Ninja Airlines

This audio clip from Twit TV episode that included discussion about exploding batteries. Cory Doctorow had an animated description of a new airline, designed to remove all of this trouble from our lives...

Tornado

In Minnesota, we've often had these, some quite destructive.

What is interesting about this video is the fact that at first, the funnel at the ground is almost invisible, because has just started to pick up debris (the road's gravel and some soil).

I wonder why or what conditions could have spawned the cyclonic action without pulling down the clouds type water vapor we often see in these.




Courtsey of jimreedphoto.com

Urban Word of the Day

from Brian Catt in the UK

meanderthal

People who wander around aimlessly and always seem to get in your way in stores and supermarkets, chatting on their cell phones and paying no attention to their surroundings.

I would have been here ten minutes earlier if I hadn't been stuck behind that meanderthal.

Klein Bottles

Remember this from college topology?

Link to a firm that will sell you one.

Interesting instructions are included for filling and drying out the bottles, which include drying in a medium oven, microwaving, rinsing with alcohol (since it evaporates faster), using an aquarium pump and hose, and my personal favorite: expose the water, but not the glass, to a beam of pure antimatter.

Reproduced here is the frightening instructions to clean inside, or is that outside?

I suggest swishing around a small amount of Windex or alcohol. Use Vodka for a Klein Stein. For tough marks on the "inside" (which, of course, is the same as the "outside"), use a pair of small flat rare-earth magnets, each wrapped with soft velcro or cotton, and wet with Windex.

Keeping one magnet on the "outside" (which, of course is the same as the "inside") and one on the "inside" (which, of course is the same as the "outside"), you can scrub both sides of the glass at once. Since both sides are really the same side, so you're really scrubbing two sections of the same side -- a nice labor-saving method that also works on Moebius Loop Conveyor Belts.