It’s a hot summer day here and my AC is broken, but nothing stops the Hexup. This Saturday’s six-sider takes us all around the world, from Hawaii to Ontario to California to Switzerland, all kinds of places hopefully enjoying the same summer.
Off the Grid
Two guys in downtown London, Ontario have unplugged from the electrical grid and are determined to rough it for the summer. Calling themselves the “Sustainable Joes” they’ve got a little electricity from some solar panels, but no hot water, air condition, fridge or tv. More power to them, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out. You can find out more at the CBC or on the Sustainable Joes Youtube channel.
Eyes in the Sky
Imaging satellites aren’t expensive, says Skybox, a Silicon Valley startup that’s determined to launch tons of them into space for high resolution real-time images of the earth. Part of me sees this as privatized spy satellites, but at the same time, there’s a lot of great things we can learn with a birds eye view. Traffic flow data becomes easy to gather for example. You can see the full article on what they’re up to on Wired.
Hurray for the Higgs
We love CERN, and this week they celebrated a milestone, a year since the discovery of the Higgs boson. There are still a lot of challenges ahead though, and the New Scientist points out six mysteries that remain about the Higgs.
There’s an App for That
Have a disaster? There’s an app for that. Help Me Help is an app designed to assist emergency services in coordinating disaster relief by giving people the ability to report fires and damage with the push of a button. Developed by a group of students from the University of Hawaii, it was originally designed to let people report invasive species, but the students quickly expanded it to other uses. There’s a whole article on Techcrunch, check it out.
The Perfect Day Off
Remember those super productive and relaxing days off you have? No? Me either, but I’ve been doing better by following these tips from Lifehacker. How to beat the summer heat, grill like a champ, and buckle down on an awesome project. I’m two for three so far, how about you?
The Wreck of the Bruce Willis
It turns out that Bruce Willis’s asteroid landing wouldn’t have nearly been as secure as we’d like. According to this article on the Verge, “A recent experiment shows that the force from a landing spacecraft might easily cause an avalanche or something resembling an extraterrestrial mudslide, as a result of shifts in the dust on the asteroid’s granular surface.” Crazy.
Anyway, that’s all we’ve got this week. As always, tweet your awesome science, tech, charity, or idea-related news using #CChexup, and we’ll make sure it gets into that week’s post. One day, we might even be able to afford an Octagon.
