Kenyan rangers are equipping elephants with specially made collars that contain cellphone sim cards. The goal of the enterprise is to alert rangers whenever elephants start to approach populated areas, where they would be likely to damage crops and possibly injure or kill people. In the end it should keep the elephants and people that live around them a little bit safer. A single radio collar costs about $3500. [Telegraph via New Launches]
Search Results for "ant farm"
[ December 26th, 2008 ] ... [ C. S. Magor ]
Elephants in Kenya Warn of Their Approach With SMS
[ February 7th, 2008 ] ... [ C. S. Magor ]
Honeywell Weather Station Packs in an Atomic Clock
Only farmers really need to know this much information about the weather, but this is some cool technology, especially with an atomic clock thrown into the mix. A summary of the features of this badboy as they appear on the Honeywell site is as follows:
The Complete Weather Station from Honeywell measures wind speed and direction; rainfall amount; indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity; and includes a wireless UV (Ultraviolet) sensor that measures potentially harmful UV levels!
This high-tech wireless weather station also has 12 to 24-hour weather forecasting and a 24-hour barometric pressure history chart. The Honeywell weather station has five-channel capability and will accept up to four additional temperature and humidity sensors with a wireless transmission range of approximately 328 feet (unobstructed).
Atomic clocks never need resetting – the time updates automatically each day within the continental U.S. via a radio signal transmitted from Fort Collins, Colorado, adjusting the clock to within one second of official government time. Atomic clocks even automatically adjust for Daylight Savings Time.
This is probably more useful to people that spend a lot more time outdoors than I do, or those of us that want to know what is going on outside without actually having to open the curtains. The price of the Honeywell TE923W Complete Weather Station and Remote Control is $250 from Amazon.
[ January 27th, 2008 ] ... [ Vic DaSilva ]
Valtra Revolution, Makes Farming Look Cool
The ad featured below almost makes me wish I was a farmer. Almost. Personally, I would drive the Valtra Revolution everywhere and after you watch the video, you will see why. I want one. (more…)
[ November 29th, 2007 ] ... [ Vic DaSilva ]
Strange Stuff You Can Buy From Amazon That You Probably Didn’t Know About
When it comes to buying strange stuff online most people think of eBay, but since Amazon is the world’s largest online store and retailers all want a piece of the action, it too has some fine rare junk stuff sitting in the corner of warehouses.
The list below is just a small collection of some of the strange stuff you can find at Amazon. What makes the majority of these items extra special is the priceless reviews that people have submitted. A small sample of these reviews are included for your reading pleasure with even more on the product pages. My question to you is this. Do you think you can write a funnier review for these products? Enter our write a fake funny review contest to win a $100 Amazon gift certificate. Contest details are at the bottom of the page.
Relaxman Relaxation Capsule
I ordered one of these assuming, obviously, that in the vein of similarly named “-man” products, portability would be its chief component. Walkman, Discman, etc, all distinguish themselves from other identical products by the fact that they are portable and can be carried and used anywhere. I felt some suspicion when the crate arrived in a semi truck and required two men and a hydraulic liftgate to unload it on the patio next to my Fuller dome. Sure enough, when I finished bagging up the last of the 20 cubic yards of foam packing peanuts and took the time to closely examine the machine it was clear it would not easily clip to my belt or swing suspended around my neck by a lanyard. What a disappointment! I’m often struck by the urge for complete relaxation when traveling, commuting to work, or competing in the Extreme Fighting championship. Now that sweet escape from the brutal trials of life will have to wait until I’ve landed my autogyro in the backyard and hunkered down in this oversized coffin: the deceptively named “Relaxman”.
Uranium Ore
My son wanted Play Doh for his birthday but unfortunately Toys ‘R’ Us was sold out of it. I figured this would be the next best thing. He absolutely LOVES it and told me he wishes he had a third hand because its so much fun! I told him maybe his kids would have better luck. A dozen more cans are on their way! Thanks Amazon.com!
Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank
I’ll admit it. Shopping for a personal tank can be a bit daunting. Many times in the past I’ve purchased overpriced, so-called “battle tanks”, then driven them into battle only to be wrecked in ten minutes by the first blow off of some insurgents home-made morter.
But not this baby, no way.
This tank R-O-C-K-S! Literally- the 400-watt sound-system keeps me rockin like a crazy man as I’m dishing out justice commando style. Wow. I just can’t say enough. And the kids love it, too- imagine the look of terror in the eyes of the enemy as I’m dropping off my kid’s team to their soccer game. Shock and awe, my friends, SHOCK AND AWE!
I had NAO install the optional GPS-guided white phosphorus missile system, and talk about *SWEET*! Burn baby burn!!!
Oh, it also has plenty of room for groceries, and if you need to like move a loveseat or something it’ll fit if you use a little bungee cord.
The only real negative with this tank is that it shows up on radar a little more than I like (although there is a polyresin graphite stealth model available). Also, the included spare isn’t full size.
Overall, a great tank.
Dagobert Wooden Toilet Throne
I was about to buy a gold plated toilet before I saw this. Now that the good old gold toilet is inferior I did not want my bottom to have an inferiority complex. Now My bottom and I are complete and I feel satisfied going to the bathroom knowing that It will take me over a lifetime to pay of the debt from buying this.
[ September 5th, 2007 ] ... [ C. S. Magor ]
What to do with a Microwulf? Joel Adams will Tell You
The Microwulf has been causing quite a buzz lately, so we decided to take a closer look at what makes an affordable supercomputer tick. With RAM prices at rock bottom and processor prices falling through the floor, such a system can be put together by anyone with a modest budget, enough time and the inclination. The Microwulf uses 4 x AMD dual core CPUs, 8GB of RAM and 4 x Gigabit LAN cards to produce a highly respectable 26GFlops of raw processing power, 32GFlops is its theoretical peak. While it originally cost under $2470, it can presently be constructed for about $1256, give or take depending on what you pay for components where you live.
The trick to creating the Microwulf is to keep everything balanced. If you have a 1.0GHz processor, it should have 1.0 GB of RAM and a Gigabit Ethernet connection. The Microwulf makes use of four AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ AM2 CPUs, at 2.0GHz per core, the ideal amount of RAM would have been 2GB per core, in order to keep costs down to the sub $2500 budget, 1GB per core was used. Four Intel NICs and the onboard LAN of each motherboard serve as an inexpensive way for each cluster to communicate with itself. There is no plexiglass “packaging,” Threaded rods are used to space the four motherboards which are mounted on polycarbonate sheets. The result is a supercomputer for the masses with almost three times the processing power of a 3.0 GHz AMD dual-core CPU. In case you are wondering, it runs on Ubuntu Linux.
Read on for a brief interview with Professor Joel Adams and a few final thoughts on the system. (more…)
