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

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YOHANN IPAD STAND

Yohann iPad Stand is a new accessory developed for iPad users who need a support device to facilitate its use. The Yohann iPad Stand is beautifully built, specifically for iPad Air, milled from a single wood block, then sanded and finished with natural wax which gives it that organic feel and a classic understated look. With minimalist design, it´ll look good no matter where you put it. Lightweight and designed so you can set your iPad on several different positions it sure is a plus on any desk, at the office or at home. German built, it´s sure to last for years to come. The wood used to manufacture Yohann also comes from sustainably grown areas and each piece is designed to correctly fit your iPad Air.

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PORSCHE MISSION E CONCEPT

With the Model S, Tesla proved that all-electric cars can move fast. The Porsche Mission E Concept proves they can charge fast, too. This yet-to-be-greenlit looker is powered by a pair of motors producing a combined 600+ hp, good for a 0-62 time of under 3.5 seconds, and a world first 800-volt drive system that allows for incredibly fast charging, as in an 80% charge, or enough to go nearly 250 miles, in just 15 minutes. The car promises to handle well, with both all-wheel drive and all-wheel steering, and despite the sleek design of the aluminium, steel, and carbon fiber reinforced polymer body, still offers four full doors and four single seats. All that's missing is a release date.

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AVERY RUMPKIN BEER

Even if you're burned out on pumpkin beers, Rumpkin from Avery Brewing is worth your time and attention. Avery took a gigantic pumpkin ale, brewed with roasted pumpkins from a farm in nearby Boulder, Colorado, and then added spiced nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger. They then aged it in fresh rum barrels to add an incredibly unique, sweet, and oaky flavor that you won't find in any run of the mill pumpkin beers. It also clocks in at 15-18% ABV, making it great for sharing or for your own personal fall festival.

MIKA: Is this really "Things?" Pumpkin beer

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THE SCRATCH & SNIFF GUIDE TO BECOMING A WHISKEY KNOW-IT-ALL

If you remember the Scratch & Sniff books and stickers of your youth, you'll be happy to know that they still exist, but have matured, just like you. The Scratch & Sniff Guide To Becoming A Whiskey Know-It-All is funny, informative, and will help you know where to start as you dive into the expanding world of whiskey. In just 20 pages, this book will help simplify whiskey for you, allowing you to learn some personal preferences just by following your nose.

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Elon Musk plans launch of 4000 satellites to bring Wi-Fi to most remote locations on Earth

Elon Musk has officially requested permission from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch a 4000 strong flotilla of satellites into orbit.

Musk’s space company ‘SpaceX’ announced their primary plans in January with the official request coming early last week. If all goes to plan the satellites could be in orbit and the Internet operational within five years.

While satellite internet is not new technology, SpaceX plans to reduce the enormous latency over a space connection by launching the satellites into a low Earth orbit at around 650km. The low orbit and slower speeds mean 4000 satellites are needed to cover the earth, far more than necessary for higher orbit networking.

The astronomical cost of the satellites and launch may be the limiting factor. The customers for the service are the very poorest populations in the most remote regions on earth. The initial cost of the satellite network will be difficult to recover.

Whether for philanthropic reasons or in the search for global telecommunicationsdominance, Musk is not the only eccentric billionaire pushing this frontier.

Greg Wyler, an entrepreneur from Florida and founder of OneNet is being backed by The Virgin Group and Qualcomm to create a similar satellite network. With experience creating networks with his companies RwandaTel and O3B, Wyler might be the man to beat Musk in the next big space race.

Wyler still owns a significant amount of the licensing to supply satellite internet in various regions, meaning Musk may struggle trying to find the space for his own network.

Richard Branson said in Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek “Greg has the rights, and there isn’t space for another network… If Elon wants to get into this area, the logical thing for him would be to tie up with us and if I were a betting man, I would say the chances of us working together rather than separately would be much higher.”

Musk’s overall vision is always pointing towards Mars — meaning that the wifi could also be the first step in developing communications networks with the Red Planet for a future colony.

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Blade Runner 2 Will Take Care Of The Original's Biggest Mystery

Fans of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner have spent years discussing and debating one particular mystery: is Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard a person, or is he actually a replicant? Different people behind the production have provided different answers to this question, and on the big screen the truth remains ambiguous. It's a very big part of Blade Runner's legacy, and one that Blade Runner 2 director Denis Villeneuve has full intentions to cherish in the making of the sequel.

Villeneuve's new film Sicario had a big premiere up at the Toronto International Film Festival this past week, and it was while being interviewed by Crave Online that the director revealed how he will be approaching Blade Runner's greatest mystery. Asked if Deckard is a human or a replicant, the Canadian filmmaker first declined to answer - saying "Now that I am on the other side of the fence I cannot answer" - but then he followed-up by discussing his approach to that matter in the sequel:

The thing I must say is that I love mystery. I love shadows. I love doubts. I would just want to say to the fans that we will take care of that mystery. I will take care of it.

The irony of Denis Villeneuve's quote is that it's as ambiguous as the subject it's about. What does "take care of that" mean in this context? When a gangster says that in a movie, it means somebody is getting whacked. Is Villeneuve planning on taking the mystery into a back alley and blowing its brains out?

Joking aside, when watching Blade Runner 2 all of us will be wondering whether or not it will answer the question of Rick Deckard's humanity. Villeneuve's quote could suggest that he doesn't want to create a firm answer, and instead wants to keep the doubts and mystery as an overarching part of the series. But that doesn't mean that he won't provide a few hints the provide a direction one way or the other.

As alluded to earlier, those behind the original Blade Runner have discussed their views about what Rick Deckard really is. Most notably, Ridley Scott has said that his protagonist is indeed a replicant. He told the New York Times in 2007,

Yes, he’s a replicant. He was always a replicant.

Meanwhile, Harrison Ford has said that he thinks Rick Deckard is a human, and that it was something that he debated for a long time with Scott. As a result, the speculation continues.

Blade Runner 2 is now in development, though a release date has not yet been pinned down. It's been confirmed that Harrison Ford will be back to reprise his role as Rick Deckard in the movie - making it the third major character from his career that he's resurrected (following Indiana Jones and Han Solo). There have also been reports about Ryan Gosling joining the cast of the sci-fi drama, though that has not been entirely confirmed.

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Tianjin Explosion: Chinese Authorities Set Final Death Toll at 173

BEIJING—Chinese authorities ended the search for the remaining eight missing in a massive chemical warehouse explosion last month, setting the final death toll at 173 in China’s worst industrial disaster in years.

The announcement on the Tianjin city government’s microblog said there was no hope of finding the eight people, and the court will now start issuing death certificates.

“After thorough investigations by all parties, it is certain that there is no possibility of survivors,” said the statement, posted late Friday night.

The eight include five firefighters, underscoring the explosion’s status as the worst ever disaster for Chinese first responders, more than 100 of whom were killed, including police officers. Among firefighters, a total of 104 were killed.

Investigations into the Aug. 12 blasts at the Ruihai International Logistics warehouses showed they were located closer to homes than permitted, and stored much more hazardous material than authorized, including 700 tons of highly toxic sodium cyanide.

A series of massive explosions late at night shattered windows and tore facades off buildings for miles around, while launching debris including heavy steel storage canisters into nearby communities with the force of an artillery shell. Disgruntled homeowners have held numerous angry protests demanding the government buy back their apartments, saying they are unlivable.

The disaster has raised questions about corruption and government efficiency, potentially tarnishing the communist government led by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has made those two issues a hallmark of his administration.

Authorities are investigating malfeasance in the issuing of permits and regulation of the company, and have detained 12 of its employees and executives. They include the primary owner, who was on the board of a state-owned company and kept his ownership of Ruihai hidden as a silent partner.

Also detained as part of the investigation are 11 government officials, while the head of the government body in charge of industrial safety, Yang Dongliang, has been placed under investigation for corruption.

Yang had previously worked for 18 years in Tianjin in state industry and local government, rising to executive vice mayor.

Authorities say they have sealed all waterways leading out of the blast zone to curb cyanide contamination as teams in hazmat suits clean up hazardous debris.

According to the Tianjin Environmental Protection Bureau, water samples inside the disaster zone have shown levels of cyanide as high as 20 times above that considered safe. No cyanide has been detected in nearby seawater or areas outside the 3-kilometer (1.8-mile ) radius quarantine zone.

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California's Drought Is Officially The Worst The State Has Seen In 500 Years

After four years of drought, California’s snowpack levels have already been declared the lowest since records began about a century ago. Now with new information gleaned from tree-ring data, scientists think that California’s snowpack is the lowest it’s been in over 500 years — and maybe even 1000.

Scientists used a new way to measure centuries-old snowpack for the study, which was authored by University of Arizon paleoclimatologists and published in today’s Nature Climate Change. By looking at the tree-ring width of 1,500 blue oaks found throughout the Central Valley of the state, the scientists can get reliable growth information for about 500 years. When they compared those measurements to tree-ring data since Sierra Nevada snowpack began being instrumentally recorded in the 1930s, the scientists realised that the oaks’ growth very accurately recorded the very lowest snowpack seasons. Although it was clear that 2015 had the lowest snowpack levels in 500 years, it’s more likely that it’s the lowest in 1000 years, but these trees just aren’t old enough to show it.

In a story in the New York Times, A. Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University commented on the study and added his voice to the growing chorus that climate change has made the drought even worse and noted that low snowpack will be the norm, not the exception:

“We are now migrating into this new world where temperatures are higher,” Dr. Williams said. “So even though the chances of an event like this were extremely unlikely in the past, in the future it will be more likely to occur.”

Here is the graph from the study which shows the snowpack levels that have been instrumentally recorded from the 1930s to today, followed by the estimates from the past 500 years or so. The red lines are where the instrument-recorded data correlates with the tree-ring estimates. Besides a few potential dips below 2015 levels in the 16th century, this is easily the lowest snowpack measurement scientists have ever seen:

This report comes on the heels of another report from NOAA that the last few years have brought the highest average temperatures in California’s recorded history. Just for fun, let’s check out the graph which shows temperatures since records began being kept in 1895:

When viewed together those two charts give me chills — El Niño, where are you???

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The FAA Warned Boeing About The Flaw That Caused A 777 To Explode In Las Vegas

When a jetliner’s engine explodes moments before take off, people ask questions. Now, less than a week after that very thing happened to a British Airways 777, answers are starting to emerge — and they’re scary.

Turns out the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned both Boeing and General Electric, the 777’s engine-maker, about a flaw in the plane’s engine design that could result in the very catastrophe that took place last week at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas.

What’s worse is that the safety warning was issued over four years ago. The FAA warned that cracks could form in the engine’s high-pressure compressor spool causing “uncontained engine failure and damage to the aeroplane.” In other words, the FAA knew that the engine’s turbines could fail under stress, causing an explosion and a shower of debris big enough to set the rest of the plane on fire.

That’s exactly what happened to the 777 in Las Vegas. The good news is that the British Airways pilots saved the day by acting fast, extinguishing the fire and slamming on the brakes so that passengers could evacuate should the fire get anywhere close to the fuel tanks in the wings. If that had happened, the entire plane would have been engulfed in flames, likely burning up completely in just a few minutes. This almost happened. Miraculously, all 159 passengers and 13 crew members escaped with their lives.

The FAA issued a new airworthiness directive for the 777 engine in question that required additional inspections to spot the cracks before they caused a catastrophic event. It’s so far unclear whether inspectors simply missed seeing a crack or the FAA should have required more frequent inspections. Boeing told The Daily Beast that it was “is providing technical assistance to the NTSB,” while GE and the FAA did not respond to comment. Regardless, one thing is clear: Boeing and GE knew about this problem years ago.

Then again, Boeing doesn’t have a super great track record when it comes to using defective parts on planes full of people.

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Liverpool, England Has a Mysterious Network of Tunnels

Under the streets of Liverpool, England’s Edge Hill district tunnels stretch for miles. The residents know they were built between 1810 and 1840 by eccentric local business man, Joseph Williamson, but no one knows their true purpose, reports Chris Baraniuk for BBC. And only in the last 15 years have people begun to dig out the more than a century’s worth of junk and rubble and explore the network.

“A lot of people knew about the tunnels, but that was as far as it went – they just knew about them or heard about them,” says Les Coe, a member of the Friends of Williamson’s Tunnels group, which formed in 1996 as an off-shoot organization of the Joseph Williamson Society. In the group’s excavation work, they’ve found cellar systems, areas with multiple tunnel levels and more than 120 trash skips full of debris from decades of people using the tunnels as a 'out of sight, out of mind’ waste disposal.

But not all of the finds are trash. Baranuik writes:

As they excavate, the volunteers methodically document any artifacts they find. So far, they’ve uncovered ink wells once used by schoolchildren, bottles that held everything from beer to poison, jam jars, ceramics from Liverpool’s Royal Infirmary, oyster shells, chamber pots, animal bones and hundreds of clay pipes – a tapestry of household bric-a-brac that tells social history of Liverpool over the last two centuries in a way no other collection can.

Theories on the reason that Williamson had the tunnels built abound. Perhaps he was a smuggler that used the tunnels to move goods. Or one theory holds that "his wife came under the influence of a lunatic preacher who told her the apocalypse was coming and she persuaded Joseph to prepare chambers for underground living," Gordon Hunter, the chairman for the FoWT tells Emma Kennedy in a story for The Guardian. Or maybe the tunnels’ construction was merely an ongoing but ultimately pointless source of employment for locals.

Even if the reason for the tunnels is never discovered, they’ll continue to fascinate people. As of now, their mystery stands with the likes of the tunnels beneath the old Roman spa of Baiæ (Baia). Even if solved, the allure of old tunnels is sure to draw interest (just as it does to the catacombs beneath Paris and the series of passageways beneath Washington D.C.

Plus, giving the tunnels some airing out can’t hurt: They were originally filled in and sealed from the outside world decades ago when locals complained of the smells wafting from below, as Baraniuk writes. It was simply the inevitable consequence of creating underground landfills under city streets. Fortunately, time seems to have tempered that problem.

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Paralysed Man Successfully Given Prosthetic Hand That Can 'Feel'

A 28 year old man who has been paralysed has been given a new sense of touch following a new breakthrough that saw electrodes places directly into the man’s brain.

The research and clinical trial has been carried out by DARPA, the US Military’s research agency. Essentially, the man (who has not been named) is now able to control his new hand and feel people touching it because of two sets of electrodes: one array on the motor cortex, the part of the brain which directs body movement, and one on the sensory cortex, which is the part of the brain which feels touch.

The prosthetic hand itself was developed by the Applied Physics Laboratory at John Hopkins University, and contains torque sensors that can detect when pressure is being applied to the fingers, and will generate an electrical signal containing this information to send to the brain.

Apparently a test was carried out where the man was blindfolded, and it he was able to figure out which finger was being touched with “nearly 100 per cent accuracy” – and perhaps more impressively when the researchers touched two fingers at once without warning him, his brain could sense something was up, and he asked whether they were playing a trick on him.

It’s certainly impressive sounding technology – here’s hoping it can become standardised treatment for those who need it soon.

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Australia Is Hiding The World's Largest Chain Of Dormant Supervolcanoes

Things are bigger in Australia. Just ask the team of scientists that found the world’s largest chain of supervolcanoes hiding down the Eastern flank of our fine continent.

The newly-discovered chain runs for 2000 kilometres down the country, starting at the Whitsundays in North Queensland down to around Melbourne in the country’s south. That makes it three times longer than the chain in Yellowstone in the United States.

Scientists say the supervolcano chain was formed over the last 33 million years, with Australia moving gradually north to settle over a hotspot in our planet’s mantle.

Dr Rhodri Davies from The Australian National University heads up the project, and said that the finding is “surprising”:

This kind of volcanic activity is surprising because it occurs away from tectonic plate boundaries, where most volcanoes are found. These hotspots are thought to form above mantle plumes, narrow upwellings of hot rock that originate at Earth’s core-mantle boundary almost 3,000 kilometres below the surface.

Despite the fact that there might be supervolcanoes under our feet, we shouldn’t panic. Scientists say that our continent is so thick in parts that the hot rock can’t rise to the surface in order to form magma.

There are areas where the lithosphere is thin enough for it to rise to the surface, however. Places like Northern NSW, for example are thin enough for the track to affect the minerals in the area.

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Driving Through A Fire Looks Like Going Through Hell

This is crazy. A fire broke out in Lake County, California and devastated nearly 240 square kilometres. One elderly woman was killed, 13,000 people have been displaced and hundreds of home are now gone. It’s a total tragedy. Here is footage from inside the fire where it’s burning so hot it’s really unbelievable to see.

The video was taken of a car escaping the Valley Fire. You can read more about their account here and support them in rebuilding everything they lost here. With bushfire season fast approaching here in Australia, hopefully we won’t be seeing scenes like this closer to home.

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This R2-D2 Is Either Really Angry Or Cool Humidifier

If he can repair an intergalactic spaceship while it’s blasting through the cosmos, it only makes sense that turning water into steam would be child’s play for the world’s most multi-talented astromech droid. Although, if cartoons have taught us anything, steam blasting out of his head means that R2-D2 could also be absolutely furious at something; probably C-3PO again.

This $US99.95 tabletop R2-D2 humidifier uses ultrasonic vibration technology to turn a half-gallon (around two litre) tank of H2O into a cloud of refreshing water vapour without the need for a heating element or wicking filters to replace every month.

There’s also no fan which means R2-D2 runs whisper quiet for about 12 hours straight on the lowest of his ten different moisture settings. And when the water runs out, the droid automatically turns off to save power. But that’s about it for the tricks this Artoo has hidden away.[Hammacher Schlemmer]

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Fuel Made From Algae Could Help Fukushima -- And The Rest Of The World

In the ongoing search for a non-nuclear energy, Fukushima could find a partial answer in living, green, microalgae. And algae can help the rest of the world, too.

A Japanese think tank tells the Asahi Shimbun newspaper that universities and other groups in the area are working to mass produce an algae native to Fukushima. The coastal prefecture in northern Japan suffered nuclear meltdown following the massive earthquake in 2011. Algae sucks in carbon dioxide to produce natural oil, making it an attractive biofuel. Tests have apparently shown that the Fukushima algae is able to survive cold winters, which gives algae an edge over other alternative biofuels based on corn.

Algae sucks in carbon emissions, there’s no import cost, it grows at lightning fast rates, and can produce 60 times more oil per acre than plants grown on land.

The biggest problem, whether we’re talking Japan, Australia, or anywhere else, is that algae is extremely expensive. In the case of Fukushima, a litre of algae oil costs up to 300 yen, or around $AUD3.50. That number needs to be chopped down to 100 yen (around $AUD1.17) for this venture to be viable from a money standpoint, Asahi Shimbun says.

Algae isn’t the only alternative energy Fukushima’s been seeking out in recent years. Wind power is another one: Back in June, the world’s largest floating wind turbine was completed in Fukushima, part of a larger plan to beef up wind power there.

Of course, nuclear energy still outstrips wind and algae in terms of megawatts of electricity produced. But they’re alternatives attractive to the planet’s most quake-prone nation. Still, last month, Japan started reactivating its nuclear plants.

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New Trailer For Assassin's Creed Syndicate's Jack The Ripper DLC Campaign

Here’s the trailer for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate’s Jack the Ripper DLC campaign. It will be available as part of the game’s season pass, and it will feature Jack the Ripper as its villain, with Scotland Yard chief inspector Frederick Abberline trying to hunt him down (with your help, of course).

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How’s America Tackling Its Epic Fires? With an Epic Scheme

CALIFORNIA’S MOST DEVASTATING wildfire of the year started in rural Lake County just after 1 pm Saturday. Within 24 hours, it had grown to more than 50,000 acres. It consumed another 17,000 acres by Tuesday morning, destroying more than 580 homes and sending thousands of people fleeing ahead of the flames. Crews have only started getting a line around it and have no idea when they’ll gain the upper hand.

Even seasoned firefighters have been stunned by the ferocity of the blaze, one of three major fires burning in the Golden State right now. All told, some 11,800 firefighters are scrambling to contain fires that have burned 381,000 acres of tinder-dry forests. State officials have summoned all available resources, including the National Guard, to join the effort and help beat back fires that show no sign of abating.

It’s been that way all summer. An epic drought and scorching heat have conspired to create one of the busiest fire seasons in recent years. At the moment, 23,050 firefighters are battling 106 fires throughout the West. All told, more than 46,000 fires have burned 8.8 million acres across the US, an area bigger than the state of Maryland. The Pentagon at one point dispatched US troops to work alongside the National Guard and firefighters from throughout the country and Canada in fighting the fires. Every available truck, tanker, chopper and plane has been deployed, but with manpower and resources stretched so thin authorities must occasionally triage fires, letting those that pose no risk to lives or property simply burn.

This Herculean effort is been coordinated through the National Interagency Fire Center, which manages the nation’s wildfire response efforts from its command center in Boise, Idaho. The Center is comprised of eight federal agencies that play key roles in managing fire response planning and operations. Thousands of firefighters and dozens of management teams can be deployed to a fire within days—or sooner, if necessary. The Valley Fire offers a lesson in how this massive effort is organized.

The fire began just after 1 pm Saturday. Just how remains under investigation, but the fire grew with a speed and ferocity rarely seen. Evacuations began almost immediately, and the blaze consumed 40,000 acres within 12 hours. By that time, an elderly woman, unable to flee her home, had been killed by a fire that is behaving unlike any other.

“This fire sort of broke the rules even relative to this incredible season that’s already occurred,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at Stanford University, told the The Los Angeles Times.

The Valley Fire is burning through bone-dry timber, brush and tall grass, and exhibiting some extreme behavior, including spotting. That occurs when burning embers are blown ahead of the fire line—in this case, half a mile ahead of it—to start new blazes.

Most fires grow in a particular direction, funneled by local geography or pushed by the wind, as is the case in Southern California when the Santa Ana winds push fires to the west. The Valley Fire was unusual in that it appeared to spread in every direction simultaneously, growing so large so quickly that it generated its own weather system, with wind blowing outward from the center of the fire. Frequent spotting compounded the inferno, complicating evacuations and forcing some to flee through the flames.

By Sunday afternoon, firefighters—many of them pulled from the Butte fire that has charred 71,500 acres about 100 miles to the east—were focused largely on evacuating residents, letting the fire follow its course. Some 1,200 firefighters poured into the area from throughout the state on Monday. Still more joined the effort Tuesday, bringing the total to 2,362 people—a number that eclipses the manpower dedicated to all but two of the 97 fires now burning in the US. Those firefighters have 285 engines and eight helicopters at their disposal, yet still struggle to contain the fire.

“We have multiple fires, so we’re all stretched thin,” incident commander Robert Michael told the LA Times. “We’re starting to get resources reassigned as each fire is starting to get their containment up … So we all started short, meaning we’re just stretched.”

It is rare to see a fire grow as explosively as the Valley Fire, and it is the latest test of a system that’s seen no rest this year. In any wildfire, the first line of defense tends to be local and state fire departments, occasionally with help from the US Forest Service or other federal agencies. In most cases, the initial attack crew gets things under control quickly. If the weather, an exceptionally heavy fuel load, or other factor requires more than one “operational period” (usually that means overnight), to contain the fire, the response quickly grows more complex.

Regardless of its size, almost all wildfires in the US are managed by something called the Incident Command System. First developed in California, the system—which is, in essence, a strategy for managing the logistics of firefighting—was refined and expanded after 9/11 and is now used nationwide to ensure optimal command, control and coordination of the response, manpower, and resources. The goal is to ensure the myriad agencies, from local police and fire on up to the National Guard, are working together efficiently under a clear chain of command and accountability.

Think of the Incident Command System as a series of boxes, like a traditional org chart. Each fire gets its own ICS, or chart. And each box on that chart indicates a person or a resource, like a helicopter or a fire engine. As an incident requires more people and equipment, you add boxes and move them around the chart.

How to fill those boxes and where to deploy them, especially on a longer incident, is where things start to get tricky.

The United States is divided into 10 regions called Geographic Area Coordination Centers. California is divided into two regions, due to its vast size, large population, and frequent fires. Other regions include as many as 20 states. All of them are overseen by the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, the organizational center of the country’s firefighting system. It is the air traffic control tower overseeing every fire in the country.

When the Valley Fire started, the local police and fire crews were the first to respond. They quickly realized the fire was more than they could handle and almost immediately alerted the local dispatch center (a subdivision within the Geographical Area Coordination Center) to summon help. The local dispatch center began calling in additional manpower and resources like air support from elsewhere in the state — calling in crews from the Butte Fire, which no longer poses a threat to lives and could therefore spare the manpower.

“You always try to dispatch the closest resource,” says Mike Ferris, public information officer for the US Forest Service. “Once you exceed the closest resources available, the Dispatch Center will try to find what’s close in the geographic area.”

That’s where things get tricky.

With crews and resources stretched thin nationwide, fighting a fire becomes something akin to chess, with authorities having to move pieces around the board. Any request for manpower or resources is entered into the Resource Ordering & Status System, a database that tracks the status of every deployable firefighter and piece of equipment nationwide. It includes everything from engines and air tankers and bulldozers to catering trucks and public information officers like Ferris.

Beyond the local firefighters who are instrumental in any fire, there are more than 100 so-called hotshot crews (20-man teams of dedicated wildfire specialists), several hundred smokejumpers (elite firefighters who parachute into remote areas), and thousands of engines. For example, Cal Fire, which coordinates wildfire suppression throughout California, has more than 16,000 firefighters and 1,100 engines at its disposal. The agency also maintains a fleet of 23 air tankers, 12 helicopters and 15 tactical planes used for fire reconnaissance and surveillance. (California is unique in maintaining its own fleet; most other agencies, including the US Forest Service, hire them as needed.) Any and all of these resources can be deployed anywhere in the country—and beyond—within days. When all hell breaks loose, the military can provide troops and C-130 tankers.

“They’ll pick up the phone and call: ‘Can you go to Montana tonight?’,” says Ferris.

And so the call went out from Lake County on Saturday afternoon. Within hours, Cal Fire had air tankers and helicopters overhead, and firefighters were pouring in throughout California and beyond. They’re still coming.

The management of a fire is classified by its size. Type 5 teams fight the smallest fires and tend to be little more than an engine and crew on the scene for just a few hours. Type 4 teams have more resources and might run for a day or two to ensure the fire is out. These jobs typically are handled by the locals, who are more than up to the task.

As fires grow in size and the response increases in complexity, more people are needed. Beyond the firefighters, you need public information officers to handle the media, caterers to keep people fed, quartermasters to keep them supplied. Still bigger fires, those requiring air support, require flight crews and ground crews.

And the biggest fires, like the Valley Fires, the Type 1 fires that require all hands on deck, bring a Type 1 Incident Management Team. These are the heavy hitters, teams of at least 55 people specifically trained in everything from operations (fighting the fire) to administration (handling the myriad bureaucratic details intrinsic in all large organizations) to logistics.

Every night, the incident commander on each fire files a report—called an ICS-209—to the Geographic Area Coordination Center, where authorities assess the situation to determine who needs what, where, and when. The highest priority is given to those fires that pose an imminent threat to lives. Then come those that threaten homes and other structures. Last on the list are those fires burning in remote areas. Resources are moved around accordingly, like pieces on a chessboard.

“We’re always moving parts and pieces on the board based on the threat to life, property and resources,” says Ferris. “It gets complicated.”

At the moment, all those parts and pieces are focused on Lake County. It is the highest priority.

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THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU BUST OUT 90S DANCE MOVES WITH COMPLETE STRANGERS

Kyle Levo just wants to spread at little 90s love in this awesome Youtube video. Dressed in a pretty spectacular wind suite and giant white tennis shoes, Levo walks around asking strangers on the street if he can dance beside them.

As soon as they say yes, Levo breaks out some of the best beats and accompanying dance moves from the 90s!

Watching this video will warm your heart. Levo just seems so genuinely happy! And of course, one of the best parts of this video is watching Levo's enthusiasm spread to the complete strangers as he performs classics like “The Humpty Dance” by Digital Underground, “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” by Will Smith, and “Just a Friend” by Biz Markie.

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WATCH THIS WEATHERMAN EASILY PRONOUNCE THE HARDEST NAME EVER

Brave weather man Liam Dutton has become an overnight Twitter celebrity thanks to his correct pronunciation of the Welsh town Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

The town is well known for possessing Europe's longest name for a place and is famous for being impossible to pronounce unless you are a native Welsh speaker. But Dutton doesn't even bat an eye over it!

The name means: Parish [church] of [st.] Mary (Llanfair) [in] Hollow (pwll) of the White Hazel [township] (gwyn gyll) near (go ger) the rapid whirlpool (y chwyrn drobwll) [and] the parish [church] of [st.] Tysilio (Llantysilio) with a red cave ([a]g ogo[f] goch).

And if you're interested in trying to tackle the pronunciation, the English pronunciation guide goes like this: Llan-vire-pooll-guin-gill-go-ger-u-chwurn-drob-ooll-llantus-ilio-gogo-goch.

Not only is it an incredibly long name for a town, but now the Welsh town's name is an incredibly long hashtag on Twitter. #Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

[MIKA27]

The Murder Castle – Chicago’s Real Life House of Horrors

H.H. Holmes’ Murder Castle – 601-603 West 63rd Street, Chicago, Il

Greetings, and welcome. I want to play a game.

There are some people for whom those words cause a chill, from the bottom of their spine all the way up to those little hairs on the back of their neck. Those words, of course, are part of the infamous dialogue from the Saw movie franchise (2003 – 2013). Saw being only one title among more than a dozen slasher movie franchises in recent years to adopt a house of horrors type of setting. It seems to provide an effective backdrop for the moral questions the writers and directors of such films want to explore. But more than that, it provides the means to consistently scare the bejesus out of movie goers.

From classic films such as Cube (1997), and Hostel (2005), and The Collector (2009), and even House on Haunted Hill (1959/1999), the idea that one could become trapped in an environment that had been carefully designed – sadistically,

deliberately – to torture, maim, and slowly kill anyone who found themselves inside is by no means a new tool in the kits of horror writers, but it is effective. But those are movies, right? No one could ever do such a thing in real life? Could they?

Dear reader, I give you H.H. Holmes.

Born Herman Webster Mudgett in Gilmanton, New Hampshire in 1861, Holmes has gone down in history as America’s first, and possibly most prolific serial killer ever. But there’s far more to him than that. An MD, a pharmacist, a philanderer, a polygamist, a criminal mastermind, a fraudster, a sadist, and a murderer. But even that does no justice to just how cruel and devious this man was.

You see, Holmes – also known as Henry W. Howard, Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, Dr. Death, and The Devil in the White City – could righty be said to have been the inspiration for the entire house of horrors movie genre.

In August of 1886, while living in Chicago, Holmes procured a job as a druggist in the pharmacy of the soon to be widowed Dr. Elizabeth S. Holton. Upon the death of her husband, Holmes arranged to purchase the operation from Mrs. Holton, putting himself into a great deal of debt. Soon after, he purchased the plot of land located across the street from the drug store and built on it what would later be known as his Murder Castle. It was in fact a hostel, the World’s Fair Hotel, though it was anything but a welcoming inn.

You see, in 1893, Chicago hosted the World’s Columbian Exposition (an iteration of the World’s Fair), welcoming some twenty-seven million visitors over its seven months of operation. Which provided perfect conditions for the predator among them.

Construction of the hotel was a fractured and disjointed affair; Holmes regularly fired his various crews then hired others, ensuring that he alone was completely familiar with the building’s finer details. For those details would prove damning. In a manner reminiscent of California’s Winchester Mansion, Holmes castle was riddled with secret passages, stairs that lead nowhere, doors that opened to brick walls, or that didn’t open at all. As well as windowless rooms, trap-doors, and secret viewing ports. It was a literal fun-house, but without any of the fun.

His scheme, which was a crime he’d invented and perfected while in medical school using fresh cadavers, was to trap, murder, and dispose of people for whom he could later collect life insurance payments. And apparently it was a scheme that worked well. The entire second floor of his hotel had been sealed off to the outside world. Each room was equipped with a different means to murder its unsuspecting occupants. Hidden gas lines for suffocation; steel plate walls with blow torches on the backside to broil those inside; a lynching room; and even an air-tight, soundproof vault next to his personal office, in which he would simply let guests expire and rot. His victims were often his own female employees; women who were required to take out life insurance policies, for which Holmes would pay the premium in exchange for being listed as the beneficiary.

Once he’d dispatched his victim, he, or his lackey – a carpenter named Benjamin Pitezel with whom Holmes had become friends during construction of the building, and whom was a notorious criminal in the Chicago underworld – would drop the bodies through a secret chute to the basement for dissection, or dismemberment, or to simply be buried in lime pits dug into the basement floor.

Ever the creative entrepreneur, Holmes even stripped and prepared the skeletons of some victims, selling them as demonstration models to medical schools and other contacts he made during his collegiate career.

The official count of his victims is a meagre nine people, though this is only because he took such care in disposing of the bodies.

With the massive number of tourists passing through Chicago for the fair in 1893, the likelihood that his house of horrors saw in excess of two hundred victims is high. He confessed, at different times, to as many as twenty-nine murders, including that of his accomplice Pitezel while living in Philadelphia, and three of Pitezel’s children, and one of his own wives. But in the end he was convicted on only a single count, for the death of Benjamin Pitezel, and sentenced to death. He was hanged on May 7, 1896 in Philadelphia, but not before selling his story, and alternate confessions to news outlets for at least $7,500.00US ($212,610.00 today).

Interestingly, his great-great-great-grandson, Jeff Mudgett (from Holmes’ first marriage to Clara Lovering, whom he abandoned) published a book titled Bloodstains (2011), claiming that Holmes’ career as a murderous villain was a good deal more infamous than has been stated. The junior Mudgett claims (somewhat spuriously) that H.H. Holmes was in fact the real identity of London, England’s Jack the Ripper.

As with any other suspect in the Ripper case, there is no physical evidence tying Holmes to the murders of four prostitutes in the Whitechapel district of East London between August and November of 1888. But it remains possible; the timing would be right; he was a man of means and could easily have travelled to England by steamship (though there’s no record of him ever having left the US), and he was a trained doctor; and the profile of the Ripper’s victims matches his own, superficially at least.

Following Holmes’ arrest, the multiple investigations – which were centered on his fraudulent dealings with several insurance companies, his involvement in the disappearances (murders) of the Pitezel children, and the many suspicious deaths and human remains found at his murder castle – police made public the truly heinous nature of this man’s life. The search of the World’s Fair Hotel uncovered piles of soiled and bloodied clothing, large balls of carefully wound blonde hair, the unidentified bones of children, and teeth from a wide range of possible victims. In the end, the building was burned to the ground by arsonists. Some say it was to cover yet more evidence of crimes associated with the building, but others say it was done to cleanse the neighbourhood of the evil H.H. Holmes wrought upon it.

Whatever name you might know him by, Herman Mudgett, Henry Howard, H.H. Holmes, Doctor Death, or even Jack the Ripper, it’s clear that America’s first serial killer deserves the title Monster.

[MIKA27]

LIVE ACTION JUNGLE BOOK TRAILER

From Jon Favreau – the man who created the first Iron Man which helped launch comic book movies into the stratosphere – comes the trailer for the new live action Jungle Book movie, and it looks to be epic beyond words.

This tells the tale that we all grew up with: Mowgli (played in this version by Neel Sethi) is a young man-cub raised by wolves who is befriended by a panther and a bear even as he is pursued by the fearsome tiger Shere Khan who has vowed to destroy the men who have wounded him. With cream of the crop actors like Ben Kingsley (Bagheera), Bill Murray (Baloo), Scarlett Johannsson (Kaa), Christopher Walken (King Louie), Lupita Nyong’o (Raksha), and Idris Elba (as Shere Khan) lending their voices to these iconic roles, this promises to be an instant classic for kids and adults alike.

[MIKA27]

JAMMOCK JEEP HAMMOK

Since we all try to get a little shut eye where we can, it’d be convenient if you had a comfortable place to lie down on-the-go. The Jammock Hammok provides you with a place to comfortably close your eyes on your Jeep or truck.

The instant hammock is made up of ultra-strong hemmed trampoline material, which provides a durable yet comfortable place to rest your bones. It holds up to 300 pounds without breaking. For your truck, the Jammock stretches across the bed, providing a comfortable experience that feels like you’re on the trampoline in your backyard. As for the Jeep-owners, the trampoline material lies across the top of the roll carriage, providing a comfortable — albeit a smaller — naptime solution. It’s available now starting at $138. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

FILSON SCOUT WATCH

The Filson and Shinola partnership expands with a new addition to their growing watch line, the new Scout Watches. Inspired by the classic 1940’s pilot watches, the Scout is made by hand in Shinola’s Detroit watch factory, and features a bi-directional rotating top ring, and screws that secure the strap to the lugs for added durability. The full product family consists of seven watches, all are rated at 20 ATM, have a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal, run on an Argonite quartz movement, and are built to survive years of use from the cockpit to the field.

[MIKA27]

DUCATI MONSTER 1200 R MOTORCYCLE

Track-worthy performance. Everyday practicality. The Ducati Monster 1200 R Motorcycle offers both in a single package. Its 1200 cc Testastretta twin-cylinder engine produces 160hp, making it the most powerful naked bike the Italian manufacturer has ever offered, with 10% more horsepower than its S sibling. It also stands out thanks to a redesigned, higher tailpiece, seat, and overall stance, and adds new suspensions, separate rider and passenger footpegs, new carbon fiber components to lower the weight, and a TFT instrument display that changes its layout based on which of the three riding modes you're in. Available in red or black.

[MIKA27]

Life in Space Is a Giant Science Experiment

Space isn’t a very human-friendly environment to put things mildly. That’s why, as NASA has grown fond of saying, we’re sciencin’ the **** out of our astronauts so that we can learn how to keep them alive.

Yesterday marked the mid-point of astronaut Scott Kelly’s “Year in Space” mission, a one-year research program in which Kelly, along with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko is being scrutinized by a swarm of medical researchers who want to understand everything from how human circadian rhythms to metabolic activity to neurologic functions are impacted by space.

To mark the occasion, NASA released an infographic offering some fun facts about what it means to be a human in space for a year. For instance, did you know that during his cosmic sojourn, Kelly will produce “180 pounds of feces that will burn up in the atmosphere like shooting stars”? That’s cool! Or that the man is getting dosed with the radiation equivalent of over 5,000 transcontinental flights? Less cool! (But still important for us to understand).

Of course, these juicy tidbits are just the tip of the iceberg — we’ve got a lot of science to learn from Kelly as the year progresses, so stay tuned.

[NASA]