Malady579

Graphics by Rachael Dottle

Imagine if only one group of Americans cast their ballots this November. What would happen to the electoral map? We’ve conducted this kind of thought experiment before; it can help shed light on why the parties are hoping that certain groups — such as suburban women for Democrats, white working class voters for Republicans — will help them win seats in 2018.

The groups we’re focused on are women, men, nonwhite voters and white voters by education level. To estimate just how Republican or Democratic those groups are, we looked at generic ballot polls from October that have crosstabs³² and calculated how much a group leaned toward one party, on average. From there, we compared a group’s average margin to the margin from our national generic ballot tracker to figure out how many points to handicap a House district’s current polls-only margin³³ using the Lite version of our House forecast.³⁴

So let’s take a look at our first scenario to help explain what I mean. On average, women leaned 17 points more Democratic in October polls, but the generic ballot average leaned D+9, so women overall were 8 points to the left of the nation. So, say a district had a forecast vote share favoring the Republican candidate by 7 points. Under these conditions, an all-women electorate would elect the Democrat by 1 point. Now, shifts like this would not happen uniformly across the country — women in Wyoming are likely more conservative than women in Hawaii, and we’re not taking into account the specific demographics of any given district. But despite that, the results do help underscore just how far apart different parts of the electorate still are.

A women-only electorate would give Democrats a huge House majority: The adjusted vote share estimates suggest that women would elect 275 Democrats to just 160 Republicans, which is 44 more Democratic seats than the 231 projected Wednesday in the Lite version of our forecast. To put that in perspective, the last time either party won more than 270 seats was in 1978, when the Democrats won 278. But that was a less polarized era, and Democrats held a number of institutional and partisan advantages in the House. Since 1994 — sometimes seen as the starting point of our current political era — the Democrats’ 257-seat result in 2008 stands as the best mark for either party.

Men, on the other hand, were about 11 points more Republican than the country, and as such, they would elect a 249-to-186 Republican majority. But notice that the GOP seat total that men would secure is lower than the 275-seat Democratic majority that women would elect. This isn’t because men have shifted to the left but because the overall national environment is Democratic-leaning. If it were a Republican-leaning environment like in 2010, women might elect a more closely divided House, but men would likely elect an even larger GOP majority.

The 2016 presidential election saw a more pronounced cleavage among white voters based on their education levels. College-educated whites shifted toward the Democrats, and whites without a college degree moved further into the GOP camp. The generic ballot data found that college-educated whites were about 2 points to the left of the country. That might not sound like much of a Democratic advantage, but remember that the national environment was D+9 at the time of this analysis.

Under these conditions, white college voters would elect a 233-to-202 Democratic majority, which isn’t all that different from where the Lite forecast sat on Wednesday: a 231-to-204 Democratic majority. But remember, we’re just looking at a group’s estimated vote share; the model looks at much more to calculate its probabilities. If we were to look at just the difference in the estimated vote share in the Lite forecast, it would show a 219-to-216 Democratic edge, or 14 fewer Democratic seats than if only college-educated whites were to vote. This shows that there is a Democratic lean among college-educated whites, albeit a slight one.

If we look at white voters without a college degree, their party preference was even more pronounced than college-educated whites. They were 27 points more Republican than the nation as a whole. And as you can see in the map above, if only they were to vote, the country would be almost entirely red outside of big cities. Non-college whites would elect a 268-to-167 Republican majority, but the GOP majority might be even larger than that. Some heavily Democratic districts, particularly in the South, would probably elect Republicans even though those districts are blue on our map, and that’s because of a long legacy of racially polarized voting.³⁵ Whites without a college degree in a place like South Carolina’s 6th District, which is 57 percent African-American, would probably elect a Republican instead of Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn. After all, Trump won 70 percent of the white vote in South Carolina.

If only nonwhite Americans could cast ballots, they would elect a gigantic Democratic majority (the largest projected majority out of any group we looked at). While white voters on the whole are Republican-leaning (Trump won them by about 15 to 20 percentage points in 2016), nonwhite voters are strongly Democratic (Hillary Clinton won them by more than 50 points). African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Latinos all overwhelmingly vote Democratic, although there are exceptions.³⁶

We found that nonwhites leaned 33 points more Democratic than the national environment and their adjusted vote share would net a 388-to-47 Democratic majority. However, similar to what we saw in the scenario of whites without a college degree, the Democratic total is likely underestimated. The map suggests that some Southern districts would vote Republican, but again, because voting is so racially polarized in the South, it’s unlikely that these seats would elect a Republican if only nonwhites voted. For example, the Alabama 6th District — held by Republican Rep. Gary Palmer and still controlled by the GOP in this scenario — is 16 percent African-American, which is the largest minority group there. Given that about 90 percent of blacks in Alabama vote Democratic, it would probably be very hard for a Republican to actually win. Nonetheless, the overwhelming Democratic House majority in this scenario makes sense if we look at nonwhite voters as a whole and don’t drill into specific districts. But for all the talk of college-educated white voters boosting Democrats in 2018, nonwhite voters will also be vital to their chances — especially in diverse suburban districts, particularly in the Sun Belt.

If you’re wondering why many Democrats are talking about health care and many Republicans are doubling down on immigration, it’s with an eye toward the types of voters most likely to support them in November — in this case, women for Democrats and whites without a college degree for the GOP.

Unlike other arts, architecture is generally limited by practical matters, including what materials can do, how things stand up, and in most cases (but not so much this one) an array of challenging local building codes.

A firm in Mumbai, India called sP+a developed this vaulted brick library roof with a playful purpose in mind, allowing people to walk up and over it like a bridge to cross the school grounds it sits in the middle of — on a cool evening, the heat-absorbing bricks also create a cozy open-air reading area.

The idea is conceptually simple: the ground simply extends up and over the top. In most places, a railing would be required, if the steepness didn’t stop the design in its tracks, but not here.

“On our first visit to the site it was interesting to see geodesic structures built by an engineer for a few of the school buildings, we were somewhat encouraged by this to pursue a project that followed from a construction intelligence,” explains sP+a. “We hence parsed through several possible material configurations ranging from concrete shells to brick vaults for building this ‘architectural landscape’.”

“The design team became interested in the material efficiencies of the Catalan tile vault from the 16th century, its use by Spanish architect Guastavino in the early 19th century, and the details used in the work of uruguayan engineer and architect Eladio Dieste. to articulate a pure compression form for the library, sP+a used rhinoVAULT — a form-finding plug-in developed by the block research group at ETH zürich. consequently, the Maya Somaiya Library is the result of lessons learned from different time periods as well as geographic locations.”

MJ Carlson calls this photo from a 1980s computer science textbook "the most glorious stock photo of all time." She is correct.

When in India, do like the Indians do — at least that seems to be IKEA’s approach — which in this case means spinning up an array of small, nimble vehicles able to duck and weave through traffic on crowded and narrow streets.

The company’s first store to open in this country is staffed with some ordinary vehicles as well, but 20% of its fleet consists of electric rickshaws. Given that tens of thousands of shoppers showed up on the outlet’s first day, the drivers have been busy (not to mention the rest of the staff).

The electric vehicles are powered up by 4,000 solar chargers fitted to the roof of the store, which also supply energy for lighting and other uses indoors. IKEA aims to open an additional two dozen stores in India by 2025. The use of solar is part of a larger strategy, too, not limited to this country — over 90% of their stores globally use solar power, charging stores as well as vehicle fleets.

Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site.

The new 2018 Nissan Leaf might seem to be an enticing electric vehicle at first blush. It offers decent battery range and a low entry price. The base model is thousands less than the entry-level Chevrolet Bolt and Tesla Model 3, even before federal or state tax incentives.

But even though this redesign improves on the original, it offers little beyond an attractive price to distinguish it from its EV competitors.

The Leaf’s 40-kWh battery gives it a range of 140 miles, which should be enough for most commuters. But that’s far less than the Bolt and the Model 3. Shoppers may want to wait for the 2019 Leaf, which will offer a 60-kWh battery with a promised range of over 200 miles. 

Our Leaf delivered power smoothly when accelerating from a standstill, but it ran out of oomph at highway speeds.

The mushy handling doesn’t inspire driver confidence, and the soft suspension can bottom out, sending a nasty thump to the cabin.

We found the SL’s powered driver’s seat to be comfortable, helped by the adjustable lumbar support. The Leaf is missing a telescoping steering column to accommodate drivers of all sizes, and the center console rubs against the driver’s knee, which can be annoying.

Nissan’s optional ProPilot Assist combines adaptive cruise control with lane-centering. It’s not designed as a self-driving feature but can be a convenience in stop-and-go traffic. Forward-collision warning and automatic emergency braking are standard. 

Read the complete Nissan Leaf road test.

Editor’s Note: This article also appeared in the September 2018 issue of Consumer Reports magazine.

Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site.

Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright © 2018, Consumer Reports, Inc.

(YouTube link)

Pusic, Russia's most spoiled cat (previously at Neatorama), is fascinated with the new treadmill. He learns how to use it in only six days! It's an accomplishment, alright, but since he's conquered the learning process, he can go on to other things. The hooman can practice every day until he gets it right.   

In a complete surprise, LEGO has revealed the newest LEGO Wizarding World Harry Potter set with the Hogwarts Castle (71043). LEGO failed to provide the official images or press release beforehand and I just received the files right before I had to go to work so I’ll upload the rest of the images later today. As expected, it is a microscale set that stays pretty true to the design of the castle.

71043 Hogwarts Castle
Ages 16+. 6,020 pieces

US $399.99 – CA $499.99 – DE 399.99€ – UK £349.99 – FR 419.99€ – DK 3499DK
*Euro pricing varies by country. Please visit shop.LEGO.com for regional pricing.

Explore the magic of Hogwarts Castle!

Make the magic come alive at the LEGO® Harry Potter 71043 Hogwarts Castle! This highly detailed LEGO Harry Potter collectible has over 6,000 pieces and offers a rewarding build experience. It comes packed with highlights from the Harry Potter series, where you will discover towers, turrets, chambers, classrooms, creatures, the Whomping Willow and Hagrid´s hut, plus many more iconic features. And with 4 minifigures, 27 microfigures featuring students, professors and statues, plus 5 Dementors, this advanced building set makes the perfect Harry Potter gift.

• Includes 4 minifigures: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Salazar Slytherin and Rowena Ravenclaw, with a buildable minifigure display stand.
• Also features 27 microfigures: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Albus Dumbledore, Professor Snape, Professor McGonagall, Remus Lupin, Professor Dolores Umbridge, Argus Filch, Lord Voldemort, Bellatrix Lestrange, 3 students from each of the 4 houses, 2 chess pieces and the Architect of Hogwarts statue and 5 Dementors, plus Aragog the spider and the Basilisk figures, and a buildable Hungarian Horntail dragon.
• Features a buildable microscale model of Hogwarts Castle, hut of Hagrid, Whomping Willow tree and 5 boats.
• Hogwarts Castle features the Great Hall with buildable ‘stained glass windows’, house banners, benches, tables, flaming torches and moving staircases; potions classroom with racks of jar elements; Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom with assorted potion jars, gramophone and a closet containing a boggart; Chessboard Chamber with chess piece elements; Room of Requirement with assorted elements, including the Goblet of Fire and the vanishing cabinet; Chamber of Secrets with the Basilisk and Tom Riddle’s Diary; hidden Devils Snare room with vine elements; Gryffindor common room with fireplace and seating; Professor Dolores Umbridge’s office with desk, chair and pink furnishings; library with bookcase and desks; and Professor Dumbledore’s office with the Griffin statue entrance and Memory cabinet.
• Hagrid’s hut features Aragog the spider and buildable pumpkins.
• The Whomping Willow includes the buildable blue Flying Ford Anglia car in its spinning branches.
• Also includes 5 buildable boats.
• Take a seat in the Great Hall and feast with the Hogwarts professors and students!
• Sneak your way into the Chamber of Secrets through the secret entrance and face the Basilisk!
• Attend a Defence Against the Dark Arts class to learn how to protect yourself from dark magic!
• Climb the moving staircase!
• Study for your Ordinary Wizarding Level exams in the library.
• Accessory elements include the Sword of Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff´s cup, wands, potions, house banners, flames, a cauldron and 2 magnifying glasses.
• Microfigure accessories include 2 chess statues and the Architect of Hogwarts statue.
• Hogwarts Castle measures over 22” (58cm) high, 27” (69cm) wide and 16” (43cm) deep.

Available directly from LEGO Stores & shop.lego.com from
15th August, 2018

The post LEGO Wizarding World Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle (71043) Revealed appeared first on The Brick Fan.

The LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle (71043) was just announced yesterday morning and it’ll be available on August 15 for VIP members and September 1 for the general public. I’ve been told by a source that LEGO Stores may be taking pre-orders for this set as there was a sign in the front stating “Ask us about how to Pre-Order our new Exclusive.” I was also told that the deposit for it was $39.99. I’m not sure if all LEGO Stores are doing pre-orders but it’s interesting to see LEGO trying something new for their exclusive sets as there will be a high demand for the Hogwarts Castle when it comes out in a few short weeks. I suggest contact your store to see if they are indeed taking pre-orders for it. I haven’t been down to my store yet to check but if someone did do it, let us know in the comments.

If you didn’t see the announcement post, Hogwarts Castle (71043) will become the second largest ever LEGO set coming in at 6,020 pieces and it will retail for $399.99. Head over to the link above to see the press release as well as a ton of images that LEGO has sent over.

The post LEGO Stores Taking Pre-Orders for LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle (71043)? appeared first on The Brick Fan.

An optical illusion mural affixed to the facade of a medieval fortress in France is no less controversial for its temporary nature, even though the piece is not quite what it seems at first glance. Those aren’t swaths of paint defacing the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Carcassonne, Southern France – they’re ribbons of thin aluminum, which can be easily removed when the installation is taken down in September.

‘Concentric Eccentric’ by Felice Varini continues the artist’s tradition of creating large-scale perspectival pieces in urban environments, and it’s all the more stunning for the contrast it creates.

Fifteen yellow circles radiate out from the entrance to the fortress, drawing in the many tourists who flock to Carcassonne for its picturesque scenery and wine. The installation celebrates the 20-year anniversary of the monument’s UNESCO designation. While the design echoes much of Varini’s past work, it also complements the design of the fortress itself, which consists of two concentric outer walls, 53 towers and barbicans (fortified entrances) to prevent attacks during sieges, the first known use of the technique.

While some might find ’Concentric Eccentric’ a fun addition to the ancient city, some locals weren’t exactly thrilled, calling for the removal of the “filthy” artwork. Some even cried that the work was “ruining our lives.” Some said they welcomed the controversy because it proves that they’re “deeply attached to their heritage.”

To create the mural, local art students projected the circles onto the stone surfaces at night and applied the aluminum strips. France’s Centre Des Monuments Nationaux gives us a look at how this process was carried out in a series of behind-the-scenes photographs viewable on its website.

Photos by André Morin

Lions ate at least two rhinoceros poachers trespassing on a game preserve in Kenton-on-Sea, South Africa. Along with the poachers' remains, rangers found a high-powered rifle and axe.

"They strayed into a pride of lions - it's a big pride so they didn't have too much time," Sibuya reserve owner Nick Fox was quoted as saying. "We're not sure how many there were - there's not much left of them."

More in this press release from the Sibuya Game Reserve.

(BBC)

A new housing project in Beirut uses flexible wall dividers in an unconventional way, allowing huge steel panels to slide into and out of the structure itself, animating the facade while partitioning space on demand.

Designed by Fouad Samara Architects, these duplex ‘Modulofts’ units in the capital of Lebanon were modeled after a combination of classic open urban lofts and cozy contemporary homes, hence the spatial flexibility.

Each unit has a pair of rooms overlooking a main living and dining area which can be opened up by day, the steel partitions serving as shades, and closed at night for privacy, or reconfigured for dinners and parties.

The adaptable interior can be configured in sixteen different ways, explain the architects, via a combination of four sliding walls that divide the bedrooms as well as separate living and dining, study and television spaces on the lower level.

Divisions aren’t exclusively binary, either — partitions can be slid out partway to create essentially infinite variations. Raw slate is designed to reference traditional Lebanese homes, and steel to conjure NYC loft aesthetics.

To visitors, architectural ruins are simply a modern reality, and their imagined reconstruction is left to descriptive plaques, statics images and the human imagination, but this series of renderings dynamically recreates each of seven different famous sites, brick by brick and column by column.

The collection includes the Temple of Luxor in Egypt, The Temple of Jupiter in Pompeii, Hadrian’s Wall in England, the Temple of Largo Argentina in Rome, Italy, the Parthenon in Athens, Greece, as well as the Pyramid of the Sun and the Nohoch Mul Pyramid in Mexico.

In some cases, there is barely anything left to extrapolate from, but by outlining, framing and filling in each structure, the relationship of what remains and what once was can be seen side-by-side.

Also highlighted is the order of decay, showing which materials and structural components were most durable and which ones were subjected to decay and destruction.

Of course, they could be physically restored as well, but questions of archeological ethics and historical truth make this a difficult proposition — and there is something to be said for the aesthetic of a ruin, particularly those that have shaped modern architecture.

Take the bleached-white columns of ancient Roman and Greek cathedrals — these informed an entire area of Neo-Classical and Greek Revival design, but it is based on the ruins having lost their color over time. In reality, the buildings on which these styles are based were once highly decorated, so it was the ruined versions, not the originals, that inspired places like American capital buildings of today.

Neomam created this series for Expedia.  The creative contractors behind the labor-intensive renderings are Maja Wroska and her husband Przemek Sobiecki, who works as This Is Render.

A great potential next-level application for this strategy would also be to add in an augmented reality component, allowing visitors to use their mobile devices to see these reconstructions overlaid on actual ruins in realtime.

Along those lines: a pane of glass overlaid with a simple line drawing brings crumbling ruins to life at one of Austria’s most famous historical sites, reanimating the partial building near the Open Air Museum Petronell. When a viewer lines up the illustration with the structure, known as Heidentor (Heathen’s Gate), the image completes itself in a compelling yet entirely low-tech fashion.

I've lived in British Columbia and Nova Scotia. This is, hands down, the best story I've ever read that involves both coasts.

According to The Times Colonist, 17 years ago, Nick Burchill, a naval reservist from Nova Scotia, was in Victoria, British Columbia for a work-related conference. He chose to stay at the Fairmont Empress Hotel: a high-falootin' luxury joint that's been a fixture on the city's downtown waterfront for decades. When Burchill came from the east coast, he knew that he'd be meeting with friends from the navy when time allowed for it. He brought them a gift: Chris Brothers Pepperoni sticks: a much-loved Nova Scotian delicacy. Not wanting anyone to feel left out, he brought, well, a lot. To keep the meat cool and edible until he could hand it over to his pals, Burchill cracked the window in his hotel room and laid the pepperoni out on the windowsill. He figured that the cool spring air would be enough to refrigerate the food. What happened next is the stuff of legend:

From the Times Colonist:

He spread the packages of pepperoni out on a table and along the window sill, then went for a leisurely four or five hour walk.

“I remember walking down the long hall and opening the door to my room to find an entire flock of seagulls in my room,” Burchill wrote. “I didn’t have time to count, but there must have been 40 of them and they had been in my room, eating pepperoni for a long time.”

Burchill discovered that spicy pepperoni does not agree with a seagull’s digestive system. The room was covered in guano.

Burchill’s unexpected entry startled the birds.

The birds, losing their shit over their being a human in the room, began to literally lose their shit, everywhere they flew in the room, spreading poop over everything. As they took to the air, the seagulls knocked over lamps, decorations and anything else that wasn't bolted down. As Burchill put it, the resulting chaos was "...a tornado of seagull excrement, feathers, pepperoni chunks and fairly large birds whipping around the room." Fighting his way through the flock, Burchill managed to open the rest of the windows in his suite so that the birds could escape. As one of the birds tried to re-enter the room in search of more food, Burchill threw his shoe at it. The shoe ended up on the front lawn of the hotel, narrowly missing a group of vistors.

Burchill has been, understandably, banned from staying at the Empress for the past 17 years. This past week, his lifetime ban was lifted by the hotel's management after he wrote them a passionate letter explaining his part in the pepperoni-and-seagull related disaster.

That Burchill included a pound of Chris Brothers pepperoni with the letter as a peace offering may have had something to do with it too.

Image via pixabay, courtesy of cocoparisienne

Color, shape, texture and structure form the basis for these cairns, mandalas, spiral and hexagons, set against scenic backdrops where the materials were found.

In a tradition often traced back to Andy Goldsworthy, artist James Brunt makes “creates elaborate ephemeral artworks using the natural materials he finds in forests, parks, and beaches near his home in Yorkshire, England,” reports Colossal.

By design and necessity, each of the works is inherently temporary, destined to follow and entropic path back to chaos once left to the forces of nature.

And while all of these works take time, the stacked stone cairns are particularly impressive — and probably the first to fall back apart when left alone.

But Brunt photographs each piece after completion, creating a record that will outlast the work, and sells prints as well.

As studies proving the strength and fire-resistance of timber construction loosen building codes around the globe, a new class of towers emerges, each of them angling to set records for the world’s tallest wooden buildings. In fact, so many towering timber creations are planned, there’s no telling which ones will actually manage to score the title before another snatches the crown. Here are some of the contenders.

W350 Project: 1,148-Foot Timber Tower for Tokyo by Nikken Sekkei

Architects Nikken Sekkei and Japanese companity Sumitomo Forestry Co. announce their plans to rise triumphant over every other tall timber tower currently in development with ‘Project 350,’ the world’s first supertall wooden skyscraper. At 1,148 feet tall, it soars significantly over the pinnacles of all other timber tower proposals. The mixed-use development would call for more than 6.5 million cubic feet of wood and cost about $5.6 billion USD. It features a 9:1 ration of wood to steel to meet Tokyo’s stringent seismic requirements.

Tree Tower Toronto by Penda

Taking inspiration from Moshe Safdie’s iconic Habitat 67, also located in Toronto, ‘Tree Tower Toronto’ by architecture firm Penda and wood consultants from CLT-brand Tmber is an 18-story timber-frame skyscraper that will reach a height of about 203 feet. The majority of the tower will contain residential units, with the rest dedicated to public spaces.

“Our cities are an assembly of steel, concrete and glass,” says Chris Precht, partner at Penda. “If you walk through the city and suddenly see a tower made of wood and plants, it will create an interesting contrast. The warm, natural appearance of wood and the plants growing on its facade bring the building to life and that could be a model for environmental friendly developments and sustainable extensions of our urban landscape.”

Mjøstårnet in Norway by Moelvin Limtre

Due to be completed in March 2019, Mjøstårnet by Moelvin Limtre is an 18-story high rise planned for a small Norway town that will be made primarily of local spruce. Though other planned towers are undeniably much taller, it looks like this one will be among the highest real-world examples to emerge in the next couple years. It will include apartments, offices, common areas, a restaurant, a hotel and a swimming hall. The developers are giving it a wide base so its total height could be raised in the future.

Terrace House in Vancouver by Shigeru Ban Architects

Planned for Vancouver’s Coal Harbour neighborhood alongside the landmark Evergreen building by Arthur Erickson, ‘Terrace House’ by famed Japanese architect Shigeru Ban is set to be the world’s tallest hybrid timber building. The design for the 232-foot-tall luxury residence tower complements that of its neighbor, and will feature an outer frame of timber, a glass top and a concrete and steel core.

Brock Commons: The World’s Tallest Timber Structured Building, Vancouver

For all of these towering timber proposals, we rarely see any already completed. Brock Commons in Vancouver by Acton Ostry Architects Inc. gives us an idea of what these structures will look like. Created as a student residence building at the University of British Columbia, the 173-foot building is made primarily of wood but its interiors are lined with a drywall and concrete envelope to comply with current fire safety codes.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Wood You Believe It 10 Ultra Tall Timber Towers Compete For World Records

When we think of ancient persons carefully laying the foundations of stone monuments, or hard at work writing out historical tomes, it’s a bit hard to imagine them brushing away an interrupting cat or dog in frustration, much as we still do today.

But PhD researcher Paul Cooper became fascinated with these everyday moments, frozen in time, as he began to find more and more examples — like 4,000-year-old mud bricks, for instance, “stamped with the name and titles of the Sumerian king Ur-Nammu (reigned 2047-2030 BCE) and left out to dry.”

And while dogs may be less prone to hop on on tables, Cooper has found plenty of examples of cats knocking over ink and bounding across work surfaces to leave their mark, or even outright peeing on pages. The scribe of one ancient volume wrote in his text: “Here is nothing missing, but a cat urinated on this during a certain night. Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book … because of it many others did too. And beware not to leave open books at night where cats can come.”

Left outside to dry, masonry materials often show signs of accidental intervention. One can find paw prints on clay tablets from the Ziggurat of Ur (21st century BCE), for example, and ancient Roman tiles (from around 0 CE) found in England, left by various species wild or domestic, including dogs, goats and sheep.

A dish-washing machine is often the first thing to go when space needs saving in a tiny home, small condo or studio apartment, but this little invention aims to provide a better option for more average-sized households.

Developed by Heatworks, Tetra is a tankless washer aimed at one-to-two-person homes that can help save 1,500 gallons of water annually (as compared to hand-washing dishes). It’s about the same dimensions as a microwave and requires no plumbing hookup, making it nice and portable — it can be set on counters, stored in cabinets or tucked under islands. Water is poured in by hand and a single cycle takes just a few minutes.

Detergent demands are also reduced and the process of adding them simplified, with a built-in tank that stores fluid for a few dozen rounds at a time. And as much for fun as anything: the gadget is see-through, so you can watch the cleaning process.

The device is small, but made to hold up to 10 plates and glasses (or: about two place settings, compared to the 12 or so of a normal-sized washer for bigger houses). It also has various internal bases that can be swapped out depending on the needs of a different user (or particular wash cycle). It costs around $300.

From the founder: “Our research indicates that although the average household is comprised of 2.58 people, the modern dishwasher holds place settings for 13 or more. This makes people believe that they either need to hand-wash their few dirty dishes — which wastes 10 times more water than using a dishwasher — or wait for a fill load to run a cycle. With Tetra, we hope to change people’s mindset.”

police were called when people began fighting and pushing one another. "They are like animals. A woman had her hair pulled, an elderly lady took a box on her head, another had a bloody hand," one customer told French media. A member of staff at one Intermarché shop in central France told the regional newspaper Le Progrès: "We were trying to get in between the customers but they were pushing us."

A series of stacked tree-like supports seem to abstract the nature in this Japanese chapel, bringing a small geometric forest inside this otherwise minimalist space to serve a contemporary congregation.

Designed by architects of Momoeda Yo, the square pillars were made using traditional Japanese woodworking methods. They stack on top of each other, forming different forest layers and growing smaller as they go up — a fractal-style repeating pattern.

The construction strategy not only supports a ceiling high above, but it also opens up more space for occupation down below. A series of thin, white-painted metal rods are used for structural stabilization (tension) while the wooden members work to hold things up (compression).

The side loads are carried by walls while the columns support roof loads of up to 25 tons. The whole architectural creation reads a bit like a structural drawing exercise, in which loads trace are downward and become larger as they join up and head toward the floor, much like the columns do in this case.

The designer says they were inspired in part by a combination of historic church styles and local traditions: “In nagasaki, there is the oldest wooden gothic chapel in japan known as ‘ohura-tenshudou’,’ he says ‘This chapel is not only a famous tourist point, but a place loved and cared for by the townsfolk. We tried to design the building as a new gothic style chapel, by using Japanese wooden system.”

When you don't have a million LEGO bricks, and you can't afford the official Millennium Falcon kit, you do with what you have. The_Librarian_NULL did quite a great job with limited resources, just like Han Solo would! If you don't even have that many LEGO bricks, you can get a tiny kit.

It resembles a small ship from Jay’s Brick Blog Star Wars Advent Calendar, but it's not the same, just a coincidence.

While the tiny ship is cute, it's not the only make-do. Redditor funkblast had plenty of LEGO bricks, but not the cash needed for the kit, so he made the multicolored Millennium Falcon above some time ago. You can see more of it in an album here.  

But if you're into the tiny Star Wars ships, you might be able to squeeze out enough bricks for a minimal Imperial Battle Cruiser and a TIE fighter, by deu5ex. 

In 2010, The Royal Society featured the "Desiderata" (previously) of Robert "Boyle's Law" Boyle, a list of dozens of scientific discoverie and breakthroughs that Boyle hoped would be discovered by scientists.

* The Prolongation of Life.

* The Recovery of Youth, or at least some of the Marks of it, as new Teeth, new Hair colour’d as in youth.

* The Art of Flying.

* The Art of Continuing long under water, and exercising functions freely there.

* The Cure of Wounds at a Distance.

* The Cure of Diseases at a distance or at least by Transplantation.

* The Attaining Gigantick Dimensions.

* The Emulating of Fish without Engines by Custome and Education only.

* The Acceleration of the Production of things out of Seed.

* The Transmutation of Metalls.

* The makeing of Glass Malleable.

* The Transmutation of Species in Mineralls, Animals, and Vegetables.

* The Liquid Alkaest and Other dissolving Menstruums.

* The making of Parabolicall and Hyperbolicall Glasses.

* The making Armor light and extremely hard.

* The practicable and certain way of finding Longitudes.

* The use of Pendulums at Sea and in Journeys, and the Application of it to watches.

* Potent Druggs to alter or Exalt Imagination, Waking, Memory, and other functions, and appease pain, procure innocent sleep, harmless dreams, etc.

* A Ship to saile with All Winds, and A Ship not to be Sunk.

* Freedom from Necessity of much Sleeping exemplify’d by the Operations of Tea and what happens in Mad-Men.

* Pleasing Dreams and physicall Exercises exemplify’d by the Egyptian Electuary and by the Fungus mentioned by the French Author.

* Great Strength and Agility of Body exemplify’d by that of Frantick Epileptick and Hystericall persons.

* A perpetuall Light.

* Varnishes perfumable by Rubbing.

What scientists want: Robert Boyle’s to-do list [The Repository/Royal Society Archives]

(via Beyond the Beyond)

If you have ever opened a side door to see the lines of a parking space, or asked a passenger to get out and guide you in, you may be wondering where this simple solution has been for all your years of urban driving.

In some cases, like parallel street parking, it would be hard to implement. But in open lots or interior garages — anywhere with a wall, fence, guardrail or space for posts — it is just too obvious and easy not to do, yet too few places realize the opportunity.

In areas where it snows, these lines do a lot more than just help guide people into their final parking position — buried under fresh powder, they can represent the only way to keep a lot from devolving into a state of anarchy.

In a culture without tipping, one Japanese waiter began to realize that customers were expressing their gratitude in a subtle (and in some cases even unintentional) way, by folding the sleeves in which their chopsticks came wrapped.

In 2012, Yuki Tatsumi began to collect these into a set he would come to display and call Japanese Tip. He started at the establishment in which he worked, then branched out to other restaurants around Japan to gather over 10,000 examples of all kinds.

Finally, half a decade later, he staged an exhibition of his collection in Tokyo. The variety is remarkable, from complex origami-style works to shredded and otherwise deformed sleeves.

The results show various degrees of conscious and subconscious effort by patrons. Meanwhile, the variety of materials, colors and designs from different sleeves also lends complexity to the collection.

“Japanese Tip is a project between restaurants and customers,” says Tatsumi of the project, “to communicate the ‘appreciation for food’ and ‘appreciation of the service’ by using the most common material used at any Japanese restaurant.