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

[MIKA27]

The Darth Vader Samurai Figure We All Deserve

Star Wars is famously inspired by Japanese samurai films. So it makes sense for Bandai to release this wonderful Samurai-style Darth Vader.

Dubbed, “Movie Realisation Samurai General Darth Vader,” the figurine was recently displayed at the Tokyo Toy Show. Designed by Takayuki Takeya, the 7.8-inch figure is slated for a winter 2014 release in Japan. Price is TBA, reports IT Media.

Did you know that George Lucas apparently offered the Darth Vader role to Toshiro Mifune? According to Mifune’s daughter, the Star Wars creator did.

For more on the development of Darth Vader, check out The Secret History of Star Wars.

[MIKA27]

Genetically-Modified Australian Bananas Are Ready For Human Testing

It’s been nearly a decade in development, but a genetically modified breed of bananas that’s designed to combat starvation will soon enter human testing. The bananas are rich in beta-carotene which turns into vitamin A in the body. For the children in Africa suffering from vitamin A deficiencies, this is a godsend. Also these banana are orange.

The specific research is happening at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia thanks, in part, to nearly $US10 million in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The idea, however, is to pass off the seeds for these super bananas to farmers in Uganda, where there’s a huge food shortage and 70 per cent of the population survives on the fruit. Vitamin A deficiencies are not only killing children but also causing them to go blind, so the research moving forward is a very good thing.

These are no ordinary bananas. They’re grown in far north Queensland to boost the beta-carotene levels. The flesh of the super bananas is also orange which provides a visual clue to their genetically-modified otherness. It’s also sort of awesome.

This breakthrough is not entirely thanks to the possibilities of frankenfruit. A good old fashioned crossbreed of native banana with orange flesh in Micronesia called the “karat” has been used to improve eye sight in children for centuries. By the early 2000s, scientists in Queensland were exploring ways to cultivate the karat and, for whatever reason, decided to go the route of genetic modification.

Trials of the super bananas will take place in the United States and are expected to last through the end of the year. If all goes well — and the scientists are confident it will — Ugandan farmers will be growing the new bananas by 2020. “We know our science will work,” says James Dale, who’s led the research for years. And creepy as genetically modified foods may be, there’s nothing quite like science that works.

[MIKA27]

These Wireless Earbuds Charge While They're in Your Pocket

These are perhaps the headphones of the future: earbuds which use Bluetooth to beam audio to your ears, with small rechargeable batteries to eliminate cables, in perhaps the smallest package of its type we’ve seen.

Called “Earin“, they’re designed by a group of ex-Sony Ericsson and Nokia engineers and are currently being funded on Kickstarter. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they’ve already secured over half of their $US300,000 target. The batteries last a claimed three hours — so, not amazing -— but they come with with a solid carry case with integrated battery, which allows you to charge them while you safely store them in your pocket.

All in, it seems a fairly practical version of a piece of technology that should really be worn George Jetson. A $US170 contribution will secure you a pair sometime in January 2015 if the drive is successful, which it really, really should be.

[MIKA27]

Is This Dracula's Real Tomb?

According to “historians” cited by The Daily Mail (LOL!), you’re looking at the tomb of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, aka Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula. Yes. The Dracula. The tomb is located in Santa Maria la Nova, in Naples, Italy. And they want to open it. It seems like the plot for a horror movie but, is it real?

Would they really find Dracula resting inside this beautifully sculpted grave?

The Estonian scholars cited by the Daily Mail claim that “new evidence” shows that Dracula didn’t die in a battle sometime between October 31 and December 31, 1476, as it was previously assumed. Most historians believe that Dracula was then killed on a road between Bucharest and Giurgiu, Romania, during an offensive to reconquer Wallachia from its pro-Ottoman Turk ruler Basarab Laiota. Most Romanian historians believe that Laiota beheaded Dracula, buried the body without ceremony, and sent the head as a trophy to Constantinople.

Later theories speculated that the body of the cruel Impaler that was the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s vampire novel, was buried near Bucharest, in the island monastery of Snagov, but most scholars think the body is in Comana — a monastery built by Vlad III himself that was demolished about one century later after his death.

The Italian connection theory

But now these researchers cited by the Mail claim this wasn’t the case. They believe that Dracula was made prisoner. His daughter Maria — who they say was sent to Naples before all this happened and married to a Neapolitan noble — paid the ransom and Dracula lived his last days in Italy (eating Italian virgins’ blood, no doubt.) When he died, they assert, he was buried in this church, which later became the resting place of his daughter and son-in-law.

Self-appointed medieval history scholar Raffaello Glinni believes that the Estonian researchers may be onto something. He claims that the tomb clearly shows the symbols of the House of Drăculești and not those of an Italian nobleman, which is what you would expect here:

When you look at the bas-relief sculptures, the symbolism is obvious. The dragon means Dracula and the two opposing sphinxes represent the city of Thebes, also known as Tepes. In these symbols, the very name of the count Dracula Tepes is written.

For those not into history, Romanian, or vampire lore, Dracula means son of Dracul. Vlad III’s father was Vlad II Dracul. Dracul means Dragon, a name his father had attached to his own because he was a member of the Order of the Dragon – ” a monarchical chivalric order for selected nobility, founded in 1408 by Sigismund, King of Hungary and later Holy Roman Emperor. It was fashioned after the military orders of the Crusades, requiring its initiates to defend the cross and fight the enemies of Christianity, in particular the Ottoman Turks.”

So, is it really his grave?

The idea of discovering the tomb of Vlad III in a church in Naples, Italy, is awesome — like the beginning of a movie starring Indiana Jones and Van Helsing. It’s also as believable as Spielberg and Stoker’s characters, as The BS Historian tells us in this post:

A dragon was certainly the main element in the badge of the Order of the Dragon to which Vlad III’s father belonged. We don’t actually know what Vlad III’s personal coat of arms was, but he may have used the same emblem. But this was a dragon curled around on itself with its own tail wrapped around its neck. The badge varied, but none of the extant Order dragon depictions resemble this Italian carving. The Thebes/Tepes connection seems to be entirely spurious; I can find nothing on it. The sphinxes are simply artistic convention in European art. Thebes itself is a Greek placename, Tepes a Turkish word for ‘impaler’. Where’s the connection? And why would anyone bother to ‘encode’ a vague reference to a member of the Dracul family. Either they wanted people to know he was buried there, in which case make it clear, or they wanted him forgotten, in which case don’t slap a dragon on his tomb. For that matter, it would be pretty tricky to build a huge monumental tomb, complete with effigy, for someone you’re keeping anonymous. But if Vlad’s daughter was amongst friends in Naples, with the Dragon Order connection, why would they use a generic dragon and not their proper symbol? Is the tomb even anonymous? I find it hard to believe that a splendid monumental tomb like that isn’t recorded as being that of a known Italian noble.

He also talks about Glinni, the “medieval scholar:”

Billed as a ‘medieval history scholar’ in the new article, Glinni is actually a lawyer by profession. His name took me to his site, which is sparse but getting there in terms of BS History Bingo. Knights Templar? Check. Freemasonry? Check. Da Vinci? You bet. Gibberings about non-specific magical vortices? Not looking too good. In fact it’s looking like the use of ‘secret history’ to support speculative archaeology. There is an historical document from 1531 indirectly referenced here, which is apparently cited in a 1958 book by D’Elia and Gelao. There’s even a page reference of p.289/290. The only D’Elia/Gelao book I can find is this from 1999, where Maria Balsa is indeed referenced. There’s no doubt that an historical figure of that name existed (wife of Giacomo Alfonso Ferrillo, Count of Muro and Acerenza), and she was apparently Slavic. But if this 1531 chronicle that supports not just this claim but the new tomb suggestion exists, I can find no reference to it. If any Italian speakers can unearth it, please comment below.

It all makes sense, but it is a bummer, really. I wanted it all to be true. I mean, to open Dracula’s freaking tomb!

I rest my case.

I bet he would rise again and impale all the creators and actors of Twilight – plus all the writers and editors of The Daily Mail.

[MIKA27]

Game of Thrones Shows Us How They Do Father’s Day in Westeros

The season finale of Game of Thrones aired on Father’s Day, and you know what happens in Westeros on Father’s Day! The same thing that happens every other day: Someone dies. This time, however, several of them happen to be fathers (or at least surrogate fathers).

Cersei celebrates Father’s Day by giving Tywin the greatest gift of all: the knowledge that his children are having sex with each other. Tyrion goes one very large step further and actually murders his father–along with Shae–for betraying him, while Arya betrays the Hound–the closest thing she’s had to a father since Ned died–by refusing to kill him. Daenerys might be the mother of dragons rather than the father, but she’s still got parental problems, and betrays her own “children,” locking her dragons away in order to spare the children of others.

The Stark girls are the most triumphant note of this season, two perpetual pawns who finally emerge from the shadow of their father’s death and start to live on their own terms. At one point Stannis asks Jon, what would Ned do? I don’t know if Arya and Sansa still ask themselves that question, because their choices look very different indeed from the choices their father would have made. And thank goodness for that: acting like Ned Stark has a way of putting people in graves. In the long run, not being their father might just be the only thing that keeps them alive.

The Night’s Watch

Jon walks north, past the smoking, crow-pecked corpses of Wildlings, and surrenders to the Free Folk, asking to negotiate with Mance Rayder. In reality, he’s there to kill Mance, which means he’ll die too. But that’s all right with Jon–that’s what Starks do, after all. Back in his tent, Mance–aka Jon’s surrogate Wildling dad–doesn’t seem mad that Jon betrayed them, just disappointed. He also asks a lot of questions about Ygritte, much as Tormund does later. In general, these warrior folk seem inordinately interested in the exact nature of Jon Snow’s emotional relationship with her, almost like it is an important plot point or something. They drink a “proper Northern drink” and toast to the deaths of Mag the Mighty, a giant king from a noble bloodline, and Grenn, a poor kid from a farm. They went into the tunnel as men in very different circumstances, but ended up in the same one. Death, as we see often this episode, is the great equalizer.

Jon tries to convince Mance to turn his armies around, but Mance knows that the Night’s Watch doesn’t have the strength to stand against the rest of his army. Winter–and possibly an army of undead–is coming, and Mance plans to have his people on the south side of the Wall when it does, one way or another. If Castle Black is willing to open the gates and let his armies through, he says he’ll spare the rest of the Night’s Watch. Despite the bargain, Jon briefly considers another deal: sacrificing his own life to kill Mance on the spot. But before he can decide, out of nowhere two massive battalions converge on the woods from both sides, and these well-trained, sword-wielding men on horseback quickly tear the Free Folk apart. Mance eventually tells his people to stand down, and who rides up to accept his surrender but Stannis Baratheon, looking more powerful as he ever has. Stannis tells him to kneel as is customary, but Mance refuses–not kneeling is their entire deal, to the point where they’ve turned “kneelers” into an insult.

Jon announces that he’s Ned Stark’s son, a name that still carries weight with Stannis since Ned lost his head trying to put Stannis on the throne. Stannis asks what Ned Stark would do in this situation (WWND) and Jon makes two suggestions: spare Mance Rayder, and burn all the dead before nightfall. Stannis listens on both counts, and after some solemn words by Maester Aemon, Jon burns the pile of bodies back at Castle Black while the Red Lady stares at him creepily through the fire. Well, not all the bodies: He takes Ygritte out separately, and burns her north of the Wall.

In the books: Alliser and Slynt arrive after the Night’s Watch battle with Mance and imprison Jon, claiming he’s a traitor for joining the Wildlings. When Aemon won’t let them kill Jon, they send him to kill Mance, assuming the Free Folk will do the job for them. In the terms he gave to Jon, Mance also claimed to have the Horn of Winter, which he threatened to use to bring down the Wall if they would not open their gates. Also, Jon and Stannis don’t meet immediately after the battle, but later at Castle Black.

King’s Landing

Gravely wounded in his fight with the Viper, the Mountain isn’t dead yet. But thanks to the Manticore venom that laced Oberyn’s weapon, it looks like he’s about to be. Although Grand Maester Pycelle claims there’s nothing to be done, Qyburn–the defrocked maester who treated Jaime’s stump–begs to differ. He gathers together some scary needles while Pycelle calls his work “dangerous and unnatural,” but Cersei wants her monster back, so she greenlights whatever Frankenstein grotesquery that is sure to follow. Qyburn says his process may omniously “change” Clegane, but Cersei says she doesn’t care.

And because today is the day that Cersei goes twirling through a field like Julie Andrews, not caring about ever so many things, she finds Tywin and promptly declares that she’s not going to marry Ser Loras. Tywin says that the marriage is essential to the future of the family she claims to love and serve, but Cersei has a cogent counterpoint: “I don’t care.” Twirl twirl twirl. She’s already won her game against Tyrion, after all, so the dutiful daughter act drops like a curtain on a play. She says she’s willing to burn her house to the ground before she marries again or lets Margaery dig her claws into Tommen. When Tywin threatens to have her dragged to the sept, she finally selects the nuclear option: the truth. She straight up admits to the incest and sits there grinning as Tywin quietly sputters and denies it. After leaving him with the unpleasant mental image of his children having sex, she heads off to make it more than just mental.

REALLY, THEY’RE NEVER MORE ALIKE THAN WHEN THEY’RE PROMISING TO LET THE WORLD BURN SO THEY CAN SCREW ON TOP OF THE ASHES.

Jaime is sitting around reading his own page in the White Book, which is kind of the medieval equivalent of Googling yourself, when Cersei comes in. He’s still pretty pissed at her for getting their brother sentenced to death, but all that melts away when she says that she confessed everything to Tywin, refused to marry Loras, and chooses him forever and ever. She’s staying in Kings Landing so they can finally have the semi-open incestuous relationship they’ve always wanted, and if people whisper, let them–”they’re all so small I can’t even see them.” She sounds ever so much like Jaime in the first season, when he promised to “kill everyone until you and I are the only people left in the world.” Really, they’re never more alike than when they’re promising to let the world burn so they can screw on top of the ashes. Their love has always been fundamentally narcissistic and masochistic, always about hating themselves and loving themselves and screwing themselves. Finally, Cersei kisses his gold hand–the one she recoiled from in the sept the last time he tried to touch her–and it’s on.

In the books: After their sexual encounter in the sept by Joffrey’s body–which again, was not a rape scene–the estrangement between Cersei and Jaime pretty much stuck. They stop having sex after that, and in the books it’s Jaime who tells Cersei to reveal the truth to Tywin, and Cersei who pulls away, calling it “madness.” Neither of them tell Tywin the truth about their relationship before his death.

Daenerys

The occupation of Meereen continues to get more and more complicated, because that is what foreign occupations tend to do. The parade of supplicants continues; the latest is a learned man and former slave named Fennesz who once had a rather comfortable situation as a slave-tutor to rich kids. He isn’t particularly enjoying his freedom since all it means to him is being poor and living on the street, and wants her permission to sell himself back to his old master. (I don’t know why his former master can’t just…pay him, but ok.) Daenerys is taken aback, but agrees to let him sign a work contract lasting no longer than a year. As Ser Barristan warns her, this is a step backward down a slippery slope, especially in a land already predisposed to turn back to its old ways.

Things don’t get any better with her next supplicant, who brings the charred body of his three-year-old daughter and lays it at her’ feet, saying the girl was killed by Drogon. Although the black dragon is nowhere to be found, Daenerys leads the other two dragons into an underground chamber and puts them in chains. They strain and scream as she walks away and leaves them in the dark. There’s an irony, too, that after all her determination to remove chains she ends up putting them on her “children.” What did she say to the slave trader in Astapor, when he tried to take the leash to Drogon? “A dragon is not a slave.”

And yet here we are. The dragons made Daenerys who she is, and locking them away feels like denying something fundamental. There was a time, once, when the dragons were all she had, and they grew like she grew, from something small and vulnerable into something great and dangerous. Despite the tears she might cry over the poor burned child, it’s worth remembering that Daenerys tortured hundreds of people to death a matter of weeks ago, and would do it again. So between her and the dragons, who’s the dangerous one? And are they really so different? If you are determined to take what is yours with fire and blood, you had best make your peace with fire and blood.

In the books: There is no specific slave named Fennesz who asks to be reenslaved, but Daario does tell Daenerys that large numbers of Meereenese want to be sold back into slavery to have more comfortable lives, particularly “tutors, scribes, bed slaves, even healers and priests.” The death of the child happens later, in A Dance with Dragons, and Daenerys orders all three dragons imprisoned in the Great Pyramid, but Drogon escapes.

Bran

After a long and increasingly tiresome journey through the North, Bran and Friends finally arrive at the giant tree of the Three-Eyed Crow! Naturally, skeletons with swords immediately start popping out of the ground and attacking them, and one of them manages to fatally stab Jojen before a strange little girl who shoots fireballs shows up to lead them the rest of the way. Meera puts Jojen out of his misery, and they walk deep into the tree where, yes, Bran finally meets the Three-Eyed Crow, an old man with long white hair entangled in tree roots. He says he’s been watching them all their lives with a thousand eyes and one, and promises Bran that while he’ll never walk again, he will fly.

In the books: If it makes you feel any better, Bran’s story isn’t interesting the books either. Although Jojen grows weak during the journey and also has a foreboding dream about his future, he doesn’t die in the fight with the wights outside of the cave. This episode also seems to be the final nail in the coffin of the hope that Coldhands will appear in the TV show; in the books, a mysterious, silent figure who rides an elk plays a major role in guiding them to the Three-Eyed Crow. He leaves them at the cave, since he cannot cross the same threshold that keeps out the wights.

Tyrion

Just when all seems lost for Tyrion, Jaime finally comes through, slipping into the dungeon the night before his execution and setting his brother free with the help of Varys. Just when Tyrion’s about to walk up the long set of stone stairs to freedom, however, he remembers one more thing he has to do. I can’t tell whether this next part was clear to people who haven’t read the books, but he goes to Tywin’s bedroom (there’s a quick shot of the symbol for the King’s Hand) and finds Shea asleep, half-naked, in his father’s bed. “Tywin,” she says, without looking up. “My lion.”

There’s a terrible moment when their eyes meet, and she immediately grabs a knife. The ensuing fight is shorter than the one between Brienne and the Hound, and less bloody, but far uglier. It ends with Tyrion weeping next to the dead body of the woman he loved and murdered, saying “I’m sorry” once, twice. It’s hard to tell what he’s sorry about: killing her, loving her, or just for being born, the crime he’s always being punished for. Shae is an obviously mercenary character in books, but here she is far more ambiguous. Did she ever really love him? Did she turn against him for money, or because he called her names and sent her away?

When she pulled that knife, was she attacking the man she betrayed, or the man who betrayed her? We’ll never know if she truly loved him, and neither will Tyrion.

He sees the crossbow, the one Joffrey enjoyed so much, and grabs it from the wall. Tyrion finds his father in the bathroom, and the unflappable Tywin somehow doesn’t seem surprised to see him. He claims that he was never going to let them execute Tyrion (despite telling Cersei the opposite earlier) and when Tyrion confesses to murdering Shae, Tywin says it doesn’t matter: “She was a *****.” Tyrion’s eyes go a little Kill Bill crazy for a second, and he says that the next time Tywin uses that word, he’ll shoot him. Tywin laughs at this idea, but when the word passes his lips seconds later, he gets his second big surprise of the day: a crossbow quarrel through his chest. Tyrion quietly reloads, shoots him again in the heart. And so Tywin Lannister dies on the toilet, while “The Rains of Castemere” plays faintly in the background. Soon, with the help of Varys, Tyrion finds himself loaded as cargo into a ship with an unknown destination.

In the books: There’s a very key difference here, and one that puts all of this in an even darker light: the story of Tysha. As Tyrion told Shae and Bronn during their drinking game in season one, he loved someone once when he was a teenager–a girl named Tysha whom he and Jaime rescued from an attempted rape. They fell in love and were soon married by a drunken septon. Their happiness lasted all of two weeks until Tywin got wind of it, and Jaime soon revealed to Tyrion that Tysha was actually a prostitute he’d hired to show Tyrion a good time. As a “lesson” for Tyrion, Tywin had the girl gang-raped by soldiers while he watched, each of them paying her a silver coin. In the books, however, the story got even darker; Tyrion himself was forced to participate in the gang rape, and then pay her with a gold coin to demonstrate that Lannisters were worth more.

When Jaime rescues Tyrion here before his execution, in the books he tells him something that changes that backstory dramatically: it turns out Tysha wasn’t a prostitute after all, but simply the young girl she appeared to be. Thus, Tyrion participated in the gang rape of perhaps the only woman who ever truly loved him. Rather than parting well with Jaime, Tyrion is devastated and furious. The revelation about Tysha is why he returns to his father’s bedchamber instead of escaping. When he finds Shae in his father’s bed—the second woman he’s lost because of Tywin—she never attacks him, but he kills her in cold blood anyway. When Tyrion finds his father on the toilet and confronts him about Tysha, Tywin calls her a ***** not once but twice, and this is the reason he dies.

Arya and The Hound

Brienne and Pod are still en route to the Eyrie, and who does Brienne spot practicing her water dancing nearby but Arya. Since the Hound is busy, well, taking a dump, the two ladies have a chance to chat about their swords, and about what it’s like to become an awesome female warrior at a time when that was a deeply unpopular choice for women. It’s a great little moment, but it ends quickly when the Hound walks out and Pod, with his excellent recall of everyone in Kings Landing, immediately recognizes him. Brienne quickly deduces Arya’s identity and tells her all about the sacred vow she swore to Catelyn, but the Hound quickly notes that she’s carrying Lannister gold. Either way, Arya (like Cersei) has a cogent counterpoint to Brienne’s vow: “I don’t care.”

When Brienne promises to take Arya to safety, the Hound asks her exactly where that would be, now that her father, mother, brother and aunt are all dead and her home is a pile of rubble. “There is no safety,” he says, and the swords come out. And it is awesome. She quickly gets the Hound on his knees at swordpoint, and he does something unexpected: he grasps the sword, letting it dig in both his hands, and then punches her. Then it’s an ugly, ********-punching, rock smashing, ear-biting brawl that seems like it could go either way several times, until, screaming and punching, she finally punches him off a cliff.

It’s a pyrrhic victory since Arya is gone, hiding among the rocks. She climbs down the cliff as quiet as a cat and finds the Hound, bloody and broken. He says that Brienne saved her, but Arya says that she doesn’t need saving–she hasn’t for a while now. He tells her to go find Brienne, but Arya refuses. Then he asks her to kill him–to take another name off her list–but she refuses that too. He talks about how he slaughtered Mycah, very transparently trying to goad her into killing him. It doesn’t work. There’s a strange irony that in the end, after all her litanies of death, not killing him feels like the greatest betrayal of all. She takes his gold and leaves the man who taught her to kill on a hillside to peter out slowly.

Now riding alone, she finds a ship. At first, she wants to head for the Wall, but the man says they’re sailing for Braavos. With her silver useless, she turns to the iron coin in her pocket, the one Jaqen gave her long ago. “Valar morgulis,” she says, and the man’s face changes. “Of course, you shall have a cabin.” The season ends with Arya, on the prow of a ship, finally escaping the purgatory of Westeros and setting sail across the Narrow Sea.

In the books: Although Brienne fighting the Hound is awesome, in the books it sadly doesn’t happen. Instead of heading for the Eyrie, Brienne wandered through the Riverlands and never crossed paths with the Hound or Arya. The Hound was mortally wounded not in battle with but from an infected wound he sustained during the brawl at the inn. Arya leaves him to die besides a tree at the Trident, and heads to the Saltpans to find a ship.

[MIKA27]

CARBURETTOR LAMP BY FUTILITY STUDIOS

The attention to detail on this lamp is so good it stopped me in my tracks – it’s been so well thought-out that it looks as though it came from the factory like this, though in reality it’s made from parts sourced from a wide array of different vintage vehicles. The carburettor was pulled out of a’50s era Desoto, the glass dome is a 1953 Chevrolet turn signal lens, the shade is a chrome air cleaner and the shade support is an old fuel line.

The lamp is the work of Joe Wislar – amazingly this was his first piece and it’s been so popular he’s now created an entire line of different designs. Joe is an epidemiologist and biostatistician based in Chicago, he’s obsessed with vintage cars and is currently rebuilding a 1965 Econoline that he blew up while drag racing.

If you’d like to see more of Joe’s work you can visit Futility Studios here.

[MIKA27]

JIM BEAM PANCAKE SYRUP

What could be better than a stack of flapjacks covered in syrup with a huge side of bacon for breakfast? How about that same stack of pancakes drenched in some mouth watering Jim Beam whiskey syrup.

That’s right, the American bourbon we all know and love has now made its way into the most important meal of the day. Since 1795, Jim Beam has been producing great tasting whiskey from their Kentucky distillery, so this move seems like one that was long overdue. Forget the double espresso, this original pancake syrup will help kick start your day. The whiskey infused concoction is great on pancakes, french toast, and can you imagine chicken and waffles with some Jim Beam? For 30 bucks, you get six 16-ounces bottles. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

TREEPOD DINING EXPERIENCE AT SONEVA KIRI RESORT

Maybe dad built you a treehouse when you were seven, but we have a strong hunch he never ziplined in with a bowl of SpaghettiOs and an ice-cold Capri Sun. Now you can make up for your deprived childhood at the Soneva Kiri resort in Thailand, where their Treepod Dining experience promises an astounding meal.

Located on the remote Thai island of Kood, the resort features 42 resort villa and 21 private residences spanning 150 acres of beach and tropical rainforest. But when it’s dinner time, prepare to be hoisted up to 26-feet off the ground into a bamboo pod in a eucalyptus tree, with servers zipping in to bring you and up to three others your food and drink. With spectacular views of the shoreline and the foliage, you’ll probably be so content that you can call your dad and tell him that, despite his flaws, you love him anyway.

[MIKA27]

KANO | DIY COMPUTER KIT

The most crowdfunded learning invention of all time is now available for pre-order. Kano is an "Ikea-style” kit that allows children of all ages to build a computer from scratch. The DIY computer and coding kit lets everyone from grade school kids to adults build a computer, make games and music, learn to code and invent something new(features open-source software). Kits are described as "simple as Lego" and are expected to ship worldwide in July 2014.

[MIKA27]

Aussies Are Still Paying Over The Odds, And It's Time For ACCC Action

Yet another survey has found Australians are paying more than their American and British counterparts for the same entertainment goods and services.

Angela Daly is a Research Fellow in Media and Communications Law at Swinburne University of Technology. This post originally appeared on The Conversation.

In its submission to the government’s Competition Policy Review, consumer advocacy group Choice compared the prices of popular entertainment content. They looked at the Game of Thrones series, films in Apple’s iTunes store and Playstation 4 video games. Choice found that for all of these products, Australians were paying substantially more than people in the UK or US.

This tallies with the findings of the Parliamentary IT Pricing Review from last year. This report found that for the same content and software goods, Australians were sometimes paying a huge amount – 50 per cent – more than their counterparts in the US and the UK. This premium, known as the ‘Australia tax’, was not justified by higher costs of doing business here.

I have argued elsewhere that these higher prices for Australian consumers should be a priority for government action. Lowering prices to be more in line with what consumers are paying in similar countries could address the alleged “problem” that Australia has with pirating content, as well as ensuring films and TV series have similar release dates here to other parts of the world.

Ensuring Australians can enjoy legal and cheap imports of these products from other countries would also help the situation, as Choice suggests. The IT Pricing Review also recommended restrictions on this practice, known as parallel importation, should be lifted. However, the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement (if it is ever finalised) may stymie this as the US has been supporting a provision that would allow big entertainment companies to prevent copies of their content made legally in another country from being imported into Australia without their permission.

These high prices and other restrictive conduct by the entertainment industry may also suggest a lack of competition in markets for digital content and software. If these companies are in some way coordinating with each other to ensure their prices are high, then this may constitute anti-competitive agreements between competitors, which is illegal. Alternatively, a company which has a monopoly or market power may be acting illegally if it misuses that power with anti-competitive effects.

There is also a prohibition on exclusive dealing in Australian competition law. Arguably, the Game of Thrones exclusive deal with Foxtel might fall within this illegal behaviour.

Firms are prohibited from engaging in exclusive agreements if these have the purpose or effect of “substantially lessening competition” in the market at issue. There have been concerns about Foxtel’s market power over pay TV in the recent past, and this exclusive deal may be another area the ACCC should investigate. However, similar competition investigations into UK pay TV provider Sky and its control over “premium movie content” came to nothing in the end, and resulted in no regulatory remedies.

Yet, there have been some inroads made into anti-competitive prices for digital content in other countries. In the last couple of years Apple and the big book publishers were considered by competition authorities in the US and EU to have fixed the prices of e-books being sold to Apple device holders. Earlier this year, a similar investigation into the major publishers was closed in Canada, with them making a deal with the Competition Bureau “that is expected to lower prices for consumers by 20% or more”. Australian consumers and their wallets could benefit from more proactive competition investigation and enforcement from the ACCC in this area, similar to what has been happening elsewhere.

The ACCC responds to complaints it receives from consumers and businesses about alleged anti-competitive practices, but it does not have the resources to pursue them all, and so must prioritise those which “harm the competitive process or result in widespread consumer detriment”. One of the ACCC’s current enforcement priorities is “emerging consumer issues in the online marketplace” and given the mounting evidence that Australians are paying over the odds for digital content and software, the ACCC may turn its attention to this issue.

If the ACCC finds illegal conduct via an investigation, it has a number of options for action. The companies involved can be persuaded to remedy their behaviour in the form of enforceable undertakings. If they are not cooperative, the ACCC can take them to court, which may result in large fines for companies or even prison sentences for particular individuals.

[MIKA27]

This Is What Would Happen If Earth Stopped Spinning Right Now

Have you ever asked yourself what would happen if the Earth stopped spinning right now? For you, it would be like being in a car at 1600km/h and stopping to zero. Of course, this means the end for everything alive on Earth. But, believe it or not, it gets even worse than that, as this video explains.

The bullet points:

– Your body would start flying east like a discombobulated mass of muscle and bone at an incredible speed — at 465m per second if you are near the equator.

– Since Earth rotation is slower near the equators, people very near the poles may survive. But only at first.

– People on planes may initially survive the first few seconds.

– Anyone or anything that survived would be killed by the gigantic storms that would ensue right after the stop point.

– The speed of the wind — faster than the blast of an atomic bomb — would be so high that it would instantly start fires all around the planet.

– The wind would also cause unprecedented erosion to anything actually part of Earth, like mountains.

– The oceans would rise as gigantic tsunamis, and all water would move towards the poles, as shown in this computer simulation:

– The spinning iron core in the center of the Earth would stop too, stopping the generation of our planet protective magnetic field. The Sun radioactive rays would automatically kill anything left.

– On top of that, half of the Earth would be constantly exposed to the Sun, rising temperatures to unlivable levels. On the other half, Earth would freeze.

Finally, life on Earth wouldn’t be able to recover from this. Ever.

It's mot all that bad...is it..

[MIKA27]

The Mysterious Blue Holes of the Bahamas

The island of Andros in the Bahamas is a mystical place. It is a tropical, sun-kissed land of clear blue seas and pristine, white sand beaches. Possessing immense biological and geographical diversity, with a wide range of habitats, many of which are unique on Earth, across an area approximately the size of the state of Delaware, Andros is not only a tropical paradise but also a marvel of the natural world. This idyllic island getaway is also a place steeped in mystery, legend, and myth.

The largest of the Bahamas Islands, Andros is actually an archipelago composed of over 700 hundred small islets and cays, all interconnected by a crisscrossing series of pristine, mangrove filled estuaries and expansive tidal swamplands, which amount to a total land area of around 2,300 square miles.

On three sides, Andros is hugged by warm, shallow crystal clear seas that are teeming with an abundance of colorful sea life, some found nowhere else on the planet. The shallow seas move inland into rocky tide pools, tidal estuaries, mud flats, and mangrove swamps, all of which compose different ecosystems that display a staggering amount of biodiversity within such a relatively small area. Andros also sports the world’s third largest barrier reef, enormous freshwater aquifers, and the only freshwater river in all of the Bahamas.

On the eastern side of the island, only a mile offshore, a deep channel known as The Tongue of the Ocean cuts its way past the island, where the seafloor makes a sudden, dizzying drop from shallow coral reefs to abyssal depths of 6,000 feet into the clear blue depths. This deep water trench gives way to yet another ecosystem living side by side with those of the shallow waters, a pelagic eco-zone often frequented by large marine going mammals such as pilot whales and humpback whales, as well as other large, open water fish cruising deep under the tropical, sun flecked surface.

Among all of this stunning biodiversity and wealth of geographical features, perhaps the most mysterious feature of the island is its many enigmatic and beautiful blue holes, which dot the island both in the sea and inland. Blue holes are steep, roughly circular underwater caves or sinkholes which are also referred to as “vertical caves,” and can descend down to depths of 100 meters (330 feet) to 392 meters (1,286 feet). Blue holes are so named for the dramatic contrast between the dark, azure blue of their depths, and the lighter colored shallows surrounding them, although inland blue holes tend to look more like circular black lakes due mostly to rotting vegetation.

There are estimated to be around 50 of these blue holes scattered throughout the shallows around Andros, and around 175 in the wooded interior of the island, with more being uncovered all of the time. Many of these blue holes branch off into intricate submerged passages and extensive underwater cave systems that can meander in all directions for thousands of feet.

The blue holes of the Bahamas have always held a sense of awe and mystery. Although popular places to dive, it is believed that less than 1% of the blue hole cave systems of the Bahamas have been explored, and it has only been within the last several decades that we have really uncovered any good information on what the holes even are.

The first person to really shed any light on the blue holes of the Bahamas was a Canadian diver by the name of Dr. George Benjamin, who in the 1960s made first an aerial survey of the cave systems and later returned to plunge into their perilous depths and yawning undersea chasms with diving gear. These early explorations marked the beginning of any real scientific inquiry into the nature of the blue holes.

It is from the enchanting blue depths of these mysterious submerged caves that a persistent local legend has sprung. The people of the area have long spoke of an enormous monster said to inhabit the blue holes of the island; a creature known as the Lusca. The Lusca is said to be a gigantic animal that can reach sizes of over 23 meters (75 feet) in length, and to resemble something like a cross between an octopus and a shark, with a plentitude of formidable tentacles and a gaping mouth full of dagger-like teeth.

It is said that this ominous creature lurks deep in the blue hole caves during the day and comes out of its dark lair to hunt at night.

Witnesses report that the Lusca will suddenly rise up under an unsuspecting swimmer and simply suck them beneath the waves with shocking speed, leaving nothing but bubbling water behind. Since the monster purportedly drags the hapless prey into craggy underwater caves to feed, the bodies of these victims are never seen again. The Lusca is commonly blamed for missing swimmers and the occasional disappearance of cave divers in the area as well.

Locals insist that the Lusca will target not only swimmers and divers, but boats as well. It is said that Lusca will ****** people off of the decks of boats, and some accounts even speak of whole boats being pulled under, leaving only swirling debris bobbing at the surface. Various disappearances of boats over the years have been deemed to be the work of Lusca. The creature is purportedly so dangerous that it will occasionally even come up and grab victims right off of beaches. Fishermen of the area are extremely wary when passing by blue holes, often cruising past the dark blue chasms silently, as noise is said to attract the aggressive beasts.

Some people have had direct run-ins with the elusive Lusca and lived to tell the tale. In 2005, an underwater photographer reported being attacked by an enormous octopus he described as being about 50 feet long. The terrified diver shoved his camera out in in front of him in a desperate bid to protect himself, and the monstrous octopus actually snatched the camera away before disappearing into a cave. Another man was swimming near a blue hole around sundown when he was violently yanked underwater.

The swimmer managed to pull away and get to the nearby shore, whereupon he reportedly noticed huge sucker marks on his thigh much to his horror.

Another somewhat frightening encounter occurred when a crew of divers actively trying to catch the creature got more than they bargained for. At first, the crew of the boat came to the chilling realization that something large and heavy was pulling on the traps and breaking the lines. This was considered odd enough, but things got scarier when one trap was pulled so hard that the boat actually was dragged along by whatever it was on the other end at a reported speed of one knot. Onboard sonar at the time revealed what was described as a very large, pyramid shaped creature. After the boat was dragged some distance, the line suddenly went slack and the trap was pulled up, where it was quickly ascertained to be dramatically twisted and bent out of shape.

The somewhat unsettled crew called it a day and promptly vacated the area.

The popular TV show, Destination Truth, sent a team into the Bahamas blue holes in search of evidence of the Lusca and uncovered some unusual activity during their investigation. After diving to a depth of 150 feet into a blue hole, the team came across a huge, gaping opening in the wall. Upon finding this opening, the crew was startled by sonar contact with something huge in the water with the divers. Team leader Josh Gates simultaneously spotted movement from something enormous, which he had first taken to be merely a part of the wall. Although the creature wasn’t clearly sighted, the incident was spooky enough for them to pull a panicked Gates from the water with great haste.

Undeterred, Gates decided to make another dive in a different spot, this time going down 175 feet into an underwater cavern. Again the crew got sonar readings of something large moving through the water and once again Gates reportedly saw movement in the murk ahead of him along with ripples and bubbles, although once again he did not get a good look at whatever it was. In addition, FLIR cameras picked up movement from something very big lurking nearby. The situation was frightening enough to convince the crew to turn off the lights on their boat in the fear that they would attract whatever was down there.

Although there was no concrete evidence obtained during the expedition, the team was able to analyze footage they had taken and noticed something that looked rather like a large tentacle. It was speculated what was captured on film was perhaps part of some sort of enormous octopus or squid.

This finding mirrors the widely held belief that if there is such a creature as a Lusca, it is likely some sort of giant octopus or other cephalopod. Interestingly, there have been reports of giant octopuses washing up on shore in the Bahamas. In one case, the remains of a huge octopus were found on a beach on Grand Bahamas Island in 2011. Although only part of the creature was found, it was estimated that the full animal would have been around 30 feet in length. 2011 also saw yet another report of a giant octopus, when a 12 foot long, 135 pound specimen was found floating around offshore by fishermen.

The blue holes are commonly considered a hostile environment for life due to poor water circulation that leads to a severe depletion of oxygen, yet a surprising diversity of life has been found in such places nevertheless. Various types of crab, shrimp, sea worms, and other life forms have been found in blue holes, many of them specially adapted to the conditions there, and large animals such as nurse sharks and sea turtles are sighted there as well. Even if a large predator such as the alleged Lusca did not permanently live in the blue holes, it seems feasible that a large, unknown predator might find enough food resources to entice it to make forays there.

Looking into the seemingly bottomless cobalt depths of the blue holes certainly invites the idea that there are mysteries here that we do not yet fathom. They are certainly eerie places. In addition to their various mysterious and unexplored cave systems, numerous fossils, shipwrecks, and other artifacts have been found at the bottom of blue holes. Various unusual remains of animals have been found here as well, including the bones of a species of crocodile that is not known to live in the Bahamas, the remains of an unknown type of bird, and even human bones, all perfectly preserved due to the low oxygen environment. All of this is certainly odd, but is there something even stranger to be found here amongst these mysteries?

With such a small fraction of them explored, there are likely new species and other wonders waiting to be discovered within the mysterious blue holes of the Bahamas. Is there perhaps some sort of unknown giant predator stalking these majestic places as well? Perhaps as divers continue to push further into these unexplored underwater cave systems we will shed some light on this enigma.

For now the blue holes of the Bahamas keep their mysteries wrapped tight within their inscrutable azure depths.

[MIKA27]

The British Government Just Set A Dangerous Precedent For Online Spying

Today, the British government revealed its justification for surveilling its citizens’ every move on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. UK citizens communicating using the aforementioned services are considered to be using “external communications”, as the companies are not based in the UK. It’s a distinction with staggering implications.

Charles Farr, the Director General of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism in the UK made known the rationale of the domestic spying program of Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in a 48-page response to a legal challenge by a coalition of civil liberties groups including Privacy International, Liberty, and the ACLU.

“The security services consider that they’re entitled to read, listen and analyse all our communications on Facebook, Google and other US-based platforms. If there was any remaining doubt that our snooping laws need a radical overhaul there can be no longer. The Agencies now operate in a legal and ethical vacuum,” said James Welch, the Legal Director of Liberty.

The distinction of ‘external’ communications versus ‘internal’ communications is vital in the UK when it comes to the steps needed to surveil a citizen. To intercept ‘internal’ communications it requires a targeted warrant with probable cause; ‘external’ communications may be taken at will, without the need for probable cause.

By classifying social networks as ‘external’ the British government can do as they please when it comes to surveilling its population. This interpretation of the law means if two UK citizens are chatting over Facebook Messenger in London, that is still considered an ‘external’ communication because Facebook is based in California. No matter how devious it may appear, it is technically legal, and therein lies the bigger issue.

If one of the largest intelligence agencies on Earth can spy on its citizens and claim the legal high ground, what is stopping other countries and intelligence agencies around the globe from doing the same thing? The ramifications of the justifications given by the British government may have a ripple effect throughout intelligence agencies across the globe.

Thanks to the Snowden leaks and a legal challenge by a coalition of civil liberties groups, the public has gotten a glimpse at how the GCHQ justifies its actions, but what is still unclear is how many other governments and intelligence agencies around the world agree with the GCHQ’s interpretation when it comes to the classification of social networks.

If communications on social networks are considered ‘external’ communications by other countries, it could set a precedent that gives basically any non-US country the ability to legally spy on its citizens’ online habits without resistance.

“GCHQ’s announcement marks the latest attempt by an intelligence agency to twist the letter and the spirit of the law to engage in unaccountable and unchecked surveillance. Surveillance is a global problem and needs a global solution. Human rights must be protected regardless of the location, means, perpetrator, or target of that surveillance,” Jochai Ben-Avie, the Policy Director at Access, tells Gizmodo.

When asked about the British government’s justifications for spying on its citizens, Danny O’Brien, the International Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Gizmodo, “I think it indicates how limiting controls on spying based on geography is inevitably going to be exploited on a global internet. In the US, non-US persons don’t get the protection of targeted warrants, so the US intelligence services have used that to not only spy on millions of people outside the US, but also used it as justification for mass surveillance of US [online] traffic, based on the idea that some of it contains unprotected foreign communications.”

O’Brien went on to say, “In the UK, the fact you can get ‘external communications’ without a targeted warrant means that the UK authorities have redefined a huge chunk of UK internet use as ‘external’. It’s ironic that such warrants general were one of the reasons why the US split away from the UK, and now here we are, with both the US and UK governments using them on their own citizens — and then sharing the data with each other.”

Thanks to the internet, a world once separated out has become much closer. The internet is not bound by borders and its users shouldn’t be treated like they are doing something nefarious by their governments while they use it. It’s one thing if these agencies are illegally surveilling citizens, but when it is legal, regaining any semblance of privacy becomes an all but insurmountable challenge.

[MIKA27]

Incredible Video Of Wild Alaskan Brown Bear Chilling Out With A Camper

http://youtu.be/MVhrN2pI2X8

Drew Hamilton, a tech worker at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, was chilling out with a friend, admiring the majestic landscape at the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary, when a cool Alaskan brown bear walked into the scene, sat down and just chilled out for a while contemplating the river.

It’s amazing that Drew kept his cool in front of such a dangerous animal, but it’s even more amazing to see the chilled behaviour of the bear. It’s like the bear was just like “hey, ‘sup! Anything good around here? What you guys doing? Can I have a beer? No? OK, see you later, guys. BYYYYEEEE!”

Expand the image to see the incredible amount of bears fishing in this photo:

[MIKA27]

Dentists Found A Pain-Free Cavity Fix That Might Actually Work

Researchers from King’s College London just announced a new approach to fixing cavities that requires no injections, no drills and no pain. It’s just a little blast of electric current that encourages the tooth to self-repair. And they say it will be on the market in three years.

The new technique sounds confusingly simple. Cavities form when the natural minerals in the protective enamel degrade, and the tooth starts to decay. This new method enhances the body’s natural ability to restore those minerals with ones found in saliva or fluoride. The dentist simply applies a small electric current to “push” minerals towards the cavity. The process, dubbed Electrically Accelerated and Enhanced Remineralisation (EAER), is entirely painless and takes about the same amount of time as current drilling techniques.

While those who developed the approach say it will be available in UK dental offices within the next three years — partly because electric current is already used in some procedures — that sounds a bit like what dentists said a few years ago when they announced a pain-free cavity treatment using a unique fluid that attracts calcium. And that sounds a bit like the thin plastic applicator developed by a dental-materials manufacturer that promised quick and easy cavity repair a year before that.

But, hey, a little bit of progress in the much feared field of dentistry can’t be a bad thing. Let’s just hope this is progress that actually makes your next visit to the tooth doctor less uncomfortable. Now if only there were something to protect us against crazy dentists.

[MIKA27]

Third Guardians Of The Galaxy's Trailer Reveals New Cool Scenes

All of the trailers for Guardians of the Galaxy have so far shown the lighter side of the Marvel B-team. Lots of jokes, gags and cool 80′s music. But not this one. In this new trailer, you get the best look at Guardians of the Galaxy yet as if it were a serious superhero epic.

Comedy is all about quick cuts, while theatrical epics are about giving you a good look at all the eye-popping action and special effects. While Guardians of the Galaxy predominately looks like a humorous comic book movie, it still has serious elements.

All in all, it looks freaking amazing. I can’t wait to see it when it hits Australian screens in August.

[MIKA27]

Fukushima's Giant Ice Wall Can't Get Cold Enough To Freeze

Remember how Japan decided to build that crazy ice wall to contain the Fukushima nuclear plant’s radioactive water leaks? Well, its construction is behind schedule — because its engineers can’t achieve temperatures low enough to freeze the ice.

The ice wall was to be constructed by driving vertical pipes, spaced about a metre apart, between 20m and 40m into the ground. Then, coolant was to be pumped through them, effectively creating a barrier of permafrost around the affected buildings, keeping the contaminated water in and groundwater out.

But now the Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) has admitted that an initial, smaller inner ice wall — a proof of concept, if you like — is proving difficult to construct. A TEPCO spokesperson has explained that:

“We have yet to form the ice stopper because we can’t make the temperature low enough to freeze water. We are behind schedule but have already taken additional measures, including putting in more pipes, so that we can remove contaminated water from the trench starting next month.”

The engineers involved with the project are using a calcium chloride coolant, chilled down to -30C. While that’s been enough to create smaller versions of these permafrost walls elsewhere in the past, the same isn’t true at Fukushima. Indeed, the project had already been greeted with scepticism by some engineers and scientists who — perhaps now correctly — pointed out that the project may struggle to work at such scales and time spans.

The huge amounts of water leaking from the Fukushima site continue to be a real and growing problem, then. Let’s hope the engineers can find something more effective than their calcium chloride coolant.

[MIKA27]

How The Gore In Game Of Thrones Is Added In Post Production

This visual effects reel from digital compositor Calvin Romeyn showcases some of the best shots in the most exciting and bloody scenes from Game of Thrones season 4. It is fascinating to see which gruesome bits were added in post production.

http://youtu.be/bkp1n5_1Y1o

[MIKA27]

The Designer Of The F-16 Explains Why The F-35 Is Such A Crappy Plane

According to the Pierre Sprey, co-designer of the F-16, the F35 is a turkey. Inherently, it’s a terrible aeroplane. An aeroplane built for a dumb idea. A kludge that will fail time and time again. Judging from the bajillion times the F-35 fleet has been grounded, well, he’s probably not wrong.

It’s a trillion dollar failure. Watch Sprey eviscerate the F-35 in the video below.

[MIKA27]

Modern Armour Won't Stand A Chance Against This New Missile Launcher

For more than 40 years, the Milan anti-tank missile launcher has been a mainstay of the French army. But in today’s urban combat scenarios, this venerable launcher has become outdated. That’s why, beginning in 2017, French fighting forces will field an entirely new weapon system, one purpose-built for modern warfare.

It’s called the MMP (Missile moyenne portée) and performs essentially the same task as the American Javelin — pounding armoured vehicles and fortified positions with medium range, self-guided missiles. The 15kg, tripod mounted system can be fired by dismounted troops, remote turrets or mounted on a Multi-Purpose Combat Vehicle.

The missile itself has been designed to fulfil a variety of roles based on insights gleaned during recent combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa — from punching through the latest reactive armour systems to penetrating pillboxes and bunkers.

The MMP is also much more autonomous than its predecessor. Its missiles are now capable of locking onto targets via a dual-band visible/uncooled IR seeker. This fire and forget capability allows operators to launch the attack then hightail it to a new position before the enemy counters. The system also has a man-in-the-loop option which allows the operator to monitor the strike without having to move from cover. What’s more, the new launcher can be fired safely in confined spaces, an essential feature in urban warfare.

MBDA recently unveiled the MMP at this year’s Eurosatory exposition and has announced that the French army is onboard to field 400 of these launchers throughout its regular and special forces beginning in 2017. Better hope nobody develops better armour technology in the next three years.

[MIKA27]

The Shadow Internet That’s 100 Times Faster Than Google Fiber

When Google chief financial officer Patrick Pichette said the tech giant might bring 10 gigabits per second internet connections to American homes, it seemed like science fiction. That’s about 1,000 times faster than today’s home connections. But for NASA, it’s downright slow.

While the rest of us send data across the public internet, the space agency uses a shadow network called ESnet, short for Energy Science Network, a set of private pipes that has demonstrated cross-country data transfers of 91 gigabits per second–the fastest of its type ever reported.

NASA isn’t going bring these speeds to homes, but it is using this super-fast networking technology to explore the next wave of computing applications. ESnet, which is run by the U.S. Department of Energy, is an important tool for researchers who deal in massive amounts of data generated by projects such as the Large Hadron Collider and the Human Genome Project. Rather sending hard disks back and forth through the mail, they can trade data via the ultra-fast network. “Our vision for the world is that scientific discovery shouldn’t be constrained by geography,” says ESnet director Gregory Bell.

In making its network as fast as it can possibly be, ESnet and researchers are organizations like NASA are field testing networking technologies that may eventually find their way into the commercial internet. In short, ESnet a window into what our computing world will eventually look like.

The Other Net

The first nationwide computer research network was the Defense Department’s ARPAnet, which evolved into the modern internet. But it wasn’t the last network of its kind. In 1976, the Department of Energy sponsored the creation of the Magnetic Fusion Energy Network to connect what is today the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center with other research laboratories. Then the agency created a second network in 1980 called the High Energy Physics Network to connect particle physics researchers at national labs. As networking became more important, agency chiefs realized it didn’t make sense to maintain multiple networks and merged the two into one: ESnet.

The nature of the network changes with the times. In the early days it ran on land lines and satellite links. Today it is uses fiber optic lines, spanning the DOE’s 17 national laboratories and many other sites, such as university research labs. Since 2010, ESnet and Internet2—a non-profit international network built in 1995 for researchers after the internet was commercialized—have been leasing “dark fiber,” the excess network capacity built-up by commercial internet providers during the late 1990s internet bubble.

An Internet Fast Lane

In November, using this network, NASA’s High End Computer Networking team achieved its 91 gigabit transfer between Denver and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. It was the fastest end-to-end data transfer ever conducted under “real world” conditions.

ESnet has long been capable of 100 gigabit transfers, at least in theory. Network equipment companies have been offering 100 gigabit switches since 2010. But in practice, long-distance transfers were much slower. That’s because data doesn’t travel through the internet in a straight line. It’s less like a super highway and more like an interstate highway system. If you wanted to drive from San Francisco to New York, you’d pass through multiple cities along the way as you transferred between different stretches of highway. Likewise, to send a file from San Francisco to New York on the internet—or over ESnet—the data will flow through hardware housed in cities across the country.

NASA did a 98 gigabit transfer between Goddard and the University of Utah over ESnet in 2012. And Alcatel-Lucent and BT obliterated that record earlier this year with a 1.4 terabit connection between London and Ipswich. But in both cases, the two locations had a direct connection, something you rarely see in real world connections.

On the internet and ESnet, every stop along the way creates the potential for a bottleneck, and every piece of gear must be ready to handle full 100 gigabit speeds. In November, the team finally made it work. “This demonstration was about using commercial, off-the-shelf technology and being able to sustain the transfer of a large data network,” says Tony Celeste, a sales director at Brocade, the company that manufactured the equipment used in the record-breaking test.

Experiments for the Future

Meanwhile, the network is advancing the state of the art in other ways. Researchers have used it to explore virtual network circuits called “OSCARS,” which can be used to create complex networks without complex hardware changes. And they’re working on what are known as network “DMZs,” which can achieve unusually fast speeds by handling security without traditional network firewalls.

These solutions are designed specifically for networks in which a small number of very large transfers take place–as opposed to the commercial internet where lots of small transfers take place. But there’s still plenty for commercial internet companies to learn from ESnet. Telecommunications company XO Communications already has a 100 gigabit backbone, and we can expect more companies to follow suit.

Although we won’t see 10-gigabit connections—let alone 100 gigabit connections—at home any time soon, higher capacity internet backbones will mean less congestion as more and more people stream high-definition video and download ever-larger files. And ESnet isn’t stopping there. Bell says the organization is already working on a 400 gigabit network, and the long-term goal is a terabyte per second network, which about 100,000 times faster than today’s home connections. Now that sounds like science fiction.

[MIKA27]

NISSAN CONCEPT 2020 VISION GRAN TURISMO

When the design team at Nissan was given free reign to create a supercar that they would be proud to park in their fantasy garage, they came up with the menacing Nissan Concept 2020 Vision Gran Turismo.

The Japanese auto maker has just pulled the curtain back on this virtual masterpiece. While the game was designed specifically for the beloved Gran Turismo video game franchise, it was created to showcase the potential future of Nissan’s performance vehicles. With some minor tweaking, this thing could be one of the baddest vehicles on the road. Perhaps as the next generation GT-R? Only time will tell. For now gamers can expect to get their hands on the virtual version of this supercar when it’s released for download on Gran Turismo 6 this coming July. Check out the video, and be on the lookout for the download.

[MIKA27]

GRADO LABS E SERIES HEADPHONES

A company like Grado Labs saying it has improved its headphones formula, is like the late baseball great Tony Gwynn saying he had figured out a flaw in his stance—can you really improve upon perfection? Grado says so.

The new e Series is a line of over-the-ear cans that the company is calling a breakthrough, with every single component, surface, and material used representing an upgrade in the name of outstanding dynamics and fidelity. Each pair is made by hand in Grado’s Brooklyn facility and features “the most refined driver geometry” in Grado’s history. Their proprietary SpaceBlack Polycarbonate is designed to absorb excess energy and reduce secondary impulses for a clearer tone, while Rhodium, the most expensive precious metal on earth, is used to prevent corrosion on connectors and unwanted graininess in in the audio. The e Series uses select Mahogany tone-woods for their natural ability to reduce sound coloration, and the magnetic field of the headphones has been fine-tuned for symmetry throughout the full range of the voice coil. Sounds like someone is trying to hit .400. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

China's New Tallest Building Adds A Floor Every 96 Hours

At 660m, Shenzhen’s Ping An Finance Center is about to become the tallest building in China and the second-tallest in the world. And it’s getting there very quickly: According to a new report from DesignBoom, workers are finishing a new floor of the 115-story building every four days.

That’s a remarkable pace for a supertall building. For comparison’s sake, both Burj Khalifa and One World Trade progressed at a rate of one new floor roughly every seven days (here’s a great comparison of tall building construction rates around the world).

We can look to how Ping An was designed to find out more. Kohn Pedersen Fox, the architects behind the project, designed every aspect of the building to reduce its embodied energy and embodied carbon. These two terms are used to describe all the energy that goes into manufacturing, transporting, hoisting and actually constructing a building, as well as its energy consumption after the fact. Here’s a video that explains the concept:

It can apply to everything from aerodynamics — a building with too much drag will need more structure to keep it upright — to construction, which is a notorious energy hog. At Ping An, the entire building was designed for efficiency, including the structure, which was modularised so that the structure of each floor identical to the one beneath it. That makes it far easier to build, hence this new report about the incredible speeds workers are maintaining.

After all, they have reason to hurry: There’s another supertall, the entirely prefabricated Sky City, hot on its heels to nab the title of China’s Tallest.

[MIKA27]

IKEA's New Glowing Stool Lights A Safe LED Fire Under Your Butt

It’s never too early to start planning and stockpiling what you’ll need when you eventually move out of home. And since you’ll probably be crammed into something really tiny, IKEA’s new glowing LED stool does double duty as a lamp and place to sit/pile dirty laundry.

Powered by a set of four AA rechargeable batteries that glow for up to five hours, the $79 (Australian price) PS 2014 stool can support a sitter up to 130kg, or roughly 12 weeks of laundry if you’re wearing a lot of flannel. And, when your parents come to pick you up for the holidays, they can use a damp cloth to wipe the months of dirt and grime — be it pizza or lingonberry meatball sauce.