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Media Platforms Design TeamAt some point in its history, the humble RJ-45 Ethernet connector got a bad rap. Wi-Fi routers entranced us all with their promise of easy setup and constant connectivity, while wired Ethernet connections required a mystical knowledge closely guarded by corporate IT professionals. Now, we’ve got nothing against Wi-Fi–for devices such as smartphones and laptops that put a premium on portability, it’s the natural solution. But it turns out that nothing beats a hard-wired connection for setup simplicity, reliability and speed....

Media Platforms Design TeamThere are few home improvement tasks greeted with more dread than finishing drywall. If you’re like most people, you hope that you’ve already done your last finishing job. Unfortunately, if you enjoy working on your home, you are bound to be confronted by this task again. So it’s worth your while to check out the tips and techniques we discuss here.Before You BeginThe selection of tools we show here are not the only ones that work....

View full post on YoutubeIn the very important race to say the funniest thing about iPhone 6, your leader in the clubhouse is The Second City Network.As their leaked reveal demonstrates, the hot dog iPhone appears to be thicker than its predecessors—a surprise move out of Cupertino. No evidence of the rumored Sapphire Glass, either, unless Tim Cook ground it up and mixed it in with the mystery meat.I was surprised....

It seems the stuff of James Bond–a pair of spies on opposite rooftops exchanging information via binoculars. However, it’s real. The U.S. military is currently using binoculars equipped with USB and Ethernet adapters and receivers that are capable of beaming secure voice and video information. The LightSpeed system exploits free-space optics–the ability to pass data between two points via an optical beam. The method usually involves lasers, but this system uses eye-safe infrared LEDs, similar to those used in TV remotes, says Leo Volfson, president of Torrey Pines Logic, which created LightSpeed....

William Merideth, the man who was arrested for shooting down a quadcopter over his property in Kentucky, has now been cleared of all charges in the incident. After a two-hour hearing in Bullitt County on Monday, a judge ruled that Merideth was within his rights, and the dismissed the charges of first-degree criminal mischief and first-degree wanton endangerment.“Was it handled the right way? I don’t think so. But justice came out in the end,” Merideth told local news station WDRB....

The first round of official results are in from NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) probe, which launched in November 2013 arrived at Mars in September 2014 to study the Red Planet’s mysterious atmosphere. One of the biggest surprises: planet-wide aurorae of an entirely different energy and composition than the Northern Lights you might see on Earth.Preliminary results indicate that the loss of Mars’ internal magnetic field played a role in the loss of its early atmosphere, as well as the unusual aurorae....

Armies want their training to be as realistic as possible. And some countries, like the United States, Germany, and France, take the extra step of making their own enemy tanks in just about the lowest-tech way possible: taking a friendly tank and adding a lot of fiberglass and plywood to it.The site Tank and AFW News has a photo collection up of so-called VISMODs—Visually Modified vehicles meant to look like tanks and armored vehicles of potential adversaries....

Media Platforms Design TeamAt the 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show next month, Mercedes-Benz will officially pull the wraps off its DiesOtto engine design. The engine uses every known weapon in the company’s techno arsenal, including an eccentric crankshaft, variable compression ratio (from 7:1 to 14:1), variable valve timing, variable valve lift, direct gasoline injection and twin turbocharging. Under most conditions, this gasoline engine uses compression ignition like a diesel—then spark ignition takes over at higher speeds and higher loads....

Media Platforms Design TeamFusion reactors–the near-mythic energy sources that have been on the horizon for half a century–may be coming one step closer. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory has begun building a machine called a compact stellarator to perfect the magnetic fields needed to control the thermonuclear activity involved. Inside are 18 of the most complex electromagnets ever designed. Engineers are creating 6000-pound coils in three shapes....

NEW BAY BRIDGELocation: San FranciscoPrice Tag: $6 billionCompletion Date: 2013Height of Tower: 525 feetTraffic Lanes: 10Tons of Steel Required: 100,000For 15 seconds on Oct. 17, 1989, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake shook Northern California. The quake shifted the east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge by 7 in. on its Oakland side, causing a 50-ft., 250-ton section of the bridge’s upper deck to collapse, killing one motorist. The structural failure was a disturbing and highly visible sign of the vulnerability of one of San Francisco’s major transportation links....

No matter how hard you close your eyes and believe, reindeer can’t fly. It’s preposterous. But what if you were determined to make it possible. In a stroke of genius, the folks at Motherboard asked an actual aerospace engineer what it would take. In short? Transformation into a plane. According to aerospace engineer at the University of Toronto, Chris Damaren, your potential solution looks something like this: “The length of each wing length needs to be at least the length of the body of the reindeer,” he said....

If ever there was a furniture style well suited to the amateur builder it would be Shaker. That’s why we chose the style for our first set of plans, a simple wall cabinet.Shaker’s simple recti-linear form and lack of ornament make it particularly accessible to the amateur woodworker in a small shop. This is not to say that Shaker craftsmen were amateurs. In fact, they were the opposite. Surviving examples of Shaker furniture, even the simplest pieces, testify to great skill and a very refined aesthetic sense....

Media Platforms Design TeamAfter accusing a recent New York Times story of misrepresenting the range capabilities of the Tesla Model S and its network of ultrafast Supercharger charging stations, Tesla CEO and co-founder Elon Musk delivered on his promise to release the data logs of the Times’s test drive in a blog post late last night.The drive, conducted and written by Times writer John Broder, was meant to test the capabilities of both the Model S and the nascent network of Supercharger stations on the East Coast....

Media Platforms Design TeamBy 10 am the robot has already carved out an entire human organ.The patient’s gallbladder, riddled with infection, is gone, and in a darkened operating room at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the machine is going back for seconds.Its next target is a tumor, buried in that same woman’s kidney. So the bot remains perched, its arms fanned out over her like some great, hulking insect. Those arms twitch and wriggle, and inside the sleeping woman’s abdomen its tiny, dexterous manipulators slice and burn through fatty connective tissue, maneuvering around veins, arteries, and nerves, clearing a path to the cancer with a level of precision no human could ever hope to muster....

Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s a machine that could calculate solutions to problems so impossibly time-consuming that even the most powerful supercomputers could never handle them. And it would do so in an instant. This is the quantum computer, made possible by the bizarre nature of quantum mechanics. And though the idea is still in its infancy, it’s no fantasy.Two research teams, at Harvard University and the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany, have just announced that they have independently forged the building blocks for tomorrow’s quantum computers....

Welcome to Weekend Watch, where we introduce you to the worst sci-fi or fantasy movie you can watch this weekend. I can think of no better way to kick it off than Planet of Dinosaurs—or, as my particular VHS copy from Goodtimes Home Video mislabels it, Planet of the Dinosaurs. The title is worded one way on the case and the other way on the cassette, roughly approximating the care put into the movie....

This story is brought to you byGas 2.0Today’s the TTXGP - the Time Trials Xtreme Grand Prix. And don’t let that misspelled word fool ya. It’s going to be one heck of a ride! In fact, it’s going be the world’s first zero-carbon, clean emission Grand Prix.With twenty-three different electric bikes and sixteen riders, seven different countries will compete in this inaugural race. The event take place in the Isle of Man with teams from the UK, Italy, USA, India, Germany and Austria....

Media Platforms Design TeamIf you are the instructor, start by telling your student that[1] THE HANDS ON THE WHEEL SHOULD BE AT 3 O’CLOCK AND 9 O’CLOCK[2] RELAXED ARMS ALSO INCREASE CONTROL[3] TELL YOUR STUDENT TO STAY FOCUSED, WHICH OFTEN TRANSLATES TO “PUT THE SMARTPHONE OUT OF REACH.” (not 2 and 10). This allows for maximum rotation with minimal exertion—meaning greater control. . “Why?” your pupil might ask. The answer is that relaxed muscles respond faster than tense ones....

While the 1938 hurricane battered Long Island, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, America’s densest, most populous city narrowly escaped its wrath. But at New York City’s Office of Emergency Management, officials such as deputy commissioner for planning and preparedness Kelly McKinney know that the Big Apple’s luck 70 years ago might not last forever. What kind of damage would occur if a storm such as the one in 1938 hit the island of Manhattan directly?...

Media Platforms Design TeamWASHINGTON — Fifty years ago, station wagons accounted for 15 percent of all new cars sold. Squaring off against super-sized Americruisers such as Ford’s Country Squire and Chevy’s Bel Air, Volkswagen sold its doughty little Transporter in Kombi, Microbus and Camper versions. Sure, it looked like a loaf of Wonder bread on wheels, but with as many as 21 windows and eight seats, it was the stoked choice of the homemade-granola-and-sandals crowd....