Dark Roasted Blend: The Jewish Engineer Behind Hitler's Volkswagen: 'The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz' tells the astonishing story of Josef Ganz, a Jewish engineer from Frankfurt, who in May 1931 created a revolutionary small car: the Maikäfer (German for May Bug). Seven years later Hitler introduced the Volkswagen. The Nazis not only 'took' the concept of Ganz's family car - their production model even ended up bearing the same nickname. In this biography, which reads like a thriller, Schilperoord tells how Ganz was arrested by the Gestapo, then fled Germany, and was hunted by the Nazis beyond Germany's borders, narrowly escaping assassination.
Writing's on the wall for vandals: Under the agreement, the council and the state government would each commit $2 million to the Brisbane City Council's Taskforce Against Graffiti program over four years. $2m in four years eh? Guess he didn't axe the $244k/year literary awards to save money, he needed some tax dollars to pursue his personal-opinion-based war on street art. He must think he's a genius right now. Apparently Newman's utopia involves empty walls and less books.
Feynman's Nobel Ambition: So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll
never accomplish anything, I've got this nice position at the university
teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the
Arabian Nights for pleasure, I'm going to play
with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance
whatsoever. ...which is how at least one person won a Nobel Prize.
A Professional Recording Studio in an Unbelievably Tiny Room: He created a second set of walls made of two layers of drywall, bonded together with a polymeric gel called Green Glue, which blocks up to 90 percent of sound transmission. On top of the existing floor, Shah added foam, a sheet of rolled lead, carpet padding, and a carpet on top. Neil added a second door, which seals magnetically. The renovation cut precious inches into the limited space, but it worked. Even with a baritone saxophone wailing, Shah gets no complaints from downstairs.
Google's Accessibility Message Comes Through Loud and Clear | Emerging Technologies Librarian: One quite common use of images by persons who are blind is in asking for help. They can grab a screenshot showing where they are stuck using an application, post it online or email it to a friend, and then ask a sighted person how to navigate the part they are having trouble finding. Without the ability to share images, they are largely dependent on waiting for someone to come visit them in person, which may take hours or days. Can you imagine how incredibly frustrating that is? And what a tremendous waste of productive time?
Addams Family screentests - MJSimpson.co.uk: Back in 1964, photographer Bill Ray took a series of photos on the set of what appears to be a number of screen tests for the cast of The Addams Family. John Astin can be seen as Gomez in some of the shots and he was evidently a given, but each of the other characters has at least three actors trying out for the part, in full costume and make-up.
It's Like A Cloud Of Furious Bees: Well, not actual bees, just the entomological wail of a race-prepped Mazda rotary, trapped inside a Mazda RX3 and racing through the 2010 Rally New York Autumn Rally Sprints. It is one of the loudest rally cars you'll ever hear. Wow that's loud.
Dezeen » Blog Archive » Hydro-Fold by Christophe Guberan: This inkjet printer has been adapted by Ecole Cantonale d'art de Lausanne (ECAL) student Christophe Guberan to print patterns that contort pieces of paper into specific 3D forms. The machine prints a mixture of water and ink that causes the paper to fold automatically along wet lines and humid areas. Not sure if you can do anything especially practical with it, but it's cool.
Fury at PM's Games snub: Yesterday, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said Ms Gillard would be represented in London by the Minister for Sport, Kate Lundy, and that she would miss the fund-raiser because she would be representing Australia at the G20 and the UN Sustainable Development Conference. You know, little details. Mr Rudd was the first prime minister to travel to an Olympics since Malcolm Fraser in 1976. The PM prioritised attending the G20 over a sports dinner (noting the PM's office suggested alternative dates) and most PMs don't get to the Olympic Games... so John Coates has a dummy spit. Apparently the PM should snub the G20 in favour of his preferred fund raiser dates; and clear her schedule of such details as 'running the country' to ensure she's at the Olympic Games.
Facebook and Instagram: When Your Favorite App Sells Out -- Daily Intel: Unfortunately everything about Facebook defies logic. In terms of user experience (insider jargon: "UX"), Facebook is like an NYPD police van crashing into an IKEA, forever - a chaotic mess of products designed to burrow into every facet of your life. The company is also technologically weird.
Snagging the entire quote from rmbray - There was a time on this continent before every...: There was a time on this continent before every patch of unproductive land had been steamrolled into strip malls, before government satellites peeked into living rooms to ensure the crimes of its citizens weren't in conflict with its own; before fences overtook trees as the most prevalent form of inverted cylinder on the American landscape; before popular entertainment transformed rugged individualism into brand loyalty; before moral outrage was removed from the arena of human suffering and reapplied in doublecoats to behaviors falling outside of a profitable ideological norm; before legions of half-rate messiahs and their half-rate worshippers proclaimed themselves the conscious-free devourers of all that could possibly be cajoled, raped or torn out of the ground and stuffed into their thankless bodily openings; before a human could experience birth, a approximation of life, and a tidy, well-planned death all within the confines of an air-conditioned incubator hurling through space on a diet of nothing but tepid amusement and cheap ground beef. There was a time when that wilderness was king. (Mark Driver - Just Another Empire)
Lui banned from NRL for rest of 2012: In a strong statement by the ARL Commission, which met today, the 22-year-old Lui was suspended from the rest of the 2012 competition, putting his career in serious doubt. ... Lui pleaded guilty last month to assaulting his partner Taleah Rae Backo following Mad Monday celebrations in September while he was at the Wests Tigers.
Medical Daily: Drinking Alcohol May Significantly Enhance Problem Solving Skills: Wiley said that the key finding was that being too focused can blind a person to novel possibilities and a broader, more flexible state of attention may be helpful for creative solutions to emerge. ... Wiley noted that the findings only apply to people who had only a few drinks and not when people drink to extremes.
Important Scientific Experiment: Can Scotch Mature In Space? - Forbes: To get the experiment going, Ardbeg teamed with NanoRacks to load samples of unmatured malt whisky with particles of charred oak. An identical setup is being used on Earth in the Ardbeg distillery. This will allow scientists to see how the products interact with each other in zero gravity compared to how they interact on Earth, thus providing insight into how Scotch would mature in low-G environments. Ardbeg's samples will be on board the International Space Station for two years.
Pretty well done. I think everyone I know would mash that Big Red Button on sight, too ;)
What Happens When A 35-Year-Old Man Retakes The SAT?: There's no way around it. The SAT is an ASSHOLE. Everything is an order. Every line of text you read in the instructions is a dire warning that if you do not do exactly as you are told, your life will be DESTROYED.
Ajay Rochester (who was also on the show) responds: Canberra get a life, get over yourselves, get a sense of humor and hey, at least people are talking about you - which they weren't last week.
Most Canberrans I know admit their city has a couple of issues. It's a tad short on night life, the roads are confusing as hell, it's absolutely fucking freezing and unsettlingly quiet even during the day (seriously where the fuck are the people?). Actually that's the nice things they say. You should hear Canberra locals when they really unload on the place...
It's not all bad, really. The galleries really are pretty good. Last time we were there we did actually find some restaurants that were open (on the one street in the CBD where people seem to congregate).
Queensland Premier Campbell Newman scraps 'waste of taxpayer money' literary awards | News.com.au: QUEENSLAND'S new Premier sets the tone early, scrapping 'waste of money' awards... in the National Year of Reading. Chuckles Newman really is making the big decisions there, after all $244k was crippling the entire state budget (Can-Do economy: $244k saved on arts awards in $4.6b deficit | Crikey... excuse the Crikey link). It certainly sets the tone though: the next few years will be a very bad time to be working in the Arts in Queensland. Culture is 'a waste of money' in the eyes of the monkey at the wheel, who is clearly going to play to the lowest common denominator. Hardly a surprise from someone who plans to waste taxpayer money attacking civil unions, because stable relationships kill society or something. What can I say, I'm embarrassed that my home state voted this guy and his minions^H^H^Hgovernment in.
CV Dazzle | AH Projects: CV Dazzle is camouflage from computer vision (CV). It is a form of expressive interference that combines makeup and hair styling (or other modifications) with face-detection thwarting designs.
Maximum PC | Pirate Bay Plans On Taking To The Sky To Avoid Server Seizure: With the development of GPS controlled drones, far-reaching cheap radio equipment and tiny new computers like the Raspberry Pi, we're going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air.
How Does News Corp. Make Its Money? | PBS. Problem with infographics like this is it's hard to read accurately. The dollar amount on publishing doesn't change so dramatically - it's the *proportion* that's significant.
