Far from being the measure of disgrace it once was, failure now seems to be a sort of badge of honor. But underlying many popular Silicon Valley failure clichés is entrepreneurs’ belief that “starting companies these days is akin to doing research in the past” — as if we don’t need research when the opportunity to fail is so readily available.

Somewhere along the way, it got to be uncool to reduce one’s risk of failure.

Part of this may be because the … Read More → "How startup culture is killing innovation"

… Read More → "A 10-second bomb-defusing game puts red wire/blue wire in your hands"

Vietnamese artist Ben Tre carves incredibly intricate images on eggshells, then illuminates them with wondrous effects using LEDs. How does he inscribe them? With a tiny dentist’s drill.
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If opulent isn’t an adjective you’d immediately associate with the mining profession, then you’ve clearly never had a peek inside Poland’s Wieliczka Salt Mine. The subterranean marvel (andUNESCO World Heritage Site) has been operational since the first shafts were dug way back in … Read More → "Take a street view tour of an underground chapel built out of salt"

Disney has developed a device to transmit sound through the human body.

The Ishin-Den-Shin technology uses a standard microphone to record audio and then converts it into an inaudible signal transmitted through the body of the person holding the microphone.

When they touch someone’s earlobe, an organic speaker is formed and the sound becomes audible, effectively … Read More → "Disney develops ‘magical’ device to make fingertips sing"

Starting in December, NASA will begin producing its own food in orbit for the first time ever, according to a new report in Modern Farmer. Called the Vegetable Production System (or VEGGIE for short), the minimal rig will accommodate six romaine lettuce plants grown under pink LED lamps, ready for consumption in just under a month.
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French mural company CitéCréation recently completed a massive 236,800-square-foot mural on an apartment complex in Berlin that is likely the world’s largest mural. The mural spans three buildings of theWohnungsbaugenossenschaft Solidarität apartments and … Read More → "Massive mural on Berlin apartment complex is world’s largest mural"

Designed for use alongside oil platforms under construction as a temporary place for workers to live, the Offshore Accommodation Vessel—as it’s called—features a U-shaped water tank lining its hull. The tank is only partly filled with water, though. And by controlling the amount of air pumped into either side of the tank, a gentle inner wave is created which can be used to counteract the motions of a rolling sea, … Read More → "This ship makes its own waves inside to remain stable in rough seas"

California may soon begin testing electronic license plates that can be wirelessly updated to display messages like “STOLEN,” “EXPIRED,” or “AMBER ALERT,” Ars Technica reports. A bill that would authorize a small pilot program — limited to 0.5 percent of all registered vehicles — has passed both the Assembly and the Senate, and is headed to California governor Jerry Brown to be … Read More → "California may soon begin testing electronic license plates"

Researchers at Brigham Young University found that texts containing a lie took longer to compose and were often shorter than truthful texts. This makes sense, but even armed with the knowledge humans are still poor lie detectors. The researchers found that through exact measurement and modeling they could predict SMS lies more accurately. “Unfortunately, humans are terrible at detecting deception. We’re creating methods to correct that,” BYU researcher Tom Meservy said.

The study, which is being published in ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems</ … Read More → "It takes longer to compose texts that have a lie In them"