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

[MIKA27]

These Are The Alien Creatures That Secretly Lurk Under The Polar Circle

Alexander Semenov is the leader of the Aquatilis Expedition, a quest to find “the weirdest creatures that lurk in the deep” over a three-year-long, 30,000-nautical-mile adventure that will sail in late 2015. Alexander has already found several amazing creatures and photographed them with exquisite detail.

Talking in an email, Alexander says that Aquatilis “represents a new kind of expedition, one which perfectly blends art and science, and one which involves both citizens and the top minds in the scientific community.” If this mission is as beautiful as his currency work, I’m sure it will be a success.

Alexander Semenov currently works as the Head of the Divers’ team at Moscow University’s White Sea Biological Station, spending his time between Russia’s Far North, Moscow and any other location he deems fit for diving. He is used to diving in unfavourable and often harsh conditions, successfully conducting complex research projects. His ability to see beauty in the darkness underwater has led to multiple collaborations with the Discovery Channel, the BBC, National Geographic and many more.

[MIKA27]

Spies In The Skies: How Aerial Surveillance Tipped The Balance Of WWII

When General Werner von Fritsch, the then commander-in-chief of the German Army, predicted in 1938 that “the military organisation which has the best reconnaissance unit will win the next war,” few doubted that, in aerial reconnaissance and photography, the Luftwaffe reigned supreme. This, however, proved to be far from the case.

Although the Germans began World War II with an efficient air reconnaissance and photographic interpretation system, they did not develop or improve it as the conflict widened and progressed. Though starting from far behind, the British, in contrast, were to bring about a revolution in aerial photography and air intelligence that was to play a vital part in transforming the fortunes of the war. As the RAF slowly began to gain air superiority over the increasingly hard-pressed Luftwaffe, nothing, it seemed, escaped the probing of its photographic spies in the skies.

Spitfires and Mosquitoes

Choosing the right aircraft was the key to success. Where Sidney Cotton had pioneered the way, the RAF followed. The Spitfire, in its various reconnaissance versions, became the main aircraft of choice for its photo-reconnaissance squadrons. Unarmed — except for one low-flying variant, which retained its original eight machine guns — it relied on speed and altitude to ensure its survival.

Consequently, throughout the war, there was a steady increase in performance within the Spitfire reconnaissance family. The last of the wartime variants, the Spitfire XIX, could fly over 100mph (160km/h) faster, two miles (3.22km) higher, and more than four times farther than Cotton’s pioneer PR 1A. However, the Spitfire XI, of which 471 were produced, was the most numerous of these magnificent aircraft. It could fly at 422mph (679.14km/h), possessed a service ceiling of 44,000ft (13,411m), and had a maximum range of more than 2,000 miles (3,220km).

As good as the Spitfire was, the twin-engine de Havilland DH 88 Mosquito was probably the best all-round photo-reconnaissance aircraft to go into service with the RAF during the entire war. The first, the PR 1, was delivered to the RAF on June 2, 1941. Seven variations were to follow. Fast, agile in the air, and lightweight thanks to its wooden airframe, the Mosquito could fly as quickly, sometimes quicker, than a Spitfire and enjoyed double the Spitfire’s range. By early 1942, UK-based Mosquitoes were regularly flying reconnaissance sorties as far away as northern Norway, East Prussia, and the north of Italy.

Despite its small size, the Spitfire’s fuselage was still big enough to accommodate a variety of camera configurations, while cameras could also be mounted in the wings to provide oblique photographic coverage. The mounting-point in the fuselage was just behind the centerline fuel tank. The cameras were split verticals with the largest lenses that could be fitted into the airframe. The Mosquito’s fuselage was roomier and so could accommodate any required camera configuration. The commonest involved three cameras — a single short-lens area collector and two long focal length ones, mounted as split verticals for taking more detailed shots of specific objectives. Forward obliques could be taken from the nose or from wing pods to gather stereo images.

Some of the mounting points could be accessed by the aircrew — the Mosquito accommodated a navigator asmwell as a pilot — which meant that film magazines could be changed in flight. Naturally, this greatly increased the number of photographs that could be obtained.

Reconnaissance Routine

When the weather was clear, reconnaissance pilots often flew several reconnaissance sorties a day — at their peak, in the run-up to D-Day in 1944, many were averaging up to eight. With up to 500 exposures on each roll of film the pilots brought back, staffing levels at RAF Medmenhamincreased exponentially. At the start, Medmenham had an establishment of 114 officers and 117 other ranks. By the end of the war, there were around 550 officers and 3,000 other ranks working there. They included many Americans.

The staff — mostly an eclectic mix of boffins and academics with quite a few women among them — comprised some of the best brains in the country. Geoffrey Stone, an army photographic interpreter posted to Medmenham prior to D-Day, recalled that the place was nothing like a “regimented military establishment.” It was “much more like an academic institution full of civilians in uniform.” Glyn Daniel, the first Cambridge archaeologist to be recruited to the Medmenham operation, described his new colleagues as “an ill-assembled collection of dons, artists, ballet designers, newspaper editors, and writers.” There was no doubting, however, the dedication they brought to their new jobs.

Archaeologists like Daniel were prized because of their ability to piece together tiny scraps of information to produce a comprehensive intelligence picture. Dorothy Garrod, Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge, joined Medmenham as a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), became a SectionOfficer and made herself Medmenham’s expert on the movement of supplies and troops by train. Explorers and geologists were equally valued. Many found their peacetime experiences invaluable. Constance Babington Smith, a young WAAF officer who had been a pre-war journalist on The Aeroplane, won fame for being the first to identity one of the Third Reich’s most-closely guarded secrets, the VI Flying Bomb.

Not everyone took to the life. Elizabeth Johnston- Smith, a 19-year-old WAAF who came to Medmenhamto train as a photographic interpreter, said the place had “a fuddy-duddy, middle-aged feel to it,” which she did not care for at all. The hours were long, the tasks taxing, and the pressure unrelenting. Night and day every day of the year, work went on continuously. To cope with the burden, Medmenham personnel worked a shift system. For day workers, the norm was 12 hours on and then 24 hours off. Nightshift personnel worked from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. They got 36 hours off.

Training Photographic Interpreters

All prospective photographic interpreters posted to Medmenham had to undertake an introductory training course. There were no exceptions, regardless of any past experience. Douglas Kendell, who had worked with the Aircraft Operating Company before the war and then with Sidney Cotton, was put in charge of setting up the course; Pilot Officer Alfred Stevenson eventually took over from him. By the end of the war, he had trained 1,300 would-be photographic interpreters successfully.

The course lasted two weeks, during which time its participants learned the basics of the various skills a proficient photographic interpreter required. Some, like patience, attention to detail, and a good visual memory could not be taught. Successful photographic interpreters also possessed the kind of mind that enjoyed solving what often proved to be knotty problems. The starting point was learning how to identify objects on the ground as seen from high up in the air. Railways, for instance, had to be distinguished from roads as did fighter airstrips from bomber airfields. Next, the students were introduced to stereoscopic viewing. They were taught how to handle a stereoscopic viewing frame — this was universally referred to simply as a “Stereo.” The two photographic prints that fitted into it were termed a “Stereo Pair.”

Viewing objects on the ground in 3D made it easier to identify them. It also made it possible to measure them. The logical first step was to work out the scale of the photographs. Once this had been established, the size of every object in them could be calculated, though many found it hard to master the intricacies of working with a slide-rule. Finally, the trainee photographic interpreters were taught how to distinguish objects of military significance and especially how to seek out any telltale signs denoting untoward enemy activity.

Photographic Interpretation in Action

Actual photographic interpretation involved several phases or stages. The First Phase, as it was termed, was carried out as soon as possible after the photographs had been developed and printed. The aim was to spot urgent military information. Second Phase analysis followed. This was a more elaborate process, undertaken by a large team examining the photographs in more detail. What the team detected formed the basis for the daily reports RAF Medmenham produced, summarizing every aspect of enemy activity.

The Third Phase was the key to building a greater understanding of specific aspects of the enemy war effort. It involved close photographic analysis by specific dedicated working sections. Section A dealt with enemy shipping. It had plenty of material to work with — from 1941 onward, every port in Occupied Europe was photographed at least once a week, provided the weather was favourable. One of the section’s key figures was David Brachi, another of those who came to RAF Medmenham having worked for the Aircraft Operating Company. Among his achievements was his identification of a new class of German destroyer, but his real speciality was monitoring U-boat construction. By carefully charting each stage of the process, he was able to amass enough evidence to be able to deduce how many new U-boats were being built up to a year ahead. In early 1941, for instance, he predicted that U-boat production would double by the end of the year. The report went straight to the highest levels of naval intelligence, then to the chiefs of staff and finally to the War Cabinet, where it was seen by Churchill himself.

Section C studied enemy airfields, while Section E devoted itself to spotting all kinds of camouflage. Section F concentrated on railways, roads, and river and canal transport. Section L specialised in aircraft identification, while the aptly-named Section N concentrated on night photography. Other sections focused on industry, army sites, and bomber targeting and damage assessment. During the entire course of the war, none of the other belligerents managed to build up such a sophisticated air intelligence operation.

Section C, in particular, was faced with an arduous task. There were 400 Luftwaffe air bases in France and the Low Countries alone and hundreds more scattered through the Mediterranean. The photographic interpreters first set about establishing which aircraft flew from what bases. The Luftwaffe’s fighters, for instance, more often than not flew from smaller bases with grass landing strips. German bombers and transport aircraft, on the other hand, usually needed longer concrete runways in order to be able to take off and land without damage.

This was by no means all Section C spent its time observing. Its photographic interpreters also kept a close watch-out for signs of airfield expansion, particularly the building of new hangars and taxiways or the extension of runways and the installation of flare paths. They had to be able to recognise existing aircraft types and spot new ones as and when they were introduced. Often, building activity was an anticipation of the arrival of new aircraft. In 1944, for instance, when the Luftwaffe started to prepare to receive its first jets, the interpreters spotted not only that runways were being lengthened but that new fuel dumps were also being built to accommodate the needs of the new aircraft. They went on from this to predict the approximate number of jets the Germans, in theory, would be able to deploy.

Only the most talented photographic interpreters were considered suitable for working on Phase Three analysis. Constance Babington Smith was one of them. As well as being the photographic interpreter who first spotted a V1 Flying Bomb on its way for testing, she was the first to spot the Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket fighter, the Heinkel He 28, the world’s first jet fighter, and the revolutionary Messerschmitt Me 262, the twin-engine jet fighter that, fortunately for British and American airmen, Hitler insisted be redesigned to be deployed as a fighter-bomber. She and her team detected other top-secret German aircraft prototypes into the bargain.

Babington Smith’s photographic detective work in Section L was praised by no less a person than Group Captain Frank Whittle, the inventor of the original jet engine. He visited her at RAF Medmenham where he appeared to fall for the WAAF officer. Babington Smith later discovered that he had tried to find out from her colleagues what sort of scent she was wearing. It was Guerlain’sL’HeureBleue — a classy French perfume that was hard to find in wartime Britain. Babington Smith wore it, she said, to try to counteract the masculine effect of her service uniform.

Maps and Models

Map-making was another important part of RAF Medmenham’s activities. The route of each photographic reconnaissance sortie and outline plots of the photographs taken on it had to be traced onto small-scale maps to create a permanent record of what had been photographed — and, more often than not, photographed again — when and where. The latter was particularly important, since the photographic interpreters needed all the photographs that could be mustered for purposes of comparison.

It was precision work, which required great skill and fine attention to detail. It was reckoned that a first class tracer could plot around 100 photographs an hour. The finished plots were cut out and mounted on a master map for future reference. The original prints were dispatched to RAF Medmenham’s Photographic Library. This housed a truly mammoth photographic collection, which expanded at the rate of about a million photographs a month as the war reached its height.

The long rolls of negative film shot by the reconnaissance Spitfires and Mosquitoes were also stored in the capacious library. New prints from them could be requested whenever they were needed. A vast Williamson Multiprinter from Kodak speeded up the process. Working flat out, it could print up to 1,000 photographs an hour. The librarians — there were 275 of them — boasted that they could find or produce prints of photographs taken almost anywhere over Europe in a matter of minutes. By 1944, they were producing up to 140,000 duplicate photographs a month and, by the end of the war, they were storing approximately seven million photographic prints from all the main fighting fronts.

Section V was responsible for model-making. Initially, the section was based in the basement of DanesfieldHouse, which was converted into a carpenter’s workshop, but it soon spread to outbuildings scattered through the grounds. Geoffrey Deeley, a successful sculptor, was the chief model-maker. Others included Alan Sorell, a well-known artist, and Leslie Durbin, a celebrated silversmith.

The section used the aerial photographs that werepassed across to them as reference for the three dimensional models they spent their time lovingly creating. Initially, they started by making individual models of ships, aircraft, tanks and other military vehicles, military installations, other buildings, and even railway locomotives and goods wagons. New photographic interpreters used them as recognition guides. Soon, however, the model-makers grew more ambitious. They began creating models of entire landscapes that could be as much as 20 sq. ft (1.85m²). Cliffs, beaches, ports, harbors, dams, and specific groups of buildings, such as radar stations, were all produced in full detail precisely to scale. They were triumphs of the model-makers’ art.

Building the Models

Each model was constructed as follows. First, the model-makers built up an accurate representation of the overall terrain by layer on layer of hardboard cut-outs on a baseboard. They used maps as extra reference to back up their photographs. Then they covered the layered cutouts with rubber or plastic to create a more realistic effect.

The next step was even more complicated. It involved creating a mosaic of vertical aerial photographs over the model. This was a skillful job, as it usually meant cutting out several photographs to give the model what might be termed a photographic “skin.” This was painted to simulate the look of a real landscape, complete with rivers, roads, fields, woods, and trees. Finally, individual models of key installations or buildings were made separately and then placed carefully in position. During every stage of the process, Third Phase specialists checked and double-checked the model-makers’ work to ensure that what was being produced was as accurate as possible.

By the time the war ended, Medmenham’smodelmakershad churned out more than 1,400 models. Some, like the models of the Möhne, Eder, and Sorpedams used to brief the Dam Busters prior to their famous 1943 air attack, were extremely elaborate. Such was the reliance Bomber Command placed on them that, according to Paul Brickhill, author of TheDam Busters, the aircrews taking part in the attack were instructed to “look at these until your eyes stick out and you’ve got every detail photographed on your mind. Then go away and draw them from memory, come back and check your drawings, correct them, then go away and draw them again till you’re perfect.”

Sometimes, too, the models were photographed lit in a way that replicated exactly what the location must look like on a moonlit night. The biggest task Section V undertook involved building 97 separate models of the Normandy beaches as part of the preparations for the June 1944 D-Day landings. In order to produce the many copies of the models the Overlord planners required, the model-makers made plastic molds from the originals in order to produce the required number of duplicates.

Spotting Decoys

As the RAF’s bombing offensive slowly built up its strength, the Germans tried to divert the bombers away from their targets by setting up hundreds of decoy sites. There was nothing new in this; the British had done much the same thing when they implemented Operation Starfish to try to fool the Luftwaffe during the Blitz. The German plan worked for a time, until Geoffrey Dimbleby began studying the countryside around priority RAF targets in the Ruhr Valley and along the Rhine. He spotted hundreds of craters in fields where, by triggering decoy fires, the Germans had tricked the bombers into dropping their bomb-loads.

It was an easy enough mistake to make. Many Bomber Command aircrews were already bombing on estimated time of arrival over their targets and their accuracy was substantially inaccurate as a result. Seen from 20,000ft (6,100m) or so, the fires the Germans set could easily be mistaken for burning buildings. Dimbleby was put in charge of a new section — Q Section — at RAF Medmenham with orders to solve the problem the various decoy sites were posing. They got to work and, around Cologne alone, quickly identified 17 different decoy sites.

The Germans even attempted the Herculean taskof trying to camouflage their capital. The surface ofthe East-West Axis, the city’s most important distinguishing landmark, was sprayed with dark green paint to blend in with the surrounding Tiergarten.An overhead cover of wire matting, interwoven with green material to resemble vegetation, was also strung over it for a considerable distance. In Hamburg, the main railway station had a false roof built over it in the shape of a small hill. The photographic interpreters, though, found such efforts relatively easy to spot in photographs, as opposed to with the naked eye from the air, because the camouflaged areas looked visually different to the actual landscape surrounding them. Comparing photographic coverage shots could also be a dead giveaway. E Section, headed by WAAF officer Molly “Tommy” Thompson, briefed photographic interpreters on what to look out for and how to spot it.

Dummy airfields featured prominently in the German decoy scheme. They were often sited close to actual airfields and populated with dummy aeroplanes in the hopes that attacking aircraft would be fooled into bombing and strafing them. The dummies were often so realistic that even experienced photographic interpreters sometimes found it difficult to distinguish them from the real thing. Oil depots and storage tanks were shrouded with camouflage netting to look like fields. The Germans used smokescreens as well — both to try to conceal actual targets and as decoys. Despite their efforts, the majority of the bombers got through.

[MIKA27]

NASA Wants To Send A Quadcopter Drone To Titan

NASA wants to search Saturn’s moon Titan for life but they’re having trouble coming up with a good way to cover a large territory and obtain samples. Now they think they may have a good solution: a 10kg quadcopter that will work from a mothership. After reading about it, it’s a really cool idea.

Larry Matthies — a Senior Research Scientist and the supervisor of the Computer Vision Group, in the Mobility and Robotic Systems Section of the JPL in Pasadena, California — thinks that this may be the only solution that can achieve mission objectives — the search for life or prebiotic chemistry in one of the places in the solar system more likely to have it — safely and at low cost and low risk.

A lander will not cut it because it can’t move. They need to explore this world. A balloon or an aeroplane can easily move, but they can’t be the solution because they can’t access the surface. And a large, long-range helicopter can work, but it is way too expensive and risky. So he combined all of these ideas and came up with something relatively low cost, low risk, and absolutely logical:

We propose a mission study of a small (< 10kg) rotorcraft that can deploy from a balloon or lander to acquire close-up, high resolution imagery and mapping data of the surface, land at multiple locations to acquire microscopic imagery and samples of solid and liquid material, return the samples to the mothership for analysis, and recharge from an RTG on the mothership to enable multiple sorties.

Boom. He argues that this is only possible now because of the recent development in robotics and drones here on Earth:

Prior studies have shown the feasibility of aerial mobility on Titan for larger aircraft, from 10 to 400 kg, but none of these studies were in the size range we address and none addressed the daughtercraft, sampling, and recharging scenarios we address.

This concept is enabled now by recent advances in autonomous navigation and miniaturization of sensors, processors, and sampling devices. It revolutionizes previous mission concepts in several ways.

For a lander mission, it enables detailed studies of a large area around the lander, providing context for the micro-images and samples; with precision landing near a lake, it potentially enables sampling solid and liquid material from one lander.

For a balloon mission, it enables surface investigation and sampling with global reach without requiring a separate lander or that the balloon be brought to the surface, which has potential for major cost savings and risk reduction.

And the cool thing is that these drones will be able to fly back to base, return the samples or data, recharge their battery thanks to the nuclear power generator in the mothership, and take off for another flight.

The idea is pretty revolutionary in practice, but not something that we haven’t seen in science fiction movies: Little drones quickly exploring large areas and returning with information to the mothership or base spaceship.

Matthies says that these low cost drones can change not only the exploration of Titan, but any other world. Imagine that Curiosity had a couple of these low cost drones on its back right now. Scientists could quickly fly them to recognise terrain ahead and even retrieve samples to bring back to Curiosity. Then researchers would be able to set new mission objectives according to this information.

And that, my friends, sounds like the future of autonomous planetary exploration to me.

[oliverdst]

Hey, Mika, a little contribution.

[MIKA27]

Fidel Castro's old limos reborn as Havana taxis

Like other leaders around the world, Cuba's Fidel Castro has had over the years several government limousines at his disposal.

But some of the older, Soviet-built presidential limousines have been decommissioned and reborn as Havana taxis.

The luxury cars can be seen on the streets of Havana carrying foreign tourists with a taste for history.

About 14 of these cars were passed on to Cubataxi five years ago.

One of the drivers, Moises Suarez, said the state-owned company still runs 10 of the cars.

"When I tell passengers where the car came from, they sit in the seat back there and stretch their legs and say, 'I can't believe it'," Mr Suarez told the Associated Press news agency.

The limos are Soviet-built GAZ and ZIL models made in the 1960s and 1970s, and were often used to ferry visiting dignitaries around the island.

But Fidel Castro himself reportedly preferred to use a military-style jeep for his personal use.

Soviet-built GAZ and ZIL models made in the 1960s and 1970s

The limousines were often used to transport visiting dignitaries

[MIKA27]

Hey, Mika, a little contribution.

IMG_1524.JPG

Awesome!!!

[MIKA27]

“I Survived an Air Crash”: The Incredible Story of Juliane Koepcke

Few stories of human survival are as remarkable as that of Juliane Koepcke. On December 24, 1971, Koepcke, at the time a seventeen-year-old high school student studying in Lima, Peru, boarded LANSA Flight 508. She was accompanied by her mother, Maria Koepcke, a successful ornithologist and wife of Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, also a successful ornithologist. The aircraft on which they were traveling, a Lockheed L-188A Electra, was to take them from Lima to Iquitos, with a stopover along the way in Pucallpa. They were to be met at their destination by Hans-Wilhelm, the plan being to spend Christmas together as a family.

Aboard the plane were 86 passengers and six crew members, making a total of 92 people. All was fine for the first 25 minutes of the flight. Then, suddenly, the plane entered heavy storm clouds and began to experience strong turbulence, causing luggage and other items, including Christmas presents and cakes, to be thrown around the cabin. Recalls Koepcke: “My mother and I held hands but we were unable to speak. Other passengers began to cry and weep and scream.”

As the chaos persisted, Koepcke and her mother saw flashes of lightning around the plane. A moment later, while flying approximately 21,000 feet above mean sea level over a mountainous region of the Amazonian jungle, the plane was struck directly by lightning, igniting the fuel tank in the right wing and causing the wing to separate. Koepcke remembers seeing the bright flash of the strike. The plane, a fiery disintegrating wreck, began to plummet violently earthward.

Koepcke found herself strapped to her seat bench, flipped head over heels, the wind whistling in her ears as she continued to descend. “I could see the canopy of the jungle spinning towards me,” she recalls. “Then I lost consciousness…” Koepcke woke up the following day. She remembers opening her eyes to see the canopy above her and thinking: “I survived an air crash.”

Remarkably, despite having fallen a distance of more than two miles, she sustained only minor injuries: a broken collarbone, a ruptured ligament in her knee, and some deep cuts on her legs. It was later discovered that, of the 92 people aboard the plane, Koepcke was the sole survivor.

Wearing nothing but a mini-dress, Koepcke began to make her way through the dense jungle. She had bare feet, having lost one of her sandals during the crash. Also missing were her glasses, which she wore for acute short-sightedness. She used the only sandal she had “to test the ground ahead of me as I walked.” Fortunately, having spent over a year living with her parents at their research station in the jungle, she knew how to survive in such an environment. After finding a small creek, she began to follow it, knowing that the creek would lead to a stream and that the stream would lead to a river where she had a good chance of finding help. Her only source of sustenance was a bag of sweets she’d found at the crash site.

During her lonely and perilous trek through the jungle, she came across wreckage and corpses from the plane crash. The body of her mother was nowhere to be seen. Koepcke managed to avoid being bitten or attacked by crocodiles, snakes, piranha, and devil rays. She had less luck, however, with flies and other insects, which laid maggots in her wounds and bit her ferociously, causing her great discomfort and depriving her of sleep. After ten days, Koepcke, starved, fatigued, and in need of medical attention, came across a small boat and a hut on the river. There she remained until the following day, whereupon she was discovered by a group of Peruvian lumberjacks.

Her incredible story of survival caused a sensation in the media, and is the subject of a documentary film by Werner Herzog called Wings of Hope (2000). That Koepcke (today Juliane Diller) survived the accident and managed to be found is nothing short of a miracle. One is inclined to feel that her survival had more to do with fate than pure dumb luck.

[MIKA27]

Mystery of Disappearing Persian Army Finally Solved

With all that is going on in the Middle East, a headline like that might easily refer to current events, but this one is actually about a mystery that occurred in Egypt in 524 BC. That’s when it was believed an army of 50,000 Persian soldiers making their way across the desert vanished without a trace. Now, an Egyptologist claims he’s found a trace and solved the mystery.

The Greek historian Herodotus wrote of the Persian King Cambyses who led 50,000 men into the desert near what is now Luxor. When the men never returned, Herodotus said they were covered up by a sand dune from a sandstorm. Their remains and either a confirmation of this demise or the real reason for it have been searched for by archeologists for centuries.

Egyptologist Olaf Kaper, a professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands, has spent the last decade in Amheida in the Dakhla Oasis. In a presentation at the International Conference of the ERC project BABYLON June 18-20, 2014, he revealed his answers to the mystery.

Kaper recently deciphered references to Petubastis III on ancient temple blocks there. Petubastis III was an Egyptian rebel leader and the blocks indicated to Kaper that this was his base. He believes that Petubastis III ambushed Cambyses’ army, regained a large part of Egypt and was crowned Pharaoh, only to be overthrown two years later by Persian King Darius I. To salvage the reputation of King Cambyses, Darius blamed his massive army’s disappearance on a sandstorm. The cover-up was aided 75 years later by Herodotus, who repeated the story without any further investigation.

Now that we know what happened to the 50,000 Persian soldiers, maybe we can find out if King Darius was the first spin doctor and Herodotus the first tabloid news reporter.

[MIKA27]

HEY JOE COFFEE MUG

Never mind the fact that it's named after a song about killing an ex-lover — the Hey Joe Coffee Mug will bring a smile to your face faster than a Hendrix solo. How, you ask? By brewing your coffee in the mug itself, anytime, any place. It's powered by a detachable, USB-rechargeable battery, and instead of heating your coffee to hell and gone then making you wait for it to cool, it heats the water precisely so you can start enjoying it as soon as it's done brewing.

[MIKA27]

In 2014, US City Ends Ban On Pinball Machines

As absurd as it may sound, the humble game of pinball was once declared illegal across large swathes of the United States. And the law being the law, some of those swathes are only just getting around to fixing that.

It was announced last week that the city of Oakland, which criminalized pinball machines in the 1930's, is soon to do away with the archaic regulation (which to be fair hadn't actually been enforced for a while) following a study of the city's gambling laws. In which they instantly discovered that pinball machines haven't been a form of gambling (the reason they were initially banned) for a long, long time.

You might think this is a one-off curiosity, but there are still a few places where the old laws hold true. Indeed, the city of Beacon, New York not only maintains the law but enforces it,shutting down an arcade museum in 2010.

[Habana Mike]

80 Years Of World Cup Ticket Designs

1970: Brazil vs England quarter-final

1970 marked the arrival of World Cup branding on the ticket designs. Note the addition of the logo design in the top-left and the time displayed in analogue format on the right-hand side of the date.

1982: West Germany vs France semi-final

The ticket for the 1982 World Cup, hosted by Spain, is designed around the colours of that nation’s flag. Here we see the first use of digital clock, and for the first time the price of the ticket is displayed.

Not to be a stickler here but to me it appears there is a price on the 1970: Brazil vs England quarter-final tickets, 12 years earlier.

People have told me I tend to pay a bit too much attention to detail......

Awesome thread regardless, thanks Mika!

[MIKA27]

$900 Blade Runner Gun Looks Totally Worth It

es, you read that right. This costs $US900, not $US90. But whatever. If it means I can walk around muttering “enhance” and shooting at robots, I’ll pay it.

Limited to just 50 pieces worldwide, it’s as faithful a reproduction of Harrison Ford’s sidearm as we’re ever going to get, with each component exactly the same as the original movie prop’s, right down to the millimetre.

If $US900 is too much, there’s a $US570 edition, though this comes as an unassembled model kit.

That’s the Japanese box, but for once, the American box art might be better:

[MIKA27]

Not to be a stickler here but to me it appears there is a price on the 1970: Brazil vs England quarter-final tickets, 12 years earlier.

People have told me I tend to pay a bit too much attention to detail......

Awesome thread regardless, thanks Mika!

No worries Mr Stickler... I mean Mike! At least I know someone is reading the articles I post!!

[Fuzz]

$900 Blade Runner Gun Looks Totally Worth It

Argh! I've blown waaay too much money this year on collectibles (and we're only half way through the year). I want it, but I can't justify it.... yet!

[MIKA27]

Argh! I've blown waaay too much money this year on collectibles (and we're only half way through the year). I want it, but I can't justify it.... yet!

You know I actually posted that one just for you Fuzz... I'm the devil on your shoulder, Mwahahahahahaahahaha!!

I'm tempted myself but the only thing holding me back from ordering is CUSTOMS. The nanny state wins again!

[Pedro2486]

You know I actually posted that one just for you Fuzz... I'm the devil on your shoulder, Mwahahahahahaahahaha!!

I'm tempted myself but the only thing holding me back from ordering is CUSTOMS. The nanny state wins again!

Yeah that's the second thought I had after "oh god must buy nooooow". I'm sure a customs dude would just love to snag that

[Fuzz]

Not really a problem. Just fill out the forms before it gets sent.

Decisions, decisions...

[MIKA27]

Dolby's Crazy Atmos Surround Sound Comes To Your Living Room

More than two years ago, Dolby trotted out Atmos, the most advanced surround sound system in history. It’s been used to bring explosions and battles to deafening life in everything from Gravity to The Hobbit. It’s available in hundreds of theatres, and now Dolby plans to bring Atmos to your house.

The system supports up to 128 speakers and 64 discreet speaker feeds, including speakers above you. Consider that in the past most theatres have only been outfitted with 5.1 channel systems, which means left, right, centre, left side surround, right side surround and a subwoofer. So Atmos open a whole new world of sonic possibilities to sound designers, and they have taken advantage of it on loads of films. If you’ve heard the tech in action, you know it’s powerful, adding to the illusory adventure of heading to the cinema.

Bringing that tech into the living room is more complicated than the surround sound of yore. Simulating a 5.1 system is easy enough if you’ve got the space; you just need five speakers, a sub and hardware capable of decoding the Dolby package. But for most people. putting speakers in the ceiling isn’t a possibility.

As with many audio technologies, bringing Dolby Atmos to the home will involve the science of tricking you brain. Though Dolby’s blog post announcing the initiative doesn’t provide a lot of details, it does mention a “Dolby Atmos module” to be placed on top of your current speakers at home. The first partner to announce they will support Dolby Atmos is Pioneer. The company’s excellent Elite series speakers and receivers will support Atmos through a firmware upgrade by the end of the year. Luckily, it appears your existing Blu-ray player will be able to read the Atmos audio feed, so you won’t need to run out and get a new one.

We’ll definitely have to wait and see how this all works when partners start releasing devices, but Dolby’s tech is nearly always on point. Atmos was the best thing to happen to going to the movies in a long time. Maybe it will be the next big thing to happen to watching flicks on the couch now too.

[MIKA27]

Beware Crooks Stealing Your Card Details At Car Washes

There’s a new trend sweeping the credit card fraud business, and it takes the concept of money laundering quite literally: Criminals are swiping card details from car washes.

Krebs on Security reports that the Connecticut Financial Crimes Task Force, which includes includes the US Secret Service and state police, has discovered that at least 40 car washes across Connecticut have been hacked since February 2014. Criminals have made away with “countless customer credit and debit card” details which were then sold on.

Police became wise to the practice when PD Detective Michael Lavey heard of customers acting suspiciously, using multiple credit cards at a local Dollar Store. He explained to Krebs:

“The clerk told me they would come into the store in pairs, using multiple credit cards until one of them was finally approved, at which point they’d buy $US500 each in prepaid gift cards. We have two Family Dollar stores in Everett and a bunch in the surrounding area, and these guys would come in three to four times a week at each location, laundering money from stolen cards.”

It seems that criminals stealing the original credit card details took advantage of ageing security in the car wash points of sale. All the targeted car washes are said to have used a system developed by Micrologic Associates, which used Symantec’s pcAnywhere. That software allows remote access given the correct log-in details — and Micrologic hadn’t changed those for years.

As a result, Micrologic has been urging its customers, including the car washes, to move away from using pcAnywhere. Instead, they suggest they should use multi-factor authentication, which is an option on the point-of-sale technology, instead. Well, duh. So, the problem is at least solved — or on it way to being solved — but that’s not to say that other systems by other manufacturers couldn’t present the same weakness. Who needs a clean car, anyway?

[MIKA27]

What Happened To The Flags On The Moon?

On 10 July 1969, Apollo 11 touched down on the moon. At 10.56pm EST, Neil Armstrong accomplished another first. With the immortal words, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”, (or something like that) Neil Armstrong became the first human to step foot on a major celestial object. Soon after, Buzz Aldrin joined Armstrong on the alien surface. The two of them spent the next two and half hours exploring, taking pictures and collecting samples.

Before they took off back to Earth, Apollo 11 left evidence of their rendezvous with the moon. Besides Armstrong’s boot print and a bunch of junk, the astronauts also planted a three foot by five foot nylon American flag mounted on a pole into the ground. Subsequent Apollo missions that made it to the moon followed suit. But what happened to all of these flags? Are they still standing? Do they even still exist after nearly a half century on the moon?

As for the Apollo 11 flag, when the engine came on and the spaceship shot up away from the moon, Aldrin said he saw the flag get knocked over by the rocket blast. Beyond that, it was thought that there would be little chance the flag would survive on the harsh environment of the moon. From the extremely abrasive lunar dust to the sun’s unfiltered ultraviolet rays, the flag most likely would quickly be bleached white and disintegrate.

In fact, the flag was never intended to last long. It was purchased from the New Jersey-based flag company Annin for five dollars and fifty cents (which is about thirty five dollars today). (Annin has been making flags since 1847, making them the oldest flag manufacturer in the US today.) The flag was made with basic, ordinary nylon with no intention of existing on the moon for very long, much less for decades or more. In 2008, Dennis Lacarrubba, an employee of Annin, told Smithsonian that he couldn’t “believe there would be anything left. I gotta be honest with you. It’s gonna be ashes.”

Five other, less talked about, flags got planted on the moon during Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17. Apollo 13 never made it to the moon because, well… they had some problems as you’re no doubt familiar. These flags were also not specially made to survive on the moon, but just ones anyone could pick up at a local store.

Apollo 17, launched on 7 December 1972, featured the last humans to walk on the moon. As astronaut Eugene Cernan and geologist Harrison “Jack” Schmitt were placing the American flag into the lunar surface, Cernan apparently quipped that if he pounded the flag extra hard into the moon, that it may just last a million years.

While no human has walked on the moon since 1972, plenty of crafts sent by various nations have orbited it, taking pictures as they went. As the technology advanced and the pictures became sharper, portions of the moon’s surface were seen in great detail for the first time since 1972.

This brings us to 2012. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC for short, was first launched in June 2009. It spent over three years orbiting the moon and taking pictures with its high-resolution camera. In 2012, images sent back by LROC confirmed that all but Apollo 11′s flag and possibly Apollo 15′s flag not only survived, but are still standing.

By looking at the photos from different points in the day, the movement of shadows confirm that the flags, in some form or another, are still there. Apollo 15′s flag is still generally thought to be standing, as there is footage of this after the astronauts left. But the LROC images showed no distinctive shadow for it, as with the others confirmed still standing. That said, given the other flags seemed to have survived and it was still standing after the astronauts left, there is little reason to think this particular one disintegrated when the others did not. For that matter, it’s possible the Apollo 11 flag is still intact as well, simply lying on the lunar surface.

So what about the condition of the flags? The general consensus is that the colours have probably faded to white.

The LROC was also able to document other things left behind by the various Apollo missions, including tracks made by astronauts, backpacks, and rovers that were left. As technology progresses, we will soon be able to see the flags for ourselves to confirm the exact state, instead of relying on shadow movement.

Bonus Facts:

• Buzz Aldrin was the first person to pee while on the surface of the Moon. Take THAT Neil Armstrong!
• Buzz Aldrin’s mother’s name, before getting married, was Marion Moon.
• It’s estimated that there are about 200 tons of space “trash” on the moon left by humans. This trash includes everything from high-tech lunar probes to discarded bags of astronaut urine and feces. There is also a good deal that was left there on purpose, including a golden casted olive branch from Apollo 11 and an urn of the ashes of the planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker. They also left three retroreflector apparatuses during Apollo 11, 14, and 15. These can be used in conjunction with a laser to tell with extreme accuracy how far away the moon is at any given time.
• One of the other items purposely disposed of on the moon by Apollo 11 was a patch commemorating the first Apollo. During a training exercise less than a month before their launch, which was to be a low Earth orbital launch test, a fire broke out in the main cabin of the command module. The three astronauts on board, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, were all killed. Inquiries were launched into what happened. NASA suspended manned flights for twenty months. The space program, in general, was in serious doubt. Eventually, the fire was attributed to a wide-range of design flaws in the module.

[MIKA27]

Spectacular Photos Of The US Navy's Most Powerful Battleship Ever

This is the USS Iowa, the first of the largest, most powerful battleship class ever in the United States Navy, equipped with nine 16-inch (406mm) guns that could fire nuclear shells — the only American ship in history with this capability. This photo series is old but still stunning.

Those nine guns firing simultaneously is a terrible but awesome sight. In a real battle situation, however, it wasn’t the optimal way to attack. The shells’ shockwaves were so powerful that they affected each other, making their trajectories too imprecise. They solved this problem by firing the guns in rapid succession — all the individual guns were capable of firing independently.

It may seem really simple, but it isn’t. This fascinating old film shows how the guns — and the more than 70 men that operated each of the turrets — worked:

The death of the battleship

The Iowa’s were used in the Pacific during World War II, but soon everyone realised that the battleship days — when they were the heart of the fleet and its most powerful component — were over. The aircraft carrier, its fighter and bombers, became the most powerful force at sea. The United States cancelled two of the six Iowa-class battleships before the war was over. The US had planned to build an entirely new battleship class after Iowa too: The 65,000-ton Montana-class with twelve 16-inch (406mm) guns. However, the Navy cancelled their construction by 1943.

Still, during that war and those that followed until their final retirement in the 1990s, the four built Iowa-class battleships — USS Iowa, USS New Jersey, USS Missouri, and USS Wisconsin – were an active part the mightiest war fleet the world has ever known for a few decades (the ships were decommissioned and commissioned again a couple times.) The 80s saw 32 Tomahawk and 16 Harpoon missiles, as well as four Phalanx systems designed to defend the Iowas against anti-ship missiles, added to these impressive war vessels.

Nuclear guns

The Iowa battleships were also the only ships in the US Navy capable of firing nuclear shells. They gained that capability in the 1950s and, in theory, they had it until the ships’ retirement (the US Navy’s nuclear shells weren’t completely decommissioned until 2004.) The shells were called W23, “an adaptation of the W19 nuclear artillery shell was developed specifically for the 16-inch (406 mm) guns” with a “estimated yield of 15 to 20 kilotons of TNT [which made the] Iowa-class battleship’s 16 in guns the world’s largest nuclear artillery.” Can you imagine those guns firing nuclear shells?

Perhaps the Navy should send one of these to the game against Germany next Thursday. It seems like the only way to stop Muller und freunde.

[MIKA27]

Italy police 'solve' 1909 Petrosino Mafia murder

Joe Petrosino was shot as he went to meet a supposed informant

Police on the Italian island of Sicily believe they have solved a Mafia murder mystery dating back to 1909.

Joe Petrosino, a New York police officer, was shot dead during a mission to the island to collect evidence.

The revelation coincided with the arrest of 95 suspected members of two clans involved in extortion rackets in the island's capital Palermo.

One of those arrested had been recorded boasting that his father's uncle had carried out the killing, police say.

Domenico Palazzotto was overheard telling a colleague that "the uncle of my father was called Paolo Palazzotto; he killed the top policeman killed in Palermo" on the orders of Cascio Ferro. Ferro was a boss in Sicily's Cosa Nostra whose operations extended to the US, Ansa news agency reports.

The notorious murder of Lt Petrosino on 12 March 1909 shocked New York at the time, BBC Rome correspondent Alan Johnston reports.

Described by the FBI as one of New York's first detectives to fight organised crime in the early 1900s, he was an Italian immigrant who had targeted Black Hand extortion rackets involving Sicilian and Italian gangsters in several American cities.

Lt Petrosino was said to have gone undercover as a blind beggar, a sanitation worker and a health inspector. But on a secret mission to Sicily he was fatally shot four times in the street, while waiting for a supposed informant. The attack was witnessed by a group of people waiting for a tram.

The revelations emerged as police gathered information while preparing an anti-Mafia operation in the Palermo districts of Resuttana and San Lorenzo.

Nobody was ever convicted of Joe Petrosino's murder, our correspondent says.

Although Cascio Ferro and Paolo Palazzotto himself were picked up after the shooting, they were eventually released for lack of evidence.

[MIKA27]

Hong Kong: Man forced to fly 16,000km to use cashpoint

An Australian man has racked up thousands of kilometres in flights trying to withdraw money from his bank account, after a security upgrade rendered his cash machine card invalid.

Education consultant Robert Lewis had trouble accessing his cash when he tried to use his HSBC bank card, issued in Hong Kong in 2011, in his hometown of Wagga Wagga Australia, the South China Morning Post reports. He was told he would have to make a 10-hour round trip to the HSBC branch in Sydney to fill out a change of address application form in person in order to get an internet security device.

But his problems grew when his original Hong Kong branch rejected the application, saying his signature didn't match their records. Lewis was left with no choice but to fly another 7,400 km (4,600 miles) to Hong Kong to show bank officials his passport and identity card, where the blunder was finally sorted out.

"Hong Kong could have spoken to Sydney and faxed a copy of the documents," says Lewis, who is seeking redress for his travel costs and a goodwill payment for the hassle. He says he expected more from a bank which advertises itself as the "world's local bank".

"This has cost me an incredible amount of time and income, inconvenience, stress and anxiety. It is hardly the thing you expect from an international bank," he told the Post.

The bank has apologized for its mistakes in processing his application.

[MIKA27]

25 Years After Batman, No Superhero Movie Can Compare

Tim Burton’s Batman turns 25 today, believe it or not. And in the quarter-century since the movie was released, superhero movies have turned into a genre all their own. Some of have been more coherent than Batman, some have been slicker, some even more enjoyable. But none have been as off-kilter, confused, and passionate as the 1989 film—and that doesn’t bode well for the future of the genre.

Let’s get this out of the way first: Batman is not necessarily a good movie. Yes, there’s a lot that’s good about it—Michael Keaton made a surprisingly great Bruce Wayne, despite the fan outcry at his announcement, and the movie looks amazing thanks to Burton’s direction and Anton Furst’s production design—but overall the movie is as uneven as a mountain range. A lot of that can be put down to the performances, which range widely in intensity; at times, two people sharing a scene seem like they’re acting in entirely different movies (e.g., Michael Gough’s Alfred with Kim Basinger’s Vicki Vale, or Jack Nicholson with… well, anyone, really).

But the movie also reflects a struggle between Burton and Warner Bros. over just what a Batman movie should be. Burton came into Batman with a particular mission: to show the public a cinematic Caped Crusader as fraught as the one who first surfaced in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, then continued in projects like Batman: Year One and The Killing Joke. Burton’s Batman, in his mind, would drop the camp caricature the vigilante had been saddled with since the 1960s television show and replace it with something more befitting of a character nicknamed the “dark knight.”

In rebuttal, Warner Bros. offered this: Prince – Batdance (1989)

(As an aside, imagine a world in which the Batman movie was actually like what “Batdance” sounds like. It’s a wonderful, slightly terrifying thing.)

It’s that philosophical tug-of-war that makes the movie so compelling 25 years later. Burton got his way when it came to casting Batman, but Nicholson as Joker was the studio’s decision, as was Basinger as Vicki Vale (Keaton reportedly wanted Brad Dourif, and Sean Young had the female lead until an accident just before shooting began). Likewise, Burton got his way with Danny Elfman’s melodramatic score, but the studio opted instead to promote WB Records signee Prince’s soundtrack for synergy’s sake. There’s more; the original climax of the movie—the Joker kills Vicki Vale, sending Batman over the edge—was dumped by the studio during filming, leading to a shoot where no one actually knew how the story would end until they’d already filmed it. And so on, and so on. By all regular standards, Batman is a mess.

The superhero movies of today were born of Burton’s desire to make superheroes gritty and “realistic,” and Warners’ desire to make Batman as mainstream and profitable as possible. Compare the self-conscious camp of Christopher Reeves’ Superman movies to the self-conscious sincerity of Man of Steel, and ask yourself whether we could’ve gotten there without Burton’s adherence to the idea that Batman be taken seriously. Just one look at the aesthetic of Burton’s movie, and you can see the roots of the re-imagined X-Men and Avengers uniforms.

But rather than being resolved before the movie was released, the argument played out on screen. The result was something much more contentious than today’s superhero movies—which, having no need to validate superheroes as a worthy genre, by now seem almost smug. For all its flaws, Batman was clearly a movie made by someone who wanted to say something about the character—something more than “how much money can we make?” It’d be nice if more superhero movies today felt the same.

[MIKA27]

New Orleans Jazz Band Performs Epic Cover Game of Thrones

New Orleans is renowned for its vibrant live music scene, its dimly lit jazz bars hosting some of the most talented musicians in America.

The Swamp Donkeys are one such musical group, best known for playing a unique combination of blues, jazz originals, vaudeville and traditional jazz.

Recently they decided rework the stirring theme tune of Game Of Thrones into their very own jazz medley.

And whilst they're not the first set of musicians to cover Game Of Thrones their whiskey soaked and free flowing interpretation is as good as any.