blazenhoff – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Garbage collectors open a public library with discarded books

In Ankara, Turkey, one person’s trash is literally another’s treasure. Garbage collectors started saving books once destined for the landfill and opened a public library. CNN reports : For months, the garbage men gathered forsaken books. As word of the collection spread, residents also began donating books directly. Initially, the books were only for employees and their families to borrow. But as the collection grew and interest spread throughout the community, the library was eventually opened to the public in September of last year… Today, the library has over 6,000 books ranging from literature to nonfiction. There is also a popular kid’s section with comic books and an entire section for scientific research. Books in English and French are also available for bilingual visitors. The library is housed in a previously vacant brick factory at the sanitation department headquarters… The collection grew so large the library now loans the salvaged books to schools, educational programs, and even prisons. ( For Reading Addicts ), image via CNN

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Garbage collectors open a public library with discarded books

Watch this timelapse of a guy single-handedly building a log cabin the woods

Well, this is damn impressive. Outdoorsman Shawn James built a log cabin in the Canadian woods all by himself — without power tools — and created this timelapse video to prove it. He writes : At the beginning of the video, I show a winter drone photo of the cabin in the snow in December. Then I flashback to the first balsam fir tree I cut down with a saw and axe near the cabin. I drag the trees into place and clear the cabin site. All summer, I cut the notches in the logs as I built the cabin up, offsite. Once I was finished notching the logs with a log scribe, saw, axe, adze and wood carving gouge, I loaded up the entire cabin of logs and moved them to my land near Algonquin Park, Ontario Canada… Because the cabin is offgrid, I have used handtools for most of the build and without power, I have no options on site regardless. The tiny house will continue to be operated with power, not even renewable energy for now, so I’m heating the cabin with a woodstove fire place, which I also cook on. ( digg )

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Watch this timelapse of a guy single-handedly building a log cabin the woods

How to make a shiv with hard, dried fish

Katsuobushi (aka bonito) is dried, fermented and smoked tuna and it’s incredibly hard. It’s so hard that it’s possible to fashion a shiv out of it. To do so, you’ll need a mandoline, an adjustable wrench, a metal file, a vise to hold it in, an oven, a whetstone and some patience. YouTuber kiwami japan shows the way. You’ll not only get a dangerous weapon out of the deal but also a big bag of bonito flakes (which are great for making your food look like it’s moving ). ( SoraNews24 )

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How to make a shiv with hard, dried fish

Making rubber bands is incredibly labor intensive

Wow. I had no idea that making rubber bands was so labor intensive. Can you imagine the resources it took just to get this long process in place? This footage is from the show How It’s Made . An older (but worse quality) video exists and shares that this factory makes 40 million rubber bands a day.

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Making rubber bands is incredibly labor intensive

A mysterious Thai singer performing in an oyster costume is the top YouTube video for 2017

With nearly 183 million views since June, this Thai music video is the top globally trending video of 2017, according to YouTube. It’s called “Until we become dust” and it’s performed by a singer in a full silver and white costume whose head is elaborately masked in oyster shells and pearls. The mysteriously-garbed musician is competing in a strange Thai TV singing show called ” The Mask Singer .” Here are the show’s rules : The contestants are broken up into four groups, each group containing 8 masked celebrities. Each episode consists of two pairs of battling contestants, up until the final for each group, where the contestants perform a duet before battling it out. The winner reveals their identity in the last episode of each season… The contestants are prompted to sing a song of their choice and design a unique costume with a team of designers. Each costume covers the entirety of the contestant’s body… The identity of each contestant is kept confidential. When they arrive at the studio, staff members bring them cloaks to conceal their identity. Before filming the show, each contestant has to sign a contract ensuring they keep their identity a secret. During rehearsals, their voices are modified. The staff members who are authorized to know contestants’ identity such as makeup artists, costume designers, the director, and studio staff, have signed contracts to keep it confidential. When editing the footage and audio, they lock the doors to stop anyone from looking through. Later, according to CNBC , the masked celebrity was revealed to be singer Pandavaram Prasarnmitr of the Thai rock band, Cocktail. Here’s one of their music videos where you can see what he looks like without oyster shells on his face: https://youtu.be/UsnIyScLe-s

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A mysterious Thai singer performing in an oyster costume is the top YouTube video for 2017

Geode jigsaw puzzles

This stunning line of geologically-inspired jigsaw puzzles, named Geode, is the creation of Massachusetts-based generative design studio and retailer Nervous System . As described in their blog : Geode is a jigsaw puzzle inspired by the formation of agate, a colorful banded stone. Each puzzle is unique, emerging from a computer simulation that creates natural variations in the shape, pieces, and image. Hundreds of lasercut plywood pieces intertwine to form a challenging, maze-like puzzle. Each geode is a slice of an algorithmic rock. The puzzles are intricately cut in birch plywood, completely unique from each other, and available in two sizes (approx. 180 pieces for $60 and 370 pieces for $95 ). https://vimeo.com/239518266 ( My Modern Met )

These people revealed their passwords a little too freely

Earlier this month on Jimmy Kimmel Live , random people on the street were asked to share their main internet password. Amazingly, some did… on camera, no less. ( Viral Viral Videos )

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These people revealed their passwords a little too freely

Rare white giraffes spotted in Kenya

In early June, conservation rangers with the Hirola Conservation Program in Kenya first spotted a white female and baby giraffe. In early August, they were able to capture this footage of the elusive pair. Like that translucent-shelled lobster that was recently pulled in, these giraffes are not albino but have a genetic condition called Leucism. That means they a partial loss of pigmentation in their skin cells. If you look closely, you can see a familiar, though faded, reticulation on the calf’s neck. A blogger for Hirola writes : In this very sighting, in Ishaqbini, there was a mother and a juvenile The communities within Ishaqbini have mixed reactions to the sighting of this leucistic giraffe and most of the elders report that they have never seen this before. ‘This is new to us” says bashir one of the community rangers who alerted us when they sighted the white giraffe. “I remember when I was a kid, we never saw them” he added. “It must be very recent and we are not sure what is causing it” he said. ( National Geographic )

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Rare white giraffes spotted in Kenya

Rare translucent ‘ghost’ lobster caught by Maine lobsterman

After more than 40 years on the job, 10th generation lobsterman Alex Todd of Chebeague Island, Maine recently pulled in a crustacean even he had never seen: a translucent lobster. He’s quoted in the Guardian as saying , “I was definitely surprised,” and “It was like it was clear but with white under the clearness and a blue tint, but you couldn’t see organs or anything under the shell, it wasn’t to that level.” The Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association shared a little info about the lobster’s unusual pearly look, on their Facebook page: A normal lobster gets its color by mixing yellow, blue, and red protein pigments. Through different genetic mutations you can get a blue, yellow, or red (uncooked) lobster. You can also get strange mixtures of those colors as well. This lobster probably has a genetic condition called Leucism which isn’t a total loss of pigment (which would make it an albino) but instead a partial loss. This is why you can still see some hints of blue on the shell and color on the eyes. Todd threw the lobster back into the ocean because it is an egg-bearing female . Such lobsters are protected under strict conservation laws.

A big chunk of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks have been digitized and can be viewed online

The British Library has digitized 570 loose pages of notes written and drawn by Leonard da Vinci to compile a notebook which is called, The Codex Arundel . You can view the document online for free, although it’s written in Italian and uses his “characteristic left-handed mirror-writing (reading from right to left).” The Guardian suggests enjoying the work of the self-taught Renaissance man as it is, without translation: The digitised British Library manuscript is a fascinating artefact in itself, just to browse. You don’t need a translation to appreciate the beauty and wonder of Leonardo’s mind. This is a great work of art, in a precociously conceptual genre that has been emulated by modern artists such as Joseph Beuys and Cy Twombly. The Codex includes “diagrams, drawings and brief texts” which cover “a broad range of topics in science and art, as well as personal notes.” The British Library describes some of Da Vinci’s insights: His notebooks combine detailed observation with notes of experiments. Even if he did not actually undertake the experiments, he described what could be tried. Many of his insights foreshadowed scientific research by many centuries. For example: Leonardo repudiated perpetual motion, understood the principle of relative motion, and foreshadowed Newton’s Third Law by two centuries: “For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.” He rejected the notion that the Biblical flood was responsible for depositing fossils many miles from their origin and deduced the existence of very long spans of geological time. By dissecting humans and animals, Leonardo made many anatomical and some physiological discoveries. He investigated optics and perception with subtle experiments, explaining why the sky is blue, arguing that light has a finite velocity and travels in straight lines, and deducing the existence of a surface within the eye that receives light from a wide field of view. Leonardo formulated the law of the flow of currents: “All motion of water of uniform breadth and surface is stronger at one place than at another according as the water is shallower there than at the other.” ( Open Culture ) Previously: Students build working version of Leonardo da Vinci’s self-supporting bridge

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A big chunk of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks have been digitized and can be viewed online