The Mine Kafon — invented by Massoud Hassani — is a cheap, wind-blown landmine clearance device made primarily from bamboo, plastic and iron. (Photo: Massoud Hassani)
As a child, Hassani’s playground was a field full of landmines. “When we were kids,” he explained, “we used to make these wind-powered toys and play with them on this desert full of explosives, and they’d get stuck out there.”
Those toys were the inspiration for his Mine Kafons. More.
npr:
Washington, D.C. “heart” of the city submission! One more time, go here, follow the directions. Rep your city! — Tanya
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Hello! My name is Tucker Riner and I took this photo (using Instagram) at the U Street/African-Amer Civil War Memorial/Cardozo metro stop in Northwest DC.
DC is my home town and I’ve lived just outside of it (in Northern Virginia) my whole life. I love this city, I love it oh-so much. Whenever I have friends or family come to visit I, of course, take them downtown to do all of the fun, touristy stuff but they all seem to overlook what I find to be the most fascinating part of the trip: the Metro. The DC Metro, in my opinion, is one of the most elegantly designed public transportation systems in the world. It is the pulse of this city, and every single time I go down one of the escalators and enter the ingeniously designed, subterranean metro stop I have to admire every single detail. This is how we get around and this is what keeps our city going.
Beautiful
Happy birthday, Muddy Waters! The legendary Chicago blues guitarist would have been 99 years-old. Hear the story behind “I’m Your Hoochie-Coochie Man” and when Muddy realized that “whitey’s picking up on the things that I’m doing.”
Photo: Keystone/Getty Images
Yup
npr:
Whoa. The MLA has officially devised a standard format to cite tweets in an academic paper. Sign of the times.
#signofthetimes
Yes
