When you’re traveling, hotel Wi-Fi might be your only source of connectivity, so when you wind up in a hotel and the internet crawwwwwls, it can be a major bummer.
Thanks to sites like SpeedSpot or Hotel Wi-Fi Test, you can avoid unfortunate internet conditions. If you’re traveling to a city, … Read More → "Never stay in a hotel with crappy wi-fi thanks to this useful site"
Can you tell the difference between these two images? One’s a bona fide reprint of Claud Monet’s “Impression, Sunrise.” The other? A total fake. The reproduction (on the right) is courtesy of researchers at Singapore’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering. Their goal, of course, was not to simply make a Monet replica, but rather to test an emerging method … Read More → "One of these Monets was made by a nanoprinter"
You can land the most advanced spacecraft in history on the Mars, but if you can’t keep in touch with it, it might as well be so much scrap. To prevent that from happening, NASA has issued a Request for Information (RFI) to investigate the feasibility of using private satellites to provide communications into the 2020s between Earth and the fleet of exploration probes operating on and around … Read More → "NASA seeks commercial satellites to talk to Mars"
A new study titled “Power and Time Availability” by the University of California Berkeley has found that the more power you possess, the more time you feel like you have at your disposal. The study asked a few hundred people, some primed as “bosses,” and others as “employees,” to fill out surveys about how much time they felt they had to complete a specific … Read More → "Feeling powerful increases how much time you think you have"
The forecast for La Crosse, Wisconsin, is for continuing mayflies. According to the National Weather Service, conditions are perfect for the emergence of mayflies along the upper Mississippi River, and the area teems with them every year. The swarm this year is thick enough to be caught on weather radar. What does it look like on the ground? Like this:
You may think that the 3GB of memory in your new smartphone is hot stuff, but that pales in comparison with what Rice University has in store. Its scientists have detailed a form ofresistive RAM (RRAM) that can be made using regular equipment at room temperatures, making it practical for everyday gadgets. The trick is the use of porous silicon oxide where metals (such as gold or platinum) fill the … Read More → "Future phones could house a terabyte of memory"
Susanne Jaschko, an author and curator, and Moritz Stefaner, a data viz specialist, are exploring with Data Cuisine, a workshop based entirely around the unlikely intersection of figures and food. At two sessions—one in Helsinki, one in Barcelona—they challenged participants to come up with dishes that reflected some sort of fact, stat, or data point.
In Barcelona, for example, a pair of cakes addressed the issue of national science … Read More → "These weird meals are actually clever data visualizations"
It’s an unfortunate fact that every day around the world, supermarkets throw out tons of food that has spoiled before it could be purchased. While it would be best if that spoilage could be avoided in the first place, British grocery chain Sainsbury’s is taking what might be the next-best approach – it’s about to start using that unsellable food to power one of its stores.
via Read More → "Sainsbury’s supermarket to be powered entirely by its own food waste"
Which of mankind’s marvels can we actually spot from the final frontier? This question calls for a little perspective. Space is big. Sure, you might be able to gaze at the Amazon River while hovering a few hundred miles above sea level. But from the moon, you could barely even make out the continents! And our whole planet looks like nothing more than a dinky blue splotch from … Read More → "5 man-made things you can see from space"
