Land, Sea, and Air
I'm not usually a perpetrator of link sausage. But, I do occasionally get engineering-related news bits crossing my desk which may be of interest to my readers. Here are a few that popped up in the last week or so:
I'm not first to the filk corner of LJ with this one, but if you have a pilot's license and $200K, you can have a flying car. Or, more accurately, a "roadable aircraft"; an experimental craft with folding wings that you can drive right off the runway and down the highway. It has a cargo area, but one would have to investigate whether it will accommodate three guitars and a crate of songbooks.
Next, a group of architects, engineers, designers and other visionaries who can't find decent housing in the San Francisco Bay Area (even with the housing crash) are drawing up plans for a permanent, independent floating city.
Meanwhile, a part of America's heartland may not be shakin', rattlin', and rollin'. According to several planetary scientists, the New Madrid fault system may be going cold. Using GPS to monitor movements, Purdue and Northwestern University researchers have determined the faults, which famously generated devastating magnitude 8+ earthquakes in 1811 and 1812, are moving so slowly (0.2mm/year) they are effectively seismically inactive.
And finally, something to twist the rational mind. According to an opinion column on North Dakota's In-Forum, rocket launches cause severe weather. As opposed severe storms being a result of global warming, or a result of El Nino, La Nina, and other natural phenomenon. All I can say is, WTF?!?!
I'm not first to the filk corner of LJ with this one, but if you have a pilot's license and $200K, you can have a flying car. Or, more accurately, a "roadable aircraft"; an experimental craft with folding wings that you can drive right off the runway and down the highway. It has a cargo area, but one would have to investigate whether it will accommodate three guitars and a crate of songbooks.
Next, a group of architects, engineers, designers and other visionaries who can't find decent housing in the San Francisco Bay Area (even with the housing crash) are drawing up plans for a permanent, independent floating city.
Meanwhile, a part of America's heartland may not be shakin', rattlin', and rollin'. According to several planetary scientists, the New Madrid fault system may be going cold. Using GPS to monitor movements, Purdue and Northwestern University researchers have determined the faults, which famously generated devastating magnitude 8+ earthquakes in 1811 and 1812, are moving so slowly (0.2mm/year) they are effectively seismically inactive.
And finally, something to twist the rational mind. According to an opinion column on North Dakota's In-Forum, rocket launches cause severe weather. As opposed severe storms being a result of global warming, or a result of El Nino, La Nina, and other natural phenomenon. All I can say is, WTF?!?!
