In an Army Corps of Engineers press release, details on the astounding rate at which workers are draining water from New York's subway and transit tunnels: "To date, the USACE has used about 50 pumps of various sizes to remove 64 million gallons of water from the New York City mass transit system. Operations are ongoing at six sites, with pumps removing about 116,000 gallons per minute. The 696,000 gallons the pumps are draining each minute exceeds the amount of water in one Olympic-size swimming pool (660,000 gallons). There were roughly 600 million gallons in the tunnels when pumping operations began on Thursday, Nov. 1." (via Noah Shachtman).
In post-Sandy "dewatering" mission, Army engineers drain one Olympic-sized pool's worth of water per minute
Coat hanger radio
Back in the day, coat hangers weren't just used for popping open a car door when you locked your keys inside. They also served as makeshift antennae to improve TV and radio reception. That DIY RF engineering inspired John Jerome Spina to patent an integrated coat hanger/radio. His 1976 patent expired in 1995, so get… READ THE REST
Wrecked rally car repaired in half an hour
If you think changing a set of tires in 1.82 seconds is amazing, wait until you see an absolutely wrecked Citroën restored to racing shape in 32 minutes. If you just want a nice tl;dw version of how this incredible feat is accomplished, jump to the 29 minute mark to see how they polish off… READ THE REST
How European bridges were built in the 14th century
This amazing animation shows how a Prague bridge would have been constructed in the 14th century. Image: YouTube READ THE REST
Bright Cellars' personalized wine club turned this beer drinker into a wine person
I consider myself a beer person. My go-to order at the bar is a Miller High Life or Stella Artois. I know the difference between an ale and a lager, and I frequent the local microbrewery. It's not that I only like beer; I just haven't found another drink I like quite as much. Granted,… READ THE REST
The MatrixPad Z10 has all the features of more expensive tablets at just $110
Did you know that 2020 was a surprisingly good year for tablet sales? After several years of stagnant growth and losing business to the creep of incrementally bigger smartphones, the tablet market saw a pretty serious explosion during the pandemic. In fact, tablet sales were up almost 14 percent in 2020. If you're in the market… READ THE REST
The Kyvol Cybovac D6 is a robot vacuum and mopper, all in one
As we continue in our technological march toward Rosie the Robot, we quietly reached a major milestone in that revolution in just the last few years. We've been manufacturing robots to handle all kinds of household tasks for a while now. We have vacuuming robots, for instance. We also have mopping robots. But until recently,… READ THE REST