There are no limits to the things one can create as shown by this new drone built and designed by Adam Woodworth who drew some inspiration from LEGO. It's a fully functional drone in the style of LEGO which also has a mini figure sitting inside the cockpit.
The drone was shown off at this year’s Makers Fair in San Francisco. This thing looks like a real LEGO copter. It even has a minifig pilot. Tested recently checked it out in action, and it looks pretty cool.
Charming actually, as the rotor moves way too slowly. Of course, if it weren’t a drone, this thing would never fly in a million years since ABS plastic bricks are not very aerodynamic. That’s why he built his jumbo version from foam.
In a recent study done by LexisNexis, they found a sudden spike in the New York Times' articles which focus on or simply mention words which relate to social justice. This might be a signal of the upcoming zeitgeist, of how people are clamoring for change, and how media is using its influence as a vehicle for said change.
Or it could just be trying to ride the wave of the trends. It's not just the New York Times that has been placing more urgency on pressing concerns but it is nice to see how these are measured in quantifiable terms.
Marginal Revolution presents several graphs, created by LexisNexis and posted by Zach Goldberg on his Twitter page, on word usage and frequency of certain terms which have been mentioned in New York Times articles from 1970 until 2018.
There is a markedly significant increase as you will note in social justice issues, which again could be a possible turning point in various sectors of society.
During World War II, German scientists attempted to build a nuclear reactor by using uranium cubes, but they failed miserably. Why did the Germans fail in creating one? And what happened to the uranium cubes?
Fast forward to several years ago. University of Maryland physicist Timothy Koeth received a strange birthday gift from a friend. It was a mysterious heavy metal cube of which he recognized as one of the missing uranium cubes the scientists of Germany had used. Accompanying the gift was a note: "Taken from Germany, from the nuclear reactor Hitler tried to build. Gift of Ninninger." This would begin Koeth’s journey for finding out the origin of the cube he just received. Who was Ninninger? Where are the other cubes?
Learn more of Timothy’s journey over at Ars Technica.
(Image Credit: John T. Consoli/ University of Maryland)
Watching the sunset is a calming and relaxing activity to do. Have you ever wondered how this magnificent event looks from above? This is what ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst shared with us — a sunset photo from the International Space Station.
Archaeologists have found a hidden room beneath Nero's Golden Palace bearing frescoes and other drawings symbolizing Nero's passion for the arts.
No one knows exactly what the room was used for but it could give some more insight into the one considered as the cruelest Roman emperor.
Nero’s hidden chamber has been named the Sphinx Room for one creature in particular, a solitary sphinx. “The find offers a tantalizing glimpse into the atmosphere of the 60s of the First Century AD in Rome,” said officials from the Colosseum archaeological park.
The discovery of Nero’s hidden chamber, made in May 2019, “was of immense artistic and archaeological value,” said Alfonsina Russo, the director of the Colosseum, in a statement released to the media. “We hope to finish the work by the end of the year. The room is well preserved but it needs cleaning and restoration.”
(Image credit: Ufficio Stampa Parco Archeologico Del Colosseo/Wikimedia Commons)
Like many of us, designer and artist Dani Donovan often has trouble writing good emails. "I have a bad habit of overusing exclamation points, emojis, and qualifiers like "just" and "possibly" to sound extra-friendly and non-threatening in emails," she wrote in an Instagram post.
After a Twitter thread about how to write better email phrases went viral, Donovan decided to compile her best tips in this one Instagram post.
Before the soccer match between the US Women Naational Team and Mexico on May 26, 2019, the national anthem was performed by a 96-year-old World War II veteran Pete DuPré on a harmonica.
You've got to watch DuPré's performance - it'll give you chills.
The folks at YouGov.com have finally quantified just how good good is, as seen in the graphic above. Did you know that 'brilliant' was better than 'fantastic'? Or that 'excellent' was better than 'outstanding'? Personally, I would have thought that 'very bad' was better than 'terrible' and 'dreadful', but what do I know? Not much - just ask Miss C, who thinks I hover somewhere between 5.55 and 6.17. My question is, why is Trump willing to settle for an 8.08 when he could have asked for at least an 8.59?
If you pose the question "What is the hottest object in the universe?" to a group of scientists, you are going to get a lesson. One says it depends on what you mean by "hot." The next says it depends on what you mean by "object." And another will say it depends on what you mean by "universe." Then each will pick a definition and give an explanation of what they think. The most common answer among them is that the hottest object ever was the Big Bang, which mean they are defining "universe" as including all time. You can get pretty deep in a question like this! But that wasn't the only answer, and you'll learn something about all those terms in a roundup at Gizmodo.
I do wish I'd thought of some of these. 50 years ago, I remember seeing a graffito, "I love grils", which the next day had 'grils' struck through and 'girls' added. Then the day after that came, "WHAT ABOUT US GRILS?"
The history of liquor laws has taught us that people will find a way around them every time. Before the US experimented with nationwide Prohibition in the 1920s, states and municipalities tried every which way to stem the flow of alcohol, if ever so slightly. New York state enacted the Raines law in 1896, which explicitly forbade liquor sales on Sunday, raised the price of a liquor license, barred sales within 200 feet of a church or school, and banned free lunches.
Behind this lifestyle tug-of-war lay a cultural conflict of national proportions. Those in favor of the Sunday ban, generally middle-class and Protestant, saw it as a cornerstone of social improvement. For those against, including the city’s tide of German and Irish immigrants, it was an act of repression—an especially spiteful one because it limited how the average laborer could enjoy himself on his one day off. The Sunday ban was not popular, to say the least, among the city’s Jews, who’d already observed their Sabbath the day before.
Opponents pointed out that existing Sabbath drinking laws were hypocritical anyway. An explicit loophole had been written into the law itself: it allowed lodging houses with ten rooms or more to serve guests drinks with meals seven days a week. Not incidentally, wealthy New Yorkers tended to dine out at the city’s ritzy hotel restaurants on Sundays, the usual day off for live-in servants.
You can see how people took advantage of a loophole, but what does all this have to do with the world's worst sandwich? The "Raines sandwich" was part of the loophole, and it was so thoroughly inedible that the same sandwich would be used for multiple customers. Read that story at Atlas Obscura.
The perptual diamond: The diamond remains fixed in one place but appears to move up, down, left, or, right. See how far away you can be from your screen before the effect goes away. From https://t.co/XRFKTtjOfmpic.twitter.com/af7BOUCvfC
It's been years since we brought you the terrifying tale of the Demon Core. In case you missed it, or don't recall all the details, it's an important story about the steep learning curve involved in early nuclear research. Scientists associated with the Manhattan Project knew there was danger in the radioactive materials they were working with, but had yet to codify safety standards into failsafe procedures, which spelled tragedy for two young physicists. Plainly Difficult brings us a video version of the story. This video contains a couple of images that may be disturbing.
Damon Hudson of St. Ives, Cornwall, UK, gets home milk delivery. But lately, in the morning, he's found that his milk has been stolen. To fight back, he recently took the milk immediately after it was delivered at 4 AM. Then he peed added fish oil and his own urine before placing it back outside. The thief predictably showed up and took the bottle, which Hudson recorded on a security camera.
