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Wednesday, 24 September 2014
150 Street Artists Covered an Old Tunisian Village in Beautiful Murals
Published Under :
AFRICA,
GRAFFITI,
PICS,
STREET ART,
TUNISIA,
WATERCOOLER,
WORLD
For the past two months, 150 artists from 30 nations have been busy in the village of Erriadh, one of the oldest in Tunisia. They have been covering its buildings, gates, windows — almost any flat surface — in murals, in hopes of enticing tourists and infusing the area with new life.
Their graffiti is part of a street art project called Djerbahood, an open-air museum curated by the artist Mehdi Ben Cheikh and Galerie Itinerrance.
Belgian City to Build Underground Pipeline for Beer
Published Under :
BEER,
TOURISM,
US & WORLD,
WORLD
In an effort to eliminate disruptive delivery trucks driving through its picturesque streets, the Belgian city of Bruges approved plans Tuesday to create an underground pipeline for transporting beer.
Agence France-Presse reported the pipeline is set to connect the historic De Halve Maan brewery to a bottling factory two miles away, eliminating the 500 trucks that drive down the city's small streets each year.
De Halve Maan, a major fixture in Bruges, is a UNESCO World Heritage site that hosts 100,000 tourists each year. However, residents of the city in northwest Belgium became concerned about the loud trucks traveling through the cobblestone streets, and the brewery offered to fund the pipeline.
"The idea is born of environmental and quality of life concerns, and not economic ones," the company's director Xavier Vanneste said, according to AFP.
The pipeline is designed to carry more than 1,500 gallons of beer each hour, according to Belgian publication deredactie.be. It is also expected to reduce transportation time to the factory.
"The beer will take 10 to 15 minutes to reach the bottling plant. By using the pipeline we will keep hundreds of lorries out of the city center," Vanneste said.
The project is one of the first of its kind, with only one other similar structure in existence in Germany. Construction is set to begin next year, according to AFP.
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Slow-Motion Tattooing Might Permanently Scar Your Brain
Published Under :
SLOW MOTION,
TATTOO,
VIDEOS,
VIRAL VIDEO,
WATERCOOLER
A video showing tattooing in slow-motion takes the prize for today’s list of things that make you say “Oh, this shouldn’t be that ba...oh god. NO! STOP! CLOSE THE LAPTOP! NONONO!”
Skip ahead to 3:00 and watch an up-close look at what actually happens when someone gets a tattoo.
Spoiler: Needles covered in ink pounding into human skin is as brutal as you think.
Saturday, 30 August 2014
NASA’s Space Launch System is officially all systems go for Mars and Moon landings
Published Under :
90S,
gadgets,
HOME,
MONEY,
NOSTALGIA,
SpaceUsaSpace ExplorationNasaSpace TravelMarsSpacexBoeingSLS,
TECH
NASA’s Space Launch System, the USA’s first exploration-class spacecraft since the Space Shuttle, has officially passed the whiteboard formulation stage and moved into full-scale development. The SLS, which will be the most powerful rocket ever built, will allow NASA to land astronauts on Mars and captured asteroids, and perhaps other planets and moons throughout the Solar System as well. The first SLS mission should lift off no later than 2018, sending the Orion capsule around the Moon. Asteroid- and Mars-bound missions should follow a few years after that. The question is, will NASA be the first to send humans to Mars (probably no sooner than 2032) — or will a commercial company such as SpaceX get there much earlier?
NASA began the SLS’s design process way back in 2011. At the time, we knew the stated goal of the SLS – to try and re-use as many Space Shuttle components as possible, to get back into deep space as quickly and as cost effectively as possible — but we didn’t know exactly what form the SLS would take. Now that the formulation stage has been completed, and focus has shifted to actually developing and fabricating the launch system’s millions of constituent components, we have a very firm idea of what the SLS will be capable of, and thus what kind of missions NASA will task the SLS with.
The Space Launch System is broken up into blocks. Block I, the first and most simple design, consists of a core stage that’s lifted almost straight from the Space Shuttle: It has two Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters (SSRBs), and a first stage that’s fashioned out of a converted Space Shuttle External Tank (that big red cylinder thing — but on the SLS it’ll be painted white). Together with a modified Delta Cryogenic Second Stage (modified from the Delta IV), Block I will be able to lift around 70 metric tons (154,000 lbs) into low-Earth orbit. There is only expected to be one launch of the Block I variant. If all goes to plan, it will launch sometime in 2017 or 2018 and send an uncrewed Orion capsule on a circumlunar orbit around the dark side of the Moon.
The next variant of the SLS, Block IB, will use the same core stage as Block I — but instead of the modified Delta IV second stage, it’ll have the brand-new Exploration Upper Stage. The EUS has a lot of fuel and four RL10 rocket engines, boosting the total payload capacity to around 110 metric tons to LEO. Finally, at some point in the 2030s, Block II will arrive, which replaces the two SSRBs with new, “advanced boosters.” Block II will be capable of lifting around 155 metric tons to LEO.
Read our featured story: The Space Shuttle legacy in pictures
By comparison, the Saturn V — which took NASA astronauts to the Moon — had a max LEO payload capacity of 118 metric tons, but it has long since been retired. SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, which is a much smaller and cheaper rocket than the SLS, will be able to put 55 metric tons into LEO. With the retirement of the Space Shuttle, there aren’t really any heavy lift launchers in operation: Ariane 5 (Arianespace) can only do 21 metric tons to LEO, while Delta IV (United Launch Alliance) can do 29 metric tons to LEO.
In short, NASA’s Space Launch System should be by far the most powerful operational rocket when it arrives in 2017-2018. SpaceX could decide to up-rate the Falcon Heavy, but I doubt it: With Falcon Heavy, SpaceX wants to compete with United Launch Alliance and Arianespace, which currently own the (incredibly lucrative) heavy lift market. A payload capacity of 55 tons is more than enough for that purpose. You only shoot for a capacity of 150 tons if you’re aiming at targets that are much farther than geostationary orbit — such as landing on the Moon or Mars or Europa.
The SLS’s primary payload will be the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), though it will undoubtedly be used to send other large spacecraft into deep space. The Orion capsule is what NASA will use to land astronauts on the Moon, captured asteroids, Mars, and any other interesting lumps of rock throughout the Solar System. The first manned Orion launch, to a captured asteroid in lunar orbit, is scheduled to occur in 2021. Combined with SpaceX’s crewed Dragon spacecraft and Boeing’s CST-100, things are looking up for human space exploration!
25 Unsettling Face Swaps That Will Make You Want to Die Inside
Published Under :
FACE SWAPS,
FUNNY,
HUMOR,
PICS,
REDDIT,
WATERCOOLER
If your worst fears involve a giant baby, look no further.
While most people scour Reddit and Imgur for face swaps to get a good laugh, there are a few very special creations that just make you want to crawl into a dark place and never come out.
You have been warned. Just remember to hug your loved ones before you crawl into the abyss.
9 Nearly Worthless Gadgets You're Hanging Onto for Dear Life
You can't put a price on childhood memories, which explains why most of your favorite toys and gadgets from childhood aren't worth squat.
Now, you can still make a nice profit off unopened, exceedingly well-maintained or rare items from your younger days, but the majority of your prized possessions are too new to be artifacts and too old to be useful
Before you try to sell your childhood dreams away, check out the nine items that have much more sentimental value than market value. And if you decide to junk them, think about donating orrecycling.
1. Most of your old sports video games
You might treasure the afternoons you wasted away with your friends playing Madden NFL 2000and High Heat Baseball, but the games themselves are almost worthless. According toPriceCharting, which records listing prices for video games on eBay, Amazon and Half.com, most sports games for Nintendo 64 and Playstation all start at about $3.
2. Super Soaker
Nothing said summer like pumping this cumbersome canon until it squealed and subsequently nailing your best friend in the eye. Unfortunately, a used Super Soaker probably won't get you more than $20 on eBay since they're still being made today — albeit with a little less power.
4. Sony Walkman cassette players
Speaking of obsolete ways to rock out, don't bother trying to sell your Walkman cassette player. If anything, digging up that old copy of Backstreet Boys' "Black & Blue" and finally coming to terms with those grade-school crushes might be more valuable.
Some from the 1970s and '80s can fetch hundreds of dollars in near-mint condition, but the one you rocked in the '90s won't get much more than $25.
5. iMac G3
Yes, they're pretty and colorful, and yes, you can actually get about $150 for one if you manage to sell it. However, that's exceedingly difficult to do on eBay, where listings for the computers get little love with slashed prices.
6. Tamagotchi
These virtual pocket pets might have you caused you (and your teachers) a lot of stress back in the day, but that won't amount to much profit. Tamagotchi are still made today — there's even an app now. By 2010 there were roughly 75 million around the world. Not rare = not too valuable.
7. Casio Calculator Watch
While the calculator watch had a heyday in the 1980s, it's been rendered obsolete by modern inventions, like PDAs, cellphones and fashion. Some modern top-of-the-line models go for a nice price, but the numbers aren't in your favor if you list a standard version. You'll be lucky to get more than $15.
8. Palm Pilots and other PDAs
Another victim of the proliferation of smartphones, PDAs serve little purpose or utility now. And since it hasn't been too long since they were used, there's little nostalgia factor to drive up the price. High-tech models from the past decade may get you $40, but basic and older PDAs barely scratch $20.
9. Boomboxes
With all due respect to Radio Raheem, the boombox's glory days are long gone, and so is any chance you had to make some money off of it. While the boombox carries unique musical and cultural value, that won't translate into cash.
Some rare vintage models will go for $50, but the rest fall somewhere between $15 and $25.
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BONUS: 8 Modern Gadgets That Look Like They Macarena'd Out of the '90s
1. Tamagotchi
IMAGE: AMAZON2. Furby Boom
IMAGE: AMAZON3. Retro-Bit Nintendo Controller
IMAGE: AMAZON6. Clear phone handset
IMAGE: FANCY7. Cassette speaker
IMAGE: THINKGEEK
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