Hard to believe that it’s been half a decade since the early-morning tanker crash and ensuing fire on the Macarthur freeway exchange in Oakland. The devastation was fast and intense — the entire overpass melted into a Dali-esque mess of withered steel and draping asphalt. Amazingly, builders were able to repair the overpass in just 26 days.

From Wikinews:

Tanker truck fire causes collapse on Oakland Freeway

 
Sunday, April 29, 2007
 
A tanker truck carrying approximately 8,600 gallons of unleaded gasoline caught on fire on the Interstate 80/880 interchange in Oakland, California early Sunday morning around 3:40 AM. The fire resulted in the collapse of at least two sections of bridges at the interchange, including one carrying I-580. The multi-level freeway interchange known as the MacArthur Maze connects the Bay Bridge (Interstate 80) to Interstates 580, 880, and 980 and California State Highway 24, and as such it connects several major cities in California, including San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley.
 
The driver, James Mosqueda, 51, of Woodland, California, escaped from his truck before the fire. He was the only person reported to be hurt, suffering second-degree burns. No other vehicles were involved in the crash.
 
The driver was believed to be speeding, resulting in a loss of control of the truck, causing it to flip over and subsequently burst into flames. As the truck was traveling on the interchange of I-80 eastbound to I-880 southbound near the San Francisco Bay Bridge, it is speculated to have hit a guard rail or column during a turn. Shortly thereafter, it exploded into a fire that lasted several hours.
 
Caltrans officials have announced that repairs will be fast-tracked, but will still take several weeks. Public transit has responded with plans to increase service and re-route buses that used the destroyed interchange.
 
Gov. Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency that in addition to expediting repairs will suspend restrictions on truck traffic hours and provide free use of area public transportation on Monday, April 30.

 

Click to continue »

What’s this? A beat-up old Star Wars toy

Why is it cool? It’s the large-size model (15″), not as common as the small figurines, and because of missing pieces it looks more like C3P0′s dad than Luke’s.

What’s the story? In 1977, people had no idea what a massive mark Star Wars would leave on their generation. Sci-fi was a bit of a niche area in film, and the concept of a summer blockbuster didn’t even exist yet. But the movie’s small, 32-theater opening created a massive buzz, and led to a nationwide unrolling. Crowds of people lined up to spend a couple hours in a galaxy far, far away — a tradition they’ve been doing at every theatrical release of the franchise ever since.

They also monetized every possible aspect of the film. Lunch boxes, pillowcases, storybook records, and toys. There’s no one alive today who isn’t familiar with the standard 3.75″ Star Wars figures. But when the movie came out, they made various other types of figures — including a ~12″ figure (the height varied depending on the character) that matched pretty closely with Barbie dolls in size and lack of articulation. All the major players were made — Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, Storm Troopers, etc.

I was doing some Star Wars-related research based on my Gizmodo article (How To Make Ice Cubes Shaped Like Tiny Baby Heads) and found a Craigslist posting for this partially complete Darth Vader doll from 1978. Sans cape and top of mask, the tyrant has a less imposing look.

Click to continue »

What is this? A genius-level DIY game arcade that will make you start hoarding cardboard boxes

Who made it? Nine year old Caine Monroy from East LA

Awesome element: The brilliance of the Fun Pass — a representation of a child’s game-play dreams, and a shrewd business move all in one.

What’s the story? Caine Monroy is a nine year old with a passion for carnival-style games so deep that he built his own arcade using the resources around him: cardboard boxes from his dad’s used auto parts business. Set in a tougher part of Los Angeles, his fully-operational/fully-adorable arcade got no customers until the day Nirvan Mullick stopped by while looking for a car part and spotted the genius that this kid radiates. Nirvan subsequently produced a 10 minute documentary about Caine and  his arcade, and built a website to help raise funds for Caine’s college tuition fund. A very warmly told tale, the story made the news on every major outlet by the end fo the week it was launched. I highly recommend you watch his video if you haven’t yet.

The scenes in the video looked familiar to me, and for good reason — it turns out that Caine’s Arcade is seven miles from where I live, on a street I’ve cut through various times as a shortcut to Union Station. The arcade is only open on the weekends (don’t forget, Caine is in school), so I headed there on the Saturday after the film was released. Here are my photos and notes from that experience.

It seemed that everyone in LA (and even some from over 7 hours away) had come to check out the cleverly devised arcade. Downside: no parking -- we found a spot a few blocks away and hiked to the store, crossing the intersection of Interstates 10 and 101.

The line of people waiting in front of "Smart Parts," Caine's dad's used auto parts store.

Click to continue »

I’ve had a countertop of succulents that needed a permanent home for some time now, and had been hoping to put them in a wooden box with rustic charm. Last weekend I stopped at my local Orchard Supply for supplies and saw a cheap tool set that included a wooden box with the classic OSH logo on it. For $20, it included a hammer, flathead and phillips screw drivers, tape measure, small level, and kids-sized safety goggles. Handy stuff for a kitchen drawer, but I had other thoughts for small carpenter’s tool box.

I took it home, added a few scoops of potting soil, and repurposed it to hold my succulents in an easy-to-transport but cool-to-display way.

Succulents don’t require much water so I didn’t drill out the bottom, but if I determine it needs better draining, a couple rows of 1/8″ holes through the thin bottom wood should do the trick. I may also reinforce the stapled construction by tapping some holes and adding screws. And with hopes, the wood will age and darken nicely to give it that cool weathered look.

Want to do this too? Easily make your own tool box using plans available online, but if you’re short on time, you can get a pre-cut kit – just needs assembly.

Earlier this week a batch of giant tornados criss-crossed the Dallas-Ft. Worth region, making news for the startling footage of 30,000 pound big rig trailers getting flung through the air like pieces of paper. Shocking photos and images, and a reminder of how intense the power of nature can be. Fortunately, no deaths have been reported.

As scary as the footage is, it’s not the first time large cargo transportation has been affected by a twister. I’ve previously posted the video at the top of this post, a frightening first-person-view shot of a moving freight train getting toppled by a passing tornado. Make sure to watch the end of it–just when you think it’s over, things look like they might just get worse. This occurred in January 2008, in Illinois. More details of the tornado are available here, and some cleanup pics here.

The video of the trailers getting flung by the high winds is posted below, as well as a raw video feed from the helicopter tracking the tornado and its damage. Who is crazy enough to fly a helicopter near a tornado? I wonder how well the special “tornado-proof” truck from Storm Chasers would fare in this situation.

Interesting video on Weather Channel’s website that shows an aerial image of a 1/2 mile tall, 100 foot wide dust devil sweeping the sandy martian plains. The resolution of the satellite image is pretty amazing, and allows researchers the ability to calculate the twister’s dimensions based on the length of the shadow it cast (and knowing the angle of the sun at the moment the shot was taken.)

Martian dust devils aren’t a new discovery — we’ve known about them for quite some time, and even have recorded images of them from the surface of the planet. One fascinating and unexpected element they’ve added to human exploration of that planet is periodically cleaning the dust from the solar panels of the martian rovers we’ve sent there.

If you want to find the height of a tall object on Earth and can measure the length of its shadow (easier around noon than in the early morning or late afternoon, when shadows stretch pretty long), you can use this height-by-shadow-length calculator to get the result (clicking the image will take you to the calculator page).

Late one night about a year and a half ago, I had a frustrating highway encounter with a big rig truck. Although, sadly, many others have fared worse in similar situations, it was still a sucky setback: three days in the hospital, a couple surgeries, and a few months to regain my strength.

The morning after the accident I gave myself a goal: I’d use it as a catalyst to finally train for and complete a triathlon. I didn’t want to ever feel held down by having an accident, and therefore strived for the exact opposite. Once able to move comfortably and push forward on my plan, I started discussing it with a friend at Triathlete magazine — who expressed interest in having me chronicle the journey for the publication. I agreed to do a three-part series, looking at the events leading to my decision to be a triathlete, the training experience, and then the race itself.

Triathlete helped make the training process easier by setting me up with some great gear and an amazing coach, Ian Murray, for which I’m extremely thankful — I highly recommend any first time (or even 31st time) triathlete to use a coach, it’s made such a big difference. At the point of my writing this, I’m just over two weeks away from the race. I’ll be competing in the Superseal Triathlon on March 18, in San Diego. An Olympic distance race, I have to swim 0.9 miles, bike 26 miles, and run 6.2 miles. Each of those distances is further than I’ve ever raced before, so the combination of all three consecutively will be pretty incredible.

Meanwhile, my first Triathlete segment hit the newsstands a few weeks ago, and became available online this week; check it out on the Triathlete site. And also check the fun video segment the magazine produced in conjunction with the article — more to come from that, too. Hope you enjoy.

John Irwin is a writer/director acquaintance who’s making some kick-ass projects. Commercial work, music video, short film — and all with impressive results. John recently showed me his short “Sold,” a very intense piece about the horrific world of human trafficking. Very well written and told, the tension and story grab the viewer quickly; suspension of disbelief can be hard to achieve when you’re watching a project that was made by someone you know, but this one had me wringing my hands from the start. Afterwards, I asked him for details about the film, the filming techniques used for some of the tighter spaces, and  the motivation behind it. He graciously supplied me with a thorough rundown — check it out below.

==============

By John Irwin.

Sold is a short film that focuses on Maya and another young girl, Alexa, who are trapped in the trunk of a car on its way out of town, and their eventual confrontation with their captors.

Up until very close to filming, we didn’t know how we were going to film the interior trunk scenes with the time, money and resources we had. On good ol’ craigslist, we found someone with our “villain” car that agreed to let us rent it for a day. This is the car that shows up at the end of the short. We were desperately searching for a trunk lid in junkyards across LA that would match the make/model of this car (a Mercury Marquis). The plan was to put the lid on top of the trunk and cut holes in the four corners so we could lower our small DSLR camera down and film the inside from each hole. A great plan in theory aside from all the dangerous sharp metal that we would have had to deal with — but we called every single junkyard within 60 miles of Los Angeles and not a single one had a trunk lid that matched.

Click to continue »

Earlier this month, The White House hosted their second science fair, bringing innovating kids together from around the country to show off impressive creations and contraptions. A standout moment of the event occurred when President Obama spotted a peculiar looking device, and asked its creator for details; moments later, they had cleared a path to see if they could blast marshmallows against the wall on the other side of the room with it.

With the ability to accurately depict the elements of our solar system like planetary size and movement, this awesome computer program looks to bring an easy-to-grasp understanding of the heavenly bodies closest to Earth. Feeling like something from Star Trek, the interface depicts the positions and orbits of the planets and their moons as they whip around each other and the sun in their respective orbits. With the ability to toggle between actual and adjusted scales, the user can choose to see the solar system from a user-friendly view, or the more accurate but ginormously Sun-centric view (unfortunately, not pictured in this video demonstration).

Most impressive, it’s all been designed by one person, Chris Albeluhn, working from home over the past year, utilizing the Unreal Development Kit — the hugely popular videogame development platform that has been used for titles like Gears of War, Infinity Blade, and many, many more (wiki page here). A large amount of additional details are available on the video’s youtube page and this reddit post.

All eight planets are included (sorry Pluto! Neil Tyson Degrasse, you win again), with breakdowns of information like composition and temperatures for each. It even includes a visualizer for constellations. There’s some discussion about what additional planetary objects might be incorporated (man-made satellites would be great), and if this will ever be released as an actual product; in the meantime, enjoy the video and make sure to check Chris’ page about this project.

Also, a quick clip about the UDK package used for this: