STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

[MIKA27]

The US Army Is Redesigning Its Smoke Grenade For The First Time Since WWII

Despite the billions upon billions of dollars funnelled into the hungry maw of the military over the past 70 years, some technology has remained the same since World War II — including the smoke grenade. Now, the US Army is choosing a new version that, in theory, will be slightly less toxic than the “classic” model.

According to Kit Up!, army’s smoke grenades have long used a mixture of a substance called hexachloroethane and xinc oxide in its smoke screens. The result is a composition “capable of pulling water from the atmosphere and doubling the amount of smoke produced.” The downside: It also produced very toxic smoke-borne substance called zinc chloride.

The US Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center is leading the charge to replace it with one of four options, each of which uses a unique composition:

• First, a zinc-free version that’s similar to the good ol’ grenade currently being used, except without all that acrid toxic smoke.
• The second uses magnesium and aluminium to create a dense white cloud of metal oxides, which doesn’t sound all that great either.
• The third is based on lithium combustion technology, using lithium salt to whip up a cloud of smoke.

The fourth in particular sounds crazy: Because none of its ingredients are water-soluble, it wouldn’t contaminate the water supply. Instead, it uses a plastic matrix to encapsulate the chlorine. Here’s how Kit Up! explains it:

Because the rest of the plastic matrix is carbon, the smoke is filled with fine carbon particles giving a dark grey to black colour. This unusual as the best smoke compositions are white, since white smoke reflects more light than darker smoke, resulting in a more effective smoke cloud.

So while none of these options sounds particularly great for either soldiers or the environment, each of them is using newer chemical technology to, at the very least, produce smoke that’s less harmful to humans. The army is now testing each of the finalists into the ground — so it sounds like it may be a few months before we have a winner.

[MIKA27]

Every Single Nicolas Cage Laugh Ever Compiled In One Single Video

http://youtu.be/Xu1Sr57vE9Q

Get ready, my friends. Get ready to feel all kinds of emotions. Get ready to love, to cry, to hate, to look away, to stop this video in disgust only to start playing it again because you can’t resist keep looking at it. Get ready for every single Nicolas Cage laugh ever compiled in one single video. The clip includes 64 movies, from Best of Times (1981) to Rage (2014).

[MIKA27]

Century-Old Time Capsule Mystery Finally Solved

Last year, a church congregation in Grand Ledge, Michigan, cracked open a time capsule from 1912 filled with all the usual suspects: photos, newspapers, and newsletters. Basically, it had all the boring stuff you’d expect a church to put in their time capsule in 1912. But there was one single mystery item: a neat little package wrapped in brown paper. It was quite the puzzler. Until now.

The package had writing on it explaining that it was to be delivered to the descendants of one Reverend J. E. Foote. The problem? Nobody knew if he had any descendants, where those descendants might be, or (most importantly for us time capsule nerds) what was inside this mysterious parcel. Now we have all the answers. Well, almost all the answers.

The internet helped track down the people for whom this little time-travelling treasure was intended. And after months of wondering about what was inside, 17 direct descendants of Rev. Foote convened in Michigan this past Sunday to open the thing. They came from Georgia, Ontario, Texas, and even as far away as Anchorage, Alaska.

And after months of mystery, they finally opened the package to reveal… two almanacs.

Granted they were two very old almanacs. One is from 1804 and the other is dated 1808. And there were some notes scribbled in the margins that are difficult to decipher. But it was just two almanacs, nonetheless.

“We are having the pages filmed and put in digital copy to study the possible relevance,” James A. Foote, great-great grandson of Rev. James E. Foote told me over email. “They were very frail and could not be handled very much.”

Why would Foote want his descendants to have these almanacs? Is there something in the notes that could lead to a greater mystery? Probably not. But, who knows! There’s some speculation that the notes in the margins could have been written by George Foote, the great-grandfather of the Reverend who may have fought in the Revolutionary War.

Even if the capsule contents were a bit of a let down, at least the descendants of Reverend Foote enjoyed a nice family reunion — in some cases meeting people they didn’t even know they were related to.

From the Lansing State Journal:

Janet Foote, of Katy, Texas, near Houston, is a great-granddaughter of the Rev. J.E. Foote, the Congregational pastor who placed the package in the time capsule.

She is also a great-great-granddaughter of the Rev. Luman Foote, a former Episcopal pastor and father of J. E. Foote to whom a stained glass window in the church is dedicated. She used the information to organise a family reunion in Grand Ledge for the Rev. Foote’s relatives, some of whom had never met each other.

We’re reminded time and again that time capsules can be disappointing. But that doesn’t mean we should give up on them. The time capsule hunter never gives up. Well, until he does.

Every now and again, we find something really cool — even if it’s just something of personal significance. In the case of the Mystery Foote capsule, this was sadly not the case.

[MIKA27]

Brazil Train Station Looks Like A Nightmarish Ocean Of Drowning People

It’s like that horrifying scene in World War Z when zombies are just on top of each other. It’s like a mosh pit that never ends for all of eternity. It’s a human traffic jam with absolutely no room to breathe.

It’s the train network in Sao Paulo after a bus strike. And the World Cup hasn’t even started yet.

There are many train networks in other countries (China, I’m talking about you) that deal with this type of human chaos on the semi-regular basis, but it doesn’t change how completely shitty it is to go through.

[MIKA27]

Hearing Morgan Freeman Talk On Helium Is Pretty Damn Hilarious

Blessed with the calming voice of a warm blanket on a cold night, Morgan Freeman is basically the best narrator for nearly every documentary and most life situations. I could listen him talk about anything and it would feel important. But what about Morgan Freeman on helium? How’s that sound? Hilarious.

It’s an ad for the show Through The Wormhole on The Science Channel but it’s fun as hell to hear Morgan Freeman with the voice of a child.

[MIKA27]

This DARPA Invention Gives Soldiers Terminator Vision

DARPA has finally demonstrated one of its most promising inventions: an augmented-reality HUD system that will give soldiers the same advantage of a jet fighter pilot. It displays battlefield data over the soldier’s environment, identifying friendly and enemy forces on land and air in real time.

The system is nothing like Google Glass, which projects into the iris causing eye strain. Instead, the system overlays data over your natural field of vision using a new holographic display. There’s no video of the system in action, but DARPA has provided this image that gives a good idea of how things look to to the soldier:

The new invention is called Urban Leader Tactical Response, Awareness & Visualzation. ULTRA-Vis doesn’t interfere with the soldier’s vision, which is one of the main requirements of the US Army. According to DARPA, it uses a “light-weight, low-power holographic see-through display with a vision-enabled position and orientation tracking system.”

Using the ULTRA-Vis system, a Soldier can visualise the location of other forces, vehicles, hazards and aircraft in the local environment even when these are not visible to the Soldier. In addition, the system can be used to communicate to the Soldier a variety of tactically significant (local) information including imagery, navigation routes, and alerts.

Breaking Defence’s Sydney J. Freedberg Jr tried it at DARPA Demo Day, celebrated in the Pentagon’s Courtyard. His description is impressive. The data is superimposed “directly over your natural field of vision, without requiring you to look up at an eye-straining angle as with Google Glass or look down at a smartphone display as with the Army’s Nett Warrior system. Nor does the display block your field of vision like the ill-fated monocle display on the Army’s earlier Land Warrior.”

The result is just what the fighter pilots experience: true and effortless augmented reality. The prototype is still not ready for production and will probably change quite a bit before they deploy it, but they are definitely in the right direction.

[MIKA27]

Beautiful Norwegian Cliff Is A Nightmare For Those Afraid Of Heights

Trolltunga is one of the most spectacular cliffs in Norway. More than 800m above the ground, the views are breathtaking. But to enjoy those views for yourself you need first to be in shape — it takes a five-hour hike to get up there — and then, obviously, to not be afraid of heights like I am.

[MIKA27]

Soon You Can Sleep In This Fake Bavarian Castle In The Middle Of China

China loves to counterfeit, and architecture is no exception. So it was no surprise when a massive, massive German-style castle popped up in the seaside city of Dalian. It’s exciting, however, that Starwood Hotels has announced that it will open a giant hotel inside of it.

The new and appropriately named Castle Hotel will feature 292 guest rooms and 67 apartments. There will also be a “Royal Cellar”, where you can get German treats like beer and wurst. A nearby “Lobby Lounge” is the spot for cocktails and according to Starwood’s press release, “a place for the rich and famous to see and be seen, an elegant space which is very salonfähig.” That’s German word for “suitable for polite company”. Honestly, the whole thing looks pretty suitable — and also pretty ridiculous. (Fun fact: before the castle was converted into a hotel, it was a shell museum, featuring 20,000 rare shells from 30 countries.)

The thing is, this is nothing. China already has a giant castle hotel, and there’s another, Disney-inspired one opening up in Liaoning sometime in 2017. It looks straight up ludicrous:

But wait, there’s more. In case you haven’t heard, China’s love of counterfeiting is now happening on a citywide scale. There’s a (now abandoned) replica of Paris on the outskirts of Hangzhou, and an entire English-style village called Thames Town — just call it Little London — near Shanghai. In fact, it’s hard to keep track of the knockoffs at this point. There are enough to fill an entire book.

At this point, the culture of counterfeiting is beyond creative in China. From fake Apple stores to fake governments, the trend is so pervasive, it feels original. Some consider it a form of “mastery”.

[MIKA27]

Santa Barbara Shooter Sent Manifesto to Parents

Authorities checked up on Elliot Rodger after a call from a concerned family member about his YouTube videos, but they did not determine that he needed to immediately go to a mental health facility

The suspected killer in a murderous rampage in Santa Barbara, Calif. reportedly sent a detailed manifesto outlining his plans to his parents shortly before stabbing and shooting six people and taking his own life.

A friend of Elliot Rodger’s family told CNN that the 22-year-old emailed a 141-page document explaining his motives to a few dozen people, including his parents and a therapist.

In the document, Rodger referred to his plans as a “Day of Retribution,” when he would torture and kill “good looking people” before launching a “War on Women” to punish girls and women who he said had “starved [him] of sex.”

The manifesto also discussed his parents’ divorce and his unhappiness with his height. Rodger’s mother, Lichin, received the email at 9:17 p.m. on the night of the shooting and immediately went to his YouTube page where he had posted videos of himself setting out what he planned to do.

In a video titled “Elliot Rodger’s Retribution,” which has since been removed, Rodger promises to have “his revenge against humanity”—particularly the women who he claims were not attracted to him—after having suffered through “an existence of loneliness, rejection and unfulfilled desires.”

After watching the video, Rodger’s mother contacted Elliot’s father, The Hunger Games assistant director Peter Rodger, and called 911. The two began driving from Los Angeles to the Santa Barbara area and heard about the shooting along the way. Alan Shifman, the attorney for the family, said their son had been treated by multiple therapists.

Police suspect Rodger of having killed three men in his apartment before going on a shooting spree that killed three more and injured 13 others near the University of California, Santa Barbara, the Associated Press reports.Rodger appeared to have then also killed himself.

Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said multiple semi-automatic handguns and hundreds of rounds, which had been legally purchased, were later found in the car he had driven during the shooting.

The document Rodger left reportedly sets out how police came to check on him following a concerned family member’s call to the authorities. The deputies left after determining that Rodger did not need to immediately go to a mental health facility. In the document, Rodger expressed relief that the officers did not search his apartment and find his writings and weapons, which would have halted his plans for revenge.

Hundreds of people gathered Saturday at a vigil at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to remember the victims of the shooting rampage.

The killings ignited a social media conversation about everyday misogyny, harassment and rape culture following the discovery of the suspected killer’s disturbing YouTube video about the women who rejected him.

The Twitter hashtag #YesAllWomen took off Saturday evening to criticize the culture that teaches young men like Rodger to feel entitled to women without regard to women’s well-being or safety.

[MIKA27]

Baby caught by man after falling from second storey window

Chinese TV has aired footage it said showed the moment a baby was caught after falling from a second storey apartment window.

The infant is said to have climbed on to the window ledge looking for its mother.

The incident is reported to have happened in Xiaolan Town, Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province.

Mr Li, who caught the child, said he was "just worried about failing to catch him".

[MIKA27]

Manchester United's brand 'devalued' by weak season

The value of the Manchester United brand has been damaged by a disappointing season according to a study by consultancy Brand Finance.

They say United's brand is worth $739m (£439m), down $98m on last year.

That makes it the third most valuable football brand after Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.

Real Madrid's victory in the Champions League final on Saturday helped boost its brand value. The club already has the biggest sales of any football club.

'Solid footing'

The authors say an improvement in the Spanish economy could help the club retain the top brand spot.

And they add that "with arguably the finest player in the world in the shape of Ronaldo" and now a first Champions League title since 2002, "Real's brand is back on a solid footing".

Gareth Bale helped Real Madrid win their 10th European Cup as they finally overcame neighbours Atletico Madrid in a compelling Champions League final in Lisbon.

But despite Real's strong season, Bayern Munich has the most valuable brand in football for the second year running according to the report.

The authors point to the Bavarian club's record points haul in winning the Bundesliga title in the 2013-14 season.

English clubs Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool are placed from fifth to eighth most valuable.

United revival?

Manchester United will be hoping the appointment of Louis van Gaal will reverse its fortunes both on and off the pitch next season.

Speaking on Dutch TV station RTL last week, Mr Van Gaal said his immediate objectives were to return United to "number one spot" as soon as possible, and that fans "will think they are champions of England again within a year".

The Brand Finance report said that "shrewd commercial management" has shielded Manchester United's brand from more serious damage.

"However, another season in the wilderness, outside the Champions League, will see brand value truly plunge, and leave few sponsors willing to do a deal with the [Red] Devils," the report said.

For the three months to the end of March, Manchester United reported profits of £11m, up from £3.6m a year ago. The club also posted record revenues of £115.5m for the period.

Brand Finance defines brand value as the cost another party would have to pay to license the use of a brand.

To calculate that cost the consultancy looked at a range of factors, including the mix of revenue, value of squad, and club heritage.

[MIKA27]

MANSORY G63 AMG 6×6 FULL CARBON EDITION

Mercedes-Benz caught the attention of every automotive enthusiast when they released the menacing G63 AMG 6×6, and now the customization team at Mansory looks to up the ante. Say hello to the even more menacing Mansory G63 AMG 6×6 Full Carbon Edition.

This 6-wheeler has been completely souped-up from the inside out. For starters the customizers added LED headlamps along with plenty of carbon fiber body parts to lighten the vehicle a bit. The real magic happens under the hood though, where they rebuilt the already impressive AMG power plant. The newly improved AMG twin-turbo 5.5 liter V8 now pumps out 840 horsepower alongside 738 lb-ft of torque – that’s 300 ponies more than the stock setup. While we haven’t seen any photos of the inside at this point, Mansory offers nearly limitless options when it comes to tweaking the guts.

[MIKA27]

Chelyabinsk Asteroid Was Knocked Into Earth by Another Rock

If we need someone or something to blame the Chelyabinsk asteroid on, new research suggests the likely culprit was a larger asteroid that collided with its parent asteroid, knocking the Chelyabinsk chunk off and into an eventual collision course with Earth.

On February 15 2013, the asteroid exploded about 30 kilometers above Chelyabinsk, Russia, in what was the second largest asteroid burst in recorded history. Fragments of the meteorite were analyzed by Shin Ozawa and a team of researchers at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, and the results appeared recently in Scientific Reports.

Ozawa’s team focused on the fragments’ shock-melt veins, which are created by the heat and pressure of an impact, causing parts of the asteroid to melt and later cool into a glass-like vein. The Chelyabinsk fragments contained the mineral jadeite which is only formed under extreme pressure and high temperature – in this case at least three to 12 gigapascals from a shock lasting over 70 milliseconds.

Electron microscope images of the asteroid shock-melt veins – Jd in (d) is jadeite.

From this analysis of that bit of jadeite, the team determined that the 20-meter-wide Chelyabinsk asteroid was a piece of another asteroid that collided with a larger one measuring at least 150 meters in diameter that was traveling at around 4,800 kilometers per hour at the time of impact.

It appears the big bump occurred 290 million years ago. The chunk then took 280 million years to get pulled into the solar system’s asteroid belt, where it entered an orbit that put it on its collision course with Earth in 2013.

Previous calculations show that the asteroids in the belt have a life expectancy of less than 10 million years. This research confirms that they can survive much longer. Ozawa says the Chelyabinsk asteroid was unique.

It is a near-Earth object that actually hit the Earth, and its trajectory was well-recorded.

Now, if we can just find out who caused the collision so Chelyabinsk residents know where to send the repair bills.

[MIKA27]

A New Battery Tech Could Revolutionise Electric Cars

A Japanese company has pioneered a low-cost, recyclable, high-performance battery technology that could see electric vehicles charging just as fast as a petrol car filling its fuel tank. Power Japan Plus’ Ryden dual-carbon cells are starting production in a few months, and could appear in electric cars within a couple of years.

The new cell has a number of innovations that could prove to be advantageous for electric cars. It’s largely comparable to lithium batteries in terms of energy density, but has a much improved lifetime, with a rated 3000 discharge/recharge cycles before noticeable degradation versus the 300 of existing consumer-grade cells. Power Japan Plus’ new development can also charge up to 20 times faster than lithium — and with a lithium-based car like the Tesla Model S topping up 80 per cent of its battery in half an hour, a Ryden cell-equipped EV could theoretically receive a long-distance charge in only 90 seconds.

Using carbon for both the anode and cathode of the battery means that the new cell is more sustainable than current battery production methods — it’s entirely recyclable, for one. There’s also a hugely reduced risk of thermal explosion due to the simpler chemistry, so the new cells don’t need the same cooling and over-the-top safety features of current electric vehicles. While Power Japan Plus is making a small number of cells in-house, it will licence the tech out to other battery makers for large-scale production and use in electric cars and other types of transport.

If Power Japan Plus succeeds in getting its Ryden batteries into an electric vehicle — it’s searching for partners, after first installing the new cells in satellites and medical devices — the dream of a low-cost, long-distance, high-powered electric vehicle could be a reality in the near future.

[MIKA27]

Thank You Arnold Schwarzenegger For The Japanese Commercials

I grew up during the 1980s. And like most kids, I watched a bunch of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. If only I had lived in Japan. I could have grown up with something even better: his commercials.

But good news! After a long absence, Arnold Schwarzenegger has returned to Japanese advertising, appearing in a Kowa coffee commercial. He’s long overdue for a return. (Bruce Willis, another Japanese commercial favourite, also appears in the same series of coffee ads.)

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Schwarzenegger appeared in many cup noodle and energy drink ads. Known as “Schwa-chan,” his catchphrase was “daijou-V”, a wordplay on “daijoubu” (“ok” in Japanese) and the “V” in energy drink he was selling, Alinamin V.

Lots of foreign celebrities have appeared in Japanese TV commercials. Schwarzenegger, along with Tommy Lee Jones, is one of the best.

That’s why it’s so good to see Schwarzenegger back in Japanese commercials. They were some of the most entertaining work he’s done (dead serious!). Schwa-chan’s playful, gonzo attitude is a perfect fit for the country’s over-the-top marketing wizards.

Here are some of Schwarzenegger’s most memorable — and mental — commercials.

http://youtu.be/lucm3W_H_7Y

[MIKA27]

Thank You Arnold Schwarzenegger For The Japanese Commercials #2

[MIKA27]

Tommy Lee Jones Japanese Commercial & Bruce Willis: Continued from Above

http://youtu.be/Bt4XSq9qaio

http://youtu.be/7ZpfYIdH_HM

[MIKA27]

The 2,500-Pound Snake That Devoured Gigantic Crocodiles

Long ago, legend has it, the god Thor and the giant Hymir rowed to sea in search of Jörmungandr, a snake so huge it circled the Earth. Thor dropped a line baited with an ox head, which Jörmungandr nommed on, and with his bare hands reeled the beast in. Once the serpent was at the edge of the boat, though, Hymir got all nervous and cut the line.

The moral of the story? I haven’t the slightest clue.

But what I do know is that 60 million years ago, in the swampy waters of what is now Colombia, there lurked a serpent of similar hyperbole: titanoboa, by far the biggest snake that ever lived. At nearly 50 feet long and weighing in at 2,500 pounds, it was 10 times as heavy as the average green anaconda, a giant that now rules titanoboa’s stomping grounds… or slithering grounds, I guess you’d say.

Titanoboa was so big, it pushed the boundaries of being able to exist on land and remain in accordance with the laws of physics. You, me, every cat and antelope and towering sauropod, we’ve all evolved under the constraints of gravity. Evolution got a bit carried away and produced the 100-foot blue whale, the biggest critter ever, only because gravity doesn’t affect giants as much in the sea.

Scientists reckon titanoboa must have also exploited this kind of simulated weightlessness. It was so outsized that “almost certainly it would have spent a large part of its time in water,” said David Polly, a vertebrate paleontologist at Indiana University. “And we know that both from the geology where it’s preserved but also by inference of how big it was. It just wouldn’t have been able to get around on land very well.”

Snakes, you see, are deceptively good swimmers, kinda like sloths. (Seriously, have you ever seen a sloth swim? They’re way faster in water than on land.) Titanoboa wouldn’t have had quite the agility of, say, a sea snake, but it didn’t need to dart around anyway.

This was likely an ambush hunter, a constrictor of enormous proportions that relied not on venom, but on its incredible strength to squeeze the life out of its prey. Anacondas do the same, and indeed scientists believe titanoboa behaved much like them.

Lying in wait on shallow river and swamp bottoms, anacondas can hold their breath for up to 45 minutes, or simply rest with their noses poked out of the water. They dig themselves into the sediment–rotting leaves and such–and wait for a hapless capybara to amble through. Its strike is blindingly fast, its constriction unmerciful. Not only can the prey not breathe, its blood can’t even circulate.

Now scale that up 10 times. Large mammals such as the capybara (the world’s biggest rodent) hadn’t yet appeared on Earth, so instead titanoboa was hunting lungfish 7 feet long, plus huge turtles and crocodiles. The serpent, it seems, wasn’t the only giant of its time. And there’s a very good reason for that.

As you probably learned from the poor classroom garter snake you and your friends tortured as kids, reptiles need an external source of heat to power their metabolism and slither away from your tiny grabby hands. They’ll grow continuously their whole lives–reaching a plateau eventually and slowing down, sure, but they’re always expanding. And, among other things, what puts a maximum size cap on snakes is their ambient temperature.

Unfortunately for titanoboa’s prey, “the climate in the Paleocene when this animal lived was much warmer than it is today,” said Polly. “And that would have allowed for bigger reptiles, and indeed not only is there titanoboa, but even in the same site there are crocodiles and turtles that are a lot larger than any living today.”

Imagine 5 feet in length for the turtles and 20 feet for the crocs. Still, they were no match for titanoboa, an apex predator among apex predators (though the larger saucer-shaped turtles, in a sort of final statement, would have left the snakes with fairly comical bulges). And doubly unfortunate for those lower on the food chain was that across the world around this time, there were any number of snakes super-sized by warming climates, the second largest after titanoboa being gigantophis at 33 feet long.

Now, typically for endothermic–so-called “warm-blooded”–critters, the opposite trend is true. Larger body sizes, such as that of the polar bear, are better suited for frigid environments because the bigger you are, the lower your surface-area-to-volume ratio, and thus the better you retain heat. This is known as Bergmann’s rule.

Mammals have sweat glands to cool themselves if they overheat, but snakes have no such luxury. And a humongous snake smack in the middle of the tropics could find itself very toasty indeed. So how did it keep from cooking? Polly reckons that its aquatic lifestyle would have done well to regulate its body temperatures. Cool too much, and titanoboa could emerge to sunbathe. Thus these oversized reptiles could manage their temperature in the unrelenting tropical heat like finicky old folks in Florida shuffling in and out of pools.

A vertebra of titanoboa. For reference, a medium- to large-sized python would have vertebrae about the size of this man’s thumbnail. Not that this is a competition or anything.

Why, and even when, titanoboa went extinct remains a mystery, but we can thank what fossils we do have on the environment they occupied. Perishing on river bottoms, titanoboas found protection from scavengers and the ravages of the elements. And such swampy waters naturally produce excellent fossils, not to mention the coal that for better or worse still powers our world.

Titanoboa fossils are “recovered from what is one of the largest open coal mines in the world, the Cerrejón coal mine,” said Polly.

“And coal is made from the plant remains that essentially fall into the water where they don’t decay as rapidly, and they get buried in the sediments that are coming into the water,” by way of something like a flood. Over geologic time, these layers turn to different kinds of rock: Paleontologists find titanoboa fossils in the rocks built from the sediments, specifically clay, while the miners toiling around them are obviously more interested in the pure plant-derived coal.

Thus science and industry, so often at odds, can finally agree to appreciate a Colombian coal deposit. That is, until our wanton burning of fossil fuels heats our planet to the temperatures required to nurture the next titanoboa in South America. Any humans left by that time will, I hope, appreciate the irony.

[MIKA27]

How The Colorado River Finally Reached The Sea Again

This week, for the first time in decades, the Colorado River flowed to its natural end in the Gulf of California. But it was the opposite of a natural event. The artificially engineered “pulse flow” that pushed the waters all the way to the Gulf required an unprecedented collaboration between the US and Mexico, wading into a complex body of laws around a basic question: to whom does a river belong?

Thanks to thirsty cities and thirstier farmland, the Colorado River is siphoned dry as it flows from the Rockies to the Pacific — every drop, in fact, carefully allocated by law. The delta where river meets sea has been a dry, cracked expanse for decades. It was once fertile wetlands, enriched by spring floods that carried silt as water flowed toward the sea.

On March 23, the last in a long line of dams along the Colorado temporarily opened its gates, letting out a pulse flow to replicate these spring floods and restore the delta. The water wasn’t expected to flow all the way to the sea, but the fact “that it has, is a wonderful bonus,” wrote a environmentalist who advocated for the pulse flow. In fact, the plan has long been advocated by environmental groups, who along with the American and Mexican governments, each reallocated one-third of the water for the pulse flow.

The Law of the River

It may seem strange to talk about the flow of a river in fractions, but restoring the Colorado River Delta really is a matter of careful accounting. The “Law of the River“, as it’s simply known by, governs the allocation of the Colorado’s water. In accordance to these laws, each gallon is carefully parceled out among the six states and two countries whose borders the river has handily ignored. The Law of the River compromises several legislative acts, a Supreme Court case, a treaty, and addenda to the treaty. It lays out everything from the size of dams to the allowable salinity of downstream water. All told, it makes for a novella’s worth of jargon-laden reading.

The Law of the River contains the words that divide the Colorado, but the physical river is divided by a long chain of dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts. The most famous is the Hoover Dam, behind which sits Lake Mead, the largest artificial lake in America. Lake Mead is big enough to hold two years’ worth of the Colorado River’s flow. In total, over a hundred dams line the Colorado River and its tributaries.

How Mexico’s Water Is Stored Near Las Vegas

In 2002, environmentalists managed to convinced both U.S. and Mexico to sign Minute 319, an addition to the 1944 treaty that divided the Colorado River between the two countries. Minute 319 formalised the plan for the pulse flow pilot project, allocating about 1 per cent of river’s flow to the Colorado River delta over five years.

A third of the water would come from the United States’ usual allotment, a third from Mexico’s, and third from environmental groups buying water rights along the river. Here, we run into one of the stranger end conclusions of allocating a river: water ownership can change hands without the water ever changing places. Another provision of Minute 319 allows Mexico to store some of its water share in the vast expanse of Lake Mead. So when you look out on the lake in Nevada, some of that water could technically belong to Mexico hundreds of kilometres away.

The convoluted ownership surrounding water in the Colorado River is no surprise when you consider it is, as some have succinctly put it, “one of the most controlled, controversial, and litigated rivers in the world.” And that is no surprise when you consider that the very development of the American West was shaped by water laws. Without massive feats of engineering that rerouted water from the Colorado River and elsewhere, there would be no Los Angeles, no farmland in the California’s Central Valley, no hydroelectric power for much of the West.

Dams along the Colorado River became “proof that the fatal dryness of the Great American desert could be conquered.” The desert has been conquered at a price — a price we’re now reconsidering. A tiny part of the Colorado River, long divided drop by drop among humans, has finally been allocated to restore the river’s delta.

[Fuzz]

Sabretron - Foam Swords with Electronic Scoring!

Ever had a foam sword fight but never could agree on who won? Well now you can with Sabretron!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/levelup/sabertron-foam-swords-with-electronic-scoring/

Now I just gotta decide if I want a pair or two pairs of the Grandmaster version Lightsaber...

[Jeremy Festa]

Sabretron - Foam Swords with Electronic Scoring!

Ever had a foam sword fight but never could agree on who won? Well now you can with Sabretron!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/levelup/sabertron-foam-swords-with-electronic-scoring/

Now I just gotta decide if I want a pair or two pairs of the Grandmaster version Lightsaber...

Backed it!

[MIKA27]

Backed it!

+1

Say... is that El Prez I see on the Kickstarter page?

[MIKA27]

Google Chromecast Finally Lands In Australian Stores

There’s been a lot of fuss made of Chromecast in the last month or so. After a few false starts, however, the simple, low-cost streaming stick for the Google-faithful is finally on Australian shelves. Here’s how much it is and where you can get it.

Chromecast dongles will be available today for $49. Compared to the price in the US ($US38), that’s pretty reasonable.

You can pick up the Chromecast on the Google Play Store, or in **** Smith and JB Hi-Fi.

The main drawcard of the Chromecast when it was announced last year was a free month of Netflix, as well as access to Hulu, Amazon Instant Video and other services that aren’t available here.

Google has confirmed that those services won’t be available to Australian Chromecast customers, but stressed that local developers were already making cool stuff for the dongle.

Quickflix, ABC iView and PocketCasts are notable services that all support Chromecast out of the box right now.

[MIKA27]

Watch: The Edge Of Tomorrow's Post-Apocalyptic World Explained In 13 Minutes

http://youtu.be/i-MW3BW-e78

Are you looking forward to The Edge Of Tomorrow? I am — it looks like Groundhog Day meets Starship Troopers, pitting Tom Cruise over and over against aliens that blow him to bits in many and varied creative ways.

I haven’t seen the film yet — it’s premiering in Australia tonight, in a bunch of places around the country. From trailers it looks like good solid sci-fi fare; Tom Cruise has a surprisingly good record in the genre, so hopefully it’s another feather in his cap.

If you want to learn a bit about the world and characters in The Edge Of Tomorrow before you see it, this 13-minute featurette gives you a primer without ruining the storyline. There are moderate spoilers, of course, so don’t click if you want to watch the movie fresh.

[MIKA27]

Australian Design Student Creates An Exoskeleton For Firefighters

As a general rule, firefighters are incredibly fit, but their protective clothing, breathing apparatus and other equipment can tip the scales at a hefty 40kg. Monash University student Ken Chen, who is studying his master’s degree in design, has created a concept for an exoskeleton that helps firefighters carry a heavy load and fight fire effectively at the same time.

The A.F.A Exoskeleton Suit — that stands for Advanced Firefighting Apparatus — is rated for loads of up to 91kg, which would let firefighters double the load they carry while letting them move around easily. There’s no working prototype, but a scale model exists.

There are a few military and industrial exoskeletons in working and concept form around the world, but Chen has focused attention on firefighting after reading about a 2010 Shanghai high-rise apartment fire that killed 58 people.

The huge advantage that a weight-enhancing and distributing exoskeleton offers is in its ability to assist a firefighter in carrying heavy loads, including incapacitated people who have suffered from smoke inhalation. There are some great renders of the A.F.A kit over on Behance, where Chen has detailed its potential and the challenges it has to overcome.