Küat Racks Bike Lock Camouflages Itself As A Water Bottle [Cycling]

By Andrew Liszewski Oct 11, 2011 11:40 AM 10,476 20

In the ongoing battle between bike thieves and victims, those hoping to return and find their rides exactly where they left them have a new weapon.

Well, it's less of a weapon, and more like your run-of-the-mill cable lock that's disguised to look like a water bottle attached to your bike's frame. As far as security goes, its 5-foot long, 7.5mm braided steel cable doesn't really give you an advantage over other cable locks. Instead, it seems more concerned with aesthetics, allowing the cable to be stored out of sight, inside something you ride with anyways.

The bottom of the $34 faux bottle is also removable, providing a lockable compartment suitable for stashing keys, loose change, and whatever else you can cram into a receptacle that small. However, the one thing it can't hold is water. So if you were hoping to use the lock as some clever ruse to fool would-be thieves, they'll probably be tipped off by the second bottle you now have to carry. [Küat Racks Bottle Lock]

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How Chicago Purifies One Million Gallons of Water Every Minute [Video]

How do you slake the thirst of 5.5 million Chicagoans spread throughout the country's third largest city and 118 surrounding suburbs? You treat one billion gallons of water a day at the world's largest water treatment plant.

Opened in 1968, the James W. Jardine Water Purification Plant provides virtually all of Chicago's potable water, though the smaller South Water Purification Plant also helps provide for the south end of the city. The process begins 2.5 miles off shore at massive in-flow points called cribs. Each crib pulls water from 20 feet below the surface down a 168-foot vertical shaft to tubes cut from the bedrock which flow back to the shore. Once it reaches the plant, fish and other large debris are filtered out using a rotating screen and the water is pumped 25 feet up to begin the gravity-powered treatment process.

The water is first chemically treated with chlorine to kill microbes and activated carbon to remove objectionable tastes and odors, then fluoride is added for healthier teeth, and finally aluminum sulfate about an hour into the process to increase the stickiness of microscopic solids which then adhere to each other, creating floc. Large paddles—floculators—assist with the mixing of alum and water. One of the very last chemicals added, polyphosphate, is used to coat the inside of Chicago's pipes, preventing the lead in old plumbing from leaching into the water supply. The water is then pumped into settling tanks where the floc sinks to the bottom. This sedimentation phase eliminates roughly 90 percent of the particulate matter from the water.

The water is then filtered in one of 96 swimming pool-sized tanks filled with a layer of coarse gravel under an upper layer of fine sand—together these layers effectively filter much of the remaining floc and debris from the water. The entire process from crib to filtration takes eight hours. From here, the water is pumped through 4,000 miles of pipe for consumption by the Chicago area's 5.5 million residents.

[Me Magazine - Algor - Water Purification Wiki - Jardine Water Purification Plant Wiki]

Monster Machines is all about the most exceptional machines in the world, from massive gadgets of destruction to tiny machines of precision, and everything in between.

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Watch a Water Fountain Animate in Real Life [Video]

The Bellagio water fountains ain't got nothing on this. This water fountain in Osaka Station, Japan is so amazing that it can tell you the time, draw pictures of leaves, show music notes, spell words and do a ton more. It's like watching animation but with water. [Freshome]

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How Many Times Do You Have to Watch Star Wars to Know When a Water Stain Looks Like Admiral Ackbar? [Video]

Hey look it's the good Admiral Ackbar on that water stain. What's he doing there? OH! It's a trap, the pipe must be exploding, I need to get out of here! That would be my thought process if I saw this water stain moonlighting as the Supreme Commander.

No but seriously, how many times did this guy watch Star Wars? 3? 10? 30? [BuzzFeed]

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It's Time to Stop Washing Your Clothes in Hot Water [Psa]

Admit it. There are a bunch of you out there who still wash your clothes in hot water. Don't worry, I'm with you. But this just in: Stop. Use cold. Washing with hot wastes money, energy, and is bad for the environment.

First, being a poor New Yorker Jerseyan means I don't exactly have the means to separate my precious delicates from the rest of my laundry. That's incidental. I would if I could, trust me. I have an addiction, you guys. I like separating and knowing on some base level that my favorite pair of boxers is especially clean. And the truth is that, yes, in a perfect world hot water is better at getting things cleans. It's pretty effective.

But fuck that. For one, the expense and environmental toll inherent in any load of laundry outweighs the benefit of separating your clothes out for a nominally cleaner set of undies. According to the New York Times:

About three-quarters of the energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions from washing a load of laundry come from heating the water - a practice that, scientists say, is often wasteful and unnecessary.

For another, the industry is starting to catch up. Different companies, Tide's Procter and Gamble included, have come out with a number of cold water alternatives that wash your clothes more than satisfactorily and they're only improving. And many manufacturers are working on high-efficiency machines that better utilize cold water. Really, the greatest obstacle to us saving money is... us.

So give it a try. Save your money. If you're so worried about it, you can wash your clothes with a cup of mouthwash (seriously). But it's the right thing to do. [NYT]

Image Credit: Laurent Renault/Shutterstock

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World's Largest Water Balloon Fight Looks Incredibly Fun [Video]

The Christian Student Fellowship at the University of Kentucky organized what may be the world's largest water ballon fight; beating out previous efforts.

The event used 175,141 water balloons and involved 8,957 people. Judging by the video, everyone had a fantastic time. [UKCSF via Laughing Squid]

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