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A company in Colombia is tackling plastic waste issues and affordable housing with a single ingenious solution: interlocking LEGO-like bricks that can be used to build houses for a few thousand dollars per structure. Walls are formed using a slim slotted brick then framed using a thicker module used for beams and columns, locking the smaller units into place and providing rigid vertical and lateral support.

Conceptos Plásticos is addressing their technology to rising populations of urban poor, families with the time but not financial means or materials to construct their own dwellings. The company works with locals to source plastic and create all kinds of spaces, including emergency shelters, community and educational buildings.

The upcycled plastic blocks are easy to use and require no construction experience. They are durable, fire- and earthquake-resistant and much cheaper than other available materials. The company estimates the lifespan of the blocks at 500 years.

“We hope to create a movement where more and more people get involved,” say the company founders. “We want to develop new products that make better use of the thousands and thousands of tons of plastic that is discarded.”

“There will soon be more plastic in the sea than fish, so we really need to do something big.” Recent projects using this novel material include a hostel for displaced victims of violence in the Colombian countryside.

A video posted by @iamshenekaadams on Jun 3, 2016 at 2:36pm PDT

How to transform tart rhubarb into a sweet, bright compote – and 10 ways to use it, from a dessert parfait to a rhubarb fool.

The post Rhubarb Compote appeared first on Flourish - King Arthur Flour.

There are still a handful of years between this world and full autonomy in cars, meaning we have some time before we’re all sock monkeys being chauffeured by robot vehicles. But there’s a more immediate, widespread issue threatening to take the fun—and the safety—out of our roads: Pokémon Go.

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When it comes to video game characters, Mario is generally the most well-known, but there’s a giant gorilla nipping at his heels. That’s not some kind of expression or anything — I’m literally talking about Donkey Kong. Mario the Carpenter actually got his start in Donkey Kong’s game (of course, he’d go on to be plumber). Since then, Donkey Kong has gone on to do his own thing, appearing in all kinds of quality games. The infographic below gives you a quick visual breakdown of the history of Nintendo’s beloved ape, and it does with as much visual style as...

Read the full article: A Beautiful Retelling of the History of Donkey Kong

The Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Topics is a regular publication written by physics students at the University of Leicester in the UK. In it, the authors apply real physics to popular culture, such as exploring the effects of Miley Cyrus coming in like a wrecking ball, how much lembras bread would be necessary to journey through Mordor, and how long vampires need to suck all of the blood out of a human body.

Most recently, the students examined the powers of a dozen popular Marvel and DC superheroes, including Batman, Thor, Batman, and the Silver Surfer. In this symposium, Leah Ashley describes Mystique as "the ultimate mutant." Ashley explains the genetic basis for Mystique's ability to alter her appearance:

Mystique’s ability to change the patterns on her skin as camouflage could be similar to the ability of various cephalopods (such as cuttlefish). These possess chromatophores similar to the melanocytes in humans, however the classes of pigments span a wider range of colours. Some classes also contain nanocrystals that reflect light to create a shine. The chromatophores of cuttlefish are surrounded by muscles that are able to change the cells between punctate and expanded states, based signals from motor centres of the brain based on visual cues [13][14]. This produces a quicker colour-change response than the pigment dispersal mechanism used by vertebrates like the chameleon [15].

The cuttlefish has 6 reflectin genes that relate to its development of iridosmes and effective camouflage [16]. These genes may be part of the additional genes Mystique possesses. The gene PAX7A controls chromatophore development in the Japanese rice fish, and SLC2A15B is important to chromatophore differentiation [17]. SLC2A15 is similar to human SLC2A9, and PAX7A could be related to the human PAX7 gene that regulates muscle tissue formation [17][18]. With considerable mutation in her genome, Mystique may therefore show similar surface properties as the Japanese rice fish.

-via VA Viper

Just in case anyone secretly had the idea that Valve Software’s VR and other hardware somehow sprang fully-formed from a lab, here are some great photos and video of early prototypes, and interviews with the people who made them. Some of the hardware is quite raw-looking, some of it is recognizable, and some are from directions that were explored but went nowhere, but it’s all fascinating.

The accompanying video (embedded below) has some great background and stories about the research process, which began with a mandate to explore the concepts of AR and VR and determine what could be done and what was holding things back.

One good peek into this process is the piece of hardware shown to the left. You look into the lens end like a little telescope. It has a projector that beams an image directly into your eye, and it has camera-based tracking that updates that image extremely quickly.

The result is a device that lets you look through a little window into a completely different world. In the video (2:16) one of the developers says “It really taught us just how important tracking was. No matter [how you moved] it was essentially perfect. It was really the first glimpse we had into what could be achieved if you had very low persistence displays, and very good tracking.” That set the direction for the research that followed.

This research ultimately led Valve in the direction of room-scale VR in a partnership with HTC using the Vive and a tracking system called Lighthouse, details of which we have covered in the past.

There were also indirect results from all the research. The castAR was a concept originally touched on in Valve’s hardware lab. It wasn’t a direction Valve ultimately chose to go, but two developers – Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson – formed their own company to follow it up.

Thanks Cari

The post Bungee like a boss… appeared first on Bits and Pieces.

There’s never been a better time to start encrypting your texts and phone calls. Hackers are breaking into more personal devices than ever before, and massive government surveillance dragnets are indiscriminately sweeping up people’s digital communications. Encryption can protect you.

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Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has won its court case against Usenet providers Eweka and Usenetter.

On behalf of several large book publishers, the group had requested the personal details of two anonymous users who allegedly uploaded more than 2,000 books to newsgroups.

The Usenet providers terminated the accounts but refused to hand over any personal details. Instead, they claimed that they are not allowed to share personal data under e-Privacy regulations if an account is no longer active.

BREIN disagreed and took the matter to court. They argued that the book publishers’ right to protect their content trumps the privacy concerns of the Usenet uploaders in this case.

In an order issued today (pdf) the Court of Haarlem agrees with this assessment. As a result, the two providers are required to hand over the IP-addresses, payment info, and any other personal information they have on file.

If the providers fail to comply within five days they face a penalty of 1,000 euros ($1,130) per day, to a maximum of 100,000 euros, Nu.nl reports.

BREIN director Tim Kuik previously informed TorrentFreak that they are hoping to recover damages from the uploaders, as well as information on other large scale infringers.

“Our primary interest is to stop the infringements, furthermore to settle costs and damages or to sue on behalf of the injured right holders. Possibly the infringers may have information on other persons involved,” Kuik says.

Under Dutch jurisprudence, ISPs can be obliged to hand over personal information of customers if the infringing activity is plausible and the aggrieved party has a legitimate interest.

This could also spell trouble for BitTorrent uploaders, as BREIN could try to request personal information from their ISPs.

This isn’t the first time that BREIN has gone after serial e-book infringers. Last year, a Dutch court ordered Google to hand over the personal details of a user that sold pirated books in the Play Store. In that case the court also concluded that the rights of copyright holders outweigh the user’s rights.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Your first thought on seeing this weird pink snow might be an industrial accident or a nearby Big Foot massacre. Rest assured, it’s neither—just a perfectly natural, snow-dwelling algae. So, why are scientists all in a tizzy about it? Because it’s causing glaciers to melt faster.

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We’ve seen everything from Jell-O to raw eggs get completely destroyed after being frozen with liquid nitrogen. But nothing comes close to being as cringeworthy to watch as Brent Rose taking a baseball bat to a 15-inch silicone dildo turned into a frozen rock. Despite some interesting science at work here, some of you might want to look away.

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(Video Link)

The circle of life is a beautiful thing.

This is Tim, a Stimson's Python that lives at the Alice Springs Reptile Centre in Northern Australia. Recently, Tim shed his skin. As he shucked it off, he slithered in a circle. He ended up entering the hole left by the end of his own skin, thus creating a continuous tunnel of skin.

Tim spent 3 hours on Wednesday doing laps through his old skin before exiting it. The Daily Mail quotes Rex Neindorf, the director of the facility:

After trying to exit from his bubble wrap-esque skin for the first time, Tim hit the side of another snake and was forced back in through the mouth of his already shed skin, where he continued to circle.

‘He did laps for about three hours,’ Mr Neindorf said.

Mr Neindorf has worked with snakes for over 30 years and said he had never seen anything like it.

Tim managed to break free from his sloughed skin after a ‘marathon shedding session’ and is back in his enclosure at the reptile centre.

-via The Soul Is Bone

via

Thanks Ed S

The post That mouth watering feeling appeared first on Bits and Pieces.

Vibrant, fresh salads are one of my favorite lunches, but I don’t always have the time to stop and make one in the middle of my workday. Traditional, leafy bases can get limp and slimy if you make them ahead, but The Kitchn has come up with five fresh salad bases that stay crisp all freaking week.

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1 year = 1 film. "A History of Horror" is a video essay which proposes a timeline of influential and aesthetically beautiful horror movies around the world since 1895 until 2016.