Free Republic

The Tech that forever changed the way we live, work, and play. Think of the gear you can’t live without: The smartphone you constantly check. The camera that goes with you on every vacation. The TV that serves as a portal to binge-watching and -gaming. Each owes its influence to one model that changed the course of technology for good. It’s those devices we’re recognizing in this list of the 50 most influential gadgets of all time. Think of the gear you can’t live without: The smartphone you constantly check. The camera that goes with you on every vacation. The...

Last fall, my daughter Veronica got an idea for the seventh grade science fair at her school. She’d compare different ways to clean a toothbrush. First she’d take a new toothbrush out of a package and brush her teeth, covering it with her mouth bacteria. Then, she’d clean it with one of three liquids: water, lemon juice, or vinegar. Finally, she’d wipe the brushes on Petri dishes and see how many bacteria grew on them... Veronica submitted her plan, and then reported back to me that we had to fill out some forms. These forms turned out to be an...

This is the Lamborghini story like you’ve never heard it before: from the son of Ferruccio, Tonino Lamborghini, the kid sitting at the dinner table. If you’re in the Bologna area, you must visit the Ferruccio Lamborghini Museum. It was set up by Ferruccio’s son, who started collecting his father’s tractors and cars back in the day despite the fact that his old man thought he should be working instead of collecting old stuff. But as more and more vehicles ended up in the warehouse, Ferruccio started to spend more time in there as well, smoking cigarettes and enjoying the...

CBS video: Irving Releases 14 pages of Threatening Emails Quote: "There are consequences. We are a group of aircraft owners, operators and pilots who provide free emergency and non-emergency space available air transportation." "Not for you (expletive)'s. All employees of Irving ISD and the Irving PD and their immediate family members are banned from our aircraft." "That means that our members will watch your child die bleeding and convulsing on the Love Field tarmac." "If you do not stand down and (back) away from your position, I'll be detaining police officers in your jurisdiction who possess any suspicious looking...

Clockmed Heads to UNAhmed the clockmeister is going to the UN. The Pope, President, Obama, 97 world leaders and Clockmed. You just know this is Obama’s skulduggery. I imagine every Muslim school student is dreaming up ways to scam the system in a similar fashion. Unbelievable. This makes ‘1984’ look like a children’s story. The 14-year old all-American schoolboy clockmaker who didn’t make a clock at all and is the son of a belligerent Muslim activist and perennial Sudanese presidential candidate whose brother runs a trucking company amusingly called Twin Towers Transportation (Mark Steyn) The invented nothing. He took...

The Science Is Settled: Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg, Hillary Clinton, Apple's Steve Wozniak, Microsoft, and MIT, All Fooled By Ahmed's "Clock" Ahmed said he "invented" a "clock". In fact, all he did was take the workings of an existing clock out of it's casing, reassemble them part way, and then insert them into a Pencil Box. Here's a photograph of the "clock" Ahmed "invented". Now watch this video Now, I'd like you to think about something. Barack Obama was fooled by this. Mark Zuckerberg was fooled by this. Hillary Clinton was fooled by this. Apple's Steve Wozniak was fooled...

The original story was about a controversial package in a school setting, but it was quickly claimed to be a homemade clock. If so, the clock itself (not the presentation) might be cool as the White House said. If not, the world may be propping up a plagiarist who flaunted the piece of crap in an intentionally controversial way (suppositions). This video challenges that the clock was homemade by showing a nearly identical package being prepared in about twenty seconds (screws and simple fasteners were excluded for brevity here). [please see brief 20 second video at link]

Future aircraft could be powered by lasers and nuclear explosions if Boeing has its way. The aerospace firm claims a new-type of engine could produce energy-efficient thrust by firing lasers at radioactive material, such as deuterium and tritium. The technology could mean that planes and spaceships will require only a fraction of the power to operate, according to a recent patent filed by the company.

Boeing has received a US patent for a laser-powered fusion-fission jet propulsion system.The patent, US 9,068,562, combines inertial confinement fusion, fission, and a turbine that generates electricity.Boeing claims that there is a silhouette of a turbo fan engine and in the middle of the engine there is a fusion chamber, with a number of very strong lasers focused on a single point. A hohlraum (pellet) containing a mix of deuterium and tritium (hydrogen isotopes) is placed at this focal point. The lasers are all turned on at the same instant, creating massive pressure on the pellet, which implodes and causes...

Toyota has been very vocal about its lofty plans for the new Mirai. After severing ties with Tesla in 2014, Toyota has shifted its focus toward fuel cells and away from all-electric cars. On Wednesday, Toyota announced that the Mirai had achieved an EPA-estimated range of 312 miles. That’s the longest range of any zero-emission vehicle on the market today, including electric vehicles. “Toyota realized in the early 90’s that electrification was key to the future of the automobile,” said Toyota’s North America CEO Jim Lentz in a statement “Just as the Prius introduced hybrid-electric vehicles to millions of customers...

Gurr test-driving an early prototype of his Autopia vehicle in 1955.George Clooney may get top billing in his new film, Tomorrowland, but design visionary Gurr is the real star.In his 27 years as a Disney Imagineer, Bob Gurr was known for doing the impossible: He designed a submarine fleet, the cars of Autopia, and the Monorail that soars above the park on a single beam. With the opening of Tomorrowland in 1955, Gurr shaped a vision of the future (1986 to be exact) that still feels out of reach. Six decades after Gurr began creating ride vehicles for the theme...

The patent -- which ensures the design for the Apple Watch cannot be copied by a competitor -- was filed in August of last year, just weeks ahead of its unveiling. The Apple Watch's design is now officially protected by the US Patent and Trademark Office. The USPTO on Tuesday issued a design patent on the Apple Watch look and feel. The design patent filing provides precious little information, but includes several sketches showing the device from all angles, including from the top, side and underneath the face where the sensor and charging apparatus sit. Getting a design patent is...

The man who invented the K-Cup coffee pod almost 20 years ago says he regrets doing so, and he can't understand the popularity of the products that critics decry as an environmental catastrophe. John Sylvan worked at Keurig in the 1990s when he devised a simple product that could create a small mug of coffee out of a plastic pod. Originally aiming it at office workers, Sylvan said he thought the product might have some limited appeal to people who would normally go Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts or other coffee chains in the morning, because now they could get a cup...

Do you like internal combustion engines? Thank a few white men. (Jean Lenoir, Nikolaus Otto, Karl Benz, Rudolf Diesel, Gottlieb Daimler, Emil Jellinek, Henry Ford among others.) Are you a fan of flush toilets and indoor plumbing? Thank white males Alexander Cumming, Thomas Twyford, and Isaiah Rogers Toilet paper? Thank Joseph Gayetty, W.M. How about washing machines and dryers? Thank white males Alva Fisher and J. Ross Moore. “When you’ve got your health, you’ve got just about everything” ran the tag-line in a famous Geritol commercial from the 1970s, and the guys we most have reason to be grateful for...

A while back (I think within the past three months) there was a very interesting article posted here about inventions by white men. I have not had any luck finding it through FR search. Does anyone remember it? Does anyone have it? Can anyone post a link to it? Thanks.

Every week CBS News travels America fishing for interesting stories. And, once again, we've hooked a good one. A trout's brain is no bigger than a lentil, yet when it comes to outsmarting fly fishermen, it's enough. Which is why truly obsessive fishermen, like Randy Brown, seek any advantage they can -- like splurging on a $4,000 fishing pole. "It's just a pleasure to fish with. There's just no other rods like these," says Brown. "It's the best stick there is." The rods he's referencing are designed by legendary rod-maker Tom Morgan. If fly fishing is a religion, this is...

The statement “everything that could be invented has been invented” is frequently misattributed to the late-nineteenth-century American patent commissioner Charles Holland Duell. The Economist once credited him with the remark, and sites such as “kool kwotes” still reproduce it. In fact, Duell believed the opposite. “In my opinion,” he wrote at the turn of the century, “all previous advances in the various lines of invention will appear totally insignificant when compared with those which the present century will witness. I almost wish that I might live my life over again to see the wonders which are at the threshold.” While...

Imagine if clinics in developing countries were equipped with an inexpensive yet durable tool that could help medical personnel identify and diagnose a variety of deadly diseases like Malaria...

US scientists deplore ‘innovation deficit’ By Nuala Moran Scientists in the US remain the best funded in the world, but they say falling federal investment and cuts due to sequestration, coupled with the enormous resources other countries are lavishing on research, are creating an “innovation deficit”.The consequence, say the presidents of more than 200 US universities, will be fewer US scientific and technological breakthroughs, fewer US patents and fewer US start-ups, products and jobs. Investment in research is not inconsistent with deficit reduction, indeed it is vital to it, they said in an open letter to President Barack Obama...

When a soldier is shot on the battlefield, the emergency treatment can seem as brutal as the injury itself. A medic must pack gauze directly into the wound cavity, sometimes as deep as 5 inches into the body, to stop bleeding from an artery. It’s an agonizing process that doesn't always work--if bleeding hasn't stopped after three minutes of applying direct pressure, the medic must pull out all the gauze and start over again. It’s so painful, “you take the guy’s gun away first,” says former U.S. Army Special Operations medic John Steinbaugh. Even with this emergency treatment, many soldiers...