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

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Even Hunting Was Supposed To Become Automatic In The Future

The great promise of the 20th century was that everything would one day be operated by push-button. Even hunting was supposed to become automatic, as you can see in the invention above from 1922.

The May 1922 issue of Science and Invention magazine included this contraption which promised “hunting without firearms”. A telegraph key was wired to some batteries, a spark coil, and a shotgun cartridge. With enough wire, the device would become the ultimate lazy-hunter’s dream. Or that was the idea.

One can’t help but imagine the nightmare scenario where an unfortunate passerby gets sprayed with buckshot when Little Johnny discovers the telegraph key his dumbass father installed in the nursery.

From the May 1922 issue of Science and Invention:

A piece of steel adapted to hold a buckshot cartridge is clamped to any immovable object such as the limb of a tree, and directed toward bait placed on another branch. If desirable, several of these steel barrels may be employed. The cartridge is then perforated near its powdered end, and two small nails or pieces of pointed metal rod are inserted. Copper wires are twisted around these nails, and then brought downward along the trunk of the tree. At the root of the tree a one-quarter inch spark coil is secured, and the wires from the cartridge are attached to the secondary terminals. A storage battery is placed alongside of the spark coil or dry cells may be employed. Two wires then lead away to the distant key. The birds may now be observed thru telescopes, field glasses, or just the naked eye, and the key pressed pronto!

Needless to say, you probably shouldn’t try this at home.

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SR-71 Blackbird Pilot Explains How The Cockpit Works From The Inside

Over the weekend, you saw the SR-71 Blackbird cockpit in glorious ultra-HD.Veteran Blackbird pilot Richard Graham explains how the cockpit actually works in this fascinating video filmed inside the cockpit. Lots of technical words, but seeing him moving around inside that tight cockpit is really cool.

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The Plan To Turn NYC's Old Payphones Into Free Gigabit Wi-Fi Hot Spots

Today, the New York City mayor’s office announced the winning bid to transform the city’s existing payphone infrastructure. LinkNYC will bring free gigabit Wi-Fi connectivity to some 7000 street towers. It’s one of the largest and most ambitious citywide Wi-Fi networks in the world.

Earlier this year, New York put out a request for proposals for plans to overhaul the existing payphone system, which is decrepit and frankly, not that useful any more. LinkNYC will bring blazing fast connectivity and other services in the form of 28cm slim aluminium stands called “Links”.

In addition to an antenna providing 46m Wi-Fi radius, the 3m towers will have a built-in Android tablets with series of pre-loaded apps, as well as a charging station for your personal gear. And of course, the Links are still phones, except now instead of popping in a quarter, you’ll be able to make free calls to the 50 US states. (Three old-fashioned pay phones will be maintained as a throwback to the past.)

The Links will be deployed in all five boroughs. The first ones will go in places where there’s already phones, but others won’t because many of the current locations aren’t even that useful to begin with. According to the terms of the contract, we’ll see 500 roll out by late 2015, and there will be be 4000 within four years. Each of those milestones requires Links in every borough, so it’s not like this is just going to service the rich folk of Manhattan. By the time it’s all done there could be as many as 10,000.

As with the payphones of yore, the new Links will be huge advertisements. The expected cost of the rollout is $US200 million but supposedly, but the Links will generate $US500 million for the city over 12 years. As part of the deal though, NYC will be allowed to use the displays for public service announcements. The towers will come in two flavours: One for commercial spaces, and a more discreet one for residential areas so you don’t have a bright flashing advertising screen blowing up your quiet block.

The winning bid comes form a company called City Bridge, a partnership of companies consisting of the advertising company Titan, the design firm Control Group, Qualcomm, and the hardware manufacturer Comark.

Titan is currently the biggest payphone operator in New York, and will be in charge of maintaining all of the Links. This includes a mandatory twice a week visit to every single one to make sure its working that it hasn’t been defaced by vandals. You’ll recall Control Group is the consultancy behind the interface design for NYC’s awesome digital subway map kiosks. Comark will build the actual Links themselves, and work with Qualcomm on implementing the connectivity technology.

Obviously this plan comes raises concerns about privacy. We’re assured that all of the user data collected will be anonymized so that it can’t be traced back to you. Of course, the operators will still have to comply with government requests the same way your ISP would have to.

LinkNYC sounds awesome, and given the partners involved, there’s a good chance that it will be successful. Still, given how many people there are in New York, there will definitely be hiccups along the way, and I’m certainly not looking forward to fighting for bandwidth with everyone else in the city.

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The US Navy's First Laser Cannon Is Now Deployed In The Persian Gulf

After seven years and $US40 million of development, the US Navy has finally sent its prototype laser weapon, one capable of blowing holes clean through UAVs, on patrol throughout the disputed Persian Gulf.

The Laser Weapon System (LaWS) prototype has been affixed to the bow of the USS Ponce, an amphibious transport ship, since August. Its 30kW beam, generated by focusing the apertures of six solid-state commercial welding lasers onto a single point, is multi-functional — equally capable of dazzling approaching ships and burning UAVs clean out of the sky — and only costs about a dollar a shot, John Miller, the 5th Fleet commander, told Bloomberg News in an email statement last Friday.

The LaWS is expected to remain aboard the Ponce for the next year or so, not so much to counter Iran’s continued saber rattling regarding the Straight of Hormuz, but to field test the new technology and ensure that it can actually handle the rigors of life aboard a naval vessel.

“How does it operate in that environment — heat, humidity, dust and at sea,” Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert said in a Bloomberg interview earlier this year. “It’s got to roll, move around, how much power does it take to sustain it?”

“I have to take it out and get it wet, and the Arabian Gulf’s a pretty tough environment,” he continued.

Should the LaWS pass this upcoming sea trial, the data generated from the test will be utilised by the likes of BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon to build an even bigger, more powerful class of lasers that should set sail by 2021. And combined with the recent advancements of the terrestrial HEL MD, which is already up to 50kW, we’re closer than ever to having GI Joe-style laser battles.

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Germany's Merkel toughens tone with Russia's Putin

The face of Russian President Vladimir Putin stares out from the front page of one of Germany's most popular broadsheets. Germany's relationship with Russia has occupied the headlines and preoccupied its politicians for months.

This week, in a speech in Australia, Chancellor Angel Merkel appeared to suggest her patience with the Russian leader over the conflict in eastern Ukraine was running out.

"Angela Merkel has been the West's indispensable interlocutor with Putin," says Judy Dempsey from the Carnegie Europe think tank.

The chancellor speaks fluent Russian; the Russian leader fluent German. They are described as having developed a grudging respect for one another.

In an interview with German TV, the Russian president said sanctions would harm Germany's economy

Their countries have a complicated relationship - a turbulent history and economic ties. Four thousand German companies do business with Russia.

On Sunday night, German TV aired an exclusive TV interview with Mr Putin in which he said sanctions against his country were not only hurting Ukraine but would also damage the German economy.

The two leaders are said to have spoken over the telephone nearly 40 times since the Ukraine crisis began. During the G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, Mrs Merkel spent hours in a private meeting with Mr Putin.

'Not acceptable'

Then, on Monday, she addressed a think tank in Sydney.

Russia was "violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine", she said, and Europe would continue to apply pressure.

While she had long respected Russia's concerns about Ukraine moving closer to Nato, she argued it was "simply not acceptable to forbid a country" to sign a trade agreement with the EU.

Judy Dempsey believes the German leader simply does not trust the Russian president. "Merkel is not willing to give Putin the chance to save face, which some European diplomats and leaders might like, to get the Ukraine dossier off their desks," she says.

The German news magazine Spiegel agrees: "The chancellor believes that what Putin says and what Putin does have long since diverged."

The chancellor's speech in Australia has been judged within Germany as her most overtly critical of Mr Putin so far.

"Merkel throws down the gauntlet," exclaimed popular tabloid Bild. It described her speech as "hard hitting", which, for a leader renowned for her cautious public rhetoric, it was.

Does it mark a turning point in German policy? Certainly there seems to be a perceptible shift in tone which, until recently, has been conciliatory.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier ® gave a pessimistic assessment in Moscow

Germany has refused to support further sanctions against Russia, preferring to focus on the humanitarian situation inside Ukraine and the push for a sustainable ceasefire.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has consistently taken this approach and told one German newspaper on Sunday that Mr Putin understandably wanted to stand on an equal footing with other influential powers, although that did not justify breaching international law by annexing Crimea.

But then Mr Steinmeier travelled to Moscow in what was billed as his first visit there since the annexation in March. Although he and fellow European foreign ministers had stopped short of extending sanctions on Russia only 24 hours earlier, his tone was uncompromising.

"There is no reason for optimism in the current situation," he said during a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Europe, the German foreign minister warned, was at a crossroads. There was a looming threat of speechlessness instead of dialogue and confrontation instead of co-operation.

Mrs Merkel joined commemorations marking the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November

Elsewhere in Moscow, President Putin was using hard-hitting language of his own. The US, he said, wanted to subdue Russia. No-one had done so before, and no-one would.

Little more than a week ago, Angela Merkel watched fireworks explode above the Brandenburg Gate to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This week, the chancellor, who grew up in East Germany and experienced Soviet Communism at close hand, remarked in Australia on the bitter conflict in eastern Ukraine.

"Who would have thought that 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, after the end of the Cold War and the division of Europe, and the end of the division of the world into two blocs, that something like this could happen right in the heart of Europe."

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Strange Spacecraft May Be Russian Satellite Killer

It sounds like the plot of a James Bond movie. If it’s true, can we convince Sean Connery to come out of retirement to save the world one more time? NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) is now tracking a Russian space vehicle launched in May that has recently been making unusual movements towards other objects launched by Russia – movements that resemble those of a satellite killer approaching its prey.

The object, now code-named Object 2014-28E, was carried into orbit on a rocket with three Rodnik communications satellites used by the Russian military. No explanation was given for its unannounced launch. It has been under observation since its discovery and in recent weeks has begun making odd yet seemingly deliberate maneuvers. One thought is that it’s designed to collect or destroy space junk that could be deadly to other satellites or the International Space Station. That same movement could also mean something more sinister, according to Patricia Lewis, research director at think-tank Chatham House.

Whatever it is, [Object 2014-28E] looks experimental. It could have a number of functions, some civilian and some military. One possibility is for some kind of grabber bar. Another would be kinetic pellets which shoot out at another satellite. Or possibly there could be a satellite-to-satellite cyber attack or jamming.

While anti-satellite weapons programs were allegedly discontinued after the Cold War ended, rumors out of Russia indicate they may have begun again. The actions of Object 2014-28E could confirm this.

Is it time to panic? Time for cooler heads to prevail? Time to bring back Sean Connery to only live thrice?

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Foxcatcher’s Real-Life Psycho Killer

In the Oscar bait film Foxcatcher, Steve Carell plays cocaine-snorting lunatic John du Pont, who guns down Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz. The true story is even crazier.

Bennett Miller’s tragic, true-life saga Foxcatcher is about many things: Familial strife, American exceptionalism, the corrupting influence of money, and Steve Carell’s prosthetic schnoz. It will also introduce many viewers to one of cinema’s most unstable and chilling villains in John du Pont—an ornithologist, philanthropist, conchologist, philatelist, sports enthusiast, and murderer.

The film centers on Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum). In the wake of his gold medal win at the 1984 Olympics, he’s depicted living in relative poverty, subsisting on a diet of ramen and accepting $20 for speaking engagements. He’s eager to escape from under the shadow of his older, more amiable brother, Dave (Mark Ruffalo), who also took gold in ’84. Desperate, Schultz falls under the wing of du Pont (Carell), a cocaine-snorting, gun-toting, psychopathic Svengali who provides him with state-of-the-art training facilities at Foxcatcher Farm in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, and even offers to have Dave and his family live on the estate grounds so he can help coach little brother.

On January 26, 1996, du Pont drove to his guesthouse, approached Dave while he was working on his car in the driveway under the watchful gaze of his wife, and shot him three times, killing him.

In real life, John Eleuthère du Pont had creeped out Mark from the very beginning.

“When I first met du Pont, I thought he was the biggest loser on Earth,” Mark recently told People. “His head was caked with dandruff. His teeth were caked with food. He had these little twig arms. It looked like he had swallowed a basketball… I knew I couldn't be around this guy.”

The du Pont family descended from Huguenot nobility in Burgundy, emigrating to the United States in 1800. There, they used their considerable means to establish E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company in 1802, a war-profiteering gunpowder manufacturer that grew to become the largest producer of black gunpowder in the country. The family also believed that inbreeding was central to both preserving the family fortune and ensuring “purity of blood.”

According to Discover Magazine, “Pierre-Samuel du Pont, founder of an American dynasty that believed in inbreeding, hinted at these factors when he told his family: ‘The marriages that I should prefer for our colony would be between the cousins. In that way we should be sure of honesty of soul and purity of blood.’ He got his wish, with seven cousin marriages in the family during the 19th century.”

Due to its development of valuable polymers like nylon, Teflon, Kevlar, and neoprene, du Pont has grown to become the third biggest chemical company in the world, taking in $34.8 billion in revenue in 2012 alone. Gerard Colby’s book Du Pont Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain alleges that the family has had heavy influence in American politics as well, including attempts at forcing President Roosevelt from office over opposed New Deal regulatory reforms, munitions sales to the rising Nazis, and the ongoing pollution of our air and water.

The great-grandson of Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, who founded the gunpowder mill that blossomed into a fortune, John du Pont was born in 1938 to William du Pont, Jr. and Jean Liseter Austin. He grew up the youngest of four children at Liseter Hall—a replica of James Madison’s Virginia home, Montpelier, built in Newton Square on 200 acres of property gifted to the family by Austin’s father. Du Pont left Austin when John was 2, and broke off communication with him shortly thereafter, forcing John to be raised by the stern Jean, whom he became very close to.

“I spent a lifetime looking for a father,” he told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1986.

The real-life John du Pont training wrestlers on Foxcatcher Farm.

Fatherless and emotionally needy, du Pont was a loner who sought companionship and adoration—usually at great financial cost.

“He was weird looking, kind of creepy, with yellow teeth and walking all kind of hunched over,” Suzanne Gillstrom, a neighbor who remembered him as a teenager, told The New York Times.

After graduating near the bottom of his high school class, du Pont went on to attend the University of Miami, majoring in marine biology. The eccentric multimillionaire harbored a fascination with birds, and eventually fancied himself an ornithologist, taking regular trips to the South Pacific where he discovered two-dozen new species. He erected the Delaware Museum of Natural History to house his collection of 1 million seashells and birds’ eggs and 100,000 preserved birds. The museum also published several books on birds penned by du Pont.

Du Pont would become fully immersed in one field—like birds—before moving on to his next obsession. He collected rare china, horse-drawn carriages (even purchasing the one used in the film My Fair Lady), and artillery, ranging from a Civil War Gatling gun to a tank. And he fired his vast array of weaponry on his estate’s private J. Edgar Hoover Pistol Training Center, where he’d regularly host local police who used it for target practice. Du Pont became so chummy with the cops that he’d donate bulletproof vests and other equipment to the department, and they even made him an honorary Newtown Square police officer in the ‘60s.

And while birds, guns, and playing cop were his hobbies, the heir’s real fascination was always the Olympics. He swam in college and dreamed of competing in the Games, but wasn’t close to being good enough, so he turned to the pentathlon. Du Pont’s biggest sporting achievement was winning the 1965 Australian national pentathlon championship, but since the pentathlon was a nonexistent sport in Australia, the prize was essentially bought.

“Almost any American could have gone down there and won,” Robert Marbut, president of the United States Modern Pentathlon Association, told The Times.

He served as manager of the U.S. pentathlon team at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, and in September 1983, the 45-year-old du Pont married 30-year-old Gale Wenk, an occupational therapist who’d treated him for a hand injury stemming from an automotive wreck one year prior.

But one month into the marriage, du Pont began to show signs of trouble. He became paranoid that his bride would be kidnapped, and told her to never go to the same place twice. He started drinking heavily, and choked her, threatened her with a knife, and even tried pushing her out of a moving car.

“On a February night in 1984, she said, her husband of five months entered the bedroom and turned the television to a channel featuring patriotic music,” wrote The Times. “When asked to turn down the volume, Mr. du Pont pulled a pistol from a dresser drawer, placed it to his wife's temple and, according to her, said, ‘You know what they do with Russian spies? They shoot them.’”

Wenk tried contacting local police about the abuse but, presumably because of du Pont’s power and influence within the community, it fell on deaf ears. She moved out a month later, and du Pont subsequently filed for divorce. She later sued him alleging a vicious cycle of abuse, and he settled with his ex-wife out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Then, in 1985, du Pont turned his attention (and Forbes-estimated $200 million fortune) to wrestling. He approached nearby Villanova University and offered to donate money to establish a varsity wrestling team there, provided they make him head coach. He poured millions into building Foxcatcher Farm, a wrestling facility boasting top-of-the-line weight machines. To lend him credibility, he hired Mark Schultz as his assistant coach, who lived on his estate from 1986-1988 until Villanova disbanded the team due to concerns that du Pont’s donations and recruiting tactics stood in violation of NCAA regulations.

Du Pont’s keen interest in wrestling, meanwhile, had some suspecting it was sexual in nature—something alluded to in the film.

“As Jerry Stanley, a former assistant coach at the University of Oklahoma, told one reporter, ‘I think he just liked to be around these Greek Adonis-built types,’” reported People.

He’d regularly wrestle with his team members, and according to former Team Foxcatcher wrestlers, took a particularly liking to Bulgarian wrestling champ Valentin Jordanov. The two would wrestle alone together on weekends, and ex-Foxcatcher member Trevor Lewis recalls a bizarre episode where du Pont denied him access to the gym on a Sunday. “That’s my time to work out with Valo,” Lewis claimed du Pont told him. “I’d prefer if we were alone.”

In December 1988, former Villanova assistant wrestling coach Andre Metzger, 29, sued du Pont alleging that his firing from the post “was a direct and proximate result” of his “refusal to submit to homosexual advances” by du Pont, reportedThe Philadelphia Inquirer, who later described the atmosphere at Foxcatcher as “a scene out of the corrupt Emperor Caligula's Roman bathing spas.” He sought $550,000 in damages, and du Pont vehemently denied the charges. The case was settled out of court.

After Villanova, du Pont became involved with Team USA Wrestling and Schultz’s road to a repeat gold at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. He joined Team Foxcatcher, a group of wrestlers who trained on and received free food and lodging, as well as up to $1,000 a month. Du Pont would even fly his wrestlers to tournaments in his Learjet or helicopter. Between 1989 and 1995, du Pont donated $400,000 a year to USA Wrestling.

“I feel the whole wrestling community has prostituted ourselves,” Glenn Goodman, a Foxcatcher wrestler from 1987 until 1992, later told The Times. “It wasn't like we didn't know what he was about. We knew. Because he brought some big money to the sport, I believe we turned a blind eye to some of the things he was doing.”

According to Mark Schultz’s memoir Foxcatcher: The True Story of My Brother's Murder, John du Pont's Madness, and the Quest for Olympic Gold, which will be released on November 18, he purposely lost his 1988 Olympic match to spite du Pont.

“I could not give du Pont the credibility and status that would come from his team’s producing an Olympic champion,” Schultz wrote.

He also detailed du Pont’s alcohol and cocaine problem, writing that he always appeared “drunk or on drugs, or both.” They snorted cocaine “two or three times” together and Schultz alleges that du Pont once even showed him a kilo of cocaine labeled “evidence” that he kept in a drawer—presumably from the local police precinct where he had close ties. Rob Calabrese, a wrestler on Team Foxcatcher, later testified that in 1988 he saw Schultz and du Pont snort a 3-inch line of cocaine together. In his memoir, Schultz also recounted a time when du Pont drunkenly drove his tank onto a police officer’s property (receiving no punishment), and when once burst into Schultz’s room drunk and high, pointing a gun at his then-girlfriend.

Du Pont’s fascination with wrestling and erratic behavior seemed to stem from the death of his mother, who passed away in August 1988. She once allegedly told her son that wrestlers were “ruffians.”

In 1989, du Pont randomly dismissed the younger Schultz from Foxcatcher Farm, and that same year, summoned Dave Schultz to train Team Foxcatcher—offering him a $70,000 annual salary and free lodging on his estate for his wife, Nancy, and two young children.

That’s when things got very strange.

“Bizarre imaginings by Mr. du Pont have also been recounted by athletes who trained with Team Foxcatcher,” wrote The Times. “They said he placed infrared ‘ghost-finding’ cameras in his house, believed the walls were moving and grew afraid that clocks on the treadmills were taking him back in time.”

Steve Carell (John du Pont) and Channing Tatum (Mark Schultz) in "Foxcatcher."

Du Pont also began drinking and drugging more regularly, became obsessed with numerology, and chose to carry a firearm around at all times. He later drove two Lincoln Continentals into his lake with little in the way of explanation. At the 1995 world wrestling championships in Atlanta, du Pont “wore an orange jumpsuit and asked to be introduced as the Dalai Lama,” reported The Times. Later that year, du Pont reportedly developed a phobia for the color black, prohibiting black vans from being driven on his property. Olympian Kevin Jackson later accused du Pont of firing him from Team Foxcatcher for being black.

“At the time, Mr. Jackson said he thought Mr. du Pont was being racist because three blacks were included in a group of athletes he dismissed and Mr. du Pont told one of them that the wrestling center was affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan,” wrote The Times. (He later changed his mind and said his dismissal was probably due to du Pont’s psychosis).

In October 1995, three months before the shooting, ex-Foxcatcher wrestler Dan Chaid alleged that du Pont shoved a machine gun into his chest and threatened to kill him, shouting, “Don’t **** with me, I want you off this farm.”

Despite the pattern of disturbing behavior, Dave Schultz always sprang to du Pont’s defense, offering to take him to rehab to kick his addiction to alcohol and drugs, and defending him to the rest of Team USA. By the start of 1996, du Pont had become almost completely withdrawn, staying inside his home for months at a time. Team Foxcatcher had dwindled from a high of 30 wrestlers to just 4.

Then, on January 26, 1996, du Pont drove over to Schultz’s guesthouse and, with his head of security in the passenger’s seat, shot Schultz in his driveway. Nancy heard the shot, then another, and came to the window to witness the third and final bullet be fired into her husband. Du Pont then pointed the gun at Nancy, before driving off.

After the shooting death of Schultz, a two-day standoff ensued between du Pont, who was holed up in his mansion with a massive cachet of weapons, and 75 local police and SWAT team members. When he went outside unarmed to check on the house’s heater, which the police had shut off, he was apprehended without conflict.

According to Schultz’s memoir, he doesn’t know why du Pont killed his brother, but noted that the murder happened on the birthday of Jordanov, du Pont’s favorite Foxcatcher wrestler. “I believe that du Pont had a birthday present he wanted to give Jordanov that would demonstrate how much du Pont loved him,” Schultz wrote.

Du Pont, 57, was initially declared “actively psychotic” and unfit for trial by a judge, and ordered to a psychiatric hospital. But in 1997, he was later found guilty (but mentally ill) in the shooting death of Schultz and sentenced to 13 to 30 years in prison. He passed away in his cell at the age of 72 on December 9, 2001, from natural causes.

In March 1996, just two months after the shooting death of Schultz, a team of defense psychiatrists interviewed Du Pont. During the 75-minute videotaped interview, du Pont referred to himself as the Dalai Lama, the last Czar of Russia, and a successor to the Third Reich. He also claimed that the CIA had dispatched a clone of himself to Foxcatcher Farm to kill Schultz.

“I recognized Dave Schultz as my protector,”' du Pont said in the March interview. “I didn't put two and two together until after Dave had been killed.”

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Charles Dance on Tywin Lannister’s S5 Return, A ‘Game of Thrones’ Movie,’ and Sexy Peter Dinklage\

Seasoned British actor Charles Dance opens up about Tywin’s death, working with David Fincher on his first film, and the Oscar bait drama The Imitation Game.

“When you look at this face, it’s quite patrician the way it’s put together, and I have a demeanor that’s rather austere,” Charles Dance says in his crisp British accent whilst balancing a cup of coffee. “So, interesting villain characters have come along and any actor will tell you that a villainous character is much more fun to play than a good guy.”

It’s an early November morning and I’m seated across from the veteran actor at a restaurant in Lower Manhattan. Though he’s best known for playing bureaucratic villains—namely, the icy, scheming patriarch Tywin Lannister on HBO’s Game of Thrones—Dance is in town to promote a good-guy role.

But first, Thrones.

The Season 4 finale, of course, saw Tywin sleep with his imp son’s lover, Shae, and then be shot to death by Tyrion with a crossbow—while sitting on the toilet, no less. “It was a pretty ignominious death,” he says.

According to Dance, his character will return for Season 5 of the show—albeit briefly. In George R.R. Martin’s tome A Feast for Crows, Tywin’s remains are displayed for a week in the Great Sept before a procession of knights guides the body west. And that’s how it’ll play out on the show.

“Well, only my body!” Dance says of his fifth-season cameo. “I don’t wake up in the shower having had a dream about it all.”

He also let slip some very interesting news for Thrones fans: that the show’s producers have been actively discussing a future Game of Thrones movie.

“There’s talk of eventually trying to do a feature film, but I don’t know which of the storylines,” says Dance. “There’s so much to cram into a film.”

As far as feature films go, Dance’s latest turn is in Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game, in theaters Nov. 28. He plays Commander Alastair Denniston, head of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park during World War II. Denniston assembles a team of cryptanalaysts, including Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), who are tasked with cracking the Nazis’ seemingly impermeable Enigma Code. Following Turing’s lead, the team eventually cracks it, thereby allowing the allied forces to win numerous sea battles by intercepting the Germans’ coded messages. Churchill would later say Turing made the single biggest contribution to allied victory.

Despite his war-hero status, as well as conceptualizing the first computer, Turing pleaded guilty to homosexual acts in 1952 (then illegal in the U.K.), and accepted chemical castration treatment instead of serving time in prison. In 1954, he took his own life via cyanide poisoning. Despite his sadistic treatment at the hands of the government, Turing wasn’t pardoned for his “crime” until Dec. 24, 2013.

“There is an irony in that. Pardoned for what? Cracking the Enigma Code?” says Dance. “The government should be asking the relatives of Alan Turing to pardon them for treating him so appallingly!”

He adds of Turing’s treatment, “It’s medieval, and disgusting. There are a few mad people around today who think you can ‘cure’ people of their sexuality, too.”

Dance feels The Imitation Game is relevant not only for the way it tackles archaic attitudes toward sexuality and women in the workplace (in the form of Keira Knightley’s character), but also as a precursor of sorts to modern-day hacking. He brandishes his iPhone and shakes it in the air.

“GCHQ can access all of our information whenever they want to do it,” he says. “Anybody can read my emails, listen to my phone calls, anything.”

During the Leveson Inquiry, Dance claims to have received a call from the local police. They told him that one of the tabloid reporters involved in the hacking scandal had been arrested, and turned over all his information. His number was on the list. “I had a call from the police who said, ‘Did you know that your number came up?’ and it made sense, because certain things would appear in papers and I’d think, ‘How the **** did they know that?’”

The 68-year-old Brit has had an acting career spanning 40 years, and made his film debut as an evil henchman, Claus, in the 1981 Bond film For Your Eyes Only. But one of his early roles that introduced him to American audiences was as Clemens, the prison doctor in David Fincher’s first feature, Alien 3. The film was critically panned upon its release, but has since gained a cult following. “I think Alien 3 was a better film than Aliens, to be frank,” says Dance.

According to the actor, Vincent Ward’s initial script for the film was “really spooky” and centered on a religious cult in a penal colony, but since the character of Ripley was relatively minor, “changes were made to the script.”

And the problems didn’t stop there. “Fincher had the studio on his back the whole time phoning him at all hours of the day and night—not taking into account the time change,” says Dance. “But I remember walking on this huge set at Pinewood Studios and Fincher comes up and fires off his shot list for the day. Here’s this guy young enough to be my son who knew all the crew’s jobs, all the shots he wanted, and where he was going to make the cuts in the film, and I thought, ‘My God, this guy is going to go far.’”

Our talk eventually circles back to Game of Thrones. I mention the upcoming video game based on the series, images of which recently leaked online, and he’s caught completely by surprise—which says that either Tywin won’t be featured in the game, or the actors aren’t providing their own voices for the characters.

“Oh, really?” Dance says. “I know nothing about it. Who’s doing the voice? They haven’t asked me to do it… I want to know something about that!”

Dance describes how Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss visited the set of Your Highness at Titanic Studios in Northern Ireland while they were planning the pilot. He chatted with them, and they eventually sent him the first few scripts. He was immediately sold on the quality of the screenplays and the fascinating story. “I never read any of the books, because that’s not what we’re shooting,” says Dance. “We’re shooting scripts written by David and Dan.”

The craziest thing he ever did on Thrones, he says, came during the first season when the creators approached him and asked, “Are you a vegetarian, Charles?” He replied, “No, why do you ask?” and the duo proceeded to show him a scene of Tywin skinning a deer.

“So, this butcher arrived with a dead animal and they gave me a little room to work in, gave me a sharp knife, and showed me how to skin it and spill the guts into a bucket,” recalls Dance. “The next day, they gave me another dead animal, and we shot it. It was a bloody good time, but it took me two days to get the smell off my hands.”

One of his fondest memories from the show was his time sharing the screen with Peter Dinklage, who plays his embattled imp son, Tyrion.

“One of the biggest joys was working with Peter Dinklage,” says Dance. “He’s the sweetest man, and a phenomenal actor. He must be the envy of every dwarf actor in the world because those parts don’t come along too often. He’s also extremely handsome. If you look at his head, it’s like Michelangelo’s David.”

He pauses. “And he’s such a great guy, too. I spent a lot of time apologizing to Peter because we play scenes where I treat him like ****, calling him a ‘lecherous little stump’ and saying I wanted to ‘carry you out to sea and let the waves take you away.’”

[MIKA27]

SUPER FLEMISH: SUPERHEROES IN 17TH CENTURY GARB

Whether you’re an expert on the works of Michelangelo or just really enjoyed Assassin’s Creed II, the Renaissance period is a fascinating bit of history. But how could it be made even better? The Hulk in an Elizabethan ruffled collar.

Photographer Sacha Goldberger’s Super Flemish collection of photographs creatively imagines what a smorgasbord of superheroes, sci-fi characters, and fairy tale icons would look like if they lived in the 17th century. Whether it’s Batman and Robin, Darth Vader, Wolverine, Snow White or the many others, each portrait is full of uncanny charm. And these aren’t Photoshopped; they’re actual models – some which look very close to their big screen counterparts – in actual costumes looking regal. OK, so maybe the Yoda with frilly sleeves was digitally created, but that’s about it.

[MIKA27]

HUSH SMART EARPLUGS

Hush are the World´s first smart earplugs, they block out all the noise while still letting you be woken up by the things that matter most. Today´s traditional earplugs are great for blocking out the world, but it can be difficult to sleep with the peace of mind knowing you might not hear your alarm clock or notifications. Hush connects wirelessly with your smartphone, so you can rest easy knowing that you’ll still be woken up, and without bothering anyone else. Hush is controlled by an app, you can choose what notifications to hear, play soothing sounds to help you fall asleep, even track the earplugs when you have misplaced them!

[MIKA27]

Convicted Terrorist Known as the ’20th Hijacker’ Has a Stunning Claim About the 9/11 Attacks

A man known as the “20th hijacker” who is serving a life sentence for his admitted role in conspiring to murder Americans in the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 has come forward with some shocking new allegations, claiming that a Saudi Arabian royal helped fund the devastating terror events.

Zacarias Moussaoui, 46, has said, more specifically, that a Saudi prince paid to train him and the 19 hijackers in the time leading up to the attacks.

He issued these allegations in recently filed federal court documents, alleging that the prince was fully aware that the training was being done on behalf ofOsama bin Laden, according to the Daily Mail.

“I am ready to testify about all the above and more in your court in an Open Hearing that I request,” Moussaoui said in a handwritten court document dated October 23.

According to his account, Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Saud met with him, provided him with funding and also financially assisted the other 19 Sept. 11 terrorists.

Moussaoui also detailed an alleged Al Qaeda plan to shoot down Air Force One when Bill Clinton was in office — a purported plot that he said involved an employee at one of Saudi Arabia’s embassies, according to the Oklahoman.

The Saudi government has denied any involvement in the 9/11 attacks in the past and some say that Moussaoui‘s own credibility is at issue in taking his claims at face value, especially considering that a defense psychologist once said he suffers from delusions as a result of paranoid schizophrenia.

Still, this isn’t the first time Saudi Arabia has been accused of involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.

As for Moussaoui, he was originally arrested in August 2001 — just one month before 9/11 — after staffers at a Minnesota flight school became concerned over his quest to learn to fly a Boeing 747, despite not having a pilot’s license.

Moussaoui was initially arrested on immigration charges before the attacks and was held in custody just weeks later when they unfolded; in 2005, he pleaded guilty to conspiring with the hijackers.

A courtroom drawing shows Al-Qaeda plotter Zacarias Moussaoui shouting “I will be free. Before the end of George Bush I will get out.” as he is led out the courtroom by a marshal in Bryan US District Court May 2006 in Alexandria, Virginia.

Just one year later, though, an audio recording revealed that bin Laden was separating himself from Moussaoui, claiming that the man wasn’t part of the 9/11 attacks, the Daily Mail reported.

These facts aside, Moussaoui claims to have given a deposition in October to lawyers who are representing insurance companies and victims seeking damages from Saudi Arabia over claims that the country was involved in the Sept. 11 plot.

[MIKA27]

Why NASA Is Sending A Spacecraft To An Asteroid To Bring A Piece Back

Not to be outdone by their ESA colleagues, NASA is sending a spacecraft to an asteroid to bring a piece of it back. Her name is OSIRIS-REx, and she will be visiting Bennu — great name for an outpost in a sci-fi movie — one of the primordial asteroids that have been orbiting the sun for millions of years.

In the words of Edward Beshore, Deputy Principal Investigator for NASA’s asteroid-sample-return mission OSIRIS-REx:

On planets like Earth, the original materials have been profoundly altered by geologic activity and chemical reactions with our atmosphere and water. We think Bennu may be relatively unchanged, so this asteroid is like a time capsule for us to examine. By analysing the sample collected from Bennu, the OSIRIS-REx team will be able to examine some of the most pristine material to be found anywhere in the solar system.

In other words: Bennu is a time machine that will let us know how the solar system was right at its genesis. Can’t wait.

[Philski]

The Laser Weapon System (LaWS) prototype has been affixed to the bow of the USS Ponce

The USS Ponce?! *snigger*

[MIKA27]

The USS Ponce?! *snigger*

I also laughed and double checked this was a true name and Yep.. it sure is PONCE

[Fuzz]

You'd have thought somebody would have recognised that term before agreeing to name the ship that.

Then again, mistakes happen...

[MIKA27]

You'd have thought somebody would have recognised that term before agreeing to name the ship that.

Then again, mistakes happen...

That's GOLD

[MIKA27]

The UK Is Crowdfunding A Trip To The Moon

A team of plucky Brits has decided to make its way to the moon — using funds gathered from the public via Kickstarter.

The rather ambitious plan aims to raise £500 million — that’s over $900 million — for the project via donations made by the public. The planned mission, known as Lunar Mission One, will set a robotic probe down on the moon’s surface in 10 years’ time.

In returns for donations, members of the public will be able to place photos, text and their DNA sequences in a time capsule, which will be buried beneath the moon’s surface. As well as, you know, kudos for helping a mission whose aim is to survey the Moon’s south pole, to assess whether humans could ever live there.

The first funding goal, which is supposed to cover the initial stages of research and development, is a more modest £600,000 ($1 million). That’s currently being raised on Kickstarter, where funding essentially buys digital storage in the time capsule: text will cost a few dollars, a photo tens of dollars, and a short video around $300. You can even send a sample of hair for $80. If that’s your thing.

“Rather than just watching the mission, people can be directly involved, not just through funding but helping to make key decisions such as the selection of the landing site or what should be included in the public archive,” explained David Iron, who’s leading the project, to the BBC. Whether the future of space travel is crowdfunded remains to be seen. Maybe it’s time to make a donation and see.

[MIKA27]

The First Demo Video Of The World's Tallest Roller Coaster Is Terrifying

The world’s tallest roller coaster won’t even be made until 2017 and this is just a demo video of what the roller coaster is going to feel like. Skyscraper at Skyplex in Orlando will be the tallest roller coaster in the world at over 150m tall and you ride the thing all the way down.

[MIKA27]

Mysterious Huge Flash Illuminates Russian Skies, Puzzles Scientists

http://youtu.be/MCH7BpxBOTI

This is really, really weird: Multiple sightings and dashcam videos of a gigantic yellow flash that covered the skies of the Sverdlovsk region, in Russia, have been reported on the night of November 14. Scientists and local authorities still don’t know what it is or where did it come from.

Here’s another video of the mysterious flash that shows it could possibly come from an explosion on the ground.

There are several theories about the origin of this strange phenomena being a meteor, military exercises, or the explosion of a nearby factory the most plausible. But none of them have been confirmed so far.

Russian astronomers don’t seem to get to an agreement. While astronomer Vadim Krushinsky points that the colour of the flash discards the meteor theory, his colleague Viktor Grokhovsky, a member of the meteorites committee of the Russian Academy of Sciences, supports it. He told 66.ru(in Russian):

Looks like a falling bolide, which invaded us. Because of the low cloud cover it ceased to exist above the clouds and lit up the whole sky

Russian military press service claims it has nothing to do with it either. They told E1.ru (in Russian):

No exercise and training were underway on that day, and no military units are based in the region.

The factory explosion theory seems very unlikely too. According to RT:

Regional emergency services said no accidents in connection with the event had been recorded. No sound of explosion has been reported either.

Seems that no one has a clue about of what caused this weird flash in the sky. So, until more information arises, my two cents go for the meteor theory.

[MIKA27]

Map Of Record-Breaking Cold Blanket Covering The US

It’s not only Buffalo engulfed in a terrifying snow wall. Yesterday was the coldest November morning since 1976: More than 85 per cent of the surface of the contiguous United States reached or fell below freezing. This is much more anomalous than last year’s polar vertex: 10C below normal temperatures!

According to Dr. Ryan Maue, from WeatherBell models:

Tuesday morning, America ‘as a whole’ awoke to the coldest it has been in November since 1976 — 38 years ago. The Lower-48 or CONUS spatially average temperature plummeted overnight to only 19.4°F typical of mid-winter not November 18th!

Compared to normal, temperatures over the past several days have dropped off a cliff — to 10°C below climate normal — more anomalous than even during the Polar Vortex of early January 2014. November is shaping up to be a colder-than-normal month by a lot.

Dr Maue says that 226 million Americans experienced below freezing temperatures on Tuesday. And it’s only getting worse:

Record lows from Idaho to Nebraska and Iowa south to Texas and east through the Great Lakes, the eastern 2/3 of the US will shatter decades-long and in some cases, century-long records. Temperatures east of the Rockies will be 20-40°F below climate normals.

Cold air pushes east thru Wednesday with a reinforcing shot of Arctic air with origin from the North Pole & Siberia to arrive on Thursday in the Great Lakes. Any relief is is 5-6 days away as Chicago, Minneapolis, and Detroit will struggle to rise above freezing until Saturday.

Good luck everyone. This winter is really, REALLY going to suck.

[MIKA27]

Cool Ultra-HD Photo Of The First F-35C Carrier Night Test

Impressive photo of the F-35C, the US Navy variant of the Joint Strike Fighter, about to take off from the USS Nimitz supercarrier at night for the first time ever.

The aircraft launched at 6:01 p.m. (PST) and conducted a series of planned touch-and-go landings before making an arrested landing at 6:40 pm. Nimitz is hosting the F-35 Lightning II Pax River Integrated Test Force from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 during the initial sea trials of the F-35C.(U.S. Navy photo courtesy of Lockheed Martin by Andy Wolfe/Released)

[MIKA27]

Jetfire, One Of The Best Transformers Toys From The 1980s, Is Back

Back in the ’80s there were some Transformers toys you could buy anywhere, and then there were some that seemingly only existed as rumours, spotted by a friend’s cousin’s neighbour at a distant out-of-state Toys”R”Us. Such was the case with Jetfire, a towering elusive Autobot that few kids actually owned, but all yearned for.

Some 30 years later those kids are now gainfully employed adults happy to indulge the nostalgia of their youth, so Hasbro has released a new version of Jetfire that embraces the incredibly-detailed Transformers of today, while paying homage to the original version. First revealed at Toy Fair earlier this year, Jetfire is finally available for anyone trying to complete their childhood wish list.

If you grew up a Transformers fan you’ll remember that the original Jetfire seemed a lot different than Optimus, Bumblebee, and the rest of the Autobot gang. He was more complex, more detailed, and just more impressive than his compatriots. And that’s because the 1980s-era Jetfire was actually a re-branded re-issue of Takatoku Toys’ wonderfully-detailed Macross VF-1S Super Valkyrie. Renamed Jetfire he was shoe-horned into the Transformers universe and immediately ended up on every kid’s Christmas list.

Very few of us were lucky enough to find Jetfire under the tree (or ever actually see one in person) but nothing’s stopping us from buying him now for $US45 — except bills, rent and saving for retirement. But we’ll probably happily give up that morning coffee for a couple of weeks if it means we can finally bring a Jetfire home.

MIKA: I have a 6 year old son, We (I mean he ) loves Transformers BUT when I look at today's toys, they are but a shadow of the quality they used to be. I really wish I had kept all my old Star Wars and Transformers toys. The quality back then cannot be matched.

[MIKA27]

AN ASTRONAUT REVEALS WHAT LIFE IN SPACE IS REALLY LIKE

There’s no way to anticipate the emotional impact of leaving your home planet. You look down at Earth and realize: You’re not on it. It’s breathtaking. It’s surreal. It’s a “we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto” kind of feeling. But I’ve spent a total of 55 days in space, over the course of five missions for NASA, and I’ve learned that being out there isn’t just a series of breathtaking moments. It’s a mix of the transcendently magical and the deeply prosaic. It can be crowded, noisy, and occasionally uncomfortable. Space travel—at least the way we do it today—isn’t glamorous. But you can’t beat the view!

Everyone imagines that when you’re sitting on the launchpad atop 7 million pounds of explosive rocket fuel, you’re nervous and worried; but the truth is, there isn’t much to do for those two hours after you climb into the shuttle. Many astronauts just take a nap. You’re strapped in like a sack of potatoes while the system goes through thousands of prelaunch checks. Occasionally you have to wake up and say “Roger” or “Loud and clear.” But the launch itself is a whole other thing—from the pad to orbit in 8.5 minutes, accelerating the entire time until you reach the orbital velocity of 17,500 mph. That is a ride.

It turns out that once you’re actually in orbit, zero-g has some upsides. Without gravity, bodily fluids move toward your head. It’s a great face-lift. Your stomach gets flat. You feel long, because you grow an inch or two. (I thought, “Oh cool, I’ll be tall,” but of course everybody else was taller too.)

But zero-g also has some disadvantages. As that fluid shifts north, you get an enormous headache. Your body compensates and loses about a liter of fluid in the first couple of days—you essentially pee the headache away. And a lot of people get nauseated. The way to feel better is to “lose up,” to convince your visual system that “up” is wherever you point your head and “down” is where your feet are. When you can do that, and go headfirst or earlobe-first wherever you want, then you’re getting adapted to zero-g. On each flight this adaptation happens more quickly—your body remembers having been in space. But it can take a few days before your stomach finally settles down and says, “OK, what’s for lunch?”

I didn’t eat much on any of my flights. I don’t have a big appetite even on Earth, but between the lack of gravity and the shifting fluids, things can taste different in space. I’d bring great chocolate with me and it would taste like wax—it was very disappointing. But you don’t go to space for the gourmet dining. There’s no way to cook, on the shuttle or on the ISS. Space food is already cooked and then either freeze-dried and vacuum-packed—so you add water and put it in the oven to warm up—or it’s thermo-stabilized, like a military MRE. With no refrigerator on board, fresh food won’t keep. So on the shuttle we’d have to eat anything fresh—usually fruit like apples, oranges, and grapefruit—early in the mission.

One of the strangest experiences in space is one of the simplest on Earth: sleeping. On the shuttle, you strap your sleeping bag to the wall or the ceiling or the floor, wherever you want, and you get in. It’s like camping. The bag has armholes, so you stick your arms through, reaching outside the bag to zip it up. You tighten the Velcro straps around you to make you feel like you’re tucked in. Then you strap your head to the pillow—a block of foam—with another Velcro strap, to allow your neck to relax. If you don’t tuck your arms into the bag, they drift out in front of you. Sometimes you wake up in the morning to see an arm floating in front of your face and think, “Whoa! What is that?” until you realize it’s yours.

Astronaut Marsha Ivins on board the space shuttle Atlantis in 2001, her fifth mission

On most of my flights, I slept in the airlock, in the middeck of the shuttle. Nobody worked in there when we weren’t doing an EVA (extra-vehicular activity), so it was like my own private bedroom. The downside? It was also the coldest part of the shuttle by about 20 degrees. I would tuck my arms into the bag and wear four layers of clothes; sometimes I’d warm up a package of food in the oven and throw it in my sleeping bag like a hot-water bottle. On the last two nights of my final flight, I slept on the flight deck, my sleeping bag strapped beneath the overhead windows. The position of the shuttle put Earth in those windows, so when I woke up the whole world was out there in front of me—in that moment, just for me alone.

The most amazing thing about my spaceflights was how relaxing they were. New astronauts get so worried about fulfilling their duties that they sometimes get hours or days into a mission before stopping to watch the sun rise, even though it happens 16 times a day on orbit. Shuttle flights were always busy—experiments, daily maintenance, EVAs, robotic operations. It was incredibly hard work, stressful in its own way, and scary—if you screwed up, you screwed up with people all over the world watching. But at the same time I found it all very relaxing. When you travel on Earth, you’re almost never out of touch. Anyone can reach you if they need to. But going to space, you are really out of reach. You have comm with the ground and email, sure, but there’s not much you can do about those everyday worries: Did I pay the bills? Did I feed the dog? I felt like everyday things just stopped at the edge of the atmosphere. I was totally liberated from Earth. But all those earthly concerns reattached as soon as we reentered. By the time I landed, my brain was mapping out a to-do list.

I never got sick going to space, but I never felt great coming home. When you return, your inner ear—which keeps you balanced on Earth and which has been essentially turned off for the duration of your trip—feels a little gravity and becomes unbelievably sensitive. Your balance is off and you have to relearn how to move in a gravity field. If I turned my head, I would fall over. Muscles you haven’t used in weeks have to reengage to help you do everyday stuff like walk, stand, and hold things. It can take days or weeks to get your Earth legs back.

It was hard, it was exciting, it was scary, it was indescribable. And yes, I’d go back in a heartbeat.

[MIKA27]

The Shocking Death Of Miss Honduras

The killing of a 19-year-old beauty queen and her sister has shocked Honduras. It reflects the horrific violence pervading the most murderous country in the world.

Maria Jose Alvarado, 19, was headed to London to appear in this year’s Miss World pageant on Sunday. In April, the 19-year-old brunette in an emerald gown was crowned Miss Honduras. Bright-eyed and hopeful, she had become a national celebrity in her home country, even appearing on a TV variety show.

“Success is that moment when you reach the finish line and you know you’ve gotten there,” Alvarado answered during the question and answer portion of the contest.

In a country besieged by violence, she saw her shot at the crown as a relief from the Central American nation’s constant crime-ridden headlines.

Now, she’ll never get the chance.

Authorities say her body alongside her sister, Sofia, 23, was found near the Aguagua River in a mountainous region 240 miles west of the nation’s capital.

“My mother is not ready to say anything until she has been notified by the authorities,” said Cory Alvarado, 26, the elder sister to both Maria Jose and Sofia.

“We need confirmation that it is them,” she told The Daily Beast in a phone interview. “This situation has made my mother ill and she can’t take any more calls,” she added before abruptly hanging up the phone.

Both sisters disappeared last Thursday after attending a birthday party at a resort spa to celebrate the birthday of Plutarco Ruiz, Sofia’s boyfriend.

Friends never saw them alive again.

Ruiz and Aris Maldonado, an alleged accomplice, were arrested on Tuesday. Ruiz initially told investigators that the Alvarado sisters had left the party with other people, providing vague answers to interrogators’ questions. The family said he and Sofia had been dating for three months.

Hours later, he confessed to having shot his girlfriend out of jealousy. He shot her first in the forehead.

Then he pointed his gun at Miss Honduras as she tried to flee. He fired the pistol for a second time. The bullet hit her in the back. She fell to the ground.

He loaded both bodies into the back of his white Toyota pickup truck.

Col. Ponce Fonseca of the Interagency National Security Force said Ruiz led investigators to the riverbank very close to the spa where the celebration took place.

“He believed if he buried them close to the river, the bodies would decompose quickly. But we still have to make sure it’s them,” Fonseca said.

A police officer on site said a forensics team and investigators began exhuming the bodies early Wednesday afternoon in the Santa Barbara department, a coffee-growing mountainous region where drug gangs are active. Afterwards, the bodies were taken to the morgue to positively identify them. The autopsy report is expected to be completed in the next 24 hours.

The city of San Pedro Sula is an hour away. With a homicide rate of 169 per 100,000 inhabitants it’s known as the murder capital of the world. That averages to three intentional murders a day.

A year ago Ruiz’s brother was killed in San Pedro. Investigators say his killing might have been tied to local drug violence.

But in a country overrun by rampant killings, public outcry was most visible online as Hondurans took to social media to denounce the women’s murder and making #alvarado #missuniversnews #plutarco trending topics.

The chairwoman of the Miss World pageant, Julia Morley, said in a statement that all of the Miss World contestants would be holding a special service to honor the memories of the two women.

Maria Jose was born on July 19, 1995 in Santa Barbara. At age 15, a local fashion designer discovered her and encouraged her to compete in the Miss Teen Honduras pageant where she won second place. She began modeling. Soon, presenter and former presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla recruited her to be a part of his popular game show making her the people’s favorite to win the crown this spring.

Honduras continues to have significant human rights problems and pervasive societal violence. Among the most serious are corruption, witness intimidation and a weak justice system, leading to widespread impunity, and unlawful and arbitrary killings by security forces, organized criminal elements, and others according to a recent State Department report.

The country is also sixth deadliest when it comes to the gender-motivated killing of women.

The U.S. Embassy in Honduras did not issue a statement but posted a comment on their Facebook page regretting the loss of the Alvarado sisters and urging all “to come together to fight against gender-based violence in the country.”

[MIKA27]

JBL HORIZON ALARM CLOCK: WAKE UP WITH LIGHT

In our world, if it’s 9AM or earlier, every alarm clock sounds like the drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket—too loud. That’s not to say we don’t sometimes need to be called a maggot or told that we look like we could suck a golf ball through a garden hose, but in general, no, we’re looking for something on the softer side.

That’s what makes the JBL Horizon a welcome addition to the world of wake-ups. LED ambient light gradually brightens up your room to gently get you stirring and with no expletive-paced insults. There’s also an FM radio, Bluetooth music streaming, and a pair of USB charging ports. $100 gets you waking up with the anti-drill instructor. Sounds like it’s worth it to us. [Purchase]