BMW fire squelching motorcycles coming to a fire station near you?

The next time you see a car on fire off to the side of the road, picture a motorcycle or two hurtling towards the chaos to save the day instead of your typical gargantuan firetruck. That’s the goal of a test pilot program using some tweaked BMW motorcycles anyway. Weighing at £30,000 (that’s $46,000 USD to those living in the land of red, white, and blue), the bikes are far from cheap. Though in their defense, brand new firetrucks are well north of the six figure mark. So on the surface, it seems like a deal.

But how useful would a bike be in a fire? The fires these road warriors will conquer are only that of small car fires and other “brush fires” that aren’t an immediate danger to surrounding individuals or buildings, as obviously, a building would need a ton of firepower — more-so than a simple bike can provide. But their use seems to be taking off, with countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Sweden, Denmark, Italy and Turkey all employing at least a couple fire bikes of their own.

Speaking of fire power, the BMW-built bikes feature (2) 25-liter cannisters filled with water and foam, good for a solid three minutes of use. According to BMW however, the bikes are capable of putting out your standard car fire in as little as 20 seconds, so the seemingly small firefighting capacity isn’t actually that bad. Furthermore, specially trained drivers donned in fire resistant suits and helmets are the only ones allowed to pilot the two-wheeled machines.

It’s easy to understand that smaller fires are much more prevalent than say a five alarm gigantor fire that would require a dozen or more fire engines from multiple stations. With that said, these bikes could be an awesome tool for fire stations around the country. Hopefully the testing at Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service goes well and they decide to pick a few up. You never know, the next time you turn and look, you could be seeing one hurtling towards a fire yourself.

Deal of the century: Wolfram Alpha iPhone app slashed from $50 down to $1.99!

It pays to wait they say…

If you were one of the naysayers who realized the unique/(possibly gimmicky) feature set of the Wolfram Alpha complex function solver. Essentially it was an app for geeks and rather deep pocketed geeks as WA did go for $50. At that price, one would think hardly anyone would bite. But according to Wolfram themselves, a touch over 10,000 sales at $50 have been recorded so far — no small feat.

If you didn’t jump on the curiosity bandwagon and were waiting for a sale, pat yourself on the back because this is the sale of the century. Old Wolfram Alpha: $50. New Wolfram Alpha: $1.99. Ya, that’s basically theft. Now there’s no reason to try out this geekery.

For the record, those who didn’t wait, purchased the app at the old price, and subsequently feel robbed can go as far as requesting a refund from Wolfram Alpha whom have already stated they’d happily (really, happy?) refund unhappy customers’ money. Win win hmm?

AlleyInsider

Sit and geek away in style: Airplane Engine Desk

If you’re going to spend hours upon hours in front of your computer, staring blindly at the millions of little red, blue, and green dots, you might as well look stylish doing it. Right? If you have a geeky obcession as well as a fetish for all things flight related, the Airplane Engine Desk will set you over the top. The innovative and original thinking designers based out of L.A., “MotoArt” create some of the coolest and most unique pieces of art that functions as furniture. As the name implies, the Airplane desk is crafted from real engine pieces of old, dying, and decaying airplane parts such as B-52′s and 747′s. The desk and accompanying chair will add a unique sense of style and originality to your humble geek pad. As the saying goes: “One mans trash is another mans treasure”. So very true it indeed…

Source: Geeky-Gadgets