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[MIKA27]

The Alchemy of Wine

Yarrow flower to be buried a stag’s bladder… oak bark must be sheathed in a farm animal’s skull…. chamomile sheathed in a cow’s intestine and hung out over the summer…

These might not the first thoughts that spring to mind when you crack open a bottle of wine and ponder how it was made. But this Shakespearean witches brew is what over 450 wineries throughout the world would have us believe. They, and many other farmers and agricultural businesses, subscribe to the mysterious and esoteric agricultural method of biodynamics.

Biodynamics can possibly best be described as “uber-organic”, taking one’s value and love for the soil to a whole new level.

The fusion of spiritualism and agriculture, which views a plot of land as a complete living organism, and through our burying a bulls horn in the center of a field, we can concentrate the mystical powers of the cosmos on this one spot.

Believers of this feel that it can profoundly effect the overall experience of wine, making a significant (and costly) improvement in comparison to the alternatives. A mystical approach without a doubt, yet surprisingly enough, it finds its origins in modern times.

The year was 1924. A group of farmers, concerned about the future of a pesticide and herbicide heavy agricultural society, sought out the help of the famous Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. This culminated in Steiner giving a series of 8 lectures that encapsulated he’s “expert” take on how agriculture should be performed. This became the basis of biodynamic winemaking.

Rudolf Steiner, is famously remembered today for being the developer of the Waldorf style of education, anthroposophical medicine, and even developing a theory for out of body transportation. But his origins were not nearly so esoteric. In 1879, the young Steiner attended the Vienna Institute of Technology, where he studied mathematics, philosophy, chemistry, physics, botany, and literature as part of a scholarship program for four years. He departed the Institute in 1884, but would eventually gain a Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Rostock.

Rudolf Steiner circa. 1905

Steiner was surrounded by a philosophical world where people were beginning to question the “hard truths” of the predecessors. Philosophers like Immanuel Kant, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, were turning the world upside down with their writings that questioned things like the existence of god, the nature of the human soul and what makes our world what it is. It was the time of extremes to be legitimately examined by the scientific community.

Steiner would take this one step further by attempting to bridge the gap between science and spiritualism; and he developed numerous methodologies to achieve this.

The series of lectures that spawned biodynamic agriculture was held in the town of Silesia, Germany in November 1924. In attendance were 111 people, only half of whom were actually farmers. Although some people describe this as being the first lecture advocating for organic farming, the “suggestions” Steiner promoted are extreme to say the least.

According to Steiner, a plot of ground is a living, breathing organism that can sustain itself without outside influences. Pesticides and other farming techniques can only hinder, or even harm the soil. The farm is one, and there is a balance that must be struck.

Though subtle acts, one can focus the cosmic energies of the universe onto this plot to improve its conditions. Plants can absorb the life force of the cosmos during certain phases of the moon.

Steiner claimed to have come to these revelations in agricultural methodology through deep meditation and clairvoyance. This mystical approach, Steiner claimed, put biodynamics above scientific inquiry. The methodology doesn’t need to come under scientific scrutiny because they are “true and correct” unto themselves. So take that science!

Instructions for biodynamic farming included packing cow manure into a cows horn, burying it for six months, digging it up, stirring it in water (the direction of the stirring is important), and spraying it across your land. The cow horn is seen as an amplifier of the cosmic forces… The list goes on. Herbal remedies, alignments with Venus and Mars, deer bladders…

Cow horns filled with manure

Intenstines filled with Chamomille

Despite the unconventional nature of biodynamics, the methodology developed by Steiner has spread throughout the globe. Finding large popularity in Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand and Oregon. Biodynamics has numerous certifying boards, publications and educational institutes. Post-Steiner “advances” include chanting, nutritional “visualization”, and letting your wine ferment in large concrete eggs.

Proponents of biodynamic wine say that the wines are more pure, have a lower alcohol content, better fruit flavors, and less likely to give you headaches. They highlight the benefits of the holistic approach to agriculture, claiming to be the highest and purest form of the “organic” movement.

Critics look at biodynamics as a dangerous extreme of organic ideology. Few of the methods described are testable scientifically, and no evidence exists that a cow’s horn is anything other than a cow’s horn. Many contend that it is merely a marketing ploy.

Pandering to the people who believe in such things, and who (coincidentally) are willing to dish out the bucks for their beliefs. Still more cite that the recent linking of biodynamic practices with legitimate organic practices, muddy the waters, causing unsuspecting people to give credence to alchemy.

Whether a cleaver marketing ploy, witchcraft, or an advancement in agriculture, the one thing that scientists and believers can both agree on is: it’s wine…and wine is awesome!

Source list:

Chalker-Scott, Linda (2004). “The Myth of Biodynamic Agriculture” (PDF). Horticultural Myths. Washington State University Puyallup Research & Extension Center. Retrieved 2014-10-014.

Paull, John (2011). “Attending the First Organic Agriculture Course: Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture Course at Koberwitz, 1924“. European Journal of Social Sciences, 2011, 21(1):64-70.

Hunter, Derek. “The Alchemy of Biodynamic Wines – Long Live Luxury.” Long Live Luxury. Long Live Luxury, 31 Mar. 2014. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

[MIKA27]

Nepal’s Deadliest Avalanche Was Totally Avoidable

At least 39 people are dead after disaster struck last week. A tropical storm, clearly visible on radar for days, is to blame. Why weren’t they warned?

Hundreds of trekkers were on the popular Annapurna Circuit in the Mustang area of Nepal when disaster struck last week. At least 39 trekkers and their Nepalese guides died in avalanches and from exposure, many of them trying to get down, unable to see the trail in freezing whiteout conditions. Many others who survived suffered severe frostbite and have had or soon will undergo amputations.

One guide, Munchang Lama, told a Nepali journalist that he was pitching a tent for his two Israeli women clients when, “Suddenly it started raining and I took shelter between two rocks. Next morning I was not able to walk because my leg was stuck in snow.” He stayed alive by eating nuts, chocolate and a banana he found in the women’s bags until he was rescued 48 hours later, but he did not know what became of his clients.

Horst Ulrich, a 72-year-old German on a trek with a group of friends, watched four Nepali guides swept away by an avalanche.

“We were in a dangerous spot and shocked by the conditions we were seeing unfold in front of our eyes. We just got lucky.”

In addition to the casualties among the trekkers, several Nepali yak herders and locals traveling between villages to attend festivals, as well as two Slovaks and three Nepali guides preparing to climb nearby 26,795-foot high Dhauligiri were killed.

It didn’t need to happen.

The storm that dumped six feet of snow on the mountains in three days was triggered by Cyclone Hudhud, a Category 4 hurricane in the Bay of Bengal with a track crossing the Annapurna area predicted by several weather services. The storm that trapped and killed the trekkers was neither a freak nor unexpected, despite being labeled such by several media outlets, including the New York Times. Such powerful storms are not unusual in the Himalaya, even in the fall trekking season when long periods of stable and clear weather are common. “I had several clients doing climbs,” said Michael Fagin, meteorologist and lead forecaster at EverestWeather.com, “and I notified them a week to 10 days ago. People are saying that the storm was unusual, but it’s not out of the ordinary.”

The storm precipitated perhaps the worst mountain disaster in Nepal’s history, at least for the booming tourism industry that accounts of 4 percent of the GNP of one of the world’s poorest nations. Approximately 96,000 trekkers visit Nepal each year to view and walk amidst its spectacular mountains.

Most of the young trekkers traversing the circuit still find time to check their email and update their Facebook pages. That so many of them blundered into a Category 4 hurricane—spawned blizzard means that either the information didn’t reach them or nobody heeded the warnings. Unlike this spring’s Everest avalanche that killed 16 Sherpas, this was a major meteorological event with plenty of lead-time.

Rupam Jain Nair and Gopal Sharma of Reuters report that “the government has admitted failing to issue any warning that the weather would take a sudden turn for the worse, and has promised to set up an early-warning system.”

For 39 people, it’s too late.

[MIKA27]

ORWELL SOFA BY GOULA FIGUERA

Designer Goula Figuera tackled a new hybrid project titled Orwell, where he channeled childhood memories by combining a sofa, bed and cabin into one napping nest.

Hybrid projects are some of our favorite around these parts, and Orwell (gaining inspiration from the author’s surname of the iconic book ‘1984’) shows exactly why. This sofa has been covered with walls on three sides, creating a secluded cabin like feeling for would-be nappers. Adding to this already intimate environment, heavy quilted curtains can be draped over the front of the bed, which also provides some nice sound insulation from the noisy outside world. This piece of multi-functional furniture isn’t currently for sale, but it does provide some nice inspiration for urban dwellers and others residing in small spaces. [Via]

[MIKA27]

Apple Pay Works In Australia If You Want To Go To Absurd Lengths To Get It

Apple rolled out its payment platform yesterday for those fortunate enough to both live in the US and rock an iDevice. Sadly for those of us outside of the United States of America, we’re left out in the cold when it comes to paying for stuff with our Apple gadgets. Unless, you have yourself a US-based credit card. If that’s the case, Apple Pay will probably work for you in Australia with more than a bit of fiddling.

The always enterprising Beau Giles did some tinkering yesterday and figured out how to get Apple Pay working in Australia.

Aussies in iOS 8.1 don’t even get to see the Settings page that allows us to set up an Apple Pay card in Passbook. To enable that, you’ll need to change your region to the US to force it to appear.

From there, you’ll need a credit card from Mastercard, Visa or American Express that was issued in the US to get going. That’s a pretty big sticking point, to be honest.

Unless you already have one it’s bonkers to think that you might go and apply for one just to get early access to Apple Pay. The only thing I can think of that lowers the barrier of entry is grabbing a pre-paid debit card the next time you’re in the US and trying to set up Apple Pay on one of those, but whether that will work remains to be seen.

If you do get it working, however, you’ll be able to pay for stuff using Apple Pay in Australia at anywhere that accepts contactless card payments.

As expected, the only thing a payment terminal needs to work with Apple Pay is a functional contactless terminals, and Australia is sweet for those. We’re one of the world’s leading markets when it comes to contactless-enabled terminals behind Japan and South Korea, so at least there you’re in luck.

[MIKA27]

Bowers & Wilkins' First Bluetooth Speaker Is A Stunner

If you’re going to dive head first into an already crowded market like the world of Bluetooth speakers, you better do something to make your product instantly stand out. And it looks like Bowers & Wilkins has done just that with its new T7 compact speaker featuring a stylish honeycomb design that actually helps strengthen its housing to reduce vibrations and improve its sound.

You can actually find the T7′s Micro Matrix honeycomb structure, as Bowers & Wilkins calls it, in the company’s high-end studio reference speakers. So it’s not just an aesthetic design gimmick intended to make the T7 look sleeker than the Jambox and other portable Bluetooth speakers.

A pair of two-inch glass fibre drivers generate most of the mid-range and high-end sound from the T7, but the biggest selling point with compact speakers like this has been their bass performance. And that’s why Bowers & Wilkins has also packed a pair of “force-cancelling high-output bass radiators” inside the speaker to reproduce low-end frequencies without causing the speaker to vibrate or rattle, even with the volume turned all the way up.

On paper it all sounds very impressive, especially as far as compact wireless Bluetooth speakers — which aren’t always known for the best sound — go. But for $US350, which is more expensive than both the regular and Big Jambox, it will hopefully deliver the kind of sound Bowers & Wilkins is known for with its higher-end gear.

[MIKA27]

I've Never Seen Macroscopic Images As Incredibly Sharp As These Ones

This is a blister beetle photographed with a Macropod — “a low cost, portable, three-dimensional imaging solution” that allows scientists to break the depth of field limitations typical of macro photography by taking multiple exposures and merging them into a single ultra-sharp image using software.

[Macropod] overcomes the extreme Depth of Field (DOF) limitations inherent in optics designed to image smaller specimens. Normally, lenses designed for macro will only render a very small fraction of the depth of targeted specimen in sharp focus at any one exposure. The Macropod allows the user to select and make multiple exposures in precise increments along the Z-axis (depth) such that each exposure’s area of sharp focus overlaps with the previous and next exposure.

These source images are then transferred to a computer and merged by an image-stacking program. The stacking program finds and stitches together only the focused pixels from each exposure into one image.

Ingenious! The results are amazing.

Black wasp

Mouldy orange

Bumble bee

The tongue of bumble bee.

The tip of the tongue.

Human eye

Orange jumping spider

Here’s an explanation of how it works:

[MIKA27]

Bell's Newest Tiltrotor Could Finally Improve On The Osprey's Feathers

The V-22 Osprey’s mechanical and aeronautical shortcomings have been well-documented. That’s why, for its third-generation tiltrotor, Bell has taken a good hard look at the ill-fated aircraft (one it helped design) and built the plane-copter hybrid it should have back in 1983.

Dubbed the V-280 Valor, Bell’s new tiltrotor aircraft bears a close resemblance to the older V-22, which Bell teamed with Boeing to design and build for the US military beginning in the early 1980s. It’s reportedly a bit smaller than the V-22 but still larger than the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters that the US Army hopes it will replace by 2030.

Should the Valor platform make it to active duty, its four-person crew will be able to ferry up to 14 fully-equipped soldiers up to 800 nautical miles at speeds topping 563km/h — that’s double the range and speed of current-gen choppers. It can also fly one-way routes up to 2100 nmi, allowing them to be effectively “self-deployable” — there’s no need to pack them up in the bellies of C-17s for transcontinental shipping. And with the addition of two underbelly slings, the V-280 will be able to hoist up to 10,000 pounds of supplies, vehicles and equipment as well.

The V-280, despite appearances, operates very differently than its predecessor. The V-22 rotated its entire propulsion assembly — its engines, rotors, everything — when transitioning between vertical and horizontal flight. That caused performance issues since doing so requires much more power and control to accomplish because you’ve got all this extra engine weight shifting around the vehicle as it’s attempting to hover with some semblance of stability. The V-280, on the other hand, keeps the engines where they should be: in fixed positions out at the end of the wings with only the rotors and hinged driveshafts swivelling back and forth. This not only makes the aircraft much easier to control during transitions, it should significantly increase its fuel efficiency compared to the V-22 and provide the V-280 with around five times the coverage area of current MEDEVAC helicopters.

The V-280 made its public debut at AUSA 2014 in Washington DC earlier this week. Bell officials expect the Valor to be ready for flight testing by September 2017.

[MIKA27]

BMW And Audi Are Working On Low-Cost Carbon Fibre

Lightweight carbon fibre in your everyday road-going family sedan could be commonplace in the not-too-distant future, with the news that BMW and Audi are working hard to cut the cost of producing the high-tech material by 90 per cent, bringing it into competition with steel and aluminium for mass-market automotive production.

That news comes from Bloomberg, which reports that researchers at MAI Carbon Cluster Management GmbH, an initiative backed by 70 of Germany’s major industrial players like BMW and Audi as well as the German government, dumping nearly $120 million into developing techniques to drive down the cost of the material’s production. At the moment, carbon fibre’s complex weaving production techniques require considerable automation and mean it can cost up to $20 per kilogram, compared to $1 for a comparable weight of steel.

At the moment, use of carbon fibre is mostly restricted to high-end and high-priced cars like the BMW i8, Koenigsegg CCXR, McLaren P1 and Ferrari LaFerrari. These cars are all based around super-rigid carbon fibre ‘tub’ monocoque chassis, with some also using carbon fibre bodywork in place of steel or aluminium or fibreglass panels to save weight. Koenigsegg even makes wheels from carbon fibre. One of the cheapest cars to use extensive carbon fibre is BMW’s own i3, which use carbon fibre body panels to save around 250kg over equally strong steel or comparatively expensive aluminium.

Producing carbon fibre raw material in much, much larger quantities than currently done could improve production costs, but significant work in engineering robotics to streamline the actual production process for factory production of vehicles needs to be done to make it feasible. There are hundreds of applications for carbon fibre in cars already produced that could reduce weight, improving fuel economy and reducing the energy required to smelt and stamp large quantities of steel or aluminium. BMW’s own head of development, Herbert Diess, told Bloomberg that the 2000-plus kilogram 7 Series luxury sedan was a natural target for carbon fibre weight reduction — carbon fibre interior or body panels could save hundreds of kilograms of mass on a car that size.

With entirely carbon fibre-bodied cars already a reality if you have the millions of dollars to spare, it’s only a matter of time until your bargain basement hatchback — the Kia Rios and Hyundai i20s and Volkswagen Up!s of the world — are wrapped in the high-tech material. Cars will be lighter, stronger, and easier to manufacture, and that’s a good thing for the planet all around.

[MIKA27]

Witch Bottle Protected Building From Evil Spirits Since 1680

Archeologists restoring old buildings in Newark-on-Trent in the UK have uncovered a perfectly-preserved green “witch bottle” that was once believed to protect buildings from evil spirits and witches and appears to have done a pretty good job since at least 1680.

Witch bottles were popular in 17th century England and North America as a “bottled spell” to ward off witches. To protect a home, the bottle would be filled with the owner’s hair, nail clippings and urine as well as small personal items and bent nails. It was then buried in a corner or hidden in a fireplace or a wall or under the house. The protective power stayed in the bottle as long as it was buried, hidden or unbroken. Some believed that tossing a witch bottle into a fire causing it to explode would kill the witch who cast the curse it was protecting against.

Contents of a typical witch bottle.

This 6-inch tall green witch bottle was found in Newark by archeologists working at the site of the Old Magnus Buildings, structures built by Thomas Magnus in 1529 as a free school. The original Tudor Hall building still remains and the work is being done to restore the building and grounds to be used as the country’s first National Civil War Center.

While the building dates to 1529, the witch bottle appears to be from around 1680, a period after the English Civil War that was bad for women and men believed to be witches. The bottle appears to have survived intact because it was buried with extreme care. Or was it the power inside the bottle?

Bryony Robins, the Project Manager for Newark and Sherwood District Council, had this to say about the witch bottle, which is expected to be on display when the center opens:

"If it really can ward off evil spells, it will be good to have it back."

[MIKA27]

U.S. Fighter Jocks Pray The ‘ISIS Air Force’ Rumors Are True

Syrian rebels say ISIS now has a few aircraft. American pilots can’t wait to shoot the things down.

The ISIS terrorist group may have acquired a few old Soviet-built MiG fighters, according to a Syrian opposition group. But even if ISIS does have jet fighters, there is little chance that the group can do any real damage with those antiques beyond their value as propaganda tools, U.S. military pilots say.

“If ISIS is flying, or is thinking about flying, it will not be doing so for very long,” one Air Force official said.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights—an opposition group based in London—ISIS has managed to acquire three Soviet-built Mikoyan MiG-21 Fishbed and MiG-23 Flogger fighters. The aircraft are allegedly being flown by former Iraqi air force pilots, who are also training wannabe ISIS aviators to fly the jets.

Additionally, ISIS appears to have a number of Aero Vodochody L-39 Albatross aircraft, traditionally used for advanced training and light attack. The terrorist group has produced at least one propaganda video purported to show the Czech-built jets in the air. But even if ISIS does have a rudimentary air force, it is basically useless in any true military sense, according to U.S. officials and American military pilots.

“I’d sell my first born to engage all three… by myself,” one highly experienced U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot joked. Another Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle pilot said, “Send me in, coach! There’s no way they get those airborne!”

“We’re not talking about aircraft that are extremely effective at delivering ordinance both in terms of equipment and training,” said one U.S. Air Force official. “It’s simply not worth it beyond an easily discreditable propaganda ploy.”

The MiG-21 does not carry a huge amount of weaponry and was originally designed to fight other aircraft. Meanwhile, the MiG-23 is a much bigger and more complex jet that requires a professional pilot to operate properly.

Even if ISIS has such pilots—and that isn’t terribly likely—they might not last long. Though both the MiG-21 and MiG-23 are supersonic fighters, they are dated and would likely be easy prey to any modern American fighter.

Additionally, many U.S. officials questioned how well ISIS’s MiGs work. The jets may not have functional on-board systems like radars and weapons—nor does ISIS have access to the sophisticated ground control network the Soviets and their Syrian government clients used.

Many U.S. pilots were gleeful at the prospects of bagging a MiG.

However, a former, very experienced Air Force pilot who has flown both the MiG-21 and MiG-23 said that one should not underestimate the elderly Soviet jets. “Either of the MiG types must be honored, especially in the hands of a competent pilot,” the retired pilot said. “Are modern jets more capable? Of course they are.”

But just how competent are the ISIS pilots? Not very, one Air Force official said. “If these are hardcore ex-Iraqi or Syrian air force Sunnis flying and instructing, their recency of flying is extremely poor,” he said. “It’s been years since they’ve flown in the type themselves, and that further weakens any credible thought of teaching new students how to fly.”

Even those veteran pilots are most likely to get themselves killed in an accident than anything else. “They are certainly a much greater personal danger to themselves than to others,” the Air Force official said.

As for the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights report that former Iraqi pilots are training new militant aviators—the retired U.S. Air Force MiG pilot is dubious. “I would just reiterate that they are high-performance aircraft, especially the MiG-23, safely flown only by pilots that have progressed from Cessna-like (general aviation) aircraft into jet trainers and then into more advanced fighting machines,” the retired pilot said. “This takes months, if not years, of sophisticated training for a pilot to reach the level of proficiency needed for successful combat operations.”

Even given that ISIS has access to training aircraft like the L-39, their prospects of training new pilots is dubious. “A big step from an L-39 to a MiG-21,” the retired Air Force pilot said. “A giant step to the MiG-23. And, there is a huge difference between flying jets like that and employing them.”

MIKA: Another reason why I ask are the U.S and it's allies training Iraqi soldiers? So they can learn and then defect to the likes of ISIS in the future and or kill their own people? How many U.S soldiers have been killed whilst training Iraqi soldiers?

[MIKA27]

CHAINSAW MASSACRE PRANK

YouTube prankster Vitaly Zdorovetskiy totally just figured out one of the keys to creating a horrifying video: victim authenticity. With an MVP assist from a friend who’s missing most of his limbs, Zdorovetskiy proceeds to freak a bunch of people the hell out as they stumble onto him “chainsawing” his way through the dude’s body.

There’s tons of blood, body parts, and – eesh – intestines being sliced and diced. It’s undoubtedly the most traumatic thing we’ve seen in parking garage since that sign for $50 gameday parking. We’re assuming Zdorovetskiy has a backup plan in the event one of the prankees pulls out a gun; one that probably involves screaming “IT’S JUST A PRANK! I SWEAR!” as loud and fast as he can.

MIKA: Funny stuff BUT, this guy will get shot one day!

[MIKA27]

HURE TABLES

I’ll pass on eating 19th century-style food (boiled mutton, stewed oysters, various weird puddings), but dining on 21st century delicacies on a 19th century table could be cool.

Vintage Industrial’s Hure tables feature 10+ original base designs that resemble lathes—old school machines for working wood or metal, in which the piece being worked was held and rotated while a cutting tool was applied to it. Their classic Hure design with adjustable height capability uses four 3-ton crank mechanisms to adjust from 30” dining to 42” bar height. Meanwhile, the Hure Boardroom table features a huge 24′ x 5′ worn oak top, and 12 data and power ports. The 1,400 lbs. top splits into 3 tables to make it multifunctional. If you’re looking for some old-world class underneath your plates or laptop, this beats mutton any day. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

FLOATING SAUNA HOUSEBOAT

If you are heading over to Finland on vacations and are looking for a unique place to spend a few adventurous days, check out the Saunalautta, a floating sauna houseboat that is now available for rent.

Built out of recycled wood, the raft features a bedroom with four bunks, and a hot steamy sauna on the lower level, on the top level you´ll find a rooftop observation deck, a barbecue, and hammocks, making it the perfect place to unwind on the water with friends. A small outboard motor is used to power the vessel.

[MIKA27]

China's President Wants To Ban Weird Buildings -- And That's A Huge Mistake

From smog-chomping supercities to giant penis skyscrapers, China has built its reputation on wild and wacky structures of late. But in a public speech last week, China’s president made a promise to his country: “No more weird architecture.” No way! Here’s why we need to Keep China Weird.

President Xi Jinping began his attack by criticising what could generally be considered to be the first building of the Nouveau Weird Movement, Rem Koolhaas’ CCTV building (which is, admittedly, not that weird anymore). He warned that the pursuit of commercialism should not eclipse aesthetics, reports theWall Street Journal

: “Fine art works should be like sunshine from the blue sky and the breeze in spring that will inspire minds, warm hearts, cultivate taste and clean up undesirable work styles.” WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?

To be sure, China’s unprecedented growth has led to a few humdingers. There are cities that are supposedly vacant. Other ones that are knockoffs of other places entirely. Those aren’t weird, though. I’m talking about weird-weird, like hot pink spires that pack more buzzwords per square foot than any other building on the planet. If China doesn’t keep cranking out these kind of buildings, who else is going to step up to the challenge?

No one.

That’s why China needs to keep its design game on the crazy side.

There are some very real concerns about the side effects of China’s building boom. The environmental factor, of course — this kind of unregulated growth that results in tearing down entire mountains is not good for air or water quality. And human rights violations need to be examined when it comes to clearing older communities for development and ensuring workers are being treated fairly. According to ArchDaily, the reason the president is speaking out against these buildings is about attacking the corruption around corporate boondoggles more than anything else. And it’s also about national pride: Most of these buildings are not by Chinese architects; they’re simply dropped into context by foreign architects.

But why shouldn’t China be proud to be playground for weird architecture?

Some of these projects can only be completed in China, a place that has the funds, space, and ambition to experiment with structural hyperbole. Like the new national art gallery, which might be the largest museum on Earth when it’s finished.

The ripply roofed New Century Global Tower in Chengdu is already the largest building ever constructed — so big that you could fit three Pentagons inside. And it’s really weird!

The permission to be weird also gives architects licence to dream up weird ideas. Look at Shenzhen Bay Super City (Above and below), which plans not only to have one of the tallest towers on the planet, but also to have smog-battling powers on its cantilevered terraces..

The Ping An Finance Tower is not so much weird-looking as it is TOTALLY BADASS. The building will most likely be the second-tallest on the planet very soon and it’s doing everything it can to get there: At one point this year it was adding a new floor every 96 hours!

And that brings up another important point: China’s design weirdness is also spurring an industry of innovation. Elevators on the 1,738-foot Guangzhou CTF Finance Center will be the fastest on the planet, making their 95-story journey in 43 seconds.

China is at an important moment as it transitions into a global superpower. Its citizens and leaders are right to be sceptical of how they’re perceived on the world stage. But the great thing about weird architecture is that it helps set the stage for a larger culture of audacious experimentation. The permission to stay weird when it comes to urban design will help China move towards more permissive, free-thinking plans in other aspects of life. President Xi may not agree with me for that very reason. But believe me: Weird is a wonderful thing.

[MIKA27]

A Century Later, Relics Emerge From a War Frozen in Time

Retreating ice in the Alps sheds new light on high-altitude battle in World War I

Greetings from Cercen Pass. It is storming and snow covers the highest peaks. We wait for peace, but the bad weather, the high altitudes ... Peace can only come with our death.

—from the May 28, 1916, diary of C.D., a soldier from Italy's Trentino region

The first cold war was fought during the First World War.

Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops clashed at altitudes up to 12,000 feet (3,600 meters) with temperatures as low as -22°F (-30°C) in the Guerra Bianca, or White War, named for its wintry theater. Never before had battles been waged on such towering peaks or in such frigid conditions.

Now, a century later, the warming world is revealing the buried past, as relics and corpses are melting free of their icy tombs.

Italy began the war on May 23, 1915. Its aim, stoked by a rising nationalist fervor, was to annex several regions—particularly those inhabited by Italians—held by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Troops fought and died all along the frontier, from Trentino to the Adriatic, for the next three years. Perhaps most remarkable, though, was the White War, a series of impossible—and ultimately futile—blitzes, incursions, athletic feats, and engineering coups.

Working in brutal conditions, Italians and Austro-Hungarians alike leveled peaks, opened roads, dug tunnels, built cableways, laid telephone lines, and transported tons of material to lofty heights—for combat, but also for the everyday needs of the thousands of soldiers who were living year-round at altitudes where only shepherds, wild herb hunters, and mountain climbers had ever ventured.

High-altitude front line

Entire villages of shacks were built, though officers generally lived in old mountain refuges, some outfitted with grand pianos and gramophones. On Marmolada, the highest mountain in the Dolomites, the Austrian Corps of Engineers built an entire "ice city"—a complex of tunnels, dormitories, and storerooms dug out of the bowels of the glacier.

Even so, they could do only so much against the unforgiving elements.

"In accounts of the period, in war diaries—whether they be Austrian or Italian—we find the same stories of the terrible hardship caused by the lack of sleep, the torments, and the massive snowfalls," says Stefano Morosini, a researcher at the University of Milan and author of a book on the history of Italian mountaineering. "The enemy took second place. Indeed, the true adversary was nature herself."

Marco Balbi, founder and president of the White War Historical Society, says that only about one-third of the 150,000 men who died on the Alpine front were victims of battle. The rest were killed by avalanches, landslides, frostbite, and illnesses caused by the extreme cold.

Austro-Hungarian soldiers march through the snow. In war diaries and other accounts of soldiers from both sides, "We find the same stories of the terrible hardship caused by the lack of sleep, the torments, and the massive snowfalls," says Stefano Morosini, author of a book on the history of Italian mountaineering.

Fight at a Front-Line Site

"Cavento! Tower of loyalty frozen in deep ice. Around you burn the wildfires of the proud enemy. High up you rise, Corno di Cavento, a warning cry to the cowardly!"

—from the April 3, 1917, war diary of Austro-Hungarian Lieutenant Felix Hecht von Eleda

Some of the most critical fighting took place on the 11,051-foot-high (3,368 meters) Corno di Cavento. Its eastern slopes rise gently along the Vedretta di Lares glacier. To the west, the mountain face plummets straight down to the valley.

After the first offensive of the Alpini—the Italian mountain-warfare military corps—in April 1916, Corno di Cavento became the front line of the Austrian defense.

In February 1917, Kaiserjäger Lieutenant Felix Hecht von Eleda, a highly religious 23-year-old officer from Vienna, assumed command of the garrison. His aim was to reinforce defenses and import heavy artillery. Following his orders, "diggers" from the Austro-Hungarian Corps of Engineers, aided by Russian prisoners, blew up outlying rocks with explosives and dug a tunnel into the summit of the mountain.

It was a truly Sisyphean labor: Snowfall destroyed weeks of work, the Russian prisoners escaped, and many of the Austro-Hungarian soldiers collapsed from the cold or were injured by mines. With temperatures hovering well below zero, nocturnal reconnaissance missions were both an adventure and torture.

A vintage photograph of an Adamello lookout post shows the treacherous aspects of war at high altitudes.

Adding to the tension was the anticipation of combat with the "Tigers," as the Austro-Hungarians called the Alpini. Hecht writes that as blasts of enemy artillery startled him, he could sometimes make out their white uniforms against the snow.

On June 15, 1917, about 1,500 Alpinis attacked Corno di Cavento from three sides, routing much of Hecht's garrison. The lieutenant was killed as he emerged from the relative safety of the gallery to try to prevent soldiers from fleeing.

One of the attackers—Italian Captain Fabrizio Battanta, known as the "Cavento Bandit"—found Hecht's diary and took it with him. (Hecht's special shorthand was deciphered, translated, and published years later. Today, the original is kept in a museum in Spiazzo.) Hecht's body, most likely thrown into a crevasse, has never been found.

In June 1918 the Austro-Hungarians, emerging from a tunnel they'd dug through the glacier, took back Corno di Cavento. But later that month the Italians returned in force and managed to recapture the summit. This time they held it until the end of the war. The last garrison of Alpini left Corno di Cavento a few weeks after the Armistice of Villa Gusti took effect November 4, after which thousands of soldiers returned home.

Soldiers drill holes into the ice to place explosives and begin the massive task of digging a tunnel under enemy lines. In the Dolomites, the Austrian Corps of Engineers dug an entire "ice city"—a complex of tunnels, dormitories, and storerooms—out of the glacier.

Salvaging History

After the troops departed, the glaciers were deserted once again. The only people who ventured there were "salvagers"—men who hiked up to collect leftover war materials, mostly metal, to resell by the pound. The most sought-after items were the copper, brass, and lead inside large, unexploded bombs.

"We brought a mallet with us and would pound the bomb at a very precise point so that the casing would break away," 92-year-old Giacinto Capelli, one of the last salvagers, recalled before passing away recently. "If we made a mistake, the powder left inside could have exploded in our faces. It was such hard work. We went back down the mountain with as many as 70 kilos [150 pounds] on our backs. But there was no work in the village, and salvagers made good money. The first time I came home with 320 liras, my father jumped for joy, crying, 'Now we can have polenta all year long!' "

The White War artifacts found by salvagers such as Capelli have seeded several small museums. And the memory of the war continues to be a powerful draw for hikers and history enthusiasts. Luckily, Corno di Cavento holds almost perfectly preserved vestiges of emplacements, communication trenches, barbed-wire fences, embrasures, and shacks

A grenade shell used as a lamp hangs inside a deep passageway in a Corno di Cavento garrison. The Austrians dug the military post into the rock; the Italians conquered it twice. The cave is now accessible to visitors.

And thanks to climate change, relics from the war are continuing to re-emerge. The glacier is on the move, retreating as it melts. Fifteen years ago climbers who ventured up Corno di Cavento discovered that it was becoming possible to access the Austro-Hungarian garrison once again.

"We knew it was there. We had our eye on it," says Marco Gramola of the Società degli Alpinisti Tridentini (SAT), Trentino's alpine club. "Since the turn of the century we have begun to restore the Austrian posts. In 2005, we took 80 people to the summit as part of a large protest, calling on the government to intervene. The memory of the White War was in danger of being lost both through neglect and through plundering by collectors and private dealers."

It took four summers, from 2007 through 2010, to reopen the gallery, thanks to the combined efforts of SAT volunteers and local government agencies.

After workers from those organizations excavated a tunnel in the ice, they used a massive heat conveyor to illuminate a space—203 feet (62 meters) long, 16 feet (5 meters) wide, and 10 feet (3 meters) tall, which was big enough to house 40 soldiers—in precisely the same state it had been in more than 90 years ago. Straw bunk beds, a storeroom, a telephone operator's station, a commander's small office with a desk, a large metal stove, even a stack of wood to heat the space—it was all there.

"It was like walking into an enormous defrosted refrigerator," says Gramola. "On the floor lay bits of food, dirty swabs, bandages, and quantities of relics—not just bullets, helmets, and military equipment, but the soldiers' personal belongings as well."

There was also a bag of dirty laundry, a deck of cards, a sewing kit, and a little mirror with a woman's photo.

"We catalogued and photographed every item," says Gramola, "just like at an archaeological site. For a while, we kept them in a freezer lent to us by an ice-cream maker from the valley to keep them from deteriorating."

Italian troops congregate around a mountain refuge. During WWI, for the first time in history, men brought modern technology up the highest mountains, building roads, cableways, telephone and electric lines, and accommodations for thousands of troops. Much of the equipment had to be carried by hand.

The Smell of History

Today the space can be visited by hikers capable of making the climb up the mountain. Last summer the Austro-Hungarian post at Punta Linke—a station for the cableway that's 11,916 feet (3,632 meters) above sea level, on Mount Vioz—also opened to the public.

That recovery operation is being coordinated by Franco Nicolis, director of the Archaeological Heritage Department of the Province of Trentino.

"Archaeology does not only concern the ancient world," Nicolis says. "There is also what I like to call 'grandfather archeology' ... [in which the goal is] to reconstruct a space and the life of the men who lived there.

"What struck me most about Punta Linke," he adds, "were the smells—of wood, of the tar paper used for insulation, of the motor oil for the cableway. The sense of smell is a primal one, an almost animal sense that can serve as a time machine to transport us back 100 years in an instant."

War memorabilia is still being discovered on the Alpine frontier, shedding light on the lives of the soldiers from both sides, including a gas mask, hat, and glacier glasses (left) and a cross made out of barbed wire (right).

Cold Casualties

Corno di Cavento and Punta Linke are only a couple of the hundreds of sites being readied for the World War I anniversary. As the world continues to warm, more may soon come to light as well.

"In the last century and a half," says Christian Casarotto, a glaciologist at the MUSE science museum in Trento, "the Adamello Glacier has retreated 2 kilometers [1.2 miles]. At the lowest-altitude points, up to 4 meters [13 feet] of thickness is lost every year."

The thawing is revealing more than artifacts. Corpses—unknown soldiers, victims of battles or a random bullet, an avalanche, a careless step—are melting free of their icy tombs. That includes two Austro-Hungarian soldiers, probably killed by a grenade, whose bodies were discovered in 2012 on the Presena Glacier.

At left: A framed mirror holds a woman's portrait. At right: An oil lamp.

Nicolis, who participated in the recovery of those remains, says the soldiers "were at the bottom of a crevasse, thrown there by Italian soldiers, or by their own fellow soldiers, or perhaps by some salvager. But not before their boots and every other useful object were taken.

"One of them still had a spoon, though, wrapped in the puttee around his leg. This was a common practice: In war, soldiers never knew when they would eat, so they carried their spoons everywhere, just like their toothbrush."

Both soldiers, says Daniel Gaudio, a forensic anthropologist in Vicenza, "were very young—about 18 years old."

Gaudio has examined more than 50 corpses from the White War. But "unfortunately," he says, "without a name tag, it is unlikely that they can be identified. The DNA from a body conserved in the ice can be extracted rather easily, but then it should be compared to a database of the entire population—which of course does not exist.

"Nonetheless," he adds, "we usually manage to reconstruct a sort of micro-history of the soldier: height, age, and the presence of pathologies. Almost all of them have a herniated disk or other signs of stress to the spinal column, [usually] found today in individuals over 50. This means that they performed heavy work, probably as farmers. And so many of them had serious cavities and abscesses. They fought while suffering from pain that we would consider intolerable today."

Makeshift housing used by Austro-Hungarian soldiers can still be seen on Caré Alto in the Adamello region. Soldiers often lived year-round in such dire—and precarious—conditions.

[MIKA27]

Extremely Rare White Rhino Dies in Kenya—His Kind Nearly Extinct

The northern white rhinoceros is one step closer to extinction with the death of Suni, one of only two breeding males left of his kind.

The 34-year-old animal was found dead October 17 in his enclosure in Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy, possibly from natural causes, the reserve said in a statement. White rhinos are thought to be able to live up to 40 or 50 years. An autopsy is under way, but officials are certain poachers did not kill Suni, as the animal was monitored around the clock.

The death of the rare creature, which had not fathered any offspring, leaves only six northern white rhinos left on Earth, including just one male of that subspecies. The southern white rhino, a related subspecies, is considered near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Born at the Dvůr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic, Suni had been an emblem of hope: He was one of four of the world's eight remaining northern rhinos sent to the Kenyan conservancy in 2009 as part of a last-ditch effort to save the critically endangered subspecies.

So far, it hasn't worked. "It's a shame the subspecies got to that point—that's the worst-case scenario in trying to bring back a subspecies," said Matthew Lewis, senior program officer for African species conservation at WWF.

The northern white rhinoceros is a "victim of evolution," Lewis added—it was a remnant population cut off from the southern white rhinoceros by the Great Rift Valley and the dense forests of Central Africa.

Already isolated and occurring in low numbers, the northern subspecies got caught up in political turmoil in Sudan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Uganda, and its numbers quickly dwindled because of poaching and habitat loss.

"Not Just Another Charismatic Animal"

With just one breeding male left, the outlook for the subspecies is grim. Stuart Pimm, a conservation ecologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, now considers the animal basically extinct.

That "we've lost [the subspecies] is a statement of just how bad off large animals are across Africa," said Pimm, who is also a contributor to National Geographic's News Watch blog. "It's a measure of the fact that rhinos are being massively poached and in trouble wherever they are."

From African lions to elephants, many of the continent's megafauna species are plummeting in number due to poaching and other human causes.

"It also means we're losing this distinctive, important animal within the savanna ecosystem," he said.

Rhinoceroses are key to keeping grasslands healthy, as they eat—and keep in check—particular species of savanna plants.

"It's not just another charismatic animal—it's also a species that has a very clear ecological role, and we need to be very worried that we have lost that," Pimm said.

Suni takes a walk in November 2010 at Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where he moved in 2009 from his birthplace in the Czech Republic.

Rhino Lessons

The story of the northern white rhinoceros is "a fantastic lesson on what not to do, and how we need to avoid getting to this point with the other rhinos," Lewis noted.

The black rhinoceros, which has four subspecies, is doing relatively well, though widespread poaching for the animals' horns, which are used in Asian traditional medicine, continues to flourish, he said.

Conservationists are now focusing their efforts on ensuring the safety of these animals and reducing the demand for rhino horn in Asian countries such as Vietnam.

But scientists aren't ready to give up on the northern white rhino entirely, he added.

For instance, if the last breeding male doesn't mate, scientists may be able to breed the northern white rhino females with the southern subspecies.

That would preserve some of the genes of the northern white rhino, even if the genes are mixed with those of their relative.

And the Ol Pejeta Conservancy is still on the case.

"We will continue to do what we can to work with the remaining three animals on Ol Pejeta," the reserve said in a statement, "in the hope that our efforts will one day result in the successful birth of a northern white rhino calf."

[MIKA27]

Sweden Is Hunting A Mystery Submarine Off Its Coastline, And It's About To Get Heated

Tensions are high off the coast of Sweden right now, as the country’s navy hunts what it believes to be a broken down Russian submarine hiding below the surface. The whole thing feels like it’s torn from the pages of a Tom Clancy novel.

Foxtrot Alpha initially reported on Monday that Sweden had started sub-hunting what was expected to be a Russian submarine that had broken down. It later emerged that eyewitnesses had seen something surfacing, depositing personnel on the shore before diving again.

The story comes as the situation above the Baltic Sea region also continues to deteriorate, with Russian fighter jets chasing off NATO and Swedish aircraft from international airspace.

The latest development in the story comes today, as the Swedish Navy is believed to have the sub cornered in the bay thanks to the combined efforts of at least five different ships. The next step, according to the top brass, is to force the sub to surface by any means possible.

And that may mean the use of depth charges according to the Navy’s Commander General Sverker Goranson:

“Our aim now is to force whatever it is up to the surface… with armed force, if necessary. The most important value of the operation – regardless of whether we find something — is to send a very clear signal that Sweden and its armed forces are acting and are ready to act when we think this kind of activity is violating our borders.”

Who has the movie rights to this one, I wonder?

[MIKA27]

This Is What Happens When You Give McDonald's To Organic Food 'Experts'

“What happens when you serve McDonald’s food to some experts and pretend it’s a new organic meal?” ask Sacha and Cedrique. To answer this question they went to a organic food fair in Houten, Netherlands, armed with disguised McNuggets and Big Macs. You can imagine what happens — or just watch their video.

Make sure to turn close captioning. It’s in English. Go to the 2:20 mark to see the experts verdict about how much better this organic food is than McDonald’s.

[MIKA27]

This Electronic Stonehenge Once Divined The Secrets Of Soviet Radio

In the early days of electronic espionage, the US intelligence community didn’t have the benefit of all-seeing spy satellites — it had to intercept and interpret high-frequency radio waves transmitted by the Soviet Union. To do so, the Americans relied on a network of mysterious structures whose real purpose was kept highly classified throughout the Cold War.

Nicknamed “Elephant Cages” by outside observers, these structures were actually high-frequency antenna arrays, part of the US military’s AN/FLR-9 “Iron Horse” system. These arrays, commonly known as “Wullenweber” antennas — and named after German WWII scientist, Dr Hans Rindfleisch was Wullenwever — are a type of Circularly Disposed Antenna Array (CDAA). They can be used for a variety of purposes from intelligence gathering and identifying high-value targets to navigation and search and rescue operations.

Each elephant cage consisted of an inner ring of antennas tuned for high frequency waves surrounded by one or more outer rings tuned for lower frequencies. These antennas would listen for HF radio waves bouncing off the ionosphere (which is what also allows HF radios to communicate beyond the horizon) and triangulate the precise location of the signal’s source.

The antenna array is composed of three concentric rings of antenna elements. Each ring of elements receives rf signals for an assigned portion of the 1.5 to 30-MHz radio spectrum. The outer ring normally covers the 2 to 6-MHz range (band A), but also provides reduced coverage down to 1.5 MHz. The center ring covers the 6 to 18-MHz range (band and the inner ring covers the 18 to 30-MHz range (band C). Band A contains 48 sleeve monopole elements spaced 78.4 feet apart (7.5 degrees). Band B contains 96 sleeve monopole elements spaced 37.5 feet (11.43 m) apart (3.75 degrees). Band C contains 48 antenna elements mounted on wooden structures placed in a circle around the central building. Bands A and B elements are vertically polarised. Band C elements consist of two horizontally polarised dipole antenna subelements electrically tied together, and positioned one above the other.

This setup enabled each array to operate over a range of up to 5000km. In fact, the Iron Horse program actually ran clear around the planet with a total of six such arrays situated in strategic locations throughout the US and its allied nations. Since the system relied on signals bouncing down from the ionosphere, each array was at the mercy of the weather and prevailing topographical conditions.

As such, the Iron Horse system quickly fell out of favour once we started launching ISR satellites to spy on the Soviets from space. Today, a majority of the existing elephant cages have already been dismantled including those at RAF Chicksands in the UK and Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Crews have just started deconstructing the cage at Misawa Air Base in Japan after a two year delay, leaving the system at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska as the only operational AN/FLR-9 unit in existence.

[MIKA27]

A Rare Tour Inside A 1000-Year-Old High-Tech Winery

The Abbey Winery in Pannonhalma, Hungary, has one of the oldest wine making traditions in Europe. In 996, Benedictine monks settled on the Sacred Hill of Pannonia — and they have always been closely associated with viticulture and winemaking introduced by the Romans.

At the beginning of the 1900s, the Archabbey had about 100 hectares — or 250 acres — of vineyards in the direct vicinity of Pannonhalma. But after the Communist takeover that followed World War II, the single-party state confiscated the winery, putting a temporary end to the centuries-old tradition.

Ten years after Communist rule failed, in 2003, the Abbey Winery Pannonhalma was reestablished with 2000 square metres of floor space and a storage capacity of 3000 hectolitres. A few days ago I was lucky enough to get a peek inside the ancient cellars to see this state of the art winery. The following photos will show you how such an old tradition has been able to survive over centuries — and be revived in an ultimately up-to-date form.

Old oak barrels.

Ancient cellar passageways.

Grape harvesting tools from the past.

Concrete fermenting tub from 1922.

Landscape with the Benedictine abbey.

The new, minimalistic building of the winery.

The upper section of the gravitational grape processing plant.

Metal tanks.

Inside a stainless steel tank after emptying the unfermented red grape juice.

Here’s the back of the wine press machine.

And high-tech orderliness.

What a nice yellow water pump!

Among the fermentation towers.

The equivalent of the winery’s data centre.

The red grapes of Pannonhalma.

[MIKA27]

A German U-Boat From WWII Has Been Found Off The Coast Of North Carolina

On July 15, 1942 — in the midst of World War II’s long-running Battle of the Atlantic — a German U-boat and a Nicaraguan freighter were wrecked a mere 48km off the coast of North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras. Now, over seven decades later, their watery resting places have been (re)discovered.

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Office of National Marine Sanctuaries led the recovery effort with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) — a partnership established six years ago for the express purpose of seeking out and surveying crafts like these, lost in this and the surrounding holy-smokes-that’s-really-really-close-to-America area during WWII.

The docked U-576.

According to NOAA News, the U-576 was already damaged and on its way back to Germany when it came across Convoy KS-520, and Kapitanleutnant Hans-Dieter Heinicke made a fateful decision to go on the offensive.

The group of 19 merchant ships escorted by the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, was en route to Key West, Florida, from Norfolk, Virginia, to deliver cargo to aid the war effort when it was attacked off Cape Hatteras. The U-576 sank the Nicaraguan flagged freighter Bluefields and severely damaged two other ships. In response, U.S. Navy Kingfisher aircraft, which provided the convoy’s air cover, bombed U-576 while the merchant ship Unicoi attacked it with its deck gun. Bluefields and U-576 were lost within minutes and now rest on the seabed less than 240 yards apart.

That… is so close to each other. Barely two-and-a-half football fields. While everyone from the Bluefields was saved, the 45-man crew from the U-576 all went down with their sub, which makes this historical site a war grave, giving it protection under international law: “The United States recognises that title to a United States or foreign sunken State craft, wherever located, is not extinguished by passage of time, regardless of when such sunken State craft was lost at sea.”

In response to the news, the German Foreign Office issued the following statement.

“In legal succession to the former German Reich, the Federal Republic of Germany, as a rule, sees itself as the owner of formally Reich-owned military assets, such as ship or aircraft wreckages. The Federal Republic of Germany is not interested in a recovery of the remnants of the U-576 and will not participate in any such project. It is international custom to view the wreckage of land, sea, and air vehicles assumed or presumed to hold the remains of fallen soldiers as war graves. As such, they are under special protection and should, if possible, remain at their site and location to allow the dead to rest in peace.”

And so it will stay in place forever.

[MIKA27]

Gary, Indiana Is a Serial Killer’s Playground

Darren Deon Vann's hometown has 10,000 abandoned houses, more than enough for him to hide six bodies. Even worse, it's a place where women disappear without being missed.

GARY, Indiana—Over a din of smart-ass comments and after-work banter, Peg at Bugsy’s Tavern asks the obvious question: “You guys wanna watch the news?” The answer is yes, of course, and the crowd at the tiny bar off the main drag in this busted town of 80,000 settles in to hear the score of their newly famous resident.

There’s a Jane Doe or two among the seven women allegedly killed by Darren Deon Vann who need to be identified; more charges are forthcoming for Vann, who is already pinned for the murder of Afrika Hardy, strangled and left in the bathtub of a Motel 6. Six bodies have been discovered thanks to his confession.

“Supposedly there’s 14,” a concrete worker named Josh said Monday night.

“There’s gotta be more,” a beer-sipper agrees.

What there isn’t, the patrons at Bugsy’s are told as they gaze into TV screens glowing in the approaching dusk, is a motive. The whole episode is shocking, confusing, newsy and depressing—a black eye for a town already sporting a fat lip and a broken nose.

There are 10,000 abandoned houses in Gary, the mayor said earlier in the day as details emerged about the crime that brought police to Vann’s doorstep. The homes sit in various stages of decay—some are torched to the point that blackened studs are the only thing left of a family’s long-gone home. Others are fixer-uppers, if you happen to be a construction expert and financial idiot. But most of the abandoned houses, with sagging roofs and drafty walls, are just there.

“It makes me uncomfortable,” a woman says, standing in front of 413 E. 43rd Ave., where the body of Anith Jones was found. “My kids walk by here every day.”

They’re far from alone. Children hopping off school buses roamed the streets Monday afternoon as news crews gathered at the house, slightly obscured from the street by a yard of unkempt grass littered with fallen tree branches. Inside were all the signs of a flophouse. Empty cigarette packs, liquor bottles, containers sticky with food residue covered the floor. In a bedroom at the top of crumbling stairs, a bed was made up with a comforter. A baby carriage and a car seat sat nearby.

“They should just give ‘em away for free,” Josh at the bar says of the houses as the mayor recounts for reporters the difficulties of dealing with Gary’s blight.

Apparently “they” don’t have to, because whoever was living in the upstairs bedroom at 413 E. 43rd isn’t paying rent. Vann likely wasn’t either, if the looks of his home in the 1400 block of East 50th Court are any indication. That abode wasn’t as accessible to vagrants and the wind as 413 E. 43rd, but it is definitely on the wrong side of the fixer-upper scale.

After the news, Bugsy’s empties a bit. Political ads demonizing some politicians and praising others play on as an older man sips his Colt 45. Smiling politicians seem a long way from here. Gary has been broken for a while, and it looks like much of it has been left to rot. What can a politician do for a town that’s so ****ed up that 10,000 abandoned houses are simply part of the scenery, where a killer can dump bodies seemingly at random without much fear of being caught, where only one of the three women so far identified as Vann’s victims had a missing-persons report out on her?

At 7 o’clock, the bartender at Bugsy’s clocks out and gives a bit of direction to her second-shift replacement. The news is over, but I start to notice other stories on the walls of the bar. Newspaper clippings, many of them with pictures of the owner, a former Gary firefighter, are everywhere. Often, the newsprint reads, the fires were battled at abandoned houses.

The bartender switches the channel and the lone patron doesn’t bat an eye. He just keeps sipping his Colt 45 and staring at the TV, where hockey-masked Jason is roaming the woods and two teenagers are running in fear. There are plenty of wooded areas like the one being taken in by the stone-faced drinker sitting next to me, and two of Vann’s victims were found among the trees. But this killer didn’t have to do much hiking. Instead he took advantage of what, for him, is Gary’s greatest asset: abandoned houses left behind when people fled for greener pastures.

[MIKA27]

RADIUS V2 TITANIUM IPHONE 6 CASE

Considered by many to be the best minimalist case for the iPhone 5, the Radius V2 is the same sleek case you know and love, but designed for your new iPhone 6 or 6-Plus.

There are minimalist cases, and then there’s Radius. Dubbed an iPhone bikini by fans, this thing barely extends beyond the your iPhone’s sleep and volume buttons, and is hardly noticeable at all. The design is sleek and simple, but still provides protection without the signal loss we’ve often experienced with other snap and bumper cases. So what’s it made from? The Radius is built from a durable, extremely lightweight titanium that covers all 4 corners of your phone with an X-frame running across the back to hold everything together. The case ranges from $79 to $99 depending on your phone model. [Purchase]

MIKA: Stunning case IMO

[MIKA27]

LEEO SMART ALERT NIGHTLIGHT AND ALARM MONITOR

That Batman nightlight you’ve been relying on since 1988 is so old and worn out by now, it’s pretty much a Bruce Wayne nightlight. Don’t reveal the Dark Knight’s identity to the world; get another nightlight. And make it one that can save your house in case of a fire too.

The Smart Alert by Leeo is plug-and-play device that connects to your home Wi-Fi and runs through an iPhone or Android app. If a smoke or carbon monoxide alarm should go off, it alerts you and your emergency contacts to the situation. The nightlight portion of Smart Alert features an ambient light sensor, a ring to adjust brightness, and the option to set the hue to one of 16 million colors. Plus no superhero identities are revealed whatsoever. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

McLaren's P1 GTR Has To Be The Craziest Hybrid Ever

735 kilowatts. A stripped out interior with swathes of carbon fibre. A F1-derived high speed Drag Reduction System on the rear wing. If you thought the road-going McLaren P1 was already insanely powerful and quick, the track-only, racing-focused P1 GTR is going to blow your mind.

There’s a new video of the McLaren P1 GTR in action, first spotted by the guys over at Autoblog, with the British supercar and F1 manufacturer introducing the new GTR program to potential customers and the world via YouTube.

The P1 GTR is a hybrid. You can drive it without burning petrol. You might be only able to manage a couple of kilometres, of course, with the front-mounted electric motor and battery pack re-optimised for instantaneous tractable power out of low-speed corners and from a standstill, but a hybrid it remains and therefore it is saving the planet as it tears up the race track.

Developed along the same lines as the Ferrari XX programme that spawned the FXX and 599XX for customers to drive at race tracks around the world, McLaren’s accompanying driver support programme will see 10 to 12 track days per year, with the cars’ lucky owners picking six to attend and borrowing garage and crew at each location from McLaren for a turn-key racing experience with their custom-liveried cars.

That driver program includes not only access to McLaren’s bespoke track simulator, but both physical and mental preparation for the absolute pinnacle of performance — it’s called the “Human Performance Program”, developing drivers just as much as the cars themselves.

I don’t know about you, but I want one.