I've been obsessing lately over the design of personal outdoor air conditioning garments, as inspired by ( Read more... )

Following up on this, I did some experiments doubling up the pencil leads side by side, which made them last quite a bit longer, to the point that I was able to elicit some new behaviors from molten NaCl. You first melt a tiny bit with a small, pure carbon-carbon arc and/or thin carbon resistive heating (I doubt the latter is the main player, but I ( Read more... )

I've become obsessed with learning to fly ultralight aircraft. Never mind that I'm rather succeptible to motion sickness. Never mind that I'm rather rationally-minded about safety decisions and place a pretty high price on staying alive and healthy (and the safety record for ultralights looks to be abysmal). Aerodynamics is sooooo cooooool.... @_@

( ( Read more... )

What was going on in that photo I posted the other day? I was holding a cup full of dish soap and water on top of a subwoofer speaker vibrating at high amplitude at around 120Hz. On the surface of the water, a "crystalline", square pattern of waves has developed, spreading to cover the entire cup. If you look closely, you can see the peaks and ( Read more... )