Scientists have developed a way to get sunlight deep inside buildings using optical fibres. The sysytem would allow major savings on electric lighting during daylight, and be backed up by flourescent tubes when it is dark or overcast.
via Slashdot
Technorati tag: Lighting
Introducing 144 megapixel digital photography. The images require longer exposures, but the results can be so precise they can be used iunstead of architectural drawings.
Technorati tag: Photography
A Marmite advert is no longer to be shown during kids’ programmes because a few tikes were scared by it. Maybe I should complain that those Carol Vorderman finance adverts make me want to vomit.
Technorati tag: Advertising
A new book suggests that the Nazis got as far as testing a nuclear device, killing hundreds of prisoners, in March of 1945.
Technorati tag: World War 2
Get on down to Exchange Square on Monday for the BBC’s Last Laugh Flash Mob.
Technorati tag: Manchester
Farmers in Michigan are turning to wind power as an alternate source of revenue or supply, despite the state having no Alternative Energy policy. A couple of turbines can go a long way toward writing off large energy bills, or the land could be leased to companies wanting to set up their own windmills.
via Sustainablog
Technorati tag: Wind Power
A follow up to yesterday’s Peak Oil post. Top energy industry analysts Herold have started doing a company by company analysis of when supplies will run out. (Salon article, take a Day Pass to be able to read it.)
Technorati tag: Oil
Welcome to Perplex City. For more information try here. Thanks to Bruce.
Technorati tag: Mystery
Blair and Brown are certainly talking the talk this week. But will telling G8 Plus members that green thinking could be a moneyspinner get through to enough people? And are they really walking the walk when the government plans road and air expansion left, right and centre?
Technorati tag: Climate Change
If The Da Vinci Code has upset the Vatican this much then I really ought to read it. The pronouncements from the Church are suitably irony free-
“The book is everywhere,” Cardinal Bertone told Il Giornale newspaper, according to a report in The Times today. “There is a very real risk that many people who read it will believe that the fables it contains are true.”
and
“We would like to remind them it is a work of fiction and not a reliable source of information.”
Technorati tag: Da Vinci Code
What is Peak Oil? And how is it measured? Treehugger has a primer on the subject.
Technorati tag: Oil
A site dedicated to the Citroen DS. I want one. This one, parked up a few streets away from Casa Spinnyhead, needs a lot of work, but I’d like it.
Technorati tag: Citroen DS
Carpet made from recycled bike inner tubes.
Technorati tag: Recycling
Manchester council plan to have a few wind turbines and solar panels included in future developments. It’ll look cool, but are they also going to insist on energy efficent design to double the impact? I hope so, because I like the idea of living in Britain’s greenest city, which is their stated aim.
Technorati tag: Manchester
The Draganflyer is a remote control helicopter that wants to be in a Terminator movie. Four rotors give it stability and there’s an onboard camera so you can play back those strafing runs on the neighbours’ cats.
Technorati tag: Remote control
I may have slipped a little behind on the one product a week schedule. Nonetheless, here is the second Frightened to Death by Fairies picture, available as a print in a variety of sizes. A larger preview is here.
The subtitle is “The Bargest puppet was very effective.”
THE BARGEST, OR SPECTRE-HOUND.
IN the glossary to the Rev. Mr. Carr’s “Horae Momenta Carvenae,” I find the following: “Bargest, a sprite that haunts towns and populous places. Belg. berg, and geest, a ghost.” I really am not a little amused at Mr. Carr’s derivation, which is most erroneous. Bargest is not a town-ghost, nor is it a haunter “of towns and populous places;” for, on the contrary, it is said in general to frequent small villages and hills. Hence the derivation may be berg, Germ, a hill, and geest, a ghost–i.e., a hill-ghost; but the real derivation appears to me to be b�r, Germ, a bear, and geest, a ghost–i.e., a bear-ghost, from its appearing in the form of a bear or large dog, as Billy B–‘a narrative shows.
The appearance of the spectre-hound is said to precede a death. Like other spirits, Bargest is supposed to be unable to cross water; and in case any of my craven readers should ever chance to meet with his ghostship, it may he as well to say, that unless they give him the wall, he will tear them in pieces, or otherwise ill-treat them, as he did John Lambert, who, refusing to let him have the wall, was so punished for his want of manners, that he died in a few days.
Technorati tag: Fairies
A very specialised type of pre-fab building, this. Cement impregnated canvas on an inflatable frame means a rigid structure can be erected in a disaster zone simply by adding water and pumping up the tent. It’s almost as cheap and portable as a tent but far stronger.
Technorati tag: Pre-fab
The mayor of Paris intends to block the centre to all cars except those of residents and services.
Technorati tag: Transport
Just in case the “darker” nature of Episode 3 doesn’t do it for you, try out Star Wars: Revelations, a fan film based upon the franchise. Trailers and teasers are available here.
It looks great, though there are moments of balsa in the acting. The only thing I can say against it is that it would be cool if someone would put this level of creativity and effort into somethig entirely original.
via Slashdot
Technorati tag: Star Wars
The creator of the Blair Witch Project is aiming to harness the power of the internet again with his new project. The Strand, Venice is part improvised, part scripted, filmed on Venice Beach and available in episodic downloads using BitPass payment.
Technorati tag: Film Making