oil
Vehicles
Tiny Oil Tanker Makes Pilots Better Trained, Slightly Awkward
1:00AM Dan Nosowitz | The Warsash Maritime Academy in the UK uses these $US245,000 miniature oil tankers to train its pilots—they’re incredibly difficult to drive, and simulate all kinds of different emergency situations, all while looking like a coin-operated children’s ride. More »
Gadgets
New Hipster Affectation: Urban Oil Prospecting (Cardigan Not Included)
2:05PM Dan Nosowitz | This DIY oil detector, essentially a modified metal detector, is the hottest new accessory for city-dwelling hipsters worldwide. Plus, it matches terrifically with a beard. More »
Computers
Mineral Oil-Cooled Aquarium PC Kit Now Available For Purchase
3:30AM Sean Fallon | Custom PC maker Puget Systems has decided to capitalise on their wildly successful YouTube video demonstrating a mineral oil-cooled “Aquarium PC” by actually selling a DIY version. Puget claims that they have been running the system for over a year now with “no ill effect on the hardware,” which may or may not help ease the mind of anyone willing to void all of their warranties. More »
Vehicles
BioBot Makes Bio Diesel at Home!
5:45AM Mark Wilson | You would think that making your own Bio Diesel at home would be a tough, multi-stepped procedure that has a few dangerous spots to misstep. Well before the BioBot, a system that makes Bio Diesel from old cooking oil, you would have been right. Unfortunately, after the BioBot, you would have been right, too. Here is their simple, 8+ step process to make gas at home. And don’t worry, that chemistry beaker is just for show! More »
Computers
Hardcore Reactor Custom PC Slides All Its Components Into Oil
2:30PM Gizmodo US Edition | Behold, every custom PC fanboy’s wet dream: The Reactor. It’s a sleek, black aluminium case with tons of hard drives (both swappable and integrated), an ultra-powerful processing chip, and three top-of-the-line video cards all begging to be overclocked thanks to the company’s special oil submersed cooling system. That’s right, the GPUs, CPU, power supplies, custom motherboard and three SSD drives are all completely dipped in oil. And it’s only around $US4000. More »
Science
Gasoline Grows On Trees
12:50AM Mark Wilson | Apparently scientists (and some of our readers, surely) have known that we can grow oil for years, and not in the grow-corn-make-oil kind of way. The Brazilian Copaifera langsdorfii can be tapped (ala maple syrup) for a natural diesel fuel that requires only simple filtering before being poured into a truck. (This picture is of the tree’s cells.) The catch? The diesel only has a shelf-life of about 3 months. So how many trees would it take to match the oil output of, say, Saudi Arabia? Check our stats after the jump. More »
Gadgets
Spaceship Fragrance Oil Warmer (Appropriate for Flash Gordon’s Bedroom)
5:30AM Benny Goldman | You finally brought that man/woman of your dreams back to your space den, and you’re trying to seal the deal. May I suggest using this US$15 Spaceship Fragrance Oil Warmer, the geekiest love aid we’ve ever seen. Imported from far off galaxies and recommended by captains by the name of Kirk, Gordon, Solo and Zapp Brannigan, I’m not sure how you could go wrong except if you tipped it over and caused a chemical fire in deep space and your airlocks all blew out before you finished your business time. [product page via Nerd Approved] More »
Robots
OSP Robot Is Human Sized Roomba For Oil Spills
8:10AM Gizmodo US Edition | Designer Ji-hoon Kim has come up with an ingenuous idea for cleaning up oil spills. Using various features such as boom control modules, solar panels, oil protection boom, communication modules, boom connectors, and propulsion modules the OSP robots work together to surround an oil spill site with an inflatable barrier. Once the site has been contained the cleaning crews can easily remove the oil from the water. If saving the planet wasn’t cool enough, an OSP robot is actually the size of a grown human and a group of bots can easily be deployed via helicopter or boat. The only thing we can think of to make these bots better is a speaker that would play their slogan as they work, DEPLOY – UNITE – SIEGE. [Yanko Design] More »
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