You worry about this in your data center?!?!?

My favorite line in a legal agreement for a data center:

"The toilet rooms, urinals, wash bowls and other apparatus shall not be used for any purpose other than that for which they were constructed, and no foreign substance of any kind whatsoever shall be thrown therein."

Drone fillmed fireworks show

Slashdot noted of a fireworks show in West Palm Beach FL, that was filmed with a quad copter and a go-pro (somewhat illegally).

Shattered: 28 hours, 50 minutes

Jalopnk, has a great write up about Ed Bolian shattering Alex Roy's Cannon ball record, by completing the treck from NY to CA in 28:50.

Quantum Mechanics and Magnitisim

Veritasium and MinutePhysics has a really nice, easy to understand, overview on how magnets and electro-magnets work and how that relates to quantum mechanics.

"Fly my pretties! Fly! Fly! Fly!"

NPR notes that John Oliver's skit on his new show Last Week Tonight where he urges everyone to comment to the FCC about the insanity of the removal of the Net Neutrality laws has apparently crashed the FCC's comment web page from an overload of users!

what is the worth of a Facebook like?

Nothing!  Veritasium does an excellent job of explaining why you should never advertise on Facebook.

Going all NSA on your Congressperson...

Wired has an interesting write up on Countable and other apps that are enabling citizens to track how their representatives vote, and do a better job of grading them compared to your values.

Death Penalty?

Last Week Tonight is John Oliver's (formerly from the Daily Show) new news show has a good argument on what is wrong with the Death Penalty and why we should get rid of it.

hot tub tug

Got a spare $25k?  Why not get a HotTug? Its a hot tub in a boat! Roadtrippers.com has a nice right up on it.

AirHelp!

Kate Hanni did us all a favor a few years ago when she created flyersrights.org, and fought for new expanded airline passenger protections.  Well, as wired points out, there are a new bred of Ambulance Chasers out there that will go after the Airlines on your behalf and get you money back for that missed or canceled flight.  God Bless them!

Net Neutrality Explained

Victoria Hart has _again_ produced a fantastic video explaining a very complex topic.  This time it is on Net Neutrality within the US.  Not only does she explain it in a very accurate way, but also prods you into being a civic member of society by pointing out all the great things you could do to take control of this situation.  

MayOne!

  

American Superhero Lawrence Lessig is at it again.  This time he's fighting SuperPACs by creating one that he hopes will be so huge that he will be able to sway our government to reform how it accepts money.  He announced the creation of his MayOne today.  Lets toss him a couple bucks and pray to god it works.

A Smart Idea, A Dumb Society

Guns are range weapons, and dangerous in close quarter, hand to hand melees.  Armatrx has a good solution to the problem of loosing a handgun in a skirmish with their smart guns.  Unfortunately, the luddite US Gun lobby are afraid of safe guns and are fighting back.  (or at least Glock is worried that they will need to put this tech in all their guns, and it will cut in on their profits.)

FAA Flight Delay Info

The FAA has a nice website / map titled "Flight Delay Information - Air Traffic Control System Command Center" that lists all the major airports, and what delays there are (and why).

US Is an Oligarchy, Not a Democracy

Not sure if this is new news, but a resent study by folks in Princeton and Northwestern University have found: (from slashdot, and also in The New Yorker)
after extensive analysis of 1,779 policy issues, that the U.S. is in fact an oligarchy and not ademocracy. What this means is that, although 'Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance,' 'majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts.' Their study (PDF), to be published in Perspectives on Politics, found that 'When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.'"

Why Do We Yawn?

There are some great science youtube channels out there, and one is the Sci Show.  In this episode, Hank Green takes about 2 minutes to explain why animals yawn (its not because your sleepy).

Linux powered sniper rifle

I was always told that while hunting you should only need two bullets.  One for the shot, and one to finish it if you did not hit square on.  (IE: don't ever shoot unless your sure you are dead on.)  Well the guys at Tracking Point have made that first shot even easier, assuming you can pony up with $17k for a single gun.