Media Platforms Design TeamHow did you get into brewing beer and when? I started brewing beer in December of 2006. I had been eyeing a home-brew kit for about a year and decided that for my birthday I would finally ask for the kit so I could make the jump into home-brewing. I didn’t have any friends who home-brewed, and the hobby was just really starting to take off, but I’ve always thought it would be fun and rewarding to make my own beer....
Ellis GaylesSan Diego, Calif.Age: 44Years on Job: 9 Navy Lt. Cmdr. Ellis Gayles is charged with keeping military flight crews in optimal health while they’re in the air—or, in the worst-case scenario, the water. To train aviators to survive a crash into the ocean, he and his staff employ the helo-dunker, a mock helicopter pod. Students climb into the dunker in full flight gear. The pod is lifted above a pool....
UPDATE, July 10, 2017: Elon Musk tweeted pictures of the first production model—the outside, anyway.View full post on TwitterUPDATE, July 3, 2017: Elon Musk said on Twitter today that the first 3 would roll off the line on Friday, July 7.View full post on TwitterUPDATE, May 25, 2017: Specs for the Model 3 have leaked this week, and Tesla has confirmed that they are real. The key facts you need to know:• It’ll go 0 to 60 in 5....
Media Platforms Design TeamIt was only a matter of time until the world of stealth military equipment migrated to snowmobiles. And with apologies to Norway and Russia, there’s no better country to attempt to pull it off than Canada, which is now fully testing out a $620,000 (CAD) ($594,000 U.S.) machine aimed at secretive military maneuvers in the Great White North. , the Canadian Department of National Defence has dubbed the hybrid-electric prototype Loki—you know, after the tricky Norse god....
David Robert Jones is back causing mayhem. In last night’s episode of Fringe, “Ability,” the villainous mystery man tries to kill with an affliction that causes hyperactive scar tissue, which closes all the victim’s orifices, so they can’t breathe. But to execute his murderous plan, he needs to first spring himself from a German prison using a fantastically sci-fi weapon (a stolen design from our mad scientist, Walter Bishop): a disintegration-reintegration ray....
6:154 || THE BIG WIND DOWN:That old electric clock may have a cool retro look, but it’s noisy and slow.THE QUICK FIXThe gears in an electric clock can, over time, collect a lot of grime. An old repairman’s trick is to turn the clock upside down for a couple of days. This allows debris and gunk to sift out of the gears and gets the clock back on schedule.6:155 || STUCK UP:Media Platforms Design TeamAfter a particularly wild blended-drinks party, your blender makes the sound but the blade doesn’t move....
Split PreventionDivide And ConquerBubble ProofRoughed UpUsing Yesterday’s News Admit it. Recycling makes perfect sense. Materials like plastic, cardboard and metal all get used again, rather than end up in a landfill. However, if you’re tying up bundles of old newspapers for the trash collector, you may be missing another way to recycle. When it comes time to wash the windows, don’t use paper towels. Try old newspaper along with your window cleaner....
Media Platforms Design TeamDETROIT — When you idle an automobile factory during a worker strike, it’s like closing your beach cottage for the winter. Well, it’s a little more involved than that—a lot more, actually. The problems associated with a shut down, such as one of the 45 General Motors assembly and supply plants handling the current contract dispute with the United Automobile Workers, extend far beyond closing windows, adjusting thermostats and cleaning out the fridge....
Media Platforms Design TeamStep One: SliceUsing a utility knife, make long, straight cuts either down the room’s long axis or across it. Space the cuts two to three feet apart—you’re doing this to cut down the carpet into easily moveable pieces. Wet carpet is heavy, so don’t make the strips too wide or they’ll be difficult to carry because they’ll fold in the center.Step Two: RollTake one strip and roll it....
Are trains designed such that if a person were about to get run over, he could lie flat between the tracks and avoid death as the train passed over him?In much the same way that every chandelier is deliberately engineered to support the weight of an adult male swinging from it by one hand while firing an automatic weapon with the other. Which is to say: only in the movies. While you could get away with the lie-flat-between-the-tracks gambit (and people have), it’s far from a sure thing....
Media Platforms Design TeamIn an attempt to “seek novel solutions for mission challenges from non-traditional sources,” according to a press release, NASA has announced yet another public competition, this time tocreate a lunar landing “analog.“X Prize foundation With a $2.5 million prize purse at stake, this is the twelfth such event to be announced in the past year under the space agency’s Centennial Challenge program. This new challenge is co-sponsored by the , and will be held in October at the X Prize Cup Expo....
Ellen Stofan, the chief scientist for NASA, thinks we’ll discover aliens sooner rather than later. It’ll happen possibly within the next 10 years, but no more than 20. Stofan made the proclamation at a public panel yesterday. She thinks that the alien life will be found not by a radio telescope, but by looking for tiny microbes in our own backyard. Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute has been beating the drum on this idea for a few years now—that we’re not far from finding out we’re alone in the universe....
While the official Obama administration line is that NASA should have its eyes on a Mars landing, a study from NexGen Space LLC and funded in part by NASA says that we should go to the moon instead and set up camp for good. The price tag is $10 billion, and NexGen Space proposes it be funded by a public-private partnership. Under the proposed timeline, robotic construction would begin in 2021, with humans arriving shortly after....
Last year, Raja Parasuraman was conducting a study of brain function among 650 participants at George Mason University in Virginia, when he stumbled across what he calls a “cognitive superstar.” The university professor studies neuroergonomics–a merger of neuroscience, the study of the brain, with ergonomics, the study of how to design systems and tech-nologies to be more compatible with users. Parasuraman hooks subjects to MRI, EEG and other brain scanners while conducting memory and attention tests to see what parts of the brain activate....
A new law in North Dakota clears law enforcement to use drones that are armed with less-than-lethal weapons like beanbag guns and tasers. The law, House Bill 1328, went into affect earlier this month according to Ars Technica and was originally drafted in such a way as to prohibit the use of drones without a warrant as well as banning the use of any weapons. Ultimately, thanks to law enforcement lobbying, the bill passed with only the prohibition of lethal weaponry....
The shooter in the bay next to mine watches skeptically as I load the conventional-looking revolver with an unusual array of ammunition: a .380 ACP, two 9mm Lugers, a .38 Special Plus-P and two .357 Magnums. He maintains a discreet distance as, with my right index finger outside the trigger guard, I raise the gun to chest level pointing down range, then close and lock the cylinder into the frame.I cock the hammer with my right thumb and squeeze off the first round....
Media Platforms Design TeamScott Loxley (L.) (Photo Credit: News Corp Australia)Scott Loxley can thank the Galactic Empire for saving him from certain death.Loxley was on a charity walk through Australia, clad in an appropriate Desert Trooper uniform. (It’s a regular Stormtrooper uniform, but dirtier and with a single orange shoulder pad.) Somewhere between Yalboroo and Calen in Queensland, he chanced upon a snake, and thinking it dead, he walked right by it....
From the department of The New York Times lifestyle reporting about people with too much money and perhaps too little sense comes a story about a 27-year-old man living the dream. Foster Huntington left a job in the fashion industry in New York to move into a tree house.In July 2011, he flew to Reno, Nev., bought an ‘87 Volkswagen Vanagon and drove it up to the hilltop property in Washington for a visit....
Media Platforms Design Team CHICAGO — Ford is adding a bit of urban flair to its sharp Edge crossover. But don’t be fooled by the big wheels and tires—this isn’t so much a hot-rodded Edge as a clean custom. The Sport model, joining the existing SE, SEL and Limited models in the Edge range, offers unique features like available 22-in. polished aluminum wheels or the standard 20-inchers, mounting low profile, 40-series Pirelli Scorpion Zero tires....
What’s the perfect escape vehicle? For members of a special forces group wrongly accused of a crime in The A-Team, out June 11, it’s a military C-130J airplane. But for filmmakers who planned to shoot the pivotal escape sequence on a Canadian air force base in Cold Lake, Alberta, that posed a bit of a problem. “There were a lot of F-18s in the background that we incorporated into the scene, but we didn’t actually have a C130,” VFX supervisor James Price says....
