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

[MIKA27]

Legend of the Nazi Gold Train

WARSAW — Seven decades after the end of World War II, some secrets remain buried. Among these is a legendary train full of gold, abandoned by the Nazis and—some believe—still hidden in the southwestern corner of Poland. Over the years, it has captured the imaginations generations of treasure hunters but never been discovered. Now two men claim to have found it, and are demanding a share of the bounty.

The story begins ’round about early 1945. By then, the Red Army was getting dangerously close and Nazi Germany knew that it was all over. In a panic, several tons of gold held in the German city of Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) was packed into a train and sent out of the city. Some Polish accounts suggest that it also contained the famous “Amber Room” of Frederick I of Prussia, which disappeared during World War II.

The train never reached its destination, though. It went missing in mysterious circumstances in southwestern Poland. Some versions point to Sobiesz, a mountain in the area, others to the railway line near Wałbrzych, a nearby city.

With its tree-covered hills and fairy-tale castles, Poland’s southwestern region of Lower Silesia, which was part of Germany until 1945, provides a fertile setting for these kinds of tales. And this story has all the makings of an adventure movie featuring Nazi treasure, vanishing trains, and underground tunnels.

With two men claiming to know where the train is, the mystery could be unearthed at last. The unnamed duo, a Pole and a German, sent a letter to the local authorities in Wałbrzych via a law firm. Their alleged discovery was no accident. An anonymous source who knows the men told the regional edition of Gazeta Wyborcza that they spent several years searching for it. That is hardly surprising; at its deepest part, the train is buried 70 meters underground, he added.

The catch: The men will not reveal the train’s whereabouts unless they are guaranteed 10 percent of the value of whatever is found inside. By law, the train and its contents are the state treasury’s property.

Nothing proves that this is actually the “gold train” from the legend. Still, people have put 2 and 2 together and the excitement is spreading.

Part of the reason is that so many others have looked for the train before—and failed.

Few have been as determined as Władysław Podsibirski, an entrepreneur whose treasure-hunting exploits in the area go back decades. In the mid-1990s, he even got the Polish government involved. “We were sincerely counting on those revelations proving to be true,” a retired secret service officer is quoted by wiadomosci24.pl, a news site. “The country was in a difficult situation then. Finding the treasure would have improved the state’s financial situation.” Once the government lost interest, Podsibirski returned to the area with private investors, with no result.

All this talk of buried trains is made more credible by that fact that there really is more to the surrounding landscape than meets the eye, with all sorts of secrets hidden deep beneath the boots of passersby. In 1943–1945, the Nazis started building a network of underground tunnels under the nearby Owl Mountains and Książ Castle. It was known as Project Riese, from the German word for “giant.” Construction, done by POWs, was never completed. The project’s exact purpose remains mysterious: It could have been built as part of the Third Reich’s arms industry, or may even have been meant to house headquarters for Hitler himself, some sources suggest.

These days, three of the seven main Riese sitesare open to the public, but much of the complex remains unexplored. Theories about walled-up tunnels, large enough to hide the missing train, in the hillside abound.

All the same, local historians remain skeptical. “I don’t know of any confirmed account that states that these trains really existed,” Joanna Lamparska, a specialist on the history of Lower Silesia, told RMF24, a radio station.

And, even assuming that the men’s claim is based on genuine documents, there is considerable work ahead. “A big group of people would really need to sit down with them: a historian, a geologist, a cartographer, an engineer, a miner, a historian—so the matter is not that simple,” Lamparska added.

Still, locals hope that this will not be a false alarm. A gold-filled train would make Wałbrzych a household name internationally and draw crowds of tourists, some suggest. “The whole world is talking about the ‘golden train,’” a headline on local news website walbrzych24.com proclaims. And it is, though nothing has even been found yet.

According to the legal adviser representing the two men, they are serious. “What they presented during their conversation with me tells me to treat the whole matter as highly plausible,” Jarosław Chmielewski told Onet. So much for the train, but what about its contents? Chmielewski points out that his customers have a “purely rational” approach to the legend of the “golden train,” and are reluctant to raise people’s hopes before more is known about the train.

“People could be hit by an unhealthy fever,” Chmielewski said, adding that the rush of media attention is not helping.

In particular, it is unclear what the train might contain. The golden scenario is obviously the most alluring. But it could turn out to be empty, or downright dangerous. It might be mined or contain poisonous gas, the local authorities have suggested, calling locals’ safety the priority.

Something to bear in mind before setting off with one’s shovel in search of the train.

[MIKA27]

RINGER KEYHOOK BY JBIRD COLLECTIVE

Jbird Collective is a design house from Portland with a focus in unique handcrafted leather goods, combining style with heritage materials and tech features. Their good-looking Ringer Keyhook is handmade from full grain vegetable tanned leather, and features two pieces of military grade hardware, a quick release parachord snap shackle (allowing you to quickly release your keys) and a clash hook for easily snapping your ring of keys with one hand. A great addition to any EDC kit, available in brown or black.

[MIKA27]

SHIMAO WONDERLAND HOTEL

Built into the side of a former rock quarry, the Shimao Wonderland Hotel takes full advantage of its unique location. Situated a short drive from Shanghai and scheduled for completion in the near future, the hotel will feature 380 rooms spread across 19 stories, two of which rise above the surrounding landscape, and several of which dip below the surface of the lake formed at the quarry bottom. The soaring central glass atrium is meant to mimic a waterfall, there's both a water sport complex planned for the lowest floor and an extreme sports complex cantilevered over the quarry, and the entire project will be environmentally-friendly, with a green roof, solar panels, and geothermal energy.

[MIKA27]

Pennsylvania’s Burning Ghost Town: Centralia’s Eerie Remains

Centralia started burning half a century ago and hasn’t stopped.

The small central Pennsylvania town once literally had a ground full of potential, but it was destroyed by the substance that made it prosper: its coal veins.

Centralia was founded in 1866 as a coal mining town, booming with saloons, hotels, and miners getting rich through the area’s burgeoning industry.

Nearly 100 years later, the very coal deposits that put Centralia on the map led to its demise.

In 1962, a fire sparked by a burning landfill spread into an abandoned coal mine and then hooked into the elaborate network of deposits underground.

Anywhere the noxious gases could escape, they did. Fumes seeped out of sidewalk cracks, basements, and piping. As a result, the ground caved in and created gaping sinkholes.

In the initial fiery aftermath, 140 acres of the town and surrounding area burned, and 23 coal mines closed, worsening already problematic unemployment levels in Centralia.

Many residents evacuated Centralia, and their houses were torn down. Still, some locals stuck it out, banking on town plans to build a 500-foot trench that would contain the fire.

However, the trench failed to materialize, and the nearby highway was rerouted. The fire quickly set out from Centralia and started heading towards neighboring towns, like Byrnesville. Barriers were erected, but failed to contain it. Both towns were transformed into a ghostly state.

After the 1980s, the state stopped attempting to put out the fire. Congress approved a relocation plan in 1983 to the tune of $42 million. More than 1,000 residents packed their bags, and their homes were leveled.

In 1992, the state seized control of the town, but around a dozen Centralians refused to leave.

They sued to stay and and ended up signing contracts with the state that allowed them to remain on their property until their deaths, after which their homes would be destroyed.

As the last nail in Centralia’s coffin, the United States Postal Office revoked the town’s zip code in 2002.

Smoke still billows from the ground today. The carbon gases have killed off much of Centralia’s vegetation.

Yet, despite the fact that the fire has ravaged some 400 acres, the region is still lush—as seen in this recent drone video.

Centralia’s lore also keeps it alive in people’s memory. The desolate town was the basis for Silent Hill, a film adaptation of a video game series. Although the movie is technically set in West Virginia, screenwriter Roger Avary said he was inspired by the stories of his father, a mine engineer, who used to speak about Centralia.

Today, visitors are warned from going to Centralia, but that has not deterred some tourists.

The four lanes of Route 61 that cut through Centralia were shut down in the 1990s. Now the highway, though littered with gaping holes, is covered in colorful graffiti left behind by visitors.

However, while the curious and brave may come and go, there is no permanent return in sight for those who fled their homes in Centralia.

Thanks to those rich coal veins snaking under the region, Centralia is expected to burn for 250 more years.

[MIKA27]

STRATON VINTAGE DRIVER CHRONO

Resembling the Veglia Borletti techometer of a 1977 Alfa Romeo Alfetta GT, Straton’s vision for a new watch was clear: style. Their newest watch, the Straton Vintage Driver Chrono, screams style and passion.

The Straton Vintage Driver Chrono is impeccably designed to not only look great but to also be versatile. Each watch comes with three NATO straps (two of which are inspired by racing) and a leather carrying case, and there are more straps available, such as a leather strap. There are five different face dials available as well, including black, grey, orange, navy blue and white. The Straton Vintage Driver Chrono is water resistant and scratch resistant. It has a respectably retro feel to it. The watch is available now on Kickstarter for a super early bird backer price of roughly $206. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

BATTLECADE BY LOVE HULTEN

Love Hulten, the Swedish purveyor of all sorts of beautifully functional technology products, has rolled out their latest masterpiece – the Battlecade.

Inspired by the classic board game of Battleship, this stunning retro arcade was designed for two players to play classic games against one another, ditching the traditional side-by-side setup for one that faces the opponents at each other. The device is crafted from gorgeous American walnut, and features a mid-section with two 12-inch LCD monitors so that opponents cannot see the other player’s strategy. When the console is not in use, it folds up in three sections into a conventional carrier, complete with quick access storage areas for accessories like the power supply and detachable joysticks. Sadly, this thing is not for sale, and was built as one-off design for us to drool over – so drool we will. Watch the video below. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

INVISABAND MOSQUITO REPELLENT BRACELETS

Many people are fearful of taking on more outdoor adventures throughout the year because they can’t stand the bugs, and we wholeheartedly agree that these little guys can be real pests. Enter Invisaband, a mosquito repelling bracelet that will let nature lovers enjoy the backcountry without the hassle of bugs.

While there are countless insect repellents on the market these days, a vast majority of them leave you feeling sticky, and it can become a choir having to remember to spray yourself at specific intervals during the day/night. This bracelet solves that problem, protecting you from mosquitoes and other bugs from the comfort of your wrist, using all natural fibers that are impregnated with a geraniol-based, chemical-free formula that’s been proven to be more effective than citronella, and almost as effective as DEET. Each one comes with a sealable and reusable pouch and includes over 100 hours of bug-fighting protection. The bracelets are sold in five packs, ensuring everyone in the family is bug-free. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

UPSTATE LAKE CAMP IN NEW YORK

Lakeside resorts are yesterday’s news. Like the invention of the swim-up bar, getaways like the Upstate Lake Camp in New York are now the places you should be going to escape the humdrum world. At this new and novel retreat, you can cast right off your deck, or take a dip right beside the breakfast table. It’s gorgeous and rustic without feeling outdated, and the isolated, bucolic atmosphere is the ideal natural recharge.

Crafted and created by the Pearson Design Group, the Lake Camp is as detailed as it is stunning. With almost any waterfront adventure you can think of available to you, you’ll be able to find all the relaxation you want, or all the action you can handle. While Pearson is being tight-lipped about everything going into the project, they’re being very generous with pictures, each worth at least a few thousand words, if not several hundred dollars.

[MIKA27]

BROOKLYN INTENSIFIED COFFEE PORTER

Plenty of winners have come out of the Brooklyn Quarterly Experiment batches at Brooklyn Brewery, but their Intensified Coffee Porter might be the best one yet. Using coffee beans harvested in El Salvador that were then roasted by the good folks at Blue Bottle Coffee, Brooklyn created a system that worked as a giant French press to produce loads of cold brew coffee porter. As if that isn't enough to make your mouth water, the beer was also aged in Kentucky bourbon barrels, adding a sweet, boozy finish that tips the scales at 11.8%.

[MIKA27]

EXPEMOTION E-RAW CONCEPT MOTORCYCLE

It's not the most functional bike out there. But the Expemotion E-Raw Motorcycle is one of the most original looking.

The design is dominated by the seat — made from laminated layers of wood, it provides the look and feel of furniture while replacing the gas tank with negative space — and the large, colorful motor covers, both of which are set on a simple steel tube chassis that leaves the more striking components in the spotlight. A central mount allows your phone to serve as the speedometer and battery gauge, yet another forward-thinking feature in what's sadly still just a concept.

[MIKA27]

KLOKERS KLOK-01 WATCH

It might appear at first glance to be nothing but a jumble of numbers, but the Klokers Klok-01 Watch is actually an easy, novel way to tell the time. Inspired by the slide rule, it uses three rotating disks to display the time, with a magnified vertical line at the top to help with readability. The watch's 44mm case is made from a composite of stainless steel and polymer, and the patented docking key system allows the bracelets to be easily swapped out, worn by themselves without the watch, or abandoned altogether in favor of a pocket watch-style chain.

[MIKA27]

1897 QUININE GIN

While it seems like a lifesaver at times, gin won't actually save lives, until now. 1897 Quinine Gin was released this week on World Mosquito Day because every bottle that is sold pushes half of the profits towards the Malaria No More Charity. This great cause also happens to include a great gin, made with cinchona bark, a traditional source of quinine, which has been used as an antimalarial for centuries. Ten botanicals were used, including fresh citrus peels that were part cold distilled using a vacuum still to extract the freshest flavors.

[MIKA27]

Pruning The Mississippi River Could Protect New Orleans From The Next Katrina

When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans a decade ago, its destructive power was unprecedented. But these days, extreme weather events are becoming eerily common. How to prevent the next big storm from walloping the Big Easy? We might need to let the mouth of the Mississippi die.

That’s the startling conclusion of two winning engineering and design teams at the recent Changing Course Design Competition, which challenged participants to imagine how we can rebuild the lower Mississippi delta to ensure its long-term survival. As Scientific American explains, an important theme among these plans is letting go of the decaying wetlands at the mouth of the Mississippi river, so that the upper parts of the delta closer to New Orleans can be restored and fortified.

A Delta in Decay

We all remember the photos of huge earthen levees and concrete seawalls toppling over as Katrina barrelled into New Orleans ten years ago. But what many outsiders don’t realise is that these artificial barriers were actually the city’s last line of defence — the storm surge never should have hit New Orleans that hard to begin with.

The root of the problem traces way south of the city, into a sprawling tapestry of decaying delta wetlands that were unable to absorb the storm surge. The reason these wetlands are in such a pitiful state? Artificial levees — erected long ago by the US Army Corps of engineers — which line the entire lower length of the Mississippi to the river’s mouth.

Bayou community south of New Orleans,

South of New Orleans lies a vast delta floodplain, comprised of thousands of square miles of marsh and wetland ecosystems. Here, floodwaters from the Mississippi are as natural — and critical — as the rise and fall of the sun. River water supplies fresh sediment, which carries essential nutrients for the wetland’s grasses and mangroves and helps to continually rebuild the naturally subsiding marsh bed. Fresh river water is also key to maintaining the correct level of salinity in the naturally brackish wetlands.

Moffatt & Nichol’s concept for a future, rebuilt Mississippi delta.

Everything changed when humans built artificial levees along the river’s length to prevent its water from spilling over. The levees were intended to protect farms and delta towns from flooding, but they also drove the region’s natural, flood-adapted ecosystems into steep decline. In their current state, the wetlands are simply too weak to absorb the surge from powerful storms like Katrina.

Many studies have come to the conclusion that the only way to reconstitute healthy wetlands is to cut the levees, install gates, and open those gates periodically so that sediment and freshwater can flow into the marshes once again.

Pruning the Mississippi

Each of the Changing Course Design Competition’s winning designs was premised on cutting the river levees to rebuild the Mississippi delta. But recognising that the river today doesn’t carry enough sediment to rebuild the entire delta, two of the teams (Baird and Moffatt & Nichol) suggest ending the river many miles north of its current mouth, allowing the bottom to be swallowed by the Gulf. This is essentially like pruning the sickliest branches off a tree to keep the rest healthy.

Conceptual model of how we might restore the Mississippi delta, by opening river levees to allow periodic flooding of the floodplain.

Baird team’s plan to prune the Mississippi river’s mouth (#5) and rebuild the delta further north.

Studio Misi-Ziibi’s plan was the most extensive. This team would attempt to save the entire delta and rebuild the barrier islands to its south (outer ring at the bottom right of the image below) to help break future storm surges:

Studio Misi-Ziibi’s plan to save the entire Mississippi delta. Image courtesy of Changing Course

The big elephant in the room for any of these plans is, of course, money. The Baird Team, whose design would prune the Mississippi furthest north, estimates its plan would cost between $US4.3 billion and $US5.7 billion dollars to implement. The other two teams didn’t include cost estimates, but we can expect both to rack up an even larger bill, being more ambitious in scope.

Still, the point of the competition was to generate ideas and educate that state, Army Corps, and other authorities who will eventually be tasked with rebuilding the delta one way or another. Even if none of these plans is carried out exactly as conceived, it’s clear that wetland restoration is going to figure big into improving the resilience of New Orleans to extreme storms. And that’s an insight that could help us protect coastlines around the world.

[MIKA27]

An R2-D2 Bluetooth Speaker Is Obviously The Best Bluetooth Speaker

Does it really matter how this R2-D2 dome Bluetooth speaker sounds? Or how good its battery life is, or how easy it is to pair with your mobile device? If you’re a diehard Star Wars fan you’ve already decided this is the wireless speaker for you, so head on over to ThinkGeek to pre-order one.

Arriving in early September for $US50, the officially licensed accessory comes with all the standard features you’d expect from a wireless speaker these days, including a rechargeable battery that can be topped off with a microUSB cable, speakerphone capabilities and 3.5mm audio jack for physically plugging in other audio sources with a cable.

What sets it apart from other wireless speakers is gratuitous LED lighting that includes a soft blue glow underneath, authentic sound effects from the movies when it’s powering up, powering down, and connecting to a Bluetooth Device. But most importantly, it looks like R2-D2, which is something the Jambox, the UE Boom and the Amazon Echo can’t claim. [ThinkGeek]

[MIKA27]

EXPLORIDE HEADS-UP CAR DISPLAY

It's true: the Exploride Heads-Up Car Display does do what its name suggests. But it's much more than just a transparent screen. This multi-use gadget can bring even aging cars up to modern day standards, with features like Google maps-powered GPS navigation, a built-in dash cam, an included OBD scanner for diagnostics, phone integration with access to contacts, calls, text, notifications, and music, and, thanks to a 4G LTE connection, the ability to function as a Wi-Fi hotspot. You control it via gestures and voice controls, which means there's no buttons to push, and no reason to take your eyes off the road.

[MIKA27]

STELTON THEO SLOW BREW COFFEE MAKER

Sometimes you need coffee immediately. That's what coffee shops are for. When you're ready to savor a cup, grab the Stelton Theo Slow Brew Coffee Maker. This set is made from handsome matte black stoneware with a shiny glaze, and has a three-hole filter funnel for slower run through and added flavor, a bamboo lid to keep the contents warm, and a silicone collar to protect your hands while pouring. Holds 0.6L of coffee.

[MIKA27]

Whisky Discovered In 121-Year-Old Time Capsule, But Would You Drink It?

Construction crews in Scotland just discovered a time capsule from 1894 containing what they think is a bottle of whisky — leading the literally dozens of time capsules aficionados in the world to ask themselves the obvious question: Would I drink it?

The capsule, a rusted metal box that is clearly showing its age, was found inside a cornerstone in the Ruthven Road bridge just outside of a town called Kingussie. And, of course, the box contains plenty of the things we’ve come to expect from time capsules, like old newspapers and even a paper scroll. But the whisky is obviously the real wild card.

“The changes which have occurred since it was placed there are extraordinary,” Robert Ogg of the construction company working on the bridge told the BBC. “If you think that the bridge was being used by horses back then, it gives you a sense of the time which has passed.”

Unlike some wines, whisky doesn’t improve with age once it’s been bottled. The ageing process of, say, an 18-year-old Glenlivet scotch refers to the number of years that the delicious brown liquid spent in the barrel before it was bottled — not the number of years it’s been sitting around in glass.

Even if the whisky is drinkable, which it very well could be in the broadest sense of the term, there’s no way to tell for sure whether it will taste very good. In 2007, three bottles of whisky dating to Ernest Shackleton’s failed 1907 expedition to the South Pole were discovered in the Antarctic. Shackleton’s team had abandoned them at Cape Royds in Antarctica but the bottles were returned to Scotland in 2007 for examination and even a taste test. Scientists sampled the whisky and even tried to recreate it — a reportedly more peaty and smoky flavour than your average Scotch.

This more recent time capsule and its contents have been donated to the local Highland Folk Museum, but there’s no word on whether anyone will get to sample the alcohol. In this case, I have to admit that I’d drink the hell out of that bridge-whisky. Highland Folk Museum, just give me a call if you need a taste tester.

[MIKA27]

Stephen Hawking's New Theory On Black Holes Is Fantastically Insane

Black holes have a rap for being hopeless vortexes of destruction, but what would really happen if you fell into one? According to Stephen Hawking, you might end up in another universe.

That’s the celebrated physicist’s latest answer to the so-called “information paradox” — the conundrum that black holes appear to swallow matter, which, according to the laws of quantum mechanics, is totally batshit insane and not possible. At a public lecture in Stockholm this week, Hawking offered these comforting words to any would-be deep space travellers: “If you feel you are in a black hole, don’t give up. There’s a way out.”

According to Hawking’s new theory, described in a blog post by the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, there are two ways this terrible situation could end: One, you become permanently stuck in a 2 dimensional hologram on the black hole’s edge (shitty, brah). Two, you bust right through into another universe.

“The existence of alternative histories with black holes suggests this might be possible,” Hawking said. “The hole would need to be large and if it was rotating it might have a passage to another universe. But you couldn’t come back to our universe.”

Personally, I’m pretty ok with this turn of events. Sure, winding up in some other universe where the laws of physics are different and all the bonds between all the atoms in your body suddenly break would really suck, but I’ll still take that over getting compressed into an infinitesimally small spec of mass for the rest of eternity.

[MIKA27]

Cheaper, Faster, Better: The Plan To Build An Open-Source Prosthetic Hand

Over the past five years, 3D printers have gotten cheaper, hardware has gotten smaller, and tinkerer communities have boomed. All of that has spurred a renaissance of prosthetic design, bolstered by an open source ethos and crowdfunded budgets.

Robotic prosthetics, as you might expect, are still expensive, complicated, and time-consuming to build. But a growing number of designers are pushing to develop prosthetics that can be printed quickly and customised to individual users with a little mechanical know-how. Today, the Dyson Award announced that one of those hands — produced by a group called The Open Hand Project — would be receiving a cash reward as the UK winner of its annual Dyson Award.

The Open Hand Project began when a engineer named Joel Gibbard quit his robotics job and moved in with his parents to focus on developing a cheap, fast robotic hand. Gibbard has spent almost five years on his prototype, called Dextrus, which can be built for under $US1500 (compared to tens of thousands of dollars for custom hands) and which is different from conventional prosthetics in a few ways.

First, the hand is 3D-printed in under 40 hours with plastic that’s super durable, not unlike Lego plastic. Users control it with two EMG sensors — which read the electrical potential of the user’s other muscles to control the hand, readily and cheaply available through shops online — and it can be connected to existing prosthetics so users don’t have to buy entirely new hands to use it. Stainless steel tendons let the plastic “bones” grip and pinch, while tiny motors make it possible to lift and push. Everything’s powered by rechargeable lithium ion batteries.

The project has been around for years now, and has already delivered hands to users through a successful crowdfunding campaign. But Gibbard and his six-person team are pushing forward with funding to keep developing the design, which he explains has undergone an interesting evolution over time. After talking to prosthetic users, the team found that weight and appearance were more important than they expected:

We found that having a light-weight prosthetic trumped having an advanced robotic hand. Amputees were far more concerned with the weight and the look of the hand than they were with the amount of dexterity it had. After discovering this I changed the focus from fine, precise finger movements to aesthetic and weight saving design. I’m now more focused on treating the robotic hands as interchangeable tools and even fashion accessories.

Hand amputees would like prosthetics that are more fashionable and fun. An amputee would want two or three affordable robotic hands, all different colours and designs to wear for different occasions.

The team has focused more on weight and style now, printing colourful versions and eschewing designs that make the hand look more “real.” “Accurately coloured (skin-matched) coatings are typically very expensive and of course there is no “one colour fits all,” Gibbard writes on the Open Hand website. “For this reason the Dextrus will be left uncovered and it’s my hope that users will wear it proudly.”

But what’s really important to mention here is that Gibbard is just one in a growing community of engineers taking on this problem, and that’s a good thing: More brains focused on the same problem — which itself is complex and dependent on each individual user — is a good thing. There’s CyborgBeast, another super-inexpensive open source design available on Thingiverse. Or HACKberry, another open source prosthetic design. RoboHand, yet another open source design, was actually designed by a woodworker who lost two of his fingers in an accident.

Then there’s the emerging technology that’s dovetailing with this engineering boom: The tech necessary to build these hands is also getting smaller and better. It was only last year that the FDA approved the sale of muscle-controlled prosthetics. Meanwhile, the cost and precision of 3D printers are dropping and rising, respectively, every year — in fact, Gibbard told The Telegraph that he will use the Dyson prize money to buy a new printer.

Obviously, we’re at the very beginning of this particular movement. Hardware will improve, as will the engineering knowledge behind these designs and the community of people who are funding the development. For now, Gibbard will get a new printer to produce the next in a long line of prototypes.

[MIKA27]

This Stunning Adventure Game Plays Like Art in Motion

WHAT DO YOU get when you combine a 240-year-old sketch, an affinity for architecture and film noir, and the odd Third Man reference? A new game called Calvino Noir.

Available August 27th on iOS, Steam, and PlayStation 4, is a point-and-click side-scrolling adventure game. The mechanics are simple and the story engaging, but the game’s real star is its architecture- and film noir-inspired visuals.

Some of these were inspired by a centuries-old drawing of the Comédie-Française, a state theater in Paris, from the hand of 18th-century architect Charles de Wailly.

Prior to Calvino Noir, creator Dan Walters was an architect himself. Together, he and the game’s level designer, Ceri Williams (who still works as an architect), brought their admiration for buildings and structures in places like Chicago, Vienna, and other parts of Europe into the game’s design.

“In terms of architecture, an influence for the visuals were architectural perspective drawings, which are often drawn with a diagrammatic, sculptural quality,” says Walters. “This, when mixed with the theatrical romance of noir, gives the game its visual identity.”

Calvino Noir‘s shadowy palette serves to highlight the rich architectural elements with dramatic lighting and stark contrasts.

The game opens on a dark and rainy night on the streets of 1930’s Vienna. Wilt, a “scrambler” (part thief, part criminal-for-hire), finds himself stuck in Austria when his crimes during the war make him a wanted man in England, his home country.

The first chapter revolves around one of Wilt’s paid gigs, a plot to steal federal documents from the Town Hall with the help of a mole. When things go awry, Wilt finds himself in a load of trouble that players will spend the rest of the game digging themselves out of with the help of two other main characters, Siska and Arno.

“The characters each contribute a different side to the narrative of the world,” Walters says. “With the other characters, they paint a complex picture of the dark, corrupt world that Europe became during the great depression, and give the player the role of thinking for themselves—they frequently have to make moral decisions in the branching narrative.”

While it isn’t a technically difficult game, Calvino Noir demands careful timing and attention to the level’s many details.

The real draw, though, is that it plays like art in motion.

The many buildings, rooms, towers, and even stairwells are stunning in their complexity and mysterious in their exposition. Each level begins in darkness, but is illuminated room by room as you play through the story and make your way through buildings that have seemingly been cut down the middle to afford you a shifting diagrammatic perspective.

The world of Calvino Noir is made up of sharply-defined details, moody backdrops, and shades of gray that color not only the game’s visual elements, but its morally ambiguous and twisting narrative as well.

The colors are few, but the choices plenty, as you dictate which shade of gray you’ll become as you play through its many mysteries.

[MIKA27]

The Bizarre Voodoo Emporium of Togo

For many of us, when we have a headache or minor medical complaint, it’s simply a matter of going down to the local drugstore and getting something to make us feel better, or perhaps seeing a doctor. In most developed countries, it’s the most natural thing in the word, to the point that many of us wouldn’t even think twice about it. Yet in West Africa, having a medical problem may entail going down to the market to pick up an alligator head, a monkey hand, and a lizard’s tail to grind up into a powder. Instead of a doctor, one might go to a healer who will burn animal parts into ashes to rub into wounds. Welcome to the world of West African voodoo, a world which to Western eyes may seem to be a dark, sinister place yet for many of the people here is an everyday fact of life. Perhaps nowhere else is voodoo so widespread and visible as the nation of Togo, and perhaps there is nowhere else that compares to the sheer amount of voodoo merchandise on offer at what is the world’s largest, and certainly most bizarre, emporium of such goods; The Akodessewa Fetish Market.

The West African nation of Togo is one of the smallest countries in Africa and is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east, and Burkina Faso to the north. Although in recent years it has become more known for violence, riots and human rights abuses, when one sees the beautiful beaches here and meets the warm, friendly people, it is not hard to see why Togo was once known as the “pearl of West Africa.” The capital city of Lomé, located on the Gulf of Guinea, is the largest and most populous city of this nation, and is famous for its colorful marketplaces, including the famous Lomé Grand Market, referred to in French as the Grande Marche, which occupies an entire city block, among many others. All things told, it is actually a rather pleasant and quaint place to pay a visit in peaceful times.

Beachside road in Lomé

As one takes in the sights of the city and wanders about the numerous marketplaces and bazaars on offer here, you might notice what from a distance appears to be merely just another of the cities many such markets. As you approach, you can probably make out the vendors going about their daily business and selling their wares, as well as tables piled high with something you cannot yet quite make out. Then, as you approach, the smell hits you. Even in the open air, the atmosphere becomes redolent with the thick, heady stench of what can only be described as the smell of rot and death. Pervading the air is a potent brew of the scent of rotting animal carcasses, exotic smelling herbs, and sun caked mud, all coming together to form a nauseating stink that blankets the area and invades the nostrils. As you approach even closer, somehow suppressing the haunting, putrid stench which saturates the air, you may start to notice that the tables, which you at first may have assumed were packed with fruits, spices, meat, or dried fish like many of the markets here, are actually overflowing the macabre sight of desiccated blank-eyed animal heads in various states of decay, dried animals of all sorts, all manner of bones and skulls, the dismembered hands, paws, claws, tails, and other assorted amputated parts of who knows what creatures, as wells as spooky blood stained idols and creepy wooden dolls all vying for your attention in a gut wrenching ghastly display sure to leave you reeling with its sheer grotesqueness. You have just stumbled across the Akodessewa Fetish Market, also known to the locals as the Marche des Feticheurs, the world’s largest market for all things related to voodoo.

Yes, voodoo, or as the locals call it, Vodoun. While many have the image that voodoo is a product of Caribbean nations such as Haiti, it actually has its roots in West Africa, where it flourished for centuries in countries such as Togo, Nigeria, Ghana, and Benin before being taken by slaves to America and the Caribbean, where it became what we now know as voodoo. Today, voodoo is actively practiced in many West African nations such as Togo, where at least 60% of the people still maintain its traditions, and it is the official religion of neighboring Benin. Voodoo is a complex religion involving countless different rituals, spells, ceremonies, and indeed animal sacrifices, for which various exotic ingredients are needed which are not typically available in your ordinary market, or drugstore for that matter. This is where the Akodessewa Fetish Market comes in, a veritable supermarket and one-stop shopping mecca for fetishes, charms, trinkets, idols, animal parts, herbs, and everything else a voodoo practitioner or witch doctor could ever possibly need, and people travel here from all corners of West Africa and even as far away as the Congo to stock up on what they need.

The Akodessewa Fetish Market

Here at the Akodessewa Fetish Market for blocks around you can find all manner of exotic voodoo ingredients which are sure to test the limits of disgust for many outsiders. Mingled together in row upon row upon simple wooden tables are the heads of monkeys, alligators, leopards, gazelles, antelopes, lions, rhinos, gorillas, dogs, and the dried remains of chameleons, assorted snakes such as cobras and vipers, lizards, birds, and insects, among others, as well as a myriad of animal parts such as horns, bones, paws, hands, and hooves or feet. There are also many different herbs, spices, statues, idols, and charms. The animals parts are used in a variety of concoctions, rituals and spells to cure a plethora of ails and problems, including curing sicknesses, treating infertility, cursing people, conversely removing curses, righting wrongs, smiting an enemy, making someone love you, increasing athletic prowess, bringing financial success, or mending the ways of an unfaithful lover. They can power rituals, be mixed into potions or elixirs, or be cooked up with special herbs to create special powders, lotions, or pastes to apply to the skin. It really seems that there is virtually nothing something from here can’t do.

For instance, many different types of animal heads are used in the manufacture of medicine. The heads are ground up and mixed with special herbs, after which the concoction is roasted over open flames. The resulting black powder that remains is rubbed into the “patient’s” body, often after a series of small cuts have been made to draw blood. Depending on the affliction, different animal heads or a combination of heads are called for. Other health problems can be addressed using the myriad of animal parts on display as well, including medicines for curing infertility, arthritis, and major physical handicaps such as blindness or deafness, or even serious or conventionally incurable diseases such as malaria, AIDS, or cancer. While the use of all of these dead animal parts for making medicine may make some westerners cringe, in West Africa, where adequate medical care is not always available and poverty runs rampant, many people see themselves as having no choice but to turn to these traditional voodoo medicines and folk remedies. It is also seen as a last resort for those with incurable illnesses or ailments for which mainstream medical care can do nothing. While a tourist might see these grimacing animal heads glaring at them along with monkey hands and elephant feet baking under the hot sun in the thick pervading stench of decaying flesh and think this is a menagerie of horrors, for the people of Togo this place is more like a pharmacy. In fact, for them it’s even better than a pharmacy, as the things that can allegedly be fixed with the wares to be found here go beyond mere physical ailments or disease.

Wares at the Akodessewa Fetish Market

For instance, there are also powders, potions, elixirs, and other items for increasing athletic performance, fixing monetary woes, mending heartache, getting revenge on enemies, protecting one’s home, or ensuring victory in sports. For example, one popular item sought after by soccer players, a game which is very popular here, is the hand of a chimpanzee or other primate. The hand is ground up, mixed with herbs, and rubbed on the athlete’s body to make them faster and stronger. For endurance athletes such as marathon runners, the head, heart and four legs of a horse are all combined together to make the powder. Different animals are attributed with different effects, with gorilla parts typically used to enhance strength, monkeys to improve memory, or chameleons to improve business, to name a few. Another popular item is the bones of large, powerful animals such as elephants or lions, which are used as talismans to protect houses. In fact, many of the animal parts on display here can be infused with powers through special rituals in order to be used as charms or talismans with a variety of effects, such as protection, ensuring academic success, or for healing. There are also various statues, idols, and even actual voodoo dolls on display, which are called legba and are fashioned from wood, animal parts, and even human hair.

At the Akodessewa Fetish Market, pretty much everything you see is for sale, and visitors are encouraged to roam about and look through the wares, but one may notice that nothing has a price written on it. This is because at the Akodessewa Fetish Market prices are determined through a ritual to consult with the gods. A merchant or healer will toss some shells and confer with the gods on how much they think you should pay, and if it’s too much it seems that even the gods can be haggled with, as the process will be repeated until you can reach an agreed price. Some typical examples of prices you could expect to pay here are around CFA12,000 (US$24) for a dried tortoise or a voodoo doll, CFA150,000 ($300) for a whole elephant foot, and around CFA65,000 ($129) for a dead baboon. It would probably be wise to bring cash, as this does not strike me as the type of place that accepts credit cards.

If you are a little rusty on your voodoo and don’t know what to do with a dead baboon, elephant foot, or dried monkey hand, you can go to one of the numerous healers, witch doctors, voodoo priests, priestesses, and medicine men offering their services here, all actively vying for your attention with boisterous voices, magic tricks, and even special effects using flashes of gunpowder. Upon entering one of these establishments, usually located within a hut, you can expect to be asked what exactly your problem is down to every detail possible, after which the medicine man will consult with the gods or with spirits called loa, and come up with a list of the ingredients you require. It may be necessary for you to go back out to the market to purchase what you need before returning to the hut, where the medicine man or woman will prepare the ingredients into a powder, paste, or potion and instruct you on its use. Other merchants will perform spells or rituals for you or prescribe talismans and charms.

The Akodessewa Fetish Market has become renowned throughout Africa and although there are parts from protected or endangered species, illegally poached animals, and even according to rumor the occasional parts from humans or human skulls no doubt procured through dubious means, authorities mostly look the other way and things are typically business as usual. This lack of action by police to enforce laws here, as well as the money to be made from the growing popularity of the market, has unfortunately contributed to rampant poaching and bush hunting in the region, which has severely depleted some species in many West African countries. There are places here which due to unchecked hunting have become nearly barren of all wildlife larger than a mouse. Although these folk remedies and rituals are part of the way of life of the people here, it seems a sad trade-off for the biodiversity of the region and the contribution it makes towards the imminent extinction of some critically endangered species.

Regardless of the threat to wildlife that the market poses, considering the widespread belief in voodoo and animism in West Africa, it does not appear it will be going anywhere anytime soon. For anyone with an interest in getting a macabre peek into a culture and belief system that may be completely alien and perhaps quite shocking to outsiders, the Akodessewa Fetish Market is very welcoming of tourists and visitors. Despite the revulsion many outsiders may feel upon viewing the merchandise here, it surely does offer a rather fascinating, if a little grim, look into a whole other mysterious world that most outsiders can’t imagine really exists until they see it for themselves. If you have an interest in the truly creepy world of West African folk remedies, rituals, and voodoo, or if you merely have some nagging health issue and want to try something different, there can be no doubt that you will find something to catch your attention at the Akodessewa Fetish Market.

[MIKA27]

Wine That’s Aged Underwater Is the Buried Treasure of the Sea

It’s already hot when I reach the small port of the Saint-Mandrier peninsula in the department of Var at 9 AM. With no sign of wind and waves barely 12 inches high, it is the perfect weather for tossing the region’s wine into the sea. Or at least it is according to Jérôme Vincent, the director of the Ecole Nationale des Scaphandriers (National School of Divers), who is waiting for me in front of his inflatable boat, ready to embark on the open ocean.

For someone like me who hails from the Southeast of France, Bandol is like holy water. I wouldn’t say it fuels my life, but during the summer when the clock strikes noon and the crickets are singing, it’s a local tradition to open up a bottle of fresh rosé. Hiding a cargo of the stuff in the Mediterranean Sea with a team of divers, on the other hand, is a first for me in oenology.

This initiative to study the aging process of regional wines was co-launched by the Association of Bandol Wines and the Oenothèque of Bandol Wines, in collaboration with the National School of Divers (ENS). “Divers are the only ones with the skills to carry out underwater work,” explains Vincent. In this particular case, a serious construction project is at hand: digging deep into the Mediterranean by building an aquatic cave, dropping the bottles in and covering them layer by layer with sediment.

Strapped with 88 pounds of equipment, the divers listen to final instructions before going 130 feet deep.

To take on such underwater efforts, your average diver doesn’t fit the bill. Before the digging can begin, the divers have to find a quiet spot, “away from the pirates.” Apparently, around here, word travels fast, and even more so when what’s at stake is a veritable treasure trove of booze.

A diver gets the final bottles before going underwater

Fifteen different winemakers are participating in the operation, which includes the 2011 vintage red and the 2014 batch of white and rosé, totaling 240 bottles. For 18 months, half the hooch will remain 131 feet deep in 59- to 68-degree Fahrenheit water, while the other half—comprised of 120 identical bottles—will age the traditional way inside a cave.

Underwater, the divers load the booze into cases that will be covered with sand. Photo by Jean de Saint Victor de Saint Blancard

A myriad of factors influence the aging of wine: here, the goal is to compare the effects of sea currents and temperature. Underwater, wine benefits from optimal conditions that are believed to improve its quality: namely, very faint variations of pressure and temperature in complete darkness and very little vibrations. “Bandol wine is known for holding up well during sea crossings and is even enhanced by the gentle rocking of the waves,” explains Guillaume Tari, president of AOC Bandol. In the microclimate of Bandol, valleys of vineyards go down the coast. The sea regulates the maturity of mourvèdre, the region’s staple grape variety. “Paradoxically on the Mediterranean, the tidal coefficient is very low, but mourvèdre is very sensitive to lunar cycles,” he adds.

The bottles were sealed with wax so that the cork isn’t propelled inside the bottle by underwater pressure.

When the small inflatable boat brings us to the scene of the operation (at a secret location), a dozen student divers line up while waiting for us—a small group of men, aged 19 to 48. It is their final mission before the end of their training, which takes two months to complete. Some of them (including a man named André, the dean of the class) are absent today, opting to cram for their final exam instead.

“It may not seem like it, but diving involves lots of theory and calculation,” remarks Brice, a tall 23-year-old with long, brown hair. He’s a welder from Montpellier, and now wants to know how to weld underwater: “It’s a trip; you gotta love welding.”

This Galeazzi lance, a powerful water-jet lance, allowed the divers to dig the underwater trench where the bottles will be buried.

He hands me a Galeazzi lance (a powerful water jet lance of rather questionable shape), which allows them to dig the underwater trench where the bottles will be buried. He doesn’t like wine, but thinks it’s cool to go 130 feet deep and hide a little regional treasure. His pal Jordan is more pragmatic: “I hope they invite us to the tasting when they take all of this out of the water.” He is 25 and has worked as a truck driver since he was 18. Now he wants to be a diver and work in the nuclear field. By all accounts, all of them hope that aquatic vinification will work: “If it works and the technique is widely adopted, it’ll get us a good amount of jobs around here.”

Jojo, the diving instructor, controls the large crane that sends down the 120 bottles at a depth of 130 feet.

“Nobody touch anything, we’re sending it down!” With controls in hand, Jojo, the diving instructor, starts the crane and sends down the 120 bottles. They’ve been sealed with wax so that the cork isn’t propelled into the bottle as the pressure rises. The divers strap on nearly 90 pounds of equipment—belt, yellow helmet, weighted shoes, and spare tank—and begin their descent in pairs.

On deck, Pascal Périer, director of the Oenothèque of Bandol Wines, watches as the wine hive disappears underwater. If the experiment is successful and the wine that resurfaces turns out better than the ones aged in a cave, the winemaker will score great press around the potential to age rosé wines. “People don’t always think about aging them. I’ve tasted Bandol rosés that were aged more than 20 years and were absolutely staggering.”

Before resurfacing after two hours of work, the completely euphoric men in spacesuits immortalize the end of the operation by posing for a photo in front of the cases with bottles from the Domaine de la Bégude in hand. They will take them out in a year and a half. Then they will have the opportunity—on dry land this time—to experience once more the intoxicating taste of a “made in Bandol” wine.

Source: Vice

[MIKA27]

Inside NASA's Giant Flying Laboratory

Gregory Slover (left) and Garry Beauregard prepare to board the DC-8

I'm flying in the cockpit of one of the world's largest flying laboratories, looking out at some storm clouds illuminated by the lights of Lincoln, Nebraska, or maybe Abilene, Kansas. The plan, to crisscross Kansas in straight, parallel lines, has long since changed, as, throughout the night, I hear the pilot call in to air traffic control in Denver and Minneapolis. We're going where the storms go.

A couple dozen times throughout the night, NASA scientists sitting in the plane's main body will send transmissions up front imploring Gregory Slover and co-pilot William Brockett to get a bit closer to the clouds, which cause torrential downpours and lightning storms that are unique to the region and are poorly understood. And each time, Brockett and Slover will make a decision about whether or not to listen to them.

"Our job is to help the scientists do their jobs," Brockett told me. "That said, I don't want to commit suicide by science."

The cockpit. Image: David Osit for Motherboard

The statement is reassuring: Brockett, Slover, and most of the team that keeps the plane in the sky are Air Force vets. Brockett flew hundreds of combat sorties in Vietnam, airlift missions in the Persian Gulf, and flew commercial flights for Pan American for a decade. Flying this plane, the DC-8, is retirement.

Once a month or so, the team flies from wherever they happen to live (the nine-person crew lives all over the west coast) to wherever the mission takes them. In this case, the sweltering plains of Kansas (high temperature the day of the flight: 110 F), where NASA scientists are trying to explain why, exactly, the midwest seems to be hit with such violent storms in the middle of the night (hence our nocturnal flight times), while the rest of the country, and perhaps the world, generally seems to experience lightning storms earlier in the evening.

For Brockett and Slover, putzing around the midwest in the DC-8 is routine, as they absent-mindedly discuss the possibility of Greece exiting the European Union, joke with a crew member who had an upset stomach the other night, or talk about where to get a good brew around the nondescript town of Salina, Kansas. But the mere mention of any potential suicide-by-science danger reminds me that we are actively flying in a 46-year-old aircraft with the express intent of getting close to a storm system that, hours before, created a tornado that leveled parts of nearby Hutchinson. It also reminds me of the various papers and waivers I signed to step aboard the DC-8.

It was easy to forget. Even though the DC-8 is old, it's a behemoth aircraft, with four massive jet engines capable of hoisting it in the air for 12 hours at a time. On this early, sweltering July day, we flew from 8 PM until about 3 AM, though we were originally scheduled to go a bit longer. And even though we were flying near storms (we never got closer than a few miles from actually flying directly through one), I felt less turbulence than I do on a standard commercial flight, save for one stretch when we ended up underneath a heavy raincloud.

On this mission, called Plains Elevation Convection at Night (PECAN), the plane is outfitted with both upward-and-downward facing lasers that can measure cloud cover and get precise measurements that NASA hopes will eventually be used to create better weather forecasts.

Well, hopefully at least.

"I was working on a project a few years ago where we were looking at how turbulence is generated. And you have half the team saying, 'Well, we have it all figured out now,' and then you've got the others who say, 'We haven't even scratched the surface,'" Edward Teets, an atmospheric physicist with NASA, told me. "Anytime you try to deal with weather or climate, there's all these little pieces, and anything we can do to understand more about the processes is going to ultimately be helpful.

Not all the flights are as smooth as this one has been. On this two-week mission, NASA scientists were studying storm clouds. But, since this plane was acquired by NASA in 1985, it has been used to examine ice melts in Antarctica, polar winds in the Arctic, and pollution around China (last-minute threats from the Chinese government prevented the plane from flying over the mainland). Stickers affixed to a control panel in the plane's main body suggest that the plane has been just about everywhere, from the seemingly mundane (Wisconsin, Maine), to far-flung locales such as Perth, the Palau Islands, Chile, and so-on.

"In Antarctica, you've got these huge mountain ranges, but for that mission, the scientists want to be as close to the ice cover as possible," Slover told me. "So you've got to fly over them and immediately dip back down to the surface. It's really intense flying." Brockett said that, once, particles from a volcanic eruption in Iceland caused a close call.

But, in general, the DC-8's missions go off without a hitch, which is nice, because it's a workhorse for the agency. Back in February, the plane was supposed to observe reentry of a European Space Agency satellite (this was canceled because the satellite reentered the atmosphere unexpectedly). In April, it studied solar winds in Greenland. For much of July, the plane and its crew studied nighttime thunderstorms in the midwest. Right now, it's flying high above Puerto Rico attempting to determine how and why ice crystals form on aircraft engines during high-altitude flights. In November, it'll be in Washington attempting to validate data from NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement satellites.

It's a versatile machine. So versatile, in fact, that it seems unlikely NASA is going to replace it with a drone anytime soon. I raised the possibility to both Brockett and Slover, who told me that there are lots of things a manned, flying laboratory can do that a drone can't. Multiple scientists I chatted with told me that there's no real substitute for being able to see the storms that they normally study using models and charts and diagrams with the naked eye, and Brockett said that, for most missions, a drone simply couldn't get the job done.

"You've been sitting up here for 15 minutes and you've already heard us call air traffic control a half dozen times," he said. "We keep changing course according to what the scientists want, which isn't something that you're going to be able to do with a drone right away."

The DC-8 is operated out of NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. Its operations crew doesn't usually change too much from flight to flight—the guys keeping the plane in the air fly on most of the missions. And I get the sense that there is a lot to keep running. The plane was manufactured in 1969 and it looks like it: There are analog communications knobs and power wires running all over one large section of the interior, and, though most of the seats have been ripped out and replaced with computers and scientific instruments, it's clear that the seats come from a time when flying in a plane was comfortable.

There are few pre-flight safety checks, no at-airport security (NASA had to give me specific permission to fly, obviously), no seatbelt signs, and no one harassing you to put your phone on airplane mode. You can bring on liquids. The plane is flown by professionals who know what they're doing, for scientists who are deeply invested in what they're researching.

After seven hours of flying in circles and landing in the middle of the night, from exactly the same point we had taken off, I was desperate to pass out. Those aboard were already asking what time they could fly again tomorrow.

[MIKA27]

A Woman Chugged an Entire Bottle of Cognac Rather than Give It to Airport Security

As any veteran vagabond will tell you, slipping the dubious spoils of your voyage past the scrupulous gaze of The Man at the airport is quite arguably the most crucial skill required for those hoping to make the most of their wanderlust.

One Chinese woman certainly exemplifies this intrepid traveler spirit. Identified only as Miss Zhao, her recent attempt to slip a bottle of imported Cognac past airport security in Beijing left her with way more than a hangover.

Although there was most definitely a hangover, too.

When Zhao, a woman who appeared to be in her forties, arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport for a noon flight transfer to Wenzhou, she was stopped at the security checkpoint for trying to bring an entire bottle of Rémy Martin XO Excellence, valued at roughly US $200, through in her carry-on baggage. No big deal, right? But a bit of a dilemma.

So what did she do? According to a report in The Nanfang, she certainly did not do what the US Transportation Security Administration suggests in such a situation. On their blog, the TSA says a good traveller should do as follows:

1) Take the item to the ticket counter and check it in your baggage or a box provided by the airport.

2) Many airports have a … Postal Service or other shipping services area where boxes, stamps, and envelopes can be bought so you can ship your items home.

3) If there is somebody seeing you off, you can hand the prohibited item to them.

4) If your car is parked outside, you can take the item to your car.

Ms. Zhao did none of the above. Instead, she took matters into her own hands and “sat down in a corner and drank the entire bottle of Cognac herself.”

Gotta love Ms. Zhao and her can-do attitude. Unfortunately, our travelling buddy couldn’t hold her liquor very well. According to reports, she quite quickly began “acting wildly and yelling incoherently.” She fell to the floor and stayed there until the police arrived. They took one look at her and did not allow her to board her flight. Zhao’s family was called to pick her up and, when she sobered up, she was released to them.

Not exactly how she expected to enjoy her expensive Cognac, we’re sure, but she certainly wasn’t letting the good stuff go in the trash. Or in an industrious security officer’s backpack.

Because, after all, that’s where we all truly believe our good stuff goes after it is confiscated at security, don’t we?

Even the TSA knows it. On their blog, the TSA writes: “Our officers would really rather not have you lose the trusty pocket knife your grandfather gave you. They would really prefer you didn’t have to surrender the knife you used to cut your wedding cake.”

Really, TSA? Really?

That Cognac would probably have gone down nice and smooth.

[MIKA27]

AeroTwist Bluetooth Speaker

The AeroTwist bluetooth speaker offers a lot of the bluetooth speaker necessities you look for—hi-def sound, multiple drive and amp units, 3.5mm input, built-in mic, 10hr battery, etc.—but it packs it all into a circular package that, quite honestly, most notably resembles a donut.

This donut might be ABS Chrome plated in one of eight colors or painted in two others, but it’s packing a lot more than just a fancy paint job and high-end hardware. The entire AeroTwist splits in half down the middle to completely change the display dynamic or, more importantly, fit around a bike frame, a bag or even a gas pipe clothes rack in your entryway. The 2015 Red Dot Awards Honorable Mention AeroTwist will look as awesome sitting on a shelf as it will adorning anything you can fit it around. [Purchase]