Watercone
"A Product that enables anyone, in a most simple fashion, an independent, cheap and mobile solar Potable Water generation from sea water or brackish water on the base of condensation by solar still."
- Pour salty / brackish Water into pan. Then float the Watercone® on top. The black pan absorbs the sunlight and heats up the water to support evaporation..
- The evaporated Water condensates in the form of droplets on the inner wall of the cone. These droplets trickle down the inner wall into a circular trough at the inner base of the cone.
- By unscrewing the cap at the tip of the cone and turning the cone upside down, one can empty the potable Water gathered in the trough directly into a drinking device.
You can make up to 1.5 litres of water with one Watercone.
Claude Lelouch video: Ferrari through Paris @ 140 mph
"On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur.
No streets were closed, [because] Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.
The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets."
Death by Caffeine
How much of your favorite energy drink or soda would it take to kill you? Take this quick test and find out
Canon 350D (Rebel XT) vs. Canon 400D (Rebel XTi)
- Price: approx. $500.00 vs. approx. $700 (on 20-July-07)
- Weight: 485g vs. 510g
- Heavier - but a very insignificant increase
- Pixel differences - 8mp vs. 10mp
- 3456 x 2304 vs. 3888 x 2592
- 11.52 X 7.68 inches at 300dpi vs. 12.96 X 8.64 inches at 300dpi
- Verdict: In my personal opinion, this is a insignificant upgrade.
- Autofocus points: 7 points vs. 9 points
- Might be useful to some. However, I still focus on the middle point and re-compose
- Burst mode differences - 14 vs. 27 continuous JPEG shots (larger buffer size)
- Still 3fps though
- I feel this is a significant improvement, especially useful when capturing RAW in burst mode - Depends on how often you would do this though.
- Bigger LCD: 1.8" vs. 2.5"
- Nice upgrade - Might be more useful for detecting soft/blurry images before transferring them to PC. I would be content with the 1.8" screen though.
- Noise levels:
- Improved at lower ISO's for 400D (e.g ISO 100), however, noiser at 1600 than 350D
- Some mixed reports about this
- Both still better than Nikon D200, which was quite surprising (or not so surprising ;-).
- Some Firmware changes:
- Auto rotation with three options (not recorded, record don't rotate, record and rotate)
- Verdict: I still post-process all my photos anyway - so this wouldn't be very important to me.
- Histogram available as brightness (Luminance) or RGB (Red, Green, Blue)
- Might be useful
- Sensor cleaning feature:
- Questionable effectiveness
- Some reports show that 400D is more prone to dust than 350D
- Can get a giotto rocket blaster for as little as $8 - $15
- Overall verdict: I would wait till next upgrade
Biodegradable ‘plastic’ bottles
It's about time.
Biodegradable "plastic" bottles. This is called Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) - made from Corn. The bottle will begin to break down when the temperature reaches 50°C and 95% relative humidity and takes about 6 weeks to decompose.
LSD’s effect on artist
http://analogik.com/acid_trip/acid_trip.html
"These 9 drawings were done by an artist under the influence of LSD -- part of a test conducted by the US government during it's dalliance with psychotomimetic drugs in the late 1950's. The artist was given a dose of LSD 25 and free access to an activity box full of crayons and pencils."
LSD is a psychedelic drug which alters the thought processes of the brain and is part of a larger class of drugs known as hallucinogens. LSD's effects last for about 8 to 12 hours on average.