Tag: menuitems

Watch these adorable baby octopuses hatch

If you’ve never seen an octopus hatch, now is your chance. These cute baby Caribbean reef octopuses, the size of a pinky nail, were hatched at the Virginia Aquarium. The way they immediately darken to purple is a fun surprise. According to The Verge : The video, posted by the Virginia Aquarium, shows a baby Caribbean reef octopus (Octopus briareus) no bigger than a pinky nail hatching from a bundle of eggs. As for the color change, these octopuses are known to be masters of disguise. “It was going into an instant camouflage as soon as it came out of the egg,” says Julie Levans, senior curator at the aquarium. These octopuses use specialized muscles to open and close little sacs of pigment in their skin called chromatophores — and this little guy was probably responding to the black tabletop beneath its tank. The baby octopus’s mom arrived at the aquarium about six months ago, and four months later, she laid between 100 and 200 eggs. Since this softball-sized species is solitary and also sometimes cannibalistic, this octopus lives alone at the aquarium. The eggs themselves weren’t surprising — female octopuses typically lay eggs. “What did catch us by surprise was the fact that they were fertilized,” Levans says. ICYMI: Your daily squee has arrived. #octobabies pic.twitter.com/D9e5T5bkun — Virginia Aquarium (@VAAquarium) February 7, 2018

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Watch these adorable baby octopuses hatch

Chandelier containing living microalgae to "purify the air"

https://youtu.be/Lxd43iH-CX0 Artist, inventor, and bio-hacker Julian Melchiorri created “Exhale, the Bionic Chandelier,” a hanging electric light that “purifies the air indoors through photosynthesis performed by living microalgae enclosed into leaf modules.” Exhale is now part of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s permanent collection. From the project page: Exhale is also the first living object which continuously grows while performing biologically-driven depurative functions. The light of the chandelier illuminate the space but also stimulates photosynthesis performed by tiny microalgae, this living microorganisms feed on carbon dioxide while releasing breathable oxygen into the room. This biological process performed by the chandelier establishes and explores a new symbiotic relationship between object and people where life-giving resources are constantly exchanged, and where each other waste enables respective metabolic processes. This exchange recalls how biospheric systems work, where waste ultimately doesn’t exists but is a valuable resource for other elements in that system. Bionic Chandelier (via The Kid Should See This )

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Chandelier containing living microalgae to "purify the air"

Limited edition Bicycle Karnival Midnight deck of playing cards

This purple and black deck of cards is absolutely lovely. I like to tell myself that decks with lovely and unexpected art work distract people from mistakes as I’m performing sleight of hand. Mostly, I just like fancy decks of cards. Limited Edition Karnival Midnight Purple Deck Playing Cards by Bicycle via Amazon

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Limited edition Bicycle Karnival Midnight deck of playing cards

Remove the DRM from iTunes movies with TunesKit

More and more people watch movies and TV shows at home, exclusively through the use of streaming services like Hulu or Netflix, but I’m not one of them. I’m not against streaming: the problem is that my partner and I live, full-time, in a 40 foot long motorhome, puttering around North and Central America. A lot of times, our rambles take us to places where the Internet connectivity is lousy. The upload/download speeds we get from RV parks or in the parking lots we surf are good enough for me to do my work online, but make for a buffering-filled nightmare if I even think about streaming anything. And if we decide to camp for a few weeks in a national park, I have to travel back towards civilization and a cellphone signal, just to check my email. We read a lot of books, but we both love movies. To keep us entertained, I’ve collected a hard drive full of just over 500 movies, and close to 300 hours of TV shows. Some are ripped from DVDs that I bought over the years, but most of them were purchased and downloaded from Apple. For the last several years, I’ve had a real hate on for iTunes. So far as software goes, it’s twitchy, slow and far from user friendly. I can’t count how many times that iTunes has lost the artwork for the movies that I own. It makes me a little nuts. I also absolutely loathe iOS 11’s TV app. It takes forever to show me what movies I have loaded on my tablet or phone and, as I don’t stream, I find it’s constant suggestions of what to watch really intrusive. Sadly, since Apple locks the video content they sell with DRM, there’s not a lot of options for freeing yourself from either app. Unless you’re prepared to spend some cash. While it’s far from perfect, I found that TunesKit’s $40 DRM Media Converter will rip the digital rights management locks right out of iTunes purchased content. Would Apple frown on this? Yep. But I have a hard time caring: If I buy something, I should be able to do what ever I damn well please with it. In this case, what I please involves my using apps and hardware other than those approved by Apple to watch the films I own. For this purpose the utility that Tuneskit’s software provides works a treat. To use it, all you have to do is open Tuneskit on your computer. Tuneskit, in turn, will access your iTunes library. This allows you to choose which of your iTunes videos you want to strip of their DRM. The amount of time that it takes to create a DRM-free copy of each video file you feed into the software depends on how long the video in question is. On the whole, I found the user experience to be relatively fast and frustration free. Almost. After buying the Mac OS version of the software, I discovered that it isn’t compatible with Mac OS High Sierra. A quick email conversation with Tuneskit’s support department revealed that the latest version of the operating system made the application unusable. Because of this, they offered me a license for the Windows version of the software. After installing it on my MacBook’s Bootcamp partition, the app worked perfectly. Since then, I’m able to watch videos purchased through iTunes using any iOS video app I want to, on my computer or Android handset. If you’re so inclined, you can still watch your videos and transfer them to your iPhone using iTunes, too. It’s worth mentioning that the software works on content rented from iTunes as well. But removing the DRM from rented videos to keep after the rental period is up is theft, plain and simple. Do what’s right for you. If you’ve had enough of being told by Apple what to do with the movies you own, I think Tuneskit’s a pretty good way to go. Screen capture: Seamus Bellamy

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Remove the DRM from iTunes movies with TunesKit

New Orleans pulls 46 tons of Marti Gras beads from storm drains

In temperate and tropical locales, storm drains are a vital bit of urban infrastructure. As a channel for rain water to drain from city streets, they play an important role in keeping the places most of us live habitable and our roads passable during wet weather. When storm drains get clogged with debris, the water they’re meant to carry can’t flow and things go sideways, fast. As such, most cities throw a lot of money at cleaning them – and the catch basins that feed into them – out, several times per year. New Orleans? They’ve got storm drains. Given the city’s history of catastrophic flooding, to say that keeping their waste water flowing would be an understatement. It’s a tough job, made more difficult by the annual influx of drunken, horny tourists. On January 28th, the Times-Picayune reported that in addition to the mud, leaves and garbage that New Orleans public works employees have to suck out of storm drains this year, they discovered something else: 46 tons of Marti Gras beads . For the sober uninitiated, the tradition of passing out strands and necklaces of Mardi Gras beads to boozy revelers started back in the 1800s when people parading as part of the annual celebration handed out the inexpensive mementos to onlookers. As anyone who’s been to the five-day festival recently will tell you, just as many strands of the beads wind up on the ground as they do around necks. While the city spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean up after the days-long party, the beads still end up getting into places that you don’t want them to – kind of like macro-sized glitter. In an effort to keep so much discarded plastic out of the city’s infrastructure and, more importantly, the environment, New Orleans’ local government has asked that city residents pitch in by cleaning the catch basins in their neighborhood. Photo via Flickr, courtesy of Mark Gstohl  

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New Orleans pulls 46 tons of Marti Gras beads from storm drains

Fidel Castro’s eldest son commits suicide

The eldest son of Fidel Castro, 68-year-old Fidel Angel Castro Diaz-Balart, committed suicide after a months-long treatment depression. Living in Cuba, Diaz-Balart, also knows as “Fidelito,” was hospitalized for his depression but had been released for outpatient care. According to NBC : He was known for studying how to develop nuclear energy on the island of Cuba, according to his official bio from the Academy of Sciences. Diaz-Balart is the cousin of NBC News and Telemundo anchor Jose Diaz-Balart as well as current Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Florida, who is a staunch anti-Castro figure. His uncle, Raul Castro, has led Cuba since 2008 when he took over the role of president of Cuba from Fidel Castro — who ruled his island home beginning in 1959, antagonized 11 U.S. presidents and died in 2016 aged of 90. The way in which he killed himself has not been disclosed. https://youtu.be/icyD0xTIzQA

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Fidel Castro’s eldest son commits suicide

New Super Mario movie in development with studio behind Minions

From Nintendo president Tatumi Kimishima’s corporate management policy briefing today ( PDF ) : We have started development of an animated movie featuring “Super Mario” with Illumination, the movie studio that brought films such as “Despicable Me” and “Minions.” For this project Mr. Chris Meledandri, Founder and CEO of Illumination and Shigeru Miyamoto, Representative Director, Fellow of Nintendo will co-producing the film. The film will be co-financed by Universal Pictures and Nintendo, and distributed theatrically worldwide by Universal Pictures. Further announcements on details such as release dates will be made at a later date. We look forward to providing further information about the release timing for this movie that we hope everyone will enjoy. As a part of our effort to expand Nintendo IP beyond video games, we look forward to bringing smiles to people around the world through this movie. Let’s hope it fares better than last time . (via Rolling Stone )

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New Super Mario movie in development with studio behind Minions

Watch warehouse with automated vertical storage shelves reduces storage area by 94%

Static shelves with bins holding small parts take up a lot of space. It’s interesting to see this case study of how a traditional warehouse was able to use wasted air space to reduce storage area by 94%. (more…)

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Watch warehouse with automated vertical storage shelves reduces storage area by 94%

Watch how 19th-century Genaille-Lucas calculating rulers work

Multiplying large numbers before calculators led to a number of ingenious inventions to make things easier, like these Genaille-Lucas rulers demonstrated by the fine folks at DONG. Via manufacturer Creative Crafthouse : In the days before calculators, methods of simplifying calculations were of much interest. In 1617 Napier also published a book describing a method to multiply, divide and extract square roots using a set of bars or rods. These became known as Napier’s Bones. (avail on our website) In the late 1800s, Henri Genaille, a French civil engineer, invented an improvement to Napier’s Bones that eliminates the need to handle carries from one digit position to the next. The problem was posed by Edouard Lucas and thus the alternate name of Genaille-Lucas Rulers (or Rods). There are also sets for division. You can get your own set online or print your own from these free files. • Genaille-Lucas Rulers (YouTube / DONG )

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Watch how 19th-century Genaille-Lucas calculating rulers work