Posts

Chaos theory is meant to study complex systems. A study shows that chaos may be too, well, chaotic for computers to create on their own. It’s a question of numbers. Computers use factors of 2: 16, 32, 64. Chaos uses more than that.The butterfly effect relies on tiny rounding numbers. If computers can’t compensate for those, then they’re not worth much at creating chaotic systems.Computers are great at creating order. But a recent study shows that they’re poor at creating the exact opposite: chaos....

Media Platforms Design TeamMy smartphone gets hot. Not so hot that it burns my hand, but close. Is something wrong?A little heat from an electronic device is normal. It’s an unavoidable side effect of charging, discharging, processing and illuminating. Stick your hand behind the ventilation grille of an HDTV or a cable box, or feel the bottom of your laptop. These things are like space heaters. Just because gadget heat is normal doesn’t mean it’s good....

The United Kingdom’s Royal Mail is starting to test out electric vans. The British mail service will be driving nine fully-electric commercial trucks of varying sizes with ranges of up to 100 miles.The trucks will be driving in and around London. Coming it at 3.5-tonne, six-tonne, and 7.5-tonne, they’ll be able to handle a wide variety of packages. Built by the British company Arrival, formerly known as Charge Auto, the co-branded red Royal Mail electric trucks are the first Arrival trucks produced at the new factory in Banbury in northwest England....

Cody Wilson, founder of Defense Distributed, has announced that while his site will comply with federal orders to halt internationally publishing CAD files of firearms on his website, such compliance comes with a catch. The site will begin selling the files via snail mail instead.View full post on TwitterDefense Distributed has undergone a legal battle for years with its publishing of gun-related CAD files. Under President Obama in 2013, the State Department accused Wilon and Defense Distributed of violating the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which are meant to prevent the exporting of defense technology....

Last Friday afternoon, on campus at the University of California, Berkeley, a Kiwibot delivery robot self-immolated. Eventually, according to The Daily Californian, it was put out by a bystander who had the presence of mind to grab a fire extinguisher. Kiwi, a startup born out of UC Berkeley’s “Skydeck” startup accelerator, relies on a variety of different robots to offer its food-delivery services, and the four-wheeled bots, like the one that caught on fire, take care of the last 200 meters or so....

A few molecules of fat was all it took to rewrite the history books. With those molecules, scientists at Australian National University (ANU) were able to confirm that the earliest confirmed animal in the geological record was in fact an animal. Known as Dickinsonia, the creature lived 558 million years ago.Living as the first animal wasn’t very exciting. Dickinsonia lived in the late Ediacaran period at the bottom of the ocean....

Have you ever wondered how expensive supercars get crash-tested? After all, many of these cars can cost millions of dollars apiece, so even crashing a single car can be absurdly expensive. Therefore, it’s no surprise that supercar manufacturers have developed some neat tricks to keep costs down.A video by APEX ONE goes behind the scenes at supercar manufacturer Koenigsegg, and shows all the tricks and techniques the company uses to test its cars while keeping costs down:View full post on YoutubeIn order to be sold in the U....

If you’re not sure how to wrap a present, there’s an easy hack you can try.The clever trick—wrap diagonally, not horizontally or vertically—is based in math.Basic geometric principles explain how it works.Not sure how to wrap a present? Consider learning the diagonal gift wrap hack, which is age-old wisdom in some circles—a graduate student even wrote a paper about the math of the perfect gift wrap in 2007, and it’s how Subway sandwich artists already wrap your lunch....

The so-called “Pirate Bay of 3D printing” has shut itself down—for now. DEFCAD, perhaps the best-known site to find the files for 3D-printed gun parts, has complied with an order from a federal judge and gone dark this morning. All that remains on the site is a notice of the judge’s order and a request for visitors to join the site’s legal struggle against this injunction.The site, run by the open-source organization Defense Distributed, had just reached a settlement with the State Department....

Crews were fixing a water main break at the Massachusetts State House in Boston when they stumbled upon a piece of history: A time capsule originally dating to 1795, and believed to have been placed by Paul Revere and then-Governor Samuel Adams.State historians believe the time capsule to contain coins, a newspaper, and a Revere-made silver plate (the famous patriot was a silversmith). Bostonians had originally dug up the time capsule in 1855 during repairs to the State House, at which point they replaced the decaying cowhide container with the copper box that was rediscovered yesterday....

A group of archaeological researchers have found a remarkable cave site in Kenya that illustrates the history of human tools from the early days of hunter-gathers, dating back 78,000 years, through the Iron Age. The cave, known as Panga ya Saidi, shows how humanity’s tools evolved alongside the species itself.Panga ya Saidi is located in an area of uncharted Kenyan coastline along the Indian Ocean. Scientific analyses of archaeological plants, animals and shells from the cave, led by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, show that people used it for a long time, even as the area surrounding it underwent dramatic environmental change....

Researchers at the University at Buffalo are using gamers’ brain waves to advance the progress of robot swarms that could be used in the military. Using groups of simple robots to complete complex tasks, rather than one extremely advanced robot, is referred to as “swarm intelligence” in AI theory.DARPA hopes this new training method will improve groups of autonomous ground and air robots used on the battlefield. In what sounds like a Black Mirror-esque approach to military strategy, the U....

Lehman’s opened in 1955 as a hardware store in Kidron, Ohio, selling equipment to northeast Ohio’s Amish community. Today, Lehman’s has expanded to sell products through, uncharacteristically, the internet. Here are a few to pick up for your off-grid kitchen. Diamant Grain MillDylan GriffinA cast-iron flywheel turns iron and steel burrs to grind grains into flour or cereal. Use with the corn sheller to make cornmeal. $1,000 Cast-Iron Corn ShellerUse this to remove the kernels from dried corn so they can be fed to livestock....

Today marked the start of F8, Facebook’s annual developer conference. In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica privacy breach and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony in front of Congress, the get-together was a little more strained than usual. Here are the key points to take away so far.1. Facebook refuses to slow downZuckerberg kicked off his F8 keynote speech with an acknowledgement of Facebook’s myriad recent failures: the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the fake news epidemic and Russia’s involvement in it, and the social network’s ongoing trouble with hate speech....

We have more liquid, gas, and solid forms of energy at our disposal than ever before. We’re using a higher percentage of it, too, burning fuels more cleanly and minimizing waste. Scientists and engineers are even developing ways to make new fuel from the pollutants created by the old stuff. Everything from your new woodstove to your plumbing torch to your car engine is a study in combustion efficiency. So yeah, as they say, we’ve got fuel to burn....

This hype video is a rare blend of funny and fascinating. And it might just show us the future of armored warfare.Behold Israeli defense contractor Rafael’s new promo for the company’s Advanced Suite for Armored Fighting Vehicles. The clip is a vision of how automation, sensors, new self-defense technologies, and giant screens could revolutionize the way soldiers fight from armored vehicles.View full post on YoutubeThe video starts with four American soldiers seemingly floating in midair, cruising down a desert road....

Winter is upon us, and depending on where you live, now’s the time for all sorts of snowy activities, like sledding, skiing, and throwing your back out as you shovel heaps of snow off your doorstep. Of course, you can opt to use a melting agent instead, but too many cause unnecessary messes and are even dangerous to pets. That’s what makes the SaltNets Snow & Ice Melting Mat a better alternative, and it’s on sale for only $40 today....

USS Ford is the first of the Ford-class aircraft carriers, currently undergoing Sea Trials.The Ford executed several high speed turns during the ship’s shakedown process. The ship is several years late and most of its weapons elevators still do not work.The USS Gerald R. Ford may be several years late and lacking the use of most of its weapons elevators, but the ship can still do a mean high speed turn....

Sure, infecting a computer with evil code via malware is a great way to ruin your nemesis. But where’s the physicality? Where’s the flair? It’s here, inside this booby trap designed to look like an ordinary USB drive. A description by the Russian creator was recently translated into English for the enjoyment of the devious and the mischievous here in the States. Essentially, the innards of this thing can gather enough voltage to fry the insides of your computer with high-voltage pulses....

Q: I just picked up a nice used camper trailer. The turn signals all light up, but they flash about three times per second instead of once every 2 seconds. The gentleman who sold me the trailer claims it worked just fine with his truck. My mechanic can’t find anything wrong with my car–but I can’t even tow the trailer over to him until I get the lights working.A: You need to upgrade your flasher relay to a heavy-duty flasher....