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

[MIKA27]

OLD CHARTER OAK BOURBON

Bourbon must be aged in a "new, charred oak container." But the oak itself can come from anywhere. And since that oak gives bourbon nearly three-fourths of its flavor, using a different type is bound to have a significant impact on the final product. Buffalo Trace started to experiment with this over a decade ago, and this is the first release in a new line dubbed Old Charter Oak. The initial offering features their tried and true Mash #1 bourbon aged in Mongolian Oak barrels for ten years. And as you'd expect, the result is much different than one that was aged in traditional oak barrels. Packaged in a glass bottle with an oak medallion on the front and available in limited quantities.

[MD Puffer]

26 minutes ago, MIKA27 said:

F-4 Phantom II Ejection Seat

You can keep your Eames Lounge, Arne Jacobsen’s Egg, and every other iconic chair ever created, I’ll take this F-4 Phantom II Ejection Seat as our seat of choice every day.

This genuine ejection seat from a McDonnell F-4 Phantom II fighter jet is for sale through the Boeing Store, so you can sit in style. A little background. The fighter jet is hailed as one of the most versatile ever built, with the ability to travel at twice the speed of sound. It was the U.S. Navy’s fastest, highest flying, and longest range fighter, and it was used by the Blue Angels and the Air Force Thunderbirds. In other words, it has a storied history. How that history lead to you using the seat as a place to rest while playing Red Dead Redemption 2 is beyond us. But that’s exactly what’s happening if you have the coin to buy it.

 

Firstly- God I love this thread.

Secondly, I think that's pretty cool and would love to have one but I wouldn't spend that kind of money for one ($12, 500).  I was an army brat growing up.  For three years we were stationed in Pirmasens, Germany, but I made a daily commute to an air base in Zweibruecken to attend school.  My English and history classes were about 300 yards from a runway and our daily syllabuses were (gladly) interrupted by F-4's and some small cargo plane I could never ID doing touch-and-goes.  I loved watching those things.  In my opinion they're among the best looking fighters ever (along with the F8).  

[MIKA27]

9 minutes ago, MD Puffer said:

Firstly- God I love this thread.

Secondly, I think that's pretty cool and would love to have one but I wouldn't spend that kind of money for one ($12, 500).  I was an army brat growing up.  For three years we were stationed in Pirmasens, Germany, but I made a daily commute to an air base in Zweibruecken to attend school.  My English and history classes were about 300 yards from a runway and our daily syllabuses were (gladly) interrupted by F-4's and some small cargo plane I could never ID doing touch-and-goes.  I loved watching those things.  In my opinion they're among the best looking fighters ever (along with the F8).  

Thank you @MD Puffer you're welcome.

Yeah, seat is a little high in price but damn it would make a statement piece at home.

What a cool childhood you must have had!

The F8 was one mean looking piece of equipment for its time, the F-8 Crusader was the world's first carrier-based aircraft that broke the speed of sound. That would have been amazing to hear during class!! 

[MD Puffer]

3 hours ago, MIKA27 said:

Thank you @MD Puffer you're welcome.

Yeah, seat is a little high in price but damn it would make a statement piece at home.

What a cool childhood you must have had!

The F8 was one mean looking piece of equipment for its time, the F-8 Crusader was the world's first carrier-based aircraft that broke the speed of sound. That would have been amazing to hear during class!! 

Yes, there were some interesting times.  It's an odd childhood experience to go from living in Seoul, Korea, for a couple of years, then to a rural farm in Alabama for a few years, then to Frankfurt, back the farm, then to Berlin, back to the farm, then to Pirmasens, and finally back to the farm.

After the La Belle disco bombing, we awoke the next morning to Jeeps with M2 50 cals mounted atop stationed in our neighborhood. You had to have your military dependent ID card to get in.  Or on the bus.  Or into school.  They also followed the buses to and from school.  It went on a few weeks.  When I look back on that time, I learn that my natural inclination to game the system is hardwired and likely occurred in utero. For three days I told the guard at school that I "forgot" to bring my ID to school and was sent back home to get it, unfortunately missing the first hour of Mr. Reed's class.  For some reason, my Mom told me sternly to not forget my ID card the night of the last day I did that.

A double-edged perk servicemen have available to them is something called Space-A MAC (military air command).  Basically, if a military plane (typically cargo planes are flying from, say Ramstein to Warner Robbins, Georgia, you pay a $10 fee and essentially fly for free.  However, as the name implies- there has to be space available.  Return flights aren't guaranteed.  When my Dad was in the Gulf, my Mom (she was also active duty) and brother and I went to go visit my Grandmother in Georgia.  We caught a C130 out of Ramstein...or Rhein Main, I don't recall exactly.  We were the only passengers.  It was weird, all the seats faced the rear and there were no windows, and the sensation of taking off was completely different than from a commercial airliner.  Then serendipity intervened.  Something went wrong with one of the plane's engines and out of an abundance of caution they decided to land at the nearest US military facility- which was a naval base in the Azores.  There were no outgoing flights for four days.  It. Was. Incredible.  I loved that island and at the time I feel like I explored every square inch of it.  When it was time to leave, our new plane was a KC135 refueling tanker.  The seats were parallel with the fuselage walls, and there was cargo tied down in the middle.  We were the only passengers again.  Their mission was to refuel two A6 intruders to CONUS.  I got to sit in the cockpit on take off (my brother sat in it during the landing).  Both of us got to lay down in the boom cockpit and watch the boom operator (who was a very attractive 20-something) refuel the Intruders about three times until we landed.  Our dinner was the single best meal I've ever had on any flight.  It was fried chicken (drumstick and breast) cooked by the officer's wive's club, a bag of doritos, a can of coke, and a sleeve of Oreos.  I remember every detail of that flight.  It was so cool for a 12-13 yr old.  My mother on the other hand, was about as miserable as I'd ever seen her.  Frankly, the coolness factor of webbed seats with five point safety harnesses outweighs any commercial airliner's foamy seats.

 

[Derboesekoenig]

8 hours ago, MD Puffer said:

Yes, there were some interesting times.  It's an odd childhood experience to go from living in Seoul, Korea, for a couple of years, then to a rural farm in Alabama for a few years, then to Frankfurt, back the farm, then to Berlin, back to the farm, then to Pirmasens, and finally back to the farm.

After the La Belle disco bombing, we awoke the next morning to Jeeps with M2 50 cals mounted atop stationed in our neighborhood. You had to have your military dependent ID card to get in.  Or on the bus.  Or into school.  They also followed the buses to and from school.  It went on a few weeks.  When I look back on that time, I learn that my natural inclination to game the system is hardwired and likely occurred in utero. For three days I told the guard at school that I "forgot" to bring my ID to school and was sent back home to get it, unfortunately missing the first hour of Mr. Reed's class.  For some reason, my Mom told me sternly to not forget my ID card the night of the last day I did that.

A double-edged perk servicemen have available to them is something called Space-A MAC (military air command).  Basically, if a military plane (typically cargo planes are flying from, say Ramstein to Warner Robbins, Georgia, you pay a $10 fee and essentially fly for free.  However, as the name implies- there has to be space available.  Return flights aren't guaranteed.  When my Dad was in the Gulf, my Mom (she was also active duty) and brother and I went to go visit my Grandmother in Georgia.  We caught a C130 out of Ramstein...or Rhein Main, I don't recall exactly.  We were the only passengers.  It was weird, all the seats faced the rear and there were no windows, and the sensation of taking off was completely different than from a commercial airliner.  Then serendipity intervened.  Something went wrong with one of the plane's engines and out of an abundance of caution they decided to land at the nearest US military facility- which was a naval base in the Azores.  There were no outgoing flights for four days.  It. Was. Incredible.  I loved that island and at the time I feel like I explored every square inch of it.  When it was time to leave, our new plane was a KC135 refueling tanker.  The seats were parallel with the fuselage walls, and there was cargo tied down in the middle.  We were the only passengers again.  Their mission was to refuel two A6 intruders to CONUS.  I got to sit in the cockpit on take off (my brother sat in it during the landing).  Both of us got to lay down in the boom cockpit and watch the boom operator (who was a very attractive 20-something) refuel the Intruders about three times until we landed.  Our dinner was the single best meal I've ever had on any flight.  It was fried chicken (drumstick and breast) cooked by the officer's wive's club, a bag of doritos, a can of coke, and a sleeve of Oreos.  I remember every detail of that flight.  It was so cool for a 12-13 yr old.  My mother on the other hand, was about as miserable as I'd ever seen her.  Frankly, the coolness factor of webbed seats with five point safety harnesses outweighs any commercial airliner's foamy seats.

 

This is a cool experience, I imagine, when you're a child. As an adult...no thank you. Unless you are utterly broke or have time to be waiting around (could be much longer than 4 days), then I don't think I could do it nowadays. I never have the time for anything it seems. Time is the real commodity

[MIKA27]

Discovery Of The Titanic Was Reportedly Part Of A Conspiracy To Find Lost Nuclear Submarines

The case of the RMS Titanic sinking in 1912 has generated numerous absurd conspiracy theories over the years, but it turns out the discovery of its wreckage was indeed part of a real-life military cover-up. According to a new report, the team that found the “unsinkable” ship at the bottom of the ocean was actually charged with locating two missing nuclear submarines.

Robert Ballard, the oceanographer who led the American team that found the Titanic, is finally allowed to tell the newly-declassified story of what really happened in 1985. Speaking with CBS News, he explained that he had already executed several top secret missions for the Navy when he found himself building an underwater vehicle in 1982. Unable to secure a science grant for the Titanic exhibition, Ballard got the idea of asking the Navy to pay for it.

He approached Deputy Chief of Naval Operations Ronald Thunman and explained that it was his lifelong dream to find the Titanic and was curious if the military department could find a way to make that happen. Thunman apparently thought Ballard was crazy but agreed to the plan as long as Ballard did something for the Navy first. The military wanted to explore two nuclear submarines that had gone missing in the 1960s. It was the height of the Cold War and the military did not want the Russians or other adversaries stumbling upon the USS Thresher and the USS Scorpion.

“We knew where the subs were,” Ballard told CNN. “What they wanted me to do was go back and not have the Russians follow me, because we were interested in the nuclear weapons that were on the Scorpion and also what the nuclear reactors (were) doing to the environment.”

The plan was to hide the mission in plain sight. The press would only be told about the hunt for the Titanic and no adversaries would be suspicious of the team’s activities. Ballard was primarily tasked with exploring the USS Scorpion and when that mission was accomplished he moved on to his own personal goal with 12 days left on the clock. “I learned something from mapping the Scorpion that taught me how to find the Titanic: look for its trail of debris,” he told CBS.

The team found the wreckage eight days later and its initial celebrations quickly turned sober as the understanding set in that they were looking at the grave site for 1,500 people. They returned home as heroes and had to maintain their cover story. After the discovery was announced, a Navy spokesperson told the New York Times that the military only funded the project because it was interested in the testing of new underwater equipment.

It doesn’t feel so much like the public was lied to as it does that there was whole other shadowy side to the project we never knew about. Everyone got what they wanted and it’s a pretty innocuous cover-up. At least, that’s what they want us to believe.

[MIKA27]

Germans Discover Military Jeep Hoods Used To Repair A Ceiling After World War II

Like many other places in Germany, the western city of Bonn had plenty of rebuilding to do after World War II. So, with materials scarce, the owner of one building decided to use hoods from junked army Jeeps to build up his ceiling. Those hoods have just been discovered after over 70 years, and they carry with them some fascinating history.

The story about these army Jeep hoods comes to me via former German Air Force officer Paul Greve, whom I spoke with over the phone. He said that, some weeks back, one of his friends who lived near the building—a garage in Bonn that was being torn down to make way for another structure—had learned about metal panels discovered in the ceiling.

Thinking the panels could be from an aircraft, the friend contacted Greve, who’s a member of the Luftkriegsgeschichte Rheinland, an organisation comprised of air force history experts who work with scientific institutions to better understand and document war history, and especially to help find and identify airmen who went missing in action.

Greve, who says he’s especially well-versed in 1915 to 1945 German air force history, arrived at the property, and—upon seeing the rust on the panels that bridged the garage’s main beams—immediately knew these weren’t aeroplane parts, since those are made of aluminium. These were Jeep hoods.

Speaking with the people who were tearing down the stable-turned-garage, Greve learned that the family has had the place for many years, and that the man who repaired the home in 1946 or 1947 had used junkyard parts to rebuild the ceiling after damage sustained in the war. This, Greve told me, was standard practice in post-war Germany—reusing as many available materials as possible, as cheaply as possible.

“Alle Häuser in diesem Gebiet sind durch das Bambardement zerstört geworden,” he told me in German. Meaning, roughly, that pretty much all the homes near this particular building were blown up during the war. Just look at this video clip to see the state of Bonn in 1945—it’s rough.

Greve pointed out the yellow paint on some of the hoods as reason to believe that these Jeeps may have been involved in the battle of Normandy. The special dye, brushed between the points of the invasion star on the hood, is called “M5 Liquid Vesicant Detection Paint,” and its job—as I described in my article a few months back—was to change colours upon detecting dangerous chemical agents.

The U.S. army was worried that Germany might use chemical weapons on the battlefield, considering Germany did so during World War I. So, in 1943, the European Theatre of Operations standardised vesicant paint, as shown in this “restricted” document found in the National Archives:

In addition, the paint was used on paper gas detection brassards that soldiers are said to have worn on their arms on D-Day.

To try to learn more about the hoods, I contacted Tom Wolboldt, a man who’s well-known in the World War II Jeep community, in part, because he’s undertaking the tedious task of sifting through tens of thousands of documents to learn exactly how the Willys MB and Ford GPW were built. He’s building a huge database to help owners know what their Jeeps were meant to look like from the factory.

This service to the Jeep community and to Jeep history at large has been a multi-year undertaking, but it’s solidified Wolboldt as one of the foremost experts on the vehicles. So when I asked him via his “Sequencing the Willys MB & Ford GPW Genome” Facebook page if he could help me learn what year the hoods were made based on their markings, it didn’t take him long to answer.

The hood above, for example, is a Willys MB hood that—like all MB body parts—was built in Toledo. According to Wolboldt, the hood number most likely was used on a Jeep with a serial number in the range of 255500 to 256250, which means its date of delivery to the army was between Aug. 13 to Aug. 16, 1943.

Also, that “S” at the end of the hood registration number stands for “suppressed,” meaning it was specially built with extra ground straps, capacitors, and other bits to prevent radio interference.

The hood above is actually that of a Ford GPW, Wolboldt told me. It was assembled in Louisville, Kentucky likely around September of 1942.

The hood registration number above also ends in “S” for “suppressed,” and sits in the serial number range 259500 to 260250, meaning it was built on Aug. 28 or 29 of 1943. That’s a big range of serial numbers for only two days, but Wolboldt says the factory in Toledo built over 300 MBs a day.

According to Wolboldt, the hood number 20234063 above is a Toledo-built Willys MB hood delivered on either Nov. 26 or Nov. 27, 1943.

The one above is also an MB hood from ‘43. Sitting in the serial number range 268500 to 269250, Wolboldt says it was accepted by the army on Sept. 27 or Sept. 28, 1943.

And the one above, with only half a vesicant paint-adorned star on it, is an MB delivered between July 7 and July 14, 1942. Speaking of vesicant paint, Wolboldt said it’s not really possible to know the Jeeps’ hoods’ exact ports of entry into Europe after all these years, but the vesicant paint helps narrow down the location and the time frame during which they were used.

“I consider that they were prepared for combat in Europe since the troops could encounter gas at anytime,” he told me over Facebook messenger. “As time went on the threat of gas became less. Vesicant paint was heavily used in ‘43 and ‘44 in NW Europe, Southern France, and Italy.“

Between the date of deliveries gathered via the hood numbers, and the use of the vesicant paint, it’s definitely possible that the Jeeps whose hoods used to make up this building’s ceiling were in Normandy—which definitely adds to the pedigree of these flat metal panels. “Good chance most if not all went thru Normandy at some point in time,” Woldboldt told me. “How many landed in the first wave? Most likely none.”

According to Paul Greve, these Jeep hoods could have been used in the Battle of the Bulge, and they possibly also made their way to Feldflugplatz Odendorf, an old German air base roughly 26km from the heart of Bonn that the U.S. eventually took control of. Another possibility is that they were used to support the Battle of Remagen, which took place only 24km from the center of Bonn.

A lot of this, of course, is just speculation. But Greve is fairly certain, after talking to the folks tearing the building down, that the hoods wound up in a junkyard in Bonn-Endenich, where many broken military vehicles were stored about a third of a mile from the building in which the hoods—knocked completely flat—were discovered hidden behind wood boards.

One of those flattened hoods is for sale on eBay, with a price sitting at just below $US600 ($834) as of this writing. It’s not cheap, but these things are incredible pieces of World War II history hidden from sight for over 70 years.

[MIKA27]

Burnham And Spock Finally Reunite In The New Star Trek: Discovery Trailer

Star Trek: Discovery returns to CBS All Access in the US, and Netflix internationally, in January 2019.

[MIKA27]

New Trailer For The Alien Occupation Thriller Captive State

Captive State opens March 2019.

[MIKA27]

Antarctic Scientists Are About To Drill Into One Of The Most Isolated Lakes On Earth

Buried beneath 1,219.20m of Antarctic ice lies Lake Mercer, a subglacial body of water that formed thousands of years ago and has been long separated from the rest of the world. A project to explore this lake—and its mysterious contents—is finally set to begin later this month.

Called Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access, or SALSA for short, the project aims to uncover new knowledge about Antarctica’s subglacial lakes, of which over 400 are known to exist. Over the next two months, SALSA scientists will explore one of the largest subglacial lakes in West Antarctica, a body of water known as Lake Mercer. The team will bore through some 1,219.20m (1,200 meters) of ice using a 60-centimeter-wide drill capped with hot water.

In addition to extracting water and mud samples, the researchers will deploy a remotely operated vehicle — a scientific first for a subglacial lake.

The SALSA team is hoping to learn more about these frigid alien environments, such as how water might flow in and out of these ice-covered reservoirs, how life is able to survive under such extreme conditions, the environmental factors under which these lakes formed, and the changing conditions of the Antarctic ice sheet.

Importantly, this mission could also serve as a proxy for future expeditions to the ice-covered moons of Jupiter and Saturn — moons that could potentially harbour alien life.

Eleven principle investigators from eight different U.S. institutions are involved in this three-year project, along with a number of international experts. SALSA was founded and funded two years ago by the Antarctic Integrated System Science Program with help from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs.

Earlier this week, 21 members of the SALSA science team arrived at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station in preparation for the drilling. From there, personnel and cargo will be flown to the worksite, which is located about 500 miles (800 kilometers) from the South Pole. Should all go according to plan, drilling could start by Christmas. From now until January of next year, around 50 scientists, drillers, and support staff will assist with the project.

Lake Mercer was first detected via satellite more than a decade ago, but it’s never been explored by humans. The subglacial lake measures about 160 square kilometers in size, which is over twice the size of Manhattan. But it’s not very deep — just 10 to 15 meters at its deepest points. The water in the lake hovers around the freezing point, but it never solidifies owing the tremendous pressure exerted onto it from the piles of ice directly above.

Lake Mercer likely formed about 10,000 years ago, but it’s a hydraulically active body of water, featuring water replacement times on the order of about a decade (so it’s not completely isolated from the rest of Antarctica). As part of SALSA, scientists will also explore Lake Engelhardt, another large subglacial lake on the Whillans Ice Plain.

SALSA will be the third project to explore an Antarctic subglacial lake; Lake Vostok and Lake Whillans (the latter of which is very close to Lake Mercer and, like Mercer, is also located on the Whillans Ice Plain) were both explored in 2013. Both lakes yielded a surprising number of microbes, and SALSA scientists are anticipating similar findings in Lake Mercer.

The SALSA Traverse—a caravan of tractors towing drilling and camp equipment—on its 650-mile (1,046-kilometer) journey to Lake Mercer.

Once the drill pierces into the lake, SALSA scientists will extract water samples and mud, as Nature News reports. An ice core sample up to 26 feet (8 meters) in length will help the scientists age the lake and its contents, and show scientists how the lake’s microorganisms are obtaining their nutrients. The remotely operated vehicle will snap photos of the reservoir and use its robotic claw to grasp more sample material.

In terms of the life that could exist in Lake Mercer, the SALSA scientists could definitely be in store for something interesting, as Nature News reports:

Quote

 

Evidence pulled up from the drilling project at Lake Whillans has spawned a series of discoveries that have shaped the current programme at Lake Mercer, 40 kilometres to the southeast. The water from Lake Whillans teemed with 130,000 microbial cells per millilitre — a population 10–100 times bigger than some researchers expected. Many of the microorganisms obtained their energy by oxidizing ammonium or methane, probably from deposits at the bottom of the lake.

That was a key insight, because it suggested that this ecosystem—seemingly cut off from the Sun and photosynthesis as an energy source — was still dependent on the outside world in an indirect way.

The researchers who studied Lake Whillans suspect that the ammonium and methane seep up from the lake’s muddy floor from the rotting corpses of marine organisms that accumulated during warm periods, millions of years ago, when this region was covered by ocean rather than ice. Evidence of this food source came from Reed Scherer, a micropalaeontologist at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, who was part of the Whillans project.

He found the shells of diatoms (single-celled algae) and the skeletal fragments of sea sponges littered throughout the lake’s mud. “There is a marine-resource legacy that the microbes are still tapping into,” he says.

 

In addition, the SALSA researchers will be on the lookout for animal life, which wasn’t detected in either Lake Vostok or Lake Whillans.

Analysis of the microorganisms found within the waters of Lake Mercer could show how life might survive on Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Both moons are covered in ice but feature warm bodies of liquid water beneath. There’s a decent chance that the conditions within Lake Mercer could resemble those found on Enceladus and Europa.

It’s a very exciting project indeed, and we’ll be following the scientists’ progress closely. Stay tuned in the coming weeks and months for updates.

[Duxnutz]

On 12/11/2018 at 6:13 PM, MIKA27 said:

F-4 Phantom II Ejection Seat

You can keep your Eames Lounge, Arne Jacobsen’s Egg, and every other iconic chair ever created, I’ll take this F-4 Phantom II Ejection Seat as our seat of choice every day.

This genuine ejection seat from a McDonnell F-4 Phantom II fighter jet is for sale through the Boeing Store, so you can sit in style. A little background. The fighter jet is hailed as one of the most versatile ever built, with the ability to travel at twice the speed of sound. It was the U.S. Navy’s fastest, highest flying, and longest range fighter, and it was used by the Blue Angels and the Air Force Thunderbirds. In other words, it has a storied history. How that history lead to you using the seat as a place to rest while playing Red Dead Redemption 2 is beyond us. But that’s exactly what’s happening if you have the coin to buy it.

 

Geeeeeeez. We had one sitting outside rusting away until recently. That and a complete DC3 tail!

[Fuzz]

5 minutes ago, Duxnutz said:

Geeeeeeez. We had one sitting outside rusting away until recently. That and a complete DC3 tail!

Now you know if you seen one in the future, grab it!

 

[MIKA27]

Electronic Arts Releases a New Anthem Trailer With a Hint of Story

Up until now, if you were to ask many people what the story was for Anthem, we’re betting most people wouldn’t know anything beyond it being an action RPG. Today, we finally got a hint of a storyline from Electronic Arts as they released a fresh new trailer for the game. The entire point of the trailer is to get you to sign up for the VIP demo, but now we at least have an idea of what all these people in suits are supposedly doing on this planet. Enjoy!

[MIKA27]

GLENFARCLAS WHISKY FAMILY CASK TRUNK

If there’s one thing that liquor collectors love, it’s the chance to get their hands on some rare vintages otherwise unavailable to the public. And while that’s not an unheard of occurrence, we’ve found one that certainly is. J&G Grant has just unveiled what is being called the most comprehensive whisky collection ever released by a single distillery, the Glenfarclas Family Cask Trunk.

Spanning the course of nearly 50 years — from 1954-2003 — this collection includes 50 individual 200ml bottles of the brand’s scotch whisky. And while that’s enough to get even the coolest collector hot under the collar, there’s even more to this set. It also comes in a massive commemorative cabinet alongside four Glencairn crystal tumblers, four nosing glasses, a crystal water jug, slate coasters, three leather-bound books with historical information on the collection and tasting notes, and a replica of the oldest known painting of the distillery. Only 60 of these collections are being offered at a price of $127,000 each.

[MIKA27]

Former NASA Engineer Builds Impressive Glitter Bomb To Make Life Hell For Package Thieves

 

Mark Rober really loves to build things. So when this home electronics tinkerer discovered that some neighbourhood thieves were ripping off Amazon packages from his porch, he did what any self-respecting former NASA engineer would do: He built a glitter bomb made to look like a boxed-up Apple HomePod, and he built it to capture video of the entire thing.

This wasn’t some amateur affair. Rober spent six months designing and testing different bait package set-ups that included cameras and various glitter dispersal methods. He used a 3D-printer, a custom-printed circuit board, GPS, and four phones with cameras. Oh, and fart spray. Seriously. The fart spray is really what puts this thing over the top.

The video, which is up on YouTube, shows just how Rober pulled it off. And he even lends the device to friends who also had packages stolen.

If it seems weird that Rober spent six months on this thing, you’ll learn at the end that the video is sponsored by NordVPN. So it makes sense that the production values are pretty damn good.

Yes, it’s an ad, but it’s pretty awesome as far as ads go. And in a world where everything is garbage, we’ll take a cool ad over shitty reality any day.

[Fuzz]

3 hours ago, MIKA27 said:

Former NASA Engineer Builds Impressive Glitter Bomb To Make Life Hell For Package Thieves

 

I would have swapped out the glitter for napalm, but that is just me.

[MIKA27]

Hellboy's First Trailer

The first trailer for Neil Marshall’s Hellboy reboot is here and it’s probably nothing like what you’d expect from the movie, but trust that it’s exactly what you need.

Interestingly, this Hellboy film borrows elements from creator Mike Mignola’s Darkness Calls, The Wild Hunt, and The Storm and the Fury series and introduces us to a somewhat petulant Hellboy (David Harbour) working alongside his still-living father Trevor Bruttenholm (Ian McShane) at the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Development. Despite Hellboy’s involvement at the B.P.R.D. already being well established, the film also makes clear that his role as a hero fighting the forces of evil is something many humans don’t understanding—often making him the target of their fear-driven attacks.

As heavy as Hellboy’s themes of social isolation and self-doubt are, what’s surprising is just how amped and upbeat this first look at the movie is.

The trailer also introduces us to Hellboy’s partners Alice Monaghan (Sasha Lane), a woman who’s recruited to the B.P.R.D. because of the magical affinity she gained after being kidnapped by fairies in her youth, and Major Ben Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim), a soldier who doesn’t see eye to eye with the demon.

The tension between Hellboy and his human colleagues is made all the worse by the fact that despite the fact that he’s committed his life to fighting demons like himself, they still want him to join them in their war against the human race being led by Milla Jovovich as Nimue the Blood Queen. From the monsters and demons’ perspectives, Hellboy should be working with them to wipe humans off the face of the Earth, and when he realises that he may be the key to triggering the apocalypse, he can’t help but wonder whether they might be right.

Hellboy hits theatres April 2019.

[MIKA27]

THE MACALLAN 52 YEARS OLD SCOTCH WHISKY

Walk into any purveyor of alcoholic spirits and you’ll find that, when it comes to scotch, The Macallan is always amongst the finest. So whenever the distiller announces that they’re releasing something a bit on the rarer side of things, we like to keep an eye out. And that’s why this special release, The Macallan 52 Years Old, caught our attention.

This rare spirit isn’t even a blend — the whole batch comes from a single cask, making this an ultra-rare single malt offering with only 250 bottles in existence. And once those are gone, they’re gone forever. Aged in the same warehouse The Macallan has used since 1824, this oak-aged, sherry-seasoned scotch boasts deep aromas of cherry, dark chocolate, citrus, and peat smoke. And the palate is said to feature a similar blend of smokey sweetness and spices. Bottles are available now but they’ll cost a pretty penny — in the neighborhood of $49,000 each.

[MIKA27]

KEN BLOCK’S GYMKHANA TEN

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade, you’ll know that Ken Block and the guys at Monster Energy, Hoonigan, and Ford have been pumping out insane driving videos under the moniker of Gymkhana. Now, they’ve finally unveiled their most anticipated installment to date, Gymkhana Ten — and trust us, it’s one hell of a ride.

Gymkhana Ten ditches the idea of a “single location” that’s been prevalent in the previous episodes — opting instead for not one, not two, but five different locations — all of which provide their own chaotic but impeccable setpiece for the automotive film. At each location, Block also helms a different car — starting with the WRC-spec Ford Fiesta pillaging a seriously modified frozen lake in Sweden, branching into a Detroit-based drift fest with none other than the 1,400-horsepower twin turbo V8 all-wheel-drive Mustang, the Hoonicorn, and stowing away to the tight streets of Mexico for an unforgettable rallycross binge that takes place in Block’s trademark Ford Focus. From here, it only gets more insane, with the crew burning up the star-studded streets of Los Angeles in an Escort Cosworth before wrapping up the 19-minute thrill ride in Texas, where Block unveils the all-new Hoonitruck — a 914-horsepower twin-turbo 3.5-liter V6 Ford F-150 that’s been slammed to the ground on a custom tube-frame chassis.

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FORD QUIET KENNEL NOISE-CANCELLING DOG HOUSE

While many folks own dogs as a means to keep themselves safe and stress-free, canines have their own set of insecurities and stresses that can put them on edge and make their lives harder — like the sound of fireworks on the 4th of July (the number one holiday in which animals go missing). As it turns out, Ford finally has a solution to help keep your pup safe from loud noises with their Quiet Kennel.

According to the brand, up to 50% of dogs exhibit fear when faced with loud unnatural sounds. This structure, however, utilizes the brand’s Active Noise Control Technology — found in their vehicles — to dampen these sounds to a level that won’t disturb the animals’ ultrasonic hearing. And it’s not just the dual speakers on the interior that do the trick, as it also boasts sound-reducing insulation and an automatic door to improve the noise-cancelling even further. They’ve even gone so far as to give the doghouse a ventilation system, so your pooch will feel like they’re in the lap of luxury, even when all hell has broken loose outside. It’s hard to say whether this design will be put into mass production, but we know plenty of dog owners (ourselves included) that would jump at the chance to get one.

 

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WHISKEY BAR & MUSEUM TEL AVIV

The world is full of interesting places to have a dram, and this bar/restaurant combined with a museum should be at the top of every whiskey drinker's list. Whiskey Bar & Museum is located in Tel Aviv, Israel in the historic Templer tunnel - which housed a local winery in the 19th century and most recently was home to Israel's intelligence agency. It's as much an underground lair as it is a bar, with over 1,000 whiskeys from legendary Scottish distillers to upstarts in Hong Kong and India. Guests can sample from the wall of whiskey or make a dinner reservation and choose from a menu featuring dishes designed to pair with and augment whiskey flavors.

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Men In Black: Internationals First Trailer Reveals An Even Bigger World Of Alien Hunters

Men In Black: International beams into theatres June 2019.

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MCLAREN PAYS TRIBUTE TO AYRTON SENNA WITH THE FASTEST P1 GTR EVER

30 years. That’s how long it’s been since Ayrton Senna won his first Formula One title back in 1988 behind the wheel of a McLaren-Honda. He’d eventually go onto winning three titles in total making him one of the most successful drivers of the golden era.

Fast forward to 2018 and one very dedicated McLaren fan has honoured the late Brazilian driver with a very special version of the McLaren P1 GTR finished in the iconic red and white Malboro cigarette livery.

As Top Gear pointed out, it is somewhat ironic that the well-heeled customer didn’t pay tribute to Senna with an actual McLaren Senna…but that’s beside the point. This particular P1 GTR is brutally capable and actually looks better than any tarted up Senna will – as it should considering it reportedly took 800 hours to paint and three years to complete.

Commissioned through McLaren Special Operations, the P1 GTR nicknamed ‘Beco’ – the same nickname Senna’s parents gave him – sports enhanced power of an unspecified figure and increased downforce in the region of 800kg. Like the original McLaren F1 supercar, the P1 also features 24ct gold heat shielding, a lightweight Lexan rear panel and modified engine bay shrouds.

On the inside there’s your usual fair of Alcantara, carbon fibre and not much else that doesn’t serve the purpose of going fast. A nice touch is the door sill which is inscribed with one of Senna’s most famous quotes: “I am not designed to finish 2nd or 3rd…I am designed to win”.

That’s not all though. The savvy customer even ordered a custom helmet finished in matching Malboro livery.

Best not to use this one for a cancer charity drive day.

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Lamborghini's Next Hypercar Will Glow In The Dark: Report

While a future full of hybrid replacements for the Lamborghini Aventador and Huracan is imminent, the spicy Italian automaker may show off its new powertrain approach a little early with a new hybrid hypercar that may use supercapacitors instead of batteries. Oh, and they want it to glow in the dark.

The initial rumour of a hybrid hypercar set to preview Lamborghini’s electrified future came from Autocar, which reports the new car, codenamed LB48H, will get a tweaked V12 couple to a new hybrid setup for the 2020 model year.

The car was reportedly already shown off to buyers back in June, as we suspected at the time, and will only be a limited-run special. Lamborghini anticipates that, even with the lightest setup and weight cuts elsewhere in the car, we should all expect the new generation of hybrid hypercars and supercars to still be a little bit heavier than the current offerings.

Following up on Autocar’s report, a source over at Road & Track claims the special LB48H will cost around $US3 ($4) million and glow in the dark, because the rich aren’t satisfied only being able to show off in daylight, of course.

Will it glow in the dark like the stickers from your youth and the strips on the sides of aeroplane aisles? Or just with lights, which isn’t really “glow in the dark” but people stretch the definitions of lots of things these days?

Road & Track also speculates the new hypercar would be the perfect place to implement the supercapacitor technology Lamborghini has been developing. Supercapacitors are ideal for Lamborghini over traditional batteries in other hybrid and electric vehicles because they can charge and discharge much quicker than batteries, and don’t wear out as rapidly.

The only thing holding supercapacitors back in automotive applications is their limited energy density compared to a lithium-ion battery, which Lamborghini has been working with MIT on improving, as Road & Track points out.

If this new hypercar does glow in the dark, though, I’m just personally proud that Lamborghini continues to recommit to being the Most Hot-Wheels-like of all the automakers.

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Forest to Glass: Distillers are Now Searching for the World’s Most Exotic Barrels

Distillers around the world are pushing the envelope when it comes to the types of wood they’re aging their spirits in.

If you like the taste of bourbon, you like the taste of white oak.

Bourbon makers say that somewhere between 50- and 80-percent of the flavor in bourbon is derived from interactions with the white oak staves used to make a barrel. The oak not only has its own natural flavors in it—after all, it’s a plant like rutabaga or corn—but treating it with a flame to char the interior of the cask releases myriad other compounds, including a sort of butterscotch top-note that arises when the wood’s natural sugars are caramelized. The interaction of oak and the molecules naturally found in spirits also create new and inviting compounds.

One of the people who likes the complex flavors derived from oak is Melkon Khosrovian, who in 2004 founded Greenbar Distillery in Los Angeles with his wife, Litty Mathew. About seven years ago, Khosrovian started thinking that, yes, oak is tasty and all, but what flavors might be able to coaxed of out of other types of wood?

“The question was, ‘what are we missing?’” he said. “Why doesn’t anyone use these others woods? Distillers are twisting themselves into knots trying to make whiskey more interesting by aging them—at least secondarily—in sherry casks, vermouth casks, wine casks, beer casks, you name it. If we’re going to go that way, what about the rest of the forest?”

Khosrovian had a few ideas about where to start. He’d been an amateur furniture builder for a time, which afforded him an inadvertent education in the smell and tastes of various woods. So he selected 30 different wood samples (sourcing many from suppliers of barbecue enthusiasts), and began a series of experiments. “We stuck the wood inside jars with whiskey to see what kind of flavor, color and aroma we could produce,” he said. He spent about a year sampling and tasting before selecting several for blending. “In the musical vernacular, we took a symphonic approach to wood, versus than the soloist approach that virtually everyone takes with white oak.”

Greenbar’s experimenting was innovative but not wholly unique. Other distillers both large and small have been dabbling with nontraditional wood aging, often involving varied forms of oak. Buffalo Trace in Kentucky released its Old Charter Oak Mongolian Oak Bourbon, aged from ten years in barrels sourced from Mongolia. Louisville-based craft distiller Copper & Kings has been aging brandy in “zebra barrels”—made with alternating staves of used bourbon barrels and new American oak, with cask heads from used chardonnay barrels. Makers Mark 46 inserts a rack of toasted French oak staves into its finished bourbon. (Bourbon by law must be aged in new oak barrels, but the law doesn’t restrict the type of oak or where it’s grown.)

Other producers have been journeying outside the oak forest, if a bit tentatively. Copper Fox in Virginia has experimented with a sort of tea-bag consisting of oak and applewood chips that steep inside a bourbon barrel. Woodford Reserve included maple casks as part of its Master’s Collection Four Wood Bourbon released several years ago. (The other woods were white oak, along with used oak casks that once held port and sherry.)

But other producers are embracing alternative woods in full. Michael Myers, founder of Distillery 291 in Colorado Springs, wanted to add something to his whiskey that was uniquely Coloradan. He started experimenting with the toasted wood from one of the state’s iconic trees, the aspen. “I know there are traditions and stuff,” Myers said, “but I don’t pay attention to them very much.”

He initially began to filter his spirit through aspen charcoal, similar to the filtering of Tennessee whiskey through maple charcoal. That worked nicely, but when he started looking deeper at aging, he wondered if longer exposure to aspen staves would further improve his whiskey. He couldn’t make barrels out of aspen—the cell structure would mean rapidly emptying containers—but he could insert aspen staves inside traditional casks.

Myers ages his whiskey for about a year in small oak barrels (ten to 30 gallons), then finishes each batch for two to four weeks with three toasted aspen staves, each about 10 inches long. (A friend cuts the wood for him; he toasts and chars them on a Weber grill.) For a small-barrel whiskey, it tastes more mature than might be expected. Myers stays that’s in part due to aggressive cuts in distillation, which can temper the young whiskey flavor. But he suspects the wood also plays a part. “The aspen may clean up some of that graininess,” he said.

In Brazil, two producers of barrel-aged cachaça are taking terroir to the next level by producing spirits aged in indigenous woods. Larger vats there have been traditionally made of the tight-grained local woods, but using casks to add flavor hasn’t been much seen until recently. Avuá Cachaça rolled out its Amburana Cachaça, aged up to two years in amburana casks (also known as Brazilian teak), which gives it a rich, an almost savory edge, offsetting the natural sweetness of the cachaça.

Another distiller, Novo Fogo, has released three aged expressions of cachaça using Brazilian woods to finish its spirit, which is first aged for a year in used bourbon barrels. They’ve also released an amburana expression (finished for an additional year in 250-liter amburana casks), as well as a Brazilian nut wood spirit (aged two years in 250-liter casks), and a flavorful zebra wood variation, aged in a 350-liter cask. The latter is a dense, distinctively striped wood full of resin and flavor, and the spirit is finished for three months.

The Brazilian woods add a layer of flavor that is at once familiar and unfamiliar. The dense zebra wood adds curious bitterness to the cachaça. The nut wood brings creamy, baking spice notes and a touch of something that hints of menthol. And the amburana adds deeper vanilla notes than typically achieved with ex-bourbon barrels.

Production of these three expressions has been limited—Novo Fogo currently has a total of just seven finishing barrels—owing in part to the scarcity of the wood. Novo Fogo doesn’t want to further stress endangered hardwoods; while the teak and nut wood are available in limited quantities from sustainable sources, the zebra wood remains all but impossible to source ethically. The one cask they had made was of reclaimed flooring from a building remodeling. (They’re scouting for another rebuilding project for wood to make a second barrel.) “At this point, we don’t have a sustainable solutions,” admitted Luke McKinley, Novo Fogo’s marketing director.

Back in Los Angeles, the woods used in Greenbar’s Slow Hand Six Wood Whiskey are widely available. In addition to American white oak, Khosrovian uses hickory, maple, mulberry, red oak and grape (from vines) to infuse flavor. Because most of these woods are poorly suited to making casks, he employs planks—up to two feet long, and about two or three inches thick, which are toasted before they’re used. (He experimented with wood chips, but found the flavor “duller.”)

The planks are loaded to a height of several feet in large French white oak vats, which are topped off with his all-barley malt whiskey. The wood floats for about nine months, he said, and then grows spirit-logged and sinks. “That’s when we get access to the full flavor,” Khosrovian noted. Total aging is just under three years.

“It’s been an experiment, and the reaction has been all over the place,” Khosrovian admitted. Those new to whiskey are curious about the new flavors his approach yields, “but among the whiskey aficionados, it’s a harder sell. Some people think it’s heresy.”

He’s hopeful that even traditionalists will come around, lured by Slow Hand’s unique flavor profile—its tastes like bourbon on entry, but finishes like Scotch, making it a sort of intriguing Pegasus of the spirit world.

“The flavors aren’t weird—they come from trees,” he said. “But they’re flavors that no one has ever tasted.”