Entries from August 2007 ↓

Not really sure what is going on, but it seems that YouTube is having some type of outage this morning. So the posts on this blog that point to YouTube, are not working right now.
Hopefully whatever is wrong will be resolved shortly.

A group of guys in Alberta, Canada sent a balloon 22.27 miles up. Right to the edge of space. The balloon had a Nikon Coolpix P2 camera attached. The camera was set to take one picture a minute. Once the balloon reached the edge of the atmosphere, it burst. Coming down to a soft landing due to an attached parachute. The pictures they were able to take are amazing.

Check out their site: Southern Alberta Balloon Launch Experiment #3
Via Gizmodo: Ordinary Guys Send Picture-Taking Balloon 22.27 Miles High

It seems like lately Canada is the place to be if you are interested in fun space projects. First we had the skydive from space, and now the balloon project.

It seems that building home made slip n’ slides is the thing to do these days. First you had the 535 foot slide and now you have Ron’s Slip n’ Slide. It’s only 60 feet long, but personally I think this slide is way more dangerous.
In fact, I’m not sure I would want to get on it. That whole jump and the end of the slide just doesn’t look that safe.Via Gizmodo: How to Mod your Parents’ House into a 60-Foot Slip ‘n’ Slide

Mitch Fincher a Civil Engineering student at Texas Tech University has created a site devoted to penny stacking. On the site there are numerous pictures of elaborate structures made with pennies and other various coins. All of the structures are made by simply stacking the coins. No glue or other stabilizers are used. The weight of the pennies holds the entire structure up.

Check out his site for some amazing pictures of stacked coins. And if you have a large quantity of coins laying around, read his directions on how to get started with your own coin structures.

Mitch Fincher: Coin stacking

Tara Donovan is an artist who makes massive sculptures from small items found in everyday life. The picture above is made from thousands of clear plastic drinking straws. Other art installations are made from Styrofoam cups, pencils, paper plates, and buttons. All of the art is really amazing.

Check it out at Ace Gallery: Tara Donovan
Via Neatorama: Tara Donovan’s Mega Sculptures Made From Everyday Objects

This week I went back to a favorite from last year. Not exactly old, but not the latest release either. I really love the single, Fully Alive. In fact, I like pretty much the whole CD. It’s a little darker than some CDs I have, but not so dark that it is depressing. Its almost the exact opposite of the Matisyahu CD I was listening to just a few weeks ago. This group is one of those very rare metal groups with a female lead singer.

And if you want to buy the CD, its for sale on Amazon right now for $12.98.

Fewer than 2% of the worlds 6.5 billion people carry the gene for red hair. Because of this, scientists think that red hair may be extinct by 2060.

Red hair is a result of a mutation in northern Europe thousands of years ago. The mutation is recessive. So red hair is rare unless both of the parents have the gene. Due to increased globalization, it is becoming less likely that a person carrying the gene will partner with another who also carries the gene.

The only place where the gene is still prevalent is in Scotland. it’s estimated that 40% of Scots carry the gene, with about 13% actually having red hair. So if you are a redhead, like those in the Redhead Wendys protest, you have a much better chance of passing that gene down if you move to Scotland.

Via Neatorama: Redheads Face Extinction

Rocky Fiore is an artist who captures spider webs. He captures them and mounts them on glass for display. Some of the webs that he has captured are truly amazing. What caught my eye, was a video he did for Cool Hunting. in the video, he shows how he captures the webs, using only varnish, spray paint, and glass. Check out the video below.

For pictures of Rocky’s art check out his site: World Wide Webs

Found this video of a deer jumping over a biker. It’s amazing that no one got hurt. Thought this was interesting enough to post, even though lately I seem to be posting a lot of wildlife videos. There was the tiger leap, the lion buffalo brawl, and the hammock bear. Oh, and I almost forgot the sheep surfing goat.

If you are like me, you are always pulling staples out of documents and reports. The things are pretty annoying to take out. So that is what interests me about this item. this is a stapler that doesn’t use any staples. Instead it cuts a little flap in your document and folds it in on itself. Doing what a staple would do, but without the staple. Pretty cool.

Check it out at ThinkGeek: Staple Free Stapler