Malady579

Chris McVeigh of Halifax, Nova Scotia builds all kinds of cool things with LEGO. Recently, he's been creating kits that showcase obsolete office technology. This particular kit, which he calls "My Old Desktop: DOS Edition 2.0," features a few reminders of the 1980s office, including a rotary-dial desk phone and a beige desk computer that can be partially fed one of the miniature 5.25" floppy disk replicas.

If this is your kind of thing, be sure to take a look at all of his retro LEGO kits. He's even got a little tiny "Atari" console.

(Colossal)

These images illustrate women's fashions for every year from 1784 to 1970. Mefite Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane gives us a running commentary to go along with the pictures.  

1784 - 1821: From kinda floofy to more streamlined.
1822 - 1850: Gettin' floofier.
1850 - 1866: BRACE FOR MAXIMUM FLOOF
1867 - 1874: Much less floofy, but with a shelf at the small of the back
1875 - 1882: OK, lose the shelf
1883 - 1887: What the hell, bring the shelf back
1888 - 1896: The Incredible Growing Shoulder Pads
1897 - 1910: Raise High The Waistline
1911 - 1929: How about we raise the hem slowly off the floor?
1930 - 1935: Nah, drop it again.
1936 - 1946: Wait bring it up again.
1947 - 1953: Add pleats, too.
1954 - 1957: You know what? Floof it again.
1958 - 1959: On second thought, no.
1960: Actually yes.
1961 - 1964: Yeah lose the floof. But bring the hem up.
1965 - 1969: Bring it up ever higher, until we have a tunic.
1970: BOOM, PANTS! There, we're done here.

No matter what era you lived in, the latest fashions tended to be set in motion by a class of celebrity trendsetters, notably royalty, later followed by wealthy high society, and eventually movie and TV stars.  Women's fashions went through a paradigm shift in the early 20th century, when "freedom of movement" took hold and never again died out. Thanks goodness for that. -via Metafilter  

Archaeologists excavating a Hittite city on the border of Turkey and Syria found a broken jug that, upon restoration, revealed a smiley face. At 3,700-years-old, it could be the oldest smiley face drawing ever found. From Smithsonian:

According to ​Zuhal Uzundere Kocalar​ at Turkey's state-run news service, the Anadolu Agency, the researchers did not notice the smiley face until restorers put the fragments of the round, off-white jug with a small handle and short neck back together.

“We have found a variety of cubes and urns. The most interesting of them is a pot dating back to 1700 BC that features an image of a 'smile' on it,” Nicolo Marchetti, an archaeology professor at the University of Bologno in Italy, tells Kocalar. “The pot was used for drinking sherbet [sweet drink]. Most probably, [this depicts] the oldest smile of the world.”

(Image Link)

Cats like to hang outside as much as possible, but letting them go out whenever they want can expose them to many dangers and potentially shorten their life span.

Which is why cat owners are building enclosed "catios" so their furry family members can enjoy the fresh air and sunshine with less risk of curiosity killing the cat.

(Image Link)

Catios look pretty cool too, so you won't end up looking like a crazy cat person when you convert your patio or install one on the side of your home.

And your cat will thank you for the opportunity to bask in the sun and see the birds up close inside a space that's safe from predators and dangerous people.

(Image Link)

See more from Cat Owners Everywhere Are Building 'Catios' In Their Backyard here

Poet Brian Bilston wrote this delightful poem above describing, and embodying, the Fibonacci sequence in which each every number after the first two in a series is the sum of the preceding two numbers. (via @pickover)

These sleek, diminutive flamethrowers cost between $13 and $30 and are for sale online. Any person who makes an untoward advance at a potential victim is likely to have second thoughts after experiencing the device's 3,300 degree Fahrenheit, 20-inch jet of flame. From The Telegraph:

[O]ne vendor boasted to local media how they can "scald or even disfigure an attacker.”

Another vendor told The Beijing Youth Daily they “can leave a permanent scar, but are a legal, non-lethal tool. Not a weapon.” Chinese police have warned that the devices are against the law, but they were still being sold on the Chinese Internet on Tuesday.

"Flames and the super high temperatures are enough to scare the bad guys away,” said one website, which added that the flames can last for 30 minutes. "At that crucial moment, you could also become an anti-terror SWAT,” said another.

Fortunately, bad people don't know about these.

Thanks, Matthew!

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

Requiring a single tool and very little power, these self-deploying structures are ready for use in minutes, expanding themselves to multiple times their compact travel size.

Based in the United Kingdom, Ten Fold Engineering’s structures can be packed onto ordinary trucks, conforming to road-worthy dimensions for maximum flexibility.

The company boasts myriad possible uses, from medical clinics and mobile hotels to on-demand offices and private retreats — the sale pitch in the video above is a bit blandly corporate, but the mechanics of the thing unfolding are gorgeous.

Their custom pin-jointed linkages help them open and close easily with minimal energy requirements and using just a single (presumably sonic) screwdriver. They are modular and can be customized with various arrangements of floors, doors, windows and dividers — they can even be shipped with furniture inside.

The company is also experimenting with designs for multi-story structures as well as stackable variants, opening up a whole world of possibilities.

Even the designs show an appealing variety of aesthetic possibilities, including dynamic modern looks and spacious expanding ceilings that go a step beyond typical prefab home possibilities.

Thanks to their variable footings, the units can be put up on uneven or sloped ground, stabilizing to sit flat from the perspective of the occupant.

The buildings can go off the grid but also feature optional attachments for solar panels and batteries, presenting an array of potential power possibilities.

At around 700 square feet and $130,000 the base models aren’t cheap, but for someone with the urge to roam they make a pretty stylish and comfortable option for a semi-mobile home.

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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

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A fellow traveling from Melbourne to Perth, Australia checked a single can of Emu Export lager. He was surprised when it popped out on the the conveyor belt at baggage claim.

“My mate works at the airport and we hatched the plan as a laugh — I half didn’t expect it to come out the other end,” he said.

“But when it did it was sent out well in front of all the other luggage, so the baggage handlers obviously appreciated it.”

(News.com.au)

On my first day at Michigan State University in 1992, a fellow student called me a "liberal" and I was shocked: as a Canadian who was often to the left of the social-democratic New Democratic Party, I identified "liberal" with the Liberal Party, a centre-right political party that had once imposed martial law in Canada. (more…)

[ By SA Rogers in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

A 13-foot-tall high-tech green wall encased in a concrete frame is capable of cleaning as much polluted air as an entire forest, combining the Internet of Things and biotechnology to collect data while it improves the urban environment. Created by Green City Solutions, the ‘tree’ isn’t really a tree at all, but rather a moss culture that removes dust, nitrogen dioxide and ozone gases from the air while also collecting weather data, providing electricity via solar panels and filtering its own rainwater.

Wifi sensors measure factors like temperature, water quality and soil humidity that help each CityTree self-regulate while also allowing the creators to measure how efficient it is at its job. Over a period of a year, each one can remove up to 240 metric tons of climate change-inducing CO2 from the air. Each one features a display for information or advertising. It also features optional benches on either side, and can be vandalism-proofed and customized according to a city or company’s needs. Green City Solutions takes care of the maintenance, and there’s a slim-line version measuring one square meter for smaller spaces.

Asia’s first CityTree went up in Hong Kong last summer, and around 20 others have been installed in cities like Oslo, Paris and Brussels. More are planned, but red tape tends to get in the way, stalling its growth to additional cities. The German-based company plans to introduce the CityTree to lower-income countries like India as well. While it’s definitely not enough to combat urban air pollution on its own, it’s an interesting element to integrate into a more comprehensive strategy.

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[ By SA Rogers in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

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[ By SA Rogers in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

It sounded kind of far away when announced in 2013, but German renewable energy firm Ubitricity’s plan to convert street lamps to electric vehicle chargers is now underway in London, making it easy to plug in just about anywhere in the Hounslow borough of the city. Owners of electric vehicles simply order a custom charging cable featuring a built-in electricity meter so they can take advantage of the discreet power outlets built right into the lamp posts as well as standard electrical outlets.

You might be wondering what’s to stop random passersby from plugging whatever they feel like into the outlets. The answer is that little box, which communicates with the power company to activate charging from the light pole. The lights themselves were converted to LEDs to draw less power, making more available for other purposes.

The meter allows for remote billing, monitoring your usage and reimbursing the person or company the outlet belongs to, making it easier (and more polite) to juice up your vehicle whenever and wherever needed. You can keep track of how much power you’re drawing, and how much it costs, on a smartphone app. Ubitricity believes this setup will give potential electric car owners more confidence in their ability to take their vehicles on the road for longer trips.

The integration with existing city infrastructure also makes sense, especially in areas where there’s no room for permanent charging stations. The lamp posts are already there, and there’s already power running through them, so adding an outlet makes it possible to simply pull over to the side of the road to charge. Electric car owners in the area can request that outlets are added to lamp posts near their homes.

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[ By SA Rogers in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

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[ By SA Rogers in Drawing & Digital. ]

Hyperloop transit is about to make the world a whole lot smaller, and with it could come a system of luxurious private pods outfitted like high-end hotel rooms so you can zoom from one city to the next in unprecedented comfort. While it might seem like there’s little need for such cush train cars when your trip takes less time than ever, the Hyperloop Hotel aims to solve the problem of where you’re going to stay while traveling.

Developed by Radical Innovation Award winner Brendan Siebrecht, the Hyperloop Hotel consists of shipping containers that double as traveling guest suites, able to ‘dock’ themselves at any of 13 different hotel stations in cities like Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Austin and New York City. While the nightly fee hasn’t been set yet, Siebrecht reveals that for a fee of $1,200, guests can even visit multiple cities in a single day. That’s right, you could maintain a comfy home base while having breakfast on the East Coast, lunch in the South and dinner on the West Coast.

It might sound too futuristic to be real, but Hyperloop One is already being tested in Las Vegas and could be carrying passengers by the year 2020, so it’s actually not that far away, assuming the technology stays on track (pun intended.) But the hotels definitely wouldn’t come cheap – it would cost about $10 million to build each one. The pods themselves feature a bedroom, office, bathroom and living room, with a glazed wall that can be covered while you’re in motion.

“I believe the Hyperloop One is the next big innovation in transportation in the United States and possibly the world,” Siebrecht told Business Insider. “I wanted to explore ways in which this technology could transform the overall travel experience and hospitality.”

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[ By SA Rogers in Drawing & Digital. ]

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This will make your life easier. I SWEAR.

Fandom Jesus is no match for canon Jesus, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex is no match for fandom Noah in this meticulously faithful retelling of the Bible's greatest ark-builder. (more…)

The Nation reports that people who try to steal yard signs for Democratic Congress candidate Jon Ossoff find themselves being covered in a mixture of glitter and vaseline. The sign-takers started to burn the signs instead, so the sign-owners attached American flags to the signs.

Then there’s the women-led Pave It Blue, which is more Yippie than yuppie (though not many are old enough to know what that means). They describe themselves as “ninjas.” They dress up like dinosours and make Ossoff signs that “glitter bomb” (the signs are bordered in Vaseline with clear glitter, so people who attempt to remove them find themselves coated in Vaseline and glitter). It’s a brilliantly defensive move: Sign removal has been a problem in this traditionally red district. And when their Ossoff signs began being set on fire, they started attaching American flags to them, since conservatives believe flag-burning should be illegal.

As one Twitter user commented: "The flag things reminds me of Fumi-e. To keep Christians out of Japan, people disembarking ships would have to step on religious images."

Image: frankieleon

It's been called a Camping Chair, a Bog Chair, an X-Chair, a Stargazer Chair, a Viking Chair, an African Chair, but "no one can agree on where the design first came from or what it ought be called," says Rain Noe. In her article for Core 77 she looks at the many variations of this simple flat pack chair.

Steve Ramsey shows how to make one: https://youtu.be/nQ0MaAJgLxo

Artificial intelligence beat the world's Go master. It won Jeopardy, and defeated chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov. But China's college entrance exam in math is a different kettle of fish. Even after three years of prep, human Chinese won hands down.

The AI contest was carried out by Chengdu Zhunxingyunxue Technology under China's Ministry of Science and Technology, reports Futurism. CZT used a machine called AI-Maths to take the mathematics section of the g rueling, two-day Gaokao , as China's college entrance exam is called. In two tries, AI-Maths scored 105 and 100 points, respectively. The average for top Chinese scorers _ 135.

What it means: The difficulty for AI-Maths came in understanding word problems, and its developers will have to work on its natural language capabilities if they want to do better next time. CZT's CEO Lin Hui told Xinhua that he hopes to score over 130 next time. But that still won't beat the humans.

Most White House officials feared Robert Mueller would go after President Trump for obstruction of justice.

The signs were everywhere: James Comey's testimony that Trump urged him to drop the FBI probe of Michael Flynn; Trump's forceful denial, and counterattack on Comey's character; Mueller hiring high-powered lawyers steeped in complexities of presidential power; followed by the president contemplating firing Mueller.

With the Washington Post bombshell report that the obstruction probe is in full swing ("Trump's actions now a focus of Mueller inquiry"), the reality has White House officials and Republicans sweating profusely for several reasons:

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• They know Trump talked to countless people about ending the Flynn probe, so they assume Comey's version of events is true.
• They assume he did, indeed, ask Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, if they could help derail the Flynn probe, as the WashPost reported. They also assume he said similar things to other officials.
• Nobody has privately mounted a straight-faced argument to us that Trump didn't say this stuff to Comey or to Coats/Rogers. That's telling in itself. The fact that the Trump public position — that Comey is a perjurer — isn't being argued in private.
• Any obstruction probe requires context, which means investigators digging into the finances of Flynn, Trump and Jared Kushner. This is the phase of the probe many Republicans have always feared most.
• The obstruction probe is simply a new layer to the bigger underlying matters: Did Flynn have illegal or improper contacts, and did the Trump campaign collude with the Russians to influence the 2016 campaign? So the investigation is metastasizing.
• Trump's wife and Chief of Staff had to dissuade him from firing Mueller this week , the N.Y. Times reported. Why fire someone if you have nothing to hide?
• Text to Jonathan Swan from a GOP operative close to the White House: "Leak was probably a response to stories about POTUS firing Mueller. Can't fire him now."

The White House response came from Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Trump's personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz: "The FBI leak of information regarding the president is outrageous, inexcusable and illegal."

• But the article notably doesn't attribute anything to the FBI. It cites "[f]ive people briefed on ... interview requests" for "senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice."
• That sounds like lawyers for people contacted by the investigation.

What to watch for: In addition to condemning the FBI for leaking, expect White House surrogates to start saying that there is nothing unusual about Mueller looking into this as part of his investigation. He'd be attacked for doing an incomplete job if he finished his investigation and hadn't explored this issue.

Dems smell blood, but it's not necessarily Jeff Sessions'. The attorney general held his own at his high-stakes Senate hearing, at one point raising his voice to declare he was "not stonewalling," and resented the "secret innuendo being leaked out there about me."

But Democrats tell me that with his dodges, artful and otherwise ( L.A. Times lead: "Sessions defends, demurs and deflects"), Sessions left a host of openings — about himself and President Trump — that congressional investigators will pursue. Bob Mueller's prosecutors can be expected to do the same.

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The real audience: Jeremy Bash, a lawyer and former Obama national security official, told Brian Williams on MSNBC: "I think Mueller could use a grand jury and overcome this [implied] claim of executive privilege."

• "[W]hen he was asked, ... '[W]hat did [Trump] say about the rationale for firing Comey,' the attorney general refused to answer. That goes to the heart of the question of whether the president may have obstructed justice."

Between the lines: Matt Miller, an Obama Justice Department official who has become a go-to commentator on the investigation, emailed me: "[N]o immediate public revelation, but a red flag in front of the bull named Bob Mueller. ... If Sessions had a good answer about conversations with Trump about firing Comey, he would've just given it."

• "Sessions can probably get out of ever giving the answer to a Republican Congress, but my guess is his performance earned him a ticket to a grand jury."
• Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer : "If you had done nothing wrong, the obvious conclusion is you'd be happy to talk about things."

But, but, but: Jonathan Swan points out that the White House and the RNC war room got what they wanted, with more fodder for attacking Comey's credibility, and we should expect them to use it.

Over on Fox News, Tucker Carlson continued his nightly defense of Sessions with a sarcastic: "It's always possible that a high-level defector will appear ... with documents proving that Jeff Sessions is, in fact, a foreign agent, ... perhaps of a sleeper cell sent to Alabama during the Cold War and activated at Vladimir Putin's request during the last election."

Be smart: Sessions was never the "satellite" Trump insiders fret most.

Mattress tags that read "Do Not Remove" have been the butt of jokes for decades, but why is it a crime to begin with? Dan Lewis of Now I Know explains why the much-mocked mattress tag removal law exists.

Before springs and coils and memory foam, legit mattresses were filled with straw and other soft, cheap, and safe materials. Unfortunately, there were a lot of less-than-honest vendors.

...who stuffed mattresses with gross things like corncobs and old rags!

The tag, originally, was designed to make manufacturers disclose what was in the mattress — the law required mattress makers to print what was inside on the outside. Manufacturers could lie but doing so would run the risk of discovery later on; a government inspector could obtain one of the mattresses, do a spot check, and if anything other than what was listed was inside, the manufacturer could be subject to fines and other penalties.

But that didn't stop the manufacturers from selling mattresses filled with nasty stuff, they simply ripped the tags off.

So, Congress made it illegal to remove the tag “prior to the time any textile fiber product is sold and delivered to the ultimate consumer.” And, perhaps to protect themselves, manufacturers also printed the “do not remove” warning on the tag itself.

For some reason, though, the early mattress tags didn’t note that the end consumer could remove the tag, confusing generations of sleepers.

Now you know.

https://youtu.be/BAaoHX9KiWY

This is NASA's new "space fabric" in development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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This is the 125,000 piece LEGO Game Of Thrones Red Keep built by LEGOmaniac Claus-Marc Hahn. It uses motors powered by four LEGO Mindstorms EV3 controllers to spin and raise/lower the towers, just like in the opening credits of the show. How about that! Just a hundred more lifetimes and Claus-Marc could recreate the entire opening. Obviously, I'd suggest making a deal with a witch for your soul. Keep going for a video tour of the keep, including its inner workings.

When Apple revealed the new MacBook in 2016, one of the biggest issues raised with the notebook’s new design (aside from ire over the slew of new adapters you’d inevitably have to buy) was the removal of one of its most beloved proprietary features, the magnetic charging cable. Thankfully, third-party peripheral makers have taken up the slack to bring the satisfying click of a magnetic charger to tons of new devices, including that new MacBook, Android phones, and other micro USB devices.

This MagCable does exactly what it says on the tin: provides a magnetic cable connection with an unobtrusive plug that stays in your phone’s charging port. With a firm, but breakable link, you can save your device’s Micro USB port from unwanted strain. And you can easily plug and unplug your phone in the dark one-handed thanks to a reversible magnet.

This cable includes two magnetic tips, so you can grant magnetic powers to a second device or to save in your drawer as a backup. You can get the MagCable Magnetic Micro USB Cable for 31% off, at $21.99.

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

Located in the heart of the financial district in New York City, the Charging Bull statue has long been an icon of the industry, but now faces its first opponent: a young girl cast in bronze.

Sponsored by city officials and a local firm and crafted by sculptor Kristen Visbal, The Fearless Girl was erected in recognition of International Women’s Day. Its intended message is to encourage companies to put women on their boards, but of course it carries a series of meanings in the face of Wall Street and the political climate.

“One of the most iconic images on Wall Street is the charging bull,” explains a representative of State Street. “So the idea of having a female sort of stand against the bull or stand up to the bull just struck us as a very clever but also creative and engaging way to make that statement. Even though it’s a little girl, her stance is one of determination, forwardness, and being willing to challenge and take on the status quo.”

Whether the statue will stand the test of time remains to be seen, but its persistence would certainly not be without precedent. Per Colossal, the “Charging Bull was originally an act of guerrilla art by Arturo Di Modica, and only became permanent after its soaring popularity, leaving some to wonder if Visbal’s statue could follow the same story.”

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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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This is a picture of a cloud that looks like a fireball. It also kinda looks like a fist. No matter how you look at it though, it does not look like a dinosaur (trust me, I tried rotating it a full 360 degrees). You know, you and I should do some cloud watching this weekend. I'll pack a picnic and a blanket, and we can go to the park and lay there and look for shapes in clouds. That sounds like some good, wholesome fun, doesn't it? "It actually does." Awesome, I'll call my drug dealer and tell him we want two of everything. Thanks to hairless, who agrees it's only a matter of time until real fireballs fill the sky. I can't wait.

Strong winds in Cape Town, South Africa disrupted the recent Cape Town Cycle Tour. If the cyclists had just turned around, the following would be their theme song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur8ftRFb2Ac

The "rotary desk" went out of style with the advent of filing cabinets, but in their heyday, they were marvels of rotating cabinetry, tiny clever drawers and cubbies, and roll-down secretary tops. (more…)