University of Cape Town researchers created the world's first "bio-bricks" made from sand, bacteria, and human urine collected from special toilets in the engineering school's bathrooms. From
The Guardian:
Bio-bricks are created through a natural process called microbial carbonate precipitation, said (project supervisor and water quality engineering lecturer Dyllon) Randall, similar to the way seashells are formed. Loose sand, which has been colonised with bacteria that produces urease, is mixed with the urine. Urease breaks down the urea in the urine, producing calcium carbonate, which cements the sand into shape.
While regular bricks are kiln-fired at temperatures of 1,400C and produce large amounts of carbon dioxide, the bio-bricks do not require heat.
“If a client wanted a brick stronger than a 40% limestone brick, you would allow the bacteria to make the solid stronger by ‘growing’ it for longer,” said Randall...
Randall described urine as liquid gold. By volume, urine accounts for less than 1% of domestic waste water, but it contains 80% of the nitrogen, 56% of the phosphorus and 63% of the potassium found in waste water.
(via NextDraft)
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Australian regulators are taking legal action against Apple after investigators posing as customers claim that the company wrongly refused to repair devices that had been serviced by third-party providers.
Australian authorities lodged a high-profile case against Apple this year, after iPhone and iPad customers experienced a malfunction that rendered phones useless if it detects that a repair has been carried out by a non-Apple technician. The fault occurred between late 2014 until early last year.
The case, set to go to trial in mid-December, accuses Apple of wrongly telling customers they were not entitled to free replacements or repair if they had taken their devices to an unauthorised third-party repairer... That advice was allegedly given even where the repair – a screen replacement, for example – was not related to the fault.
This is fallout from the legendary Error 53 kiln. Read the rest
Nimuno Loops are rolls of Lego-compatible adhesive tape. Genius idea and no surprise that they've blown wayyyyyy past their Indiegogo goal to manufacture the stuff.
Imagine being able to build around corners, on curved surfaces, or even onto the sides of that sailing ship you've just spent hours building. You forgot to engineer a point of attachment for that sweet dinosaur-smashing cannon? No problem. Snip a length of Nimuno Loops, stick it on the hull, mount your cannon and be on yarr way.
"LEGO Compatible Adhesive Tape - Nimuno Loops" (Indiegogo)
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Darren Cauthon, annoyed at LG's refusal to fix a family member's broken TV, went public with the problem.
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Apple is warning people not to change the date on iPhones to May 1970 or earlier because it "can prevent your iOS device from turning on after a restart." Apple has promised a software update that will prevent this from happening. In the meantime, don't try it on your late model (64 bit) iPhone, because it will likely brick it.
In the above video, Tom Scott explains why changing the date to 1/1/1970 breaks the phone.
If you can't resist setting the date back to see what happens, this video will show how to unbrick it. Be warned - you'll have to open your phone to fix it. Read the rest
In yearning for simplicity, the question is its own answer. Or maybe just get something old from Nokia.
