Luxury Prizes

Michael Hansmeyer is a Zurich architect who uses algorithms to...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:57:54 -0400

Michael Hansmeyer is a Zurich architect who uses algorithms to generate absurdly complex structural columns. He recently created plastic 9 ft columns that each have about 16 million unique surfaces and no two columns—or even two surfaces—are the same. Take a look!

The Irish Potato Famine was caused by a disease called potato...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:57:43 -0400

The Irish Potato Famine was caused by a disease called potato blight that swept through Ireland’s farms, hitting the single strain of potatoes grown by most farmers. Up until the 1960s, the most popular banana in the world ate was the Gros Michel. It was all but wiped out by a fungal disease when we were forced to switch to the Cavendish. Here are 6 foods we could lose in an outbreak.

How will we design products for the Internet of things? —GigaOM

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:57:19 -0400

How will we design products for the Internet of things? —GigaOM: As revolutionary as the mobile...

For the past 18 months the Cambodian Kids Foundation have been...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:56:46 -0400

For the past 18 months the Cambodian Kids Foundation have been running a project known as “Plant it Forward” The project was the brain child of Donna Cooper (Founder of CKF) and Chris Wright (Head Chef at the Terrace of Maleny). The idea was to create a sustainable income generation program that focused on the growing and selling of fresh and organic fruit and vegetables.

Currently the program runs in Soksan Village which is located in rural Cambodia in Kampong Thom province. Soksan Village is a community of 45 households - all of which are considered to be living well under the poverty line. Since the ‘Plant it Forward’ program has been running we have been able to build more than 50 wet and dry season garden beds, a Nursery and a well for each household. The gardens are cared for and maintained by the families - each family is empowered to take the initiative to work hard at bettering and expanding upon their gardens in order to increase the amount of income they can make from them.

The Plant it Forward program is supported by CKF and the Terrace of Maleny. More info on Plant it Forward is available on our website www.cambodiankidsfoundation.com.

Due to the success of this Plant it Forward project CKF and the Terrace of Maleny have decided to expand it and open a not for profit training restaurant - The Cambodian Kids Cafe (CKC)

The Cambodian Kids Cafe will aid in funding the foundation and the Plant it Forward Program by buying the bulk of it’s fresh produce from the families involved with the Plant it Forward program.

The Cambodian Kids Cafe will be run in partnership by the Cambodian Kids Foundation and the Terrace of Maleny, Chris Wright from the Terrace has had 21 years of experience and currently owns and is the head chef of the Terrace, his input and knowledge is invaluable to this project and greatly appreciated.

This is obviously a really exciting program/ project for us and we can’t wait to have it up and running!

If you would like to read more about this new exciting project please check out our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/cambodiankidscafe

Star pummeling alien planet with X-ray attackThe alien planet...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:56:27 -0400

Star pummeling alien planet with X-ray attack
The alien planet may actually be responsible for keeping the star alive and its magnetic field active.

Cameron Moll / Designer, Speaker, Author: 600,000 for charity: water

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:56:09 -0400

Cameron Moll / Designer, Speaker, Author: 600,000 for charity: water: We’ve just unveiled this...

The Perfect Mark

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:55:51 -0400

The Perfect Mark: Late one afternoon in June, 2001, John W. Worley sat in a burgundy leather desk...

The Ghost Sport

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:55:43 -0400

The Ghost Sport: Politicians, pledging to “fight” for a principle, sometimes hold up boxing gloves...

Photo of the day: Northern LightsGreen wispy bands of the...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:55:31 -0400

Photo of the day: Northern Lights
Green wispy bands of the aurora borealis — also known as the northern lights — wind and twist through the early autumn sky on Sept. 13 above the small hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Solar particles recently expelled from the sun in a huge coronal mass ejection have careened towards the Earth’s atmosphere over the past week, providing a magnificent natural light show for skygazers living closest to the Earth’s poles.

Nice. Did you also know recently, the Senate passed the first...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:55:11 -0400

Nice. Did you also know recently, the Senate passed the first large-scale reform to U.S. patent laws in over 60 years? The new America Invents Act is designed to quash patent trolling, cut red tape, and spur innovation. Read more.

Picture via:

nevver:

The Real Thing

These amphibians of the family Centrolenidae are called glass...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:54:55 -0400

These amphibians of the family Centrolenidae are called glass frogs because the abdominal skin of many species is highly transparent, and viewing them from underneath is like looking at an MRI.
11 intriguing transparent animals

Tomorrow’s headline, today: For Every iPod, There Is A Pair Of...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:54:29 -0400

Tomorrow’s headline, today:

For Every iPod, There Is A Pair Of Hammer Pants

American design isn’t perfect. We take a look at how some of the country’s most classic designs share a sensibility with its most grievous offenses.

(Pictured Above) The Gem paper clip was a miracle of industrial efficiency. (Red arrow means thumbs up!) Microsoft’s Clippy made every day less efficient for Windows users (bad Clippy!).

Take a look at more good and bad product design.

Today is the last day of our CKC ( Cambodian Kids Care )...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:54:13 -0400

Today is the last day of our CKC ( Cambodian Kids Care ) Project.
Our Beautiful boys have grown up so much since we started the project in 2009.

This project has now become the ‘Primary Scholarship Program’ so our big boys will be going off to school full time. Power & Bonna have been enrolled at the Home of English Private school (one of the best primary schools in Cambodia) they will be going into grade 2. Pakway will be attending the Home of English school also however will be going into grade 1.

Chet will be going to Seven Makara Kindergarten/ Primary School. There are also talk of two new students joining this program and attending Seven Makara school with Chet.

We are so proud of our boys, they have worked so hard to get to where they are today. It hasn’t been an easy journey for any of us, but we have stuck together and we know believe these boys are on the best path possible to achieving their dreams in the future.

Congratulations Power, Bonna, Pakway & Chet - Kinder boys no more!
Now you are big grown up Primary Scholarship Students, we look forward to watching you grow and will always be here for you through Primary school, through secondary school, through university!

www.cambodiankidsfoundation.com

R U OK? Hey CKF friends,Today is R U OK Day … Just wanting to...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:53:58 -0400

R U OK?

Hey CKF friends,
Today is R U OK Day … Just wanting to send out our love to you all, thanks for supporting us. All of us at CKF hope that U R ALL OK!! You’re a very special someone to a lot of very special people - Never forget XO

Here’s a photo to make you smile if you’re feeling little down.

www.cambodiankidsfoundation.com

How an Algorithm Helped Arrange the Names on the 9/11...

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:46:31 -0400

How an Algorithm Helped Arrange the Names on the 9/11 Memorial:

The memorial’s arrangement preserves, for instance, the terrible blow suffered by the investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald. Before the morning of September 11, the firm’s headquarters occupied several floors high in the North Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC). In the first of the terrorist attacks of that day, a hijacked airliner struck the North Tower, just below Cantor’s offices. The firm was devastated; 658 employees died in the attack, along with 46 contractors, food-service workers, consultants and visitors.

Although no heading identifies them as such, the 704 names of those killed at Cantor Fitzgerald appear together on the memorial. Cantor’s loss was so great that its portion of the memorial surrounds almost half of the north pool. Within that grouping, as elsewhere on the memorial, the placement of names also reflects numerous other social and professional connections, thanks to input from families and co-workers and some heavy lifting by a custom-built computer algorithm.

(via Scientific American)

via jtotheizzoe:

240,000: Number of plastic bags consumed worldwide every 10...

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:46:07 -0400

240,000: Number of plastic bags consumed worldwide every 10 seconds
1 billion: Number of plastic bags Americans use every year
30,000 tons: Landfill waste created from plastic bags each year
Less than 1 percent: Amount of plastic bags that are recycled
$4,000: Cost of recycling 1 ton of plastic bags
$32: The amount that recycled product can be sold for

Read more about our garbage by the numbers.

Hey all, Not long until our awesome & amazing annual...

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:45:36 -0400

Hey all,

Not long until our awesome & amazing annual fundraising event - Ride For Bikes!
Ride a Bike to buy a bikes - all riders who register will be donating all profits from their ride entry to the foundation. CKF will be using a lot of the money to buy bikes, helmets and locks for hundreds of kids in rural Cambodia so that they can get to and from school.

The event this year is being held on the 13th of November.
If you’re a keen rider come along and join in the fun for an awesome cause.

If cycling is not your thing but you still want to be involved let us know!
We are still looking for lots of happy & bubbly volunteers for an assortment of jobs such as marshalling, cheer squad, BBQ & snack team, registration team etc.

It’s a fantastic day not to be missed by anyone!
Please add our new facebook page for more info on the ride, or just to check it out!

http://www.facebook.com/rideforbikes

Fifty New Exoplanets Discovered Astronomers using ESO’s...

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:45:23 -0400

Fifty New Exoplanets Discovered

Astronomers using ESO’s exoplanet hunter HARPS at La Silla Observatory in Chile have today announced a rich haul of more than 50 new exoplanets, including 16 super-Earths. This is the largest number of such planets ever announced at one time.

By studying the properties of all the HARPS planets found so far, the team have now improved the estimate of how likely it is that a star like the Sun is host to low-mass planets (as opposed to gaseous giants). They find that about 40% of such stars have at least one planet less massive than Saturn. The majority of exoplanets of Neptune mass or less appear to be in systems with multiple planets.

One of the recently announced newly discovered planets, HD 85512 b, is estimated to be only 3.6 times the mass of the Earth and is located at the edge of the habitable zone — a narrow zone around a star where liquid water, and perhaps even life, could potentially exist.

These results make astronomers confident that they are close to discovering other small rocky habitable planets around stars similar to our Sun. In the coming ten to twenty years we should have the first list of potentially habitable planets in the Sun’s neighbourhood.

Watch video »

Image: Artist’s impression shows the planet orbiting the Sun-like star HD 85512 in the southern constellation of Vela.

via unknownskywalker:

Photo of the day: Airport reborn as public parkChildren ride...

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:45:12 -0400

Photo of the day: Airport reborn as public park
Children ride bicycles on an old airport runway at former Tempelhof airport in Berlin on Sept. 11. Built in the early 1920s in south central Berlin, the aging and obsolete airport was closed in 2008. In an effort to introduce more green space into the city, the space was reopened in May 2010 as a public park called Tempelhofer Freiheit. Because of the large expanses of runway and the ample amount of green space, the park has become a popular venue for recreational activities like biking and skating.

Ethan Marcotte: The Boston Globe

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:44:47 -0400

Ethan Marcotte: The Boston Globe: Ethan Marcotte, who was an important member of a team full of...