53903079
submission
Phoghat writes:
A new low-cost 3D printer developed by Michigan Technological University's Joshua Pearce and his team could add hammers to the list of items you can print at home. The detailed plans, software and firmware are all freely available and open-source, meaning anyone can use them to make their own metal 3D printer.
The work is described in "A Low-Cost, Open-Source Metal 3-D Printer," to be published Nov. 25 in IEEE Access
53407627
submission
Phoghat writes:
Evan Booth hacks together working weapons--like a shotgun, a grenade, and a crossbow--with purchases anyone can make after they go through security, to show that the TSA is more spectacle than real protection. And the FBI is taking notice.
53131473
submission
Phoghat writes:
IF you get enough batteries entangled, you become so arbitrarily close to the thermodynamic limit that you can consider the energy exchange ‘almost perfect’ (because, you can’t have a perfect energy exchange without violating thermodynamics).
There are flaws though: no one knows how to build such a battery using current technology. Another is that even if there were a way, the practicalities of building a real battery would likely introduce inefficiencies into the system, removing its perfection.
52053821
submission
Phoghat writes:
The guys at Glassdoor have compiled a list of the 25 tech companies with the best salaries for software engineers. Google and Facebook made the list, of course. So did Apple and Twitter. But the company at the very top is a bit of a surprise: networking gear maker Juniper Networks.
49543819
submission
Phoghat writes:
I'm of a "certain age" and as a child grew up watching shows like "Rocky Jones, Space Ranger and others popular at the dawn of the space age. They always showed rocket ships sitting on ther tails and blasting off, and landing, straight up. The shuttle went up that way but had to land like a plane, and anything else was considered impossible or impractical.
Now, the Space X rocket Grasshopper can not only do that, but has demonstrated sideways flight also.
48714637
submission
Phoghat writes:
Paul Elio has purchased a factory in Tennessee and will be producing the Elio three wheeled vehicle. Production is starting up, and the first cars will be on sale in Summer of 2014. The retail price is set at $6,800, the lowest priced car in the United States. It is reported to get 84 mpg, and will have an 8 gallon tank ( for a range of about 670 miles per tank, and have a top speed of over 100 mph. It seats 2, in a tandem arrangement, and will have space for groceries. Currently classed as a motorcycle, as it has 3 wheels in a pollywog arrangement, it will probably not require helmet use, because it is fully enclosed.
47086635
submission
Phoghat writes:
“We are here,” writes the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, “because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because comets struck the earth and wiped out dinosaurs, thereby giving mammals a chance not otherwise available.” Vonnegut’s son, the physician Mark Vonnegut, takes a more ethical slant, emphasizing our emotional and physical interconnectedness. “We are here to help each other get through this thing.” The poet W. H. Auden is only superficially similar: “We were put here on earth to help others. I’m not sure what others were put here for.”
