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

[MIKA27]

Giant Metal Cylinder Of Unknown Origin Appears In Siberia

This 5m long metal cylinder of unknown origin recently washed up in a Siberian village following severe flooding. Nobody knows where it came from, but Aleksey Yaskin, a professor of aerospace engineering at Biysk Technology University, told Reuters that it may be the first stage of a rocket.

This looks like the first stage [of a rocket] judging by its size… in order to identify which type of destroyed rocket it belonged to we need to come closer to its shell, but there is no such option at the moment.

It makes sense, since rockets launched from Kazakhstan fly over this area. Much more mundane explanations of the object’s source include recycled Soviet-era technology being used in agriculture.

[MIKA27]

The New Star Wars Battlefront Game Looks Incredible

Even while you can only see a few glimpses of the in-game engine of Star Wars Battlefront, the new game by Swedish studio DICE seems impossibly good. They say they are making the game that, as Star Wars fans, they always wanted to play. I think they may succeed.

Just look at the motion, the level of detail, the lighting — everything looks perfect. Of course, there’s more than just pretty graphics in a game, but knowing that DICE is responsible for the Battlefield series and Mirror’s Edge, I think we may be getting the Star Wars game I always wanted to play.

[MIKA27]

Extremely Rare Photo Of Two Armed F-16s Escorting A Boeing Dreamliner

The Aviationist caught these cool selfies of two Royal Netherlands Air Force pilots escorting a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner in F-16 fighter jets fully armed for air interception duties. But don’t worry, it’s not a terrorism alarm. They were just welcoming the country’s first Dreamliner.

[MIKA27]

Out-Of-Control Lift Crashes Into Building Roof In Terrible Accident

http://youtu.be/Kp_6WcvFd-A

Chilean newspaper Publimetro (in Spanish) reports on the terrible accident suffered by 30-year-old José Vergara: A malfunctioning lift launched him across an entire building and into the roof, going through 34 storeys in just 15 seconds. Reportedly, he suffered major fractures on his back and hips.

It happened last Friday, when Vergara got into one of the lifts of the building in which he lives with his wife. The lifts starts going up without closing its doors, then it seems to go crazy as it speeds up from Level 2 until it crashes at level 31. According to his neighbours, it was known that the lift had problems.

WARNING: While you can’t see the Vergara’s or any gore images at the time of impact, this video may affect sensitive readers.

According to the Chilean press, Vergara may not be able to walk again because of the multiple injures on his spinal cord. He’s now in the Internal Care Unit of Clínica Santa María, in Providencia, Santiago de Chile.

[MIKA27]

This Glass-Bottomed Hotel Room Lets You Sleep With The Fishes

Bali is a beautiful place, but one of the drawbacks of beautiful places is that it’s hard to consume all of the beauty at once. That’s why the Bambu Inda Hotel built a glass-bottomed hotel room on top of a fish-filled pond. It’s supposed to create a “fishing village experience”.

They must have some pretty divine fishing villages in Bali. The eco-friendly Bambu Inda Hotel is composed of over a dozen century-old Javanese bridal houses, hand-carved by local Indonesian artisans. (The hotel owners are both from North America.) The houses are nestled in between scenic rice paddies near the town Ubud and Mount Batu Kau, a volcano.

The Udang House — which literally means “Shrimp House” — must be a popular choice with rates starting at just $US195. Not only does its glass bottom give you a glimpse of the marine life beneath, it also features a glass-ceilinged bathroom with an open-air shower. The house is decorated with fisherman-friendly wares, like giant whale bones and antique shrimp baskets.

If you’re not so much into the aquarium experience, the hotel features plenty of other surprisingly affordable options. You can try your luck with the Kolam House, a quaint little cottage surrounded by a moat and accessible only by stepping stones.

Or go for the royal treatment in the Jawa Lama House, an extra spacious home with views of the Sayan Ridge.

If you’re going all the way to Bali, you might consider splurging at getting the four-story Pagoda.

[MIKA27]

NASA's Prototype ISS Habitat Is An Inflatable Grow House

There are two things that come at a premium when living aboard the International Space Station: personal space and fresh vegetables. But thanks to an ingenious new inflatable habitat that’s currently being tested, our space-faring scientists will soon have more of both.

Built by private space company Bigelow Aerospace, the BEAM (or Bigelow Expandable Activity Module) measures 4m long by 3m wide when fully inflated by the supply of compressed nitrogen and oxygen that forms its internal atmosphere. More importantly, it only weighs about 1360kg — that’s 70 per cent lighter than a similarly sized rigid module — and can be folded up like an Aerobed and shoved into the unpressurised cargo hold of a Dragon Capsule for easy transport to LEO.

It is currently tethered to the ISS and is undergoing reliability testing, serving as a temporary grow room for an unrelated experiment on the effectiveness of growing vegetables and other crops in space. NASA’s spent about $US17.8 million on this two-year feasibility study. But if it’s successful, it could provide a fast and easy way of expanding the ISS’ capacity. Each BEAM holds six astronauts or, conceivably, well-paying space tourists.

What’s more, Bigelow is already hard at work on an even bigger version of the BEAM, dubbed the BA 330. Each of those would offer nine cubic metres of space and could be daisy-chained together to form a massive orbiting space station in a fraction of the time and effort it took to put the ISS together. [Technabob -The Space Reporter - Bigelow Aerospace]

[MIKA27]

Scientists: 100 Million Worlds May Have Complex Alien Life In Our Galaxy

A group of international astronomers and astrobiologists have published new research that assesses the possibility of complex life on other worlds. Their calculation in the Milky Way alone is staggering: 100 millionworlds in our home galaxy may harbour complex alien life. One. Hundred. Million.

It is a lot — although maybe a bit disappointing when you consider that;

a: there are 17 billion Earth-sized worlds in our galaxy alone and

b: these worlds are likely to be too far away from us. Also keep in mind that, according to the authors, “this study does not indicate that complex life exists on that many planets [...] only the conditions to support [complex alien] life.”

But, even with those considerations in mind, I find their estimation impressive. Especially when you consider that this is only one galaxy — and there are 500 billion of them in the Universe.

The possibility of evolution of complex life in other planets

Their research supports “the view that the evolution of complex life on other worlds is rare in frequency but large in absolute number”, and it contains the first plausible “assessment of complex life in the Universe using empirical data.”

It’s an assessment that comes from necessity. The search for worlds that may contain life is now the most important field of investigation in astronomy and perhaps the most important field in science, period. The discovery of worlds that can support complex life is not only vital for our long-term survival as species, but also the key to one of the most transcendental questions we face as species: Are we alone in the Universe?

To make their calculations, a team led by Louis Irwin — from the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso — have developed a new index called the Biological Complexity Index (BCI), which ranks planetary bodies — including moons — based on the features discovered by our current technology. According to the paper, the index is “designed to provide a quantitative estimate of the relative probability that complex, macro-organismic life forms could have emerged on other worlds.”

They believe that only 11 of the more than 1700 planets so far discovered in the Milky Way have a higher BCI than the Jupiter’s moon Europa. That seems like nothing but, when you take into consideration the estimation of worlds in our home galaxy, “the total of such planets could exceed 100 million in our galaxy alone.”

The paper was published in Challenges of Astrobiology by Louis Irwin — from the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso — Abel Méndez — from the Planetary Habitability Laboratory, University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo — Alberto G. Fairén — from the Department of Astronomy, Cornell University — and Dirk Schulze-Makuch — from the Center of Astronomy and Astrophysics, at Technical University Berlin.

[MIKA27]

A Town's Famous Bioluminescent Bay Is Going Dark And No One Knows Why

For those who’ve seen it — and photographs don’t do it justice — the bio-luminescent Mosquito Bay is one of the world’s most spectacular natural sights. Tiny plankton known as dinoflagellates light up the water like a glow stick at night. But since January, the glow has faded, throwing the entire Puerto Rican town into a panic.

Vieques is a small town about 10 miles from Puerto Rico’s main island. All it is known for, really, is its bio-luminescent bay, one of the most famous in the world. This is why tourists have flocked here to kayak at night. This is also why the dinoflagellates’ sudden disappearance has the town in a tizzy.

For now, tours are being limited to just weekends to minimise human disturbance of the bay. Some also suspect disturbance for a dirt road nearby. Scientists have been studying the water, though factors like temperature, salinity, and pH appear to be fine. A leading theory is that shifts in the wind direction have pushed dinoflagellates out of the bay.

Elsewhere in the Caribbean, bio-luminescent bays have gone dark temporarily and returned. But others have not. There isn’t a unifying theory explaining the appearance of dinoflagellates, but it’s clear that something is afoot in Mosquito Bay. [New York Times]

[MIKA27]

DARPA's Gecko-Inspired Gloves Let Anyone Climb Up Flat Walls

Who among us hasn’t wished to be licked by a radioactive tropical lizard, only to be granted the incredible ability to harness Van der Waal forces and scale even glassy vertical walls? Finally, we can stop microwaving all those geckos because DARPA has just unveiled a new climbing system that works exactly the same way as their super-sticky feet!

Dubbed the Z-Man project, the new, specialised climbing paddles were developed for DARPA by Cambridge Massachusetts’ Draper Laboratory. The paddles are coated with a specialised cloth called “Geckskin”, a stiff fabric impregnated with a reversible adhesive elastomer that clings to surfaces the same way that the microscopic setae and spatulae on a gecko’s feet do — through Van der Waals intermolecular forces. And like the gecko’s feet, this material strikes a delicate balance between holding firm to the surface and being pulled off of it as the user climbs.

“The gecko is one of the champion climbers in the Animal Kingdom, so it was natural for DARPA to look to it for inspiration in overcoming some of the manoeuvre challenges that US forces face in urban environments,” said Dr Matt Goodman, the DARPA program manager for Z-Man. “Like many of the capabilities that the Department of Defence pursues, we saw with vertical climbing that nature had long since evolved the means to efficiently achieve it. The challenge to our performer team was to understand the biology and physics in play when geckos climb and then reverse-engineer those dynamics into an artificial system for use by humans.”

Recently, DARPA demonstrated the latest iteration of its Geckskin by having a 100kg researcher (saddled with 20kg of recording gear) scale an 8m tall glass wall using naught but two climbing paddles. Tests are ongoing but DARPA hopes to one day incorporate the technology into the modern warfighter, giving him Spider Man-like abilities in urban combat scenarios. We can only hope that someday we can get a consumer model too.

[MIKA27]

US Army Helicopter Drops An Entire Boat Full Of Navy Seals In The Sea

Here’s a US Army Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter dropping a US Navy boat into the sea while a guy — apparently Navy SEAL — is descending into the boat from the chopper.

A reader gave a description in the comments:

From a distance, it looks like a SWCC crew being dropped (I believe there would be a ladder hanging in place of the rope if it was an extraction). However, those boats usually have a pretty obvious radar arch sticking up (which may be folded down in this pic..?), so maybe it’s something entirely different…

[MIKA27]

The Korean grandmothers who sell sex

Koreans could once be sure that their children would look after them in their old age, but no longer - many of those who worked hard to transform the country's economy find the next generation has other spending priorities. As a result, some elderly women are turning to prostitution.

Kim Eun-ja sits on the steps at Seoul's Jongno-3 subway station, scanning the scene in front of her. The 71-year-old's bright lipstick and shiny red coat stand out against her papery skin.

Beside her is a large bag, from which comes the clink of glass bottles as she shifts on the cold concrete.

Mrs Kim is one of South Korea's "Bacchus Ladies" - older women who make a living by selling tiny bottles of the popular Bacchus energy drink to male customers.

But often that's not all they're selling. At an age when Korean grandmothers are supposed to be venerated as matriarchs, some are selling sex.

"You see those Bacchus Ladies standing over there?" she asks me. "Those ladies sell more than Bacchus. They sometimes go out with the grandpas and earn money from them. But I don't make a living like that.

"Men do proposition me when I'm standing in the alleyway," she adds. "But I always say, 'No.'"

Mrs Kim says she makes about 5,000 Won ($5, or £3) a day selling the drinks. "Drink up fast," she says. "The police are always watching me. They don't differentiate."

The centre of this underground sex trade is a nearby park in the heart of Seoul. Jongmyo Park is a place where elderly men come to while away their sunset years with a little chess and some local gossip.

It's built around a temple to Confucius, whose ideas on venerating elders have shaped Korean culture for centuries. But under the budding trees outside, the fumbling transactions of its elderly men and women tell the real story of Korean society in the 21st Century.

Women in their 50s, 60, even their 70s, stand around the edges of the park, offering drinks to the men. Buy one, and it's the first step in a lonely journey that ends in a cheap motel nearby.

The men in the park are more willing to talk to me than the women.

Standing around a game of Korean chess, a group of grandfathers watch the match intently. About half the men here use the Bacchus Ladies, they say.

"We're men, so we're curious about women," says 60-year-old Mr Kim.

"We have a drink, and slip a bit of money into their hands, and things happen!" he cackles. "Men like to have women around - whether they're old or not, sexually active or not. That's just male psychology."

Another man, 81 years old, excitedly showed me his spending money for the day. "It's for drinking with my friends," he said. "We can find girlfriends here, too - from those women standing over there. They'll ask us to play with them. They say, 'Oh, I don't have any money,' and then they glue on to us. Sex with them costs 20,000 to 30,000 Won (£11-17), but sometimes they'll give you a discount if they know you."

South Korea's grandparents are victims of their country's economic success.

As they worked to create Korea's economic miracle, they invested their savings in the next generation. In a Confucian society, successful children are the best form of pension.

But attitudes here have changed just as fast as living standards, and now many young people say they can't afford to support themselves and their parents in Korea's fast-paced, highly competitive society.

The government, caught out by this rapid change, is scrambling to provide a welfare system that works. In the meantime, the men and women in Jongmyo Park have no savings, no realistic pension, and no family to rely on. They've become invisible - foreigners in their own land.

"Those who rely on their children are stupid," says Mr Kim. "Our generation was submissive to our parents. We respected them. The current generation is more educated and experienced, so they don't listen to us.

"I'm 60 years old and I don't have any money. I can't trust my children to help. They're in deep trouble because they have to start preparing for their old age. Almost all of the old folks here are in the same situation."

Most Bacchus women have only started selling sex later in life, as a result of this new kind of old-age poverty, according to Dr Lee Ho-Sun, who is perhaps the only researcher to have studied them in detail.

One woman she interviewed first turned to prostitution at the age of 68. About 400 women work in the park, she says, all of whom will have been taught as children that respect and honour were worth more than anything.

"One Bacchus woman said to me 'I'm hungry, I don't need respect, I don't need honour, I just want three meals a day," Lee says.

Police, who routinely patrol the area but are rarely able to make an arrest, privately say this problem will never be solved by crackdowns, that senior citizens need an outlet for stress and sexual desire, and that policy needs to change.

But law-enforcement isn't the only problem.

Inside those bags the Bacchus Ladies carry is the source of a hidden epidemic: a special injection supposed to help older men achieve erections - delivered directly into the vein. Dr Lee confirms that the needles aren't disposed of afterwards, but used again - 10 or 20 times.

The results, she says, can be seen in one local survey, which found that almost 40% of the men tested had a sexually transmitted disease¬ despite the fact that some of the most common diseases weren't included in the test. With most sex education classes aimed at teenagers, this has the makings of a real problem. Some local governments have now begun offering sex education clinics especially for seniors.

Hidden in a dingy warren of alleyways in central Seoul, is the place where these lonely journeys end - the narrow corridors of a "love motel" and one of the grey rooms which open off them.

Inside, a large bed takes up most of the space, its thin mattress and single pillow hardly inviting a long night's sleep. On the bed-head is a sticker: for room service press zero; for pornography press three; and if you want the electric blanket, you'll find the wire on the far side of the bed.

So here you have food, sex, and even a little warmth all at the touch of a button. If only it were that simple outside the motel room, in South Korea's rich, hi-tech society.

But for the grandparents who built its fearsome economy, food is expensive, sex is cheap, and human warmth rarely available at any price.

[MIKA27]

Human remains found inside monster Australian crocodile

Australian police are examining human remains found in a crocodile to see if they match the DNA of a missing man.

The 62-year-old man was snatched from his boat in the Kakadu National Park, in the Northern Territory.

The 4.7m-long (15.4ft) reptile was one of two shot by park rangers near the scene of the attack.

The man's wife, son and daughter-in-law were reported to have been with him on the South Alligator River when he disappeared on Saturday.

"The human remains have been taken for examination," Sgt Andrew Hocking said.

"There are a number of statements to be taken from witnesses and a file will be prepared for the coroner."

Experts said that it was unusual for a crocodile to attack during this time of year when Australia experiences cooler weather.

Police are urging visitors to be careful when visiting the Kakadu National Park

The shot crocodile, the same species as this one, was nearly 5m in length

Saltwater crocodiles can grow up 7m long and weigh more than a tonne.

Crocodile numbers have increased since being declared a protected species in 1971. They are a common feature of Australia's tropical north.

The Australian government rejected a controversial plan to allow crocodile safari hunting in the Northern Territory in March.

Australian police shot two crocodiles dead in January while on a search for a missing 12-year-old boy attacked by a crocodile in the Northern Territory.

Another man was killed by a crocodile in August last year, when he swam in a river in the north during a birthday party.

[MIKA27]

The menace under the sea

Sea battles were transformed in the 20th Century by the advent of two technological advances - the submarine and naval air power.

The dawn of the 20th Century saw a technological revolution in many ways like the one we are living through now.

Like today, it started with eccentrics experimenting with new ideas, and like today those ideas would transform the world. But unlike today's revolution, driven by computers, communication and consumer products, in the early 20th Century the technology which really caught the public imagination was naval. And within 50 years two breakthroughs - enabling men to travel both below the water and above it - completely transformed how war was fought.

Submarines came first. The US and French navies were the first to get submarines in large numbers. The Royal Navy came slightly late to the game - and only bought its first submarines to understand how they worked and how to defend against them. At best, the Navy hoped they might be able to save money by having submarines instead of expensive minefields and shore defences.

But it rapidly became clear that these were incredibly offensive weapons. As Admiral Lord West, a former head of the Royal Navy, says: "The way to sink a ship is to knock a hole in its bottom and suddenly here we had a way of achieving that."

The full potential of the submarine was not realised until World War One, according to George Malcolmson, archivist at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum. But he says Reginald Bacon, in charge of testing the new weapons, did report very quickly to the Admiralty that "the submarines changed the way that the surface fleet would operate".

This was key. Submarines, torpedoes and mines forced the Royal Navy to find new ways to fight at sea. Mounting a blockade just outside enemy ports was no longer safe, and fear of the torpedo had a major impact on important battles during WW1. At Jutland, for example, the greatest naval battle of the war, Admiral Jellicoe turned the Royal Navy's grand fleet away at a key moment because of the fear of torpedoes.

The Holland 1 was the first submarine commissioned by the Royal Navy

Submarines changed the rules of war, too. Until then, convention dictated that before sinking an unarmed vessel, a warship had first to warn and then evacuate a ship's crew. But submarines were too small to accommodate another crew, while surfacing would make them vulnerable to being shot at and sunk.

Instead, the German navy eventually moved to a policy of "unrestricted" submarine warfare - sinking merchant shipping on sight and without warning. Initially this was incredibly controversial. Submariners were viewed as pirates - and Royal Navy submarines still fly the "jolly roger" today as a way of nodding to that part of their tradition. But after WW1, when Britain tried to get submarines banned, there was little support. International opinion had adjusted to this new horror.

Technology to fight above the waves has had an equally disruptive effect on war at sea. The Royal Navy was quick to experiment with aircraft and during WW1 invented the world's first aircraft carriers.

But it was not until World War Two that naval air power came into its own. First the German air force, the Luftwaffe, revealed the destructive potential of aircraft on ships. Then the Japanese demonstrated the enormous potential of aircraft carriers for power projection.

The Battle of the Coral Sea, just north of Australia in May 1942, was the first time that a battle was fought at sea when the opposing surface ships never saw each other. Between 1941 and 1945 the war in the Pacific was all about naval air power.

The place of naval air power had been established - but there was one further development under the waves which would have an immense impact on how war was fought. The development of nuclear propulsion produced what Malcolmson calls the "first true submarines". It meant they could travel underwater for long periods without needing to recharge batteries, surface, and give away their position.

Rear-Admiral Mark Beverstock, chief of the Strategic Systems Executive, who is responsible for the Royal Navy's Trident submarines, says that "the advent of nuclear propulsion into the submarine was an absolute game changer for strategic deployability". The Royal Navy - and other navies around the world - soon used their nuclear-powered submarines to carry their strategic nuclear weapons, making them much less vulnerable to enemy attack. It made them, effectively, the capital ships of the Royal Navy - the ships around which the rest of the navy was built.

Today, the world's more powerful navies all have both submarines and aircraft carriers in them. For everyone else, submarines and aircraft continue to have an effect on the behaviour of the surface fleet, just as Reginald Bacon observed in 1903.

As we listen to the history of WW1 and WW2, it is worth remembering how completely war at sea has changed since then.

[MIKA27]

Miami rejects David Beckham's football stadium site

The US city of Miami has rejected former England football captain David Beckham's plan to build a football stadium on a city waterfront.

The city determined the proposed location next to a major basketball arena was "inappropriate".

Mr Beckham has travelled to the city frequently in recent months to launch a Major League Soccer (MLS) club.

His business group, Beckham Miami United, has said it will continue to pursue alternative locations.

The group is required to finalise a stadium deal before it can win approval from MLS, the US professional football league, to open a club.

An earlier proposal for a waterfront stadium site also experienced local resistance from cruise lines.

Scrutiny of the deal rose sharply after the city provided $500m (£298m) in public funding to build a new stadium for the Miami Marlins baseball team.

Public anger over that deal is said to have contributed to a 2011 vote ousting the former Miami-Dade County mayor from office.

Beckham Miami United has agreed to finance a $250m stadium - expected to seat an estimated 20,000 spectators - and pay rent on the publicly owned land.

His partners in the endeavour include British entrepreneur Simon Fuller and mobile phone services billionaire Marcelo Claure.

[MIKA27]

Man Mugged At Gunpoint Films Entire Robbery On GoPro

http://youtu.be/ECs8ZrmH8D8

It can be one of the most terrifying things to happen to you - being mugged at gunpoint. Literally having your life in balance in the hands of a total stranger.

That was the unfortunate scenario that this innocent cyclist found himself in whilst biking around Ongegund in South Africa. From out of nowhere armed gunman run into his line of vision before aggressively mug him.

Armed gunman took cellphone, car keys, oakleys and bike. Fortunately they did not have a clue what a GOPRO was and this is the evidence that will assist in their prosecution!

Thanks to their naivety about what a GoPro is, the identities of the criminals are now available for the whole world to see in rich HD resolution.

It's safe to say their days of highway robberies are numbered.

[MIKA27]

If the Las Vegas Killers Were Muslims, We'd Call Them Terrorists

If a 22-year-old Muslim man stabbed his roommates to death in their sleep, embarked on a killing spree, and claimed in written and video manifestos that he acted to teach hated women a lesson, there's little doubt that many would label him a terrorist. That label was scarcely appended to the Santa Barbara killer after his murders.

And if a Muslim couple stormed into a fast-food restaurant armed with a duffel bag full of military gear, shouted, "This is the beginning of the revolution!" and pinned a flag associated with their political movement to the dead bodies of the police officers they executed at point-blank range—then killed another innocent person and carried out a suicide pact rather than being taken alive—there is no doubt that many media outlets would refer to the premeditated attack as an act of terrorism. With a few exceptions, that's not how this week's news from Las Vegas played out.

When mass killers are native-born whites, their motivations are treated like a mystery to unraveled rather than a foregone conclusion. And that is as it ought to be. Hesitating to dub the Santa Barbara and Las Vegas murder sprees "terrorist attacks" is likely the right call. The label casts more heat than light on breaking-news events. Americans typically respond more soberly and rationally to mass killings than to "terrorist attacks." And while both sprees obviously targeted civilians, the varying degrees to which they sought to influence politics is unclear.

That said, the pervasive double-standard that prevails is nevertheless objectionable. As Glenn Greenwald once observed, "terrorism" is "simultaneously the single most meaningless and most manipulated word in the American political lexicon. The term now has virtually nothing to do with the act itself and everything to do with the identity of the actor, especially his or her religious identity."

Applying the "terrorism" label to violence perpetrated by Muslims, and almost exclusively to violence perpetrated by Muslims, distorts the relative danger posed by Islamist radicals versus other extremists. The lack of rigor in labels also contributes to the fact that innocent Muslims are subject to greater scrutiny and afforded fewer rights than non-Muslims because the latter group falls outside "counterterrorism," a rubric under which government claims extraconstitutional powers.

After the 2012 attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that is all but forgotten because it wasn't treated as a terrorist attack, I argued that the reluctance to label acts perpetrated by non-immigrant whites as terrorism is partly due to an awareness of what might happen next. When counterterrorism is invoked, many Americans give their assent to indefinite detention; the criminalization of gifts to certain charities; the secret, extrajudicial assassination of American citizens; and a sprawling, opaque homeland-security bureaucracy. Many have also advocated policies like torture or racial profiling that are not presently part of official anti-terror policy.

White terrorists call the de-facto exemption of whites from these tactics into question. Had the Las Vegas killer pinned a flag with Islamic associations to the body of the dead police officers, the American right wouldn't hesitate to support aggressive FBI investigations of other Americans who've posted the same flag to Facebook or Instagram.

Instead, the killers adorned their victims with the Gadsden flag. Tea Partiers insist that should not implicate their movement or its typical adherents. They're absolutely right. Tea Partiers should not now be subject to intrusive surveillance, for example. The American majority's unwillingness to extend the same logic and courtesy to Muslim Americans helps to explain policies like the NYPD's decision to embed undercover agents among Muslims for no reason other than their religion.

Civil-liberties abrogations often affect disfavored groups exclusively or most intensely in the beginning, but are later turned on Americans generally. I expect that will be the case with counterterrorism unless the country gets off of war footing soon. "After these killings in Nevada, and the murders at a Jewish community center in Kansas, and the murders at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and multiple murders by members of the 'sovereign citizens' movement in the last few years, it’s worth remembering that since 9/11, right-wing terrorism has killed many more Americans than al Qaeda terrorism," Paul Waldman writes in the Washington Post.

The Department of Justice has recently declared its intention to focus on homegrown terrorists. What would happen in the aftermath of another Oklahoma City?

The threat of right-wing terrorism shouldn't be denied any more than the threat of Islamist terrorism. These are real phenomenon. But as Brian Beutler points out, neither sort of terrorism has killed very many people in the United States since 9/11. "Among causes of death in the U.S., right-wing violence must rank near the bottom," he writes, even though it has killed more people than Islamic terrorism in that period.

Going forward, things could go either way. The panicked, civil-liberties-abrogating way that America reacts to Islamic terrorism could be applied to non-Muslims; or the relatively sane way we respond to white mass killers (and the innocents who share their ethnicity) could inform our approach to Islamist terrorism and the multitude of innocent Muslims who don't deserve to suffer because of it.

[MIKA27]

MOUNT FUJI BEER GLASS

Odds are you’re never going to climb Mount Fuji. Hey, we’re not doubting your leg strength, willpower, or desire to travel here, we’re just being practical. But there’s one version of Japan’s tallest mountain that is quite conquerable: the Mount Fuji Beer Glass.

Designed by Keita Suzuki of Sugahara Glassworks, this handmade beauty Mount Fuji Beer Glass will gladly hold 9.5 ounces of Kirin, Sapporo, or Suntory, or if World Cup fever has ignited your patriotism, sure, throw a Sam Adams in there. It comes in a distinctive paulownia wooden box, similar to that of a traditional Japanese tea cup, and it can be your for a little over a C note. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

AIRTYPE KEYLESS KEYBOARD

Gesture controlled devices have been a hot commodity on the tech scene, and it looks like they are only going to get hotter. We’ve been typing the same way for nearly 150 years, and AirType is looking to change that for good.

AirType is an amazing keyless keyboard that lets you type on any surface. Simply slide each of the bands over your palms, and begin to type away. The device will pick up on all your finger movements, and will even pick up on your bad habits to help correct them without you ever getting involved. Text prediction technology ensures that you’ll never have to hit the backspace again. Crowned the “keyless keyboard of the future,” AirType is currently in the production phase, and we are hoping to see this thing hit the retail scene by the end of the year.

[MIKA27]

DINNER IN THE SKY

Just when you thought you had seen in it all in the world of bizarre dining experiences, Dinner In The Sky emerges.

If you’re really looking for a dinner spot with good food, and an even better view, look no further. Connected by a set of cables, this steel structure is suspended by a crane 150 feet above the ground. Each Dinner In The Sky experience can accommodate 22 guests along with the chef, and even waiters to ensure you never have to leave your seat – not that you’d want to. Every guest is strapped down with a seat belt for safety, and while their base package rents out for 8 hours, they are certainly open to accommodating your specific needs. The best part is that you can really set up anywhere in the world – so long as you have a crane handy.

[MIKA27]

America’s Original Air Pirate: What Happened to D.B. Cooper?

Have you ever heard of D.B. Cooper? How about Dan Cooper? Have you heard of the successful hijacking of Northwest Orient Airlines flight 305 on November 24, 1971? An event deemed, even by the FBI, to have been the most spectacular aircraft hijacking in aviation history.

Well, if you’ve not heard of any of the above, what follows may be something of an adventure; the story of Dan Cooper, whoever he was, is quite the tale.

In the world history of missing persons, a list that grows almost daily, there are some pretty famous names; Jimmy Hoffa, Amelia Earhart, Harold Holt, just to name a tiny fraction. And with the efforts of skilled investigators like David Paulides, the collective weirdness of some of these disappearances is reaching critical mass.

Dan Cooper isn’t really among those celebrated missing persons cases though, even though he hasn’t been seen since that fateful day in the fall of 1971. He is missing, officially, but no one knows who he actually was, so his status as a missing person isn’t exactly legitimate.

For you see, Cooper jumped from a Boeing 727 somewhere over the Pacific Northwest with a parachute and a backpack containing $200,000; money he had very recently obtained. And he was never seen or heard from again.

An original FBI sketch of “Dan Cooper”

Here’s the story from the beginning.

Mid-afternoon on the eve of Thanksgiving, a man, using the alias Dan Cooper, purchased a one-way ticket on Northwest Orient Airlines flight 305 – a 30 minute flight from Portland, OR to Seattle, WA. He paid cash ($20). Upon boarding the plane, carrying a black attaché, he took his assigned seat (either 18C, 18E, or 15D), lit a cigarette and ordered a bourbon and soda. Shortly after takeoff, approximately 2:05pm, Cooper passed a hand-written note to flight attendant Florence Schaffner. The note read:

“I have a bomb in my briefcase. I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me. You are being hijacked.”

He then opened his attaché, showing Schaffner the bomb – which to her appeared to be eight red cylinders with red wires attached – and then demanded $200,000 in “negotiable American currency”, four civilian style parachutes (as opposed to military style) and a fuel truck waiting on the tarmac in Seattle.

And thus began the legend of D.B. Cooper.

Dan Cooper, or the man known by that name, was described by witnesses as in his mid-forties, five feet ten inches to six feet tall. He wore a black, light weight rain coat, a dark suit with a nicely pressed shirt, a black tie with a mother-of-pearl tie clip, and loafers.

It should be noted that Cooper didn’t detonate his bomb, which by most accounts is believed to have been a spoof device consisting of road flares and copper wires. In fact, he didn’t hurt anyone, except perhaps, himself.

Northwest Orient – Boeing 727-100

As would be expected, upon receiving the note, Schaffner alerted the cockpit, who in turn alerted flight control and the inevitable wheels of justice began to turn. After the president of Northwest Orient authorised payment of the ransom, the FBI immediately began gathering the funds and parachutes, and the Seattle airport made preparations for refueling the Boeing 727-100 aircraft.

The flight, which normally takes just over half an hour, remained in the air for more than two hours, circling Puget Sound so as to give authorities the time needed to mobilise and prepare for landing.

Once on the ground, at 5:39pm, Cooper’s demands were met with the delivery of a backpack containing the money and four parachutes. He then promptly released all of the hostages, including Schaffner and another flight attendant. Now only Cooper, the flight crew, and a single flight attendant – Tina Mucklow – remained on board.

During refuelling, Cooper informed the flight crew of his planned flight path, which was to take a southeast course directly to Mexico City, at the slowest possible airspeed without stalling the craft (approximately 100kph – 120 mph) and no higher than 10,000 feet.

He instructed them to leave the landing gear deployed, the cabin unpressurised, and the wing flaps lowered to 15 degrees. He also wanted the rear door open and staircase deployed (called an airstair, this is unique to this particular aircraft model), but the captain refused on the grounds that it was too dangerous to fly with the staircase down. Cooper disagreed but decided to allow it to remain retracted, as he apparently knew that he could manually deploy it from the passenger cabin at any time.

Once back in the air, at 7:40pm, Cooper asked that Mucklow join the flight crew in the cockpit and close the door behind her. As she did so, she observed Cooper tying something around his waist.

Some of the found ransom money and Cooper’s tie

At 8:00pm a warning light in the instrument panel indicated that the rear doors had been opened and the airstair apparatus activated. At 8:17pm the airplane’s aft section sustained a sudden upward movement, significant enough that the pilot had to trim their flight characteristics to compensate.

The plane then landed in Reno, NV at 10:15pm, where FBI and other authorities stormed and searched the plane, finding only the flight crew and flight attendant. Cooper had apparently jumped mid-flight, somewhere over southwestern Washington, perhaps in the region of Mt. St. Helens.

Even though the flight had been shadowed by at least three military aircraft since it left Seattle, the F-102 fighter pilots didn’t report seeing anyone or anything leave the plane, nor did they see a parachute deployment.

Everyone involved, remarked that Cooper had remained surprisingly calm and well-mannered throughout the entire hijacking. He was polite and well spoken, and seemed to be familiar with his surroundings and the terrain below him.

The official story, which is now one of the FBI’s most hotly debated cold cases, is that Cooper, whoever he was, died as a result of his jump from the plane. Investigators doubt that he had enough experience in skydiving to have survived the jump, and some say even if he did have such experience, the conditions at the time – high wind, sub-zero temperatures, heavy rain – would have made such a jump impossible. The problem is, his body has never been recovered.

That may not be all that surprising, considering the difficulty investigators had in determining a search area. The variables involved, such as the exact time of his jump, wind speeds, the length of time before he deployed the parachute (if he actually did), all contributed to a massive area of focus, which changed more than once.

The usual avenues of investigation yielded no positive results, and in fact the first suspect questioned, one D.B. Cooper, who had a minor criminal record, but whom had an alibi for the time in question, resulted in a media blunder that ultimately caused everyone to think that the hijacker had called himself D.B. Cooper instead of Dan Cooper, as is the truth.

In the spring of 1980, a young boy camping with his family, uncovered three packets of cash, wrapped in elastic bands, buried in the riverbank of the Columbia River. FBI confirmed that the money was indeed part of Cooper’s ransom payment (tracked through serial numbers), but none of the rest of the $200 grand was ever recirculated into the marketplace anywhere in the US. There is a good deal of conjecture about the found money, suggesting that the conditions under which it was buried are suspicious, as well as the location in which it was found. This is highlighted in the so-called “Palmer Report”, which suggested that the money could not have been buried at that location for the intervening nine years.

Several people over the years have both been considered as suspects, and have deliberately come forward claiming to be Dan Cooper. None, however, turned out to be Cooper himself. DNA and fingerprint evidence gathered from the airplane, and from his tie and tie clip (which were left on the plane) offered no insights into his possible identity, though investigators have admitted that there’s really no way to know whether the samples they have came from the suspect or not.

There’s a lot about this case that defies explanation. Who was Dan Cooper? What was his background? Was he ex-military? Was he an experienced skydiver? It seems obvious that he had working knowledge of the aircraft, flight procedures and skydiving. It also seems obvious that he was trained to maintain composure in stressful situations. Both of those observations seem to support the idea that he was, at some point, in the military. Though that wasn’t uncommon in that era.

Some features of the case make little sense though, such as the fact that Cooper chose a dummy parachute (it was sewn shut) as his back-up (it had been included accidentally amidst confusion during the initial mobilisation). Some skydiving experts claim that if he really did have experience as a paratrooper (a common assertion), then he likely would have chosen military style parachutes over the civilian ones he demanded, even though military style parachutes of the time can’t be steered like civilian.

Maybe he fell to his death, maybe he landed safely and got eaten by a sasquatch, or maybe he did it all just to prove it could be done, and after landing, he buried the money and lived happily ever after.

Cooper was never identified or found, which suggests he got away with it, but none of the ransom money was ever spent in the United States (or so the FBI says), so maybe he didn’t. One thing’s for sure, the impact of his successful hijacking for ransom has been long reaching. It’s because of Dan Cooper that you can’t step on board an airplane in North America without first undergoing a full body-cavity search. The Cooper hijacking was the trigger event causing airlines across the country to begin searching everyone before boarding, and ultimately lead to the TSA.

[MIKA27]

XVENTURE OFF-ROAD TRAILER

The Xventure XV-2 trailer from Schutt Industries is a rugged, off-road trailer that lets you sleep in the attic, while hauling your gear below. The versatile Xventure trailer features an adjustable upper deck for sleeping and a lower cargo bed for hauling tools and toys. It can also be customized with all the stuff you need to survive and thrive in the backwoods.

[MIKA27]

LA COLOMBE DIFFERENT DRUM RUM

Do you take your coffee with a little sugar? Or maybe your rum with a little coffee infusion? Either way, Different Drum Rum is breaking the mold. It certainly isn't anything like most liqueurs with coffee, that are so sticky sweet they taste candy. Instead, Different Drum uses a pressurized gas that disrupts the coffee-bean cells, releasing the intended flavors of the beans rather than a sugar overload. It's a smooth sipping rum unlike any you've tried before.

[MIKA27]

Unlock The Past: How A 19th Century Lock Pick Changed Security Forever

In April 1851, Alfred C. Hobbs boarded the steamship Washington bound for Southampton, England. His official duty was to sell the New York City-based company Day and Newell’s newest product — the parautopic lock — at a trade show — London’s Great Exhibition. But Hobbs had something a bit more nefarious up his sleeve, or rather in the small trunk that accompanied him on the ship.

In it sat a large assortment of picks, wrenches, rakes, and other slender tools. You see, Hobbs wasn’t just trying to sell his locks. He was trying to prove that his competitors’ locks were, quite simply, not good enough. He had the tools, skills, and charisma to do just that. Alfred Hobbs was about to launch the Great Lock Controversy of 1851.

Of all the locks at the Great Exhibition in July of 1851, the “Detector” was thought of as top of the class. Patented in 1818 by Jeremiah Chubb, it had become the most widely used and prestigious lock throughout England. In fact, in 1823 Chubb was given the distinguished honour of being the sole supplier of locks for England’s post offices and “Her Majesty’s Prison Service.”

By 1851, Chubb & Son and their “Detector” lock was so highly respected that they were given the assignment of creating a special security display cage that housed the great Koh-i-Noor diamond, a 186 carat diamond that currently sits in the Crown of Queen Elizabeth which is locked in the Tower of London.

Numerous pickocks in London had made attempts at getting past the Detector with no success. In one instance, a picklock who had been imprisoned was offered his freedom if he could figure out a way to pick the Detector lock. He couldn’t do it.

What made the Detector so difficult was that the lock had a built in anti-lock picking mechanism which, if triggered, would render the lock inoperable, even if you had the key. This trap worked such that if you lifted one of the pins beyond what the key would have done, it triggered the lockdown mechanism. By this, you could also tell if someone had tried to pick the lock, if your key suddenly stopped working. To get the lock to work again, a special regulating key was needed, which would reset the lock such that it could be opened once again with the normal key.

The “Detector” was thought to be in a lock class all to itself. That is, until Hobbs got to it.

According to a report filed by Benji Johnson, “an agent of the state of New York appointed to attend” the Great Exhibition, Hobbs wasted very little time in proving that Chubb’s locks were not impenetrable. As the report read, “Soon after the exhibition opened, Mr. A.C. Hobbs, of New York, who had charge of Day and Newell’s locks, obtained one of Chubb’s locks and opened it in a space of 10 or 15 minutes, in the presence of several gentlemen.”

As one would imagine, this did not sit well with many an Englishmen who were using the Detector to lock away their homes and valuables; most of all, it did not sit well with Chubb & Son. They challenged Hobbs to try something a tad more difficult, a Chubb’s lock attached to an iron door of a vault in Westminster that was a “depository of valuable papers.” Hobbs sent out an invitation for them to come watch him pick, “Gentlemen- An attempt will made to open a lock of your manufactured on the door of a strong room… You are respectfully invited to be present and witness the operation.”

At approximately 11:35 am, in front of the iron door in Westminster, Hobbs met his sceptical onlookers. He took out from his “waistcoat two or three small and simple-looking tools — a description of which, for obvious reasons, we fear to give” and went to work. Within twenty five minutes, he had the lock open with a “sharp click.” He had once again successfully picked a supposedly impenetrable Chubb lock.

Witnesses, hardly believing their eyes, asked him to do it again. So, he relocked the lock and picked it again. This time in seven minutes and “without the slightest injury to the lock or door.” England’s illusion of the security of their possessions had been shattered.

After making his presence quite known at London’s Great Exhibition, Hobbs continued his lock picking tour in England. For instance, later that summer, he picked the “monster” Bramah Precision lock, which had never been picked since it was manufactured in 1790. This scared the Bank of England enough that they had all of their locks swapped out for Day & Newell’s.

Dubbed by the newspaper “The Great Lock Controversy,” the London Times wrote, “We believed before the Exhibition opened that we had the best locks in the world,” but no longer after Hobbs’ demonstrations. Sceptics doubted Hobbs’ ability, asking if the locks were picked properly, if he had cheated, or even, if they hadn’t seen it themselves, that it was all an urban myth. Even major publications, while admitting that Hobbs did do what was asked, doubted his skills. Said Bankers’ Magazine, “the result of the experiment has simply shown that, under a combination of the most favourable circumstances, and such as practically could never exist, Mr. Hobbs has opened the lock.”

So how did Hobbs acquire his prodigious lock picking skills? Hobbs father died when Hobbs was just three years old, so as soon as he could work, he did so to help support his family. Thus, at the age of ten, he began his professional career as a farmhand. He eventually moved to wood carving, carriage building, tinsmithing, and harness making. Around 1835, he earned an apprenticeship with the Sandwich Glass Company (now a museum sixty miles outside of Boston) where he learned to make doorknobs and the locks that went with them; he soon also became very talented at picking those locks. He took those skills to Day & Newell and quickly became a very good salesman. After all, what’s a better way to sell locks than to easily pick your competitors’ locks in front of your potential customers?

Before showcasing this talents to Britain in 1851, Hobbs picked his way across America. He hopped from town to town calling on banks to challenge him to open their safes, all in the name of selling Day & Newell locks, of course, and sometimes for prize money.

For instance, according to a story recounted in A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut written in 1888, while on a job in Lancaster, PA replacing locks at a bank in 1848, a cashier showed him a newspaper ad placed by a “Mr. Woodbridge, of Perth Amboy” offering $US500 (about $US11,000 today) to the person who could open the lock on the safe in the New York’s Merchant Exchange reading room (now the National City Bank Building at 55 Wall Street) within thirty days. Hobbs proclaimed to the clerk, “That is my money” and left for New York right after finishing the job in Lancaster.

Hobbs met his challenger in New York and after parameters were set: three arbitrators were to oversee; he must use instruments of his own; and if he was not able to open the lock, Hobbs would have to sign a certificate declaring the lock perfectly safe and recommend it to the public.

Woodbridge’s lock was extremely cleverly designed. Besides having 479,001,600 possible arrangements of the pins, it was “rigged” such that if the bolt was pulled before the tumblers were perfectly set, anything in the lock would be seized and you’d be unable to remove it, thus making the lock impossible to pick at this point with tool(s) stuck inside it. So the picklock couldn’t try to open the lock until he or she knew the tumblers were set just so.

After everyone went home for the day, Hobbs was given access to the safe and began work on the lock at nine pm. In just two and a half hours, he had figured out the correct setting for the pins, and laced a thin metal wire into the lock to pull the bolt. Of course, he needed the arbitrators to witness what he’d done to get credit, so he waited until the following morning when they could be called upon.

At ten am the next morning. Mr. Woodbridge, who Hobbs had requested attend him along with the arbitrators, found Hobbs standing in front of the safe with a crowd surrounding him. Again from A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut:

Mr. Woodbridge came and there being quite a crowd around, he called from a distance: “Hallo, Mr.Hobbs, what is the trouble?”

“There is something the matter with the lock,” said Mr. Hobbs.

“What is it?” said Mr. Woodbridge.

Mr. Hobbs then carefully moving the wire, pulled the door of the safe open and said, “Your lock won’t keep the door shut.”

Bonus Facts:

• Carrying around an extensive set of lock picks during his trip to England wasn’t exactly a recipe for smooth relations with the bobbies who didn’t know who he was. As such, along with his box of lock picking tools, Hobbs also carried with him a letter from the Chief of Police of New York City, George Matsell, vouching for Hobbs’ character.
• 1851 was a rather vulnerable time for English citizens. It was the first time that England’s urban population outnumbered the rural population, meaning more people gathered in small spaces which made security more of an issue. Additionally, the Great Exhibition had brought citizens from across the world, foreigners, to London and to the untrusting eyes of its citizens. Plus, a rising middle class valued their possessions and property immensely and wanted to guard it. All of this rendered Alfred Hobbs and his lock picking skills both a point of fear and admiration.
• Chubb’s locks, despite its humiliation, continued as Britain’s industry standard. In fact, Chubb still operates today making safes that are “trusted the world over.” Alfred Hobbs stayed in London for nine years and began his own lock manufacturing company, Hobbs Hart Company. He eventually returned to the US in 1860, but the company stayed in London, on 76 Cheapside Ave., bearing its famous name. It remained there for another ninety plus years, until 1954, when it was bought, by the Chubbs Company.
• Hobbs, upon returning to the United States, didn’t go back into locks. He worked at the Howe Sewing Machine Company, helping Elise Howe engineer and design the lock-stitch sewing machine. Eventually, he joined the Remington Arms Company at the request of the company’s founder Marcellus Hartley, who was looking for a “mechanical genius.” Hobbs proved to be just that, filing a dozen patents for the company in firearm ammunition manufacturing.

[MIKA27]

Watching The World's Last Ocean-Swimming Elephant Is A Real Delight

This video features the remarkable 65-year-old Rajan, the world’s last ocean-swimming elephant, who lives on a beautiful archipelago in the Bay of Bengal. Rajan, who weighs around 3.6 tonnes, once worked hard carrying lumber between islands, but he is now retired — although he still takes the occasional swim for fun.

It takes 10 years to train an elephant to swim, and it is no longer considered economically viable with the availability of modern transportation. However, elephants are still valued workers and this was reflected in the $US40,000 price that Rajan’s keepers paid for him.

They repaid this money through a variety of means, including hiring him out on photo shoots to photographers.

[MIKA27]

The Devastating Effects Of A Supervolcano Eruption

Way back in 1816, Europe and North America suffered heavy rains, odd-coloured snow, famines, fogs and bitter cold during the summer. It wasn’t the apocalypse though — it was the result of a supervolcano eruption.

In fact, the effects of Mount Tambora in Indonesia were felt over 1600km away and endured for at least a year after it erupted. This video explains the very real and colossal consequences of a supervolcano — both near and far.