Monday, August 23, 2004

Chia Reef

Grow your own Coral Reef in 3 easy steps.

1. Place electrical wires.
2. Charge wires.
3. Add water and coral.

This is really incredible. When I visited Hanauma Bay in Hawaii for my first snorkeling experience, what I really noticed was the grey sea bottom. All of the coral had died because of people stepping on it. Just by touching the coral with our feet, nothing else would grow on it.

Now, with a bit of electrical and some new seed, we can regrow the sea floor with Super Coral and bring back all life with it. Amazing.

Brown, an Australian who settled in this fishing village of 8,000 people in 1992 and a co-owner of the cottages, said that within days of receiving their first jolts of electricity, the bars grew a white limestone film. This covering provides the necessary substrate for coral growth.

The grids were then seeded with small fragments of live coral, which begin to grow "between five and 10 times faster than normal, with much brighter colors and more resilience to hot weather and pollution," said a co-owner of the Taman Sari Cottages, an American who goes by the single name Naryana.

Sunday, August 01, 2004

Future Fantasy Gadget: Soundwave MP3 Player

Future Fantasy Gadget: Soundwave MP3 Player

The premise is simple. Someone needs to purchase the rights to use the image of Soundwave, the evil Decepticon Transformer, from Hasbro. Then make a hard disk-based MP3 player out of Soundwave (slightly smaller than the original Transformer toy, though, for portability) that actually transforms. Then sell the individual transforming cassette Transformers (Casseticons, was it?) as individual USB flash-based MP3 players that can be placed inside the larger Soundwave unit to extend its library.

Yeah, and how about Optimus Prime as a remote control for your TV, or Voltron as a blender for your kitchen?

Transformers are big on e-Bay right now. Check out this one for $1300 bucks.