We've seen some pretty cool space-related Apple ARKit demos in the past few weeks. One guy literally had the entire solar system rotating around the sun in his bedroom. Now, a recent demo shows that you can get up close and personal with our Earth, watching how it changes as it rotates.
Later today, an asteroid the size of a city block (about 3,000 feet wide) called 2002 AM31 will fly by the Earth. It will still be about 3.2 million miles away, so there's nothing to be worried about, but you can watch it make its journey in real-time online. 2000 AM31 now, as seen from the JPL Small-Body Database Browser
Apparently a little amateur astronomy can go a long way. On March 21, 2009, Ralf Vandebergh, sitting in his backyard, pointed his 10 inch telescope at the sky and "saw a few bright pixels appear precisely where the work was going on at exactly the moment it was being conducted." A few bright pixels = an astronaut!
Gliding + falconry = parahawking, a unique and exhilarating experience. Birds (vultures, eagles, hawks) are trained to "guide" a paraglider
Impossible, right? Ahh, well science says fire and ice can and do coexist.
The 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards take place this Sunday, January 16th, 2011 between the hours of 5 and 8 PM PST — that's 8 & 11 PM for those of you on the East Coast (and Somewhere in the Middle for those of you Somewhere in the Middle).
Christmas is just a few days away, which means everyone is out shopping for last minute gifts. But wait— you still need some Christmas cards! The stores are going to be packed and Hallmark's going to have huge lines— so now what?
Last night was the so called "Supermoon," where the moon was at perigee, which is the closest orbital point to the Earth while the moon was in full phase. This makes the moon appear larger by up to about 14% and brighter by up to around 30%. I went out and used my 5-inch refracting telescope to take several pictures.
This morning, NASA launched the five suborbital sounding rockets from Virginia as part of ATREX (Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment). Each rocket was launched 80 seconds apart and released chemical tracers that created "milky, white clouds at the edge of space." Now, I've seen plenty of bullet tracers in my life, but these are far more poetic. Take a look at the time-lapse video and see for yourself. Why shoot these tracer rockets? To help scientists "better understand the process responsi...
I'll have to post up some pictures of astronomy-related papercraft models that I have made at some point, but for now here is a link to a few different papercraft models of the planets. I need to go back through my resources because I know there are a bunch of sites out there with some easier to make polyhedral models. Also, at some point I'll put up the models of planetary bodies that I have mapped and labeled myself.
Having trouble getting the 'Nein' achievement in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3? Then let the Achievement Hunters help you out! What seems to be a pretty simple 20G Xbox 360 achievement, or bronze PlayStation 3 trophy, is actually pretty tough to get. I wish I had this video last night as I finished the game, as it took a few tries to get this achievement.
Giveaway Tuesdays has officially ended! But don't sweat it, WonderHowTo has another World that's taken its place. Every Tuesday, Phone Snap! invites you to show off your cell phone photography skills.
What's the difference between a paper plane and a paper space plane? Altitude! About 125,000 feet to be precise:
A few blocks from the jewelry factory's entrance in La Paz, Bolivia, Julia and Maria look over their shoulders to see if the night guards are watching. The two young Aymara Indian women shiver in the cold night air and lower their heads as they speak.
If you're like me, just the idea of skydiving triggers nearly-pee-in-the-pants petrification. But with a little imagination, plus Google Image Search and a projector, and all of us ninnies out there can pretend to do the real thing:
Despite all the recently transpired web hysteria regarding a mysterious NASA press release, the organization has NOT discovered new life on another planet. However, the latest information does indicate that scientists have discovered a new life form on planet Earth.
Yep, anything (on Earth). Below, BBC One's Bang Goes the Theory demonstrates how normal sunshine can become a lethal heat-ray of 3,500 degrees celsius (with the aid of a high-performance solar furnace). That's hot enough to melt rocks. More by Bang Goes The Theory:
While I don't find Mattijs van Bergen and Anouk Vogel's "Living" dresses aesthetically earth shattering, I'm wowed by the concept. The fashion designer and landscape architect created a collection of dresses made from recycled inner tubes and flowers for a late summer exhibition titled “Fashion & Architecture” at the Amsterdam Centre for Architecture.
I'm sure you've seen in The Parent Trap (or most likely on YouTube) a sleeping person set afloat so they wake up in the middle of a lake. I wanted to add a little more excitement to that concept. It would take a lot more preparation and skill, but ultimately we replace the lake with air. Pick your least favorite friend, wait until he's asleep, get him in a plane, strap him with a parachute, and film him as he opens his eyes to the earth thousands of feet below.
There are dozens of arguments on the table for reducing our dependance on oil to help the environment, but one cause of pollution that isn't as popular to hate is our domesticated bovine.
Via WonderHowTo World, Cinematography: Lozzless demonstrates how to make a diy cheap macro lens with working aperture for his Canon 5D Mark II, coined the "SuperMacro".
Recently I've become fascinated by vertical gardens. They're cropping up all over the place, whether it's in my neighborhood's newest hair salon or in San Diego as the beginnings of a new company. Vertical gardens have several cool advantages over horizontal ones:
When you surf in Southern California, there are several challenges. The water's never warm enough, the crowds are always dense, shark sightings abundant and of course, water quality is perpetually terrible. With 15 million people living 'up-river' from our waves, it's no wonder the water is gross.
Hack N Mod offers an incredibly simple cell phone camera mod that delivers striking results. All you need is a lens from an old DVD player and you can magnify your zoom by five times.
Amazing what you can get out of camcorder these days. "Discovering a whole tiny world in my father's small garden. There is a small pond with small falls, some stones, some plants, and plenty of life! Shot on Panasonic 500- Fujinon 17x7.6 HD lens."
WonderHowTo has seen it's fair share of strange cakes. Semi-gruesome cakes (brains), downright stomach churning cakes (cigarettes and meat), and playfully disgusting cakes (Star Wars spilled guts).
For some time now, I've been dying to make the trek to the world's largest airplane graveyard outside of Tuscon, AZ. The ultimate field trip that I never seem to get around to.
According to mainstream media reports, one of Barack Obama’s White House spokesmen said this in response to the recent “free speech” trial in Russia:
Go to them Live among them
California Redwoods are some of the oldest and tallest trees on Earth, so snapping a single photograph couldn't possibly capture their majestic entirety.
Girls Gone Grabblin', the deep South's spin on Girls Gone Wild. Young girls diving underwater, sticking their hands into the unknown, and pulling up giant catfish. These have to be some of the coolest girls on earth.
(Note: I am taking a chance. These Youtube embeds have been so tempermental since the Pakistan routing problem. Try hitting refresh if the video does not play through.)
Just a couple Saturday's ago, we were blessed with the Supermoon, where the moon was at perigee with our planet, creating a larger than usual Moon for us here on Earth. Now, we've got another spectacular show in the skies coming up, only this one isn't at night. There will be an annular solar eclipse on Sunday, May 20th!
I'm starting a series on the top astronomers, with probably about eleven astronomers that I will be covering overall. So, let's start out from the top, with the top most important astronomer. In my opinion, Galileo Galilei is the top astronomer.
Does this video prove that otherworldly intelligent life has visited Earth? No. It does not prove anything other than there are designs ‘etched’ onto the surface of a field. Does the video immediately above prove that otherworldly intelligent life hasn’t visited Earth? Yeah, you saw it coming; no, it proves nothing more than humans are able to ‘etch’ designs in a field of grain.
If you haven't seen one, a comet is one of the most spectacular astronomical objects in the sky, partially because it is so close to Earth. At the closest, it is only 1.3 a.u. (194,477,400 kilometers) away from Earth. Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd was discovered by Gordon J. Garradd on August 13, 2009. It never comes closer to the sun than Mars's orbit. Usually, a comet moves fast, but it has stopped moving so fast recently, making it really easy to observe. It can be observed by a telescope or wit...
They've been at it for a few years now, but the crazy group of amateur rocket scientists who call themselves Copenhagen Suborbitals have triumphed over adversity, successfully launching their DIY rocket nearly 2 miles into the sky last Friday. The privately funded, non-profit aims to one day send human beings into suborbital space on the cheap, without the need of government budgets and administration.
When the iPad 2 was released earlier this month, as to be expected there was a whole lotta buzz. And for good reason—while the the newest version shares the same price tag as the old, it boasts some significant new features. In case you missed it, here's a quick overview:
Do you do last minute cramming before you go to the dentist? No, I don't mean reading up on orthodontia in hopes of having an intellectual conversation about crowns with your dentist (how you can talk at all with all those tools in your mouth is beyond me, though dentists always ridiculously try).
The Like Lace Stitch
