WIGGUM DAILY

 

Italian IT Engineering student Danny Benedettelli has built a two part solution to automatically solve that 80’s puzzle sensation the RUBIK’S CUBE.

 

This compilation video show two large explosions resulting from industrial accidents in the USA.

 

 

You can read more about the 1988 PEPCON fire and explosion here and here.  PEPCON are the people who manufacture the fuel for NASA’s space shuttle and it’s SRB’s (Solid Rocket Boosters).  The SRB’s are those two big tanks strapped to the side of the space shuttle at launch and provide the shuttle with 83% of it’s total thrust, before being jettisoned into the ocean for later recovery and re-use.  You can see the magnitude of the explosions by the way the ground rumbles, just like those videos you see when they are conducting underground nuclear tests. I love the sound made by the approaching shockwave.

 

 

Previously here at WD we brought you the golf-ball episode of Will It Blend. Today we have a special and spectacular double dose of WIB.  Our first contestant is the venerable JesusPhone from Apple. At a cost of US$600 this is definitely NOT something you’d want to try at home.  I really enjoy watching this over and over. Makes up for the saturation coverage this half-baked device has been receiving.

 

 

Next we have a solution for those nights when you’ve been out drinking and you get home and find yourself fumbling about in the dark for the house keys (assuming you’re allowed back in the house).

 

 

 

 

It’s colourless, odourless, non-toxic, and non-flammable. Just like tofu. And much like tofu, Sulphur Hexaflouride gas is also six times denser than air which means it can be stored happily in open containers without escaping. We’ve all seen the crazy helium voices people can make when sucking in lungfuls of that inert gas.  Have you ever wondered if there was such a thing as anti-helium ?  Well according to the anti-periodic table there is no elemental gas that meets the requirements, however the molecular gas sulphur hexafluoride DOES fit the bill nicely.  Observe…

 

 

Now with the help of sulphur hexaflouride, or SF6 as he’s known to his friends,  you can sound just like soul legend Barry White at a moments notice. Sure to impress the ladies… or have them running onto the streets in fear, it’s all good.  

 

 

This is an interesting and clever short film. I say that because really it deserves more than the tag of simple "video". Clearly a lot of thought and effort went into the production. The results are high quality.

 

I reckon this guy’s got you covered

 

 

Who the heck is SPENCER ELDEN I hear you ask ? Well if you grew up in the 80’s and remember the dispruptive musical force that was NIRVANA arriving in the early 90’s, then you’re about to feel very OLD…   Back in 1991 a newly born baby Spencer Elden appeared on the cover of Nirvana’s iconical NEVERMIND album. 

 

This week on June 27th,  Spencer celebrated his 17th birthday.

 

   

 

Just to bring the memories flooding back, here’s a reminder of just how great an album it was, and remains today.

 

 

Dutch artisit Theo Jansen calls himself a kinetic sculptor (what ever THAT is… ) who builds mechanical works of art that are self-powered by the wind. Whatever it is he does, Theo is a very clever man with an amazing "da Vinci" like vision for the structure and movement of the natural world. The results are spectacular…

 

THE STRANDBEEST 

 

This is by far the longest video we’ve brought you on WD timing in at 26 minutes. But it’s compelling viewing and worth the time to sit there and watch it. This home video of the Sept 11th 2001 attacks on the New York City was taken by "Bob and Bri" from the window of their 36th Floor Manhattan apartment, located less than 500m from the two towers of the former World Trade Centre.

 

The video starts out a few minutes after the first plane hit the north tower. Resist the urge to skip forward through the video. It’s really interesting to watch it from start to finish. Made more so because We in 2007 know how it ends, yet these people are not sure what to make of it all in this video.   Observe how their state of mind goes from "Just another crazy day in New York… I hope I can still make my hair appointment in time…"  to… "That fire is going to take ALL day to put out…"  to  "Oh my God..  Oh my God… Oh My God… what the heck is happening…are these windows sealed…"

 

I think the essence of the unprecedented and unbelievable nature of those events, to those who watched them at the time, can be summed up best by Bri who is on the phone talking to someone in the first 5-6 mins of the video and she naively says at one point "No no.. it’s OK, they’re only attacking the World Trade Centre… not us…". 

 

 

The first few minutes are in "silence" with just the voice of Bri talking on the phone and to another person in the room. It’s surreal when she opens the window of the apartment and the NOISE that floods in from the streets below.  And when she zooms in on one of the first fire trucks arriving at the base of the tower. You think… those guys in that truck would all be dead now. Being first on the scene, they would have gone straight up the tower to the scene of the fire… never to return.

 

In a footnote to this video, I would like to add that the USA’s response to this attack by fundamentalist Islamic extremisits, was to round up a posse and invade the Arabic country of Iraq. Shock and Awe said the poster. In and Out.. Home By Christmas was the sentiment.  That was in March 2003.  Flash forward to June 2007 and they are still there. They have NO idea how to get out. Or even when. Meanwhile the death toll on the USA side has long since raced past the 2993 official death toll for the Sept 11th 2001 attacks. 

 

When I wrote THIS article in March 2007 the Iraq/Afgan USA military death toll was 3597 killed. It’s been 85 days since that was written, and the official USA death toll for soldiers killed is now 3927.  That’s 403 more killed in the 85 days since March 31st 2007, or FOUR soldiers killed per day, everyday of the week. Or to put in another way, 2.49 USA soldiers have died on each and every of the 1575 days since George Bush’s 2003 botched and mismanaged invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

No WONDER they had to come up with a recent "plan" to send more troops over…