Category: From the Web

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Twitter Posts as of 03/06/2015

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Twitter Posts as of 02/27/2015

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Twitter Posts as of 02/20/2015

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An Imaginary Town Becomes Real, Then Not. True Story

“This is the story of a totally made-up place that suddenly became real — and then, strangely, undid itself and became a fantasy again. Imagine Pinocchio becoming a real boy and then going back to being a puppet. That’s what happened here — but this is a true story…. ” (go to link)
 
Link:  www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2014/03/18/290236647/an-imaginary-town-becomes-real-then-not-true-story
 
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Plastic may be with us a lot longer than we thought

Hawaii BeachPlastic may be with us a lot longer than we thought.  Not only is it clogging up landfills and getting trapped in Arctic ice, some of it has into stone.  A new type of rock cobbled together from plastic, volcanic rock, beach sand, seashells, and corals has begun forming on the shores of Hawaii.  In fact, plastiglomerate, as researchers call it, may become so pervasive that it may become part of the global geologic record.

Geologist Patricia Corcoran of the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, says some of the plastic is still recognizable as toothbrushes, forks, ropes, and just “anything you can think of.”

Other geologists have indicated that plastiglomerate may become the geologic marker for when humans came to dominate the planet, scattering our refuse in enormous quantities.

Reference:
Science Magazine: Rocks Made of Plastic Found on Hawaiian Beach

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Old Hammer Vac

So I found this image on Digg and wanted to share it here, but also wanted to give proper acknowledgement to it’s author, presumably on Flickr.  The problem is, whoever posted it to Digg, posted a link to the actual image, not to the Flickr page where they found it. 

Old Hammer Vac

I have wasted more than an hour trying to locate it on the Flickr site, but none of the expected search terms seem to have located it.  If you know, or are, the author, let me know.  I’d like to give you proper credit and send the link to the proper page.

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Virtual “Cloud Ceiling” Improves Performance of Office Workers

German researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO in Stuttgart, claim that the human mind is geared to work best under an open sky, with passing clouds and varying illumination, that the constant glare of office lighting is sub-optimal.  So they have come up with a “Virtual Sky” ceiling as a solution.

The Virtual Sky is made up of luminous LED-equipped ceiling tiles that project a low-resoltuion moving image suggestive of clouds moving across the “sky” above office workers.  These lighting panels simulate dynamic changes in lighting in a way that is not directly obvious to the naked eye so it doesn’t distract people from their work, but fluctuates enough to promote concentration and heightened alertness.

Unfortunately, with nearly 300 LEDs per ceiling tile the system is still rather expensive, but they expect production prices to come down significantly — perhaps because they are now using the virtual sky to improve effecency at the factory that makes it?

I don’t know about you, but I think these would be cool for use in homes, too!

Link: DISCOVERY-NEWS — Cloud-like Ceiling Could Brighten Cubicle Worlds