As the weather warms up it’s finally time to pack away those winter clothes and start figuring out how you’ll maximize the hot summer months. Any activity involving a lake is obviously a good choice, but before you spend thousands on a Jet Ski, you might want to wait until these engineering students perfect their snowmobile-like device that also skims across water, but not when it’s frozen.
In the world of digital security, bug hunting is the practice of finding holes in a corporation’s security and selling it back so the problem can be quietly fixed. Companies such as Microsoft know that it’s far cheaper to pay researchers up to $100,0…
Remember Superhot? It let you dodge bullets by controlling time à la The Matrix, but a new VR game takes that premise even farther by making you the bullet. Drift is a game for Samsung’s Gear VR, developed by a pair of programmers during the course o…
Belgium’s Privacy Commission thinks that “Facebook tramples on European and Belgian privacy laws,” and said it would take legal action if its latest recommendations aren’t obeyed. A new report follows previous accusations from the nation that Faceboo…
Having a night light at home is always a good thing, since stubbing your toe against the edge of the bed or cabinet is not an experience that I would wish on even my worst nemesis. Some night lights are pretty ordinary in terms of design, while others do take on a cute expression, such as the Banana Night Light. How about pushing the envelope even further with something that is steeped in magic and mysticism, ala the unicorn? Enter the £9.99 Uni the Unicorn Night Light, where you will be able to take your pick from either pink or yellow shades, with the option to place a pre-order for a white model down the road.
I would think that some folks might even mistake this to be the character of a knight in a chess game, at least until they notice the horn of the unicorn. The Uni the Unicorn Night Light will feature a long-lasting LED bulb and low power consumption, where it will be powered by a trio of AAA batteries. In other words, there are also no worries about you tripping over cables and the ilk. Enchanting as it is, it might not help you score any brownie points with potential girlfriends due to the nature of its look.
[ Uni the Unicorn Night Light paves the way in the dark copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
$3.00? For this??
On “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Thursday night, Kimmel went out on the street to have people try Starbucks’ new mini Frappuccino. Actually, he tricked them with a MUCH mini-er version. But people generally seemed to love the refreshing cold drink.
Until they were charged three dollars for it.
Funny how things sometimes become less delicious when your wallet is emptied in the process.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live” airs weeknights at 11:35PM EST on ABC.
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By Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress is more effective when political “extremists” have less clout, most Americans said in a Reuters-Ipsos poll that also showed the public still has a dim view of Congress, despite a run of legislative achievements this year.
Reinforcing the idea that the November 2014 elections were about Americans wanting more effective government, the poll found that 57 percent of those surveyed said Congress is more effective “when the extremists on either side don’t have as much leverage,” while 22 percent disagreed with this.
“It’s much too polarized, too political now,” said Penny Mahar, a political independent from Whitesboro, New York, and one of the poll respondents.
“Once, when somebody was elected to Congress, they would work with the opposite party to try to make things better for their country. Now they seem more focused on their party than the needs of the people.”
Congress has become slightly more productive in the last few months since voters awarded majorities to Republicans in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Bipartisan legislation to rework the pay formula for Medicare doctors was passed last month and signed into law by President Barack Obama, a Democrat.
The Senate passed a bipartisan bill on May 7 allowing Congress to review a nuclear deal with Iran, and the House passed the measure on Thursday. There is also been no government shutdown since October 2013.
Nonetheless, the Reuters-Ipsos poll found that 53 percent of Americans still had an unfavorable view of Congress, with 47 percent holding a favorable view. These views have not changed over the past six months for three-fifths of those polled.
“There’s so much conflict in Congress, with people in both parties unwilling to compromise,” said Mike Helferd, also an independent, from Hilton Head, South Carolina. “Every once in a while they get something through in spite of themselves.”
Several respondents told a Reuters reporter they had not heard about the recent legislative accomplishments. Most poll respondents, 71 percent, said they viewed Congress as either “mostly” or “completely” dysfunctional.
“I don’t think they’ve been able to really make changes. It seems like it is still the status quo,” said Dan Boesken of Batesville, Indiana, who said he leans Republican.
The Reuters-Ipsos online survey of 2,749 Americans was conducted May 4-12. The poll’s credibility interval, a measure of its precision, is plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.
Sarah Binder, a professor of political science at George Washington University, said the distaste for extremism shown in the poll reflected the “general moderation” of the U.S. public.
“Despite a more polarized electorate, voters tend to be more moderate than the politicians that they elect to Congress. So it makes sense that a majority would say that Congress is more effective when extremists are marginalized,” she said.
The poll did not define “extremists.” Some respondents, when asked by Reuters to name groups they considered extremist, suggested Tea Party conservatives, or on the other side of the political spectrum, “ultra-liberals.”
Some poll respondents saw reason to hope for more agreement and productivity from Congress soon.
Helferd said Tea Party Republicans are already less able than they once were to block legislation they dislike.
“They are so vociferously anti-anything that isn’t part of their platform, I think they are losing popularity,” he said.
Mahar hoped Senator Chuck Schumer, expected to become the chamber’s next Democratic leader, will work with Republicans to get things done.
Harry Reid, the current Senate Democratic leader, “wouldn’t move anything,” she said. “Everything stayed on his desk.” (Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh. Editing by Andre Grenon)
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“You get to decide what has meaning and what doesn’t,” David Foster Wallace wrote in a rare moment of candor. Though the advice might seem out of place in one of his winding, playfully cerebral novels, it fit right in as the thrust of his commencement speech at Kenyon College, which was later adapted into a short, beloved book, This Is Water.
Though end-of-the-year well-wishes can easily recede into clichés, writers tend to offer eloquent, less-hackneyed advice for new graduates. Take, for instance, Ursula K. Le Guin’s ballsy rejection of giving advice that promotes success through dominance: “Instead of talking about power,” she said, “what if I talked like a woman right here in public?” A new book out this year pays homage to these salient bits of wisdom, packaging them prettily with fun fonts. The result is full of mystery and poetry — two qualities Eileen Myles wished upon her listeners, a crowd full of recent grads.
Excerpted from Way More Than Luck, published by Chronicle Books, 2015:
For more, see 8 Life Lessons Every Adult Can Learn From Famous Author Commencement Speeches.
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That’s one small snap for an ant, one giant leap for antkind.
The trap-jaw ant, Odontomachus brunneus, is well-known for its ultra-fast mandible, which can snap shut at speeds of up to 143 miles per hour. Using its jaw, it can stun and maim its prey in an instant — but that’s not all that jaw can do…
The ants can also use their mandibles to catapult their bodies like tiny acrobats to escape from traps built in the sand by predatory antlions — and according to a new study, this ability doubles their survival rate. Just check out the video above.
(Story continues below.)
For the study, Larabee collected 228 antlions and an equal number of trap-jaw ants. One-third of the trap-jaws had their mandibles glued shut, while the other two-thirds didn’t.
Trap-jaw ant with its mandible glued shut.
The antlions were placed in plastic cups filled with sand, where they dug conical pits and buried themselves at the bottoms. Then the researchers dropped the trap-jaw ants into the “arenas” and waited to see whether the insects would escape from their predators.
“The [unglued] ants were able to jump out of the pits about 15 percent of the time in their encounters with antlions,” Fredrick Larabee, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the study’s lead author, said in a written statement. “But when we glued their mandibles shut before dropping them in the pits, they couldn’t jump at all. It cut their survival rate in half.”
According to the researchers, the ant’s spring-loaded jaw serves as an example of evolutionary “co-option,” where a feature that was selected for one function gets co-opted for another.
“In this case, a tool that is very good for capturing fast or dangerous prey also is good for another function, which is escape,” Larabee said in the statement.
The research was published online on May 13 in the journal PLOS ONE.
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“Which grill should I buy?” is one of the most frequently asked questions on the Barbecue Board. Unfortunately, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” answer. The Weber Performer gives you great versatility (you can grill, barbecue, and smoke on it), but a convenience-minded gas griller, or diehard wood griller, wants a different sort of live fire experience.
One key question to ask yourself before you make your purchase:
Do I want charcoal, gas, wood-burning, or other?
In 1954, the Chicago Combustion Company introduced the first gas grill to the market, the portable “Lazy Man.” It ran on propane. Thus began one of the most, er, heated debates in barbecue–gas versus charcoal. Gas grills (propane or natural gas) offer convenient push-button ignition and steady heat that can be adjusted by turning a knob. They’re all about results. Charcoal grills are about the process–building and tending a fire and the ritual of waltzing food from hot spots to cool spots. With a charcoal grill, you can smoke, barbecue low and slow, or direct grill. (It’s very difficult to smoke–really smoke–on a gas grill.)
If you’re as addicted to smoke as I am, consider a wood-burning grill or an offset smoker (a.k.a. stick burner) like a Horizon, that slow smokes pork shoulders and briskets with nothing more than wood smoke. Personally, I think food smoked or grilled over wood has an incomparable flavor. If chopping or hauling wood sounds like a chore, you might investigate pellet grills, like a Memphis Wood Fire Grill. Fill the hopper with hardwood pellets, then preheat to the desired temperature. The convenience of electricity with the flavor of wood.
Several companies, including Char-Griller, Dyna-Glo, and Smoke Hollow, manufacture grills that can burn either charcoal or gas. Kalamazoo Gourmet sells a hybrid grill that burns wood in addition to charcoal or gas.
If you have limited outdoor space or are prohibited from cooking with live fire by condominium rules or the terms of your lease, consider an electric smoker, like a Bradley. Read online reviews or consult the knowledgeable Barbecue Board community before making a decision.
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Steven Raichlen is the author of the Barbecue! Bible cookbook series and the host of Primal Grill on PBS. His web site is BarbecueBible.com.
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