Like Legos, but for adults.
The post How To Build A Basic AR-15 appeared first on Bearing Arms.
‘Original Bug Shirt’ Still Rules The Insect Battle
Dave and Amy Freeman are spending a year in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in an effort to protect it from a series of sulfide-ore copper mines. This summer they had the opportunity to put the Original Bug Shirt through the ultimate North Woods test.
After more than eight bug-free months in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (winter), summer arrived and so did the bugs. In the North Woods spring and summer are synonymous with black flies and mosquitoes, and when they’re bad the Original Bug Shirt is the ultimate defense.
I purchased my stained, tattered bug shirt many years ago for an expedition in the Amazon where the mosquitoes transmit malaria, dengue fever, and other nasty diseases. Since then, I keep the shirt in the top of my pack anywhere bugs are likely to be bad, from the Amazon to the Arctic.
Bug Shirt In The North Woods
My wife, Amy, and I donned our Original Bug Shirts for the first time in early June when the mosquitoes started to swarm.
We’d kept our bug shirts ready as the ice thawed. When we landed at the portage between Kiskadinna and Muskeg Lakes in spring, we were greeted by a thick wall of black flies and mosquitoes. Swatting and waving our arms, we dug into our day pack and slipped the bug shirts over our heads.
For June, July, and August, we kept our bug shirts at the ready while exploring more than 300 lakes and streams. They have become our go-to defense when bugs get thick.
BWCA: An Ultimate Bug Shirt Test
The Original Bug Shirts stand out from the competition. They are made of a mixture of mosquito netting along the torso and under arms, and a lightweight yet bug-proof material everywhere else.
A bug shirt like this is a mechanical barrier to biting insects. It’s another tool in the box, and is a nice alternative to chemical deterrents when bugs get really bad.
10 Facts: Mosquitos
You know they are annoying. But did you know the mosquito is among the most deadly of all animals on Earth? We pulled together 10 facts on the blood-sucking bugs. Read more…
The beauty of this design is that where the shirt is likely to press tightly against skin is made of nylon material that bugs can’t bite through. Areas that normally are not pressed against the skin are mesh to keep you cool.
A large hood with mosquito netting can zip closed to fully protect the face, or remain open when the bugs aren’t too bad. Elastic draw cords at the waist and wrists keep bugs from crawling under your shirt.
If the bugs are really bad at meal time, we like to pull our arms into the main body of the bug shirt so that we can hold our bowl inside the shirt and eat in a totally bug free environment.
Shirt For A Buggy World
Ideally you’d never need a shirt like this, but bugs are everywhere. If you are headed into an especially buggy corner of the world, do yourself a favor and bring an Original Bug Shirt.
The only downside is that both Amy and I have ripped the mosquito netting close to our waists either by carrying portage packs with hip belts, or by wearing PFDs over the Bug Shirts. It wasn’t a big deal to repair them, but I’d love to see a version with the nylon material five inches up from the base shirt instead of the bug mesh on the sides.
—Dave and Amy Freeman are spending a year in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in an effort to protect the Boundary Waters from a series of sulfide-ore copper mines that are proposed along the edge of our nation’s most popular Wilderness. Throughout their Year in the Wilderness they are sharing regular reviews on GearJunkie.com. Amy and Dave were named National Geographic Adventurers of the Year in 2014.
The post ‘Original Bug Shirt’ Still Rules The Insect Battle appeared first on GearJunkie.
via GearJunkie
‘Original Bug Shirt’ Still Rules The Insect Battle
Building a Rustic Outdoor Shower for Informal Camp Life
Showering at the lake doesn’t have to be an indoor affair. Andrew Macklin shows us his outdoor shower build.
The post Building a Rustic Outdoor Shower for Informal Camp Life appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.
via MAKE Magazine
Building a Rustic Outdoor Shower for Informal Camp Life
Kylo Ren Loses It While Watching the Rogue One Trailer
You’d think Kylo Ren would be happy to see his grandfather once again on the big screen, but that’s not the case in his latest reaction video to the new Rogue One trailer.
The video was created by the Auralnauts over on YouTube, who already have riffed on our misunderstood villain in other videos. So far, the group has done a pretty good job, perfectly merging Adam Driver’s deadpan delivery in both the actual Star Wars film and in his Undercover Boss turn from Saturday Night Live earlier this year.
Ren focuses on what you’d expect—the Death Star (“this is what power looks like. Angles, and spheres, and… windows.”), Donnie Yen, who strikes well with a large stick, and the battle at Hoth.
Of course, when we get the Darth Vader cameo, he goes a bit ballistic, but in typical Kylo Ren fashion. It’s what you’d expect, but it’s still a fun time. It at least shows off my favorite interpretation of Kylo, which highlights his awkwardness of being in a leader position and his bottling up of feelings.
via Gizmodo
Kylo Ren Loses It While Watching the Rogue One Trailer
Watch a Guy Transform an Old Glass Bottle into a Sharp Arrowhead
GIF
Junkyard flint knapping is my new favorite thing because it takes a piece of trash and recycles it into something else entirely with just a few taps (okay, more than a few taps). But watch Shawn Woods find an old bottle and then reshape it with tools that consist of an antler, a screw, and like a needle thing. He just keeps striking it over and over and eventually brings out a beautiful glass arrow.
via Gizmodo
Watch a Guy Transform an Old Glass Bottle into a Sharp Arrowhead
Innovaccer raises $15.6M to give businesses one stop for all their data
Abhinav Shashank was working on an academic project at Harvard — figuring out how to pool together large data sets from hundreds of different sources and APIs and manage them — when his business colleagues started asking him to help apply those tools.
The result was Innovaccer, a set of software that mashes together data from different enterprise sources and online data sets (ranging from Oracle data, SQL databases to social media feeds) to bring together a large database where companies can build application layers. That technology has seen applications ranging from health care to media, but the core remains the same: getting all the relevant data in one place where businesses can divine the information they need to best operate.
To do that, Innovaccer has raised $15.6 million led by Westbridge Capital Partners, with participation from Lightspeed Ventures. The goal is basically to provide businesses with a white-labeled tool to apply high-level data analysis of large sets of data pulled from multiple different sources. With the right approach, firms can build tools to point that activity in pretty much any direction they want.
“The core platform remains the same, which is basically the integration, the data management layer and the dashboard,” Shashank said. “You don’t end up using iOS or Android, you end up using Gmail and Uber. From an application layer standpoint there are a few changes you need to do from what media wants to measure to what a healthcare wants to measure, versus what a bunch of other companies want to measure.”
Keeping an advantage is going to be a race against time. Innovaccer has to ensure it can very quickly onboard new data integrations and provide easy tools to apply new kinds of applications on top of them. If not, it’ll just be another piece of software in the stack that will collect dust in the corner while firms stick with more reliable, typical suppliers of this kind of technology.
The company has already seen applications in various fields like health care, where pooling data from multiple sources allows firms to create tools like electronic health records systems and a comprehensive patient overview. Innovaccer’s goal is to create a central piece of technology that can be morphed into something that’s industry-specific, while still constantly being improved by adding new sources of data.
In the case of health care, Innovaccer can pull information from the billing systems, claims systems and other pools of information it supports to put together an overview for a patient. Those data sources may be particularly useful for various industries, but the point is to ensure that at some point companies aren’t required to individually bring in information from discrete sources and just rely on software to do that.
There is plenty of competition for tools like this. There are many applications that focus on those specific industries — like electronic medial record systems in health care, for example — and other companies that provide high-level analytics like Palantir or IBM. Innovaccer’s challenge will be to ensure that it can prove it has enough core data to justify getting firms to build application layers on top of it, and that the data they have is more valuable and more useful than what businesses might find in other services.
via TechCrunch
Innovaccer raises $15.6M to give businesses one stop for all their data
LWT: Opening Ceremony
(PG-13: Language) With the 2016 Olympics underway, Last Week Tonight looks at NBC’s godawful coverage of the opening ceremony, Brazil’s sleazy acting President, the first ever Refugee Olympic Team and more.
Star Wars, Renamed
“My favorite thing about sharing Star Wars with my toddler is the names he gives the characters.”
(via source)
“My favorite thing about sharing Star Wars with my toddler is the names he gives the characters.”
(via source)
The post Star Wars, Renamed appeared first on AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com.
This Map Shows You the Best Road Trip Route Between National Parks
If you like the outdoors, a road trip between several national parks is perfect for a long weekend or vacation. This map plots the best route between nearby national parks so you spend less time planning and more time exploring.
While you probably won’t drive to all 47 national parks featured on the map at once, you can still create your own road trip route using parts of it. For example, you could start in L.A., hit Joshua Tree and Death Valley, cut over to Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Yosemite before looping back towards L.A. through Pinnacles and the Channel Islands. The only route planning you would have to do is between Death Valley and Kings Canyon. In the interactive map at the link below, you can see which national parks are close to each other and the roads you would drive to get to each of them.
The Optimal U.S. National Parks Centennial Road Trip | Randal Olsen
via Lifehacker
This Map Shows You the Best Road Trip Route Between National Parks
Smart Animation Taught Me More About the Civil War Than History Class
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I’m pretty sure I could pass a high school history test about the Civil War armed with only the knowledge that was dropped on me from watching this highly entertaining 10-minute animation from John D. Ruddy. I’m actually halfway certain I would do better on that test after watching this YouTube video than I would have if I read a sterile textbook.
The kids just have it so easy these days. Enjoy the history lesson, folks. The cartoon drawings are fun too.
via Gizmodo
Smart Animation Taught Me More About the Civil War Than History Class