This truly serene bath tops the tropical house that Ong&Ong have just created for an active family in Singapore.
As much as possible, natural materials with thermal sink properties were chosen. Marble, stone, wood and glass are as timeless as they are energy-efficient, cooling humid Singapore nights with cross breezes.
Spaces were designed with expansive peacefulness in mind. This sublimely simple outdoor room is an example. The enclosed courtyard with forest is another — via Home Design Find
If there were a way, any way, of capturing the energy spent looking at cats on the internet and turning that energy into petrol, I’ll tell you what, there’d be at least 20p off a litre of unleaded. Watching cat videos is the yin to the massive wobbling yang of porn and as such is something to be encouraged. Here’s the question though: what do the cats get out of it?
The truth is that nobody knows, and those who might – the women who dedicate their lives to studying feline habits by letting dozens of them live in their house — usually turn up dead in a pile of furballs and unopened newspapers before anyone can question them. But the issue of quite who cats are and what they want will not go away. It was brought into focus once again this week when a pet, who had disappeared mysteriously five years ago, reappeared equally mysteriously in a completely different part of the US. You know that bit in Seven where Kevin Spacey just appears in that cop shop? Well it was like that. But with fleas.
The cat, known to humans as Willow, disappeared in Boulder, Colorado in 2006 and reappeared on the streets of Manhattan two days ago. Delivered by a passerby to a cat shelter, Willow has now been returned to its owners thanks to a microchip found in its neck. Clearly overcome with emotion, one of the owners, a Jamie Squires, said: If I could, I would microchip my children.
That’s the spirit. Anyway, Willow disappeared for five years and nobody knows what happened. Not only that, they’ll never know, because the cat would never tell. If it were just an isolated example, this may not even have been a matter for concern. But isolated it is not — via redwolf.newsvine.com
During WWII, statistician Abraham Wald was asked to help the British decide where to add armour to their bombers. After analysing the records, he recommended adding more armour to the places where there was no damage!
This seems backward at first, but Wald realised his data came from bombers that survived. That is, the British were only able to analyse the bombers that returned to England; those that were shot down over enemy territory were not part of their sample. These bombers’ wounds showed where they could afford to be hit. Said another way, the undamaged areas on the survivors showed where the lost planes must have been hit because the planes hit in those areas did not return from their missions.
Wald assumed that the bullets were fired randomly, that no one could accurately aim for a particular part of the bomber. Instead they aimed in the general direction of the plane and sometimes got lucky. So, for example, if Wald saw that more bombers in his sample had bullet holes in the middle of the wings, he did not conclude that Nazis liked to aim for the middle of wings. He assumed that there must have been about as many bombers with bullet holes in every other part of the plane but that those with holes elsewhere were not part of his sample because they had been shot down — via The Endeavour
In the front courtyard, the entrance to the house, four orange trees mark the central and main axis, flanked by low walls that hide service areas. In the back courtyard, another four orange trees are similarly aligned. And at the end, carved into the ground, a trough like pond stretches from side to side. The house [Alberto Campo Baeza] is the construction of a luminous shadow — via ArchDaily
The record for the most expensive .com.au domain name was broken today after the owner of investmentproperty.com.au let the name expire and it was snapped up at auction for $125,000.
Mark Lye, CEO of Netfleet, the domain name aftermarket where the name was sold, said the final price was quite exceptional
but the previous owners who let it expire would be kicking themselves
.
It’s a schoolboy error really for a domain of that value to not renew it in time,
he said — via redwolf.newsvine.com
It takes half a day for forensic scientists to recover fingerprints at a crime scene — but a new innovation by Australian researchers could cut it down to just seconds using a cheap, handheld device.
Forensic science honours students — Adam Brown and Daniel Sommerville — at Sydney’s University of Technology found they could identify fingerprints on porous materials such as paper just by heating it — doing away with the need for chemicals.
The technology has been developed into a cheap, portable device by UK forensic equipment company Foster + Freeman and is being trialled by law enforcement organisations and militaries across the world — via redwolf.newsvine.com
No need to think you’re going bird-brained if you hear mysterious voices from the trees — it’s likely just a curious cockatoo wanting a chat. Native parrots, especially cockatoos, seem to be learning the art of conversation from their previously domesticated friends — via redwolf.newsvine.com
An internet troll
has been jailed for mocking dead teenagers on various websites. Public figures, including Stephen Fry and Miranda Hart, have also been victims of trolling. So what is it and why do people do it?
For some the word derives from a fishing term for towing bait behind a boat, for others it comes from the Norse monsters. But today trolling is more likely to involve a keyboard and mouse than a trawler, and if not a monster, it is a very modern menace.
Opponents might characterise it as the internet equivalent of road rage, vandalising a grave, or kicking a man when he’s down.
Trolling is a phenomenon that has swept across websites in recent years. Online forums, Facebook pages and newspaper comment forms are bombarded with insults, provocations or threats. Supporters argue it’s about humour, mischief and freedom of speech. But for many the ferocity and personal nature of the abuse verges on hate speech.
In its most extreme form it is a criminal offence. On Tuesday Sean Duffy was jailed for 18 weeks after posting offensive messages and videos on tribute pages about young people who had died. One of those he targeted was 15-year-old Natasha MacBryde, who had been killed by a train. I fell asleep on the track lolz
was one of the messages he left on a Facebook page set up by her family — via redwolf.newsvine.com
They call me ‘Mama Poo’,
Anne told me matter-of-factly as we strolled through a dusty pathway in Silanga, a small neighbourhood in the expansive Kibera slums of Nairobi, Kenya. And I like that,
she added.
Anne Nudge is a sales representative for Peepoople AB, a Swedish social enterprise that, last October, launched a pilot project in Silanga marketing and selling The Peepoo
— a single-use, personal toilet that sanitizes human waste quickly, preventing it from contaminating the surrounding environment.
After just a few weeks, the bag transforms the waste into a nutrient-rich fertiliser.
The Peepoo bags, which sell at a subsidised (by PeePoople) cost of three Kenyan Shillings (four cents) each, are used at home, then returned to one of two drop-off
points where customers get a one Kenyan Shilling refund/incentive for returning the bags.
While treated bags may seem a rudimentary, even crude form of sanitation, looking at the alternatives make the solution seem a little less far fetched — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Long title, but it does the job, with apartments in the newly-developed 1930s art deco Manor Road Garage, East Preston, West Sussex now being offered. Not that they’ll look like the image above.
The Manor Road Garage and its four petrol pumps picked up grade II listing status back in 2007, but was actually given the art deco look around 1934 and continued as a working garage until 1973, before being left to die. Until now, that is.
Prices vary, but the ones online now start at £225,000, moving up to £310,000. If you fancy a quieter pace of life, this should be it — especially it that beach and scenery lives up to the photo on the agent’s site — via WowHaus
NASA has announced plans for a massive rocket based on recycled space shuttle technology, intended to launch manned missions beyond Earth orbit in decades to come.
The Space Launch System (SLS) will make use of a central first stage equipped with no less than five shuttle main engines (the now-retired orbiter spaceplanes mounted only three) flanked by strap-on solid boosters of the same kind which used to be attached to the shuttle’s disposable fuel tank. These might be replaced in time by liquid-fuelled models. Rather than bringing the central engines back for re-use, however, the SLS will discard them every time it is launched.
If at first you can’t afford it …
A similarly disposable and likewise liquid-fuelled upper stage will employ J-2X engines derived from the Apollo programme which sent men to the Moon in the 1960s and 70s. NASA thinks that the first SLS test flight might come as early as 2017, and that an initial ability to hoist 70 tonnes into orbit could be gradually increased to 130 tonnes, somewhat more than the mighty Saturn Vs of yesteryear — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Scientists have discovered a planet that orbits two suns, like Luke Skywalker’s home planet Tatooine in Star Wars. Two hundred light-years away from Earth, gaseous Kepler-16b is similar to Saturn in both size and mass and — like the desert planet that nurtured the young Skywalker — enjoys a double sunset — via redwolf.newsvine.com
PayPal is consigning the shop till to the dustbin in a way that could completely wipe Visa and MasterCard out of the shopping equation.
The website is gearing up to allow punters to pay for products in-store by scanning barcodes with a mobile, and allow payments to be authorised with a phone number — among other new features.
Merchants will be able to push location-based adverts and vouchers, and the site will offer a buy-now-pay-later service. What’s more, there’s no demand for an NFC chip.
Some strategic start-up acquisitions, including the snapping up of BillMeLater.com and shop search website Milo.com, have given PayPal the firepower to break into these new areas — via redwolf.newsvine.com
I love this simple decorative technique from Martha Stewart for jazzing up plain glassware. Of course, the stitcher in me is smitten with the cross-stitch designs, but the same technique could be used for all kinds of designs. See how it’s done over on Martha’s web site — via CRAFT
Moto undone is pure generic transportation and by motorbike category definition it isn’t very cool.
There motorbike references are small and when someone is riding they are all you see. The bike almost disappears. The rider just floats along the streets silently.
Powered by a 1000w 48v electric hub motor, moto undone has a range of 90 miles or about 3 hours. All gauges and riding information, like speed and GPS, is displayed through smart phones by downloadable apps — via J.Ruiter
Victorian researchers have discovered a new species of dolphin living right under their noses on Melbourne’s doorstep.
The dolphins are found in Port Phillip Bay, and the Gippsland Lakes and in waters as far afield as Tasmania and South Australia.
Their discovery is cause for much celebration as it is only the third time since the late 19th century that a new dolphin species has been recognised.
The new species will be formally named Tursiops australis — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Nakahouse is an abstract remodel [XTEN Architecture] of a 1960’s hillside home located on a West facing ridge in the Hollywood Hills, just below the Hollywood sign. To the South and West are views of the Beechwood Canyon; to the East is a protected natural ravine, with a view of Griffith Park Observatory in the distance — via ArchDaily
Henry Winkler, who played the Fonz on the classic US sitcom Happy Days, has been awarded an honorary OBE for his educational work on dyslexia in the UK — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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