This is thanks to Cassini’s “ring-grazing” mission that involves the probe making orbital dives past the outer edge of Saturn’s main ring system. This is one of Cassini’s final missions as the 20-year-old spacecraft will soon expire, plunging into the gassy planet this September.

“How fitting it is that we should go out with the best views of Saturn’s rings we’ve ever collected,” says Cassini Imaging Team Lead Carolyn Porco from the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

And he’s right, this is the first chance we’ve had to see the main rings with such high-definition.

The images resolve details as small as 0.3 miles, which is about the size of some of Earth’s tallest buildings.

In this image you can see Saturn’s A ring. It’s the outermost of the structures and it lies about 83,574 miles from Saturn.

The rippled appearance is a density wave and is made up of icy particles that form shapes that scientists informally refer to as “straw.”

This is Saturn’s outer B ring.

As great as the new pictures are, things are only going to get more amazing as Cassini gets closer to its final mission phase.

They’re calling it the Grand Finale, and it’s basically the space probe’s “death spiral” that will begin on April 26th. Cassini will dive through the gap between the planet and its rings.

The spacecraft will get a final look at the innermost rings and the planet’s gas clouds before one final orbit that ends with Cassini plunging into Saturn’s upper atmosphere and burning up like a meteor.

The reason for the fiery death and not a prolonged retirement of exploring more of Saturn and its moons is that NASA thinks that two of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus and Titan, feature habits that could possibly sustain life.

Just in case there are alien organisms living on them, NASA doesn’t want to jeopardize them by bringing microbes from Earth that could still be surviving on the probe– even though that possibility is slim.

While it will be sad to lose the veteran Cassini, we’re all looking forward to the amazing observations it provides in its Grand Finale.

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“I decided to start designing something I would like to play with. Not knowing where to start, I used Apollo Command Module panels for reference, and my own experience with panels working as a Loadmaster on C-17’s.”

“Took a day to get both panels cut ( I made 2 panels exactly the same for each nephew, because if you get boys something different they fight).”

“I called dad and asked for some help, I needed to make something to mount the panels on, but it had to have room to put electronics in. Dad has a nice shop in his garage, so I sketched up some designs and he had the wood cut to spec.”

“At the last minute I decided to order 6 breadboards for the electronics. I am so glad I did. It made everything easier. (side note: I didn’t really understand I was ordering LED’s that were something like 20K lumens….. once I got them lit up I immediately was all “I SEE THE LIGHT!”)”

“This is the back of the first panel I put together. I learned so much on this first one. It looks so messy. The second one looks really slick and organized. Basically, I learned how to use solder, and the lesson of keeping wires orderly as you go. Hot glue helped a lot.

(I have been asked for the spreadsheet I used for the wiring logic…. It was in my head… it was just LED’s lighting up, no arduino or any computer stuff).”

“The power and alignment test was perfect. Just looking like this I was happy. 10 year old me could play with that for hours.”

“Another angle of the test lighting, and i left it running for 12 hours to ensure it wouldn’t catch fire…. yeah i was paranoid I messed something up.”

“Once I was happy, I glued all the circuit boards down, mounted the DC connector to the back, and plugged it in (takes a 5v 2a DC converter). All the switches worked in the appropriate logic. EXAMPLE: When you turn Weapon’s power on, the “WARNING ARMED” light comes on the weapons panel. This allows you to place the fire button into the “ARM” position which now lights it up red. etc.”

“The ship status panel: each LED has a corresponding switch that deals with that system. Once you lock the FTL switch, the FTL button lights up blue. Pressing the FTL button ignites the FTL drive.”

“You can see the Master power switch, this turns it all off and on. Second and Battery are dummy switches that just control their corresponding LED. You will also notice some missing switches, not all of them got here in time for xmas, but it doesn’t take away from the effect.”

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A humongous global network of computers that allow us to connect and exchange information anytime, anywhere. The internet is a crazy concept. You can look for anything on the internet. But, what about the stuff you can’t find? Chances are, you’ll find it in the deep web. What is the deep web? Lets take a look.

The Deep Web

To put it simply, “the deep web” is the dark part of the internet that is hidden from you.

The ‘surface web’ is the part of the internet that you can find using search engines like Google or Bing. It takes up a mere 4% of the internet, and is always under surveillance by the government.

The ‘deep web’ is otherwise known as the ‘invisible web’ and contains content that is not only hard to track, but is not indexed by search engines. The deep web makes up 96% of the internet.

How do you access it?

To access the deep web, you need to use a browser that is dedicated to it. “The Onion Router” is an example of one. When accessing the deep web, you are looking at data that isn’t held on a single page, but rather in a network of databases. This is why it is so hard for search engines to index. Furthermore, deep web information is shared through any number of computers that hold the information through the internet, otherwise known as peer-to-peer networking. This makes it harder for your location to be tracked or monitored.

Is it legal?

The answer is yes. Although it seems a bit shady, using the deep web is legal. The military, police forces, and even journalists use the deep web to look for information they can’t find in the visible web.

The dark side

Although using the deep web isn’t illegal, there are a lot of illegal services found in it. This is thanks to the anonymity of using “The Onion Router.”

Services

Here are a few more examples of the illegal services that are offered on the deep web.

Drugs such as cocaine, heroin, cannabis, MDMA, and LSD can be found through various sites in the deep web. Paid theft, in which someone will steal items for you for a price that is cheaper than the item itself. Credit card information, fixed sports matches for you to bet on, hitmen for hire, and every kind of gun you can imagine can all be bought on the deep web as well. Keep in mind that all of this shit is highly illegal.

The Silk Road

The Silk Road is a a popular site on the dark web that has been dubbed “The eBay of Drugs” but is also used to buy and sell a plethora of things- mostly illegal.

Founded in 2011 by a use named “Dead Pirate Roberts” The Silk Road uses “Bit Coins” as currency. The FBI arrested “Dead Pirate Roberts” and shut down the website in 2013, only to have it reopened in a month later.

The Deep Web is said to have 5,000 pages for each page found on the visible internet. The amount of shit that’s in there that we don’t know about, it’s no wonder it has a name like that.

Source

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The project, formally called Tactical Light Operator Suit, or TALOS, is aimed at providing special operators, such as Navy SEALs and Special Forces, with enhanced mobility and protection technologies.

The TALOS suit powers an exoskeleton structure that can help troops conserve energy while on patrol.

Soldiers can quickly turn off the aided “walking” if they need to move during combat.

TALOS will have a physiological subsystem that lies against the skin that is embedded with sensors to monitor core body temperature, skin temperature, heart rate, body position and hydration levels.
Lt. Cmdr. Matt Allen, SOCOM spokesman said, “The idea is to help maintain the survivability of operators as they enter that first breach through the door.”

The GPNVG-18 (Ground Panoramic Night Vision Goggle) allows for a broader field of view. In addition, the helmet can display multiple sets of data from it’s internal computers.

It can even monitor a soldier’s thoughts which can then be sent back to a command control team…they will be able to see what he’s seeing and know what he’s thinking.

Taking it a step further, the suit will monitor medical information if the soldier is wounded.

Now for the craziest technology of the TALOS, its armor.
Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) are developing a next-generation kind of armor called “liquid body armor.”

According to Mr. Allen, it “transforms from liquid to solid in milliseconds when a magnetic field or electrical current is applied”.

Lt. Cmdr. Matt Allen, SOCOM spokesman said, “The ultimate purpose of the TALOS project is to produce a prototype in 2018. That prototype will then be evaluated for operational impact.”

Come 2018, the shadow warriors from units such as Army’s (1st SFOD-D) “Delta” to the Navy SEALs (DEVGRU) “Team Six” may be taking the TALOS into harms way.
Big shout-out to our friends a “We Are The Mighty” for helping put this gallery and information behind this future technology.

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Above is the Chevrolet Chaparral 2J from 1970 and below is Gran Turismo (video game) concept called the 2X Vision VGT.

The design began with the 1961 Chaparral “1”. It was built by Jim Hall, Dick Troutman and Tom Barnes with the help of Chevrolet engineers to be an all-American race car.

Their small shop was located in Culver City, CA. Years later, this would become the location of Sony Entertainment’s head-quarters in America.

It’s no coincidence that Sony would seek out an iconic car like the Chaparral. They were built, literally “next door”.

The “1” version had a Chevy small block V8 in the front hood. It only produced 300-hp but with its light weight all aluminum body, the car could move.

Chaparral entered its first competition at Laguna SECA where it would race to a second place finish.

In 1962, the “1” version would achieve its first “in class” victory at Sebring 12 Hours race.

Only 5 version “1s” were ever made…the Chapparral “1” is only for the rich to have.

The wild design came in 1970 with Chaparral’s crazy version called the “2J”.

They moved the engine to the rear and into a realm of futuristic aerodynamic shape and design.

The downforce created was estimated at around 240-lbs. when the car traveled at speeds of 100-mph and above.

Its down force was so great that it lead to a group of race cars known as “ground effects vehicles”.

The 2J’s engine was a big block V8.

This was a monster from the Chevrolet ZL1 which churned out 650-hp.

From Chive commenter “Earl”:
Above its big V8 engine, the “2J” also had a 2 cylinder snowmobile engine that was

used to operate the huge fans on the back of the car.

This secondary engine was essentially a giant vacuum that sucked the car to the ground giving it a huge aerodynamic advantage. As such, the 2J also had a fitting nick-name, the “sucker car”.

However, its racing history was cut short because of the 2J’s competition.
Why?
They complained that it had an “unfair advantage” due to the downforce created by the back fans. The Chaparral “2J” was outlawed after one season in the 1970’s Can-Am class.

Then came a video game franchise called Gran Turismo.

As a feature concept design, they made the Chaparral “Vision 2X/GT6” concept.

They even made a prototype of the car for the LA Auto Show/launch of the game.

If video games were reality, the “2X” could hug the road at a speed of 240-mph.

On one level, you could say, “it’s a concept from a video game…who cares”. I’d kind of agree. However, there are details that trickle into our every day cars.

For example, look at the skinny diagonal shaped head-lights. Ever notice that all of the new cars have one thing in common…ding, ding…the designs all use small LED lights to form thin lines with unique angles.

Can this be attributed to “this” video game concept. Not at all but designers learn and take feed-back. Concept vehicles, even video game concepts actually DO shape future design of cars.

It may just be a “vision” of the future but the spirit of the original aerodynamic design lives on with a small California company and the designers of Sony in the Chevy Chaparral.

The post Racing history behind a future concept: Chaparral appeared first on Barnorama.

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Like text messaging, which you would have to send from a landline once upon a time to a pager. Good luck returning the message though.

Of course you’d need a phone to both send that message or reply to it, and you know, make phone calls.

If you miss a call you’ll want one of these. Other wise you would never know anyone had even reached out.

Want to know who is calling? You used to have to “ask” who was calling instead of just reading it off of a screen. That is unless you bought yourself a Caller ID.

How about taking pictures? Cameras have always been accessible, but to have something comparable to all of the features and clarity of the current level of smartphones you’d need to shell out close to $600.

Oh, and that $600 camera couldn’t do video. You’d need to buy a camcorder for that, and don’t forget to buy some tapes.

Need a light in a jam? Well you’ll need some batteries and flashlight. That LED in your phone is a bit brighter though.

One of the cooler things out there is the google translate app, which can look at a dinner menu in Italian and translate it on your screen in English. Not so in 1996 though, you’ll need to type that in.

Like watching videos on the go? Then prepare to pull out that antenna.

Music, which came in both tape and compact disc, needed a player. No iTunes here, just spinning mechanics.

Like watching movies outside of the theater? Well you can download all new releases and play them on your TV via Airplay… just kidding. You’ll need a VCR and some of your favorite tapes, but luckily those are only about $15-20 each.

From Flappy Bird to Candy Crush, you’ll need something to play that on since you don’t have that app store.

If you have any questions you can try to google it on AOL, but since that won’t launch until 1998 maybe crack open one of these. Only costs about $200.

The post What iPhone apps cost in 1996 appeared first on Barnorama.

Check out the full tutorial in detail HERE

Double sided acrylic mirror a little larger than the display monitor.

The mirror and the monitor behind it

Use a paint scraper to pry at the edges of the monitor and remove the outer case.

Be careful when removing the monitor to keep the control wiring intact.

4 4×2 pieces make up the case around the monitor.

Building the front facing frame.

Diagnostic text showing through the mirror.

Diagnostic text showing through the mirror.

Raspberry Pi plugged in before cable management

“Cable management”

The back to hold everything together

The Raspberry Pi booting sequence.

Almost done…

I guess it’s not always sunny in Philadelphia.

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A Japanese company named Digital Nature Group has created holograms using femtosecond lasers.

3D holograms have been created before but these are the first that are safe to touch.

The tiny points of light that make up the image are called Voxels.

If I know anything about Japan, I can already guess what the first application of this technology will be.

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The worst cases of tech cruelty.

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Steve Jobs, Apple

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft

Jeff Bezos, Amazon

Bill Gates, Microsoft

Dennis Crowley, Foursquare

Max Levchin, PayPal

Elon Musk, Space X

Michael Dell, Dell

Tony Hsieh, Zappos

 Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

The post The Desks of Famous Tech CEOs appeared first on Barnorama.

The Mac OS “Uh-Oh” Sound

VHS Rewind

The Whir of a Floppy Disk Drive

Dial-up Modem Handshake

Dial Tone

Busy Signal

Rotary Phone Winding

Boot-up Beeps

“You’ve Got Mail!”

Windows 95 Shutdown Sound

Dot Matrix Printout

CRT TV On and Off Sound

Clicky Keyboard

Source

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A lion never uses his strength to humiliate another

Bears don’t discriminate when their young are female

The only difference between panthers and leopards is color

When a dolphin finds a hurt dolphin, he helps it stay afloat

Elephants never abandon the elderly

When two clans of gorillas meet, they always avoid conflict

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