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

[GrouchoMarx]

8 hours ago, MIKA27 said:

Really? I'm confused.... Looking at some references, it doesn't seem to get near -20C let alone -40 

Ottawa, Ontario Average Temperatures Chart

That's bizarre - having lived here for over 30 years, we constantly have winter temps in the -20c 's  - and thought infrequent, it has hit -40 on more than one occasion. but i suppose when you "average it out" ?

[feral]

Adidas EQT Cushion ADV



Adidas have officially revealead the EQT Cushion ADV and its refreshed design. Inspired by the original EQT Cushion model from 1991, the new sneaker is designed with comfort as the number one priority. The runner inspired, streetwear tailored sneaker features a premium knit upper with nubuck quarter panels, welded suede on the toe, TPU lace ghilly and heel cap, and a nubuck heel patch, with signature EQT molded details showing the Three Stripes mark and reflective yarn. Release is scheduled for August 12th and will be available in three colorways.

Ugly as sin.

Sent from my ZTE A2017U using Tapatalk

[MIKA27]

Suspected Bomb From WW2 Found At Fukushima Nuclear Site

In a classic case of adding insult to injury, workers at the beleaguered Fukushima nuclear power plant have uncovered what appears to be an undetonated bomb dating back to the Second World War.

As reported in The Mainichi, a Fukushima excavation worker uncovered the device while performing maintenance work on a parking lot located about a kilometre away from the damaged No. 1 and No. 4 reactors, both of which experienced meltdowns after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. The suspected bomb has a stabiliser tail and is cylindrical in shape, measuring about 85cm in length and 15cm wide, according to TEPCO, the company responsible for the plant. The worker discovered the device at around 7:30AM local time on August 10.

Local police are now trying to figure out if it is indeed a bomb, and how to best dispose of it. The area has been cordoned off, and construction work on the parking lot suspended, but officials say the situation hasn't affected efforts to decommission the plant.

That a bomb may have been discovered near the Fukushima plant isn't shocking. Fukushima was once home to a Japanese military base, and Fukushima Prefectural Archives document airstrikes in the area around the power plant during the war. American forces dropped thousands of bombs on Japan in WWII, launching aerial attacks from China, the Mariana Islands, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and other launching points. The US military air campaign culminated in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, finally ending the war.

It isn't uncommon to find unexploded bombs in Japan and elsewhere. Incredibly, thousands of cases like this still need to be handled each year. In 2010, nearly one thousand unexploded munitions of American origin were found in Okinawa, and in 2005 a one-tonne bomb forced the evacuation of 7000 Tokyo residents.

It's also doubtful that this latest incident will impact decommissioning and clean-up efforts at the Fukushima plant. More troubling is the extensive damage to the interior of the reactors, the intense radiation inside, and the still-volatile melted fuel. It may take decades to finally put this tragic story to rest.

[MIKA27]

Hundred-Year-Old Antarctic Fruitcake Found In 'Excellent Condition'

Conservators with Antarctic Heritage Trust have uncovered a perfectly preserved fruitcake that dates back to Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova expedition, which began in 1910.

Manufactured by the now defunct Huntley & Palmers biscuit company, the fruitcake was discovered in a long-abandoned hut at Cape Adare — an important landing site and base camp used by early Antarctic explorers. The cake, found inside a badly degraded tin box, was in remarkably good condition, appearing almost edible.

Since May 2016, the New Zealand-based Antarctic Heritage Trust, along with the Canterbury Museum Lab, has been preserving artefacts found at Cape Adare. Around 1500 artefacts have been recovered since last July.

"With just two weeks to go on the conservation of the Cape Adare artefacts, finding such a perfectly preserved fruitcake in amongst the last handful of unidentified and severely corroded tins was quite a surprise," noted AHT program manager Lizzie Meek in a statement. "It's an ideal high-energy food for Antarctic conditions, and is still a favourite item on modern trips to the Ice."

The fruitcake itself dates back to the Terra Nova expedition (1910-1913) headed by Robert Falcon Scott. Archival documents show that Scott took this particular brand of cake with him to Antarctica. The Terra Nova expedition was primarily scientific, but Scott also wanted to be the first person to reach the South Pole. His team of five eventually reached the geographic South Pole on 17 January 1912, only to find that a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen beat them by 34 days. Scott's entire team perished on the return journey from the pole. Apparently, they could have used the fruitcake they left behind at Cape Adare.

Explorers of the Antarctic, devourers of fruitcake: The five members of Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova expedition. 

The AHT is currently doing its conservation work under a permit that will require them to return all items to the site once the huts themselves have been restored. These huts were constructed in 1899 by the Norwegian Carsten Borchgrevnik expedition, and later used by Scott's party in 1911. The AHT is currently planning the conservation of these historic structures, which have been exposed to Antarctic conditions for over a hundred years.

To prepare the recently-discovered cake for its return, the conservators have removed all the dust from the tin, repaired the torn paper on the exterior, and applied stabilising chemicals to both the tin and the fruitcake, which was otherwise, incredibly, in "excellent condition".

So it doesn't appear that anyone will be eating this fruitcake any time soon, which is just as well. That's one nasty dessert — whether it be a hundred years old or fresh out of the oven.

[MIKA27]

THE TERRIFYING, ONGOING MYSTERY OF SUFFOCATING FIGHTER PILOTS

It's the scenario every fighter pilot dreads. Their mind goes blank. They forget their emergency drills, or can't recall their call sign. Their fingers fumble controls. They get disoriented or even lose consciousness. Worst of all, they don't even realize it's happening.

These are the symptoms of hypoxia, when the brain doesn't get enough oxygen. It's an insidious condition whose onset makes it difficult to take the simple steps to fight back: turn on a backup oxygen supply and quickly drop to an altitude where the thicker atmosphere makes it easier to breathe.

Though the cause of hypoxia is clear enough—not enough oxygen—no one's quite sure why the advanced systems designed to keep pilots breathing don't always work properly, or how to prevent problems. It can be a mechanical failure, contamination from exhaust fumes, a malfunctioning pressure suit, or something totally different and unpredictable.

Hypoxia's latest victim is perhaps the most advanced weapon ever made: In June, Luke Air Force Base in Arizona grounded its fleet of 55 of F-35s for 11 days after pilots reported problems that sounded a lot like oxygen deprivation.

“When you are exposed to less than ideal amounts of oxygen, physical coordination decreases, mental clarity decreases, and blackout can occur very quickly,” says John Lannutti, a materials science professor at Ohio State University, who has spent a decade developing sensors to detect hypoxia in pilots.        

That's especially daunting for pilots who already deal with a hostile work environment. They fly strapped in tight inside a tiny cockpit, encased in bulky suits that make it hard to move, pulling up to nine Gs, often high above altitudes where humans can comfortably breathe.

Hypoxia is a persistent menace. F-22 Raptor pilots have battled the condition repeatedly since 2008, in 2011 the Air Force grounded the entire fleet after reports of pilots blacking out. Since then, crews in the Navy’s T-45 trainer jet started reporting issues, leading again to the fleet to be largely grounded. And hypoxia-like symptoms have been linked to the deaths of four pilots of Navy F/A-18s.

At Luke Air Force Base, the five F-35 pilots reported hypoxia-like symptoms, including dizziness and tingling fingers and toes. The reappearance of the problem on this high-profile, high-tech plane has brought new attention to hypoxia, with the Air Force promising extra training, and researchers working on tech fixes.

It's the common cold of fighter pilots—it can affect anyone, with no easy cure—with a deadly twist. Because it’s happening across a range of planes, to different pilots, in different conditions, it's extremely hard to pinpoint any particular cause. “It’s a multi-dimensional complex problem, and I really think it’s a myriad of small factors that, when added together, cause these physiological events,” said Luke base commander Brook Leonard at a press conference in June.                    

 

Senior Master Sgt. Paul Johal briefs students in the altitude hypobaric chamber about familiarizing themselves with the oxygen equipment for hypoxia training at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, April 26, 2017. 

For the F-22, the fixes were a better pressure suit for the pilots, a new backup oxygen system, and the removal of a dodgy air filter. The best that the military could do for F-35 pilots, so far, is reducing the risk with training, biometric measurement devices, a better backup oxygen system, and no more flying at certain altitudes where problems seem to crop up. Not particularly reassuring.

One common site of investigation is the aircrafts’ on-board oxygen generation systems. Early planes kept pilots breathing at altitude by providing oxygen from canisters, like scuba divers, a fix that limited flight durations. The modern approach is to bleed high pressure air off the jet engine, cool and filter it, cut the nitrogen levels, and pipe it into the pilot’s face mask. (Engineers don't pressurize the cabin, in case it’s pierced by a bullet.)

It's a complex system that involves an of valves, pressure and temperature sensors, connectors, and interfaces, from the engine to the regulator at the face mask, all to make sure just the right amount of oxygen reaches the pilot in any given situation. That amount changes quickly depending on altitude and G-forces, and the system has to keep up.

And when an F-35 pilot pulls 9 Gs, all that force makes measuring the flow oxygen much harder, says Lannutti. He is developing a new type of sensor without moving parts which could help. “We are working with optical sensors—as the oxygen content of the gas stream drops, sensors increase in brightness, and so they monitor and quantify the amount of oxygen,” he says. Similarly, British company Cobham has developed a suite of breathing mask sensors that monitor inhalation and exhalation. The idea is to alert the pilot to any problems before hypoxia sets in.

But there's no real solution in the works, and little hope of one anytime soon. In the meantime, the Air Force is relying on pilot training, which includes subjecting them to hypobaric chamber which simulates the reduced pressure at 25,000 feet. They’re told to take off their breathing masks, and quickly feel almost drunk. Instructors give them easy puzzles to solve, but most give up within minutes. In a newer exercise, the airmen are shown a color wheel in low light conditions, which they can barely see, but as the oxygen levels flowing to their masks are increased, the colors pop into clarity.

The goal is to have pilots recognize how the world looks and feels when they're not getting enough oxygen, then react accordingly. It's a stopgap, but it's the best answer while the engineers work to breathe life into a permanent fix.

[MIKA27]

A FLYING CAR FROM DELOREAN REALLY WON'T NEED ROADS

“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads,” Doc Brown says, before flipping down his reflective goggles and launching his nuclear-powered DeLorean into the air.

If you think you've heard that line too many times, try being Paul DeLorean. He's not just the nephew of John DeLorean, founder of the short-lived automaker that's now best remembered for its car's starring role as a time machine in the Back to the Future movies. He is the CEO and chief designer of DeLorean Aerospace, the company he founded in 2012 to develop a real life flying car.

Earlier generations of DeLoreans worked as coach builders, so although he may cringe at the name recognition he has accepted it. “We’ve been in transportation forever—it’s in my blood,” he says.

That heritage has led him into one of the hottest areas of transportation development today. He plans to build a two-seat vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) personal air transport vehicle (what the rest of the world calls a flying car). That moves him well out of sci-fi movie cliche territory and into the company of Uber, Airbus, Darpa, Larry Page, and a ton of startups.

Experts working in the field say that, as far-fetched as flying cars sound, the confluence of new lightweight materials, better batteries, and sophisticated computer controls means these visions—like Uber's plan to launch a flying fleet in Dubai by 2020—aren't unrealistic.

Add the business model of ride-sharing, which removes the up-front purchase cost, and there's even a business case for getting these things to work in cities. The really tricky part, though, will be figuring out how to safely deploy these things, especially when it comes to air traffic control and certification.

DeLorean’s DR-7 aircraft doesn’t look as outlandish as some concepts, but that's not saying too much in this field. It has two sets of wings, a pair up front and another at the back, plus some winglets underneath. Two large ducted fans, mounted along the center line, front and back, swivel from horizontal for takeoff, to vertical for forward flight.

The aircraft is nearly 20 feet long and 18.5 feet wide, but the wings do a clever Transformers-style hinge and pivot to tuck in against the side, so it can squeeze into a large garage. Propulsion is all electric, and DeLorean aims to make the craft self-flying, so anyone can use it, no special license required.

The Los Angeles area company is still in the R&D phase, but has already built two scale models. The first one was just 30 inches long, to prove the physics works. The next was an engineering model, one-third scale. “We are moving forward on a full-size, piloted prototype which will carry two passengers and is designed to operate, fully electric, for a range of 120 miles,” says DeLorean.

That’s an optimistic range figure for a battery-powered aircraft. For comparison, Neva Aviation’s AirQuadOne, with fans at each corner, promises 25 miles. Airbus’ Vahana project is shooting for 50. Both are more than enough to get you from one side of a city to another, flying over the suckers stuck on the freeway. But DeLorean wants to fly further, like all the way to your cabin in the mountains. “You can cruise at higher altitude, with greater efficiency,” says DeLorean. “It’s designed so that you don’t have all the drag.” Another advantage of wings is the ability to glide if the motors cut out, increasing the chances of a safe landing.

The company is aiming to complete a full-sized flying prototype within a year. DeLorean he'll find an area of empty California desert and “fly the hell out of” a radio-controlled version before sticking anybody on-board.

As for when you’ll be able to buy one, and how much you'll need to hand over, that’s still to be determined. But DeLorean sees his vehicle as more than just a plaything for rich people. “The design really solves a lot of major transportation problems and inefficiencies, such as deteriorating infrastructure, pollution, and road congestion,” he says.

With his enthusiasm and some realistic engineering, experts believe it may only be five to 15 years until nobody needs roads to get where they’re going.

[MIKA27]

KLIPSCH CAPITOL ONE SPEAKER

Created to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Capitol Records, the Klipsch Capitol One Speaker combines classic looks with modern components. Underneath the real wood veneer, vintage fabric, and spun copper controls lies a bi-amplified system with two 2 1/4" full range drivers and a 4.5" woofer. Bluetooth 4.0 handles most modern sources, a 3.5mm analog input lets you connect legacy equipment, and the 8-hour rechargeable battery provides ample listening time. Available in black or brown, each one arrives with a redemption code for a free vinyl album from Capitol's legendary catalog.

[MIKA27]

COPPER & KINGS OLD TOM GIN

Known for distilling delicious Brandy in the heart of Bourbon country, Copper & Kings are expanding their expertise into the world of gin. Their American Old Tom Gin is a new release, distilled twice using 100% grape wine in American made alembic stills. The gin uses classic botanicals that are steeped in grape brandy low-wine before being re-distilled together with vapor distilled botanicals in the gin basket. It's a unique take on the spirit that is a perfect fit for the classic Ampersand cocktail.

[MIKA27]

Infiniti prototype melds a 1940s race car with EV power

As a rule, electric car concepts embrace the future. Even those with a retro flavor are clearly products of the 21st century. Don't tell that to Infiniti, however -- it's going deep into the past. Nissan's luxury badge has unveiled the Prototype 9, an EV whose design unabashedly recalls 1940s race cars (particularly those from Auto Union). And it's not just the long nose, spoked wheels and massive front grille that pay homage -- the prototype was even built using traditional techniques. Inside, of course, it's very much the product of 2017 know-how.

The machine includes a 140HP equivalent motor that's powerful enough to get the vehicle to 62MPH in 5.5 seconds with a top speed of 105.6MPH. It's not the fastest EV by any means, but it does beat a standard Tesla Model 3 to the 62MPH mark despite its vintage chassis. There is one major drawback (besides the car's single-seater nature), though: range. The Prototype 9 only lasts for 20 minutes under "heavy track use," and we wouldn't expect it to drive much further at roadway speeds... not that you'd take it off the track.

Is this a hint of Infiniti (or Nissan) EVs to come? Not really. This is ultimately a demonstration of the company's design chops for the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. However, it does show that electric cars don't have to hew to cutting-edge (or even semi-recent) bodies to be eye-catching. Don't be surprised if elements of the Prototype 9 find their way into more straight-laced EVs, whether it's the internal layout or visual cues.

[MIKA27]

Mysterious Russian Ghost Radio Station Defies Explanation

In the middle of a Russian swampland, not far from the city of St Petersburg, is a rectangular iron gate. Beyond its rusted bars is a collection of radio towers, abandoned buildings and power lines bordered by a dry-stone wall. This sinister location is the focus of a mystery which stretches back to the height of the Cold War.

It is thought to be the headquarters of a radio station, “MDZhB”, that no-one has ever claimed to run. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for the last three-and-a-half decades, it’s been broadcasting a dull, monotonous tone. Every few seconds it’s joined by a second sound, like some ghostly ship sounding its foghorn. Then the drone continues.

Once or twice a week, a man or woman will read out some words in Russian, such as “dinghy” or “farming specialist”. And that’s it. Anyone, anywhere in the world can listen in, simply by tuning a radio to the frequency 4625 kHz.

It’s so enigmatic, it’s as if it was designed with conspiracy theorists in mind. Today the station has an online following numbering in the tens of thousands, who know it affectionately as “the Buzzer”. It joins two similar mystery stations, “the Pip” and the “Squeaky Wheel”. As their fans readily admit themselves, they have absolutely no idea what they are listening to.

Anyone can listen to the Buzzer, simply by tuning a radio to the frequency 4625 kHz 

In fact, no-one does. “There’s absolutely no information in the signal,” says David Stupples, an expert in signals intelligence from City University, London.

What’s going on?

The frequency is thought to belong to the Russian military, though they’ve never actually admitted this. It first began broadcasting at the close of the Cold War, when communism was in decline. Today it’s transmitted from two locations – the St Petersburg site and a location near Moscow. Bizarrely, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, rather than shutting down, the station’s activity sharply increased.

There’s no shortage of theories to explain what the Buzzer might be for – ranging from keeping in touch with submarines to communing with aliens. One such idea is that it’s acting as a “Dead Hand” signal; in the event Russia is hit by a nuclear attack, the drone will stop and automatically trigger a retaliation. No questions asked, just total nuclear obliteration on both sides.

This may not be as wacky as it sounds. The system was originally pioneered in the Soviet era, where it took the form of a computer system which scanned the airwaves for signs of life or nuclear fallout. Alarmingly, many experts believe it may still be in use. As Russian president Vladimir Putin pointed out himself earlier this year, “nobody would survive” a nuclear war between Russia and the United States. Could the Buzzer be warding one off?

As it happens, there are clues in the signal itself. Like all international radio, the Buzzer operates at a relatively low frequency known as “shortwave”. This means that – compared to local radio, mobile phone and television signals – fewer waves pass through a single point every second. It also means they can travel a lot further.

While you’d be hard pressed to listen to a local station such as BBC Radio London in a neighbouring county, shortwave stations like the BBC World Service are aimed at audiences from Senegal to Singapore. Both stations are broadcast from the same building.

If the "dead hand" system did not detect signs of a preserved military hierarchy it would automatically trigger a retaliation

It’s all thanks to “skywaves”. Higher frequency radio signals can only travel in a straight line, eventually becoming lost as they bump into obstacles or reach the horizon. But shortwave frequencies have an extra trick – they can bounce off charged particles in the upper atmosphere, allowing them to zig-zag between the earth and the sky and travel thousands, rather than tens, of miles.

Which brings us back to the Dead Hand theory. As you might expect, shortwave signals have proved extremely popular. Today they’re used by ships, aircraft and the military to send messages across continents, oceans and mountain ranges. But there’s a catch.

The lofty layer isn’t so much a flat mirror, but a wave, which undulates like the surface of the ocean. During the day it moves steadily higher, while at night, it creeps down towards the Earth. If you want to absolutely guarantee that your station can be heard on the other side of the planet – and if you’re using it as a cue for nuclear war, you probably do – it’s important to change the frequency depending on the time of day, to catch up. The BBC World Service already does this. The Buzzer doesn’t.

Another idea is that the radio station exists to “sound” out how far away the layer of charged particles is. “To get good results from the radar systems the Russians use to spot missiles, you need to know this,” says Stupples. The longer the signal takes to get up into the sky and down again, the higher it must be.

Alas, that can’t be it either. To analyse the layer’s altitude the signal would usually have a certain sound, like a car alarm going off – the result of varying the waves to get them just right. “They sound nothing like the Buzzer,” says Stupples. 

Intriguingly, there is a station with some striking similarities. The “Lincolnshire Poacher” ran from the mid-1970s to 2008. Just like the Buzzer, it could be heard on the other side of the planet. Just like the Buzzer, it emanated from an undisclosed location, thought to be somewhere in Cyprus. And just like the Buzzer, its transmissions were just plain creepy.

At the beginning of every hour, the station would play the first two bars of an English folk tune, the Lincolnshire Poacher.

Quote

 

“Oh ‘tis my delight on a shining night

In the season of the year

When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire

‘Twas well I served my master for nigh on seven years…”

 

After repeating this12 times, it would move on to messages read by the disembodied voice of a woman reading groups of five numbers – “1-2-0-3-6” – in a clipped, upper-class English accent.

To get to grips with what was going on, it helps to go back to the 1920s. The All-Russian Co-operative Society (Arcos) was an important trade body, responsible for overseeing transactions between the UK and the early Soviet Union. Or at least, that’s what they said they did.

After the Arcos raid in London, the Russians realised they needed a better way to communicate with spies hiding abroad

In May 1927, years after a British secret agent caught an employee sneaking into a communist news office in London, police officers stormed the Arcos building. The basement had been rigged with anti-intruder devices and they discovered a secret room with no door handle, in which workers were hurriedly burning documents.

It may have been dramatic, but the British didn’t discover anything that they didn’t already know. Instead the raid was a wake-up call to the Soviets, who discovered that MI5 had been listening in on them for years.

“This was a blunder of the very first order,” says Anthony Glees, who directs the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham. To justify the raid, the prime minister had even read out some of the deciphered telegrams in the House of Commons.

The upshot was that the Russians completely reinvented the way messages are encrypted. Almost overnight, they switched to “one-time pads”. In this system, a random key is generated by the person sending the message and shared only with the person receiving it. As long as the key really is perfectly random, the code cannot be cracked. There was no longer any need to worry about who could hear their messages.

Enter the “numbers stations” – radio stations that broadcast coded messages to spies all over the world. Soon even the British were doing it: if you can’t beat them, join ‘em, as they say. It’s quite difficult to generate a completely random number because a system for doing so will, by its very nature, be predictable – exactly what you’re trying to avoid.

Instead officers in London found an ingenious solution.

They’d hang a microphone out of the window on Oxford Street and record the traffic. “There might be a bus beeping at the same time as a policeman shouting. The sound is unique, it will never happen again,” says Stupples. Then they’d convert this into a random code.

Of course, that didn’t stop people trying to break them. During World War Two, the British realised that they could, in fact, decipher the messages – but they’d have to get their hands on the one-time pad that was used to encrypt them. “We discovered that the Russians used the out-of-date sheets of one-time pads as substitute toilet paper in Russian army hospitals in East Germany,” says Glees. Needless to say, British intelligence officers soon found themselves rifling through the contents of Soviet latrines.

The new channel of communication was so useful, it didn’t take long before the numbers stations had popped up all over the world. There was the colourfully named “Nancy Adam Susan”, “Russian Counting Man” and “Cherry Ripe” – the Lincolnshire Poacher’s sister station, which also contained bars of an English folk song. In name at least, the Buzzer fits right in.

It also fits with a series of arrests across the United States back in 2010. The FBI announced that it had broken up a “long term, deep cover” network of Russian agents, who were said to have received their instructions via coded messages on shortwave radio – specifically 7887 kHz.

Messages encrypted using one time pads cannot be cracked 

Now North Korea are getting in on the act, too. On 14 April 2017, the broadcaster at Radio Pyongyang began: “I’m giving review works in elementary information technology lessons of the remote education university for No 27 expedition agents.” This ill-concealed military message was followed by a series of page numbers – No 69 on page 823, page 957 – which look a lot like code.

It may come as a surprise that numbers stations are still in use – but they hold one major advantage. Though it’s possible to guess who is broadcasting, anyone can listen to the messages – so you don’t know who they are being sent to. Mobile phones and the internet may be quicker, but open a text or email from a known intelligence agency and you could be rumbled.

It’s a compelling idea: the Buzzer has been hiding in plain sight, instructing a network of illicit Russian spies all over the world. There’s just one problem. The Buzzer never broadcasts any numbered messages.

This doesn’t strictly matter, since one-time pads can be used to translate anything – from code words to garbled speech. “If this phone call was encrypted you’d hear “…

enejekdhejenw…’ but then it would come out the other side sounding like normal speech,” says Stupples. But this would leave traces in the signal.

To send information over the radio, essentially all you’re doing is varying the height or spacing of the waves being transmitted. For example, two low waves in a row means x, or three waves closer together means y. When a signal is carrying information, instead of neat, evenly spaced waves like ripples on the ocean, you’re left with a wave like the jagged silhouette of an ECG.

During the Cold War, Soviet spies were instructed via shortwave radio

This isn’t the Buzzer. Instead, many believe that the station is a hybrid of two things. The constant drone is just a marker, saying “this frequency is mine, this frequency is mine…” to stop people from using it.

It only becomes a numbers station in moments of crisis, such as if Russia were invaded. Then it would function as a way to instruct their worldwide spy network and military forces on standby in remote areas. After all, this is a country around 70 times the size of the UK.

It seems they’re already been practicing. “In 2013 they issued a special message, ‘COMMAND 135 ISSUED’ that was said to be test message for full combat readiness,” says Māris Goldmanis, a radio enthusiast who listens to the station from his home in the Baltic states.

The mystery of the Russian radio may have been solved. But if its fans are right, let’s just hope that drone never stops. 

 

[Fuzz]

1 hour ago, MIKA27 said:

Mysterious Russian Ghost Radio Station Defies Explanation

 

I managed to successfully decipher one of these coded messages:

B

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R

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D

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Y

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A

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[MIKA27]

1 hour ago, Fuzz said:

I managed to successfully decipher one of these coded messages:

B

E

S

U

R

E

T

O

D

R

I

N

K

Y

O

U

R

O

V

A

L

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[Duxnutz]

On 10/08/2017 at 10:04 PM, GrouchoMarx said:

-20C?

That's about average here in Ottawa during the winter.

Call me when its -40.

I remember sitting in Winnipeg when the weather was reporting -38 without the windchill and our aircraft wasn't certified to operate in much less than that wondering if hell had frozen over. 

It was around that time I figured out why Canadian lady folk drink 'Rye'.

[jazzboypro]

On 2017-08-10 at 8:30 PM, MIKA27 said:

Really? I'm confused.... Looking at some references, it doesn't seem to get near -20C let alone -40 

Ottawa, Ontario Average Temperatures Chart

 

On 2017-08-11 at 4:37 AM, GrouchoMarx said:

That's bizarre - having lived here for over 30 years, we constantly have winter temps in the -20c 's  - and thought infrequent, it has hit -40 on more than one occasion. but i suppose when you "average it out" ?

Just wandering, does that chart covers only last winter ? last winter was pretty mild i would say. -20c is not uncommon also in Montreal it sometimes goes below -30c but we have to be careful because there is the actual weather and the "What it feels like" weather because of the wind chill factor. Sometimes it might -15c but it feels like -25c

[scap99]

On 8/9/2017 at 0:03 AM, MIKA27 said:

Darren Aronofsky's Mother! Looks Like A Terrifying Psychological Thriller

Your parents always said, "Never talk to strangers." But maybe they should have also said, "Don't let them sleep in your house." That seems to be the start of something very bad in Darren Aronofsky's new movie mother!

The film stars Oscar winners Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem as a married couple who one day decide to let a strange man into their house, played by Ed Harris. Then they let in a strange woman, too, played by Michelle Pfeiffer. And, in the first trailer for the film, those both look like really, really bad decisions.

We can't tell if mother! dives into realistic horror or if it's relegated to the mind of Lawrence's character, but we're intrigued to find out. Mostly because a film rarely gets a cast like this unless the material is strong and original.

Mother! opens October 12.

Can't wait to see if Clint Mansell does the sound track and if he does as good a job with it as he did with Pi, Requiem, and the Fountain.

[MIKA27]

1 hour ago, jazzboypro said:

 

Just wandering, does that chart covers only last winter ? last winter was pretty mild i would say. -20c is not uncommon also in Montreal it sometimes goes below -30c but we have to be careful because there is the actual weather and the "What it feels like" weather because of the wind chill factor. Sometimes it might -15c but it feels like -25c

Just went off the referenced link in the original post.

I was mostly curious because I've always wanted to visit that part of the world.

[MIKA27]

41 minutes ago, scap99 said:

Can't wait to see if Clint Mansell does the sound track and if he does as good a job with it as he did with Pi, Requiem, and the Fountain.

It certainly looks good

[MIKA27]

The Last Remaining Original Ford GT40 Roadster Is For Sale

Sometimes I just have to wonder how somebody could let a particular car go, and then I remember that I've never seen more than four figures on a check written to my name. But now the only remaining Ford GT40 Roadster is for sale, and I'm not sure anything short of a fortune would settle it this time.

This here is one of 12 GT40 prototypes developed by Ford from back when they were out to beat Ferrari's arse at Le Mans in the 1960's, except it's extra special because it's the only one left (intentionally) without a roof.

You can read the full history of this specific car over on its Classic Driver listing. This GT40, GT/108, was the first roadster produced and is notable for keeping its original 1965-styled nose all these years, making it probably the rarest GT40 imaginable.

Every other roadster was either destroyed, adapted to be closed-cockpit, or otherwise modified, but not this one. This one has never forgotten the rush of wind and the added ambiance of the exhaust, and now it will go on to a new owner for a gazillion-rillion dollars probably. You can see it in the flesh at The Quail in Monterey next week if you want to really feel alive. 

[MIKA27]

THESE SECRET TUNNELS UNDER NAPLES ARE FULL OF OLD CARS AND WAR RELICS

Beneath the streets of Naples, Italy runs an elaborate network of tunnels built by paranoid ruler Ferdinand II of Bourbon back in the 1800s. This was his secret escape route should the people riot.

Tunnel construction began in 1855 with work proceeding slowly due to the limited tool technology. Workers used hand tools like picks, hammers, and wedges. The light was supplied by candles and torches.

In 1859, just four years after construction began, the project was halted due to the death of Ferdinand II. The tunnels were then closed off until World War II when the subterranean network became a holding place for military equipment and as well as bomb shelters for citizens.

After the war ended, the tunnels collected forgotten objects: cars, motorcycles, appliances, and even pro-fascist marble statues. The tunnels were soon abandoned again and subsequently forgotten. This lasted until 2010 when they were again unearthed and restored.

These days, the tunnels are open to the public as the Galleria Borbonica. Visitors are welcome to wander the hallways, peruse the vintage cars, or even take an adventure tour that involves rafting down a flooded subway tunnel.

[MIKA27]

AN INSANE VIEW OF THE MILKY WAY FROM THE EDGE OF NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand's South Island spans 58,000 square miles of breathtaking, verdant terrain. But nothing on the ground surpasses what's in the sky. The region is home to the largest dark sky observatory in the world, glittering with millions of stars and spectacular views of the Milky Way.

Photographer Paul Wilson lives on South Island and is an ardent star gazer. He spends countless hours traveling to far-flung corners of the island to point his camera at the heavens. "New Zealand’s great with dark skies," he says. "If you get out of any city, you can see the Milky Way here.”

Wilson fell in love with the cosmos (and photography) four years ago, when some astrophotography friends encouraged him to give it a try. He now makes multiple long-exposure images, stitching them together to create one enormous photo sometimes more than 500 megapixels. Wilson typically shoots between February and November when the nights are longer, cross-referencing light pollution charts with Google Maps to locate the best stargazing spots. It's how he found Hickory Bay, about two hours south of Christchurch where he lives. “It’s very remote,” he says. “Once when I was out there, a farmer popped out in his underwear to ask what I was doing.”

He nabbed this particular shot of the bay on a still, clear night in February. It was about 3:30 am, the tide was going out, and the Milky Way was just beginning to rise in the eastern sky. Wilson hooked his Canon 1D X Mark II up to a panoramic mount and tripod on the edge of the wet sand. He made 25 20-second exposures—five down and five across—to capture the entire scene. Later, he digitally stitched the photos together in the program Autopano Giga.

The final 113-megapixel photograph captures the galaxy shimmering above a tumbling shoreline and reflected in the dark water. It’s brighter and more detailed than what you’d see with the naked eye. But for Wilson, the real thing is no less magical. “When you’re under the Milky Way you feel really insignificant,” he says. "I’d hate to live somewhere I couldn’t see it."

[jazzboypro]

23 minutes ago, MIKA27 said:

Just went off the referenced link in the original post.

I was mostly curious because I've always wanted to visit that part of the world.

Well if you ever come to Montreal, let me know, it would be nice to meet for cigars and a few drinks

 

[MIKA27]

‘Game of Thrones’: Trailer for Next Week’s Episode Teases the Blockbuster Event of the Summer

HBO has released the trailer for Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 6, and you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a trailer for a major blockbuster fantasy action movie. Indeed, as this trailer states, Winter is here, and next week’s episode (the second-to-last of this abbreviated season) looks to be a massive showdown between Jon Snow’s wily band of misfits and the Army of the Undead, lead by the Night King. Last night’s episode of Game of Thrones, titled “Eastwatch”, was very much a table-setting installment that paved the way for an action-packed episode such as this one, and given Game of Thrones’ proclivity for using its penultimate episodes to do the “big stuff” and the finales for the denouement, I’d say we’re in for a pretty intense time.

Indeed, we should’ve known something was up when we saw Alan Taylor was directing this episode. The Sopranos and Mad Men alum helmed a number of Season 1 and 2 episodes before moving on to direct films like Thor: The Dark World and Terminator: Genisys. He makes his triumphant Game of Thrones return for the first time since Season 2’s “Valar Morghulis”, and it appears he’s been enlisted to bring quite possibly the biggest battle sequence yet to the screen.

It’s also interesting to note that unlike “Blackwater”, this episode doesn’t appear to be entirely focused on the battle at hand. We still see that the animosity between Sansa and Arya (stirred up by Littlefinger) is brewing and will be dealt with within the episode, but that’s probably where the installment will begin before focusing full-time on this Eastwatch battle.

Winter is here.

[MIKA27]

7 minutes ago, jazzboypro said:

Well if you ever come to Montreal, let me know, it would be nice to meet for cigars and a few drinks

 

Thank you, will do 

[MIKA27]

HOW A NASA SPACECRAFT MAY HELP ALIENS FIND EARTH

Forty years ago, we sent a map to Earth sailing deep into the cosmos.

Copies of this map are etched into each of the twin Voyager spacecraft, which launched in the late 1970s and are now the farthest spacecraft from home. One of the probes has already slipped into interstellar space, and the other is skirting the fringes of our sun’s immediate neighbourhood.

If it’s ever intercepted and decoded by extraterrestrials, the map will not only reveal where to find our watery little world, but also when the space probe that delivered it to alien hands left home.

“We needed to put something on the Voyager that said where it came from, and how long it was travelling,” says my dad, Frank Drake, who designed the map.

The Voyager version of route-finding pins the sun onto our galaxy using 14 pulsars, which are the rapidly spinning corpses of exploded stars. It’s a cipher unlike anything made before, the kind of object that drives entire fictional quests—and that is currently spurring arguments over the intelligence of broadcasting our existence to civilisations with possibly nefarious proclivities.

“Back when Drake did the pulsar map, and Carl Sagan and the whole team did the Voyager record, there hadn't been very much debate over the pros and cons of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence,” says York University’s Kathryn Denning, an anthropologist who studies the ethics of sending messages to extraterrestrials.

“Now, however, as you know, there is a major debate among scientists and a variety of stakeholders about the wisdom of doing anything other than listening.”

STELLAR MAP MAKING

Drake’s cosmic directions to Earth are stamped onto the cover of the Voyager Golden Record, two of which have been ferrying the sights and sounds of planet Earth across the interstellar sea since 1977. 

But unlike the record, which grew into its final form during one short summer, the map took shape years earlier, in late 1969.

Back then, my dad and Carl Sagan were designing a message to put on the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft, which would be flung from the solar system after an encounter with Jupiter. One of the components he and Sagan wanted to include was a map that pointed to Earth in both space and time.

The question was, how do you create such a map in units that an extraterrestrial might understand?

Earth-years would be perfectly meaningless, because they are derived from our planet’s particular path around the sun. And there’s also the question of coordinates--in space, no one can find you using up, down, east, or west.

Even the stars themselves are constantly shifting on astronomical time scales. “Second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning” doesn’t quite work if the map is found a billion years from now and the star in question—say, Betelgeuse—has long since exploded and died.

THE MAGIC ABOUT PULSARS

To my dad, the answer was obvious: pulsars. Discovered in 1967 by Jocelyn Bell Burnell, these dense husks of expired stars were perfect blazes in both space and time.

For starters, pulsars are incredibly long-lived, staying active for tens of millions to multiple billions of years.

Also, each pulsar is unique. Many spin faster than anything on Earth, sometimes thousands of times each second, and they emit pulses of electromagnetic radiation like lighthouses. By timing those pulses, astronomers can determine a pulsar’s spin rate to a ridiculous degree of accuracy, and no two are alike.

But pulsars do slow down, sometimes by a mere but measurable billionths of a second a year. By calculating the difference between a pulsar’s spin rate when the map is found versus the spin period inscribed on the map, an intelligent being could figure out how long it had been since the map was made.

“There was a magic about pulsars … no other things in the sky had such labels on them,” Drake says. “Each one had its own distinct pulsing frequency, so it could be identified by anybody, including other creatures after a long period of time and far, far away.”

Voyager 2 launched on August 20, 1977, as seen here in a picture taken at Cape Canaveral in Florida. About two weeks later, NASA launched Voyager 1. PHOTOGRAPH BY NASA, JPL-CALTECH

He reasoned that if those beings had figured out what pulsars were, they surely knew where the whirling, dead stars resided in the galaxy. Using the map, they could then follow the trail back to the sun.

After a roughly three-minute discussion with Sagan, the decision was made.

Drake drew the map using 14 known pulsars (today, that original pencil-drawn pulsar map is casually tucked into an old produce box at home). The length of the lines connecting each pulsar to a central point—the sun—indicates how far they are from home. Along those distance markers, he inscribed the pulsars’ spin rates out to 12 digits in binary code, so any curious aliens would know which pulsars he’d chosen as anchors.

Successfully decoding the map would unambiguously pinpoint the sun’s position and the timeframe of the spacecraft’s launch.

Today, that makes some scientists and philosophers very nervous.

DANGEROUS BEACON?

When the Voyager spacecraft launched, astronomers had no evidence that other planets even existed outside our solar system, much less worlds capable of hosting alien life.

Now, thanks to missions like NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler endeavor, we know that planets are common in the galaxy, and that a sizable percentage of those worlds could be like Earth. The revelation has spawned efforts to send directed radio messages toward promising stars sytems.

In the wake of these discoveries, a debate has emerged over the ethics of intentionally announcing our presence to the stars. Some think the endeavour is foolish and dangerous, given how little we know about what might be out there. Others would rather prioritise listening to the stars over talking to them.

For the Voyager spacecraft, the truth is already out there, as the maps they carry hurtle deeper into the void.

“In those days, all the people I dealt with were optimists, and they thought the ETs would be friendly,” Drake says. “Nobody thought, even for a few seconds, about whether this might be a dangerous thing to do.”

So what are the chances of the map actually reaching extraterrestrial shores aboard the Voyagers?

“Very small,” Drake says. “The thing is going something like 10 kilometres per second, at which speed it takes—for the typical separation of stars—about half a million years to go from one star to another. And of course, it’s not aimed at any star, it’s just going where it’s going.”

If an extraterrestrial civilisation has sufficiently powerful radars, it might be able to detect the Voyager spacecraft from afar. But that’s still unlikely, Drake says, which means the Voyagers’ sights, sounds, and maps to planet Earth may forever sail silently through the cosmos.

The reality is that humans have been passively announcing our presence to the cosmos for nearly a century via radar, radio, and TV transmissions. And with the rise of private space enterprises, who knows what new message to the stars might end up making its way into space?

Denning urges everyone to act thoughtfully and consider the pros and cons of intentionally hailing aliens.

“We're all on this Earth together,” she says.

[MIKA27]

AUDI DRIVING EXPERIENCE

What happens when you combine some of the world’s best cars with one of the world’s best tracks? Usually, a professional race. But now the everyman is going to have his turn to shine because Audi has teamed up with Circuit of the Americas to give us normal folk some much-desired time on the tarmac.

Called the Audi Driving Experience, the luxury sports car brand is offering anyone who has the time and money the chance to come down to Austin’s premier race track and learn to drive like a professional. There are four available packages, which range from a 1/2-day beginner basics to a 2-day pro-level run of the course (both taught by 20+ year race veterans), that will give you the chance to put the pedal to the metal on the same turns and straightaways as champions. And the vehicles are also a treat, including Audi’s RS3, TT RS, Q7, and – of course – a R8 V10 Plus. This truly once-in-a-lifetime experience starts at $595.