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News in Brief: Full Summer Of Tending Backyard Garden Produces Single Edible Cherry Tomato

CATOOSA, OK—After months of watering, mulching, staking, fertilizing, pruning, and spraying each plant, local homeowner Margie Helmholtz confirmed Wednesday that an entire summer of tending her backyard garden had yielded one edible cherry tomato. According to sources, Helmholtz paid more than $280 for soil, fencing, pesticides, and specialty gloves and hand tools, and also devoted scores of hours to the study of home gardening, purchasing two books and visiting nearly a dozen websites on the subject prior to reaping her single-tomato harvest. The 39-year-old woman is said to have spent part of each weekend on her hands and knees in the searing heat in order to transplant seedlings to her garden, keep them weeded, and ensure the plants’ thorny vines were wrapped correctly around their trellises—actions that, taken together from late May through August, produced exactly one limp tomato approximately one inch in diameter. At press time, sources …




via The Onion
News in Brief: Full Summer Of Tending Backyard Garden Produces Single Edible Cherry Tomato

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Death Star Architect Speaks Out, Defends Design of Exhaust Port

When you hear the term "starchitect" you think of a Gehry, a Graves, a Foster. But portmanteau aside, none of these men have ever designed anything that actually existed among the stars, in outer space. But the gentleman in the video below has.

This is the architect that won the commission to design the Death Star, the mobile battle station famously blown up in what was, depending on your politics, either a horrific tragedy or an act of victory. While any structure’s HVAC systems are typically key points of infiltration—Jack Bauer and John McClane always seem to be crawling around in them—the design of the exhaust ports on the Death Star drew extra-intense scrutiny after the station was destroyed. Here, the man responsible finally sets the record straight:


via Core77
Death Star Architect Speaks Out, Defends Design of Exhaust Port

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Build a Standing Desk that Converts to a Work Table

Standing desks are hot right now, but can be on the pricey side. You can build this height-adjustable standing desk with basic materials from Home Depot.http://ift.tt/1IbZAzx…

To build it, you just need to visit the lumber department for a 2×12 board and then head over to hardware and plumbing for some mending plates, 1 1/4 wood screws, and 3/4” black iron pipe. A circular saw is useful to cut the boards to length and you’ll need a drill/driver to attach mending plates and the legs to the table.

To adjust the height of the table, just change out the lengths of the pipes. Check out the video to see it in action.

DIY Standing Desk | HomeMadeModern (YouTube)


via Lifehacker
Build a Standing Desk that Converts to a Work Table

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This 3D-Printed Working Model of a 787’s Jet Engine Has Impressive Thrust

This 3D-Printed Working Model of a 787's Jet Engine Has Impressive Thrust

Given the challenges with precision, building functional machines with a household 3D printer isn’t easy. And that’s why it’s all the more impressive that someone on the RC Groups forum has used a 3D printer to make a fully-functional scale model of a Boeing 787’s GE-built turbofan jet engine.

Harcoreta’s scale replica, which includes over 60 3D-printed blades and vanes on the inside, isn’t just a model destined to collect dust on a shelf. It actually produces more than enough thrust to power a remote-controlled airplane, and that’s exactly what its creator intends to use it for.

To make the design and build of the replica even more challenging, but also more accurate to the real thing, Harcoreta has even incorporated a functional thrust reverser into his engine. So when he’s eventually bringing an RC airplane in for a landing, he’ll be able to stop his creation in time before it runs off the end of a runway. [RC Groups via The Awesomer]

This 3D-Printed Working Model of a 787's Jet Engine Has Impressive Thrust

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via Gizmodo
This 3D-Printed Working Model of a 787’s Jet Engine Has Impressive Thrust