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

[MIKA27]

Scorsese’s ‘The Irishman’ Will Be a Netflix Exclusive

Martin Scorsese moving his next movie to Netflix is both a welcome change and a surprise. It’s a surprise because Scorsese has always been a huge proponent of seeing movies in theaters, believing the cinema gives the purest, most enjoyable experience. It’s welcome because the film in question, The Irishman, could be one of the most brutally violent and gritty movies of Scorsese’s career. The movie is based on the novel I Heard You Paint Houses and will follow Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran, a hit-man for the Mafia who racked up more than 25 hits. The title of the source novel is nearly a direct quote from Hoffa to Sheeran, referring to Sheeran’s occupation. To the mafia, painting houses meant killing, as the paint was the blood spattering results of the hits.

If Scorsese’s moving to Netflix, that could mean most of the restrictions and filters he had to work with in traditional cinema could be lifted. As we know from Bill Burr, one of Netflix’s more consistent notes for their original productions is “push it further,” something that Scorsese could easily do. The Irishman will get a limited theatrical release, so there may not be room for too much of a push, but since Netflix is handling the bulk of the release, expect some boundaries to crack.

[MIKA27]

Inside Japan’s Tricked-Out DIY Truck Culture

Head to Shibuya or any other densely-populated area of Tokyo and you’ll be overwhelmed by the bright lights. From billboards to storefronts, it can feel like Vegas on steroids. Not all those lights, however, are stationary. There’s a subculture of truck drivers and owners who deck out their rides in flashing lights and wild ornaments. This video from Great Big Story takes you inside the DIY semi truck culture known as “dekotora.” With tabs reaching six-figures, the trucks look like mobile casinos and mean a great deal to their respective owners. Here’s a wild look inside Japan’s tricked-out DIY truck culture. 

 

[MIKA27]

You Can Stay in This Centuries-Old Warrior Fort

Opening in April of 2017, Alila Fort Bishangarh is a centuries-old warrior fort that’s been converted into a luxury resort the likes of which you’ve probably never seen. Lovingly restored by Alila Hotels and Resorts to keep the original fort intact while expanding the grounds to include everything one could possibly need on a luxury excursion, Alila Fort Bishangarh recreates the courtly flavor and grandeur of Shahpura’s royalty while still transforming it into a modern oasis situated an hour from Jaipur and three hours from Delhi. The all-suite resort features 59 different suites that are completely unique along with public areas boasting banquet lawns, pool, juice bar, fitness center, kids “soldiers club,” theme restaurants, cafe lounge, bar & cigar room, wine cellar, wellness center, state ballrooms, library and a spa built into the fort’s former dungeon. The sprawling resort retains all the character and gorgeous views of the original location while adding modern creature comforts that make other five star resorts seem run of the mill.

 

 

[Fuzz]

Alfa Romeo's new Giulia QV has landed in Australia

The new Giulia Quadrifoglio Verde (QV for short) is THAT car; the one which the brand has been waiting a long time for. First revealed in June 2015 the Giulia QV has finally arrived on Australian roads.

Drive has already sampled the car on racetracks in Italy and Australia but this week the time finally came to see if the new Alfa Romeo could cut it in the real world.

While the mainstream Giulia models are coming shortly, the brand is leading with its strongest model, the QV, that is aimed directly at the iconic BMW M3 and Mercedes-AMG C63.

It is a bold aspiration for a brand on the comeback trail but after driving the Giulia QV on the challenging Oxley Highway in northern New South Wales this week the Germans should at least be looking over their shoulders.

We've gone over the specifications of the Giulia QV many times but for the record here they are again; The car is built on an all-new rear-wheel drive platform that is dubbed 'Giorgio' and has been developed by former Ferrari engineer Roberto Fedeli (the man responsible for the Ferrari 458 Speciale and LaFerrari). Not only is it important to the Giulia, but it will underpin all eight new Alfa Romeo models due by 2020.

Under the bonnet is a newly developed 2.9-litre twin-turbo V6 that produces 375kW of power and 600Nm of torque. It is coupled to an eight-speed automatic transmission. A manual version is available overseas but has not been engineered for right-hand drive markets.

Alfa Romeo has focused on keeping weight as low as possible so has made signficant use of carbon fibre. All Giulia models get a carbon fibre driveshaft and the QV's bonnet, roof and rear spoiler are all made from the same lightweight material.

We've already discovered that the QV is plenty of fun on a racetrack in our previous drives, but often a car that excels on the wide and smooth environment of a circuit can be a little too narrowly focused out in the real world.

In the Giulia though any fear of that situation is quickly erased when you get behind the wheel. The first element to impress is the ride quality. Leave the adaptive drive mode switch, labelled DNA (for Dynamic, Natural and Advanced efficiency plus a Race mode in the QV), in its Natural setting and the QV soaks up the bumps with the compliance of a genuine luxury car. Even in Dynamic the suspension retains good bump control, to the point that never during our time in the car did it thump or jar over a blemish in the surface.

At speed, the Giulia QV feels solid, stable and responsive. Alfa's focus on lightness comes shining through, as the QV responds with the same light touch you expect from a sports car.

The steering is worth special mention. It is incredibly accurate, reacting faster than any of its rivals - so fast it takes a little while to adjust your driving to suit. Arguably it could use more weighting to help improve the feel and feedback.

The performance that impressed us on the track translates to the road as well. The twin-turbo V6 has plenty of punch and thanks to a limited slip differential and torque limiting in the lower revs the power delivery is smooth, eleminating the traction control intrusion that is common in its rivals.

While its performance off the mark is impressive enough, it is the Giulia's ability to build speed when on the move that really blows you away. The Giulia QV may be giving away two cylinders to the V8 C63 but it feels every bit as quick in the real world.

Pulling the car up is handled by six-piston Brembo brakes with 360mm discs at the front. There is an optional carbon ceramic set-up available too but during the course of our road drive the sharp bite and steady pedal feel of the standard QV brakes proved more than up to the task.

In fact, the Giulia QV is a complete package that is genuinely capable of taking on the big German three, specifically the BMW M3 and Mercedes-AMG C63 S.

Is it a better sports sedan than those two? We'll reserve our judgement until we can compare them side-by-side in the coming weeks. But based on our initial road impression the Giulia QV is a brilliant first step on Alfa Romeo's journey back to relevance.

2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia QV pricing and specifications

On sale: Now

Price: From $143,900 plus on-road costs

Engine: 2.9-litre V6 twin-turbo petrol

Power: 375kW at 5600rpm

Torque: 600Nm at 2500-5000rpm

Transmission: Eight-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive

Fuel use: 8.2L/100km

Fuzz - I think I may have found my next car. Been a long time since I owned an Alfa.

[MIKA27]

Patrick Stewart Is Retiring From X-Men

It looks like Hugh Jackman isn't the only one hanging up his mutant hat after Logan. Patrick Stewart has announced that he's officially retiring from the X-Men franchise, saying, "I'm done."

Stewart had previously left his future with X-Men up in the air, throwing out tongue-in-cheek hints that he could reprise the role for Deadpool 2 or other future X-Men films. However, during a recent SiriusXM Town Hall with Jackman and Logan director and co-writer James Mangold, Stewart announced that Logan would be his X-Men swan song. I'm sharing his statement in its entirety, because it's super moving:

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"A week ago, Friday night in Berlin, the three of us sat, watching the movie... And I was so moved by it, much more moved than I had been the first time of seeing it. Maybe it was the company of these two guys, but the movie ended and — this is an admission — but at one point [Jackman] reached out, and he took my hand in those last few minutes, and I saw him go [mimes wiping a tear from his eye] like this, and then I realised I had just done the same thing. Then, the movie ended… and we were going to be taken up on stage, but not until the credits were over. So, we had some time to sit there and, as I sat there I realised there will never be a better, a more perfect, a more sensitive, emotional, and beautiful way of saying au revoir to Charles Xavier than this movie. So, I told [Jackman] that same evening, 'I'm done too. It's all over.'"

Stewart joins Jackman, who announced a while ago that he was putting away his Wolverine claws for good. Still, that hasn't stopped Jackman from saying he would have kept going if the X-Men had been added to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Way to twist the knife, Hugh.

In any case, based on reviews and reactions, this is a near-perfect way for both Stewart and Jackman to end their 17-year part in the X-Men franchise. So long, Stewart, and thanks for being so extraordinary.

[MIKA27]

Bill Paxton Dies At 61 After Surgery Complications

Bill Paxton, the actor behind iconic roles in Aliens, Titanic, and Apollo 13, has passed away at 61 years old.

According to TMZ, who first reported the loss (later confirmed by People Magazine), Paxton died after complications from surgery. The 61-year-old actor had a string of hits with films like Aliens and Twister, and was more recently seen on Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He has a role in the upcoming Emma Watson and Tom Hanks Silicon Valley thriller, The Circle.

Paxton is also one of only two actors to have been killed onscreen by an Alien, a Predator, and a Terminator, an honour he shares with Lance Henriksen. He leaves behind a wife and two children.

"Bill's passion for the arts was felt by all who knew him, and his warmth and tireless energy were undeniable," Paxton's family told TMZ.

 

MIKA: I love Bill Paxton movies, such a diverse actor but this is the best way I'll remember him, his laugh is hilarious

 

[Fuzz]

It's game over, man

 

[MIKA27]

How a Gin Craze Nearly Destroyed 18th-Century London

Between 1700 and 1760, London was involved in a passionate but staggeringly destructive love affair with gin, popularly known as “the mother’s ruin.” The city was positively drowning in the stuff.

By 1730, an estimated 7,000 gin shops (and probably many more if one was somehow able to count the untold illegal drinking dens) were catering to the trade, with some 10 million gallons of the spirit distilled each year. Historical accounts of violence, widespread addiction, and social devastation call to mind the early 80s crack epidemic that hit the US with ferocity.

For many working-class Londoners, gin became more than a drink. It sated desperate hunger pangs, offered relief from the perpetual cold, and was a blessed escape from the brutal drudgery of life in the slums and workhouses. It was a cheap buzz that could be had for pennies on any decrepit street corner stand or in the bowels of some stinking cellar—and it quickly wrecked havoc on inner city London.

Thomas Fielding, a social historian of the time, wrote about the ravages of the trade on what he termed the “inferior people” in his 1751 political pamphlet Enquiry into the causes of the late increase of Robbers:

“A new kind of drunkenness, unknown to our ancestors, is lately sprung up among us, and which if not put a stop to, will infallibly destroy a great part of the inferior people. The drunkenness I here intend is … by this poison called Gin … the principal sustenance (if it may be so called) of more than a hundred thousand people in this Metropolis.”

But why gin? Why did this particular spirit—rather than whiskey or brandy, say—cause such widespread devastation?

During Britain’s many years of war with France, the French brandy that had previously flowed in London pubs became unfashionable—unpatriotic, even—and was thus increasingly difficult to get hold of. Parliament then passed a number of legislative measures designed to increase domestic spirit production and break the French stranglehold on the market.

A corresponding drop in food prices ensured that working people had a larger disposable income to spend on booze. Thus was born the perfect storm.

While gin maintained a generally urbane and sophisticated image in the 20th century—bringing to mind the world-weary crumple chic of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, or perhaps Ian Fleming propping up the bar on his third industrial-strength martini—it bears mentioning that the drink consumed in 18th-century London was a far grizzlier beast.

Originally imported from Holland in the late 17th century, the original Dutch spirit known a jenever was a weaker (at around 30 percent alcohol by volume) drink. But the gin distilled in London was fiendishly strong and very often adulterated with hideous impurities. Make no mistake: we’re not talking any kind of “dry,” botanical-based sophistication here. It was more of a throat-searing, eye-reddening, vomit-churning hell broth.

Turpentine spirit and sulphuric acid were common additions, and—as with American moonshine or Irish poteen—tales of blindness among those who frequented the drinking dens and gin shops in the teeming London slums were not infrequent. The infamous signage above the gas-lit gin cellars read: “Drunk for a penny; dead drunk for two pennies; clean straw for nothing.” The assumption was that after spending more than a few pennies, you’d be so hammered that the only option would be to pass out on a bed of straw. (“Clean”—yeah, right.)

One tragic event, however, captured the zeitgeist and caused public outcry that led to the beginning of the end for the gin craze. In 1734, a woman named Judith Dufour strangled her two-year-old son and sold his clothes for gin. The attendant coverage ensured that Parliament—though enjoying pretty hefty taxes from the trade—had to act. Over the course of the next two decades, it passed a number of bills aimed at slowing the city’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for gin.

Foremost among these was the 1751 Gin Act, which prohibited distillers from selling to unlicensed merchants and also increased the fees charged to small-time merchants—a decision that led to gin no longer being sold in small gin shops, but rather the bigger pubs where quality control was tighter.

As historian GM Trevelyan described in volume three of his Illustrated Social History:

“The Act of 1751 really did reduce the excesses of spirit drinking. It was a turning point in the social history of London and was so considered when this time was still within living memory, but even after that blessed date medical men still attributed an eighth of the deaths of London adults to spirit drinking; but the worst was over, and after the middle years of the century tea became a formidable rival to alcohol with all classes, both in the capital and in the country at large.”

After the act was passed, the Gin Craze was immortalised in Hogarth’s notorious 1751 print Gin Lane.

The artist depicted an inner London slum ravaged by drunkenness. A shocking social document at the time, Gin Lane showed a tableau of deprivation: a baby dangles from a railing while the mother sits in a drunken stupor; a beggar and his dog hungrily fight over a bone; brawling breaks out over the street and a dead body is stripped of valuables; a pawnbroker does a roaring trade as people swap their goods for money to buy more gin.

The print was accompanied by a fiery verse from James Townley: “Gin cursed fiend, with fury fraught; makes human race a prey; it enters by a deadly draught; and steals our life away.”

Gin Lane was accompanied by another print by Hogarth called Beer Street, which extolled the happy and carefree virtues of vast tankards of foaming ale, depicting a hive of industry as rotund and happy Englishmen down pints of beer, the “happy produce of our isle … we quaff thy balmy juice with glee and water leave to France.”

But although cheap gin was held in disrepute for some time, in recent years the real thing has returned to favour in the capital. A selection of small distilleries have opened up in London and are winning accolades for their botanical-laden distillations. Sipsmiths has won awards for its London Dry Gin, while the East London Liquor Company is equally interested in (quality) old methods of distillation, infusing its gin with grapefruit peel, cardamon, and cubeb berries, among many other botanicals.

It’s all rather polite, and certainly far removed from the days of staggering out of the gin shop with a pint of poisonous fight juice. Just don’t call it a craze.

[MIKA27]

San Francisco House Boat

Anchored in a small canal on Mission Creek in San Francisco, California, lays this beautiful modern contemporary floating home designed by Robert Nebolon Architects. Envisioned by a pair of adventurous first-time homeowners, the 2,100-square-foot floating house was built in a Sausalito boatyard, and then towed across the San Francisco Bay safely to its slip on San Francisco’s Mission Creek where it now proudly resides. Everything has a contemporary touch, starting with the open space living room, soaring windows and natural color palette, the bright kitchen design and finishing with a stunning dining area. The owners say "This is the coolest place to live in San Francisco, you’re practically in the center of the city, but you’re on the water with the seals, fish and birds.” 

[MIKA27]

WILD TURKEY MASTER'S KEEP DECADES BOURBON

The second and latest release in the Wild Turkey Master's Keep collection is ready to consume, and it's another bourbon a great story that is blended masterfully. Wild Turkey Master's Keep Decades Bourbon celebrates Master Distiller Eddie Russell on his 35th anniversary at Wild Turkey. The son of bourbon baron Jimmy Russell, who he still distills with side by side, had to learn the bourbon business from the ground up starting in 1981 when he clocked in for his first day of work. Now, Eddie finally gets a share of the well-deserved spotlight with Decades, a blend of whiskies aged 10 to 20 years and bottled at 104 proof.

[MIKA27]

Storm Chasers Unite To Give Bill Paxton An Epic Tribute

Storm chasers combined forces this afternoon to pay tribute to a man who put them on the map by literally putting his initials on their maps. Hundreds of professionals and enthusiasts are checking in to form the letters "BP" with their GPS coordinates.

Paxton reportedly died on Saturday due to complications following heart surgery. He was just 61-years-old.

Like Paxton's character in the 1996 blockbuster Twister, storm chasers grabbed their gear and hit the road to mark the coordinates that would draw out an epic tribute to the prolific actor.

Coordinating through Facebook groups, the mourners placed their Spotter Network markers in apps like RadarScope Pro.

It was a small thank you to the actor who considerably raised the national profile of storm chasers when he played one in Twister. While Paxton had spent years playing supporting characters in films like Apollo 13, Near Dark and Aliens, it was Twister that made him a household name.

Just before his death, Paxton was set to reprise his role as Master Sergeant Farell in an upcoming sequel to Edge of Tomorrow. The director of that film, Doug Liman, spoke to the New York Daily News today. He said Paxton was in great spirits recently, "Even facing major surgery, his optimism for the future was infectious."

Unfortunately, Paxton won't be coming back. But the audience has his previous roles, the storm chasers have his inspiration and those who knew him remember him fondly. "Bill Paxton could play any role, but he was best at being Bill - a great human being with a huge heart. My thoughts are with his family," Arnold Schwarzenegger tweeted.

You can see how the mapping tribute is shaping up below:

The letters "BP" coming together on storm chaser GPS coordinates for actor Bill Paxton. #Twister #RIPBillPaxton

It just keeps getting better! Hundreds of storm chasers honoring Bill Paxton in KS and OK. Each dot is one person's GPS. #RIPBillPaxton

[MIKA27]

Here's our first look at Netflix's 'Bright,' starring Will Smith

Why would Netflix pay $90 million for a single film? Two words: Will Smith. The blockbuster star is teaming back up with David Ayer, the director of Suicide Squad, for Bright, a new fantasy action film. Tonight at the Academy Awards we caught our first glimpse at the movie, which basically looks like a bunch of Suicide Squad deleted scenes. Smith stars as a cop in a world where humans live alongside fantasy creatures, and he partners up with an orc (Joel Edgerton) to track down a superweapon.

Netflix is reportedly aiming to make Bright a franchise, and given the star power involved, there's a good chance it'll encourage even more people to sign up for subscriptions. The streaming video company also reportedly paid over $100 million for Martin Scorsese's next film, The Irishman, with Robert DeNiro, as well as $60 million for the Brad Pitt-starring War Machine.

 

[MIKA27]

SpaceX Will Fly Two Private Citizens Around The Moon In 2018

Well, here's a bit of space news we weren't expecting: Today, future Martian overlord and SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced that in 2018, the company will fly two private citizens around the Moon in its Dragon 2 spacecraft, carried by its extremely powerful Falcon Heavy rocket. While the voyagers' names have not been disclosed, according to SpaceX, a "significant deposit" has already been made.

"This is a really exciting thing that's happened," Elon Musk told reporters at a press conference. "We've been approached to do a crewed mission beyond the Moon...[and these passengers] are very serious about it. We plan to do that probably [with] Dragon 2 spacecraft with the Falcon Heavy rocket."

According to Musk, the mission will last approximately one week. The passengers will travel beyond the Moon and loop back to Earth, covering a distance of 500,000 to 650,000km. While the passengers will undergo some sort of training beforehand, it's unclear if the two have any experience with piloting, never mind spaceflight.

The mission, although unrelated to NASA's plan to slingshot astronauts around the Moon in several years' time using the SLS rocket and the Orion capsule, was made possible in part by funding SpaceX has received to develop its human spaceflight technology through the commercial crew program.

This won't be the last time we see this sort of voyage from SpaceX — according to Musk, the company is "expected to do more than one mission of this nature".

Money can't buy you happiness, but apparently, it can buy you one sweet holiday.

[MIKA27]

Final Trailer For Kong: Skull Island 

I have zero doubts that this final trailer for Kong: Skull Island, released less than two weeks before the film's release, is filled with spoilers. But I really don't care. It is simply one of the most incredible, monster-filled, action-packed trailers I've seen in a long time.

Kong: Skull Island opens March 9 and you're going to start seeing reviews this week. Whatever those reviews end up saying, though, at least we'll always have this wild, over-the-top, glorious trailer. Check it out.

The director of Kong, Jordan Vogt-Roberts, tweeted that this trailer is the result of his obsession with the trailer for Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden. He wanted a more rhythmic trailer, and so there's this, set to "We've Got to Get Out of This Place" by the Animals, which is both an awesome song, but also pretty appropriate for the humans who make the mistake of visiting Skull Island.

It opens next Thursday.

MIKA: One thing I really am over in movies is the over saturation of Jamuel L Jackson. I know a lot of people like him but im really over his over the top speeches..

[Fuzz]

1 hour ago, MIKA27 said:

Final Trailer For Kong: Skull Island 

I have zero doubts that this final trailer for Kong: Skull Island, released less than two weeks before the film's release, is filled with spoilers. But I really don't care. It is simply one of the most incredible, monster-filled, action-packed trailers I've seen in a long time.

Kong: Skull Island opens March 9 and you're going to start seeing reviews this week. Whatever those reviews end up saying, though, at least we'll always have this wild, over-the-top, glorious trailer. Check it out.

The director of Kong, Jordan Vogt-Roberts, tweeted that this trailer is the result of his obsession with the trailer for Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden. He wanted a more rhythmic trailer, and so there's this, set to "We've Got to Get Out of This Place" by the Animals, which is both an awesome song, but also pretty appropriate for the humans who make the mistake of visiting Skull Island.

It opens next Thursday.

MIKA: One thing I really am over in movies is the over saturation of Jamuel L Jackson. I know a lot of people like him but im really over his over the top speeches..

Is he sick and tired of the <censored> monkeys on the <censored> island?

[MIKA27]

32 minutes ago, Fuzz said:

Is he sick and tired of the <censored> monkeys on the <censored> island?

Something along those lines mate.

I only hope if such a rant commenced, KONG himself would just smash his fist down on top of him 

[MIKA27]

Enormous Mudslide Devastates New Zealand Marine Reserve

New Zealand's Kaikoura Canyon — known for its abundant seabed life — is now an undersea wasteland following a series of earthquake-induced mudslides.

Back in November 2016, New Zealand was rocked by a series of strong earthquakes. These quakes triggered a number of landslides, some of which spilled mud and debris into the ocean. Scientists have now learned that Kaikoura Canyon was hit by a particularly large series of undersea mudslides, destroying everything that lived on the seafloor.

Kaikoura Canyon is a U-shaped underwater trench that stretches for 60km in the northeast region of New Zealand's South Island. Ten years ago, a joint mission by researchers from New Zealand and the United States found that the mud on the canyon floor is absolutely packed with sea critters, leading to its designation as a marine reserve.

The Kaikoura Canyon 

"It was about 100 times higher than anything reported anywhere else for that kind of seabed," noted ecologist Dave Bowden from New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in a statement. "There was an extraordinary amount of life living in the bottom of the canyon which we think was a consequence of the very high marine productivity of the whole region."

The floor of this canyon is home to a very dense population of large invertebrates, such as burrowing sea cucumbers, spoon worms, bristle worms and sea urchins. All this life contributes to the surrounding ecosystem, not to mention the local commercial fisheries.

And now it's all gone.

November's earthquakes sent piles of mud and debris into the central channel, snuffing out everything in their path.

"In 2013 everything at the head of the canyon was smooth and draped in mud," noted NIWA marine geologist Joshu Mountjoy. "Our new data shows that the earthquake resulted in a huge slipping event. Almost every part of the upper slope had mud removed from it." Mountjoy said the amount of mud that slipped into the canyon was "massive". The structure of the canyon remains intact, but the mudslides left no evidence of seabed life, according to the results of two surveys conducted earlier this year.

"We surveyed exactly the same area we did in 2006... this time didn't record evidence of a single organism living on or in the seabed over a stretch of nearly six kilometres of seabed. Nothing. It was quite sobering, and a catastrophic event for the ecology of the canyon." Previously, the seafloor was covered with burrows, tracks, pits and mounds made by seabed animals — but now it's smooth and barren.

While investigating the site, the researchers spotted some fish and whales, but it's not known how the loss of seafloor marine life will affect these predatory populations.

During a 2006 survey of Kaikoura Canyon, these organisms were found in a 0.2 square metre sample of the seafloor. 

Encouragingly, the researchers have every reason to believe that the area will eventually bounce back. And in fact, given New Zealand's seismic history, this has probably happened before.

"We suspect that events like this might happen every few hundred years in the Kaikoura Canyon," said Bowden. "It will be very interesting to follow what happens from here, and I will be highly surprised if it doesn't regenerate."

Indeed, the mud may have wiped out the seabed's organisms, but the conditions for life remain intact. The very means of destruction — the mud itself — may eventually provide the habitat required for these ecologically important lifeforms to return.

[MIKA27]

Nokia 3310

The Nokia 3310 is back. The iconic phone lives again in colour and with a month’s worth of battery life. Hoping to prove that things like affordable tech never go out of style, Nokia brings back an old favorite. The nostalgic model was called "the brick phone” because it was strong, sturdy and dependable, and it now returns with a serious revamp, an updated user interface, single and dual SIM variants, 2.4-inch color display, a 2 MP camera, a whopping 22 hours of talk time and a up to a month of standby time, 16MB of storage with microSD expansion, and a built-in FM radio and MP3 player. It also includes of course "snake”, the best phone game ever. Well, back in the day anyway...

Personally, I wonder who would buy this? Sure it brings back memories, but I could never go back to the old phones again, long live smart phones.

 

[MIKA27]

Weta Workshop's Ghost In The Shell Work Is Incredible

Not that it needed reinforcing, but just in case, let's take a moment to geek out at Weta Workshop's creations for Ghost in the Shell.

Weta showed off some of the animatronics behind the geisha robots in a video with Adam Savage recently, with Weta co-founder Sir Richard Taylor explaining the mechanics of how it all worked.

According to Sir Taylor, a young Japanese actor called Rila Fukushima (whose role in Ghost in the Shell isn't known, yet) as a model for the hard masks. Her face was then scanned, hardcast, and that was used as a base for building a hard mask that could fit over the heads of other actors.

The stuff Weta produces is always fascinating, but then there's the animatronics to consider as well. The video's below so you can watch it for yourself, but take a moment - rewind if you need to - to appreciate how ridiculously intricate the work is. And now think of how many masks, how many creations have to be made for an entire film.

For what it's worth, do a tour the Weta Workshop cave if you ever get a chance. (It's included as part of those Lord of the Rings location tours, if you find yourself on one of those.)

[MIKA27]

New Fate Of The Furious Trailer Reveals The Ghosts In Toretto's Past

What ghosts? Who knows! But they seem to be there. The first trailer for the eighth installment of the Fast and Furious franchise, The Fate of the Furious, revealed that Dom Is The Bad Guy. Why? We didn’t know. This new international trailer sheds some light on things.

Charlize Theron’s character seems to know Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) from somewhere and somehow recruits him to be on her side. She has to have something pretty big on him; otherwise, he would not have turned on his family.

Also, yes, the trailer has explosions and fast cars and stuff, if you’re looking for that. I just want to solve this damn mystery.

The Fate of the Furious hits theaters on April 14.

[MIKA27]

Ferrari Accused Of Allowing Illegal Odometer Rollbacks In New US Lawsuit

Ferrari's relationship with the concepts of "truth" and "fairness" has occasionally been a bit like one of their cars on a set of bald tires: fast and loose. Now, in a lawsuit from a longtime Ferrari salesperson, the company is accused of authorizing the use of devices that allow used Ferraris odometers to be rolled back, sometimes all the way to zero. That, of course, is very illegal.

As first reported by the UK's Daily Mail, Palm Beach-area Ferrari salesman Robert "Bud" Root has accused Ferrari, in a lawsuit against New Country Motor Cars of Palm Beach, of authorizing the use of their Ferrari DEIS Tester diagnostic tool to roll back customer's odometers so that they can sell their cars for substantially higher money.

The lawsuit's primary focus is a wrongful termination case, since Root claims he was fired both for age discrimination reasons and for whistleblowing on the odometer rollbacks.

The nature of the Ferrari DEIS Tester itself suggests that any actions undertaken using the DEIS Tester tool was not simply the choice of the local dealership, Ferrari of Palm Beach, because each use of the tool requires online authorization from Ferrari. In other words, this was systemic, not isolated.

We've reached out to Ferrari for comment, and will update this story as soon as we get a response.

The process is described in the lawsuit itself, Root v. New Country Motor Cars of Palm Beach (Case No.:SO-2016-CA-012223):

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Each time the Deis Tester device is utilised on a Ferrari vehicle, authorization is obtained from the Ferrari entities via a wireless network connection. During the process, vehicle diagnostics and procedures performed with the Deis Tester device are automatically uploaded to a Ferrari database.

The specific instance of odometer rollback referenced in the lawsuit involves the 2015 Ferrari LaFerrari owned by C. Stephen McMillian, a retired CEO of the large food conglomerate Sara Lee.

Root's lawsuit claims he was opposed to and voiced his concerns over the rolling back of odometers, though the procedure on McMillian's LaFerrari went ahead anyway:

Quote

51. On or about October 22, 2015, one of Defendants' technicians utilised the Deis Tester device to reset the odometer on McMillan's 2015 Ferrari LaFerrari to "0." McMillan paid the technician cash to perform this operation. The Ferrari entities were aware of the operation because the technician had to obtain logon information from Ferrari N.A. to use the device and because the technician was on the phone with Ferrari N.A. during the operation. Defendants authorised the technician to take the Deis Tester device to the customer's premises to use on the vehicle.

According to a footnote in the lawsuit, the clandestine odometer rollback of the LaFerrari hypercar increased its value over $US1 million.

Now, McMillian has filed a lawsuit against Root claiming that Root's allegations of McMillian paying to have the odometer rolled back are slanderous, and that Root "interfered with an advantageous business relationship."

The suit also says the odometer rollback of the LaFerrari was noticed by other technicians, who brought it to the attention of Jay Youmans, General Manager of the dealership. The complaint describes the event:

Quote

 

On or about October 23, 2015, Youmans was advised by a different technician, who spotted revelatory data on the Deis tester, that the subject technician had performed the odometer rollback on the LaFerrari. Youmans immediately confronted the subject technician, who attempted to show Youmans excerpts from the Ferrari manual which state unambiguously that the rollback is authorised under the circumstances in which it was done on McMillan's vehicle. Youmans refused to listen, and swore at the technician.

Youmans learned during this confrontation that Plaintiff had once spoken to the customer about the Deis Tester device and its odometer rollback capabilities.

54. Youmans knew that responsibility for this illegal incident rested with the customer who requested and paid for it, the technician who performed it, the Defendant dealership which authorised the technician to use the device off premises, the Ferrari entities which published a manual seemingly approving the rollback procedure, and most importantly with Youmans who was supposed to supervise the employees and prevent illegal conduct.

 

The complaint goes on to state that the odometer rollback provided the ideal reason for Youmans to fire Root, allegedly due to his age. According to the lawsuit, Youmans wanted to attract a younger clientele, and wanted to replace Root with his 32-year old girlfriend, Noelle Miskulin, which he did.

Since we're a car enthusiast blog as opposed to a wrongful termination-enthusiast blog, let's focus on the underlying big, red horse in the room: Ferrari allegedly provides its dealers and service centres with a means to, with at the very least implicit factory authorization, alter the odometer readings on any customer's car.

Any sort of odometer tampering is a federal crime, which has resulted in convictions with sentences ranging from 18 months to seven years in prison — the latter being for major defendants in large prosecutions.

The complaint makes mention of written policy from Ferrari itself describing how to roll back odometers:

Quote

46. The Ferrari entities published a written policy manual dating back to at least April 2010 specifically detailing how to perform an odometer rollback and expressly authorizing its use. Upon information and belief, this Ferrari policy was used at the Ferrari factory in Italy as recently as March 2015 to instruct Ferrari technicians how to reset to "0" the odometer on a Ferrari vehicle.

Odometer rollbacks to increase the value of used cars have, of course, been known for decades, dating back to when a car salesman with a coathanger and a deft hand could take years and miles off a car's life. Still, the vast majority of these incidents were completely in the hands of the seller, not the vehicle manufacturer.

[MIKA27]

Black Holes May Be Way More Murderous Than We Realised

Don't get me wrong, black holes are cool, but they're also giant voids of terror: These gravitational abysses have been known to snack on stars in occurrences called Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs). It's always the same horror story — an unsuspecting star wanders too close to a black hole, only to get ripped apart by the black hole's gravity. Isn't space pleasant?

Traditionally, astronomers have searched for TDEs in sky surveys that encompass thousands of galaxies, leading them to believe that these events were extremely rare — only one tidal disruption every 10,000 to 100,000 years per galaxy. But after observing a likely TDE in a sky survey of just 15 galaxies, a team of researchers at the University of Sheffield in the UK has concluded black holes may be ripping up stars 100 times more often than previously assumed, based on this relatively small sample size. Their research was published today in Nature Astronomy. 

"Each of these 15 galaxies is undergoing a 'cosmic collision' with a neighbouring galaxy," Dr James Mullaney, Lecturer in Astronomy and co-author of the study, said in a press release.

"Our surprising findings show that the rate of TDEs dramatically increases when galaxies collide. This is likely due to the fact that the collisions lead to large numbers of stars being formed close to the central supermassive black holes in the two galaxies as they merge together."

Earlier this month, a team of researchers released their findings on the longest-recorded TDE, which clocked in at 10 years. While we can't normally see black holes — as they swallow everything, light included — we can see flare ups of energy as stars are in the process of being devoured. Learning more about the destructive tendencies of black holes today will give us a better understanding of how they will shape the cosmos in the future, especially within our own galaxy.

"Based on our results for [a galaxy known as] F01004-2237, we expect that TDE events will become common in our own Milky Way galaxy when it eventually merges with the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy in about 5 billion years," Clive Tadhunter, Professor of Astrophysics and lead author of the study, said in a press release.

"Looking towards the center of the Milky Way at the time of the merger we'd see a flare [from a tidal disruption event] approximately every 10 to 100 years. The flares would be visible to the naked eye and appear much brighter than any other star or planet in the night sky."

It's worth noting that this is just one study, which came to its conclusions based on a single TDE, which still needs to be confirmed by further investigation. There's a lot more work to be done if we want to truly nail down the behaviour of these elusive beasts.

"First, let me say that finding a TDE in a starburst galaxy, as these authors seem to have done, is an important discovery, as it has never been seen before," Nicholas Stone, a postdoctoral Einstein Fellow in the Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, told Gizmodo. "However, I think more follow-up observations may be necessary to confirm this TDE candidate as a true TDE. In particular, I am a little concerned by the possible late-time increase in luminosity in this flare, which would not be expected for most TDEs. Further monitoring of this galaxy can ascertain whether the flare is re-brightening or dimming."

Ah, the brightening and dimming of a star's abbreviated life. Cheers to many more years of stellar cannibalism!

 

[MIKA27]

The Bitch Is Back In The New Alien: Covenant Trailer

The latest Alien: Covenant trailer wasn't supposed to drop until tomorrow, but lookie here: A deeper exploration of the Covenant's crew and the nature of their mission, a good look at the (weirdly quiet) planet they land on, lots of running and shrieking and an ominous tag line straight outta Dante's Inferno.

Oh yeah, and plenty of juicy Xenomorph drool. Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant is out May 18.

[MIKA27]

'Ghost Recon Wildlands' Draws from the Real-Life Cartel War

Ubisoft's new game may seem ridiculous, but the over-the-top tactics are—unfortunately—more realistic that you might think.

One half of the team moved in on the cartel boss' hideout by night, watched overhead by their partners in an helicopter gunship. The narcos retreated to the second floor of a building, scattering to pick up machine guns and a grenade launcher.

That's when the helicopter's minigun opened fire, hammering through the walls and tearing the narcos apart. With another capo down, the team moved in to search for intel that might lead to their next target.

Though it might seem like a mission out of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands, this battle between Mexican Marines and the Beltrán Leyva drug cartel actually occurred two weeks ago, in the Mexican city of Tepic. It wasn't the first time the Marines had used helicopter gunships against cartel targets, but previous incidents had been in rural areas, not the heart of a city. This underscores why it's difficult to create believable fiction out of the ongoing Mexican Cartel War: what's over-the-top one day might be standard tactics the next.

"In 2009, Breaking Bad had an episode where Mexican cartels used an IED," says Ioan Grillo, a journalist and author of the book Gangster Warlords. "I thought 'Oh, that's too much,' then in 2010 there was an IED in Ciudad Juarez."

Into this bizarre middle ground between fiction and reality steps Wildlands, a game that explicitly draws inspiration from the ongoing cartel war. The gameplay mirrors DEA strategy, the villains resemble real figures from the conflict, and the cartel follows a well-established Mexican folk saint, Santa Muerte. But in a culture where reality and fiction are already blurred by cartel myth-making, how do you parse out what about Wildlands is real and what's not? And does it even matter?

A Work of Fiction that Draws on Fact

"Our philosophy with the Tom Clancy brand is to find out what's real and to deviate from that to make a great game," says Sam Strachman, Wildlands' Narrative Director. "We had the great opportunity to team up with New York Times bestselling authors Don Winslow and Shane Salerno to create the cartel-themed narrative for the game."

Winslow and Salerno are easy partners to brag about. Don Winslow's novels The Power of the Dog and The Cartel are well-regarded portrayals of the US war on drugs, while screenwriter Shane Salerno has helped adapt several of Winslow's books for the screen. They have a good grasp of the history at work here—so if you want to know the basics before picking up your controller, you'd best catch up.

The Mexican Cartel War broke out due to a collision of economics and politics. In the 1980s and '90s, a US crackdown started pinching off the traditional Colombian trafficking routes in the Caribbean. Ever pragmatic, the Colombians looked instead to contacts in Mexico which, due to NAFTA, suddenly had an open trade border with the United States. These Mexican middlemen expanded their power over time, until they controlled 90% of the cocaine coming into the US. 

That was the good time.

In 2000, the PRI—the Mexican party that had held power for 71 years—got voted out in favor of the National Action Party (PAN), which took a hard line against drug cartels. The old system of payouts that kept the country stable fell apart, and soon the cartels were at war with each other and openly battling security forces. In response, in 2006 President Felipe Calderón sent 6,500 Mexican ground troops and federal police into Michoacan, along with helicopters and navy gunboats. Soon, similar forces would storm cities across the country.

It only got worse. Deaths as a result of the drug war rose from 1,500 in 2004 to almost 17,000 in 2011.

"Back in 2011 there was this incredible escalation of violence, and a fear that the escalation would continue," says Grillo. "Thankfully, it did reduce or plateau a bit, but we've still had a sustained layer of violence in parts of Mexico."

Grillo explains that since 2011, the government has killed or arrested a number of major cartel heads—including the world's most famous drug lord "El Chapo" Guzman, who was recently extradited to the US. But violence has continued and anti-cartel militias, known as autodefensas, are increasingly common as locals take their security into their own hands.

As Grillo explores in Gangster Warlords and his previous book, El Narco, these battles between cartels, militias, and government forces often resemble actions we only associate with war—or the over-the-top narratives of FPS games.

"It was not a regular criminal situation here," he says. "You had guys with shoulder-carried rocket launchers shoot down military helicopters. You had a gunfight in 2010 when there were 500 gunmen against 2,000 federal police—helicopters were involved in that as well—crazy fighting, and a lot of people dying, and a battle over a large area."

And according to Grillo, the war has entrenched cartels even more deeply in local communities: "They've gotten into local politics to the point of charging mayors 10% of their budgets, and controlling—having their own people—run mayor's offices in these cities."

As a result, it's not too difficult to give some credence to Wildlands' idea of a narco-state that's carved up into territories controlled by either cartels or government forces, though he says it's a stretch to suggest that Mexican Cartels could take control of Bolivia.

"Mexican cartels are present in many countries, but being present is different from controlling," says Grillo, explaining that cartels dispatch operatives to countries like Peru and Honduras in order to buy raw ingredients, cook meth, or launder money. They also partner with local gangs for these operations, but they're not controlling territory or running large groups of hitmen. "The country where you see Mexican cartels act most violently has been Guatemala," he continues. "The Zetas established themselves quite deeply there, carried out massacres, and got really powerful in some small towns in northern Guatemala."

But Strachman cautions that Wildlands' scenario is meant to be speculative, not taken as completely realistic. "From a narrative perspective, we worked with numerous experts to create an authentic and thrilling Tom Clancy 'what if?' scenario, including building on the tense relationship between the DEA and Bolivia." Beyond that, Strachman says, it was Bolivia's geography that sold it as a setting.

"Bolivia is beautiful and has varied terrain that lends itself to diverse gameplay," he says. "Players will be able to fly over the salt flats, drive through the Altiplano, and chase their enemy on the infamous Yungas 'Death Road.' The environment is perfectly suited to the new type of open-world gameplay we want to offer."

Ironically, Bolivia is the one place in Latin America where drug violence is going down. In 2008, the country pursued a radical new drug strategy that involved kicking out the DEA and controlling its coca leaf-growing regions via agricultural policy. This tactic—where the government allows farmers to grow a certain amount of coca leaf for personal use, and to be sold for legal purposes—has cut the country's coca crop in half and significantly lowered the bloodshed.

"There used to be all kinds of conflict before. Now it couldn't be more different," coca farmer Roxana Argandoña told a Vice reporter last year. "The soldiers would abuse us, especially the women, sexually. Now, there is respect on both sides."

The United States, however, was not thrilled by Bolivia's drug strategy, preferring to disrupt cartels by decapitating their leadership—the kind of strategy portrayed in Ghost Recon Wildlands.

Cut Off the Head...

Though the United States deploys no troops in the Cartel War, its influence is significant. Since 2008, the US has contributed $2.5 billion worth of Black Hawk helicopters, communications equipment, training, and black ops gear to Mexican forces. DEA operations assist via intelligence sharing and helping Mexican security forces target cartel heads.

"The DEA has a continuing year-on-year mission of arresting drug traffickers, busting drug loads, and getting drug traffickers to prisons in the United States," explains Grillo. "Often they gain information to arrest more drug traffickers, bust more drugs, bust money, get more people extradited, seize more assets, it's kind of a continual cycle. Billions of dollars go into that."

The DEA's theory is that if Mexico kills or captures a kingpin and "decapitates" a cartel, they'll destabilize and weaken the drug trafficking structure—hopefully enough that it falls apart. This is sometimes called the "Kingpin Strategy."

This is, essentially, the strategy portrayed in Wildlands: the player hits a lieutenant in order to damage an underboss' operation, and in doing so, collects intelligence that eventually opens the underboss to a decapitation raid. You kill your way to the center of the web, from the lowest sicario all the way to El Sueño himself—with a certain amount of choice about how to take on targets.

"From the beginning of development, we knew we wanted to create a game with total freedom of choice in a massive, dangerous and responsive open-world," says Strachman. "The kingpin hierarchy best suits the mission structure of the game."

But in reality, Kingpin Strategy is controversial. On one hand, Grillo points out, the government has no option but to pursue cartel heads. After all, the very fact of their existence de-legitimizes the government and suggests authorities can't keep control. 

But the vastly profitable drug trade means that no matter how many gang leaders you kill or arrest, someone will always step into their place (though Strachman hints that characters may address this in the game). In addition, decapitating a cartel often makes violence go up as underbosses turn on each other for control of the organization, or rivals pounce on the weakened cartel's territory. "When Arturo Beltrán Leyva was killed in 2009," says Grillo, "Cuernavaca went from being a very peaceful place to a very violent place."

But according to Grillo, more than the devil's bargain of Kingpin Strategy, the problem with US drug policy is that it lacks focus—after all, in geopolitics there's no waypoints and simple mission briefs.

"Washington lacks a coherent strategy for dealing with cartels and crime in Latin America," says Grillo, pointing out that the government has sent mixed signals on granting asylum, international aid, drug legalization, trade and border security—policies that may alter significantly under the Trump administration. "What it does have is a series of different and often competing agendas."

Meanwhile, the Cartel War drags on, and the people who live in it must find ways to live with the violence in ways that increasingly involve culture or religion—including religions born from the drug war itself.

The Skeleton Saint and the Craziest One

Faith defines the Santa Blanca Cartel. Religious tattoos cover its leader's body. Cartel hideouts coalesce around shrines. The very name Santa Blanca is a reference to Santa Muerte, a personified death figure that's emerged as an unsanctioned offshoot of Roman Catholic saints. 

In the game, this religious belief is at the center of loyalty to the cartel.

"The Santa Blanca Cartel makes up some of these followers, and they leverage Santa Muerte to win over locals and exert influence," explains Strachman.

And while it's possible Wildlands may not portray Santa Muerte worship in all its subtleties, it's true that the skeleton saint is deeply entwined with cartel culture.

"Santa Muerte appeals to narcos because of her powers of protection, prosperity and vengeance," explains Dr. Andrew Chesnut, Professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, and the foremost authority on Santa Muerte. "Since she's not a Catholic saint, she's open to all kinds of petitions, including ones that might violate Christian morality."

In his book Devoted to Death—the only academic book on Santa Muerte in English—Dr. Chesnut describes how the saint arose as a fusion of Catholic doctrine and Pre-Columbian indigenous beliefs. 

When Spanish missionaries arrived in Latin America, they used the Spanish symbol of the Grim Reaperess—known as La Parca—as a way to represent the fear of death while preaching to locals. The indigenous people then interpreted that imagery through the death gods of their own cultures, such as the Aztec underworld god Mictecacihuatl. Santa Muerte has therefore existed for centuries, but the recent Cartel War has dragged her out of relative obscurity as the most recognizable "narco saint."

"Narcos are in constant danger of being killed," says Dr. Chesnut, "so who better to ask for a few more months or years in her hourglass of life than death herself?"

Beyond that, he says, Santa Muerte has gained a reputation as a quick and effective miracle-worker who often comes through when traditional Catholic saints, like St. Jude, fail. "Upon the recommendation of a friend or relative, the worshipper takes the request to Santa Muerte, who within a few days performs the requested miracle."

Like the cartel head El Sueño in Wildlands, many Santa Muerte devotees incorporate tattoos into their worship. Tattoos are an act of sacrifice and devotion, often acquired as a form of thanksgiving after Santa Muerte performs a miracle on a worshipper's behalf. "The devotee has surrendered a precious part of their bodily real estate to the Bony Lady," he says. "The two most popular tattoos in Mexican prisons are Santa Muerte and the Virgin of Guadalupe."

But Dr. Chesnut points out that while Santa Muerte is often labeled a narco saint, most of her worshippers aren't criminals—in fact, she has a large number of followers in the LGBT community and the poor, since Santa Muerte worship maintains a sort of egalitarianism.

"In a Latin America plagued by socioeconomic inequality, Santa Muerte's leveling scythe—that reaps all souls eventually—resonates with those at the bottom of the steep pyramid of social class."

The Mexican and American wings of the Catholic Church, for their part, denounce Santa Muerte worship as a satanic cult.

Therefore, it wouldn't be unusual for a cartel to establish an unofficial religion for its members as the Santa Blanca Cartel does—and in fact, it's happened before. When Nazario Moreno—better known by his nickname of El Más Loco or "The Craziest One"—inherited control of La Familia Michoacana he reorganized the cartel along the lines of a quasi-religious organization that looked a lot like the Santa Blanca Cartel. In fact, once you start to look, there's little doubt that several real figures at least influenced or informed the characters in Wildlands.

Madmen and Beauty Queens: The Real-Life Narcos Behind Wildlands ' Villains

"While we were inspired through our research and collaboration with experts on the subject-matter, the characters and stories aren't based on specific people or events," cautions Sam Strachman, the game's narrative designer. However, he also says working with Don Winslow and Shane Salerno helped the team "establish a grounded storyline, a believable criminal organization … and assist in creating the in-depth backstories for key in-game characters, including the boss, El Sueño."

Though El Sueño may be entirely fictional, his fanatical religiosity and legendary reputation mirrors the infamously loco Nazario Moreno. As a youth, Moreno had always been religious, even as he sold marijuana and got in knife fights with other small-time dealers. Early in his career, his nickname translated to "The Rosary." But after a series of life-altering events—including an Evangelical conversion and severely fracturing his skull—Moreno started to see visions. 

When he took control of La Familia Michoacana in 2004, he immediately began indoctrinating his cartel members in a homebrew combination of evangelical Christianity, self-help literature, and guerilla wisdom. Nazario required members to give up drugs and study his self-published spiritual manifesto. He instituted complex initiation rituals that involved wearing armor. The cartel's violence too took on a medieval, even Old Testament vibe—La Familia would flog, crucify, or behead enemies to "protect" the people of Michoacan. The layer of religiosity served as both social control and a way to frame killings as divine justice.

"As a divinely inspired and sanctioned enterprise, the cartel became something much greater than a criminal syndicate driven only by profit," says Dr. Chesnut. "The pseudo-evangelicalism provided a moral basis for the cartels to portray themselves as noble knights crusading against the heretical invaders of Michoacan, mostly the Zetas Cartel."

Indeed, after Moreno "died" in a gunbattle with police—in reality he escaped and went into hiding—he reorganized the most devout members of La Familia into an even more fanatical group known as the Knights Templar. Members of the cartel began to evangelize their leader as a narco-saint, bolstered by Moreno's "ghost" appearing on the streets dressed in white. Police dismissed these sightings as folk rumors until Mexican security forces gunned Moreno down a second time in 2014.

El Sueño isn't the only character to have parallels. Wildlands' E3 presentation last year introduced us to El Pozolero, the "Stewmaker" who dissolves bodies in drums full of caustic soda. In 2009, the Mexican Army caught a man with the same nickname and modus operandi. The cartel's security expert, El Muro ("The Wall") served in the Mexican military before defecting to the cartel—which is exactly how the Zetas began.

Nidia Flores seems to take cues from Sandra Beltrán, whose fleet of smuggling boats gained her the name La Reina del Pacifico ("Queen of the Pacific") and who helped inspire the telenovela La Reina del Sur. The cartel's Cardinal resembles David Romo, a self-declared "archbishop" of Santa Muerte known to appear wearing a priest's collar.

Given these examples, it's clear that even some of the extreme portrayals in the game have at least some basis. But with a political topic as divisive as border security has become, we should probably ask: are there ethical questions to a game like Wildlands? Should we be fictionalizing this conflict at all?

Reality Inspires Fantasy, and Fantasy Inspires Reality

"Ghost Recon Wildlands has been in development for more than four years," says Strachman, when asked whether the presidential campaign's focus on border security and aggressiveness toward Mexico changed how the team thinks about the game. "The focus has always been about bringing the intense tactical action of the previous Ghost Recon games to the next level with total freedom of choice in a massive, dangerous, and responsive open-world. Ghost Recon Wildlands is inspired by reality, but remains a work of fiction."

That attempt to mentally separate reality and fiction is rare in media about the Cartel War. A whole slate of narco culture has grown up around drug lords and their battles, influencing everything from fashion, to architecture, to music and film. The most famous narco-media are narcocorridos, accordion and horn-centric ballads about the exciting lives and deeds of drug traffickers. (A genre that sits so close to the cartels that the frontmen get assassinated.) 

There's also the low-budget narco films—at times financed by drug kingpins—that utilize real gangsters, truck crashes, guns, and prostitutes. In the popular imagination, drug traffickers have become mythic figures.

"The narcos are larger-than-life characters anyway," says Ioan Grillo. "Certainly the narco world is fueling pop culture."

But the newest strain in drug war media, he says, are narconovellas—soap operas like El Señor de los Cielos and La Reina del Sur that combine serial melodramas with smoking-hot cast members and the treacherous narco lifestyle. Five hours of telenovelas air in Mexico every day, he says, plus numerous gossip shows about the actors and actresses. According to Grillo, this bombardment of fictionalized narcos both makes drug war media mainstream and blurs the line between the real people and fictional depictions.

"People get confused between the fantasy and the reality," he says. "Like watching La Reina del Sur, people get confused between the character, the actress, and this gangster woman named Sandra Beltrán, who did prison time for money laundering."

When Sandra Beltrán was arrested, Grillo explains, the press and prosecutors named her the "Queen of the Pacific"—maybe because she resembled the character in Arturo Pérez-Reverte's 2002 novel La Reina del Sur, or maybe because the moniker made the arrest sound good ("I've met guys in prison who say that their nicknames were made up by the prosecutors," he adds). When the novel later got adapted into a narconovella, viewers naturally assumed it was about Beltrán's real-life exploits.

But fantasy can also inspire real criminals, he adds. During his research for Gangster Warlords, he found that Jamaican gangs started naming their leaders "Dons" after seeing the Godfather movies. Mexican gangsters frequently look at characters like Don Corleone and Tony Montana of Scarface as role models. "I was in San Pedro Sula in Honduras, and there's a gang there called the Vatos Locos—they were inspired by the movie Blood In Blood Out."

Despite this cross-pollination, Grillo doesn't feel media should bear any special ethical burden while portraying the Cartel War. He doesn't support censoring culture, he says, and doesn't think a prohibition would have any effect on the violence anyway.

"If you think of all the factors that produce violence in Mexico, you've got drug money, you've got guns, you've got poverty, you've got the impunity of failed justice systems—so you've got these hardcore factors that really affect people and make someone go into violence. Maybe the culture gives some form to that violence, but is it really the cause of it?"

Talking to Grillo, you get the sense of how often he's seen real violence—execution-style slayings, massacres, battles—run through newspaper presses, film cameras, and stereo speakers. He knows that one game more or less won't ultimately change this conflict, the best it can do is teach through osmosis.

"I think any fiction's better if it's educational, it's better if you're not trying to glamorize, but I wouldn't criticize somebody for making a video game about this. Will people playing it be that educated about this stuff? Maybe, maybe not, it's their choice. It's really the same thing if you're making a video game about any conflict, I wouldn't necessarily say it's a wrong thing to do."

'Ghost Recon Wildlands' is released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on March 7th.

[MIKA27]

SCUDERIA CAMERON GLICKENHAUS SCG003S

Based on the company's well-received SCG003C race car, the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus SCG003S is a road-friendly version of this Nurburgring regular. Like the racing version, its chassis and bodywork is made from carbon fiber and preserves many of the same lines. It's far more powerful, however, thanks to the removal of class regulations that allowed for the replacement of the 3.5L V6 with a 4.4L twin-turbo V8 pumping out 800 hp. As a result, it's expected to go from 0-62 in under three seconds, reach a top speed of over 217 mph, and, most notably, make it around the Nordschleife in six minutes and thirty seconds, which would be the fastest time of any road-legal production car.