. . . just links from HayYoo.com and DanKostecki.com
“Aha, I know the first car in the world,” you think, but you are wrong. You are thinking of the 1886 Benz Patent Motorwagen, and while that was the first car to feature an internal combustion engine, it was not the first car ever made. The first car ever built was this hulking, steaming, smoking monster, and it’s from 1769.
The Khufu ship is an intact full-size vessel from Ancient Egypt that was sealed into a pit in the Giza pyramid complex at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza around 2500 BC. The ship now is preserved in the Giza Solar boat museum. The ship was almost certainly built for Khufu (King Cheops), the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Egypt.
Cracked presented 20 examples of how technological advances have made life better for everyone.
This blog has photos of a Maersk Triple E ship being built in South Korea. Twenty of these container ships are scheduled to be produced by 2015. Triple E can carry 18,000 containers – 11 layers tall inside and 10 layers tall above deck.
Sucksqueezebangblow.co reports –
Developed by Curtiss-Wright in 1959, the Model 2500 Air Car wasn’t really a car at all, more a kind of family hovercraft. However, keen to tap into the increasingly extravagant and innovative motor car market of the era, they styled it to look like a car, with headlights, indicators, bumpers and a convertible roof. It was powered by a pair of 180hp Lycoming engines (one at the front and one at the back), driving lift fans that created a foot-tall cushion of air; propulsion came from bleeding air from the fan chambers and blasting it out of the louvres at the sides. Simple in construct, it was a pretty promising idea, were it not for the fact that it really only worked well on perfectly flat surfaces. The military took an interest for a while, but abandoned their own development program as untenable in 1961.
Continue reading and watch a video of the car HERE.
Peel, of the UK, hand builds reproduction models of their classic 1960’s P50. They claim that it is street legal in the US and UK. The specs are underwhelming – 1 passenger, 3 wheels, 130 pounds total weight, 30mph top speed, fiberglass body, unspecified engine. And the really bad news is a reported price of $16,000. I think it’s cute, but way, way too small, and $16,000???
His (Izhar Gafni) maintenance-free bike uses a “secret” mix of organic materials to make it waterproof and fireproof, and is then lacquered to give it a friendlier appearance. It’s expected to cost a mere $20 and weigh about 20 lbs (9 kg) — that’s 65 percent lighter than an average metal ride. In fact, this bicycle doesn’t use any metal parts at all — the solid tires are made of reconstituted rubber and a car timing belt is used instead of a chain.
Continue reading and watch video HERE
A report just released quantifies the physical condition (potholes, or lack of potholes) of the US highway system. It breaks down the figures by state and metropolitan area, but it doesn’t rank them from first to worst, it simply list them alphabetically, although the worst offenders are highlighted. The report is from American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and TRIP (a national highway research group).
DUMMR.com 