The Garbage Man | Popular Science

The Garbage Man | Popular Science: "n December 2001, American environmental activist Jim Puckett traveled to the town of Guiyu in southeast China to look for old computers. He’d learned that electronic waste from the West was finding its way to Guiyu, and the place apparently wasn’t what it used to be. For centuries, residents of Guiyu’s four villages had scratched out a living farming rice along the Lianjiang River. When Puckett arrived, one of the first things he saw was a man riding a bicycle stacked 15-feet high with computer keyboards. Puckett followed him to a village and, like Alice tailing the white rabbit through Wonderland, he discovered an upside-down world almost cartoonish in its horrors. Towering piles of monitors, printers, and fax machines lined streets and occupied front yards. In a neighboring village, women cooked circuit boards curbside in woks, and children played atop ash heaps. There were piles of burning wires, clouds of noxious fumes, and fields of gooey sludge. Puckett met people blackened head-to-toe with printer toner."



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Viva la Revolucion! Pagani's $3 million 800 hp supercar shows up in Geneva

Viva la Revolucion! Pagani's $3 million 800 hp supercar shows up in Geneva: "The Geneva Auto Show has a reputation for being the place for auto designers to display their most exotic work. In the case of Italy’s Pagani, known for its less than subtle approach to extreme automobiles, that means the 800 hp Zonda Revolucion"



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Koenigsegg pushes the supercar envelope with 1-megawatt One:1

Koenigsegg pushes the supercar envelope with 1-megawatt One:1: "Take note of these numbers: 1,341 hp to 1,360 kg. It's a ratio that gives the latest hypercar from Sweden's Koenigsegg the potential to be the fastest car on Earth, with a listed 273-mph (440 km/h) top speed. It also gives the car its name: One:1. That's one horse for every kilo, or close enough to round up without thinking twice. Starting with the already ultra powerful, lightweight Agera, Koenigsegg reached deep into its bag of tricks to strip more weight, add more downforce and create one of the world's most extreme machines."



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Review: Seven off-the-grid chargers for your portable devices | TechHive

Review: Seven off-the-grid chargers for your portable devices | TechHive: "When the power grid is close at hand, most smartphones and tablets have no problem lasting through a full day. But take that plentiful electricity away, and keeping our gadgets going becomes more difficult—despite many recent advancements, battery technology hasn’t kept up with our constant need for more power. And given that these days we’re taking our gear to more—and more-remote—places than ever before, having enough durable power is even more of a challenge."



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Course Gallery: Blue Monster at Trump National Doral

Course Gallery: Blue Monster at Trump National Doral: "Trump National Doral's Blue Course has hosted the PGA TOUR for more than a half-century. Competitors at this year's World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship won't see the same old Doral when they arrive in South Florida, though. The Blue Course underwent a dramatic renovation immediately after the 2013 Cadillac, won by Tiger Woods. Famed golf course architect Gil Hanse, who also is designing the course for the 2016 Olympics, was behind the changes. Many holes, such as the par-5 first hole and Nos. 15 and 16, underwent dramatic changes. One hole remained virtually untouched: the par-4 18th, one of the TOUR's most famous finishing holes."



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McLaren shaves the top off the new 650S

McLaren shaves the top off the new 650S: "McLaren has taken the wraps off an open-aired version of its new 650S supercar. Officially unveiled at the Geneva Auto Show today, the 650S Spider may well have stolen a bit of the limelight from its hard topped sibling."



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"Stained glass" photovoltaics fuse form and function

"Stained glass" photovoltaics fuse form and function: "A beautiful stained glass installation, a colorful billboard, or rows of windows on an office building ... all as electricity-generating solar cells? New research at the University of Michigan gives a method for creating such transparent and colorful solar cells using a hybrid silicon/organic composition, and furthermore avoids some of the problems of previous colored and transparent solar cells."



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The Best Tax Software for 2014 | PCMag.com

The Best Tax Software for 2014 | PCMag.com: "We chose a slightly different group of online tax-preparation websites for this year's reviews. The company names are the same—Intuit, H&R Block and TaxACT—and we once again covered the most popular versions, the paid, deluxe editions of TurboTax, H&R Block and TaxACT. But we also decided to review their free versions: TurboTax Federal Free, H&R Block Free and TaxACT Free Federal."



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Asteroid passing Earth will be closer than moon

Asteroid passing Earth will be closer than moon: "CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An asteroid is headed this way. But even though it will come closer than the moon, astronomers say it will pose no danger.

The newly discovered asteroid, called 2014 DX110, will hurtle between the moon and Earth on Wednesday. DX110 will pass an estimated 217,000 miles from Earth."



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Greg Novak creates granddaddy of a snowman in Gilman

Greg Novak creates granddaddy of a snowman in Gilman: "Greg Novak says he's invested hundreds of hours to build a 50-foot snowman named "Granddaddy" that he hopes will wake onlookers from their winter doldrums. And he admits it has some neighbors questioning his sanity.

Granddaddy began to take shape earlier this winter when the Gilman farmer needed to move mounting snow piles away from his greenhouses."



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Energy Source Could Power Earth 'for 30M Years' - But ITER, a thermonuclear plant, faces all sorts of challenges

Energy Source Could Power Earth 'for 30M Years' - But ITER, a thermonuclear plant, faces all sorts of challenges: "NEWSER) – Hoping scientists will find a brilliant alternative to oil and coal? How about a thermonuclear reactor that will hit temperatures ten times hotter than the sun and "could solve the world's energy problems for the next thirty million years," writes Raffi Khatchadourian in the New Yorker. The project—called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, in France—only needs to overcome rock-bottom morale, constant delays, tensions between engineers around the world, grumbling politicians, and a multi-billion-dollar budget that's never quite high enough. "There is a lot of anxiety here that it is all going to implode," says a physicist."



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GPM weather observatory successfully launched

GPM weather observatory successfully launched: "The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory was launched last Thursday aboard a Japanese H-IIA rocket that blasted off from Tanegashima Space Center on Tanegashima Island in southern Japan. The satellite will help provide a more detailed picture of the Earth's precipitation to assist climate scientists and help improve forecasting of extreme weather events."



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