Kurt Starnes

"This renewable energy generating tower located on the coast of Rio is one of the first buildings we’ve seen designed for the 2016 Rio Olympics, and boy, is it crazy! (In case you didn’t notice, it’s also a waterfall.) The Solar City Tower is designed by Zurich-based RAFAA Architecture & Design, and features a large solar system to generate power during the day and a pumped water storage system to generate power at night. RAFAA’s goal is that a symbolic tower such as this can serve as a starting point for a global green movement and help make the 2016 Olympic Games more sustainable." - Kurt Starnes

That is amazing! - Ordinarybug Heather

One thing that I missed about the Vancouver Olympics is that they didn't have any awesome buildings. Other Olympics have almost all had some kind of new, iconic building for the Olympics but Vancouver didn't seem to. - Rochelle

"According to recent reports the MP4-12C is able to crack the 60 mph mark in "under three seconds" when utilizing the launch control feature on its seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox. Partnered with its 2,870 curb weight (there's still some debate if that's "dry" or fully loaded with fluids) and 600 horsepower and 443 pound-feet of torque, the more telling stat is its 0-124 mph time of "under 10 seconds." For those of you keeping track at home, the 2010 Porsche 911 Turbo hits 60 in 3.2 seconds, the Corvette ZR1 breaks the mark at 3.5 seconds, with the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 and Ferrari 458 Italia coming in at 3.4 and 3.3 seconds respectively – not to mention the Nissan GT-R's 3.5-second run. So, is Maranello losing sleep tonight? Not likely. But there's officially a new player in the supercar set, and we can't wait to get our grubby paws on it." - Kurt Starnes

finally a new mclaren! - Chris Heath

"Lighting has taken another step towards energy efficiency as Toshiba stopped making incandescent bulbs yesterday. It will now be focusing more on other lighting such as LEDs. This is all great news as incandescents wasted a lot of energy as heat instead of lighting. Now with a greater focus on the energy-efficient options we can expect to see quality and efficiency improve as prices come down." - Kurt Starnes

I wouldn't count the incadescent bulb out yet - http://www.gizmag.com/incande... - Cliff Gerrish

This has been a work in progress for a while, but I think I've now severed all inter-network ties! || "Gradually I’ve disconnected feeds from one network into another, and today I’ve decided to disconnect them all — no more automagically distributed content. If I have something to say or share, I’m going to say or share it directly to you, where you are." - Kurt Starnes

Ha! After I posted this I still had a feed-connection from my blog to FF. Irony. :-> - Kurt Starnes

"No, that's not a typo. Bakon Vodka ($30) is a new premium-quality potato vodka infused with a savory bacon flavor. Distilled from Idaho potatoes and possessing a perfect hint of peppery bacon flavor. Great in a bloody mary, good when paired with scotch, not so hot in a white russian — unless you like the way they taste on the way back up — but what we really, really want is a recipe for a bacon cheeseburger." - Kurt Starnes

See YouTube video of initial construction and brief description: http://www.youtube.com/watch... "Hemeroscopium is for the Greek the place where the sun sets, an allusion to a place that exists only in our mind, in our senses. It is constantly moving and mutable, but is nonetheless real. It is enclosed, delimited and suggested by the horizon, though it is defined by light and only takes place in a precise moment of time. By Ensamble Studio & Antón García-Abril." - Kurt Starnes

Thanks to my friend Clay Robinson for sharing on FB! - Kurt Starnes

"Good news on the alternative energy front: Texas managed to break the U.S. wind energy generation record last Friday morning when it produced 6,272 MW of power–19% of the total electricity mix. The state, which is the country’s wind power leader, got just 6.2 percent of its electricity from wind overall last year." - Kurt Starnes

If Texas oil refining operations are a significant contributor to its air pollution problem, do we go after the *dealer* or the *addicts*? - Kurt Starnes

"The VL-1 was the first instrument of Casio's VL-Tone product line, and is sometimes referred to as the VL-Tone. It combined a calculator, synthesizer, and sequencer.[1] Released in 1980[2] and selling for $70 or ₤30,[1] the VL-1 is notable for its kitsch value among electronic musicians, due to its cheap construction and its unrealistic, uniquely low-fidelity sounds." - Kurt Starnes

do your Trio cover AND your taxes! #DaDaDa - Big Joe Silenced

Uh huh Uh huh Uh huh - Kurt Starnes

"Transonic Combustion, a startup based in Camarillo, TX, has developed a fuel-injection system it says can improve the efficiency of gasoline engines by more than 50 percent. A test vehicle equipped with the technology gets 64 miles per gallon in highway driving, which is far better than more costly gas-electric hybrids, such as the Prius, which gets 48 miles per gallon on the highway." - Kurt Starnes

"It would be easy to dismiss him as a lovable, eccentric old hippie. But the man might just be a mad genius. He has rethought the most fundamental part of a speaker -– the cone –- and traded paper for hemp. The result is the Tone Tubby, and it makes guitar amps sing like Aretha Franklin. You’ll find them in rigs used by everyone from Billy Gibbons and Carlos Santana to Keith Richards and the guys in Metallica." - Kurt Starnes

:D - Big Joe Silenced

"The ideal Buzz Blog should be less than about 800 characters — any more than that collapses the Buzz formatted text field into about four lines of plain text. Don’t expect folks to make that one extra click to expand and reveal your writing — format your Buzz Blog to appear in its entirety. See my quick primer on Buzz Blogging at Buzz. If you’ve spent the past few years distilling your thoughts into 140 characters, don’t think of Buzz as a way to say the same thing in 800 characters." - Kurt Starnes

"You’ll be happy to hear that no hamsters were harmed in the creation of Laarman’s lamp – the cells come from a culture of tissue that has been kept alive since 1957 (creepy). In the 1990’s the cells were enriched with a gene derived from fireflies that makes them glow in the dark in the presence of luciferin. According to Laarman, “the development of bioluminescence systems in living organisms occurred naturally about 20 or 30 times in evolution. Well known examples of bioluminescence are found in bacteria, fire flies, and jelly fish.”" - Kurt Starnes

"Is oral sex considered sex? It wasn't to around 30 percent of the study participants. How about anal sex? For around 20 percent of the participants, no. A surprising number of older men did not consider penile-vaginal intercourse to be sex. More than idle gossip, the answers to questions about sex can inform -- or misinform -- research, medical advice and health education efforts." - Kurt Starnes

Photo source: http://www.flashofinsight.com/web... - Kurt Starnes

"The Ford Nucleon was a nuclear-powered concept car developed by Ford Motor Company in 1958. The design did not include an internal-combustion engine, rather, the vehicle was to be powered by a small nuclear reactor in the rear of the vehicle. The vehicle featured a power capsule suspended between twin booms at the rear. The capsule, which would contain a radioactive core for motive power, was designed to be easily interchangeable, according to the performance needs and the distances to be travelled." - Kurt Starnes

"By building a deep-space craft, NASA can use much of their engineering know-how and put a form to Charlie Bolden's Mars mission dream. It allows the commercial folks their unfettered access to the station, as President Obama proposes. And it recommits America to leadership in space by aiming at Mars, using parts and equipment already paid for by the taxpayers." - Kurt Starnes

"Rutan [...] also believes that space tourism will produce innovations that cannot be predicted in advance, just as the personal computer industry was unexpectedly spawned when engineers started playing around with microprocessors in the 1970s." - Kurt Starnes

". . . he estimates that a sub-orbital ticket could one day cost as little as $475 per passenger, while a ticket to orbit could cost $12,000." - Kurt Starnes

Photo source: http://www.wired.com/wired... - Kurt Starnes

"Lightning bolts appear above and around the Chaiten volcano as seen from Chana, some 30 kms (19 miles) north of the volcano, as it began its first eruption in thousands of years, in southern Chile May 2, 2008. Cases of electrical storms breaking out directly above erupting volcanoes are well documented, although scientists differ on what causes them. More than 150 times in the past two centuries, volcanic eruptions have been accompanied by spectacular displays of lightning with broad bolts of lightning streaking across the sky, or as St. Elmo's fire (ball lightning) that cascades from above." - Kurt Starnes

Wow!! - Amy

"Data captured by the PMD would be linked over the internet into distributed software services like GPS, Google Maps, facial recognition, speech/text recognition, brainwave analysis and so on. It would create an ongoing record of the people, terrain, and objects in your vicinity. Contextual memory stored in the PMD’s back-end database would be total, like tracking your avatar moving through the World of Warcraft or Second Life, except plotting actual data from real life in real time." - Kurt Starnes

"Despite the below information being widely distributed across the internet and residing within Facebook itself, I come across folks on social networks, almost daily, who complain about Facebook game apps. Some even say they may quit Facebook because of the app messages in their Feed. This writing represents my effort to promote harmony between those who are annoyed by Facebook game apps and those who enjoy them." - Kurt Starnes

"Powered by a 6.2-liter V-8 engine and a hybrid drive system, the 918 Spyder Concept could preview a new supercar from the company. We're not expecting it for another year or two at the earliest, however, as its 9,200-rpm, 500-horsepower output and 78-mpg efficiency are sure to prove difficult to render in production. Performance isn't hampered by the hybrid drive system, however: 3.2 seconds to 62 mph, 198 mph top speed, and a promised Nurburgring Nordschleife lap time of under 7:30--faster than the Carrera GT that preceded it. Electric motors on the front and rear axles contribute 218 horsepower to the mix." - Kurt Starnes

Very good points, Brian. The four you mention are profound. - Kurt Starnes

I think this may not only be the future of space travel but a major catalyst in the creation of human-like droids. Our progeny could be synthetic. - Kurt Starnes

a first step in the move toward the singularity? - Big Joe Silenced

Joe: Not sure, but I can imagine these space bots getting much better in order to allow us to explore space in a more realistic way. Maybe they began as robotic extensions of humans then are built to become more autonomous. In a few decades they'll likely be much more human-like and all over the solar system, maybe beyond. We could load 'em with data and archives about all humankind in case we get wiped-out down here on the ground. Of course, we need to teach them how to build more of themselves. This doesn't seem so far-fetched anymore, does it? - Kurt Starnes

Twitter search for tweets near epicenter from Andrew: http://ff.im/gCklI - Kurt Starnes

Live TV from Chile via Ustream from Andrew: http://ff.im/gCoNK - Kurt Starnes

"TAT built the augmented ID demo, called Recognizr, to work on a phone that has a five-megapixel camera and runs the Android operating system. A user opens the application and points the phone's camera at someone nearby. Software created by Swedish computer-vision firm Polar Rose then detects the subject's face and creates a unique signature by combining measurements of facial features and building a 3-D model. This signature is sent to a server where it's compared to others stored in a database. Providing the subject has opted in to the service and uploaded a photo and profile of themselves, the server then sends back that person's name along with links to her profile on several social networking sites, including Twitter or Facebook. The Polar Rose software also tracks the position of the subject's head--TAT uses this information to display the subject's name and icons for the Web links on the phone's screen without obscuring her face." - Kurt Starnes

Why are you guys frowning? I don't get it -- clue me in! - Kurt Starnes

There's a weird dude in that young body. - Kurt Starnes

O, lard! - Josh Haley

Healthier for you than the hydrogenated oils in shortening, thassafact. - Spidra Webster

"Decker Yeardon is the first architecture firm to synthseize buckypaper in the form of a thin sheet. To create the material they chemically dispersed the nanotubes and then poured them into a vacuum filtration unit, where they collect on a membrane surface. The material has incredible potential as a building material – in this case, Decker Yeardon hopes to use the material as a thin, flexible electrode surface for an “artificial muscle” developed for architecture. The firm is developing its first prototype this year and hopes to demonstrate the new technology soon." - Kurt Starnes

"The car, set to be unveiled at next month’s Geneva Motor Show, features a top speed of 155 mph, sliding doors, a 360-degree collision detection system, and a cruise control system that can navigate curves under 25 mph. On the green side of things, the plug-in hybrid version of the vehicle offers a lithium-ion battery with a storage capacity of over 10 kWh. The car can run on pure electric power for 18 miles at 75 mph before switching into hybrid mode." - Kurt Starnes