17 November 2012
Dust to Dust ~ Burning Man 2011 Timelapse!
Lovely Burning Man timelapse Dust to Dust shared by our MIT Neuroventures guest speaker Todd Huffman! See also Todd's work on the aerial GigaPan...
DJ Focus ~ Sierra Leone's Kelvin Doe @ MIT!
DJ Focus -- i.e. teenager Kelvin Doe from Sierra Leone -- is the youngest person ever invited to the "Visiting Practitioner's Program" at MIT. Why? He is...
"...an engineering whiz living in Sierra Leone who scours the trash bins for spare parts, which he uses to build batteries, generators and transmitters. Completely self-taught, [now 15 year old] Kelvin has created his own radio station where he broadcasts news and plays music."Plus check this CNN What's Next piece DIY Africa: Empowering a new Sierra Leone by MIT Media Lab's David Sengeh on Innovate Salone...
"The youth of Sierra Leone are ready and capable of transforming their country. By providing them with resources and creative freedom, we can spark the joy of discovery that results in innovation and ultimately, national development."Help support Innovate Salone's escalation.
14 November 2012
Shine ~ Misfit's Simple Essential Activity Tracker
Check out MIT alum Sonny Vu's latest venture Misfit and their Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for Shine, a simple minimalist wireless activity tracker...
Little Bits ~ MIT Alumna Ayah Bdeir CNN's Next!
Excellent to see MIT Media Lab alumna Ayah Bdeir and her kids play newco Little Bits spotlit by CNN's What's Next!
13 November 2012
Handybot ~ High-Speed Robotic Hand Demo!
Thanks to Paul at GeekPress for spotting High-Speed Robotic Hand!
11 November 2012
Qumquat Killed ~ Poachers Slaughter Elephants
"Qumquat, one of the best-known matriarchs in the elephant population of the Amboseli ecosystem on the Kenya-Tanzania border, was photographed with her family on October 27 by Nick Brandt. Just 24 hours later, the old female and most of the others were gunned down by poachers."
Preserving our Freedoms ~ Why Veterans Day...
Both Memorial and today -- Veterans Day -- are seasonal complements to the more celebratory Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. It's worth remembering why we observe them, and for this let's read President Eisenhower's proclamation about November 11th...
"Let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain."This honors all vets of all wars, including those avoided.
MITHenge ~ Photonic Fireworks Tonight-Now!
MITHenge right now! Here's last year's photo'd by Tech's Dahe...
P.S. Alas it sucks watching it with a thousand others, including too many rude f'tards who either hog spots or block the view;-(
10 November 2012
Hangover Heaven ~ Doc Cures Overindulgence!
"The hangover truck is the brainchild of Jason Burke, a 42-year-old anesthesiologist who worked in Las Vegas hospitals for seven years before going out on his own and starting up his "Hangover Heaven" practice. Since then, he's been driving his massive, converted bus up and down the Strip treating people who've drunk themselves senseless. [...] Burke came up with the hangover bus idea because he and his wife are themselves wine and grappa lovers and enjoy going to wine tastings on the weekend. After one of these outings, it occurred to him that, after being anesthetized, many patients exhibit the same symptoms as people with hangovers. "I thought to myself that maybe the same medications would work on hangovers too," he says. So he tried the treatments out on his friends -- with stunning results. He then created a business plan, bought a bus and turned it into a mobile sick ward with leather seats and huge televisions. The state of Nevada's health department was a bit taken aback by the idea, Burke says, but it still approved it. Now he can simultaneously treat some 20 patients at a time in the bus."
IDIN & CITE ~ USAID Funds MIT D-Lab + DUSP
"A consortium of universities around the world to establish and nurture a global network of local innovators using technology to address issues facing people living in poverty."And the DUSP-run CITE -- the Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation...
"MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning will lead the CITE effort in developing a rigorous methodology for evaluating technological solutions to challenges in the developing world; this methodology will help donors and policy-makers identify and invest in the best of these solutions."
06 November 2012
05 November 2012
hue ~ Philips Digital Lighting & Apps System...
Protecting NYC ~ Engineering For Resiliency...
"What is the way forward? Does the city continue to build ever-sturdier and ever-higher sea walls? Or does it accept the uncomfortable idea that parts of New York will occasionally flood and that the smarter method is to make the local infrastructure more elastic and better able to recover? [...] some experts in the field who have thought deeply about how to protect New York from huge storms like Hurricane Sandy -- and especially from the coastal surges they produce -- suggested that less intrusive forms of so-called soft infrastructure might prove more effective in sheltering the city than mammoth Venetian sea walls. [...] According to the experts -- architects, environmentalists and civil engineers -- large-scale projects like underwater gates are expensive, cumbersome and difficult to build. More important, they say, such undertakings are binary projects that work just fine until the moment they do not."See the article for three fairly bold proposals. And see Reuters infographic...
Scariest Flights ~ Fasten Your Seatbelt Films!
MissC spots Film's Scariest Flights (which is enough to make you never want to fly again!-)
03 November 2012
Star Wars Rules ~ Docu's on Epic SF World!
Star Wars & LucasFilm are in the news, so check out these docu's!
01 November 2012
Tunnel Plug ~ Avoiding or Minimizing Flooding...
In addition to the supreme lack-wisdom that lead NYC hospital designers to place emergency generators in basements (e.g. NYU Langone), other examples include tunnel owner-operators neglecting to deploy emergency closure mechanisms at a compelling scale. So check out the Tunnel Plug that Mike Ahlers spotlights in his CNN piece Huge plugs could have spared subways from flooding...
"Huge inflatable plugs -- now being developed by the federal government to protect subway tunnels from terrorist attacks -- likely could have saved some of New York's subway tunnels from storm-related flooding, according to plug developers, some of whom are wistful that development wasn't completed in time for Hurricane Sandy. [...] The plug -- simple in theory, but sophisticated in design -- inflates like a balloon to fit the contours of a tunnel, and can reduce leakage to amounts manageable by pumps. Placed on either end of some of the tunnels under New York's East River, the plugs could have prevented flooding, team members told CNN. But plugs would not have prevented water from infiltrating porous underground subway stations and other infrastructure, they said."
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