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

[MIKA27]

Sea Level Rise Is Forcing This Island Nation To Buy Land 1900km Away In Fiji

The nation of Kiribati is a string of 30 or so tiny islands in the Pacific, each just a metre or so above the sea. Thanks to climate change and rising seas, it’s officially screwed. So Kiribati’s government has come up with a drastic and unprecedented decision: buy 5460 acres of land that is 1900km away in a whole other country.

For years now, Kiribati has looked at Fiji for its future. It finalised the purchase of a parcel of arable land on Fiji’s second-largest island for $US8.77 million earlier this year. Because encroaching seawater has ruined crops on the low-lying islands, the land will, for now, be used to grow food for Kiribati.

In the future, all of Kiribati’s 100,000 plus residents will also need somewhere to go. The islands are expected to become uninhabitable in 30 years or so, as the rising seas reclaim land and contaminate fresh groundwater. As such, Kiribati has also worked with New Zealand to allow its people to migrate there.

Kiribati won’t be alone is seeking to relocate its population. Other low-lying island nations like the Maldives, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands are feeling the outsized impacts of climate change. “Entire populations of affected states could become stateless,” says a UN report. Yup, climate change couldn’t care less about national boundaries.

[Maplepie]

Does that basically mean their country is being eradicated?

Perhaps another set of volcanic activity can create more stable and higher atolls.

Sent from my Q10 using Tapatalk

[MIKA27]

Which Actor Would Be The Best -- Or The Worst -- Batman?

Here’s an enjoyable animation bit: it hilariously imagines different famous actors as Batman. All the impressions are great. You’ll see Matthew McConaughey putting on his True Detective mask, Kevin Spacey doing his Frank Underwood shtick, Mark Wahlberg’s everyman persona, Aaron Paul screaming ***** and more.

Maybe we should just run it back with Christian Bale.

MIKA: That is hilarious! Love the Mark Whalberg and Owen Wilson Batmen!!

BTW: Worst Batman EVER was George Clooney...

[Fuzz]

Sea Level Rise Is Forcing This Island Nation To Buy Land 1900km Away In Fiji

Here's a novel idea. Build a gigantic floating platform, transport all your land onto the platform and become the world's first portable nation! Don't like the current climate or your neighbours are getting uppity? Sail to a friendlier and more hospitable location.

[Maplepie]

Here's a novel idea. Build a gigantic floating platform, transport all your land onto the platform and become the world's first portable nation! Don't like the current climate or your neighbours are getting uppity? Sail to a friendlier and more hospitable location.

perhaps a real world idea

just give Kiribati's 11 000 people an armada of wind sails and have em do that! basically divide and conquer various un-cultivatable atolls. sooner or later, you'll have the biggest country in the world with 1% fertile land!

[MIKA27]

A Tantalizingly Brief Glimpse Inside Fabien Cousteau's Underwater Lab

Fabien Cousteau just concluded his 31-day underwater research mission, where six scientists studied coral reefs in a small chamber 20 metres underwater off the coast of Key Largo. The long-term underwater residence gave them a firsthand glimpse of some never-before-seen underwater phenomena, as Cousteau told PBS’s Hari Sreenivasan in this all-too-short interview from the ocean floor.

http://youtu.be/_VVgPIltodQ

Cousteau, grandson of famed ocean explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, timed the mission to both mark the 50th anniversary of a similar long-term study his grandfather conducted, and add a day to the 30-day record set half a century ago. The team returned to land this week, armed with tons of data that will go toward at least 10 research papers on the topic of climate change and the state of our oceans.

[MIKA27]

The Gadget That Will Make You Feel Like A Jedi Is Just Months Away

After years of tweaking, the technology that will make you think you’re a Jedi — or maybe Tom Cruise in Minority Report — is gearing up for its launch later this year.

Canadian company Thalmic Labs attracted millions of potential customers last February when it introduced a video for the Myo armband, which lets you control electronic devices with simple hand and arm gestures. The original video, which Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak called “very cool and impressive,” is embedded below. Thalmic is venture backed and launched last February.

Thalmic Labs shipped its initial batch of Myo armbands for developers last December (those were the “alpha” designs), but the company said it delayed Myo’s public launch because the team wanted to make significant improvements to the industrial design.

“We started last fall, around October, redesigning the industrial design,” Stephen Lake, co-founder and CEO of Thalmic Labs, told Business Insider. “We wanted to make it more durable, thinner, and reduce the complexity that made it something more manufacturable. One of the big challenges is making a one-size-fits-all that will also be slim. We didn’t want to make multiple sizes, but to meet that constraint the original product had a complex mechanism that made it bulky. We decided that wasn’t the quality we wanted to release.”

Earlier this month, Thalmic showed off the “final design” for its Myo armband, which features a thinner, stretchier design: It looks like a series of small black rectangles connected by flexible rubber cables on the top and bottom that can stretch out or contract like an accordion, depending on your arm size. The latest version of Myo is also roughly half the weight of the alpha design.

The technology that makes Myo possible — electromyography (EMG), which doctors and scientists use to record electrical activity from muscles — is something Lake and his Thalmic Labs co-founder Matt Bailey have been experimenting with since their undergrad years at University of Waterloo, where the two tinkerers worked on with a wearables device that could help blind people navigate using sensors. Lake said he felt there was a “major gap” in enabling wearable technology because there wasn’t an interface that was good enough.

“It was clear that our hands and fingers were the key, as voice commands, eye tracking, etc. don’t work well in broad applications, so we wanted a way to plug our hands into the digital world,” Lake told Business Insider. “Cameras don’t work well to accomplish this in mobile scenarios (which is the most common approach to gesture recognition). Eventually we ended up with a hypothesis that we may be able to use EMG to accomplish this. A few months later we had an early prototype that proved our hypothesis.”

Thalmic’s latest Myo performs like the older model: The arm band measures the electrical signals in your arm muscles and detects the gesture you’re going to make before your hand even has a chance to act.

In the months leading up to the public release, Lake said Thalmic is going to keep working on its software and applications. “Much of the work is planned in that area,” he says.

“We’re putting a lot of work into making our SDK and the software development with Myo very easy and straightforward while also allowing more advanced developers to do what they want to do,” Thalmic Labs co-founder Aaron Grant said in a recent Google Hangout.

Thanks to developers, Lake says he is seeing “new applications emerge all the time” for his smart armband.

“We’re doing a number of things for developers to make it really easy to use the Myo to control all your different technologies,” Grant said. “We’re doing all the heavy lifting in terms of integrating Myo with all the various platforms and different kinds of devices and software you might want to use and providing a really easy way for developers to take that and be really creative with it.”

It’s not yet clear how practical Myo will be for controlling complex electronics like computers, but thanks to the massive amount of developer interest — Thalmic Labs initially received over 10,000 applications to join the Myo developer program — Lake doesn’t seem concerned about the future of his fledgling wearable device.

“Home automation is a pretty interesting niche within the developer community,” Lake said. “Internally, we think about applications in categories for consumers, so we’re thinking about gaming and these sort of small and interactive devices around us. But we’re always trying to think about connecting to these devices and letting us control them in real-time.”

The consumer version of the Myo armband, as well as the developer kit, are both currently available to pre-order. Thalmic Labs says the developer kit will start shipping in July, while the consumer version will release around September. Both models cost $US149.

[MIKA27]

Watch A Pair Of F-18s Refuel In Mid-Air Near The RAAF Base In Tindal, NT

Flying a fighter jet has to be one of the few activities that triggers both excitement and terror. I’m sure a trained pilot experiences the former more than the latter, but I can only imagine the nerves needed to successfully dock with a tanker craft in mid-air. If you’re curious as to how such a manoeuvre is conducted, here’s a clip showing two F/A-18s hooking up with a KC-130, near the Royal Australian Air Force base in Tindal, Northern Territory.

True, it’s not the most exciting activity one can engage in while seated in a jet fighter, but it’s one of those things you’d rather have practised a few times before having to do it under duress.

I’m not particularly up with procedures, but is it normal for a pilot to drop their missiles before doing something like this? At the 38-second mark the first jet does exactly this. I’m guessing they aren’t live munitions but still, I’m sure all manner of native marsupials have made up legends about falling “death pipes”.

[MIKA27]

Spectacular Images Of The World's First Pyrotechnic Air Acrobatic Team

The Twister Aerobatics Team is not your usual air acrobatics number. Instead of using just smoke canisters, these guys use actual pyrotechnics rockets to give beautiful shows at dusk. Truly spectacular.

[MIKA27]

Nowhere Under The Sea Is Safe From Britain's Newest Nuclear Submarine

Russia isn’t the only nation launching a nuclear sub hunter after two decades of development. The UK recently rolled the third of seven £1 billion ($1.8 billion) Astute Class nuclear submarines, the HMS Artful, out of its cavernous dry dock for a year of demanding sea trials and a quarter century of service beneath the seas.

BAE Systems began construction on the Artful back in 1997 at the company’s construction hall at Barrow-in-Furness, in Cumbria and is designed, along with its sisters, as equivalents to America’s versatile Virginia-class nuclear subs. They measure 96m in length with a 11m beam and 10m draught and displace 6713 tonnes of seawater — that’s the same as 65 blue whales.

The Arftul‘s Rolls-Royce PWR 2 reactor is strong enough to power all of Southampton and will propel the submarine up to 30 knots underwater but won’t ever have to be refueled over the vessel’s 25-year service life. What’s more, because the Artful also produces its own oxygen and freshwater onboard, the submarine is easily capable of circumnavigating the globe without surfacing and can stay down for as long as food supplies for the 98-member crew last — which should be about three months.

Even more impressive than its longevity is the Artful’s warfighting capabilities. For example, the Astute class is the first in Her Majesty’s Navy to forgo conventional periscopes in lieu of HD video feeds delivered via fibre optic cabling. The Astutes also sport the “biggest ears in the Royal Navy” with their Sonar 2076 system, widely regarded within the defence industry as the single most advanced and capable sonar suite in operation today. It can be installed on both the new Astute class and the existing Trafalgar class subs, giving the entire fleet a single, interoperable sonar system. What’s more, the system is estimated to operate some 13,000 hydrophones along her bow, flanks and towed array — that’s magnitudes more than previous Royal Navy subs and more than any other modern sonar system.

The HMS Artful is also armed to the teeth. Once it enters service, it will do so with six 21-inch torpedo tubes and room for 38 missiles and torpedoes. The Artful will primarily rely on the 1.8-tonne Spearfish heavyweight torpedo, which can hit targets up to 50km away with a 300kg explosive charge, and the Tomahawk IV Land Attack Cruise Missile, which can ruin weeks from more than 1000km away — that’s the distance from London to Paris and back again — and will drop a 450kg warhead (quite possibly nuclear) moving at 885km/h on your location with pinpoint precision.

With the launch of the Artful in May of this year, the submarine is expected to begin its sea trials in early 2015 before joining its sisters, the HMS Astute and HMS Ambush, defending queen and country.

[MIKA27]

Artist Draws Incredible Illustrations With No Prior Sketching Whatsoever

Kim Jung Gi is one of those rare illustrators that can conjure up any scene he wants out of thin air, without any sketching and in record time. There are no tricks here, just an amazing visual memory, raw imagination, and a perfect command of the medium. Watching these videos of him working is a real pleasure.

Kim Jung Gi is a South Korean artist born in 1975. He studied fine arts at the Dong-Eui University of Busan and served in the army’ special forces section during more than 2 years, which allowed him to memorize an amazing number of vehicles and weapons. He’s a professional illustrator and comic book artist.

You can follow his work on his website and Facebook.

[MIKA27]

There's A Plan To Breed Bald Chickens That Can Survive Global Warming

In a few decades, global warming will likely make our unbearable summers hotter, longer, and even more unbearable. So think of the chickens. Or, if you can’t find a place for chickens in your heart, think of the chicken nuggets and hot wings that you’ll miss. That’s why researchers at the University of Delaware want to breed a heat-resistant chicken with no feathers on its head and neck.

But how do you make a chicken lose its feathers? Geneticist Carl Schmidt at the University of Delaware is looking for the DNA basis of naked necks. The quest has taken him and his collaborators to Uganda and Brazil, where birds have naturally evolved featherless heads and necks to stay cool. Schmidt is also cataloguing other genes that may lead to hardier, heat-resistant birds.

Our commercially domesticated chickens — with their massive breasts and full plumes of feathers — are likely to be susceptible to heat waves in the coming decades. “My concern is feeding nine billion people in 2050,” Schmidt tells Modern Farmer. “That’s going to be a challenge. And it’s going to be made worse if the climate does continue to change.”

Schmidt’s plan for these new chickens involves only selective breeding, not genetic modification. (That’s probably in part because GM animals have faced a whole lot of opposition. Take the killing of the Enviropigs.) In fact, it turns out that selective breeding has created some pretty nutty-looking chickens already.

[MIKA27]

A Vader Suitcase Can Even Squeeze Into A TIE Fighter's Overhead Bins

Even though it’s designed for kids, it’s going to be hard for adult Star Wars fans not to trade in their carry-on luggage for this awesome 3D Vader suitcase — even if they are Yoda-sized.

Recommended for kids ages three and up, this $US40 rolling suitcase can easily accommodate a week’s worth of clothing for a toddler, or a single pair of adult pants. But who cares? With a 3D relief of Vader’s helmet on the front, and light-up wheels that power themselves as they roll, you’ll be happy to pay luggage fees since you’ll have to travel with three or four of them.

[MIKA27]

How Could You Not Lust Over This Portable Wooden Arcade Box?

Hearkening back to a simpler time when electronics — including home vide game consoles — came with stylish faux-wood finishes, the R-KAID-R packs a modern emulator into a handmade wooden box that’s able to play all of your favourite classic arcade and console games in style.

With an 800 x 600 LCD display and modern hardware under the hood, the R-KAID-R won’t provide the exact same experience as gaming on an old CRT TV in your parents’ basement. But it makes up for it with modern conveniences like an SD car slot for easily loading ROMs, and an impressive eight-hour rechargeable battery

http://youtu.be/5ZxM6CgA-Lc

Nostalgia rarely comes cheap, though. And the R-KAID-R will unfortunately set you back a hefty $US3400+ when it starts shipping this September. But you do get your choice of wood for the case — including everything from walnut to emerald green maple. Remember, it’s not like you’ll be paying for all those ROMs you’ll be playing.

[MIKA27]

Cambridge Five spy ring members 'hopeless drunks'

Guy Burgess and Donald Duart Maclean were constantly drunk, the files say

Members of the Cambridge Five spy ring were regarded by their Soviet handlers as hopeless drunks incapable of keeping secrets, newly-released files suggest.

Documents from the Mitrokhin Archive have been opened to the public for the first time after being kept at a secret location for more than 20 years.

The FBI described them as the most complete intelligence ever received.

Major Vasili Mitrokhin smuggled the information out of Soviet archives during 12 years working for the KGB.

He defected to Britain in 1992.

Among the thousands of pages of documents are profiles outlining the characteristics of Britons who spied for the Soviet Union.

They include references to Donald Duart Maclean and Guy Burgess, two of the five men recruited while studying at the University of Cambridge during the 1930s.

'Drunkenly dropped documents'

A short passage describes Burgess as a man "constantly under the influence of alcohol".

Written in Russian, it goes on to recount one occasion when Burgess drunkenly risked exposing his double identity.

"Once on his way out of a pub, he managed to drop one of the files of documents he had taken from the Foreign Office on the pavement," translator Svetlana Lokhova explained.

Moving on to Maclean, the note describes him as "not very good at keeping secrets".

It adds that he was "constantly drunk" and binged on alcohol.

It was believed that he had told one of his lovers and his brother about his work as a Soviet agent while he was the worse for wear, the file adds.

Recruited during studies

The notes also provide an insight into the extent of the group's activity as they helped the KGB penetrate the UK's intelligence network at the highest level.

They describe how Burgess alone handed over 389 top secret documents to the KGB in the first six months of 1945 along with a further 168 in December 1949.

Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt and a man believed to be John Cairncross were also in the Cambridge spy ring

The men had been graduates of Trinity College, Cambridge

Along with Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt and a fifth man, widely believed to be John Cairncross, the Cambridge Five passed information about the UK to the Soviet Union throughout World War Two and into at least the 1950s.

After being recruited during their studies, the group went on to occupy positions within the Foreign Office, MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).

Shortly before the end of the war, Philby was promoted to head of the SIS's anti-Soviet section - meaning he was in charge of running operations against the Soviets while operating as a KGB agent.

Defection 'major coup'

Mitrokhin was a senior archivist in the KGB's foreign intelligence HQ and had unlimited access to thousands of files from a global network of spies and intelligence-gathering operations.

He became disillusioned with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and began handwriting notes from the files which he believed would be of use to foreign intelligence.

His defection was regarded as a major coup and provided an insight into the extent of Soviet intelligence operations throughout the Cold War.

Throughout his life he made it clear he wanted his files opened to the public and following his death in 2004, his family worked with the Churchill Archive Centre in Cambridge to realise this wish.

His handwritten notes made in school notebooks remain classified and some information has been redacted.

But 19 out of 33 box files containing typewritten versions of his notes, all in Russian, can be viewed by visitors to the archive centre.

Major Vasili Mitrokhin had unlimited access to thousands of files

[MIKA27]

Lion killer is killed by hyenas

A Kenyan herdsman who fought off and killed a lion, has died after being attacked by a pack of hyenas.

Moses Lekalau, 35, was walking home in the Maralal safari area north-east of Nairobi when the lion leapt out at him.

Exhausted by his struggle, he lacked the strength to fight off a subsequent attack by hyenas.

Mr Lekalau was eventually rescued by a passing motorist who drove him to hospital. He was airlifted to Nairobi for surgery but died of blood loss.

Terrible injuries

Mr Lekalau told doctors that it took him half an hour to spear and bludgeon the lion to death.

As a Samburu, he came from a community where it is traditional for boys to kill a lion as a rite of passage on entering manhood.

He spent seven hours in the operating theatre where doctors treating his extensive injuries were at first hopeful he would survive, but he had lost too much blood.

"Hyenas are cowardly animals that usually feed on leftovers," Kenyan Wildlife Service spokesman Paul Udot told reporters . "They must have been very hungry and realised the victim was vulnerable after the lion attack."

National parks in Kenya are not fenced off and the wildlife roam freely so animal attacks are quite common in rural areas.

[MIKA27]

Is the Earth preparing to flip?

It is not just the plot for a far-fetched science-fiction disaster movie. Something unexplained really is happening to the Earth's magnetic field.

In recent years, the field has been behaving in ways not previously seen in the admittedly short time it has been monitored.

Some researchers think it may presage a geomagnetic reversal when the north and south magnetic poles flip.

Such speculation takes place as the science-fiction movie The Core goes on release. In the film, the Earth's core stops rotating and our planet's magnetic sheath collapses.

A manned mission is despatched to the centre of the Earth to "jumpstart" the planet.

Scientists admit there are things going on way beneath our feet that they do not understand, and which could have profound consequences for life on the surface.

Towards Siberia

The Earth's magnetic field is caused by motions in the ball of molten iron that lies at the centre of our planet. Electrical currents in the outer part of the core result in the planet-wide magnetic field.

The magnetic field not only shields us from harmful cosmic rays but also funnels charged particles shed by the Sun towards the magnetic poles, where they can produce beautiful auroral displays.

The field is also an invaluable aid to navigation. Even though today we have the pinpoint accuracy of the satellite-based Global Positioning System, many still rely on their compass needle pointing to magnetic north.

But as all who use a compass know, the position of the magnetic pole changes and there is evidence that it is changing at an increasing rate.

Working for the Canadian Government-funded Geolab, it is Larry Newitt's job is to track the wandering north magnetic pole.

Every few years he undertakes a seven hour flight from his base in Ottawa to Resolute Bay, the closest inhabited spot to the magnetic pole.

Then it is a three-and-a-half-hour flight north in a Twin-Otter aircraft which will land on ice. Today the pole is at sea and the expedition can only be done at the end of the winter when the sea is frozen.

Placing magnetic sensors on the ice the expedition attempts to surround the magnetic pole and triangulate its correct position. But each time they go back it's moved.

"We're following it across the ice," Larry Newitt told BBC News Online. "It jumps around from day to day and year to year and we have to keep track of it."

Measurements of the magnetic pole's position in 1904 by explorer Roald Amundsen put it in roughly the same place as an earlier though less accurate measurement made in 1831 by the British explorer John Ross.

Since then it wandered slowly northward until about 30 years ago when it started behaving differently.

"There was a slow drift northward but it then started to move faster. It is now moving northward, away from Canada to Siberia, at a rate some four times faster than it used to," said Dr Newitt.

Soon, he added, expeditions to the magnetic pole would become more difficult as it moved out of range of the Twin Otter aircraft.

Pole reversal

The reason for the wandering of the magnetic pole is twofold. One cause is from beneath our feet, the other from above our heads.

Short-term jitter is caused by the influence of the solar wind on the Earth's magnetic field high in the atmosphere. But the steady drift reflects what is going on in the Earth's core.

But something else is happening to the Earth's magnetic field: it is getting weaker.

David Kerridge, of the British Geological Survey, told BBC News Online: "There is strong evidence that the field is decreasing by about 5% per century."

Some researchers suggest that it could be the start of a geomagnetic reversal, when the strength of the Earth's magnetic field decreases and then returns a few thousand years later with the north and south magnetic poles reversed.

Looking back in the geological record it is clear that on average such events occur about every 250,000 years. However, it has been 750,000 years since the last reversal - so we are certainly overdue.

Magnetic measurements made on the surface suggest that a region of the Earth's core under South Africa is of a different polarity to the rest of the magnetic field in the core. It may grow and initiate a flip, or it may die down.

Whatever happens will not happen quickly. It will take thousands of years and there is no evidence that when it has happened in the past it has seriously affected life on Earth.

As for The Core, David Kerridge said it was absolute nonsense; whilst Larry Newitt told BBC News Online that he believed it "is composed of a few scientifically plausible ideas mixed with a large dosage of sheer nonsense. It should be fun."

[MIKA27]

THE USS SHENANDOAH

The USS Shenandoah was the first of the great American airships, it was closely based on the German Zeppelin bomber L-49, built just after WWI and still viewed as one of the most important dirigibles of the era. With a gross weight of 36 tons, a total length of 68ft, a cruising speed of 70mph and a range of over 5000 miles, the Shenandoah was the first airship to cross the continental USA, the first to launch an aircraft and the first to dock with a ship at sea (the USS Patoka, seen above).

Sadly the Shenandoah’s life was cut short when it was caught in a severe storm (a squall line), it was caught in a violent updraft that carried it far higher than the upper pressure limits of its helium bags. It was torn apart in the extreme turbulence and crashed in multiple parts in farmland near Caldwell, Ohio – killing 14 crew members.

Read more here.

[MIKA27]

Meet The Cross Board: The Aussie Invention That Could Revolutionise Snowboarding

Snowboarding is in a decline. The number of riders hitting the slopes is falling every year, and there’s little innovation in the range and variety of boards available to beginners and pros. One Aussie inventor, though, has a fascinating and innovative piece of hardware that might change all of that — and it’s already out on one of Australia’s best snowfields.

28 Years Of Development: The Cross Board’s Difficult Birth

It has been a long time since Dave ‘Max’ Elphick first dreamed up the Cross Board. Living a long way from snow in Adelaide in 1985, Max worked up the original Cross Board prototype at the Mount Thebarton indoor ski slope in the middle of town (that slope is now closed; it’s now the Ice Arena indoor skating rink). The original ‘Skate Ski’ was inspired by Max’s watching James Bond’s improvised snowboard in A View To A Kill, and it was essentially a skateboard sitting on four smaller skis underneath.

Max took the nascent Cross Board to Falls Creek a few years later; by that point, it had two larger skis rather than four. The Skate Ski struggled on soft powder snow, though, so a couple of months of learning and tweaking in a snow shop was needed to bring it up to spec. From there, Max took the Snow Ski to the US and a snowboard manufacturer’s demo in Colorado, but was turned away — as the story goes, the unique board put more traditional snowboards to shame and Max was asked to leave. He petitioned Burton Snowboards — one of the big names in boarding — directly, but they weren’t interested.

Max went back to Adelaide, and the invention sat in his shed for two decades. Eventually, Dave Elphick’s son Maxwell — Max Jr. — found the dusty board, his dad had another crack at getting the design refined, this time with the help of properly trained engineers — but they still couldn’t get the formula right. Eventually Max’s then-10-year-old daughter Aine taught her father how to use Google SketchUp, and eventually, eventually, the Cross Board was born, and so was Maxt Sports — Max’s company collaboration with Bryan Te Wani, an ex-Red Bull sales director.

On The Slopes Today: Meet The Cross Board

The Cross Board as it exists today, almost 30 years after its conception, is a fascinating piece of technology. Sitting on a very short (for a snowboard) downward-sloped top deck, two equally wide blades pivot on centrally-mounted machined aluminium blocks. A double set of leaf springs running lengthways along the Cross Board let each blade pitch upwards and downwards independently, running over any bumps or ruts in packed and powder snow, smoothing out the ride.

Those leaf springs, straight out of the box, are quite compliant, so the Cross Board rides very softly on difficult or especially powdery terrain. The board isn’t fragile or complicated, though — it stands up to all the punishment you’d expect a regular snowboard to.

Using bindings just like any other snowboard, the Cross Board can be ridden just like normal, but it has more nuance available to both the beginner and the professional. Lean left or ride along the board and the blades pivot — the rear twists inwards and the front twists outwards, allowing for tighter turns. All of these variables can be adjusted with spare parts, too — you’ll be able to buy stiffer leaf springs or more progressive coil springs, all of which will alter the Cross Board’s riding dynamics and make it more suited to a specific riding style.

It’s hard to explain how the Cross Board actually works without seeing it in action or trying it yourself. What it is is a snowboard, but more versatile, more forgiving and far easier to learn on.

What’s It Actually Like To Ride?

Getting on the Cross Board is initially pretty daunting. It’s shorter than a regular newbie snowboard, but much thicker, with a whole lot more going on. Early on I had my bindings set for regular footedness, but after a bit of tweaking switched over to goofy for half my time with the Cross Board. What I found is that, not knowing too much about the technical side of riding a snowboard, either stance was really forgiving, and that the Cross Board was capable of making up for my deer-on-a-frozen-pond approach by smoothing out my inputs thanks to those integrated trucks and leaf springs.

The first thing you notice about the Cross Board, as a beginner, is how easy it is to get up and running. Because it’s taller, with two separate feet, it’s possible to dig the heel edge of the Cross Board into the snow and stand on it with only one binding secure to hook your other foot up. No more sitting on the snow to get your second boot locked in, then flipping over and hauling yourself up. If you do want to sit, though, having the raised top deck means you can grab the Cross Board’s front edge and pull yourself off the ground, which is a lot less fatiguing if you’re going to be doing it over and over.

Actually riding the Cross Board is, surprisingly enough, a piece of cake — it looks intimidating, but as soon as you stand on it you realise how forgiving and compliant it actualy is. I’ve had probably half a dozen lessons on a snowboard in the last eight years in total, and over those six or so hours I’ve never been able to get toeside turns properly hooked up. With the Cross Board, I was turning back and forth within three or four runs down Mt Buller.

Getting used to being able to steer the Cross Board by tilting back and forth on your heels and toes is an odd experience. After a couple of runs, you pick it up though, and I dare say it’s a hell of a lot easier to learn than a traditional snowboard — which can be unforgiving for first-timers. You don’t have to stand as rigidly as with a regular ‘board, either — after a few runs Max switched my Cross Board to a more relaxed skateboarding stance rather than a duck stance, and it let me flick out the Cross Board’s tail and finally get those toeside turns sorted.

If I had a (completely uneducated and unprofessional) negative observation about the Cross Board, it would be that its height makes it (to my memory) slightly easier to dig the heel or toe edges into soft powder, flipping you over to land somewhat ungratefully on your arse. That’s something you learn to avoid early on, though, and it’s no different to the even steeper learning curve of a traditional snowboard.

Maxt Sports: The Future Of The Cross Board

Mount Buller in central Victoria is, at the moment, the home of the Cross Board. The corporate team that runs the Buller snowfields and resorts have signed on with Maxt Sports — the company set up to launch the new board — to offer an initial run of 500 Cross Boards for hire (at $60 for a day). The company is looking for more partnerships with snowfields around the world, and you’ll be able to buy your own Cross Board (RRP $800) from Buller or, in the future, mainstream snow sports stores as well.

Max took me halfway up Mount Buller to the shed where he keeps three or four prototype Cross Boards. The red-striped variants are the slower, more hardy kind made for hire and for beginners who are prone to taking a tumble (like me!), but there’s a blue-striped Cross Board that is longer and more suited to higher speeds and powder snow. In the early development stage there’s also a more pliable short- and longboard made with carbon fibre, thinner and far more flexible and suited to trick riding. If and when these come to hire shops and sports stores, they’ll prove that Maxt Sports is here to stay.

Maxt, I’m told, is all about disrupting the status quo and creating new and exciting hardware. Max himself is an avid skater and surfer, so there might just be a few interesting products on the way in the near future. Even if the Cross Board is the one and only piece of tech to come out of Maxt, it’s an extremely impressive development, and it’s one worth applauding. I had a brilliant time riding the Cross Board at Mount Buller, and I can’t wait to try it out again.

[MIKA27]

This Vintage Typewriter Is Actually A Keyboard For Your Tablet

For some of us who type all day for a living, the world is too quiet. We pine for the whir of the Xerox machine, the rattle of rotary telephones, the clackety-clack of the typewriter. A slightly romantic vision, maybe, but no longer completely impossible, thanks to this keyboard modelled to look exactly like a vintage typewriter.

The Qwerkywriter was just funded on Kickstarter as an 84-key typewriter-inspired keyboard that connects to your tablet using USB. See that little shelf where the paper usually goes? That’s where your tablet plugs in.

The biggest difference here from what you might already be using with your tablet that this is a fully mechanical keyboard, with individual switches under each key. That’s what produces that satisfying feedback you don’t get from a membrane keyboard.

The most impressive thing about this whole project is how it’s managed to keep the vintage vibe with functionality of an actual keyboard. To keep the experience as authentic as possible, they have sourced these nice customised keycaps with chrome rims that feel nice on your fingers as you tap, tap, tap away.

Something about typing on that machine seems so more satisfying than the muted patter of my MacBook Air. No, it won’t work with a computer just yet, but one of the stretch goals is a wireless model that would. I’m kind of in love with it already. [The Qwerkywriter]

[MIKA27]

Self-Guided Bullets That Change Course Midair Are Now Terrifyingly Real

The military masterminds at DARPA have just changed everything you think you know about bullets. Meet the Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance, or EXACTO, a .50-cal bullet that manoeuvres itself mid-air to stay locked on target. Here’s footage of the first live test: it sure as hell looks like the technology works.

I can’t find a detailed explanation of just how that bullet swerves itself back on-target. DARPA’s public description is, perhaps not surprisingly, rather vague:

The system combines a manoeuvrable bullet and a real-time guidance system to track and deliver the projectile to the target, allowing the bullet to change path during flight to compensate for any unexpected factors that may drive it off course. Technology development in Phase II included the design, integration and demonstration of aero-actuation controls, power sources, optical guidance systems, and sensors.

The technology, whatever it may be, promises to compensate for wind, dust, and other factors, increasing a sniper’s accuracy and range and reducing the risk that a missed shot could give away the sniper’s location. At one point in time, that would have sounded like comic book fantasy, but now that the first live fire has been successful, it’s a stone-cold fact.

Sorry, bad guys: it seems like dodging bullets just got a whole lot harder.

[MIKA27]

Inside San Franciso's Fire Department, Where Ladders Are Made By Hand

San Francisco’s Fire Department is one of the few left in the United States that still uses wooden ladders. Each is made by hand at a dedicated workshop. Some have been in rotation for nearly a century. We’ll get to the why and how, but hang on: Wouldn’t a wooden ladder burn? Yes. They go up in flames.

That sounds like a terrifying safety hazard, but these ultra-durable climbing tools aren’t constructed from run-of-the-mill kindling. I visited the SFFD’s in-house ladder studio and main repair facility in SF’s industrial Bayview neighbourhood, where every single fire apparatus cycles through when it needs to get fixed up. My guide, Mike Braun, has been on-site for the past 20 years, and has run the whole show for 16 of those.

Why Wood?

Wood is resilient in ways which aluminium — now standard for fire department ladders — can’t even compare. “You know if you take an empty coke can and bend it three or four times and it tears really easy? That’s what aluminium ladders will do,” Braun says. “They have a seven to eight year lifespan, after which they need to be replaced.”

Wooden ladders, on the other hand, can last indefinitely. “You can stress wood right up to its failure point a million times; as long as you don’t go beyond that, it will come right back to where it was. They can be involved in a fire for a pretty long time; after that, it’s just a matter of sanding off the top coat of material then inspecting the wood. If it’s good we’ll re-oil it, revarnish it, and put it back in service.”

Now lest you think this is just a quick fix for your own failing apparatus, the shop is starting out with an exceptionally high grade of lumber. Ladder rails are all made from West Coast Douglas Fir, which Braun says is harvested from the eastern slope of a mountain: That side gets less sunshine; which means the trees grow more slowly; resulting in rings that are closer together and an all-around more resilient material.

“There have to be nine rings per inch — minimum,” Braun tells me. “You don’t want them spread too far apart because that makes it weaker. Plus, the grain pattern can’t vary more than 15 degrees off of vertical, with no knots, no inclusions, no funny marks.”

This is marked up to show which part of the wood will be used for rails based on the SFFD’s exacting standards. Anything that doesn’t make the cut will be turned into cross-beams or pulls.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

If it passes the ring density test, then it’s time to fully acclimate the wood to San Francisco’s climate, which is about 13 per cent moisture, before it’s ready for action. Each piece is left in the workshop for years until it hits the right ratio — at one year per inch of thickness, it’s quite a wait! Testing is done by pounding a probe into each end of the wood and sending a current between the two points.

Here’s where the wood sits for years, acclimating to the moisture level in SF’s climate. The darker pieces on the top have been around for longer — “Some are 50 years old,” Braun says — while the boards on the bottom still have a ways to go.

Never a Wasted Rung

OK, so now the wood is properly aged — what next? “Our ladders were designed to be disassembled and reassembled,” Braun says. “We use machinist level measurements so all the rungs are spaced properly and precisely.” Each ladder gets two coats of linseed oil, then two or three coats of marine spar varnish.

That incredibly precise craftsmanship is obviously imperative to making damn certain these things will withstand the most extreme conditions and incredible wear and tear, but there’s an important mix-and-match component to that design decision — one that’s central to the way the workshop and repair facility approach their work.

“We’re all pretty eco-friendly around here,” Braun says. “We don’t like to waste.” This could be their second motto. To wit: Elements from every ladder — all 13 different styles, the tallest of which is 50 feet — can be repurposed in a newer incarnation, should the original need to be taken out of service for any reason.

Here you can see old rungs — made of Hickory or Ash — being used on new rails. “Those were from a bigger ladder; we just turn the ends, and put ‘em in the next size down.”

Each ladder gets two coats of linseed oil, then two or three coats of marine spar varnish.

Have a look at the ladders above. “See what happens? You have a sharp edge right there on the left — that’s a brand new ladder that’s been refinished once or twice. That one on the right is probably 60 years old, and has been refinished five or six times. That one in the middle is ready to be taken out of service because it’s getting too thin. We may load test it and keep it as a spare — one of those just-in-case ladders. But you can see as they get older the wood gets darker from the finish.”

In fact, the whole center is like an ultra-high-efficiency hub for upcycling; almost everything is salvageable in some way. “Anything that we can reuse to save money for the city, we’ll reuse it. The idea is always to economize how we can by utilising component parts — especially because we’ve already paid for them.”

Police car doors and tires, ready for a second life.

If Wood’s So Great, Why Don’t More Fire Departments Use It?

There’s a city-specific reason why San Francisco has stuck with wood rather than swap over to metals, and the answer lies in looking up. The high-voltage cables and wires that guide the city’s (oft-maligned) public transport system Muni, and trolley cars crisscross above nearly every street, mean that ladders made of conductive elements are generally just too dangerous to use.

“I think there’s a lot of fire departments that went aluminium and wish they could go back to wood but it’s too expensive,” Braun says. “There’s only two ladders manufacturers in the states — and we’re one of ‘em. We only make our own ladders and can barely even keep up with what we have.”

For 28 years, a man named Jerry Lee built and restored all of San Francisco’s ladders — he retired last year, and finished his reign with a stint as the artist-in-residency at Workshop Residence. After all that time, showing his handiwork to a new audience offered an entirely new perspective. “I was so surprised when people referred to the ladders as ‘beautiful.’ For me they have always just been functional,” he told me.

Functional is an understatement.

“We had one ladder here that was fully involved in a fire for 25 minutes, and the whole tip of it — six feet — was crispy. It looked like a log you pull out of a campfire,” Braun says. “That can’t go back in service but we were curious, so we put a new halyard [rope used to hoist ladders] on it for a load test. Even in that condition, it passed.”

Here are some more pics:

A view of the main repair facility. “We fix literally everything. The only thing we don’t do here is Muni — they have their own facility — and some of the water department stuff.” Each of the portable lifts beneath the raised vehicles can hold seven-and-a-half tons.

Not every day you can step beneath a massive Fire Department vehicle — unless you work here

One of the ladders in its natural habitat.

Braun holds up a battering ram he helped design.

“These are from the olden days when they used horses had to pick up bales of hay,” Braun says. “But the guys still carry these because they use them for grabbing junk out of a fire.”

This eagle is a Jerry Lee original — hand carved, and the only one of its kind. “Anything that says SFFD on it, we made it.” The “old” bell, says Braun, “has been on a couple rigs.”

The machine shop is… cluttered.

And finally: This may have been my favourite part of the tour. “Pete has collected all these different doughnuts over the years. They’re all real, and covered with lacquer so they won’t go bad. Some of these are ten years old.”

[MIKA27]

Apparently, The US Navy Got Itself Some Cool Alien Spaceships

The Northrop Grumman X-47B carrier-launched drone really feels like the future of aviation in this image taken on board the USS Harry Truman. And, while it looks like some alien spaceship from a sci-fi show, these beasts will completely replace those F-18s in a couple of decades.

The X-47B in night tests at the Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, last April. The X-47B is start summer tests at sea this August, on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

[MIKA27]

An Augmented Reality Windshield Tells You How To Take A Racing Line

Land Rover’s windshield experiments have already been pretty impressive — remember the concept that would make your car’s bonnet appear transparent to make it easier to avoid potholes? But what if you’re on a silky-smooth race track, looking to perfect your performance?

That’s the focus of the auto manufacturer’s latest concept. Just like a video game’s HUD system, it would beam race data, including speed information and lap times, onto the windshield, alongside a racing line that would show you the most efficient route around a course, such as when to brake or accelerate. It’d even include a ghost car option, allowing you to race against your personal bests or great track performances, making it the perfect training tool for pro drivers.

With driver’s attentions to the road paramount, Land Rover is looking at using eye-tracking technology to position data only at comfortable points on a windshield. The company is also looking into replacing wing and rear-view mirrors with virtual displays.

MIKA: I bet the designer of this loves Forza Motorsport 5

[MIKA27]

World's First Climate-Controlled Neighbourhood To Be Built In Dubai

Dubai has unveiled plans for the world’s first indoor, climate-controlled neighbourhood — a 450-hectare city area with a retractable glass roof and the world’s largest shopping center. This sounds to me like the hell on earth but I better get used to it: Every major city will probably be like this by the end of the century.

It will be called Mall of the World and will have over one hundred hotels and serviced apartment buildings. It will include a 750,000 square metre shopping centre, a theatre district modelled on London’s West End and New York’s Broadway, and a “celebration district” designed in the style of La Rambla in Barcelona.

The entire thing may seem preposterous for some, but this is where we are headed. It will happen in major cities too. The convenience of climate control is too strong to ignore. The population will love it, the tourists will love it, and, perhaps more important for its development, the corporations will love it. Imagine that: A place like SoHo in New York — which is already a giant playground and mall — completely isolated from weather, with the right temperature, no rain, no snow, no heat. A perfect place to live and consume.