The mountains of Titan are formed by the moon slowly shrinking [Exogeology]
15
Aug
Complicated Mechanisms Explained in simple animations
14
Aug
Radial Engines
Radial engines are used in aircrafts having propeller connected to the shaft delivering power in order to produce thrust its basic mechanism is as follows
Steam engine Principle
Steam engine once used in locomotives was based on the reciprocating principle as shown below
Sewing Machine
Maltese Cross Mechanism
this type of mechanism is used in clocks to power the second hand movement.
Manual Transmission Mechanism
The mechanism also called as “stick shift†is used in cars to change gears mannually
Constant Velocity Joint
This mechanism is used in the front wheel drive cars
Torpedo-Boat destroyer System
This system is used to destroy fleet in naval military operations.
Rotary Engine
Also called as Wankel engine is a type of internal combustion engine has a unique design that converts pressure into rotating motion instead of reciprocating pistons
Translate Business Jargon into Real Speech [APPS]
13
Aug
“Ninja,†“Guru,†“Team Player,†“Personal Brand†— if this litany of terms gets your skin crawling, you might want to check out this novelty app: Unsuck It.
Brought to you by Mule Design, Unsuck It basically does just that: When you enter a term like, say, “Ninja†into the search bar, the app translates it into normal person language (see below).
You then have the option of sharing it on Twitter, or “e-mailing the douchebag who used it†— said e-mail contains the subject line, “Hey, douchebag! Stop torturing the English language!†and a link to the term and translation in the body.
The site also features the option “I’m Feeling Douchey,†which unearths a random term, and a “Browse†tab by which you can sift through other gems.
All right, ye of the office-bound variety — future fighters of the weekend wars — tell us in the comments, what’s the worst jargon-y term you’ve heard (or used…) all day?
[via Boing Boing]
[img credit: R'eyes]
Reviews: Twitter
More About: humor, pop culture, software, web app
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Yoga pamphlet with excellent illustrations
13
Aug
Over at our Submitterator, Zawelski points us to scans of a wonderfully-illustrated booklet titled Fundamentals of Easy Raijyoga, acquired from the Godly Museum in Mysore, India. "Illustrations in Raja Yoga"
A toothpaste-like gel that can heal wounds six times faster than normal [Medical Breakthroughs]
13
Aug
A toothpaste-like gel that can heal wounds six times faster than normal [Medical Breakthroughs]
13
Aug
Seafood: What is Safe to Eat and What is Not
13
Aug
Real Simple consulted a marine scientist who works for a non-profit regarding seafood safety and I use this often when meal planning. To read more details on the matter and to print out a pocket-size guide, click here. Very enlightening!
Opinions vs. Data
13
Aug
Gmail’s recent update brought us a strange new UI element:1
Clicking on the checkbox selects all emails. The arrow, on the other hand, allows you to make more specific selections:
This is a pretty unusual UI element. Gmail may be the only application using anything like it. This has caused a lot of people to question its usability. Gmail lead UI designer Michael Leggett eventually chimed in, writing:
[The new widget] is odd. And yet, both the checkbox and the menu part tested very well in the lab. The people who hated the widget outside the lab also understood how to use it but promised others wouldn’t because it was so «weird.» There were some optimizations I wanted that didn’t make it in (highlight the current selection state in the menu, show keyboard shortcuts, etc). But it tested fine without those things.
What Leggett described is exactly how I felt about the widget when I first saw it. I immediately figured out how to use it, but my gut reaction was «most people are not going to get how this works.» It seems I was wrong. This is one of the reasons why I don’t put too much trust into opinion-based usability reviews: There’s a lot of guesswork involved, and guessing how humans behave is an endeavor fraught with peril.2 Expert reviews can be helpful, but they are no substitute for actual testing.
Jakob Nielsen has written about this:
In my two examples, the probability of making the right design decision was vastly improved when given the tiniest amount of empirical data.
If there’s one thing we should all take to heart, it’s that humans are strange: They rarely behave the way we expect (or want) them to. Testing often reveals issues we would never have found out by merely thinking about a design. Conversely, something that looks wrong might actually work perfectly well.
-
It’s to the left of the «Archive» button in Gmail’s new UI, if you want to see it in context.Â
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This is not to say that you should keep a UI element if people are able to use it, but consistently dislike it. The point is merely that you should not discard anything based on an untested assumption that people won’t be able to use it, and that you should not avoid testing something if it seems obvious that people will be able to use it. If a sizable portion of your users consistently dislikes a UI element, by all means get rid of it even if it is perfectly usable.Â
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Starburst galaxy gives birth to twenty Suns every year [Space Porn]
12
Aug
Tricky Mantle: Intact Pocket of Ancient Earth May Have Escaped Mixing for 4.5 Billion Years
12
Aug
An analysis of isotopes in Arctic basalts indicates that the rocks may originate from a reservoir of ancient mantle that has avoided being recycled in the planet's active interior since Earth's infancy. The survival of such primitive samples from shortly after the formation of Earth, some 4.5 billion years ago, could provide important clues to the planet's composition and early geophysical history. [More]