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

[MIKA27]

Lost For Over A Century, This Is Now The Oldest Known Original Photo Of A US President

Lost for nearly a century and a half, a grainy black and white portrait of John Quincy Adams has reemerged — and it's now considered the oldest surviving original photograph of a US president in existence.

Since the mid-19th century, this photo has been unknowingly stored at the family home of the late Horace Everett, a Vermont congressman who served in the House from 1829 to 1843. John Quincy Adams gave the portrait to Everett as a gift, and it has languished in his home ever since. The anonymous seller, a descendant of Everett, mistakenly assumed the photo was of Horace Everett, and only recently realised its true historical significance. The photo will be going up for auction at Sotheby's on 5 October 2017.

President Adams had already completed his stint as president and was serving as a Massachusetts congressman when the photo was taken. It shows him perched cross-legged on a chair, gazing intently into the camera (nice socks btw). He diligently kept a diary, documenting two photo shoots taken in Washington DC at the studio of photographer Philip Hass on March 8 and 16 March 1843.

The recently rediscovered silver plate portrait was produced by a process known as the daguerreotype method — the first photo process that was made available to the public. The technique was the most common photography method for several decades during the mid-19th century.

"This recently rediscovered plate — the only one currently known to have survived from the Haas sessions — is believed to be the earliest photograph of an American president to come to market in many years and the earliest extant photograph of the man himself," notes Sotheby's in its auction preview. "An invaluable document, this daguerreotype crystallises a remarkable moment in the history of photography and American politics."

Importantly, this is not the first photograph ever taken of a US president. That distinction goes to William Henry Harrison (he died of pneumonia on 4 April 1841, just 31 days into his term) who had his likeness taken around the time of his inauguration in March 1841. The original plate of this photo no longer exists, but a copy exists at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. An older photo of Adams was also taken, but that's also lost.

Sotheby's estimates that the newly uncovered photo of Adams will sell somewhere between $US150,00 ($19,014) to $US250,000 ($316,907), but it could go for much higher given its uniqueness.

[MIKA27]

I Refuse To Believe This World Champion Wasn't Born With Yo-Yos Attached To His Arms

Last week, the 2017 World Yo-Yo Championship was held in Reykjavík, Iceland. And as in years past, watching these performers, including world champion Shu Takada, can only lead you to a single conclusion: these competitors were probably born with yo-yos attached to their arms.

How else could someone ever get this good at playing with yo-yos unless they had to spend every waking moment of their life dealing with spinning tops tethered to strings at the end of each arm? Would it have been an easy childhood? No. But at least once a year these afflicted folk get to show off what they have learned at this championship.

[MIKA27]

Godzilla Rules The Earth In His Newest Anime Movie Trailer

We've already had a tiny glimpse of the first Godzilla anime movie, but this new trailer gives us an even fuller look at the film's crazy premise — namely, that Godzilla defeated humanity, forcing the remnants to escape to outer space. But it also gives us our best look at this newest version of big G himself, in all his anime glory.

Set in the far future, Monster Planet follows a detachment of soldiers who come from the descendants of the humans that fled Earth when Godzilla first made himself known and trashed the planet. However, the homeworld they return to is very different from the one they left behind thousands of years in their past — not only has nature reclaimed the planet, but it's teeming with monsters. Oh, and being King of the Monsters, Godzilla's very much in charge.

It's pretty weird that Godzilla has been around for so long without an anime movie of his own (although the terrible U.S. reboot in the '90s did inspire several cartoons), but at least this is really going places with its bizarro scifi premise. Lasers and futuristic spaceships versus Godzilla? Yes please.

Godzilla: Monster Planet hits theatres in Japan this year, and will debut on Netflix in the west in 2018.

[MIKA27]

New Star Wars Battlefront 2 Trailer Shows Off Dazzling Space Battles

The first look at the game's Starfighter Assault mode has the Millennium Falcon, bright lens flares and yes, Yoda manning a laser turret.
The mode also appears to include Darth Vader and plenty of evil Sith, because what better way to use your super powered warriors than by putting them inside fragile space cans that have a penchant for getting shot down. The magic of space combat overlaid with a Yoda monologue, however, still gave me chills.

This is Battlefront 2 after all, meaning that no matter what else, the game's Starfighter Assault stuff will no doubt be some of the best looking and most beautifully sounding "pew pew" around.

The trailer also indicates that places like Endor, Fondor, and Ryloth will be just a few of the locales available for hectic space battles. Of course, the trailer ends with a look at one of my personal favourite Battlefront levels, the research centre on the water planet of Kamino. Not only does the stormy weather show just how beautiful sci-fi set pieces look in the rain, it also features what appears to be a Yoda vs. Darth Maul showdown.

The game is set to release on Xbox One, PS4, and PC on November 17 with a beta set to run in the first full week of October.

 

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SCENES OF DAILY LIFE IN CUBA CAPTURED BY A WANDERING PHOTOGRAPHER

Cinematic Cuba is a series of striking portraits that take us up close and personal with Cuba's citizens.

Shot by Amsterdam-based photographer Stijn Hoekstra, the series captures small vignettes of daily life on the island. Hoekstra shot the series while roaming Cuba for a three week holiday.

“Cuba has been on my list for as long as I can remember,” he says. “This was my first time there, and it definitely exceeded my expectations.”

Rustic shops, old men and their cigars, a boxer resting between matches– these are the daily textures of the country.

But how was it to travel in the country? Hoekstra loved it.

"The people are extremely kind and generous, and after traveling to many other countries, I can definitely say that Cuba is one of the safest places I've ever visited,” he says.

"I woke up early every morning and wandered the streets, as the sunrise gave the city a beautiful colour.”

In past projects, Hoekstra focused on capturing street scenes. But in Cuba, he was inspired to capture portraits of the people. And to create the perfect vintage effect, he combined older lenses with a modern camera.

"Because of the old city streets and beautiful classic cars, I wanted to combine my Sony A7RII camera with old lenses from the 1970s to enhance that 'old' feeling Cuba gives you," Hoekstra elaborates. "The lenses worked great with beautiful bokeh and great flares."

[MIKA27]

YELLOWSTONE SUPERVOLCANO COULD POWER ELECTRIC CARS OF THE FUTURE

Electric cars and smartphones of the future could be powered by supervolcanoes like Yellowstone after scientists discovered that ancient deposits within them contain huge reservoirs of lithium—a chemical element used to make lithium-ore batteries, supplies of which are increasingly dwindling.

Lithium, a soft white metal first discovered in 1817 by Johan August Arfvedson, has become widely used in manufacturing, most importantly in the production of rechargeable batteries for phones, laptops, cameras and vehicles. It has also been used in psychiatric treatments and to produce nuclear weapons.

Most of the world’s lithium currently comes from Australia and Chile, generally being extracted from brines, pegmatites (igneous rock) and sedimentary rocks. But it is a finite resource, and with car manufacturers and technology companies increasingly looking to create battery-powered devices, lithium is becoming an ever-more precious metal, with demand outstripping supply.

In a study published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from Stanford University and the US Geological Survey have found a new potential source for lithium—within America’s supervolcanoes.

These volcanoes are capable of producing huge eruptions, about 1,000 times bigger than average. Along with the famous Yellowstone caldera, there are three other supervolcanoes in the US, Crater Lake, Long Valley and Valles Caldera.

When these volcanoes erupt, they collapse into huge basin-like formations known as calderas. These depressions often fill with water to become lakes, with the ash and pumice ejected during the eruption spread across the caldera in ancient deposits.

In the study, the team looked to supervolcanoes as a potential source of lithium because of the lithium-enriched magmas that formed them. Over thousands of years, lithium leaks out of the volcanic deposits, accumulating in the caldera lake, eventually becoming concentrated in a clay.

The team looked at samples taken from the High Rock caldera complex in Nevada, Sierra la Primavera, Mexico, Pantelleria in the Strait of Sicily, Yellowstone, and Hideaway Park in Colorado. By comparing concentrations of magmas formed in these various tectonic settings, they were able to show how supervolcanoes have the potential to host huge amounts of lithium-rich clay deposit.

“If you have a lot of magma erupting, it doesn’t have to have as much lithium in it to produce something that is worthy of economic interest as we previously thought,” study co-author Gail Mahood said in a statement. “You don’t need extraordinarily high concentrations of lithium in the magma to form lithium deposits and reserves.”

Having a supply of lithium available could prove hugely useful in the coming decades—it could meet the rising demand for the metal and to “diversify the global lithium supply chain,” the team wrote.

“We’re going to have to use electric vehicles and large storage batteries to decrease our carbon footprint,” Mahood said. “It’s important to identify lithium resources in the US so that our supply does not rely on single companies or countries in a way that makes us subject to economic or political manipulation.”

Lead author Thomas Benson added: “We’ve had a gold rush, so we know how, why and where gold occurs, but we never had a lithium rush. The demand for lithium has outpaced the scientific understanding of the resource, so it’s essential for the fundamental science behind these resources to catch up.”

[MIKA27]

Whiskey from to the Guy Who Taught Jack Daniels to Make Whiskey

Jack Daniels wasn’t born knowing how to make whiskey.  Someone had to teach him and that someone isn’t who you’d expect.  Uncle Nearest, born Nathan Green, was a slave in Tennessee who first taught a young Jack Daniels how to distill.  The two worked together when Green was rented to a farmer named Dan Call, who’d also hired a teenage Daniels.  Green mentored Daniels in the ways of whiskey and when Green was freed following the Civil War, Daniels remembered his first teacher and brought Green into a newly established distillery.  The New York Times has an excellent article about Green’s role in creating Jack Daniels and the rediscovery of that role and they go into far more detail than we can here.

Beyond that, Uncle Nearest is getting some additional recognition in the release of a new whiskey bearing his name.  It’s made using the same techniques as Uncle Nearest would have used and is as close to his own personal recipe as people can get.  This whiskey has some of the most unusual tasting notes we’ve ever seen, with bales of hay and pumpkin seeds featuring prominently, so we’re looking as hard as we can to get our hands on a whiskey this special.  Both in origin and in taste.

[MIKA27]

BALCONES BABY BLUE CORN WHISKY

It's not bourbon or rye whiskey, but Balcones Baby Blue Corn Whisky is right in the sweet spot for fans of those spirits. Each bottle is distilled twice and aged in five-gallon oak barrels using Hopi blue corn by hand at the Balcones distillery in Waco, Texas. The first Texas whisky on the market since Prohibition, Baby Blue is a unique Texas spirit that still manages to pay tribute to the corn whisky expressions that have paved its path.

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Taiwan's ghost 'UFO village': Eerie pictures show the surreal community where people lived in spaceship-like pods - before it was abandoned in the 1970s

For those who like sci-fi, this abandoned village in Taiwan is definitely for you. 

Video footage shows an abandoned village where people lived in 'spaceships' until the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

It's thought that this village was abandoned due to a nearby redevelopment. 

These Futuro and Venturo houses were designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen as an alternative portable property

The houses typically contained a bedroom, bathroom and small kitchen. They also had a fireplace and six plastic chairs

However with the soaring price of oil and rising cost of plastic products, the homes became no longer affordable

The flying saucers are located in the Wanli District of Taiwan. 

Designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen, the UFOs were designed originally as ski chalets. However in this case they were used as a cheap alternative to affordable housing. 

There were several of these communities around the world.  

The houses typically contained a bedroom, bathroom and small kitchen. They also had a fireplace and six plastic lounge chairs. 

Left in disrepair: While some of the UFO houses are still lived in, many have been left abandoned for decades

Futuristic housing: Even the bathrooms look futuristic and are equipped with a bath and sink with small windows

Bob from Heerlen, The Netherlands says the site in Taiwan is a unique place because there are only a few UFO villages left in the world. 

He says: 'One of the UFO houses seemed to be well preserved and gave a good look at what living inside these houses must have been like. 

'Although the design was from the 60s and 70s, I still had the feeling I was walking in a futuristic village.' 

Bob says it's unclear when the UFO houses became abandoned but it was probably down to a nearby redevelopment. 

However he says some of the houses are still inhabited. 

[MIKA27]

Big Idiot Drives Into Even Bigger Sinkhole Because He Was Staring At His Phone

There are a lot of reasons not to stare at your phone while you're driving. A little kid might jump into the road, a car in front of you might have to stop unexpectedly, or a giant sinkhole might swallow the entire road. A man in China learned that last one the hard way recently.

CCTV footage shows the man on his scooter, staring at his phone before driving directly into the sinkhole. The incident took place in the southwestern city of Beihai, and remarkably the man wasn't seriously injured. In fact, he reportedly climbed out of the hole all by himself.

So, again, let that be a lesson to all drivers everywhere. Even if you're on calm surface streets with barely any traffic in sight, put your phone away until you've reached your destination.

The year 2017 has clearly shown that the Earth is tired of humanity's garbage. And it's probably going to deliver plenty more sinkholes to remind us just how weak we really are. I wouldn't be surprised if the Sun itself stopped shining today, just to spite us. You never know.

 

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World First: Kakadu National Park, As Seen From A Drone

For the first time, drones have been used to record footage from the 20,000 square kilometre World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park.

The Bininj and Mungguy people, traditional custodians of this land, granted permission for the footage to be shot, giving the world a bird's eye view of the region.

Locations include the famous Yellow Waters Billabong at sunrise, the rugged escarpment of the towering Nourlangie Rock - a deeply spiritual site home to significant works of Aboriginal rock art more than 20,000 years old, the cascading waterfalls of Maguk Gorge and Gunlom Waterfall, and the magical Ubirr Lookout at sunset.

The stunning footage allows people from all over the world to experience a new perspective and the best of Kakadu.

By using new technology, Tourism Northern Territory and Parks Australia are looking to attract more visitors from all over the world to come and seen this natural wonder for themselves.

This isn't the first time Tourism Northern Territory have turned to technology as a unique marketing tool - Uluru was mapped for street view earlier this year. Both Uluru and Kakadu are world heritage listed for not only their natural environment, but the living (and world's oldest continuing) Aboriginal culture.

"We're so excited to be a part of this project, the footage is incredible and shows our park at its very best. I have little doubt that this extraordinary content will help boost visitor numbers," Steve Wroe, acting Kakadu National Park Manager said.

The new content was filmed by Instagrammers Salty Wings, who toured the Northern Territory in June this year.

The couple said that filming the lush green landscapes of Kakadu was an enriching experience.

"Having seen a lot of Australia's coastline, we were humbled and excited when the opportunity of working inland at Kakadu National Park came," said Salty Wings co-owner Jampal Williamson.

"The landscape stood out in more ways than one. Never had we experienced such an expansive, ancient place with such history. At all times we were surrounded with vast planes and giant escarpments that stretched as far as the eye could see. We shot from sunrise to sunset each day, capturing rich Australian outback colours. The mornings were spectacular, as soon as the sun broke the horizon Kakadu came alive with wildlife and pastel hues."

 

[MIKA27]

NASA Plan to Protect Us From Yellowstone

Now that the total eclipse has come and gone, we can go back to worrying about things that can really harm us without staring directly at them — like mosquitoes, junk food and the Yellowstone supervolcano. In a surprising twist, NASA – the folks who spend their time looking up (and telling us not to look directly at the eclipse) — have actually been looking down at the supervolcano that erupts every 600,000 years and hasn’t erupted in … wait for it … 600,000 years. An eruption could blow a big hole in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, kill millions of people and trigger a global winter. Fortunately, NASA engineers have come up with a plan to cool it down and delay, or even stop, the next eruption. However, volcano experts say this plan could also blow a big hole in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, kill millions of people and trigger a global winter. Should NASA go back to planning a trip to Mars?

The warning about the volcano, the news of the plan and the warning about the plan all come from the same person – Brian Wilcox, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a former member of NASA’s Advisory Council on Planetary Defense, the group watching for incoming Near Earth Objects and developing plans to destroy or deflect any big ones heading for a direct impact. While looking at the odds, Wilcox says, “I came to the conclusion during that study that the supervolcano threat is substantially greater than the asteroid or comet threat.”

One of the 20 known supervolcanos is Yellowstone and the area has been experiencing a high number of minor earthquakes this summer (1,500) that experts are saying we shouldn’t be concerned about, even though the ground is becoming deformed. Meanwhile, Wilcox reveals that, behind the scenes, NASA is worried about the supervolcano and has been developing a plan to drill a hole into the side of it and pump water past the hot magma, drawing off its heat and bringing it back to the surface. The volcano would cool down and the hot water could be used as a source of geothermal energy for the western states. What could possibly go wrong?

Plenty, warns the same David Wilcox in a recent interview with the BBC.

Quote

“The most important thing with this is to do no harm. If you drill into the top of the magma chamber and try and cool it from there, this would be very risky. This could make the cap over the magma chamber more brittle and prone to fracture. And you might trigger the release of harmful volatile gases in the magma at the top of the chamber which would otherwise not be released.”

So, this plan to save us from Yellowstone could fracture the cap over the magma chamber currently preventing an eruption, or release volatile gases from between the magma and the cap that could also cause an eruption or some dangerous gas explosion.

Are there any alternatives besides moving to Canada (which may not be to open to Americans theses days)? Wilcox recommends a similar but gradual method – drilling much farther away from the magma and cooling it more slowly – a process that could take tens of thousands of years.

That sounds almost like doing nothing. The plan that could potentially create geothermal energy at the expense of sucking up the nation’s water supply and potentially triggering the volcano still looks better to politicians in charge of protecting us from disasters, even though they haven’t been doing to well at this lately.

Should we let them decide on this one? What could possibly go wrong?

[MIKA27]

ELEGANTSIS X JSK MOTO AUTOMATIC WATCH

It’s no secret we’re fans of the custom motorcycle world. From cafe racers to scramblers to souped-up sport bikes each one expresses the workshop’s individuality and expertise in their craft. So when JSK Moto decided to team up with watchmaker elegantsis to develop and design an automatic watch that pays tribute to the custom motorcycle world, we were ecstatic to say the least.

Dubbed The JX65AS-JSK Series, this collection of aggressive timepieces pay tribute to a couple of JSK’s newest projects along with a couple of their signature works. In fact, upon a closer look, you’ll notice the resemblance to several common motorcycle components – from the rotor, brake disc, and suspension on the dial face to the throttle and fuel cap on the metallic crown. In addition, each watch in the series is powered by Sellita SW200-1 Swiss automatic movement, is housed in a 47.5 mm stainless steel case, boasts an AR coated Sapphire crystal glass, is waterproof to 100 meters and comes with an Italian vegetable tanned calfskin strap.

[MIKA27]

The Last American Baseball-Glove Maker Refuses to Die

This little brick factory isn’t supposed to be here. It should be in the Philippines, or Vietnam, maybe China. Not here, in the heart of Texas.

Baseball gloves, like many other things, aren’t really made in America anymore. In the 1960s, production shifted to Asia and never came back. It might be America’s favorite pastime, and few things are more personal to baseball-lovers than their first glove — the smell, the feel, the memory of childhood summers. But most gloves are stitched together thousands of miles away by people who couldn’t afford a ticket at Fenway Park.

The Nokona manufacturing facility in Nocona, Texas.

One company didn’t get the memo. Since the Great Depression, Nokona has been making gloves in a small town outside Dallas with a long history of producing boots and whips for cowboys. There’s a livestock-feed store next door to the factory, which offers $5 tours for visitors who want to see how the “last American ball glove” is made. You can watch employees weave the webbing by hand, feed the laces through the holes with needles, and pound the pocket into shape with a rounded hammer. The American flag gets stitched into the hide — and that, they say at Nokona, is more than just a business matter.

“Made in America means you believe in our country,” said Carla Yeargin, a glove inspector and tour guide at Nokona, where she worked her way up from janitor. “We have the love for the ballglove, because we made it here.”

And the final product could cost you 25 times more than a foreign-made version at the local discount store. Yes, that’s partly a reflection of the premium nature of the Nokona line but still it represents a huge challenge for the company, as well as for Donald Trump.

“Making it here” is a big deal for the president. Last month Trump staged a week of events to celebrate U.S. manufacturing, showcasing products from Campbell’s soup to Caterpillar construction gear. July 17 was declared “Made in America Day.”

“Restoring American manufacturing will not only restore our wealth, it will restore our pride,” Trump said.

The president loves to use his bully pulpit to advance the cause, but it doesn’t always work. Trump threatened Ford over its plan to shift assembly of Focus cars to Mexico — and so the automaker moved operations to China instead. Plus, modern factories rely more on automation than ever, so even if production comes back, it might be done by robots.

There’s nostalgia in Trump’s rhetoric — critics would call it fantasy. He harkens to a time when the U.S. was the world’s biggest manufacturer, and Fords rolled off the assembly line into the driveways of upwardly mobile households.

By now, though, “supply chains have been so heavily outsourced that it’s no longer possible to buy American for some products,” said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington who studies advances in manufacturing. “The suppliers don’t exist. In some instances, it’s too little, too late.”

Trump’s message also represents a break from the globalization gospel preached by his predecessors, as they pushed for trade deals that would bring emerging giants such as China into the capitalist fold. Offshoring production was seen as acceptable, because it would make American economies more competitive. That, added to cheap imports, would leave the U.S. economy better off.

Economists are waking up to the limits of that logic. Voters have been awake for a while — especially in the Rust Belt towns, hollowed out by industrial decline, which swung last year’s election for Trump.

“For 30 years, this country all but neglected any serious challenge to a globalist view of sourcing,” Muro said.

Nokona refused to follow the herd.

After the Civil War, ranchers drove longhorn cattle through Montague County to livestock markets in the north. The town of Nocona, located some 100 miles northwest of Dallas and named after a Comanche chief (hence the Native American-in-headdress logo on Nokona gloves), developed a reputation as a leather-goods hub.

The company’s name is spelled with a “k” because it was told in the 1930s that the town’s name couldn’t be trademarked. Today, Nocona is home to about 3,000 people and a few stoplights. “God Bless America” banners line the street, and locals wish you a “blessed day.”

Founded in 1926, the company originally made wallets and purses. It was a former Rice University baseball player named Roberts Storey who steered Nokona into ballgloves.

In the early days of baseball, it was considered unmanly to use a glove. Broken bones were common. The first mass-produced gloves had little padding and no fingers. In the 1920s and ’30s, companies started producing gloves with a web between the thumb and forefinger, to create a pocket.

The shift to Asia in the 1960s nearly put Nokona out of business. Storey wouldn’t budge. “It hit him all wrong that we would have to go to Japan,” said his grandson Rob Storey, now the company’s executive vice president. “One of his favorite sayings was: ‘If I have to tell my employees we’re closing up and they don’t have jobs any more, I may as well get a bucket of worms and go fishing’.”

It hasn’t been an easy faith to keep. The company went bankrupt in 2010, but kept producing after a Phoenix-based maker of football gloves bought a majority stake. And cracks are starting to show in Nokona’s claim to be all-American. It recently started importing partially assembled gloves from China, made of Kip leather, a luxury cowhide.

Still, 98 percent of its gloves are made at the factory in Nocona. The nutty scent of leather fills the place. In the lobby, samples of the company’s work over the decades are displayed on the wall, from wallets to football pads. When you buy a glove, the cashier Helen — who’s worked there for 55 years — writes out a receipt by hand.

Making a glove involves about 40 steps and can take four hours. Hides, mostly from Chicago or Milwaukee, are tested for temper and thickness. Workers lower presses onto metal dies to cut the leather. The pieces — some models require 25 of them — are sewn together, joining the inner and outer halves. The product is turned right-side-out and shaped on hot steel fingers. A grease used during World War II to clean rifles is lathered under the pocket, to keep it flexible.

The company emphasizes the craft that goes into each glove, and that’s reflected in the bill. Rawlings has gloves for all budgets: Its top-end models cost plenty, but you can get a 9-inch children’s version for less than $8. Nokona’s equivalent-sized mitt costs $220, and its pro model runs to $500.

Like many made-in America holdouts, they’re always going to be niche products. Making them isn’t going to generate jobs on the scale Trump wants.

Nokona ships about 40,000 gloves a year, a fraction of the 6.2 million sold annually in the U.S. It employs about 35 people at the Texas plant. Storey won’t disclose the privately held company’s revenue. “Will we ever be Nike? No.” But he says it’s profitable. Trump got 88 percent of votes in the county and Storey counts himself a supporter. He welcomes White House support for domestic manufacturers: “It’s music to our ears.”

It’s also hard to compete with the big brands — Rawlings, Wilson, Mizuno — for Major League endorsements. Some companies pay players to use their gloves. Nokona has one superstar admirer: Texan legend and Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan, whose first glove was a Nokona, and who’s appeared in the company’s ads. But it only has about a dozen current top-level players signed up.

Up against so many odds, why doesn’t Nokona give in and go offshore?

“Because I’m crazy,” says Storey. “This is all I know how to do.”

[MIKA27]

Martin Scorsese Will Produce A 'Hard-Boiled' Version Of The Joker's Origin Story

At last, the Joker is getting his own movie. It will star a yet-to-be-cast actor, good news for anyone who was turned off by Jared Leto's interpretation of the character in Suicide Squad. And it will be an origin story that pays stylistic homage to 1980s Martin Scorsese films — with the legendary director himself producing.

Deadline got the scoop, reporting that the project is still in "the early stages" at Warner Bros and DC, but that Todd Phillips (The Hangover) and Scott Silver (8 Mile) are penning the script, with Phillips set to direct and act as co-producer with Scorsese. It will be an origin story styled as "a gritty and grounded hard-boiled crime film set in early-'80s Gotham City that isn't meant to feel like a DC movie as much as one of Scorsese's films from that era, like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull or The King Of Comedy".

That actually sounds rather inspired, and while it's hard to picture the guy from The Hangover series tackling something in this vein, having Scorsese aboard lends the project a ton of credibility. And since the film "isn't part of any other iteration", that means it will star someone other than Leto — though he'll still reprise the character in Suicide Squad 2 (if it ever gets made) and the Harley Quinn movie (ditto). An origin story suggests a younger actor, though who it will be is anyone's guess at this point.

[MIKA27]

‘Suburbicon’ Trailer #2

The George Clooney/Coen brother’s team up is back with a second trailer, this time giving us a bit more of Suburbicon to look at and nailing down a slightly more consistently surreal tone. The opening has those empty condolences people feel obligated to give when someone they don’t know loses a loved one, Oscar Isaac is spouting Coen Brothers dialogue like a professional, and everyone living in the suburbs forgot crime can come to them as easily as urban neighborhoods. From the trailer, it’s also becoming clearer that George Clooney might have a knack for this style of directing. Everyone’s performances, even in this two and a half minute taste, are spot on, so we’re patiently waiting for when this one finally hits theaters in late October.

[MIKA27]

This Month In Dashcams: Ideally, We Drive On The Road

Put them in charge of a couple of tons of metal, plastic and petrol, and people can do some stupid things. Dash Cam Owners Australia has put together another compilation of Australians being absolute morons on our roads — and this month, bear witness to some very poorly driven vehicles on footpaths and the wrong side of roads.

Just watching this puts me in HULK mode. 

 

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Hurricane Harvey Floods, Thrashes Southeast Texas After Making Landfall

Hurricane Harvey smashed into the Texas Gulf Coast on Friday night and Saturday morning after being elevated to Category 4 status, wiping out buildings with 209km/h winds and a 3.66m storm surge.

At least one person died in Rockport, Texas during the storm when their house caught fire, according to a county officials interviewed by CNN.

According to the Associated Press, emergency crews teams were not able to deploy throughout the region due to high winds and whiteout conditions on roads, so the tally may change.

According to ABC News, the Category 4 status was fortunately short-lived. After making landfall at around 10:00pm. local time, Harvey was downgraded to a Category 3 storm by three hours later and a Category 2 by four hours later. By morning, it was downgraded to a Category 1.

NOAA's National Hurricane Center warned Harvey could remain at tropical storm conditions as long as Wednesday, while the Houston branch of the National Weather Service noted all of southeast Texas remains under flash flood warning until Tuesday evening.

The city of Victoria took as much as 41cm of rain, per the New York Times, while totals of 40 to (on the extreme end) 152cm of rain by the end of the storm remain possible.

Massive damage was reported throughout areas of Texas near landfall, including Corpus Christi and Rockport-Fulton. According to the Corpus Christi Caller Times, Coast Guard vessels responded to distress calls in the area while "many homes and businesses have been destroyed and some residents had to be rescued by emergency crews, who are still trying to reach some areas of these communities."

"We know there is widespread devastation," Rockport Mayor CJ Wax told the Weather Channel. "I think it's safe to say we took a Cat. 4 (hurricane) right on the nose, and we'd appreciate everyone's prayers."

Some 250,000-plus people in the area remain without electricity due to storm damage, per the New York Times. President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency, committing US federal authorities to respond.

One person was confirmed dead in Rockport, Texas as a result of the hurricane.

[MIKA27]

Ancient Parasite Found In Mummy Autopsy Tells A Timeless Horror Story

Who among us hasn't drunkenly slung back a few raw oysters at a barbecue, or kicked back some uncooked clams just to feel alive? While it's usually OK to enjoy a slimy shellfish or six, remains from very dead, mummified man show what happens when things go wrong.

CT Scans recently performed on a 375-year-old mummified man revealed an unusual lump in his liver, which apparently harboured "a large number" of eggs from a parasitic fluke. The researchers surmise that the parasite, called Paragonimus westermani, came from consuming raw crustaceans, either for pleasure or, ironically, medical reasons. At the time, doctors in South Korea believed "crayfish juice" could cure measles, so it's possible this poor guy had the double whammy of sickness before he died. The nightmarish new research has been published in the Journal of Parasitology.

Those parasite eggs.

This specific type of paragonimus infection called Hepatic Paragonimiasis occurs when the parasitic flatworms settle down in a person's lungs or, in this case, their liver. While the host usually doesn't experience symptoms immediately, they can eventually suffer from diarrhoea, vomiting and even bloody coughing. So if this poor soul had measles and then this parasite, his death was the perfect storm of terribleness.

Today, Paragonimiasis is not very common in Australia, but it's still found in Southeast Asia and parts of central and South America. The team that studied this mummy suggest that up to 293.8 million people worldwide could still be at risk.

So if you ever want to enjoy raw oysters and rosé again, don't look at this picture. Or this one. I'm warning you. 

[MIKA27]

A Synthetic Human Fights To Survive In Visually Stunning Sci-Fi Short Seam 

In the not-too-distant future, a tenuous peace between humans and remarkably humanlike "machines" — some don't even know they're not real — is tested when synthetics begin spontaneously exploding. A military-led search for these unwitting suicide bombers begins, sending a terrified machine woman and her human partner on the run.

Seam — named for a volatile border area sandwiched between the designated machine containment zone and the human world — borrows from some excellent inspirations, including Blade Runner. But the 20-minute short, made by twin brothers Rajeev and Elan Dassani, makes its mark with outstanding special effects and well-chosen location shooting. Though the film begins in sleek Hong Kong, its visual style is most unique when it contrasts the futuristic tech used by its characters with ancient settings, including a chase scene that winds through the narrow streets of Salt, Jordan. The climactic sequence takes place in Wadi Rum, the otherworldly desert last seen playing Jedha in Rogue One.

 

[MIKA27]

THE WORLD’S FIRST HOLOGRAM TABLE IS HERE & WE’RE LIVING IN THE FUTURE

Who amongst us did not watch Star Trek and dream of the day we could have our own Holodeck adventures? Though holographic technology has long been a staple of science fiction and superhero stories, our real-life capabilities have been sadly lacking. That is, until now.

Australian company Euclideon has developed the world’s first multi-user hologram table that allows up to four people to interact with the projected images simultaneously. The Hologram Table uses an algorithm called Unlimited Detail and motion-tracking glasses to create 3D images without the need for clunky AR headgear.

Unlimited Detail created quite a stir in the gaming community when it was first showcased in 2011. The UD engine is capable of rendering gigantic visual spaces in minute detail – for example, letting a user navigate a digital model of city with the ability to zoom down to a single blade of grass. Users can also pick up objects and move them around, or prepare holographic presentations to convey ideas.

Euclideon’s glasses track the position of your eyes and create a custom image for each. Microchips embedded in the glasses record the location of what the user is viewing, allowing the exact projection of light to be calculated and emitted. Using frequency separation crystal films in both the table surface and the glasses, up to eight separate images can be parsed from what looks to the naked eye like a jumble of coloured light.

One model has been created thus far, a 1.5 x 1.5-m prototype that has secured the company enough capital to go into production. Euclideon estimates that the full-scale production version will be available as early as February 2018, with a price tag of around AU$60,000 (US$47,000).

[MIKA27]

KEN BLOCK’S TERRAKHANA

Question: what happens when you take Ken Block and a custom Ford Fiesta ST RX43; drop them off in the high desert that is Swing Arm City, Utah; and roll film? Answer: pure, unadulterated awesomeness. And you can see it all now in the new Pennzoil-presented “Terrakhana.”

Though usually seen driving around abandoned business parks, docks, and various other “concrete jungle” locales, Ken Block proves – once again – that he is not to be underestimated when it comes to putting the pedal to the metal. Even if that means driving in a place known for extreme heat; a thin-air elevation of 4,300 feet; and lots and lots of dust, dirt, and sand. And whether you buy into the point of the video – that Pennzoil’s synthetic motor oils and performance fluids work well in even the most extreme conditions – or you just appreciate a good bit of driving, there’s no denying what a rad automotive performance this is.

[MIKA27]

‘Last Flag Flying’ Trailer

There have been movies set during the War on Terror before, sure, but not many of them had the benefit of time between the start of the conflict and when the story takes place. Last Flag Flying is one of the first to have nearly decade and a half to reflect on the conflict and it looks like it’s going to take full advantage. Steve Carrell’s character, Richard Shepherd, loses his son in 2003 and asks his old Vietnam comrades to come with him to retrieve the body. Even though a road trip is at the center of the movie, it seems heavy on disillusionment, so don’t expect pure comedy from Carrel or Bryan Cranston. Plus, it’s coming from the same studio that made Manchester by the Sea. This one will probably be a little lighter, but not much.

[MIKA27]

Cayo Espanto 

Cayo Espanto is the ultimate retreat, an exclusive private island resort that offers ultimate privacy and 5-star service. Located off the coast of Belize, the mind-blowing resort features only seven brightly, tastefully decorated wooden villas so secluded that you may not bump into another guest for the duration of your stay. The villas are dotted among the tiny island’s palm trees, with private pools to plunge in, hammocks to snooze in, and plenty of pristine white sand and sparkling turquoise waters. At the resort you can choose to stay at the exclusive and spectacular one bedroom, over-the-water bungalow named Casa Ventanas. This unique bungalow is the most intimate, romantic and most popular accommodation on the island. Guests are always enchanted by all of the sea life swimming right past or under the bungalow. The island is also the perfect spot for divers and snorkelers, this tropical oasis is home to the world’s second largest barrier reef.

 

[MIKA27]

CONKER COLD BREW COFFEE LIQUEUR

There's no shortage of Coffee liqueurs on the market, but there aren't many that aren't super sweet or come close to resembling espresso. Conker Cold Brew Coffee Liqueur is a new release from the gin distiller that is the result of testing more than 90 recipes. They use some of the best Brazilian and Ethiopian coffee beans and brew the liqueur cold so none of the acidic, bitter elements of the coffee bean are extracted. The final product has no flavorings, additives, or thickeners, just four simple ingredients and a more than complicated process to achieve this smooth, rich liqueurs.