There’s no shortage of plans online for building a simple ping pong cannon that can fire balls at hundreds of miles per hour. But you’re probably not going to find the details of Purdue University Professor Mark French’s cannon, since his creation can accelerate a ping pong ball to 900 miles per hour, or just over Mach 1.2.
via … Read More → "What happens when a 900MPH ping pong serve hits your paddle"

The Internet connects us all, but it’s easy to take for granted what a crazy accomplishment that is. After all, plenty of us live on different land-masses. We’ve got to get that sweet, sweet Internet across the deep blue sea somehow, and these are the underwater ‘net pipes that get the job done.

TeleGeography has just updated its Submarine Cable Map for 2013, and the result is a fully … Read More → "These are all the cables that carry the internet under the sea"

The world’s first battery electric car ferry is under development in Norway. It’s capable of carrying 120 cars and 360 passengers, and it can fully recharge in just 10 minutes.

Called ZeroCat, the 260-foot ferry will enter passenger service in 2015 on a route between Lavik and Oppedal. The ferry’s electric powertrain was designed by Norwegian shipyard Fjellstrand with battery technology from Siemens, and it will be run by ferry operator … Read More → "World’s first electric car ferry recharges in 10 minutes"

Carlin Isles is one of the world’s fastest men at the 100 meters but that wasn’t good enough to make the US Olympic team. So he looked for other sports in which to make his mark and settled on rugby sevens. The difference in speed between him and the other players on the field is startling.
via Kottke

Continue reading 

… Read More → "The world’s fastest rugby player"

If you still think that Tesla is just a small time maker of toys for millionaires who want to look green, think again. The California-based maker of pure electric cars anounced that it has met its target of producing 400 Model S sedans per week, which is more than Mercedes-Benz or BMW sells of their flagship S Class and 7 Series cars respectively in the United States.

This stepped-up production isn’t going to … Read More → "Tesla is cranking out 20,000 cars per year"

NASA’s new heavy lift rocket isn’t the only massive space propulsion system the agency has in the works. The largest solar sail the solar system has ever known is headed to the launchpad in 2014 on a mission that will eventually take it nearly 2 million miles from Earth. The demonstrator mission aims to show that the technology lessons learned from NASA’s smaller NanoSail-D mission and& … Read More → "NASA will launch a 13,000-square-foot solar sail next year"

Like a golfer who knows the best courses around, it’s no surprise that chefs tend to know of some good places to chow down. Where Chefs Eat: A Guide to Chefs’ Favourite Restaurants ($13) is filled with wisdom from some of the world’s best chefs, including reviews, quotes, maps, and over 2,000 personal recommendations.
via uncrate</ … Read More → "Where chef’s eat"

At first I thought this was one of those IT urban legends, like the “disappearing warehouse” story, but according to Verizon’s IT security risk team, it’s all true.

A few weeks ago, Verizon wrote on its IT security blog that it was asked to perform a security assessment for a U.S.-based client after the latter was “startled” to discover a live “open and active VPN [virtual private network] connection from Shenyang, China!”

What made the client thoroughly worried about this surprisingly open … Read More → "“Programmer Bob”: latter-day Tom Sawyer or massive security risk?"