By mbartels
The Solar Impulse soars over the Golden Gate Bridge during tests in April 2013. [Image: Solar Impulse]
Imagine flying 900 miles at about 40 mph in a cockpit that has half the interior space of a Mini Cooper, with wings …
Source: FULL ARTICLE at History Net
By The Huffington Post News Editors
He may have drawn wrath with his comments about Kamala Harris and his consideration of the Keystone pipeline, but no one could protest the president’s last order of business in San Francisco.
Moments before boarding Marine One to head back to Washington on Thursday, the President snuck in a quick photo op with our very own Golden Gate Bridge.
President Obama strolled casually around Crissy Field, smiling for a photographers with the foggy bay and old International Orange as a backdrop.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
San Francisco is known for the Golden Gate Bridge, its iconic cable cars and Alamo Square’s famous “Painted Ladies.” But it also has a long history with Asian food—in fact, San Francisco is home to the largest Chinatown outside of Asia and the oldest in North America. So it’s no surprise the City by the Bay is home to a wealth of incredible Asian restaurants, and our Startle.com correspondent Maria Hunt found five new ones that are must-tries. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By John Johnson 
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
Drivers approaching the majestic Golden Gate Bridge will experience something new for the first time in 76 years: no human toll collectors.
The toll takers were removed in favor of cheaper and faster electronic transponders, and a camera system photographs every license plate that comes through, mailing an invoice to each motorist who doesn’t prepay.
Those who fail to pay will receive warnings and could ultimately have a hold placed on their vehicle registration at the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
In addition to saving money, the move is expected to improve traffic flow on the majestic span that opened in 1937.
When their final shifts working on the bridge ended, the toll collectors forced their mouths into smiles, hugged each other tightly and cried as they left their booths for the last time.
Some were angry and said their contribution — helping people with directions, giving a warm greeting to a regular commuter — will be missed.
“Our DNA is embedded in this bridge … we are part of it,” said Jacquie Dean, a career toll collector who had worked on the burnt-orange span for 18 years before her last shift Tuesday. “Some customers still want to pay cash. They don’t want to be tracked and photographed.”
Many drivers have switched to the FasTrak devices that attach to a car’s windshield and allow motorists to speed through the toll booths for a dollar less than cash payers.
“It was a difficult decision and involved the loss of some very dedicated staff,” said Mary Currie, spokeswoman for the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District.
The switchover is expected to save about $16 million in salaries and benefits over eight years. Nine toll takers will lose their jobs. Another 17 have either been placed in other district positions or have retired, Currie said.
The people who loved working on the bridge said the job was something they’d planned on keeping until retirement.
“I never thought that I would ever end my career at the bridge,” Dawnette Reed, 43, who started working in the bridge gift shop at 16 and, after a stint in the U.S. Army, became a toll collector at age 26.
“The bridge won’t be the same without us.”
At the center of Washington, D.C., politics, a powerful group of left-wing activists has leveraged big money, high-level White House access and tax-code loopholes to create a lobbying organization dressed up as an educational nonprofit with the benign name of a laundry detergent.
The Tides Foundation is a favorite charity of such big-name liberal donors as Teresa Heinz Kerry (ketchup up heiress and wife of Secretary of State John Kerry) and Barbra Streisand. The two have given Tides more than $8.5 million over the years.
And Tides has a lesser-known benefactor: You. From 2009 to 2011, the most recent years for which data is available, the federal government has given Tides some $28 million in grants paid for by American taxpayers.
With offices in Washington, D.C., and Manhattan, the organization is headquartered in a nondescript peach-colored building on a hilltop in San Francisco’s tony Presidio district. Lucas Film is a next-door neighbor and the Golden Gate Bridge is a short jaunt away. Every year, from Tides HQ, the organization pushes $300 million through a network of hundreds of left-wing groups.
Tides says it’s working to “promote and support emerging social change and educational programs.” In fact, its programs are a checklist of liberalism’s most ambitious agenda: the Open Society Institute of George Soros, AFL-CIO, the Iraq Peace Fund, the Arab American Action Network, American Civil Liberties Union, the pro-Castro groups United for Peace and Justice and Center for Constitutional Rights, along with groups opposing free trade and gun ownership while advocating green energy and government-funded abortion.
Read More at watchdog.org . By Tori Richards.
Photo Credit: The US Army (Creative Commons)
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at AOL
(Phys.org)—Every great structure, from the Empire State Building to the Golden Gate Bridge, depends on specific mechanical properties to remain strong and reliable. Rigidity—a material’s stiffness—is of particular importance for maintaining the robust functionality of everything from colossal edifices to the tiniest of nanoscale structures. In biological nanostructures, like DNA networks, it has been difficult to measure this stiffness, which is essential to their properties and functions. But scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have recently developed techniques for visualizing the behavior of biological nanostructures in both space and time, allowing them to directly measure stiffness and map its variation throughout the network. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
By Zach Bowman
Filed under: Classics, Coupe, Etc., Technology, Videos, Specialty
Our favorite DeLorean-turned-hovercraft is back. The Kickstarter-funded project was originally the brainchild of grad student Matthew Riese, and the last time we saw it, the floating car was busily hovering around McCovey Cove in San Francisco. This time, Riese’s creation has taken to bombing beaches down by the Golden Gate Bridge. The video below shows the hand-built machine busting along the bay before taking to land for a quick flat spin. We can’t convey how badly we want to operate this thing. We’d even find ourselves a Michael J. Fox-spec puffy vest for the occasion.
You can take a look at the latest clip below or, click back to our original post from last year. You can also take a look at the story of the hovercraft’s genesis over at MAKE.
Continue reading Where it’s going, the DeLorean hovercraft doesn’t need roads
Where it’s going, the DeLorean hovercraft doesn’t need roads originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Autoblog
