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Alarm Clocks - Get Help Waking Up in the Morning at WomansDay.com

Alarm Clocks - Get Help Waking Up in the Morning at WomansDay.com
For most people, getting out of bed in the morning is a bit of a struggle. Luckily, the 10 clocks below are here to help. Some wake you up with an annoyingly loud noise, while others won't shut off until you complete a task--but they all promise to get even the sleepiest sleepyhead up and moving. Start Your Engines It’s full speed ahead as soon as this Genuine Hotrod Hardware drag-racing alarm clock goes off. Hide and Go Seek There's no excuse for waking up late with this alarm clock. Attention! Ever wonder what waking up in the army would be like? Duck for Cover This Sonic Grenade alarm clock is guaranteed to get your sleepy children out of bed. Blast Off The Rocket Launcher alarm clock will really "launch" you from your bed. Puzzled There's probably nothing more annoying than putting together a puzzle before you've even had a cup of coffee, but with the Puzzle Alarm Clock, you'll have to do just that. Get Up, Stand Up Don’t Drop the Bomb Cock-a-Doodle-Doo It Keeps Going and Going

Canopy Living: The Ultimate Tree House Dec 1, 2009 There’s the tree house your Dad built for you in the backyard, and then there’s the tree house Robert Harvey Oshatz built in the forests of Portland, Oregon. Designed in 1997 and completed in 2004, the Wilkinson Residence is in perfect harmony with its surroundings. Built on a steep sloping lot, the living space resides amongst the forest canopy, making your morning coffee most enjoyable. Description from the architect: Robert Harvey Oshatz A lover of music, the client wanted a house that not only became part of the natural landscape but also addressed the flow of music. Project Details - Project Name: Wilkinson Residence - Site Location: Portland, Oregon, USA - Architect: Robert Harvey Oshatz - Project Type: Residential - Client: Roy Wilkinson - Site Area: 2200 square meters (23,680 sq. ft) - Built-up Area: 480 square meters (5,162 sq. ft) - Designed in 1997, construction completed in 2004

In a Perfect World… | SadAndUseless.com Created by Catrina Dulay (there are few more, so it’s worth to visit). Public Library of Science This Awesome Urn Will Turn You into a Tree After You Die | Design for Good “After you die, do you want your body to feed worms or to feed squirrels?” asks the team behind the Bios Urn — a product by Spanish design studio estudimoline — that enables you, your loved ones, or your pets to be buried in a life-assuring kind of way by transforming their ashes into a tree. “Bios Urn changes the way people see death, converting the 'end of life' into a transformation and a return to life through nature. [It is] a smart, sustainable, and ecologically friendly way to approach what’s, probably, one of the most important moments in human life.” The Urn is 100% biodegradable, made of coconut shell, compacted peat, and cellulose. The Urn is manufactured both for people and for pets; it can be used with ash saved from another urn, and it doesn’t expire. Leaving behind a tree definitely seems like a better option than leaving behind a tombstone. Photos: Urna Bios

Technische Universität Wien : The World’s Smallest 3D Printer 3D-printer at TU Vienna Markus Hatzenbichler and Klaus Stadlmann with their micro-printer Printers which can produce three-dimensional objects have been available for years. However, at the Vienna University of Technology, a printing device has now been developed, which is much smaller, lighter and cheaper than ordinary 3D-printers. With this kind of printer, everyone could produce small, taylor-made 3D-objects at home, using building plans from the internet – and this could save money for expensive custom-built spare parts. Several scientific fields have to come together, to design a 3D-printer. Layer for LayerThe basic principle of the 3D-printer is quite simple: The desired object is printed in a small tub filled with synthetic resin. This method is not designed for large-scale production of bulk articles – for that, there are cheaper alternatives. Picture download

BMW Powered Twin-Rotor Hoverbike Every once in a while something comes along so crazy, so unearthly cool, we have to shout it from the rooftops. Today just happens to be that once in a while, so feast your eyes on the BMW boxer engine powered Hoverbike. Framed around an 1,170cc 4-stroke BMW boxer engine that powers the twin rotors, the Hoverbike was the brainchild of Australian inventor, Chris Malloy. Malloy claims that the Hoverbike’s thrust to weight ratio should enable it to elevate to 10,000 feet and reach a speed of 173 mph (this begs the need for a good parachute and industrial strength body armor). Cardboard Bike Helmet Better than Plastic | Gadget Lab The cardboard Kranium beats regular helmets in almost every way Kranium is a bike helmet that is made from the same cardboard used for the boxes you find at the supermarket. This material, along with some clever construction, turns out to be a lot better at absorbing impact than the more usual polystyrene-filled lids. Anirudha Surabhi’s design absorbs four times more impact energy that the polystyrene equivalent, and — unlike regular helmets which break on impact — it survives longer. One Kranium was smashed five times in a row and still passed the British Standard (EN 1078) test. What about rains and sweat? The Kranium is better than regular helmets in another way too. Surabhi’s design has already been licensed by some major manufacturers, so this is one student project that may make it into stores. Kranium project [Anirudharao via London Cyclist] See Also:

Scenes From Underground - Alan Taylor - In Focus Caves and tunnels have always been part of human life. We've grown more adept at shaping these underground shelters and passages over the millennia, and today we dig for hundreds of reasons. We excavate to find both literal and cultural treasures, digging mines and unearthing archaeological discoveries. We use caverns for stable storage, for entertainment, and for an effective shelter from natural and man-made disasters. And as the planet's surface becomes ever more crowded, and national borders are closed, tunnels provide pathways for our vehicles and for smugglers of every kind. Collected below are some recent subterranean scenes from around the world. [36 photos] Use j/k keys or ←/→ to navigate Choose: Tourists visit the Kuha Karuhas pavilion located inside the Phraya Nakhon cave, in the Khao Sam Roi Yot national park, some 300 km south of Bangkok, Thailand, on December 5, 2010. A visitor stands in the Erstfeld-Amsteg section of the NEAT Gotthard Base Tunnel October 5, 2010. U.S.

Top Secret Technology Demonstrator Aircraft Declassified: Urban Ghosts Media | (Image: U.S. Federal Government via Dreamland Resort ) Known as technology demonstrators, these pioneering stealth aircraft remained top secret for years after their final flights before being declassified. Lockheed Have Blue (Image: U.S. From 1977 to 1979, the revolutionary Lockheed Have Blue tested a new form of low observable technology known as faceting. (Image: left & right by U.S. Despite the exotic technologies they seek to perfect, technology demonstrators are often relatively cheap to manufacture. (Image: U.S. As is often the case with top secret technology demonstrators, the wreckage of the two Have Blue aircraft was buried within the Nellis Test Range. Northrop Tacit Blue (Image: U.S. Arguably one of the strangest looking planes ever built, the Northrop Tacit Blue was a technology demonstrator designed to show that a stealth surveillance aircraft could operate deep behind enemy lines while feeding real-time targeting information to a ground command centre. Boeing Bird of Prey

Fool's Gold: Why the Internet Is No Substitute for a Library (9780786430826): Mark Y. Herring A Paper Record Player : Kelli Anderson A Paper Record Player Posted by Kelli on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 · 185 Comments I just finished up a really fun project—a paper record player wedding invitation! In the booklet-style invitation, a bit of paper-folding amplifies the sound of a sewing needle moving along the grooves of a flexidisc record. The hand-spun record yields a garbled, but scrutable listening of an original song by the couple. So that’s what it is. Although this project really begins with Mr. Our little research and development group (comprised of the couple, me, and my better half, Daniel) propelled the project forward through myriad (and oft-disappointing) material trials. The resulting booklet is comprised of a cover, two inner pages, a letterpressed band (with instructions and a tear-off RSVP postcard), and a flexdisc on a screwpost. A major breakthrough came when we realized that the ideal sound was produced when the tented page created a perfect right triangle with the flexidisc. Related Posts

BubbleScope® – Instant 360º Smartphone Pix | Tom Lawton • British Inventor Shoot the bubble! In April 2001, Tom was travelling through India in search of the inspiration for his next invention. He recalls… “I was sitting on the floor of a train, day dreaming out of the open carriage doorway, I had the best seat, but the doorway around me was crowded with half a dozen faces, all smiling and looking into the horizon. Ten years ago, before the advent of camera phones (in Europe & the US at least) and Google Streetview, such a technology seemed to belong to the future – but in that moment and unafraid of the unknown, a seed was planted in Tom’s mind, which inspired him over the following decade to develop a compact, affordable, easy-to-use, single-shot panoramic camera that would enable anyone who loved travel and visual storytelling to capture & share their experiences as bubbles. Tom had no prior experience designing camera systems and regarded optical physics as a dark art, but after months of research he put his first designs to paper. But!

The Mysterious Minaret of Jam "QUANTUM SHOT" #709Link - article by Avi Abrams The 12-Century Wonder and Mystery of Afghanistan Built back in 1190s by the once great Ghorid empire, this enigmatic and intricately-ornamented ancient "skyscraper" stands like a missile pointing at the stars - a 65-meter high minaret, the second biggest religious monument of its kind in the world. Originally it was topped by the lantern - making it a sort of the dry land lighthouse (!) (Note a white jeep crossing the river in photo above: there was a bridge before, but it was destroyed during wartime...) Amazingly, this imposing structure was standing forgotten for centuries... until rediscovered in 1886 by Sir Thomas Holdich; then forgotten again and rediscovered in 1957. (image credit: Keith Mellnick) Perhaps the most intricate religious carvings on Earth (image via) The Lost City of the Turquoise Mountain (images via) Outstanding travel photographer Jane Sweeney has many galleries dedicated to such mysterious and ancient sites in Afghanistan.

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