open source 3D content creation suite. The annual Blender F1 challenge rules are simple - design the Formula One car of the future (in Blender, gotta be open open-cockpit).

Cycling News!

"London is experiencing a cycling renaissance" says Mayor Ken Livingstone. The number of people cycling in London has risen 83% in the last seven years.

Very good hydration levels here.

28 Weeks Later Trailer

...and here's the trailer for 28 Weeks Later. Great reviews about a zombie movie. Right, I'm going to see it. Even better than the first one apparently!

Bourne Ultimatum Trailer

You can check out the trailer here. They were filming for it in Lower Marsh, London just a couple of weeks ago.

The Evils of The Evils of Evolution

Yes. You're reading that right. Over at Answers in Genesis we learn that believing evolution is the foundation for such evils as abortion, pornography, homosexuals and lawlessness. Here they are on Drugs and Evolution...

"My naive belief in evolution had three important practical consequences:

1. It strongly encouraged me to look to drugs as an ultimate source of comfort and creativity.

2. It led me to the conclusion that God, if He was around at all, was a very distant and impersonal figure, separated from humanity by very great distances of space and time.

3. It led me to increasingly abandon the moral values I had been taught at home, because when man is viewed as an arbitrary by-product of Time + Matter + Chance, there is no logical reason for treating men or women as objects of dignity and respect, since in principle they are no different from the animals, trees, and rocks from which they supposedly came."

Here's some more...

"Trotsky … another monster brainwashed by evolution"

"World's worst mass-murderer was influenced by Darwin at 19"

AiG are a US tax-exempt organization with offices in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom. They are currently building the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. The projected cost is around US $27 million - it opens on 28th May. Rather worryingly, AiG executive director Ken Ham derides Christians who abide by the idea that they must tolerate “all religious ways, beliefs and practices.” Referring to an organization in his native Australia called “Toleration” that opposes teaching creationism, Ham says,

“Do you know what tolerance of all religious ways, beliefs and practices means? It means an intolerance of absolutes. Christ said, “I am THE WAY,” (not one of the ways),--THE TRUTH (not one of several different and acceptable approaches to truth). If anyone is intolerant of absolutes, they are intolerant of Christ.”

Oooookkkkaaaaaayyyyy... Walks backwards out of room.

He Will Be Pleased

Over at Flying Pig. You can also see a video over on youtube.

A Flying Spaghetti Monster model to download print out and make. Once complete turn the handle on this cardboard curiosity and the Flying Spaghetti Monster waves his noodly appendages. Let the pasta power of the FSM help with your tricky decisions, turn the handle and ask yourself "What would Flying Spaghetti Monster Do?"

Joan

You can have a chat to Joan, winner of the 2006 Loebner Prize Bronze Medal - no silver or gold medals have been won yet...

Judge: But can't a machine think?
Joan: It may be possible.
Judge: And conscious?
Joan: Not after I'm done with you.
Judge: What are you going to do to me?
Joan: Nothing. I just wanted to talk.
Judge: What about?
Joan: Being tested like this.

Science vs Faith Flowchart

Great flowchart over at WellingtonGrey showing the difference between the science and faith method.

Science vs Stephen Jones

There are times when science and religion clash for example Galileo vs the Catholic church or the Catholic Church's opposition to the use of condoms as a strategy to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, and STDs. The Church maintains that the promotion of abstinence is the only effective way to deal with the AIDS crisis. From the Guardian...

The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk. A senior Vatican spokesman backs the claims about permeable condoms, despite assurances by the World Health Organisation that they are untrue.

BBC Panorama featured...

an interview with a Catholic woman in Uganda who has chosen to sleep unprotected with her infected husband: "We won't go to heaven if we use condoms," she explains. Asked if the woman made the right choice, the Archbishop of Kampala, Cardinal Emmanuel Wamala, replies: "If it is wrong to use the condom, then she has made the right choice." Even if it costs her her life? "Yes," replies the cardinal. "That is a harsh teaching," the reporter responds.

Well, it may be time for the latest craziness with the discovery of a planet in the habitable zone around a lightweight red dwarf star called Gliese 581. Check out Stephen Jones' blog on the newly discovered planet.

Here's some of his views...

Christianity. Is the one true religion, in the sense of God's only way of salvation. Is proven true beyond reasonable doubt by Jesus Christ fulfilling multiple prophecies of Messiah's time of coming

Evolution. Cosmological and biological change over time in which God had no part. Does not actually exist, except in the sense of a counterfeit of the genuine article, creation.

Seems he picks up a scientific theory/article, then runs through it marking his bold comments on anything that doesn't fit his beliefs. Brilliant.

I think if my blog and Stephen Jones' anti-blog ever touched, they would immediately annihilate each other and disappear.

Ross Finnie 1 Scientists/Life on Earth 0

Here's a Scottish Wildcat. He knows he's cool. Approach to give him a stroke and he'd claw your face off, piss on you to mark his territory then disappear into the thistles before you could say puss puss puss, here puss puss puss. Anyway, I'm in a rush...

Ross Finnie, Scottish environment minister. And you Ben Bradshaw, UK Fisheries Minister. I disagree with your views strongly. If you were even a little cool and I thought you wouldn't sue for libel I could have put that more succinctly. Right...

Who are these scientists I'm about to talk about?
They belong to ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea). ICES are scientists from 19 member countries and are the main source of advice for the European Union when it comes to deciding fish quotas.

2004 Quota
Scientists: Cod is at risk of extinction in EU waters with stocks at the lowest ever recorded. Recommend a ban on cod fishing off the west of Scotland, in the North Sea and in the Irish Sea.
Ben Bradshaw: The 15 nations shelved plans for drastic cuts to quotas for cod in Western Scotland. Ben Bradshaw declared the result a good deal for UK fishermen.
The Guardian Headline: EU agrees fishing quotas
Headline Should Read: Scientists told to Fuck Off.

2005 Quota
Scientists: Advise a complete halt to cod fishing in the North Sea, the Irish Sea and west of Scotland. North Sea stocks have shrunk to about one tenth of 1970 levels, warning on depletion on the scale of eastern Canadian waters where cod disappeared in the 1990s and stocks have yet to recover.
Ben Bradshaw: The EC dropped proposals to close depleted cod grounds in parts of the North Sea, Irish Sea, the west of Scotland, the Baltic and the Channel. Ben Bradshaw said "the deal strikes the right balance between maintaining a viable UK fishing industry and one that contributes to protecting our marine environment".
BBC News Headline: Fishing fleets hail new quotas
Headline Should Read: Scientists told to Fuck Off.

2006 Quota
Scientists: recommended the closure of the worst-hit fishing grounds in the North Sea. The conservation group, WWF Scotland, says it makes no sense to continue to allow targeted fishing in the North Sea cod when it's on the brink of collapse. Spokeswoman Claire Pescod: "In doing so, they are ensuring that this iconic British species has virtually no chance of survival or recovery."
Ross Finnie: Scotland's Fisheries Minister Ross Finnie said he believed the package represented a "sustainable deal". He had vowed to resist any further cut in days at sea.
BBC News Headline: Opinion Divided Over Fish Quotas
Headline Should Read: Scientists told to Fuck off.

2007 Quota
Scientists: Call for a total ban on cod fishing in the name of conservation.
Ross Finnie: The Scottish environment minister indicated he would be against even the compromise cut.
Independent Headline: Environmentalists attack deal on fishing quotas
Headline Should Read: Scientists told to Fuck off.

Well done Ross Finnie and Ben Bradshaw. A lot of fishermen will lose their jobs, but now it will be in 10 years when you've retired and cod has disappeared from the North Sea.

Well done British media. Your reporting on the Ross Finnie and Ben Bradshaw show in recent years has had all the bite of a declawed Scottish wildcat. Kept indoors.

Damn. I was in a rush too.

Traffic Patterns

Here's a picture showing some FLYSAFE developments - a European project to pimp out cockpit human-machine interfaces amongst other things seeing as air traffic is expected to triple in 20 years. Not really related to this, but anyway...

Check out William Beaty's page on road traffic patterns with loads of links on traffic patterns and simulation. I've had a suspicion that we'd all be better off if traffic lights were all removed and this is only backed up by reading about the outrage at such a suggestion from town planners. I've had plenty of experience with lights not working on my old drive to work - when the lights are out the traffic moves much better than when the lights are working. Has anyone done any good town traffic simulation with/without traffic lights? I've always wanted to have a go at simulating this. And I've always wanted to work on pimping out cockpit displays. Imagine all the stuff you could do without beer in your life.

Alphonzo Bad Boy

Okay. One more thing from myplasticheart while I've got them in mind. Speaking of Bad Boys, I've got a review of my Cannondale Bad Boy to come soon.

Differential's First Visit to Shopping Centre

Here's a cutaway of a 2006 Range Rover differential. The idea of the differential might just be the greatest piece of design I'm aware of. The problem it overcomes is this... when a car goes round a corner the wheels on the outside of the bend travel further than the wheels on the inside of the bend. So, car wheels spin at different speeds. But the driven wheels are linked together so that a single engine and transmission can turn both wheels. How can you have the wheels linked so the engine can power them, but still allow them to move at different speeds.

If I was put on a desert island and had to solve this problem it would take 100 years and involve something very complicated. The differential does it incredibly beautifully.

Check out howstuffworks. The animations with straight and turn buttons show it working. When going straight the wheels are locked together, but when turning the wheels travel at different speeds. I see it and I still don't believe it. Genius. And it may go back to 100BC, with the Antikythera mechanism.

OMG

Over at myplasticheartnyc, get the poster if you can't make their exhibition.

Maneki Neko

Okay, apparently declawing of cats is common in North America. Stop it. I didn't have to travel far... here's wiki:

Declawing is rare outside of North America, being considered an act of animal cruelty in many Western countries. In Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, declawing is forbidden by the laws against cruelty to animals. In many other European countries, it is forbidden under the terms of the European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals.

Carbon Fibre. No Cheese. No Lycra.

Specialized S-Works Roubaix SL is reviewed over here. Gonna get a shot with all three one day...

Cycling News

Yep. Just time for some more cycling news. Erm. Remember to keep hydrated this summer.

Chiho Aoshima

Artist Chiho Aoshima creates her artworks digitally, using Illustrator software. I was lucky enough to see City Glow, Mountain Whisper at Gloucester Road Underground station which was jaw droppingly beautiful as is A Contented Skull above. Possibly one of the greatest things I've ever seen. In the world. Ever.

Dead Batteries

What the hell? Dead Batteries do AA batteries with such amazing art you're going to have to leave the battery cover off.

Google SketchUp

Just looking at the Google Sketchup homepage makes you want to get creating. Draw your home in 3D and place your model in Google Earth using real-world coordinates. Yes. Google will take over the world...

Net income climbed to $1bn (£499m) in the first three months of 2007, up from $592m on a year earlier.

Okay. Google has already taken over the world.

Hattrick Logo

Came across this work of art in my Hattrick travels.

Silverlink Trains

Silverlink Train Managers - why not let two full trains arrive into Euston 5 minutes before my train departs each morning. This way I'll have no chance of getting me and my bike through the barriers and to my train without assaulting people to get out of the way. Charge £2816 for a seaon ticket to take the piss even more. Oh, hang on a minute...

Flying is Magic

So how do planes fly? I don't know. It could be a packet of air is seperated at the leading edge of the wing. It then goes over/under the wing and the packet meets up again at the trailing edge of the wing. Due to the curve of the upper surface of the wing, the air must move faster to meet up again at the trailiing edge and (Bernoulli principle) this means lower pressure which causes lift. This is wrong. Possibly.

Another explaination is that the wing just directs air downwards causing lift. The lower surface trailing edge just forces air down. Air on the upper surface follows the curve of the surface (Coanda effect).

Neither seem to explain how a plane can fly upside down. How do planes fly? I thought this would have been science 101 stuff.

Zero Friends

This is a Wild Country Zero Friend. You use it by pulling on the trigger so the cams at the end rotate, then inserting it into a crack or pocket in the rock you're climbing. Releasing the trigger allows the cams to expand and that's it. It's now stuck in the rock till you release it and you can attach your rope to it (using quickdraws to avoid it walking into the crack).

Anyway, point is, these are works of art. The amazing Zero 1 - with a range of 5.5 - 7.8mm - is the smallest and lightest cam in the world. A total mechanical marvel, never mind the fact it might save your life by letting you hang from it (possibly). If you don't climb, just buy one anyway instead of that MoMA Store tat you were thinking of buying.

DIY Courier Bags

Over at eeio blog, there are some instructions on making courier bags. Using some vinyl found in a printers bin, this design has turned out to be total genius.

Best Bug Photo. Ever.

I don't want to rip stuff spotted on BoingBoing but I think this is a special occasion. Uploaded by Lawraa onto Flickr.

Special Theory of Relativity in Crap ASCII Art

Warning - I might be remembering this wrong. And Albert Einstein may have been wrong. I don’t know.

If you’re in a spaceship you can’t tell if you’re moving smoothly or standing still without looking outside. It’s the principle of relativity. Easy.

What would happen if you flew at the speed of light and looked in a mirror? Is light leaving your face faster than the speed of light to get to the mirror? But nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Maybe when you hit the speed of light, your reflection disappears from the mirror? Well, you could tell from inside your spaceship that you were travelling at the speed of light just by looking in a mirror which breaks the principle of relativity.

Imagine we have a box containing a light bulb which gives out regular pulses of light which go to a mirror, get reflected and bounce back to a counter which goes click-click. The path of the light from light bulb, to mirror, to counter is kind of like throwing a ping pong ball up in the air from your left hand, and catching it in your right hand. Except the path is straight.

You take this box on a train. Stop thinking about ping pong balls. It's light. When the train’s moving, it works exactly like it did before you took it on the train (otherwise if it changed you could use this to tell you were moving without looking outside which breaks the principle of relativity). When you are on the moving train next to the box, you see the path the light takes as:

/\
/_\

Someone on the embankment watching the train go past sees the path the light takes as:

/\
/_____\

The light beam leaves to bulb, and by the time it reaches the mirror, the train had moved forward a bit. For the observer sat on the embankment, the distance the light has travelled is longer, but the speed of light is constant so the only thing that can have happened is time has changed. When you are on the moving train, time has slowed down. Yep. Moving clocks run slower than stationary clocks.

How about this… a light bulb is placed in the middle of a train carriage. When light from the bulb hits either the front or back door it opens. To someone travelling on the train, when the light is turned on, the front and back doors open at the same time.

An observer on the embankment watching the train pass sees the back door open before the front door as the back door moves forward to meet the light pulse. Two events happening in two different locations that occur simultaneously to one observer, may occur at different times to another observer.

KitKat White from Japan

Here’s a KitKat White from Japan. It comes in a box which is so amazing I’m not going to open it. Until I get the muchies and it’s the only thing left in the house. It's from a series of KitKats made with milk from different regions - this one is Nasu-Highland Milk. Previously they've done a Hokkaido one. Anyway, check out Cybercandy for sweets from around the world. You can order online or buy from their shops in Covent Garden or Brighton.

Cycling News

More girls in lycra cycling news - here's Mette Andreasen Fischer reminding us that second place is no bad thing in womens cycling.

Sheep Talk

If you're on the lookout for some new desktop wallpaper.

NORAD Tapes

Blast Doors at NORAD

Back in August 2006, Vanity Fair published an excellent article deconstructing the NORAD tapes. Their website interspersed the chilling transcripts with playable audio. Check here. Looks like their play buttons aren't showing for some reason, but highlight the text and you'll see where to press after each transcript.

08:37:52
BOSTON CENTER: Hi. Boston Center T.M.U. [Traffic Management Unit], we have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York, and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out.
POWELL: Is this real-world or exercise?
BOSTON CENTER: No, this is not an exercise, not a test.

Viz Prints

Available from Viz.