Something cool thread

[DogofWar1]

Agent Smith returns!

Props to GE and Hugo Weaving.

That is an amazing commercial. For those with a sense of humor, Agent Smith is a great spokesperson.

Washcloth wrung in zero-G

Do they not have clip on mics in space? Seemed kind of awkward trying to corral that mic while needing both hands.

[China]

A movie made from moving individual atoms:

[btfoom]

http://espnfc.com/news/story/_/id/1432116/8-year-old-cancer-patient-gets-play-timbers?cc=5901

8-year-old gets wish, plays vs. Timbers

May 1, 2013

By Associated Press

8-year-old gets wish to play vs. Timbers

After missing his team's final soccer match last season because of cancer treatment, 8-year-old Atticus Lane-Dupre and the Green Machine scrimmaged the Portland Timbers thanks to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.Tags: Soccer, Mls, Portland Timbers, Make-a-wish, Atticus Lane-dupre

PORTLAND, Ore. -- After missing his team's final soccer match last season because of cancer treatment, 8-year-old Atticus Lane-Dupre made sure his teammates were in on his wish to scrimmage against the Portland Timbers.

On Wednesday, the Timbers and Make-A-Wish Oregon treated Atticus' team, the Green Machine, to a game at Jeld-Wen Field. More than 3,000 fans came out to lend their support. <rest at link>

[Botched]

Soccer teams have weird names.

[China]

Cat returns 6 months after superstorm Sandy

Thanks to a cat that's apparently part homing pigeon, one potentially sad superstorm Sandy story has a happy ending.

In early November, 8-year-old Porsche was evacuated by rubber boat from Chadwick Island, Toms River, along with his owners, Uranie Roberts and her daughter Carol Baumann.

They'd stayed through the storm, but after losing power, gas and water, went to stay with in-laws in Point Pleasant, about eight miles away.

After just a few days, Porsche escaped.

The animal authorities were alerted, and the family followed up every so-called sighting for nearly six months. His tags were attached to a break-away collar that could have easily came off, Roberts, 86, said by phone this morning.

"I never gave up hope," she said, though she feared that "maybe he crossed the rainbow bridge, as they say from that poem about animals that pass on."

On April 29, Roberts and Baumann returned home without ever finding Porsche.

Two days later, last Wednesday, they heard a noise on the deck and opened the blinds.

"I saw the green eyes and I said, 'My God in heaven, it's Porsche!' " Baumann, 62, told NBC10.

The cat had crossed a bridge all right - probably the one over the Point Pleasant Canal, about a half-mile from where they were staying. That left more than seven miles to go, largely south through Shore towns hard-hit by Sandy.

"I am astounded, I'll tell you, that he made it," Roberts said.

No way he used memory to retrace the evacuation route - unless he swam.

"He wouldn't even have a scent trail because he was in his cat carrier in a boat going north being frightened out of his little life," Roberts said.

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Zoom in on any area from Google earth and see the changes since 1984:

http://earthengine.google.org/#intro/

A few areas:

Las Vegas:

Lake Urnia in Iran:

Glacial retreat in Alaska:

[gortiz]

[China]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/there-is-a-printer-capable-of-printing-3d-ultrasounds

[The Evil Genius]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/giant-flourescent-pink-slugs-140528983.html

 

 

 

Giant, fluorescent pink slugs found on mountain

It would seem to be something you'd see only in a cartoon or at a Phish concert, but according to park rangers in New South Wales, Australia, dozens of giant, fluorescent pink slugs have been popping up on a mountaintop there.

"As bright pink as you can imagine, that's how pink they are," Michael Murphy, a ranger with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "On a good morning, you can walk around and see hundreds of them."

 

The eight-inch creatures have been spotted only on Mount Kaputar, a 5,000-foot peak in the Nandewar Range in northern New South Wales.

 

Scientists believe the eye-catching organisms are survivors from an era when Australia was home to rainforests. A series of volcanoes, millions of years of erosion and other geological changes "have carved a dramatic landscape at Mount Kaputar," the park service wrote on its Facebook page, and unique arid conditions spared the slugs from extinction.

 

MORE AFTER LINK

Edited May 30, 2013 by The Evil Genius

[China]

Why does that slug have a hole in it?  Is it so big that it's a whale-slug and that's its blowhole?

[Bang]

8 inches and hot pink? they sure a load of sex toys didn't fall out of a cargo plane?

 

~Bang

[Koolblue13]

[Corcaigh]

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/quinn-miller-dinosaur-wedding-photo

 

[twa]

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-06/thought-controlled-drone-exists-and-everything-you-need-know-about-it

 

Researchers at the University of Minnesota today revealed a drone that can be controlled merely by thought, and that's not even the coolest thing about it. Published in the Journal of Neuro Engineering, the project has implications in everything from unmanned vehicles to paraplegic mobility.

The setup here is pretty basic, futuristic though it seems. The drone is a commercially available four-blade helicopter--the Parrot AR quadrotor--which is basically a drone hobbyist's Model T. To control it, the "pilot" wears a funny hat, the sensing end of an electroencephalogram (EEG). EEGs place an array of electrodes over a person's head, in a totally non-invasive way, then pick up on electrical activity in the brain. Clusters of activity, like thinking about making a fist with a right hand, generates a spark in a specific area of the brain. That spark gets translated through a computer into a quadrotor command ("turn right"). The command is then beamed to the quadrotor via WiFi.

[Koolblue13]

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-06/thought-controlled-drone-exists-and-everything-you-need-know-about-it

 

Researchers at the University of Minnesota today revealed a drone that can be controlled merely by thought, and that's not even the coolest thing about it. Published in the Journal of Neuro Engineering, the project has implications in everything from unmanned vehicles to paraplegic mobility.

The setup here is pretty basic, futuristic though it seems. The drone is a commercially available four-blade helicopter--the Parrot AR quadrotor--which is basically a drone hobbyist's Model T. To control it, the "pilot" wears a funny hat, the sensing end of an electroencephalogram (EEG). EEGs place an array of electrodes over a person's head, in a totally non-invasive way, then pick up on electrical activity in the brain. Clusters of activity, like thinking about making a fist with a right hand, generates a spark in a specific area of the brain. That spark gets translated through a computer into a quadrotor command ("turn right"). The command is then beamed to the quadrotor via WiFi.

I was just thinking that game controllers were to complicated.

[China]

Can't find the super yacht thread so I'll post this here:

 

 

They've really splashed out! Billionaire couple buy incredible £15million superyacht that can be controlled by an iPad

 

• The Adastra was designed by Sussex-based boat designer John Shuttleworth
• It has a dining area with panoramic views, fully functional kitchen and bathroom
• It can be controlled by the touch of an iPad from up to 50 metres away
• It was commissioned by a billionaire businessman who already owns two islands off Indonesia
• Adastra is 42.5 metres long, 16 metres wide and weighs 52
• tons

Click on the link for more

 

Looks like something Batman or Bruce Wayne would have.

Edited June 14, 2013 by China

[China]

[twa]

http://blog.chron.com/weather/2013/06/incredible-photo-of-a-waterspout-near-grand-isle-la/

[mcsluggo]

oh my.. that is ahelluva picture!

[China]

Cool picture, but frightening if you're the one standing there taking it.

[Koolblue13]

 

This is the Farm I'm moving onto so I can be the Chef. At 3:00 in you can see where I've been living, only the solar isn't working.

 

This is a very cool internet show, from Jimmy Buffets granddaughter (I think).

 

The dirty looking bar, is one of the bars I work at, the beach bar is the other. I've done some cool things in my life, but this is by far the coolest.

 

Take the time and watch this video when you have time. Life can be exceptional and you can live it any way you want. This is about my friend Nate and yes, the bananas are amazing.

[btfoom]

I thought this was pretty cool:

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57570865/act-of-sportsmanship-gives-texas-high-schooler-shot-at-glory/

 

(CBS News) EL PASO, Texas -- Coach Peter Morales of the Coronado High
School Thunderbirds in El Paso, Texas, makes no qualms about it: he has
a favorite on this team.

CBS News
 

Team manager Mitchell Marcus has a developmental disability,
but he far surpasses everyone here when it comes to love of the game.

 

"He's just an amazing person that our basketball team loves being around," Morales says.

Mitchell's mom, Amy, says he's always been that way.

 

"Mitchell always had a basketball, that was always what he wanted for his birthday," she says.

And because basketball is that important to him, on the last game of the regular season, the coach told Mitchell to suit up.

 

"I was very happy," Mitchell says of what it was like to put on the team's uniform.

Just wearing a jersey was enough for Mitchell, but what he didn't know --
what no one knew at the time -- was that the coach planned to play him
at the end, no matter what the score. <more PLUS video at link>

 

 

Warning - this video puts out dust and makes the room get a little blurry.

[thebluefood]

Not sure if I posted this already, but I absolutely love this video. Really captured the electricity surrounding Memorial Stadium and the City of Baltimore.

 

Say what you will about Baltimore (and God knows I've said my share) but they really seem to love their football up there.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChJWWaFtgFE

[Bang]

I know some folks in here who will like this. Awesome sound.

 

 

~Bang

[Jumbo]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/across-the-universe/2013/jul/17/sabre-rocket-engine-reaction-skylon

 

 

Sabre rocket engine could open up access to space as never before

A £60m pledge from the UK government puts Reaction Engines' Sabre rocket on course to change space exploration.

 

 

 

 

Imagine taking off from a runway like a normal aeroplane but flying so high and so fast that when you unclip your seatbelt, you float around the cabin. Look out of the windows: on one side is the inky blackness of deep space, while on the other is the electric blue of your home planet, Earth.

This is no joyride for a few brief minutes of space-tourism weightlessness. Instead you are three, five or even 10 times higher than those little hops. In front of you is your destination: a space station. Perhaps it is a hotel or a place of work. You are in low earth orbit – and you've got there in far less time than it takes for a transatlantic flight.

This is the promise of the spaceplane, and it took a step closer to reality yesterday. UK Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts confirmed the government's £60m investment in Reaction Engines Ltd.

Spaceplanes are what engineers call single-stage-to-orbit (if you really want to geek out, just use the abbreviation: SSTO). They have long been a dream because they would be fully reusable, taking off and landing from a traditional runway.

By building reusable spaceplanes, the cost of reaching orbit could be reduced to a twentieth current levels. That makes spaceplanes a game changer both for taking astronauts into space and for deploying satellites and space probes.