Clipmarks | Aribeth's clips

7 unconventional and creative ways to recycle

Tue, 06 May 2008 20:04:50 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth

Clip Source: www.environmentalgraffiti.com

here are seven ways to make recycling a visible impact

7. The Walking Bike

This invention from Max Knight is a creative way to use old shoes.

Of course, you have to be willing to give up your hand brakes, but it’s a small price to pay to ride in such amazing style. The bike even has socks!

6. Pop Art Duck

5. The Washing Machine Spaceship

This alien-looking craft is, believe it or not, made entirely out of refrigerators and washing machines, dishwashers and garbage compactors.

4. A 2-liter Paradise: Build Your Own Island

looks like a fairly normal island, doesn’t it?

Why, you’d never suspect that it’s covering a floating heap of trash, thousands of plastic bottles in bags, held together with a bamboo frame, the island is 66 by 54 feet and can support a two-story house!

3. The Beer Bottle Buildings

a way to create odd works of pop art while building a brutally tough structure

2. Garbage Architecture

1. The Trashosaurus

this is a dinosaur made entirely out of garbage

weighs one ton

Tags: environment, green, design, cool

People like Us: the Quirkyalone

Mon, 05 May 2008 21:40:28 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.quirkyalone.net

I am, perhaps, what you might call deeply single. Almost never ever in a relationship. Until recently, I wondered whether there might be something weird about me

Emily Dickinson: quirky and alone, but not quirkyalone. We are sociable people.

f Jung was right, that people are different in fundamental ways that drive them from within, then the quirkyalone is simply to be added to the pantheon of personality types assembled over the 20th century

I. Only now, when the idea of marrying at age 20 has become thoroughly passé, are we quirkyalones emerging in greater numbers.

We are the puzzle pieces who seldom fit with other puzzle pieces. Romantics, idealists, eccentrics, we inhabit singledom as our natural resting state.

For the quirkyalone, there is no patience for dating just for the sake of not being alone. We want a miracle. Out of millions, we have to find the one who will understand.

Quirkyalones have vibrators.

when one quirkyalone finds another, oooh la la. The earth quakes.

Tags: quirkyalone

e-cards unsuitable for any occasion

Mon, 05 May 2008 18:20:49 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: Tragically,this shot would be illegal in most parts of the world...

Clip Source: www.wrongcards.com

Welcome to Wrongcards!

I hope you'll find at least one that might be unsuitable to send to a very understanding friend or relative.

Show them you care!

Clip Source: www.wrongcards.com

Tags: funny, fun, humor, wrong

Naturmobil: Cart runs on "horse power"

Sun, 04 May 2008 15:28:40 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: "My friends and relatives thought of me as a somewhat eccentric half-mad inventor attempting the impossible," said Mirhejazi who has brought his invention to Dubai. Nevertheless, one friend was prepared to rustle up enough cash to put the project under starter’s orders.

"It took me 26 months to build the vehicle in my workshop in Tehran. I got it patented by a special department in Iran after professors at universities there attested that it was a scientific invention."

Clip Source: www.xpress4me.com

Abdolhadi Mirhejazi’s friends thought he was off his rocker when he told them of his idea for the Naturmobil – but he wasn’t bucking around.

His plan was to create a vehicle which really does put the cart before the horse.

And once he’d got the bit between his teeth, wild stallions couldn’t tear him away from his favourite hobby.

The result of his labours is a one horsepower, space age all-weather buggy powered by, ugh, a horse.

Clip Source: www.xpress4me.com

Unlike traditional horse-drawn vehicles, the horse rides inside, behind the driver, protected by an all-weather canopy.

And thanks to a lightweight polycarbonate frame and complex gearing, it can reach speeds of up to 80km/h – although its cruising speed is a more sedate 20km/h.

The horse walks on a fibreglass treadmill, generating enough power to move the 300kg Naturmobil along on six motorcycle wheels.

Clip Source: www.xpress4me.com

Naturmobil was designed and built to achieve the maximum level of attention from its audiences. F. Minooeifar, Marketing Manager

Tags: crazy and cool

Mysterious people

Sun, 04 May 2008 14:39:35 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: who appeared in the village of Woolpit in Suffolk, UK, in the 12th century. The children were brother and sister and they had green colored skin. Their appearance was normal in all other areas. They spoke an unrecognized language and refused to eat anything other than pitch from bean pods. Eventually their skin lost its green color. When they learned English they explained that they were from the ‘Land of St Martin’ which was a dark place because the sun never rose far above the horizon. They claimed that they were tending their father’s herd and followed a river of light when they heard the sounds of bells - finding themselves in Woolpit.Some of the more unusual theories proposed for the origin of the children are that they were Hollow Earth children, parallel dimension children, or Extraterrestrial children.

Clip Source: listverse.com

Top 10 Mysterious People

Over the centuries, history is filled with wonderful tales of mysterious people - many of whom are never identified.

Monsieur Chouchani

nickname of a

Jewish teacher

left a very strong intellectual legacy via his students

The Poe Toaster

nickname given to a

man who pays annual tribute to Poe by visiting his grave every year

started in 1949 - a century are after Poe’s death

Babushka Lady

Kaspar Hauser

Fulcanelli

pseudonym of a late 19th century French Alchemist and author

D. B. Cooper

Comte St Germain

courtier, adventurer, inventor, amateur scientist, violinist, amateur composer, and a mysterious gentleman

also

skills associated with

alchemy

Man in the Iron Mask

died November 1703

was a prisoner held in a number of Jails (including the Bastille) during the reign of King Louis XIV of France

To this day, no one knows who he was.

Gil Pérez

Spanish soldier

suddenly appeared in Mexico City on October 26, 1593

Green Children of Woolpit

were two children

Tags: odd, weird, mystery

Could Jupiter wreck the solar system?

Sun, 04 May 2008 12:13:24 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: "So what's the likelihood Mercury could crash into the Earth? If it did, the asteroid that most likely wiped out the dinosaurs will seem like a drop in the ocean compared with a planet 4880 km in diameter slamming into us. There will be very little left after this wrecking ball impact.

But here's the kicker: There is only a 1% chance that these gravitational instabilities of the inner Solar System are likely to cause any kind of chaos before the Sun turns into a Red Giant and swallows Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars in 7 billion years time. So, no need to look out for death-wish Mercury quite yet… there's a very low chance that any of this will happen. But some good news for Mars; the researchers have also found that if the chaos does ensue, the Red Planet may be flung out of the Solar System, possibly escaping our expanding Sun. So, let's get those Mars colonies started! Well, within the next few billions of years anyhow…"

Good stuff for the next science-fiction movie

Clip Source: www.universetoday.com

Could Jupiter Wreck the Solar System?

Happily orbiting the Sun, the eight planets (plus Pluto and other minor planets) appear to have a high degree of long-term gravitational stability. But Jupiter has a huge gravitational influence over its siblings, especially the smaller planets.

The huge gravitational pull of Jupiter seems to be bullying Mercury into an increasingly eccentric death-orbit, possibly flinging the cosmic lightweight into the path of Venus. To make things worse, there might be dire consequences for Earth…

The researchers

Jacques Laskar

Konstantin Batygin

and Gregory Laughlin

formulate four possible scenarios as to what may happen as Mercury gets disturbed:

Mercury will crash into the Sun
Mercury will be ejected from the solar system altogether
Mercury will crash into Venus
Mercury will crash into Earth

The last option is obviously the worst case scenario for us, but all will be bad news for Mercury, the small planet's fate appears to be sealed.

Tags: science, space, astronomy

Sound The Alarm: Landscapes in Distress Enviro-Exhibit

Sun, 04 May 2008 10:30:26 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth

Clip Source: www.inhabitat.com

This carefully curated photography and painting exhibition at Wavehill’s Glyndor Gallery in the Bronx is strikingly powerful

Set amidst a lush garden estate and thriving cultural center, Sound the Alarm: Landscapes in Distress is proof that ‘interpreting’ nature and our relationship to and with it, is perhaps better understood while in the throes of nature and all its eco-messiness rather than in a gallery’s sleek, sanitized, white box.

features an impressive roster of international photographers who have painstakingly documented the state of our environment - in all is fragility and resilient robustness

Alarming enviro-circumstances from the Artic to the Equator are boldly represented as are man-made imprints like rock quarrying, wildfires, burnt farmland, subterranean coal mines, and peoples displaced by some serious climate shift.

Biomonitors like moss and lichen are also shockingly off-color in the photos displayed

and

communities

seem to be a former charred shadow of their vibrant selves

Clip Source: www.wavehill.org

Tags: environment, green, photography, exhibition

Sexy side of UV-B

Fri, 02 May 2008 15:56:58 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth

Clip Source: www.sciencenews.org

The first evidence of the dreaded ultraviolet-B wavelengths as a male come-on has turned up in a jumping spider from Asia.

Clip Source: www.sciencenews.org

Males of the small, iridescent jumping spider species Phintella vittata reflect ultraviolet wavelengths, mostly in the 290 to 320 nanometer range designated as B, says Daiqin Li of the National University of Singapore. UV-B is powerful stuff that increases risks of skin cancer and other ills in humans.

Yet females of this jumping spider prefer males with that UV-B charm, Li and his colleagues report in the May 6 Current Biology. The researchers set females in an arena where they could see two males posing and flirting. When a filter above one male screened out the UV-B, females spent barely half as much time watching him than his rival with full spectral glory.

Darrel Kemp

at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia

calls the results "the strongest evidence that UV-B might be used in sexual signaling, which is a significant step forward."

Men aren't all from Mars

Thu, 01 May 2008 17:44:05 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: Taken together, the findings provide a much more nuanced picture of men's sexuality than is promoted by men's magazines, Janssen pointed out. "There's huge variability among men in how easily they're turned on or turned off, how easily they experience sexual desire and arousal," he explained. "The differences among men and the differences among women are much larger than the average difference between the sexes in almost anything sexual."In fact, the researcher added, as many as 30 percent of women may be more easily sexually aroused than most men.

"This study's challenging the idea that men are simple," he said.

Clip Source: www.newsdaily.com

Turn-ons, turn-offs, desire varies widely among men

Men aren't all from Mars when it comes to their sexuality, a new study from Kinsey Institute researchers shows.

"We're probably from a whole bunch of different planets," Dr. Erick Janssen

told Reuters Health.

Janssen and his team set up six focus groups in which 50 men between the ages of 18 and 70, most of whom were white and heterosexual, talked about what aroused them sexually and what enhanced or inhibited their arousal.

Men reported getting erections without necessarily being aroused, while some men, especially older men, said they might become aroused without having an erection. Some used masturbation as a way to "fix" it "when something just feels off," or as a "great way" to get out of a funk.

Many men said feeling confident and good about themselves often led to feeling sexually aroused

Mood and feeling emotionally connected also influenced arousal for men, while a woman's scent was key for some men, but not others.

Tags: sexual behavior, sex

The man who invented Mars

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:02:29 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: It is Lowell's vision of Mars that has enthralled and inspired earthlings ever since.In 1895, Lowell published a book about what he believed he saw.He became famous and immensely popular.Lowell was born at 131 Tremont Street in Boston on March 13,1855,into a family at the pinnacle of what passed for American aristocracy.

The appearance of Lowell's book about Mars in 1895 came at a time of canal-building on earth. The Suez had recently been constructed; the Panama was in the works. For both Lowell and his adoring public, the prospect of canals on a neighboring planet was too captivating to dismiss.

He published his second book about the Red Planet, Mars and Its Canals, in 1906.In 1908, he published his third and final book on the planet, Mars as the Abode of Life.

Back at his observatory on Mars Hill, Lowell renewed his attention to another matter: the possibility of a ninth planet beyond Neptune, which he called "Planet X."

Clip Source: www.boston.com

The Man Who Invented Mars

Long before the space race and space shuttle, a brilliant, wealthy, charming Boston Brahmin named Percival Lowell popularized the idea that we are not alone in the universe.

At left, a colorized version of a 1905 drawing of Mars by Lowell; at right, an artist’s concept of the Phoenix Mars lander.

AT 7:36 P.M. ON May 25, if all goes well, a stranger from Earth will land near the north pole of Mars. It is called Phoenix.

Somewhere, a 19th century Boston Brahmin named Percival Lowell will be smiling.

Long before NASA was established in 1958

Percival Lowell devoted much of his career and considerable fortune to trying to prove that Mars hosted intelligent life. Viewed through his telescopes, the ancient, baleful Red Planet was about the size of a dime.

Lowell believed he was seeing a network of canals on its surface. Therefore, he declared, Mars holds intelligent life. It is not necessarily like human life, he emphasized, but it is intelligent enough to build canals.

Tags: science, space, astronomy

Robin Hanson on the "Great Filter"

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:37:50 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: there is a "Great Filter" along the path between simple dead stuff and explosive life. The vast vast majority of stuff that starts along this path never makes it. In fact, so far nothing among the billion trillion stars in our whole past universe has made it all the way along this path.... [O]ne or more of these steps is much more improbable than it otherwise looks. If it is one of our past steps, such as the development of single-cell life, then we shouldn't expect to see such independently evolved life anywhere within billions of light years from us. But if it is a step between here and a choice to explode that is very improbable, we should fear for our future.... Optimism (as defined here) regarding our future is directly pitted against optimism regarding the ease of previous evolutionary steps. To the extent those successes were easy, our future failure to explode is almost certain...

Clip Source: econ161.berkeley.edu

The Great Filter - Are We Almost Past It?

Robin Hanson argues that either (a) our emergence as intelligent humans on the earth was very, very, very improbable and unlikely, but that our future (at least in terms of expansion of human-settled habitats throughout the universe) is bright, or (b) emergence as intelligent humans on the earth was relatively easy, but that our future is dim (and perhaps that our extinction is all but guaranteed).

The Great Filter: Consider our best-guess evolutionary path to an explosion which leads to visible colonization of most of the visible universe:

1. The right star system (including organics)
2. Reproductive something (e.g. RNA)
3. Simple (prokaryotic) single-cell life
4. Complex (archaeatic & eukaryotic) single-cell life
5. Sexual reproduction
6. Multi-cell life
7. Tool-using animals with big brains
8. Where we are now
9. [Interstellar] Colonization explosion

The Great Silence implies that one or more of these steps are very improbable;

Tags: theory, science, space colonization, biology, evolution

Small city vacation destinations

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 14:24:08 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth

Clip Source: blog.ratestogo.com

Best Small City Vacation Destinations

These gems of less than a million residents marry big city creature comforts with the quaint charm of a cozy hamlet.

Quebec City, Canada

to visitors the city is like a delicious secret on the brink of discovery

The old town within the city is a UNESCO World Heritage site and boasts fortification walls

many festivals

Christchurch, New Zealand

Geographically the city is a marvel, with borders on Pegasus Bay, the Pacific Ocean, the estuary of the Avon and Heathcote Rivers and the volcanic slopes of the Port Hills.

unique Botanical Gardens, Orana Wildlife Park, Arts Centre and Ferrymead Heritage Park

explore the wine culture

Ghent, Belgium

This little Medieval city has bona fide soul. Residents are hearty, warm and exude a salt-of-the-earth authenticity that many tourists romanticize about.

there were human inhabitants in the region as far back as the Stone Age

legendary nightlife

San Sebastian, Spain

people are fiercely independent and proud

best cuisine in

Spain

Tags: travel, holidays, people and places, tourism, photos

smart kids vs popular kids

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:26:42 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: Partly because teenagers are still half children, and many children are just intrinsically cruel. Some torture nerds for the same reason they pull the legs off spiders. Before you develop a conscience, torture is amusing.Another reason kids persecute nerds is to make themselves feel better.But I think the main reason is that it's part of the mechanism of popularity. Popularity is only partially about individual attractiveness. It's much more about alliances. To become more popular, you need to be constantly doing things that bring you close to other popular people, and nothing brings people closer than a common enemy.

It's important for nerds to realize that school is not life. School is a strange, artificial thing, half sterile and half feral. It's all-encompassing, like life, but it isn't the real thing. It's only temporary, and if you look, you can see beyond it even while you're still in it.<<

Interesting read.Written by someone who was considered to be a "nerd" at school.

Clip Source: www.paulgraham.com

there is a strong correlation between being smart and being a nerd, and an even stronger inverse correlation between being a nerd and being popular. Being smart seems to make you unpopular.

Nerds serve two masters. They want to be popular, certainly, but they want even more to be smart. And popularity is not something you can do in your spare time

it takes work to be popular

In a typical

school, standards for coolness are so high (or at least, so specific) that you don't have to be especially awkward to look awkward by comparison.

Few smart kids can spare the attention that popularity requires. Unless they also happen to be good-looking, natural athletes, or siblings of popular kids, they'll tend to become nerds.

that's why smart people's lives are worst between, say, the ages of eleven and seventeen

Nerds would find their unpopularity more bearable if it merely caused them to be ignored. Unfortunately, to be unpopular in school is to be actively persecuted.

Why?

Tags: school problems, bullies, psychology, essay, teenagers

Inferring personality from e-mail addresses

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:19:12 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: Altogether, even the thinnest slice of CMC—the mere e-mail address—contains valid information about the personality of its owner.<<

Hmm...I don't know,I am just a moon elf...

Clip Source: www.sciencedirect.com

Computer mediated communication (CMC) plays a rapidly growing role in our social lives. Within this domain, e-mail addresses represent the thinnest slice of information that people receive from one another.

Using 599 e-mail addresses of young adults, their self-reported personality scores and the personality judgments of 100 independent observers, it was shown that personality impressions based solely on e-mail addresses were consensually shared by observers. Moreover, these impressions contained some degree of validity. This was true for neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and narcissism but not for extraversion.

Level of accuracy was explained using lens model analyses: Lay observers made broad use of perceivable e-mail address features in their personality judgments, features were slightly valid and observers were sensitive to subtle differences in validity between cues.

Tags: personality, stereotypes, internet

Life on the edge

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 07:27:37 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: That throws up a tricky problem for engineers sending space craft to explore these alien worlds. What if the craft were to carry its own cargo of Earth microbes which set up home there?One major problem for any accidental interplanetary microbe would be how to survive the punishing radiation bombardment in space. Most would be rapidly frazzled en route. Most, but not all.

Deinococcus radiodurans, nicknamed "Conan the Bacterium", is listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the "world's toughest bacterium". By rapidly replacing its DNA, it can survive cold, dehydration, vacuum, acid and a hefty radiation dose. Its Latin name means "terrifying berry that withstands radiation".

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Life on the edge

Even in the world's harshest environments there are creatures that cling to life equipped with extraordinary survival capabilities.

Welcome to the bizarre and uncomfortable (for us) world of the extremophiles - hardy organisms that thrive under the most punishing conditions.

Apart from cold-loving species there are organisms adapted to extreme heat, dryness, saltiness and even high radioactivity.

The most impressive hyperthermophile is the recently discovered Strain 121. It is able to keep dividing even at water temperatures of 121C (hence its name). At this depth, due to the extreme pressure, water does not boil.

halophiles or salt-lovers, have adapted to thrive in salt concentrations 10 times those in sea water, or even higher - for example in Utah's Great Salt Lake

With so many super-hardy creatures on our doorstep here on Earth, the possibility that simple life-forms exist somewhere in the solar system or beyond looks much more likely.

Tags: science, biology