Pretty much every kid has wished they had their own personal ice rink during the winter, some may have even gone so far as to break out the hose and try to ice their driveway, much to the annoyance of their parents. Don’t try that last one, it ends up not giving you enough ice, but it does give you enough to slip about a hundred times. Now you can get your own kid, or maybe yourself, a portable, storable ice rink for use in the winter, it doesn’t even require tools to set up.
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Yep, all corners!! That’s the wonderful promise of this new pan from The Baker’s Edge. Conveniently enough, it’s called the Baker’s Edge and it’s just what the Doctor ordered!

Well that is, if the Doctor is doctor Stay Puft, Pom-Pom or his cousin Bibendum!

They know you love to eat the corner of the brownie pan. Now you can make sure that’s all you have.

Granted, you’ve got a sweet tooth, and as the holidays grow, and your waistline gradually reaches that of the Airship Akron, (likely with small planes flying around you).

That said, there are any number of amazing snacks where the power of the corner can truly shine, and this pan would do the trick.  From chilled desserts (think a properly adulterated gelatin dessert, removed as some sort of “squiggly thing” (I’ll let you take that where you want)), to hot cheese based dishes.  We all love cheese once it’s crusted and burnt just lightly, that happens on the edges, so what could be better than more edges?!!!! MMMmmmm, I have an au-grautin potato recipe that’s making my mouth water (ok, it’s mostly cheese, but I swear there are potatoes in there!)

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The Los Angeles Auto Show is kicking off this Friday, and it will run through December 10th. A very interesting part of the show is the Design challenge which features innovative car concepts from the largest auto companies. The cars will be judged based on four parameters: design creativity, safety, environmental compatibility and reflection of the Southern California eco-friendly lifestyle (don’t ask me what the last one is supposed to mean…). Below you will find the nine cars that are participating on this year’s contest:

1) Acura FCX 2020 Le Mans: made completely with recyclable parts this Acura used molecular nanotechnology to make the car more compact and efficient. The car was obviously tested on the endurance race “The 24 hours of Le Mans”.

2) Audi Dynamic Space Frame: Audi tried to innovate with the usage of the materials. The car features fluid and electrical channels both going within the frame and it includes a hydraulic fluid drive instead of the traditional driveshaft.

3) Hummer O2: one of the most creative designs. “Powered by a fuel cell, the Hummer breathes through a revolutionary phototropic body shell that produces pure oxygen throughout the lifespan of the vehicle.” Read the rest of this entry »

Although the holidays are just around the corner and we live in a capitalist society that thrives on debt (the U.S. is, after all, the world’s biggest debtor), there is no harm in trying to inculculate the habit of saving that is so important when a child is still young. Most kids these days do not know how hard their parents toil at work and at a business, only to think that money literally grows on trees. The Children’s ATM Bank from Hammacher would be one of the better $39.95 investments that you plonk down in your kid’s life in order to give him/her a sense of achievement when they have managed to save up a certain amount of money while preventing them from blowing it all in a moment of frivolity.

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Remember the R/C Battling Sumo Wrestlers? Those were cute, with eternal grins plastered all over their mugs. Apparently, robots want in on some sumo fun as well with these R2-D2 lookalikes that go head-to-head (or wheel-to-wheel, depending on how you look at it) in a circular ring. Whoever knocks over his opponent first is a winner, and you are guaranteed to have tons of fun with this great party game (especially more so when you have incorporated some drinking elements inside). Each set is known as the DNA Robot Wars, and a pair will retail for £49.95, making it a budget Christmas gift that will definitely bring a smile on the face of its intended recipient.

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Most robotic kits that we see in the market these days are pretty simple as they come pre-fitted from the factory, ready to be played with out of the box. All you need to do is insert some batteries, and perhaps run a program off a CD for the more complex offerings and you’re good to go. Not the Bioloid Multi-Bot Robot Kit though - this bad boy ships in it’s most basic format and arrives naked in this world just like us, but it does have a cool array of limbs that can be fitted in any way you like ala Lego bricks in order to create more than just a bi-pedal humanoid Transformer-like robot.

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Loopwing, I don’t think can even say it without smiling.

Go ahead give it a try!

The Loopwing is a new wind turbine from a Japanese company.

There are, aside from the fact that it’s a great looking home wind turbine to save you and your family lots of money on electricity by using good old free wind power, some great features on the Loopwing.

It’s quiet balanced “globe-rotating” style blades have a number of features not found in typical home turbine systems.

It can operate in winds as low as 3.6 miles per hour (1.6 meters per second). That’s a very light breeze.

Another advantage of the beautiful design is that it reduces vibration greatly over other designs. This is likely due to the length of the wing chord, and that along the length, vibrations can be sent towards the edge of the “globe-rotating” style blades, and thus they likely don’t end up shaking the whole system. (It’s only a theory).

It’s quoted at being 43% efficient, which, if true, isn’t half bad, especially when you consider that the more expensive solar cells don’t approach 20% efficiency, a bundle of these babies could be just what the doctor ordered, (I’m looking at you San Francisco, Chicago, and anywhere in Wyoming!)

The length of the blades really seems to be the real trick for this new wonder.

Click through for the Loopwing factoid image.

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Scientists recently announced that they discovered how the Antikythera Mechanism was supposed to work. The 2000-year old analogue computer was discovered in the early 1900s but its functioning was always surrounded by uncertainties.

The study was coordinated by Mike Edmunds and Tony Freeth from the Cardiff University. Thanks to X-Rays and tri-dimensional scanning the researchers were able to read the inscriptions inside the mechanism and to interpret its functioning.

Apparently the ancient computer was used measure the movement of different astronomical cycles. There was two displays, the first one would display the passages of the Sun and the Moon through the different constellations of the Zodiac. The second display, instead, would display the time in relation to astronomical cycles through pointers. Read the rest of this entry »