Edwinoa09’s Weblog

A team of industrial design students from the University of Louisiana have put together a railway that wouldn’t need stations to pick up passengers. Instead, system features driverless pods that are mounted to an elevated rail on an arm, which can lower the cabs down to pick up or drop off passengers anywhere along a route.

The idea came in part from roller coasters — though you don’t have to worry about your pod speeding off through a loop — and a century-old monorail in Wuppertal, Germany, which has only had one major accident since 1903. The team hopes that a system such as their versatile monorail would cut down on the need for buses, which, with personnel, fuel, and maintenance costs, can be too costly to run effectively.

1. apportion: distribute proportionately

2. arbor: shelter under branches and vines

3.  lookout: one who watches

4. halfwit: foolish person

5. invalid: one chronically ill

There are tons of USB devices, some more useful than others. Many force you to waste a valuable USB port to use them too. This one is different. This is a four-port USB hub with a battery-powered clock, but the best part is the cup warmer. I can’t be the only one with a warm cup of tea or coffee always by my computer, right?

The heating plate will keep your mug between 122 and 140°F, perfect for tea or coffee. An on/off switch lets you continue using the USB hub without the heating element — a red LED indicates if the warming plate is on. The clock runs off of a battery, so it keeps current time and date information, even when your computer is shut down. Now you’ll always know when it’s time for your coffee break. Retail pricing isn’t available yet, but you can get five wholesale for about $8.60.

1. infidel: one who does not believe in a particular religion

2. measly: contemptibly small amount

3. nonce: occurring, used, or made only once

4. tarnish: make or become dull or discolored

Sometimes there’s a clever idea that comes along and makes you wonder why nobody has thought of it yet. These P-Hook Bookmarks fit into that into that kind of category, serving as placeholders in your reading materials, and providing small handles to pull those books and mags out of a tight stack. And these little bookmarks will only set you back only $7 for a 12-pack of these things.

1. accumulate: to collect or pile up

2. adduce: to offer as proof

3. babel:  a noisy confusion

4. crescendo: growing louder

5. dexterous: skillful with the hands

Who ever says that solid-state drives (SSD) aren’t fast? Even though this is a marketing stunt by Samsung, we are still impressed with it nonetheless. These so called geeks hooked together 24 solid-state drives into an array that totaled 6 terabytes(TB), but the impressive part of this is was that they achieved a speed of 2 gigabytes(GB) per second. That’s amazingly fast, people!

Let’s think of this for a second; a drive that can read and write data at speeds of 60MB per second is considered okay these days, so writing at 2GB per second is a fantastic speed. Impressive to geeks, yes, but to you and me, well, faster hard drive speed makes a computer feel a whole lot faster overall.

1. attune: bring into harmony

2. awe: respectful fear or wonder

3. bawl: long loud cry

4. choler: bad temper

5. eerie: weird