Friday Flowers: Plastic Bag Pom Poms Remember when I was going to post a flower project every Friday and then I stopped doing it because I kept forgetting it's Friday? Well, today I’m rectifying that, even though technically this is Monday. Let’s just pretend it’s Friday, okay? I could go back and alter the date so it looks like I posted this on Friday but that seems dishonest and technologically complicated. Also, this project is no big whoop because I have pretty much posted it already. Only difference this time is that I’m using a plastic bag to make a bow for a wine bottle, because, let’s face it, there’s a good chance you are giving away some wine bottles in the next few weeks. To make these, all you need is a plastic bag, some scissors, a 3# piece of cardboard and a piece of wire or ribbon or twine (pipe cleaners are my personal favorite). First, cut your bag on one side to create one large flat piece of plastic, then roll your bag into a tube shape. Wrap the individual strands around your 3” piece of cardboard.
Global Food Disparity: A Photo Diary In an increasingly globalized world, it’s still sometimes shocking to see just how disparate our lives are compared with other human beings around the world. A book of photographs by Peter Menzel called "Hungry Planet: What the World Eats" ("©Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com. Ten Speed Press, published in 2005) makes a relevant point with great irony: at a time when hundreds of millions of people don't have enough to eat, hundreds of millions more are eating too much and are overweight or obese. In observing what six billion eat for dinner the authors note, "Today, more people are overweight than underweight." It is these cultural differences, emphasized and reinforced by the author, which exemplifies the lifestyles and dietary habits of people around the world. You can buy the book here. Meet the The Manzo family of Sicily. Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07.
Human observation of dark energy may shorten the life span of the universe However, since this is a quantum issue at its core, Krauss points out that measurements can affect the outcome of the system. He suggests that our measurements of supernovae in 1998, which detected the existence of dark energy, may have reset the false vacuum's decay clock to zero, switching it back to the fast decay regime, and greatly decreasing the universe's chance of surviving. "In short, we may have snatched away the possibility of long-term survival for our universe and made it more likely it will decay," says Krauss. How could something like this possibly happen? In quantum mechanics, there is an effect known as the quantum Zeno effect—an oddity of the quantum world that suggests a system can be kept in an excited state simply by repeated measurements. Now, as I said at the beginning, the work has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Top 10 Civilizations That Mysteriously Disappeared Throughout our history, most civilizations have either met a slow demise or were wiped out by natural disasters or invasion. But there are a few societies whose disappearance has scholars truly stumped: 10. The Olmec One of the first Mesoamerican societies, the Olmec inhabited the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico. Where did they go? Around 400 BC the eastern half of the Olmec’s lands was depopulated- possibly due to environmental changes. 9. The Nabateans were a Semitic culture that inhabited parts of Jordan, Canaan and Arabia from around the sixth century BC. During the fourth century AD, the Nabateans abandoned Petra and no one really knows why. 8. The Aksumite Empire began in the first century AD in what is now Ethiopia and is believed to be the home of the Queen of Sheba. According to local legend, a Jewish Queen named Yodit defeated the Aksumite Empire and burned its churches and literature. 7.The Mycenaeans 6. 5.The Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture 4. 3.The Minoans 2.The Anasazi 1.
Are Your “Projections” Limiting Your Success? » Personal Develop Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest by Christopher R. Edgar of Purpose Power Coaching. Thanks Chris! I once coached a man who was, in most areas, a competent entrepreneur. He knew his business very well, he was dedicated and ambitious, and he was an effective leader for his team. But he had one sticking point. “What makes you think people won’t like hearing about your business?” “Well, I know I get annoyed when I go to an event just to relax, and people start pushing their companies on me.” “So you figure other people are going to feel the same way you do?” At first, he looked exasperated, and I thought he was going to snap “of course they will.” We talked a little about the possibility that some people might appreciate, or at least be interested in, learning more about others’ businesses at a social event. How Projection Holds Us Back The mindset my client came to me with is similar to the way many of us see the world. This habit shows up in every area of our lives. Author’s Bio
Friday Flowers: Garbage Flowers As mentioned earlier, these garbage flowers festoon the bars on the front windows of my basement apartment. At the risk of tooting my own horn (toot! toot!) I just love how these flowers came out; they look awful nifty, cost $2 in materials, start conversations with the neighbors, and most important--they make me happy every time I walk through my front door. Minus a $2 bolt of 20gage wire, these were made entirely from materials I had around the house or was planning to discard. People making stuff out of nothing is as beautiful as it gets, at least in my book. Instructions Materials 1. *A note on paint: I used spray paint because I like the gradient effect and happened to have some open cans around. Spikey 5. Daffodils 8. Bag Lady Flowers Did your Brownie troop make these out of old shopping bags? 11. Variations 18. See them in action!
Arts, design blog thermodynamics - Cooling a cup of coffee with help of a spoon Stirring will win, hands down, every time. This is why physicists need to talk to chemists once in a while. As Georg correctly remarks, the latent heat of vaporization of water is enormous - but he's wrong about waving the spoon; stirring is the champion here. Why? It's similar to stirring iced tea. This kind of thing has a lot of applications to laboratory and industrial chemical processes, surface catalysis, petroleum cracking, yadda yadda. If you want an even faster way to cool a cup of coffee, here's a tip from my Granddad Parker: forget the spoon and saucer your coffee.
Slingbox Classic now cheap - stream to your Moby! Another Expansys exclusive it would seem, but the Slingbox Classic is now being sold for £59.95 on their UK site – a bit of a bargain for a piece of kit that has some very nice video streaming features. I was responsible for testing this piece of kit for a certain UK operator, when they wanted to see how it could be used to output the video stream for an STB (Set-top box) to a mobile device (in this case it was a Windows Mobile device) – suffice to say after a bit of a fiddle setting it up, I got some nice quality streaming from my STB, out over my broadband connection, across the net, in to my mobile operator’s 3G network, and to the device. Probably the beauty of the system is not just being able to watch TV remotely, but also to be able to control the STB remotely – that’s right, because there was a Slingbox client running on the Mobile device, it meant return signals could be sent back to Slingbox, which had it’s own IR sender, to control the box! About The Author Ben Robinson
Paper Flower Key Holder / Mark Montano Difficulty Rating: Beginner Tags If you need a quick 'just because' gift for someone, this is it! It’s simple to make, couldn’t be less expensive and we can all use one. I for one am always losing my keys and this, by far, is the easiest way for me to keep track of them. Here’s how: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Supply List Wire hanger Needle nose pliers with built in wire cutter (most are made like this) Hot glue gun and glue sticks Stapler Book pages Fiskars Scissors and Pinking Shears Krylon Clear CoatSmall piece of cardboard