Wave pools are pretty cool. They work by pumping a large amount of water into a reservoir, where by its abruptly released by a large valve at the reservoirs base, triggering a surge of water out into the waiting pool of water, causing a wave to ripple/crash out over it.
If you’ve got limited access to the ocean and you need a surf, then a wave pool is the next best thing. Cue the video below.
Titled Wave Gardening, its a group of American surfers who are invited to come down and participate on what looks like a very home made wave pool somewhere in Spain.
Today’s awesome. Enjoy.
Mick Fanning: Wave Gardening from Mick Fanning on Vimeo.
It must be a prerogative of Red Bull to get involved with what ever is cool and then sponsor it. Last month they featured heavily in the trailer of the upcoming epic film The Art of Flight, a snowboarding film that I can’t wait to see. Now they’re sponsoring what is proclaimed to be the smallest velodrome in the world.
Held in London, the Red Bull Mini Drome attracted over 1000 spectators to watch the world’s smallest velodrome in action.
100 riders, both male and female, tried to hold on to the red line as they rode around the track aiming for the fastest time and personally, I’m not sure how they did it. Once or twice might be fine, but as you’ll see, some of the cyclists simply get too dizzy to continue and careen off the track and into the crowd.
Engineered in Germany by Velotrack, the purpose built track kept to race-worthy dimensions in the smallest possible size to enable a single pursuit. Check out the video below.
Enjoy.
3. What happened to getting big things done?
I think if you’re going to read one article this week, then it should be this one.
Its an article by Neal Stephenson, and it explores why humans have stopped taking those risks needed to build big game changing projects.
He starts off by discussing the American space program of the 1960′s and how the risks to getting that programme off the ground (no pun intended), while massive to us today, were just seen as things to surmount to a populace habituated to the Depression, the World Wars, and the Cold War. In effect, they were of more resilient stock, used to getting things done when a problem presented itself as they had done numerous times before.
He then continues that we have become so focused on the short term, the profit margins and greater efficiencies that we’re only tweaking the old to make it better, not branching out and discovering whole new ways of doing things even though that carries great risk.
In fact, risk as a concept is now frowned upon and today’s belief that something must be a certain success before it even created is the true innovation killer of our modern age. People are now more infatuated with what new iPhone model is coming out (its the iPhone 4GS by the way) than we are about inventing discoveries that will propel our civilization forward.
Check out the article of the month here from World Policy Org, or click on the image above. Today’s must read.
Let’s just start by saying that I’ve never taken Magic Mushrooms. While offered them, I was always worried about been that .01 percent of people that would rip their clothes off and run screaming down the street stuffing their poo into people’s letterboxes.
But I must say, the article here from Time has piqued my interest.
A recent study has concluded that not only are the mushrooms relatively safe, but they can also have long term positive effects. The study analyzed 52 participants (average age 46) and the effects the drug had on them.
Normally, as people grow older, they become increasingly less open to new ideas and new experiences. In contrast, in participants who had experienced what researchers call a “full mystical experience,” the scientists saw a shift toward increased openness, as though the volunteers had become decades younger.
The studies also showed this new found openness and empathy lasted long AFTER the drugs effect had worn off…
To read more of the article on Mushies, click on the article here from Time or on the image above.
While we’re all not driving electric cars just yet, its nice to see the boundaries been pushed in the field by BYU university and the 130 odd students that have been involved in the program over the last three years.
Shot on the Bonneville Salt Flats in the U.S, the electric streamliner as its known, broke the world speed record for an electric vehicle, hitting a max speed of 175mph.
Check out the video below.
You can share my ramblings if you like :)
