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Social Vending: The New Wave of Vending Machines?

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pepsi_social_vend_0Yesterday, soda make Pepsi announced their newest product – not a new soda, but a different kind of vending machine system. Riding on the popularity wave of everything social, Pepsi has introduced the idea of “social vending”.

No worries – you’ll still recognize the vending machines for what they are, but you’ll be able to do a few new tricks with them. The idea is to provide consumers with a touch screen interface, which allows consumers to send gifts – Pepsi products only, of course – to their friends. You can even record a short video via the same machine. The interface will ask you to select the product that you want to send as a gift and then prompt you to enter the recipient’s name and mobile phone number. You can also send a text message to accompany your gift.

How does the recipient actually get hold of the gift? By going to any social vending system unit and entering the necessary details. So ideally, you can be somewhere in Asia (if they do release the machines there) and send a Pepsi gift to a friend in the US. Oh, and just to make everything more social, the recipient can also opt to send a gift back. You know, as a way of saying thanks. (And then you send a gift back again – and the cycle goes on; and Pepsi makes more money.)

Honest thoughts: “social” can only go so far. While this social vending system is a novel idea, I can’t see the need for it. Is Pepsi aiming to be the Facebook of sodas? Then again, maybe I am being short-sighted. Oh, and maybe because I drink Coke anyway.

What do you think? Will the features of the social vending system be useful for you?

Paper From Elephant Poo

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Poo Paper
It sounds disgusting, but it does work and it contributes to the environment as well. What Michael Flancman and his group is doing is to gather the excrement of elephants to process it into recycled paper and other paper-based products.

Flancman’s business is based in Thailand where there are many elephant conservation parks. In Chiang Mai, particularly, loads of elephants can be found. You may have seen features on Nat Geo or Discovery Channel – these conservation camps are rather popular tourist destinations. There are even camps that allow tourists to stay for at least a night and participate in taking care of the elephants – feeding them, giving them a bath, and so on.

So where does the all the poo go? If you haven’t seen a live elephant relieve itself, you are missing half of your life. NOT!

Seriously, these humongous creatures aptly excrete a lot of waste, and while this material may be used for fertilizer just like any other waster matter, Flancman and associates decided to do something more creative: “repurposing” the fecal matter which contains a lot of straw and similar undigested material.

What the people do is to gather the waste and wash it with water in order to obtain the fibers. These fibers are then sterilized thoroughly and mixed with other plant material to create the pulp that will be used for paper and other products.

Oh, they are also now using the poo of other animals such as cows, horses, and donkey.

It’s not exactly high-tech but there’s no harm in going back to the basics is there? Oh, and the name of the company is The Great Elephant Poo Poo Paper Co. 😉

Via The BQB
Image Credit: The Daily Green

How Does Your Garden Grow? Atomically.

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Green thumbs, listen up! It is spring (well, depending on where you are, obviously), and it is the time to spend time in the garden tending to those plants that will give you a lot of pleasure in the ensuing months. That is, if you are into one of the most relaxing hobbies there is.

But have you ever heard of atomic gardening? I only came to know about this concept today when I was doing my daily Internet rounds. Apparently, after World War II, the great minds of that period were busy trying to find some useful purposes for atomic energy. There is no need to expound on how disastrous the effects of atomic energy can be, and many of those people experienced that firsthand.

One of the results of their efforts was the idea of atomic gardening. In a nutshell, the concept involves bombarding plants with radiation. The goal was to induce mutations in the plants, which could then lead to positive things such as being disease-resistant or cold-resistant. The bottom line: to create plant varieties that would help with dealing with problems such as famine, hunger, and poverty.

The atomic garden experiments were conducted in the United States, in parts of Europe, and in what was then known as the USSR. While the studies were done under strict control, some products actually reached the market via C.J. Speas (an entrepreneur) and the Atomic Gardening Society. These products came in the form of irradiated seeds, which we may still actually buy today. In general though, it seems that these atomic gardens are gone and have been largely forgotten.

To give you a glimpse of the past, here are some photos about the atomic gardens.

First Atomic Garden USA
This is the first atomic garden in the US.

Atomic Seeds
An ad for irradiated seeds

Atomic Peanuts
Real atomic peanuts

With what is happening in Japan’s nuclear reactor sites, the topic of radiation is brought up rather often these days. Who knows, we might even hear about atomic gardening – or something similar at least – in the future?

Read more about atomic gardening at Pruned.

Back to the Future in Real Life?

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How many people have dreamt about being Marty McFly and traveling across time? If you’re one of them, then you might be interested to know about the GigaPan Time Machine. ((GigaPan Time Machine)) Created by some guys from Carnegie Mellon University, the GigaPan Time Machine might not exactly be like the DeLorean, but it does make time traveling somewhat of a reality for you and me.

It is actually a computer system that allows users to view certain locations via videos or images. These images and videos are rendered in gigapixel-scale (hence the name?). The cool thing is that you can explore the images/videos by moving back (or forward) in time. At the same time, you can also zoom in and out.

To make that clearer, let’s say you are looking at a field of tulips somewhere in The Netherlands. You can choose to zoom in to have a clearer view of the beautiful flowers. More so, you can go back in time and watch the flowers start to form as buds and then slowly come into full bloom.

Interested in knowing how the system was created? Believe it or not, it has been made possible by HTML5! Based on HTML5, the researchers were able to develop “algorithms and software architecture that make it possible to shift seamlessly from one video portion to another as viewers zoom in and out of Time Machine imagery.”

I guess words can’t really explain how much fun this thing can be, so here’s a video to show you.

Not exactly as glamorous as speeding up a clunky old car and not exactly Back to the Future, but it’s still something!

DIY LEGO Motors

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Motor
There is no doubt that LEGO is fun for people of all ages. Not only is it fun, but it does have educational value as well. However, for some people, the ultimate level of fun with LEGO can only be reached if you can make things move around and play with them as they do. That’s where LEGO Motors come into the picture.

You can purchase LEGO Technic Motors, which are all ready for use. They use standard LEGO style electrical connectors and are powered by a 9-volt power supply. Of course, with convenience comes the price. But what if you had the skills, determination, and means to create your own LEGO Motors?

This guy just JMEMantzel has caught the attention of countless LEGO fans all over the world with his YouTube video of how to make your own LEGO Motors. You might be thinking – why spend all that time creating your own when you can buy them readymade?

Come on now, it’s all about the sense of self-achievement and satisfaction, and you can’t get any better than making your own toys. Understandably, it’s not for everyone, but if you’re a DIY-er, this video will get you all excited. I bet you’ll be heading off to do some shopping after watching this.

A word of wisdom: you might want to check out insurance quotes online as well. After all, your LEGO collection needs all the protection it can get – especially if you’re going to tinker around with electronics as well.

Why don’t you send some love down JMEMantzel’s way by visiting his YouTube Channel and letting him know what you think?

Photo via Lego Hacks

What a Bored Math Teacher Can Do With Pencils

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For some reason, I have always had a good relationship with my math teachers in grade school and high school. Now college professors were always touch and go – with all the math courses I had to take, I was bound to meet one or two that didn’t exactly become a bosom buddy. In any case, one thing that bugged me about certain branches of math was the fact that they didn’t seem to have immediate practical applications. All those equations and computations just seemed fruitless to me as a student who wanted to make something useful. I am sure many students have felt – and feel – the same way.

If it were up to this particular math teacher, though, I bet that students would have more practical applications of what they learn in class. Or maybe not.

What’s for sure is that he found some free time in his hands, a whole lot of pencils – 80 of them, and different kinds of glue. Throw in some geometric principles and a dash of inspiration, and this is what you get.
STAR Pencil
That’s called the STAR – Standardized Testing And Reporting, which is actually the test that his students are taking this month. (That’s where some of the inspiration came from!)
STAR Pencil Side
This is the same sculpture taken from a different angle.

In his blog, Mister Math Teacher ((An Ocean of Knowledge An Inch Deep)) talks about other sources of inspiration: work by George Hart ((Geometric Sculpture)) and Carlo H. Sequin ((Carlo H. Sequin’s Web Site)). He also reveals just how he got his pencil sculpture made. If you have an excess of pencils, why not give it a try?

Now I wonder if his star pupil will get the sculpture at the end of the academic year?