| Date Posted | Article | | 21 hours ago | The physics of breaking stuff with your fists | | iO9 recently ran a story on how martial artists are able to break boards and cement blocks, using their hands rather than mystical powers. I thought it was pretty neat, but then I read an interesting counter-analysis by science journalist (and, significantly, martial arts practitioner) John Rennie.
iO9 is right about the lack of magic powers, he says. But they got the physics wrong. Key slip-up: Assuming martial artists strike like a cobra—fast punch, with a quick pull back at the end—when they have their smashing fun times. iO9's theory was that that movement caused the boards to bend and snap. But that's not how it works, Rennie says. In fact, martial artists are taught to follow through with their punches, aiming not at the board-to-be-broken, but at a point beyond it.
So how's the breaking really done? Rennie quotes an episode of the awesome old PBS show Newton's Apple:
One key to understanding brick breaking is a basic principle of motion: The more momentum an object has, the more force it can generate. When it hit the brick, [karateka Ron] McNair's hand had reached a speed of 11 meters per second (24 miles per hour). At this speed, his hand exerted a whopping force of 3,000 Newton's -or 675 pounds-on the concrete. A slab of concrete could likely support the weight of a few people weighing a total of 675 pounds (306 kilograms). But apply that amount of force concentrated into an area as small as a fist and the concrete slab will break.
The fact that martial artists also pick their materials very carefully doesn't hurt, either.
When breaking wooden boards, you use pine (not oak, not mahogany) that isn't marred by dense knots, cut inch thick and about 12 inches on the diagonal; you hit them to break along the wood's natural grain. (It's not playing by Hoyle but some breakers have been known to bake their boards in ovens before demonstrations to make them more brittle.) One good board, if held securely so that it won't move on impact, is so easy |
| | 21 hours ago | Morbid Curiosity | | The best sparrow is the little one in the front, who looks down first, when all the others watching the fight and when the 2 sparrows fall down he provacantly smoothly turns around and looks away. He's absolutely not impressed, the others gawk. |
| | | 21 hours ago | Chilean miners reenactment - o_O | | http://www.nma.tv/
33 Chilean miners are trapped deep underground and it may take NASA up to four months to rescue them. Spirits were raised this week when th... |
| | | | | 21 hours ago | Whiskey from diabetics' urine | | Gilpin Family whisky is a new single malt whisky made from the urine of diabetics. Creator James Gilpin doesn't sell the stuff, but rather gives away bottles as a public health statement. From the product page:
Sugar heavy urine excreted by diabetic patients is now being utilized
for the fermentation of high-end single malt whisky for export. The Whisky market is growing faster then any other alcoholic beverage worldwide. With a prevalent genetic weakness being exposed in the northern hemisphere leading to a sharp rise in type two diabetes, economists have found a new exportable commodity to exploit and are keen to capitalize on this resource quickly.
Large amounts of sugar are excreted on
a daily basis by type-two diabetic patients especially amongst the upper end of our aging population. As a result of this diabetic patients toilets often have unusual scale build up in
the basin due and rapid mould growths as
the sugar put into the system acts as nutrients
for mould and bacteria growth. Is it plausible
to suggest that we start utilizing our water purification systems in order to harvest the biological resources that our elderly already process in abundance?
Gilpin Family Whiskey from urine (JamesGilpin.com)
"Whizky, world's first bio whisky aged with granny whiz" (The Independent, thanks Carlo Longino!) |
| | | 21 hours ago | Wikipedia Founder Says Apps, Not Paywalls, Could Save the News | | Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said in an interview with the Associated Press yesterday that paid apps like those found on the iPhone, Android and iPad could help financially troubled news organizations, but he didnt have anything positive to say about charging for content on the web.On the other hand, hes not optimistic about other micropayment plans wherein publications would charge users to access individual articles because at present there is not a centralized and widespread payment system as there is with Apples services (iTunes, iBooks and the App Store) or the Android Market.If I just click on my iPad, and its billed on my normal bill, that micropayment model makes it possible for people to have an impulse purchase, he said. Apple already has his payment information from the get go, and the creator of each app can use Apples billing system for in-app purchases.Thats one of the reasons Wales believes app stores could be beneficial for the news industry. The apps model the iPad app, the Kindle does provide new and interesting opportunities for newspapers.Weve heard rumors in the past that Google has a unified micropayments system in the works that could do the same for desktop content, but it hasnt happened yet.Wikipedia is not a commercial enterprise, but Waless current venture Wikia is ad-supported.Image courtesy of iStockphoto, enot-poloskunMore About: amazon, android, apple, apps, interview, ipad, iphone, Jimmy Wales, journalism, Kindle, monetization, News, paywalls, Wikia, wikipediaFor more Social Media coverage:Follow Mashable Social Media on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Social Media channelDownload our free apps for iPhone and iPad |
| | 21 hours ago | The 70′s: Home Of Groovy Skateboard Stickers | | Check out this gallery of skateboard stickers, taken from 70′s trading cards. The front of the cards featured pro skaters in action and the back of the cards featured stickers. From the looks of it, there were a lot of gypsy skaters in the 70′s. Can you say groovy? |
| | 21 hours ago | House Rules (PIC) | | If we all followed rules such as these I think we'd all lead happier lives. Especially rule #13! |
| | | | | 21 hours ago | Historic artifact for a holiday weekend | | This is the world's first frozen margarita machine, invented and built by Mariano Martinez in 1971 from parts of a soft-serve ice cream maker. His inspiration: A 7-11 Slurpee.
Today, it resides in the collection of the National Museum of American History, where a museum director once called it a, "classic example of the American entrepreneurial spirit."
Smithsonian: Top 10 Inventions from the Collections of the National Museum of American History |
| | | | | | | | | | Sep 2, 2010 | Finally, A Perfect Use for All These Dead Hipsters | | I know how this guys getting cremated after I stab him ironically.
Jason Leach from the UK started the company And Vinyly to allow hipsters to annoy everyone even in death press custom vinyl records from cremated remains. The vinyl can play the persons voice, their favorite music, a customized song, or anything else they want to creep out their family and friends with.
How does it work? The process of setting human ashes into vinyl involves a very understanding pressing plant. Basically the ashes must be sprinkled onto the raw piece of vinyl (known as a biscuit or puck) before it is pressed by the plates. This means that when the plates exert their pressure on the vinyl in order to create the grooves, the ashes are pressed into the record. [Wired]
The basic package starts at a little over $3000, including 30 copies of a vinyl album lasting up to 24 minutes. Allow me to play you the song of my people: 24 minutes of atonal caterwauling. Oh, you havent heard this before? Yeah, I suppose not. Its very obscure. I call it ignored pleas of a hipster, played backwards.
[Banner pic via Reddit] |
| | | | Sep 1, 2010 | Kitten Sucks at Duck Hunt | | ""No, not your paws! Use the zapper! Ugh, I'm taking you back to the shelter.""
Uploaded
10 likes |
| | Aug 31, 2010 | 7 Things Digg.com Drove Into the Ground | | Digg, as we knew it, is dead. To make matters worse, Digg v4 is in complete chaos. Angry power users who were stripped of their adjective are attempting to fight back by rallying people to Digg articles from rival sites. At one point today, 12 of the 16 links on Diggs front page were pointing to Reddit.com or related stories. The inmates are running the asylum (dot com).
As whats left of the Digg community struggles in vain to find funny pictures of cats and articles from Gawker.com, fear and panic are sure to set in. During this period of turmoil, many will long for a simpler time. But their nostalgia for Old Digg will be misplaced. While New Digg may or may not prove worthless, Old Digg had to die. The site had too much power, and was responsible for taking some of the greatest topics on the Internet and running them straight into the ground. Here are seven examples.
read more |
| |
|
