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

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The Hyperloop Tests Its Propulsion Next Month

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGZKt8qFO08

Hyperloop Technologies will soon be testing a propulsion system it predicts will be able to bring a hunk of metal from 0 to 540kmph in two seconds.

By “hunk of metal”, I mean exactly that. Hyperloop isn’t putting a carriage on the track yet — it’s just attaching a base with the necessary elements for propulsion, and seeing how fast it can go. Even though the whole system depends on minimal friction and low air pressure, adding weight to it will still add additional challenges and make it slower.

As wired states, at regular intervals throughout the track there will be magnetic forces constantly giving the carriage little shoves to keep its speed up. Next month’s test in Las Vegas will test the limits of how much power they can dump into the system at once.

Some of the 400 people working on the project still aren’t 100% convinced it will be seen through to completion, and many of these experts are involved in their spare time for stock options. But it’s looking more and more serious all the time, and we’ll know next month if it has passed another milestone.

It’s not important that the project actually hit 540kmph in two seconds, of course. Riding that train wouldn’t be a pleasant experience. The test is just to see what the system is capable of.

Very fast trains are damn cool, though. Hey, we should totally get our own one of those.

[MIKA27]

French Scientist Claims The 'Real' Mona Lisa Is Hidden Underneath The Famous Painting

After a decade of work, French scientist Pascal Cotte claims there are hidden portraits underneath the Mona Lisa — including one of a distinctly different woman. Art experts are sceptical.

As the BBC reports, Cotte used a technique called Layer Amplification Method (LAM) to analyse the da Vinci masterpiece, which was painted between 1503 and 1517. After “projecting a series of intense lights” onto the painting, a camera recorded measurements of the lights’ reflections, enabling Cotte to reconstruct hidden details.

“We can now analyse exactly what is happening inside the layers of the paint and we can peel like an onion all the layers of the painting,” explained Cotte in the BBC Two documentary, The Secrets of the Mona Lisa. “We can reconstruct all the chronology of the creation of the painting.”

Cotte’s reconstruction of the hidden portrait (Credit: BBC)

Instead of the front-on gaze of the Mona Lisa, the reconstruction shows a seated woman looking off to the side — without her iconic smile. Cotte also claims there are two more images under the surface of the painting, including the portrait of a woman with a larger head and nose, bigger hands, and smaller lips than those featured on the Mona Lisa.

“I was in front of the portrait and she is totally different to Mona Lisa today,” says Cotte. “This is not the same woman.”

Cotte’s extraordinary claim is fuelling a longstanding debate about the Mona Lisa’s identity. The going theory is that she is Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk merchant. But Cotte thinks the hidden painting is Leonardo’s original, and that the portrait known as the Mona Lisa belongs to another woman.

Needless to say, not everyone is buying this theory, or the suggestion that a hidden portrait even exists. The Louvre Museum, for example, has refused to comment on the claim. And here’s what BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz had to say:

I’m sceptical. It’s perfectly common for an artist to overpaint an image as it is for a client who’s commissioned that artist to ask for changes. So it’s not surprising that there are those underpaintings on the Mona Lisa.

The data that the technology generates is open to interpretation, which needs to be analysed and corroborated by the academic and curatorial community, and not just an individual. I think the Louvre’s decision not to make a comment is telling.

This is the world’s most famous painting which, like a celebrity, always makes for a good story. But in this case I think caution is required.

Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at the University of Oxford, agrees with Gompertz, telling the BBC the the reconstruction is “ingenious in showing what Leonardo may have been thinking about. But the idea that there is that picture as it were hiding underneath the surface is untenable,” adding that “I do not think there are these discrete stages which represent different portraits. I see it as more or less a continuous process of evolution. I am absolutely convinced that the Mona Lisa is Lisa.”

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Here's The First Footage Of US Navy's New Badass Zumwalt-Class Destroyer At Sea

Wow. Here’s the first footage of the US Navy’s brand new Zumwalt-class destroyer at sea. It’s the most advanced warship that the US Navy has ever made and it totally looks the part, completely bad arse like an Imperial Star Destroyer for the ocean. Just watching it cut through the sea is so damn cool because the ship itself is just unreal.

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ROLLS-ROYCE COCKTAIL HAMPER

Hearing the name Rolls-Royce evokes thoughts of luxury, beautiful cars, and high price tags. So when Rolls-Royce teamed up with Happy Hour to design their own Cocktail hamper, we were expecting grandeur. Now that we’ve gotten a look at it, we can say that the company has gone above and beyond.

This incredibly limited edition Rolls-Royce Cocktail Hamper is built to complement both classic and modern cocktails. There are just fifteen editions total, and each one contains everything you could ever need for the perfect cocktail. Housed in an American Walnut and leather-trimmed case lies a variety of bar tools, shakers, and glassware. The unit contains automatic integrated lights, and mirrors to make it look bigger than it actually is. It’s available now for $46,328. [Purchase]

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Citroen E-Mehari

French automaker Citroen have presented the newest version of their iconic Mehari from 1968. The cool E-Mehari is as the name suggests, an all electric four-seater cabriolet, with removable roof panels, a fold-down rear bench and a plastic coated fabric interior that is completely waterproof. The 67bhp motor powers it to a top-speed of 68mph, with a range of 124 miles between top ups. It will be available in four colors – orange, yellow, blue and beige, and you’ll be able to buy one from early 2016.

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KLIPSCH REFERENCE PREMIERE BOOKSHELF SPEAKERS

Since 1946, Klipsch has been building premium speakers for music and movie lovers across the world. And now, the company has made it easy to fill your home with their world-class acoustics without taking up floorspace. Meet the Klipsch RP-160M speakers. These copper-coned beauties are the latest installment in the Klipsch Reference Premiere series and perfectly highlight Klipsch's cutting edge acoustic engineering and spectacular design philosophy. Each cabinet features a 6.5-inch woofer for vibrant low end sounds and a redesigned Hybrid Tractrix Horn to keep high frequency responses front and center. Simply a perfect pair for a turntable setup. Available in ebony and cherry wood finishes, each set fits into any home decor and will provide a lifetime of good looks and even better sound.

[MIKA27]

The Legend of Tarzan Trailer Looks Ridiculous In the Best Possible Way

The first trailer for David Yates’ The Legend of Tarzan has some really great things going for it. Its cast, for one. The fact it’s self-aware of the myth behind Tarzan, two. But then there’s the avalanche of CG insanity which makes us scratch our heads.

We won’t find out if all of this works until The Legend of Tarzan opens on July 1, and it could go either way. Could this be a rollicking adventure, with plenty of yelling, swinging and fun? Or could it be a cringe-inducing attempt at starting another franchise based on a popular character? The trailer definitely leans toward the latter.

And yet, with Alexander Skarsgard, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Djimon Hounsou, Jim Broadbent, John Hurt and Margot Robbie along for the ride, you have to hold out hope. Not to mention the fact it’s directed by David Yates, who did the last four Harry Potter movies along with the upcoming one.

[MIKA27]

We Still Might Get A Live-Action Star Wars TV Series

When Disney purchased Lucasfilm, the company prematurely ended plans for two major projects—Star Wars: Underworld, a live-action TV show, and the video game Star Wars 1313, both of which would’ve followed the seedy underworld of Coruscant. But in surprising news, neither project might truly be as dead as we thought.

/Film spoke to Kathleen Kennedy at the press event for Star Wars: The Force Awakens over the weekend, and the subject of both Underworld and, surprisingly, 1313, came up when the site asked of there were any plans for the alleged hundreds of scripts written for the series ahead of production... and Kennedy’s answer was quite interesting:

No. No, interestingly enough, thats an area we’ve spent a lot of time, reading through the material that [George] developed is something we very much would like to explore. And there was 1313 the game...

Star Wars: Underworld would’ve focused around the stories of several crime families warring with each other and seedy forces like the Hutts in the lower levels of the city that covered the entirety of Coruscant’s surface—and to tie into the series, while the impressive-looking 1313 would’ve involved some of those characters and families as players explored titular level 1313 of the city.

When pressed about the myriad pieces of concept art for 1313 that emerged in the wake of the game’s cancellation, Kennedy went even further—acknowledging that Lucasfilm were looking at it, and interested in doing something with it in the future:

Unbelievable. So our attitude is, we don’t want to throw any of that stuff away. It’s gold. And it’s something we’re spending a lot of time looking at, pouring through, discussing, and we may very well develop those things further. We definitely want to.

This is all very interesting—there have been rumors for a while that Underworld might be back on, or that Star Wars could be even moving to Netflix for a series of new shows in the vein of Disney-owned colleagues Marvel. Some of the ideas for both the game and the TV show have seemingly been picked up: Underworld allegedly featured a young Han Solo, a concept that is now going to be a movie. 1313 followed the adventures of a young Boba Fett, something else that has long been rumored as another anthology movie.

But this is solid confirmation from Lucasfilm that those projects are still being considered for development, which is exciting new because these are some of the last vestiges of Lucas’ work on the saga before he left Lucasfilm in Kennedy’s hands. What an awesome time to be a Star Wars fan.

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The Fascinating History of the NYC Fire Station That Starred in Ghostbusters

Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters! But where ya gonna call them? At their iconic firehouse headquarters, of course.

In the film, the spook chasers’ firehouse is as much of an iconic piece of the action as the Ecto-1 car or their homemade proton packs. It appears inGhostbusters video games and even has its own LEGO set. But in reality the firehouse has a history that is more Old New York than supernatural hot spot.

Hook and Ladder 8, the building used for the exterior shots of the Ghostbusters’ HQ, is a working firehouse that has been around for more than a century. In fact, the firehouse even pre-dates the Fire Department of New York. When Hook and Ladder 8 was established, the firefighting forces of New York were made up of a bunch of loosely affiliated companies of volunteering men.

In 1866, just one year after these disparate fire brigades were incorporated under the umbrella of the Metropolitan Fire Department, the Hook and Ladder 8 company moved its operations to the current spot on North Moore Street in Tribeca. At the time, an older school building occupied the site.

It was not until the 1898 unification of the five New York City boroughs that the Fire Department of New York as it exists today was born. With the development of this larger, more centralized force, Hook and Ladder 8 received a brand new firehouse in 1903, although it looked much different than it does today.

The new building, designed by the Superintendent of Buildings at the time, Alexander H. Stevens, was one of the first firehouses of its kind. Prior to Stevens’ tenure as the Superintendent, the design and construction of New York’s firehouses was outsourced to the architectural firm of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons. But when Stevens came in, he took over the creation of new fire buildings. His signature style was Beaux-Arts, a classically tinged school of design that would inform a number of New York buildings—most famously, Grand Central Station.

Stevens’ archetypal firehouse design had tall banks of windows on each floor and a central, arched portal on the ground floor that provided vehicle access. Hook and Ladder 8’s new building was one of the first buildings to show off the design, embellished with a decorative cornice above the truck entrance. When it was built, it was twice the size it is today, with two vehicle doors. The firehouse was cut down to its current dimensions in 1913, when Varick Street underwent an expansion that forced the building to downsize.

For decades, the firehouse and its men protected the city as one of many reliable FDNY fire stations. Then the Ghostbusters came to town. The film, much like the firehouse itself, was much different in its initial stages. In an early version of the script, the story took place in a future world where the Ghostbusters were a municipal force like the police or, well, firefighters. In accordance with that, a firehouse was chosen for their base of operations, and Hook and Ladder 8 became forever known as Ghostbusters HQ. The logo sign used in the movie and its sequel still hangs in the station to this day.

Once the excitement of the films died down a bit, it was back to business as usual for Hook and Ladder 8, which returned to being a standard (if now instantly recognizable) fire station. It would go on to be featured in the movie Hitch and an episode of Seinfeld, but these subsequent brushes with fame could not separate the firehouse’s legacy from that of Venkman, Spengler, Zeddemore, and Stantz.

While a new crew of Ghostbusters is set to hit screens in 2016, it has yet to be seen whether they will use the Hook and Ladder 8 as their digs—but the 21st-century spook chasers would be hard-pressed to find a location any more indelible.

[MIKA27]

First Look At The New Japanese Godzilla Movie Is Shaky As Hell

Toho Studios is making a new Godzilla movie. It will be the first time for the country to do so in twelve years. Now, we get a first look at…shaky camera footage.

Below is a teaser for the clip, which is due out next winter. This is filmed documentary style, and it does look like this will be a grittier Japanese Godzilla movie.

Hideaki Anno, creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion, wrote the picture and is its “chief director”. If you’ve seen his other live-action film, the terrific Love & Pop, you’ll know that he can set up some truly interesting shots. While it’s hard to tell what’s going on in this teaser, and that’s probably the point, I don’t expect this to be your typical Japanese Godzilla movie. We’ll find out next year when the movie is released on July 29.

The poster reads, “Nippon versus Godzilla.” In Japanese, the movie’s title is Shin Gojira or “New Godzilla”.

[MIKA27]

VADOLIBERO BIKE SHELF

Available now for purchase is the spectacular Bike Shelf by Vadolibero. The sleek furniture piece is dedicated to urban bikers, and it has been especially designed to transform one´s bicycle into an indoor sculpture or feature piece, allowing you to showcase your prized possession, giving it a deserved place of honor in your apartment....like a trophy in a glass jar. The modular structure allows you to park your bike keeping it in place using a stainless steel clamp that can be adjusted to accommodate every wheel and handlebars width, also included is a clothes rack that doubles as a lamp, casting light on the bike frame. A series of wooden poles can be arranged on the side panel to hang jackets and accessories, and a lower compartment features draws to accommodate all your biking gear, helmet, pump, water bottle, pad lock etc.

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PULP FICTION EXPLICIT TALKING FIGURES

Looking for that perfect gift for the Pulp Fiction fan in your life? Then look no further than these awesome 13” Talking Action Figures. Each figure is capable of speaking 7 phrases of profanity from the most memorable lines from Pulp Fiction, such as Vincent’s entire Royale With Cheese exchange. Each also features great facial detail, 14 points of articulation and character-specific accessories and clothing.

[MIKA27]

Custom Lightsabers You Can Actually Duel With

Depending how old you were the first time you saw any of the Star Wars movies, your options for recreating epic lightsaber battles with family, friends and kids from around the neighborhood were limited to sticks and shitty “licensed” toys built with plastic that extended like police batons. Those are still options, but Wired dropped details on a bunch of really good, custom saber manufacturers like Vader’s Vault, Ultra Sabers, Acme Sabers, Starfall Sabers andSabers Forever that are creating lightsabers that don’t require a shitton of post-production work to get lights, sounds and cool looking battle effects. In other words, pick up a custom saber from any of the manufacturers and you and your friends can be relieving your favorite duels from a galaxy far, far away, or creating new epic fight scenes in a galaxy much closer to home.

MIKA: So cool!! So EXPENSIVE!

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HOUSE OF MARLEY GET UP STAND UP SPEAKER

Breaking the rules and sound barrier of home audio, House of Marley's Get Up Stand Up combines unparalleled audio and stunning design. Soulfully crafted featuring FSC-certified and responsibly harvested dark walnut and birch wood with a satin velvet finish as smooth as the tunes played from this handsome system. Get Up Stand Up is powered by precisely engineered dual 4.5" speakers and 1" tweeters for that signature Marley sound. Recycled plastic enclosures and Bluetooth convenience round out this home audio system for superior audio quality that should be heard and seen.

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RESSENCE TYPE 5 WATCH

By suspending all of its 142 components in oil, the Ressence Type 5 Watch offers something no mechanical diving watch has achieved before: assured legibility at any angle. The oil also helps protect the internal pieces from pressure, allowing the 46mm bezel-less case to be built from lightweight titanium, resulting in a weight of just 87 grams. Super-strong blue and green luminova ensures readability in any light, the compression lock system lets it withstand up to 10 ATM of pressure, and the two included black straps — one leather, one nylon — let it serve double-duty as your go-to timepiece both in and out of the water.

[MIKA27]

MARTIS-DUNSMUIR HOUSE

Set near a creek just northwest of Lake Tahoe, the Martis-Dunsmuir House offers a surprising amount of privacy with enough room to handle large groups of visitors. Key to this versatility is a ground floor master with its own patio, separated from the rest of the house by a breezeway, an upstairs master with private balcony, and three additional bedrooms, one of which offers four built-in bunkbeds. The main area has high ceilings and an open plan that joins the living area to the dining area and kitchen, and is augmented by 1,600 square feet of outdoor living space that includes a covered patio, protected grill area with pass-though access to the kitchen, an integrated six-person hot tub, and concrete and steel columns that pull double duty by supporting the butterfly roof while acting as water features during heavy rains and icy winters.

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Harrison Ford Strikes Back at Donald Trump’s Air Force One Comment

Harrison Ford is striking back at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who the "Star Wars" actor accused of not being able to tell fact from fiction.

Trump told the New York Times last week that he enjoyed movies with heroic presidents — specifically 1997's "Air Force One," in which Ford plays a commander in chief who fights off a group of Russian terrorists who hijack the presidential plane.

"My favorite was Harrison Ford on the plane," Trump said. "He stood up for America."

Ford addressed Trump's comment Wednesday during an Australia press tour for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."

"It's a movie. Donald, it was a movie," Ford growled into the camera. "It's not like this in real life, but how would you know."

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 First Trailer

TMNT2 follows 2014’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a Michael Bay-produced reboot of the film series featuring the crime-fighting, pizza-eating, anthropomorphic reptiles. Despite a critical drubbing, the 2014 TMNT, directed by Jonathan Liebesman, performed well at the box office. Bay is back to produce the sequel, but Earth to Echo’s Dave Green is directing this time around.

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Watch Will Farrell and Billy Eichner Scream At people About Christmas Movies

Billy on the street, is a show that involves comedian Billy Eichner and a celebrity guest running around the streets of New York City and shouting at people. Sometimes they give people dollars for answering questions correctly.

In the latest clip, Will Farrell, star of Elf, joins Eichner to yell at people about Christmas and test their knowledge of seasonal films.

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Watch This Crazy GoPro POV Footage Of Danny Macaskill's Rooftop BMX Skills

I make no secret of the fact that I love GoPro’s amazing point-of-view videos. This particular clip shows pro trials cyclist Danny Macaskill ripping across the favela-esque rooftops of Gran Canaria.

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Watch The Trailer For Indepedence Day: Resurgence

There’s another Independence Day movie on the way. Come the end of June next year, Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith others will be gracing the silver screen with their presence, fighting the same alien threat that blew up the White House and terrorised the entire planet in the original film.

20th Century Fox’s spiel on Independence Day: Resurgence —

We always knew they were coming back. After INDEPENDENCE DAY redefined the event movie genre, the next epic chapter delivers global spectacle on an unimaginable scale. Using recovered alien technology, the nations of Earth have collaborated on an immense defense program to protect the planet. But nothing can prepare us for the aliens’ advanced and unprecedented force. Only the ingenuity of a few brave men and women can bring our world back from the brink of extinction. In Theaters – June 24, 2016.

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Watch The First Trailer For X-Men: Apocalypse

While everyone is rather excited about a certain movie that lands this week, not everyone has forgotten that, you know, other films are coming out too. Take the next instalment of the X-Men franchise, Apocalypse, for which a trailer has just arrived.

“X-MEN: APOCALYPSE” (Fox seems to love capitalising these days) marks the first movie to transition completely to the new crew… as it were.

It’ll be interesting to see how the film holds up without the dramatic weight of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, both of whom always managed to anchor the whole endeavour.

On the bright side, the cast packs a punch: Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Rose Byrne, Nicholas Hoult… the list goes on. No shortage of talent there. The downer is we’ll be waiting until mid-next year — May specifically — to see it.

[MIKA27]

200-Year-Old Monster Found in Chinese Cave

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrAvHauM7G4

“Monster” is a relative term (who doesn’t have a relative who’s a monster – bada-bing!) but it aptly fits a creature found recently in a cave in southwest China. It’s an extremely rare giant Chinese salamander that weighed in at 52 kg (114 pounds) and measured 1.4 meters (55 inches) in length. Before we go any further, this giant salamander is alive and being cared for by experts.

This ancient living fossil (Andrias davidianus) was reportedly discovered in the municipality of Chongqing by a fisherman named Wang Yong who had one of those experiences every fisherman dreads … he stepped in something soft and slimy. Fortunately for Wang Yong, it wasn’t boot-sucking mud but a giant salamander. He managed to summon wildlife officials who determined that the fish was ill and decided to move it to a nature preserve where it could be cared for.

Giant Chinese salamanders have lived relatively unchanged for 170 million years and play a big part is Chinese folklore and culture. They’re called the “wa wa yu” – which means baby fish – because its cries sound like an infant. One explanation for the yin and yang symbols is that they are two giant salamanders intertwined (sounds like a way to make baby fish).

Yin and yang symbol made with koi fish

Once widespread in China, their numbers have been reduced to critically endangered levels by habitat destruction, fungus, folk medicine and forks. Deforestation and the building of dams has severely reduced the giant salamanders’ prime living areas. A dangerous fungal infection known as Bsal has spread in China, eating away at the amphibians’ skin and attacking their respiratory and excretion systems. As bad as those are, even more of the giant salamanders have been killed because they’re used in folk medicines for alleged anti-aging properties and as a popular food item.

Farming has helped slow the loss of the giant Chinese salamanders, but growing these prehistoric creatures for food doesn’t allow them to live to be 200 years old like the one found in Chongqing. Moreover, it makes eating the species acceptable and stimulates the growth of the black market in illegally captured salamanders.

“Monster” is indeed a relative term … who are the real monsters in the story of the 200-year-old giant Chinese salamander?

[MIKA27]

IXXI STAR WARS WALL ART

Want to show off your love for the galaxy far, far away without plastering some childish posters all over your walls? IXXI has you covered with their creative Star Wars wall decorations.

The Dutch design company teamed up with the fine folks at Star Wars to reimagine the traditional galactic art pieces being put out by other designers. Rather than opting for the ever popular minimalist collections being created by other artists, IXXI collaborated with American designer Tim Lautensack to develop a limited range of mosaic-like prints. There are several different styles to choose from for any discerning fan, and there’s even a Pixel series that will bring any room to life. [Purchase]

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MORTLACH 75 YEARS OLD WHISKEY

The bourbon and Irish Whiskey markets may be red hot right now, but every now and then a bottle of Scotch shows up that reminds us who is king. Mortlach 75 Years Old Whiskey is just that, arriving in this beautiful, decadent, teardrop-shaped crystal decanter. The juice itself from Speyside's Mortlach Distillery, and has been watched over carefully in first-fill Sherry casks since 1939. Part of the Generations collection, each decanter is individually numbered and crafted with 75 multi-level cuts to represent the time the whiskey matured. Included are two specially designed crystal glasses, an Aniline leather travel bag and a specially commissioned book. Bottled at cask strength, only 100 decanters are available for purchase.