I’ll be the first to admit that guns make me nervous. I am not a fan. But this cubic sculpture dismantles into 135 pieces, which in another configuration create a working .45 caliber muzzle-loading pistol—that’s pretty awesome. To be clear, not every part of the puzzle is a component of the finished gun assembly. However, contained within the cube are custom tools to assemble the piece, bullets, standard and laser sights, black powder pellets and a storage compartment.
Dubbed the Intimidator, the cube-turned-weapon was created by artist GarE Maxton, a process that took over a year to complete. The puzzle cube (which throws a bit of an AllSpark vibe) comprises six different metals and opens with a magnetic key, which then allows the parts to be separated and reassembled. The video below shows the process.
In the following video, Bill Hammack (the engineer guy) takes apart an incandescent light bulb to show how its tungsten filament, the filament that emits the light inside the bulb, is made. Check it out!
While court cases from hostile governments have always been the biggest obstacle to Google’s Street View project, it has faced a couple of other limitations: covering private land and accessing places without a road. But both of those have proven surmountable.
The vehicles allows the company to access areas where cars aren’t allowed, such as backstreet alleys, piers and forest trails. The last of these sounds particularly useful as it allows people to judge how heavy-going a particular hike might be, particularly in heavily wooded areas where zooming in on the satellite-produced Google Map view doesn’t reveal much about the picture on the ground.
The other main advantage of the trikes is that Google can get into private land. That’s not in the sense of snooping where they aren’t wanted, but rather in cases where the owners of a venue or facility are happy for the mapping to take place, but where cars simply aren’t a viable option. These include everything from historic houses with epic landscaped gardens, to modern theme parks such as Legoland.
To encourage more of these facilities to allow the mapping, Google is offering a deal by which the venue gets the full rights to use the resulting imagery on its own website.
There is one major drawback to the tactic though: while the box on the back of the trike contains a generator, it appears many passers-by assume it’s a refrigerator and expect to be able to buy ice cream from the rider.
Check out this really cool and creepy USB Flash Drive Finger by Etsy user jasonscreations. Unfortunately, the drive isn’t for sale anymore, but I guess it wouldn’t be too difficult to re-create one by cutting a finger off from a old latex hand.
This amazing letter was sent to a child by Fahrenheit 451 author Ray Bradbury back in October 1991. Unfortunately, we don’t have the context in which the letter was sent, but the important part of the message is there: Love what YOU love.
The Galactic Empire was an authoritarian government that used fear to rule the galaxy. To maintain order and control, the Empire built a series of Death Stars, moon-sized battle stations with lasers that could destroy planets. What better for the Car Insurance Guide, in partnership with Geeks are Sexy, to chronicle than the Death Star? Throughout the Star Wars films, two Death Stars are built, the first is completed and later destroyed and the second is under construction when it’s blown up.
