Individuals have been fashioning homemade firearms for as long as guns have existed. Zip guns, crude but functional weapons often made from taped-together pieces of pipe and rubber bands, were particularly popular in the 1940s and 1950s. The AK-47, one of the most widely used assault rifles on the planet, has a reputation for being a cinch to make and practically impossible to break.
The demi began when a visitor from France told Zibeau and friends about two alternative currencies circulating in his hometown of Nantes, alongside the Euro. They got to talking about the ins and outs of alternative bank notes, particularly the security aspect. “We joked about [how] the Canadian dollar is pretty secure,” says Zibeau. That’s when they came up with the idea of cutting Canadian bills in half, combining the benefits of a local currency with the power of a national anti-counterfeiting plan.
The ghosts of the Parisian underground could soon be resurrected if city voters play their cards right in the upcoming mayoral elections. Promising candidate, Nathalie Koziuscot-Morizet, who would become the first female to ever hold the post in the capital, has released the first sketches of her plans to reclaim the city of light’s abandoned stations.
“We are absolutely fired up to see Zumwalt get underway. For the crew and all those involved in designing, building, and readying this fantastic ship, this is a huge milestone,” the ship’s skipper, Navy Capt. James Kirk, said before the ship departed.
The ship has electric propulsion, new radar and sonar, powerful missiles and guns, and a stealthy design to reduce its radar signature. Advanced automation will allow the warship to operate with a much smaller crew size than current destroyers.
Imagine a structure that bends like a rubbery dancer to dodge as many rays as possible and let them fall on a park instead. That’s what Jeanne Gang’s Solar Carve tower will do for the High Line.
Maps aren’t good at displaying everything. Different maps are better for different things.
The Jeep was made for war. In 1940, the impending U.S. involvement in World War II pushed the army to call for a new vehicle suited for battle. And so the Jeep, a works-in-progress vehicle, constantly evolving on its open patent, tailoring to changing demands of conflict, was born—and then shipped off to war.
More blurry is its etymology. Jeep legend is seeped in heavily contested mythologies, but one roots the name in a slurring of GP, or General Purpose, which may have been the original name of the military-design vehicle.
“The Unicode Consortium” may sound like the dark cabal of villains in a James Bond movie. And though they aren’t plotting world domination in a volcano lair, they do hold a lot of power — over your text messages.