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

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Proper Wireless Charger For Airpods

Product design studio Studio Proper have introduced a sleek and elegant station to store and charge your prized AirPods. The weighty block of anodized aluminum is machined precisely to the shape of the AirPods wireless charging case, simply place it on the dock and the charging begins. It also features an anti-slip rubber base, preventing your AirPods from tumbling to the floor, and ships with a flat tangle free USB-C to USB-A cable in the box. With a minimalist design that never gets in your way, keeping your AirPods topped up and ready to go for your day has never been easier. $75

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SAMSUNG GALAXY WATCH ACTIVE2

As you might expect given the name, Samsung's latest Galaxy Watch is a fitness-focused affair. Dubbed the Active2, it has a handsome case in either aluminum or stainless steel, measuring 44 or 40mm. The digital bezel rotates for navigation within the watch's One UI, displayed on the round Super AMOLED screen. It tracks more than 39 workouts, with seven automatically activated, has an updated Running Coach, tracks your stress levels in real-time, and, through integration with Calm, provides access to guided meditation programs and sleep analysis. $279+

 

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‘Carnival Row’ Official Trailer Debuts, Sets Stage For Magic-Infused Murder Mystery

The latest trailer for Amazon’s Carnival Row, starring Orlando Bloom, Cara Delevingne, Jared Harris, and Indira Varma has arrived just a few weeks before its release. The new series promises to take viewers into a steampunk world where humans and magical creatures coexist in the uneasy city of Carnival Row.

Carnival Row‘s fourth trailer puts an emphasis on the impossible romance of Vignette Stonemoss (Delevingne), a faerie who is forced out of her magical homeland by an army of human soldiers and seeks refuge in the port city of Carnival Row. The humans residents don’t take kindly to magical creatures, forcing Vignette to find whatever demeaning work she can to stay afloat. She holds on to the memory of her human lover, a soldier named Philo (Bloom) who she believes died when his regiment was invading her land. She’s surprised to learn that not only is Philo alive, but he’s a detective investigating a series of murders with clues pointing to a sinister force that could be responsible.

The trailer hints that the series will combine elements of fantasy and steampunk, bringing to life an alternate Victorian era that is as magical as it is grim. There’s also some very timely themes around warfare and immigration which Carnival Row seems poised to comment on through its story. All things considered, Amazon Studios may have made the perfect end-of-summer series for us.

All eight episodes of Carnival Row arrive on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, August 30.

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Lucasfilm's First Non-Star Wars Or Indiana Jones Film In Years Is A Children Of Blood And Bone Adaptation

Since Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, the studio has been laser-focused on two of its biggest franchises: cycling up a whole deluge of Star Wars films, and getting going on a continuation of Indiana Jones. But now it’s working on a new project, wholly disconnected from supernatural treasure hunting or Jedi adventures.

Deadline reports Disney is moving ahead with an adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi’s 2018 young adult fantasy novel Children of Blood and Bone, picking up on a Fox 2000 rights acquisition that has survived the House of Mouse’s consumption of Fox and the ongoing radical cutdown of its previously planned movie slate.

Set in a world where an evil king orders the culling of Maji — practitioners of various elemental magics — Children of Blood and Bone follows a young orphaned Maji named Zélie, who sets out to bring magic back to her people and strike back against the king who subjugated them.

Kay Oyegun, best known for her work on This is Us, is currently in talks with Disney to write the adaptation, while Dope and one-time potential Flash director Rick Famuyiwa is still attached to direct.

While prior producers back under Fox’s auspices Marty Bowen, Isaac Klausner, John Fischer, and Karen Rosenfelt, as well as Famuyiwa himself, will still be onboard the Disney version of the project, the deal has apparently caught the eye of Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy according to Deadline. Disney is looking to hand over Children of Blood and Bone to Lucasfilm to be their first non-Star Wars or Indy production since being bought by the megacorporation seven years ago.

It won’t be the first time Lucasfilm has dabbled in fantasy, of course — aside from the fact Star Wars is basically swords and sorcery with lasers and spaceships.

There is, of course, their work with Ron Howard on Willow, which could make a return on Disney+ — but at the very least it means Disney is putting a level of importance on the project if it’s willing to let Lucasfilm spend some time away from the galaxy far, far away for a bit.

We’ll bring you more on Disney’s plans for Children of Blood and Bone as we learn it.

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The Rebirth of a Legendary New Orleans Bar

The Old Absinthe House is the oldest bar in New Orleans, a city that has no shortage of old bars, and one of the oldest in America. This column has been exploring its history from its founding, back in 1841 (give or take), to the period at the turn of the last century when it was one of the most famous bars in America, to its struggles during Prohibition and the Great Depression. 

Here, in the final part of the series (Previous posted HERE), we see the bar going through a whole new cycle of up and down and, we hope, up again. 

THE BRENNAN DYNASTY

Owen Edward Brennan was a son of New Orleans’s Irish Channel neighborhood who seemed to know everyone in town. In 1940, he sold his half interest in the successful Mid City pharmacy/liquor store he owned and started looking around for something a little more fun, in the meanwhile filling in as manager at the Court of Two Sisters restaurant on Royal Street and working as a sales manager for Schenley, the big whiskey company. That last gig certainly didn’t lose him any friends, particularly when whiskey was tightly allocated due to wartime restrictions. It took him a while, but finally he found that fun thing: the Old Absinthe House. In 1943, he was able to secure the lease from Johnny Marchese, who had run it as a dance hall since Repeal. 

For a guy who had never owned a bar before, Owen Brennan had impressive instincts. The first thing he did was get rid of the dancing. Sure, there would still be music, but it wouldn’t be the anonymous dance band shit Marchese had been putting on. Brennan instead took a page from Pat O’Brien’s bar on St. Peter Street, which Robert Kinney identified in his 1942 The Bachelor in New Orleans, an eccentric (and gloriously-illustrated) insiders’ guide to Crescent City nightlife, as “probably the most popular Saturday-night bar in the French Quarter.” Why? “The spirit of Pat’s is robust!” was Kinney’s verdict. The main thing that made it so was the presence in the barroom of Mercedes LeCorgne Paulson and Sara Belle “Sue” Wheeler, each seated at her own piano and each equally adept at playing any request a tipsy patron could generate, razzing up the fast numbers with bawdy wordplay and squeezing every last drop of sticky sentiment out of the slow ones. 

Owen E. Brennan was not Benson H. “Pat” O’Brien, though. Although he had the same popular touch, he tempered it with a certain elegance: he could fold together pure corn and le bon ton and come out with a seamless confection that was slangy but not vulgar, classy but not stuffy. When Owen Brennan stood on Bourbon St. eating a hot dog, he did it with a glass of Champagne in his hand. For the Old Absinthe House, that combination meant, first of all, that Brennan also secured the services of “Fats” Pichon.

Walter Pichon (1906-1967) was born in New Orleans and, as a Creole of color, grew up surrounded by jazz, then in its youngest and most vigorous form. And yet he had also been trained at the New England Conservatory of Music, paid for by none other than George Gershwin, who had heard the young pianist practicing at a seaside resort in New Jersey and thought he had potential. After spending the late 1920s and early 1930s playing in various jazz bands in New York and on the road, Pichon got homesick. Back in New Orleans, he spent a couple of years leading bands on riverboats before settling down behind the piano at Lucien Cazebonne’s Old Absinthe Bar, a block down Bourbon from the Old Absinthe House. That’s when Brennan found him and promptly poached him away.

This was a coup—Pichon, who could play anything from Debussy to the Dirty Dozens and improvise a lyric with as much facility, if not quite so much lubricity, as Mercedes and Sue, was perhaps the biggest attraction in the French Quarter, and he brought the crowds in. (Brennan even installed a mirror over the piano, so guests in the back could see Pichon’s fingers moving at lightning speed.) 

Another O’Brien’s touch that Brennan imitated was the paralyzing signature drink. While the Pirate’s Dream—billed as “the High Brow of All Low Brow Drinks”—never achieved the popularity of O’Brien’s famed Hurricane (which Brennan also knocked off on his menu), at least it was a reliable source of rum, of which it held some four ounces, and maraschino cherries, with which it came liberally festooned. As for O’Brien’s craps-shooting, underage drinkers and occasional riot, there Brennan drew the line. His customers were expected to dress well and behave. 

Those who were willing to do so found an Absinthe House transformed, pretty much the same way Tex Avery had transformed the cartoons of the day. Where Jos Ferrer had allowed customers to post their business cards, Brennan handed out cards for people to sign and tack up. In no time the walls were thickly crusted with these scrawled notes, plus business cards, personal documents—for example, the letter a New York photographer pinned up firing him from his last job—and greenback dollars in all denominations, or at least up to $20, plus foreign notes from all around the globe and any other exotic piece of paper that happened to walk into the bar in someone’s pocket.  

Even the bar’s history was in play. After putting a marble plaque outside repeating the long ago-debunked claim that Jean Lafitte and Andrew Jackson had planned the defense of New Orleans there (they hadn’t), Brennan didn’t stop there. He decked out the building’s old “entresol” (the half-height storage area wedged between the first and second floor) as a museum, stuffing it with bric-a-brac from the antique shops on Royal St., including a giant punt gun used for commercial duck-hunting. That was all designed to lull people into boozy complacency for the “secret” side-room, where lifelike papier maché figures representing the general and the pirate, plus various other parties were grouped around a table lit only with a guttering oil-lamp. Among them was an older African-American man, consulting a paper. When you approached the table, he would slowly rise to his feet. Shrieks ensued. 

That man was known as “Uncle Tom,” which certainly gives us pause. But his job involved more than just scaring the tourists, which he did so well that the Absinthe House had to stop the act and ended up hanging the dummies in the corners of the barroom. He was also a sort of tour guide or docent, showing customers all the historical parts of the place, and took turns singing in the bar-room. Like Pichon, he was a large part of the public face of the Absinthe House. So were the black entertainers that Brennan brought in, such as Ethel Waters and the Golden Gate Quartet (in that Green-Book age he also guaranteed them accommodation), and so was the “experienced colored bartender” who could “mix all New Orleans cocktails” he advertised for in 1947 and 1948, presuming that one was actually hired (the Brennan’s Absinthe House bartenders whose names have come down to us—Al St. Germain, Joe Palumbo and Joe Gilberti—were of French or Italian extraction). All of this was unusual for a French Quarter bar, if not unprecedented; it certainly wasn’t how they did things at Pat O’Brien’s. 

Yet the greatest driver of the immediate success enjoyed by Brennan’s Old Absinthe House was Owen Brennan himself. “Owen just knew what it took to make people happy,” his sister Ella later recalled. “It was an instinct. He understood hospitality and he understood service.”

With his constant presence as host, the Absinthe House went from strength to strength, allowing the family to buy the restaurant across the street in 1946 (in 1950 Brennan’s Vieux Carré became simply “Brennan’s”). Meanwhile, Bourbon St. got seedier and seedier, as strip joints moved in and straight businesses moved out. To quote one bilious observer from 1949, “In Napoleon’s day the Bourbon road / Was trod by royal shoes, / But today the proud old name just means / A place to lap up booze.” But at the Absinthe House, at least, customers still put on their nice clothes and acted like ladies and gentlemen, more or less. Cayetano Ferrer, who first made the bar famous back in the 1870s, would have approved.

Owen Brennan died in his sleep on November 4, 1955. He was only 45 and was mourned by all who had ever met him. His siblings and, eventually, his son stepped in to guide the bar through this devastating loss, but by then the family’s focus was more and more on their restaurant, which, following Owen’s plan, they soon moved off Bourbon to the much more civilized Royal St., where it still is. 

The Absinthe House continued chugging along, Fats Pichon and all, until 1959, when the Brennans struck a deal with the ABC television network to sell them a half-interest in the place and let them use it as a hanger for a new series, Bourbon Street Beat. The planned series was one of several road-show knockoffs of the hit 77 Sunset Strip, a juvenile-lead detective procedural filmed “on the streets of Hollywood.” 

"At night, people gathering in the Old Absinthe House to socialize and drink"

First, though, the old building needed work. After all the years and all the termites and all the hurricanes, it was crumbling, and now there was TV money to fix it. At the end of June, it closed for six months of heavy renovation, including serious structural work involving iron girders and lots of masonry. In a way, this could be said to be the end of the bar that had been founded by Jacinto Aleix back in 1841.  

When the bar reopened in December, it was a different place. Gone were the cards and such—the new walls, which had the former contents of the upstairs museum bolted to them, were even designed to resist thumbtacks. There were new, replica absinthe fountains. All the building’s wonky angles were righted, its wormholed woodwork replaced with new and the top-floor apartment, which Owen Brennan used to lend out to friends such as Louis Armstrong, Robert Mitchum and star columnist Robert Ruark, was turned into banquet space, bedecked with faux-antique paintings on the swanky cabinetwork. The managers wore scarlet coats and the bartenders ruffled shirts. It all looked nice on camera.

Bourbon Street Beat, not so much. The show, most of which was filmed on the same tired Hollywood backlots where everything else was, lasted one season. ABC sold the Brennans back their half of the bar. Bar patrons found a way to tack up cards again. The bell that the bartenders used to ring when they got a good tip was now augmented by an auto horn, for a bigger one, and a cannon, into whose muzzle they’d toss a firecracker when somebody really peeled off the bills. 

Nothing helped much. But as one patron put it a couple of years later, “gone now is the musty, smoky old Absinthe House, victim to progress and termites and Ella Brennan’sbusiness acumen, for it is now the Brennan Old Absinthe House, in Brennan fashion, with red-coated waiters, and an air of sophistication.” 

They needed those waiters because elegant drinking was doomed on Bourbon St. The Brennans, now fantastically successful restaurateurs, tried adding food—first Creole, then steaks (they must have added the kitchen during the renovation, since they were out of the gate with the food pretty much the minute ABC folded the series). That worked, for a time, and then it didn’t. They tried cabaret, just as Pierre Cazebonne had. This time, the padlock was their idea: in May, 1963, just about 20 years after Owen had bought it and used it to build the family’s fortunes, they sold it. 

THE MORAN DYNASTY

Every time in the past that the Absinthe House had been sold, it went from one person to another. This time, it went to a corporation, the Old Absinthe House Co., a Brownsville, Texas, concern that was a subsidiary of the Newport Corporation. The Newport Corporation was owned by Anthony and James Moran Jr., who had inherited the venerable Restaurant de la Louisiane (on St. Louis St., not far from the Absinthe House) from their late father Joseph “Diamond Jim Moran” Brocato. 

Before buying the restaurant, Brocato/Moran, a former boxer, had been a bodyguard for Huey Long and was a reputed associate of Carlos Marcello, who was Carlos Marcello, in the same way that Sam Giancana was Sam Giancana and Lucky Luciano was Lucky Luciano. After buying the restaurant, Moran testified before the Senate’s Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, led by the junior Senator from Tennessee, Estes Kefauve. Kefauver never laid a glove on him. 

If the Morans were legitimate businessmen, they weren’t particularly careful ones. Sure, they brought back an ailing Fats Pichon for a brief stint in 1963. But it wasn’t long before the arrests started. Often they were for prostitution, which went on with the connivance of the bartenders, or at least some of them. There was also a bust, around the same time, for watering the booze, although I can’t find if that one stuck: the Newport Corp. had some pretty serious lawyers. 

The bar still had some vestiges of its old Vieux Carré charm: a reporter who wandered in early one February morning in 1976 found it quiet, with a small hickory fire burning in the hearth and a black pianist, some unheralded collateral descendant of Fats Pichon, playing “with enormous ease, with such a total lack of effort that he appeared to be a part of the piano.” The reporter thought him the best he had ever heard. 

In the 1970s, the Absinthe House was still serving Absinthe Drips, or at least Herbsaint ones (using the local substitute), and attempting to make the famous New Orleans drinks. But the Moran brothers, like the Brennans, were more interested in restaurants than bars (Jimmy Moran Jr. had even apprenticed with the original Alfredo, of fettucine fame, in Rome), and as their restaurant empire expanded to include New Orleans institutions such as the Acme Oyster House, the Absinthe House just went with the flow. Indeed, by 1981 it was being managed by Carlos Marcello’s nephew Vincent; his tenure ended when he became a guest of the federal government later that year due to an enterprise in which the words “intent to distribute” featured prominently. Back at the bar usual stuff went on—in 1982, two bartenders were booked for pandering. By then, most of the building was occupied by Tony Moran’s Italian restaurant. The Absinthe House title really only applied to the square barroom on the corner.  

By the time I first made it to the Absinthe House, in 2002 or 2003, it was just after Tony Moran had sold it. As far as I could see, it was just another Bourbon St. bar, newer than some and older than others. There were a few pieces of memorabilia—mostly placards for old New Orleans drinks nobody was going to order and no bartender was going to make—tacked up on the walls, high enough to not get stolen or written on, and business cards everywhere (no cash). There was a marble absinthe fountain, but there were no glasses of the green fairy placed under its spigots waiting to receive the slow drip that called her to life. There was Bud and Bud Light, there was Jack and there was Coke. It was just a bar.

CODA: THE SALEM YEARS

Tony Moran had sold the lease to one Yousef “Jober’t” Salem Al Adwan, a Kuwaiti medical student who somehow found himself in the New Orleans bar business. In 1997, at age 32, he had come to public attention in the French Quarter when he bought the Old Absinthe Bar, the space a block from the Absinthe House where its original 1870s bar and other fixtures had been moved during Prohibition and operated in competition with their original home. Salem promptly changed it from a failing jazz club to a highly successful Frozen Daiquiri stand—“Mango Mango,” he called it. The old bar, now decrepit, plus the absinthe fountains and the other surviving fixtures went into storage. While there was some expectation the same fate would descend upon the original Old Absinthe House, it did not. Indeed, for fifteen years, it ran much as it had before, dishing out drafts and shots to Sugar Bowl crowds and whoever else it could filter out of the passing flow on Bourbon St. In 2004, though, Salem took the old bar out of storage and installed in the back-room event space, where it rested uneasily, the statues that topped the beaten-up old fountains gazing with dismay at the beer-swillers and shot-shooters.

Salem, however, bided his time. He had a plan. Last year, it clicked into action when he hired a team of young service industry professionals—a chef, craft cocktail bartenders, all that one expects from a top modern bar. Then the renovations started. The old fountains were restored and replumbed, the bar was refinished, the back room redecorated. The front bar still sucks in tourists from the passing flow, but when the back room—“Rue Bourbon,” they’re calling it—opens later this year, it will mark not just the bar’s 178th anniversary, but the return of civilized drinking to 240 Bourbon St. for the first time since the Brennans relinquished the space 56 years ago. That’s a long time between Absinthe Drips.

 

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Exclusive ‘Running with the Devil’ Trailer Finds Nicolas Cage and Laurence Fishburne on a Deadly Drug Run

The film centers on a compromised shipment of cocaine and the journey to take it through international borders. When a drug cartel honcho, known only as The Boss (Barry Pepper). enlists his two most trusted partners — a henchman called The Cook (Nicolas Cage) and a trafficker called The man (Laurence Fishburne) — to get the drugs to their destination safely, the duo head out on a dangerous mission while being tracked down by Federal Agents.

Running with the Devil also stars Adam Goldberg, Leslie Bibb, Clifton Collins Jr., Peter Facinelli, Christian Tappan, Natalia Reyes and Cole Hauser. Written and directed by Jason Cabell, the film arrives in theaters and On Demand/digital on September 20. 

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Is that rare whisky bottle the real deal? This artificial tongue can make the call

Counterfeits of rare single-malt whisky are a growing problem for the industry.

Scientists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland have developed an artificial tongue capable of distinguishing between different brands of whisky, a potentially useful tool to combat counterfeit whiskeys on the international market. The researchers describe their device in a new paper in Nanoscale.

There is an exploding demand for expensive rare whiskies, so naturally there has been a corresponding increase in the number of counterfeit bottles infiltrating the market. A study last year subjected 55 randomly selected bottles from auctions, private collectors, and retailers to radiocarbon dating and found that 21 of them were either outright fakes or not distilled in the year claimed on the label.

Ten of those fakes were supposed to be single-malt scotches from 1900 or earlier, prompting Rare Whisky 101 cofounder David Robertson to publicly declare, "It is our genuine belief that every purported pre-1900 bottle should be assumed fake until proven genuine, certainly if the bottle claims to be a single malt Scotch whisky." There's also an influx of counterfeit cheaper whiskies seeping into the markets, which could pose an even greater challenge, albeit less of a headline-grabbing one.

Clark's lab is primarily focused on building nanoscale metals for biodetection and imaging, but the idea of making an artificial tongue for such a unique application appealed to him. What's unique about his design is that it combines two different kinds of metals: gold and aluminum. Typically, there would be a gold "taste bud" in one location of an artificial tongue and an aluminum one in another spot. Each is chemically modified and then monitored to see how the nanometals' interactions with light change in response to contact with a liquid.

Clark et al. decided to place those two taste buds right next to each other, arranged in a checkerboard pattern, and discovered this allowed them to further shrink the size of this already-tiny device. Having two taste buds on the artificial tongue also gave them two distinct optical profiles of three different whiskies used in their experiments (Glenfiddich, Glen Marnoch, and Laphroaig), while still making just one measurement. "We can make half as many measurements and get the same amount of information," he said.

Macro scale model of the artificial tongue

The researchers' artificial tongue isn't looking for a specific kind of chemical; that's what makes it a tongue as opposed to a sensor. Human tongues can distinguish between black coffee and apple juice, for instance, not because we sense particular chemicals in each but because over time we have learned to associate a certain flavor profile with each. That's essentially what Clark's artificial tongue is doing.

"It's analogous to taste in that we are building up a statistical profile of the chemical mixture within that liquid," said Clark. "We're doing that by shining a light on these little taste buds and monitoring how the color of those taste buds changes depending on what whisky is on top of them. Then we run it through a complex algorithm that essentially gives us a flavor profile of it."

"Human beings are set up to be manipulated," said Clark. "Also, flavor is affected by your mood. It's affected by atmosphere—all the psychological aspects of the tasting experience. We are not reliable, so having some sort of cold, calculated machine to give you a statistical breakdown is more accurate and repeatable."

The whisky manufacturers seem to agree. "We really, as an industry, would welcome something which would help to stamp out the counterfeit whisky," Annabel Meikle, director of the Keepers of the Quaich, a society of whisky experts, told BBC radio. "I don't think the master blenders are going to be quaking in their boots but really quite grateful."

Detecting counterfeit whiskies might be the headline-grabbing application for Clark's device, but it could be used to "taste" almost any liquid. He sees the device also being useful for quality monitoring on industrial production lines—food or beverage manufacturers, for instance, keen on ensuring quality control so that their products have a uniform flavor profile. Clark would also like to see it developed for environmental monitoring of water supplies. This would require different metals and different chemicals, but the basic techniques remain the same. His lab is already starting to test various candidates with that application in mind.

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Casa Volta

Looking for a unique place to escape with friends and family? Look no further, Casa Volta is a spectacular open-air retreat nestled between the sea and jungle, that invites you to enjoy the wonderful climate of Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Designed by renowned architectural firm Ambrosietchegaray, the unique house reveals itself in the familiar vernacular form of three clay-fired brick vaults inviting guests to a fresh space under them. The house features two bedrooms housed in two of the vaulted spaces, with the third occupied by an open air kitchen-dining space. There are also several courtyards and a beautiful pool that runs trough the center of the house. The impressive property is available for rent though Airbnb.

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Supernova Could Have Left Radioactive Dust In Antarctic Ice

Scientists found evidence of dust produced in nearby supernovae hiding under a 500kg of Antarctic snow, according to new research.

Our solar system is more than just the Sun, planets, moons and asteroids — it’s full of dust, much of which might originate from interstellar sources. A team of scientists in Australia, Germany and Austria hopes to find the elemental signature of this dust here on Earth in order to better understand the environment through which the solar system is moving.

“I’m excited about the possibility to learn something about the extreme stellar explosions and large structures around our planet which are unimaginably far away and large,” Dominik Koll, the study’s first author and PhD candidate from The Australian National University, told Gizmodo in an email. This is possible, he says, just by looking at our own planet.

The researchers organised a transport of 500kg of relatively fresh snow (no older than 20 years) from the Kohnen Station in Antarctica to Munich, Germany, melted it in the lab, passed it through a filter, and evaporated it to collect dust and micrometeorites. They incinerated the dust, then put it into an Accelerator Mass Spectrometer.

This method creates charged ions out of the sample, and passes the ions through a magnet and into a particle accelerator before sending it into the detector. It allows the researchers to look for only specific atomic isotopes.

Specifically, the team hoped to find iron-60, a long-lived radioactive isotope released by exploding stars, or supernovae. But the iron-60 might have come from other sources, such as matter irradiated by cosmic rays.

In order to ensure that they were truly measuring interstellar dust, they also searched the sample for manganese-53, another isotope produced by high-energy cosmic rays, and compared their ratio of iron-60 and manganese-53 to the ratio they’d expect if there was no interstellar dust.

They measured way more iron-60 than they’d expect from cosmic rays alone, according to the paper published in Physical Review Letters.

How did the dust get there? Well, this team of researchers has previously shown that a nearby supernova deposited iron-60 in the solar system in the past 1.5 million to 3 million years, explained the study author Thomas Faestermann from TU Munich. If this iron-60-rich dust is still raining down onto Earth, then we could be passing through a dust cloud left over from this supernova.

Studies such as these can better paint a picture of the interstellar environment through which the Sun is travelling. Astronomers have gathered that the Sun is in the midst of a “Local Bubble”, an area where the interstellar medium is much less dense than average, perhaps because of a relatively recent supernova.

Inside the bubble is the Local Interstellar Cloud, a region that’s a little denser than the Bubble. Radioactive nuclei from Antarctic snow could be an important way to probe the origins of the Bubble and Cloud.

There’s plenty more work — Koll hopes to one day explore older material to see how the deposition of this dust changed over time.

But Antarctica is more than just an icy desert. It could be concealing a secret history of ancient supernovae.

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DOCUMENTARY: THE HISTORY OF BMW

This documentary about the history of BMW covers everything from the earliest days of the company from 1916 onwards when they were in the business of making aircraft engines.

BMW would famously begin making motorcycles before they started making cars, and it would be motorcycles that would keep the company in business at times during the 20th century as the profitability of the automobile production division saw periods of significant losses.

The first car built by BMW was the Dixi, a German copy of the British Austin 7 that was built under license. The Austin 7 was the approximate British equivalent of the Model T Ford, a car that was small and affordable, and allowed the working classes to buy cars for the first time.

This documentary was made many years ago, and it covers the history of BMW from its founding until the mid-1970s or so, these were arguably the most important years of the company, and cornerstone models like the BMW 328 and the BMW 2002 are given due reverence along with a number of others. The film also doesn’t hide any of the company’s less savoury history making engines for Nazi aircraft during the Second World War.

It’s fascinating to see how many times BMW nearly went bankrupt or faced closure over the years, and just how close they came to being bought by their arch rivals at Daimler-Benz.

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The HiBed Is A Fully-Connected High-Tech Relaxation Station

The integration of smart devices into our daily lives is becoming more and more prevalent, and with things like fitness-oriented watches and health-conscious phones taking center stage, it was only a matter of time before our home’s most improbable items received the intelligent treatment. Now, to fulfill every dream that we didn’t know we had, Fabio Vinella’s new-and-improved, 2nd-generation HiBed — a smart-sleeper outfitted with all of our favorite distractions — has been announced by Italy’s Hi-Interiors.

The HiBed arrives hot on the heels of the formative smart-furniture movement, providing users with an intelligent rest area that’s set to redefine our morning, afternoon, and evening routines. Not only does the contraption deliver logs of your health, rest cycles, and midnight tendencies to you via a companion app, but it also hones in on interesting biometric parameters to deliver reports on air quality, temperature, and noise levels, helping you to optimize your sleep schedule accordingly. But don’t worry, the HiBed isn’t all business; WiFi connectivity, an HD projector, and invisible speakers provide the perfect amenities for a day at home, giving users an all-in-one enclosure that’ll make leaving the rest area a difficult proposition. Head to Hi-Interiors’ website for more information.

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These Chef Knives Were Handcrafted By An Iconic American Blacksmith

In the world of chefs and gourmet food, American blacksmith Bob Kramer is considered to be the greatest American knifemaker in the business. The iconic blacksmith just released the Kramer Knives Shokunin Knife Collection to the delight of culinary artists across the world.

Made exclusively for the Kramer shop in Bellingham, Washington, this set of knives is quite affordable compared to the custom blades the company produces. There are three types of top-tier kitchen knives available: the santoku, nakiri, and chef’s knife. Each one is offered with either beautiful blackwood or cocobolo handles. The Limited Edition Random Damascus Cocobolo Nakiri is one of the highlights of the collection, boasting a blend of 15N20 and 1084 tool steel and a 62 HRC. It has a 6.5-inch blade that’s ground thin and hand-sharpened by Kramer himself. The knife also features a unique Damascus pattern and wood grain design, ensuring you have a one-of-a-kind cutting tool. Proceeds from this collection will go toward creating the Kramer Metal Arts Lab to help future artisans hone their craft. The immaculate knives in the collection start at $1,600.

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CBS And Viacom's Megamerger Brings The Star Trek Universe Under One Roof

Allow us to introduce you to the latest inconsequential benefit of our megacorp dystopia. I have to admit it, as far as incredibly minor bright sides to the horrifying rise of media studio megamergers go, “At least CBS owns the Kelvin Timeline Star Trek movies” is not as immediately exciting as “At least the X-Men can appear in the MCU.”

After years of speculation and attempts, Deadline reports that U.S. based media organisations CBS and Viacom have officially confirmed that the companies will merge assets to form ViacomCBS. It means that CBS’s TV networks, local news stations, Showtime, and assets like publishing firm Simon & Schuster all now share a roof with MTV, Nickelodeon, and the Paramount Pictures movie studio.

It’s not actually the first time CBS and Viacom have been part of the same company — the two split in 2006 in an attempt to free Viacom from the at-the-time misfortunes of a flailing CBS, only for the network to become one of the dominant forces of the TV industry in the intervening years. Remerging the companies makes it not just more viable to shore up Viacom’s downturn, but makes the newly-recombined corporation potentially more attractive to add more into its fold, as owner Shari Redstone seeks to compete with even larger megacorps like Disney/Fox, AT&T/Time Warner, and tech giants like Apple and Amazon.

In terms of particularly genre-centric news, the deal is not as immediately grabby as it was when Marvel Studios suddenly had access to the likes of the X-Men and Fantastic Four again after decades of their rights being at another studio. But it does mean that the Paramount-produced Star Trek films — including the original films and the the reboot trilogy of Star Trek 2009, Into Darkness, and Beyond — are now officially part of the same family as the CBS-owned Trek TV entries in the franchise. It means that for the first time since Star Trek: Enterprise ended, the rights to the entirety of Star Trek are all in the same place.

Given that plans for a fourth Star Trek film in that timeline are still in a nebulous, uncertain state, what that means going forward — beyond ease of distribution and an easier enmeshing of the reboot Trek with its predecessors in ancillary material — remains to be seen.

Although not on the same scale as Disney’s absorption of 21st Century Fox earlier this year — the ramifications of which are still being felt as Disney continues to cut a swath through both the Fox film schedule and jobs at its studios as it tries to ensure a new, Mickey-Mouse-approved future for the company and its production slate — this is but the latest shrinking of competition in the media landscape.

As companies amass capital to combine into ever-increasingly-unwieldy forms in an attempt to compete with the likes of Netflix, Apple and the House of Mouse as they all tighten their grips on the sort of films and TV shows being made, competing with each other and even themselves in increasingly ludicrous tête-à-têtes, antitrust issues only continue to grow.

And that’s before we even get into these selfsame media-Voltrons warring over the increasingly fragmented world of streaming, as gobs of cash are flung at every big-name creative under the sun to sign up exclusively with yet another subscription to vie for your wages every month. It’s all the fun of your favourite cyberpunk corporate futures, but with absolutely zero techno-drugs, cybernetic augments, or even cool jackets with light-up neon trims and what have you.

So not fun at all really.

We’ll bring you more on what the CBS-Viacom merger means for its myriad properties as and when we learn it.

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The New Dark Crystal Trailer Is Somehow Even More Gorgeous Than The Last

But even though darkness looms over Thra’s beautiful environs, a resistance rises.

Netflix just dropped an incredible new look at the upcoming The Dark Crystal prequel series, Age of Resistance. It’s the first time we’ve really got to hear a good chunk of the extensive and equally impressive vocal cast in action, but it’s also a reminder that holy mother of Thra, this show looks gorgeous.

Yes, there’s all the good stuff you’d expect out of a fantasy adventure—foreboding portents, evil machinations, heroes uniting on an epic quest to resist the evil threatening the land, and so on and so forth. But it’s not just the fantasy that’s epic here, it’s the remarkable sense of scale Age of Resistance has as a production. The puppets, the sets, the CG used to amp those impressive practical elements up a notch even further...it’s honestly still remarkable just how good this all looks. We can’t wait to see it all in action.

And we don’t have to wait much longer—The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance hits Netflix August 30.

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You Don't Need A Blacklight To Appreciate This Art, But It Helps

Say the word “blacklight” and you either think of cheesy dorm-room decor or a means to find stains on a bed. The connotations are not what’d you call good. For artists, though, blacklight can give already cool images a bit of a kick, and that’s what’s happening in this brand new art show.

The show is called “Blacklight 3” and it’s at Hero Complex Galaxy in Los Angeles, California.

It’s comprised of dozens of unique posters and pieces of art, all of which shine a little brighter under a blacklight. But this is the internet, so we can only show you what they look like without that enhancement. Here are a few of our favourite pieces in the show, which you can https://hcgart.com/collections/blacklightsee in full at this link.

Now, imagine those posters under blacklight. All the neons pop out. Sometimes specific shapes pop out. It’s really very cool.

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Nothing To See Here, Just Someone Or Something With A TV For A Head Leaving TVs On Porches At Night

In the dead of night this weekend, someone or something left dozens of ageing TVs on the porches and lawns of Virginia homes.

According to reports from CNN and WWBT, at least 60 different people in Glen Allen in Henrico County woke up on August 11 to discover that old rear-projection television sets had been left on their porches — with security footage showing that they were left there by what appeared to be an individual wearing either a mask shaped like a TV set.

Local resident Adrian Garner, whose security system captured the footage, told WWBT it recorded a “guy dressed in a jumpsuit with a TV for a head.” Clips provided to the network showed the as-of-yet unidentified person or... entity leaving a TV set on his porch at around 5:30 a.m. local time.

“My first reaction was, ‘Did we order this?’ Not in an Amazon box, it was just kind of strange,” Garner told WWBT.

Henrico Police Division Lieutenant Matt Pecka told WWBT that officers were dispatched to collect the TVs, finding over 60, and that authorities currently believe that more than one person must have been involved in the incident. If caught they could face charges of littering on private property or illegal dumping, Pecka added. The TVs themselves are bound for solid waste disposal.

As CNN noted, this is actually the second time the TVs have shown up in Glen Allen. In 2018, local news reported the discovery of dozens of units left at suburban homes in the area, with one family finding a Toshiba FST Black Stripe television dating to 1986.

At the time, some locals were reportedly wary that something could be wrong with the sets or that they could contain something unknown. No sightings of an ambulatory TV man, however, were reported.

Some locals don’t appear all that concerned this time around.

“They had way too much time on their hands if they had all these TVs and spread them out all over the neighbourhood,” local resident Michael Kroll told CNN. Another resident told the network, “Maybe TV man was just ready to strike to put a little humour in our lives. Why do people do anything, people are weird.”

Yes... people. Definitely people. 

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“Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare” Receives New Multiplayer Video

Activision and Infinity Ward have released a brand new video this week showing off the multiplayer aspect to Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare. We recently had a chance to play a demo of this, which we’ll be discussing later, and this is about as intense as those experiences got. Here you’re seeing a short display of a few different multiplayer rounds going off at once, giving you a sampling of all the different modes you can play.

As you can see they’ve worked hard to mix things up and give players a number of options for multiplayer mayhem. Those of you looking for battle royale, however, not so much. That option appears to be staying with Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Along with zombies mode, at least, for the time being. But if you’re looking for 2-v-2, 6-v-6, 10-v-10, and 20-v-20, all mixed in with objectives, then Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare will be the one you seek out.

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Hot Toys Celebrates 80th Marvel Anniversary With Venom Figure

Venom is easily one of Spider-Man’s greatest threats. With Marvels 80th Anniversary this year, it is no surprise that he is getting some special treatment for the big event. Hot Toys teams up with INSTINCTOY to showcase an amazing figure to show off the Lethal Protector himself. This Venom here shows off a more bulky build, but not unusual to Venom fans. He comes with two different heads, one closed mouth and one featuring his more iconic tongued look. He isn’t fully articulated but he does have 5 points of articulation with his arms, legs and head. He stands at 34cm (13.4 inches) tall and the design team behind this really wanted to show off with the body and the look of the symbiote. They seem to be dealing into a glossy paint with a blue reflective tone behind it. This is truly badass figure that any Spider-Man or Venom fan should defiantly put in their collection!

No price yet, but the release date window is between Fall 2019 to Spring 2020.

V is for Vile, Vengeance and Venom! Check him out below.

 

 

Hot Toys continues to collaborate with different talented artists and designers to bring in more diversity to fans and collectors. Joining Hiroto Ohkubo for the first time, Hot Toys is very delighted today to present the mind-blowing creative work – Venom Artist Mix Figure Designed by INSTINCTOY to celebrate Marvel Comics 80th Anniversary!

The character is a sentient alien Symbiote with an amorphous, liquid-like form, who requires a host, usually human, to bond with for its survival. After bonding with a human host, the Symbiote bestows its enhanced powers upon the host. When the Venom Symbiote bonds with a human, that new dual-life form usually refers to itself, in plural first person pronouns, as “Venom”.

 

The vinyl-made Venom Artist Mix Figure is specially crafted based on the appearance of Venom in Marvel Comics. Measures approximately 34cm in height, the re-imagined figure portrays the ominous presence of Venom through his hulking physique, glossy black skin color scheme with reflective blue tones, distinctive web-like patterns in white stretched across his chest, two newly developed interchangeable heads sculpts including a grinning head sculpt and one with his signature long sprawling tongue. Designed to be a semi-articulated body with the ability to perform head, wrist and ankle movements.

Available only in selected markets. Experience the dreaded feeling the web slinger feels whenever he meets the terrifying and aggressive villain! Reserve space for this truly impressive art piece for your Marvel Venom collection!

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‘A Hidden Life’ Trailer Reveals Terrence Malick’s Most Acclaimed Film in Years

Fox Searchlight has released the first trailer for writer/director Terrence Malick’s new film A Hidden Life. The historical drama is based on the true story of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer and devout Catholic who refused to fight for the Nazis during World War II and was subsequently punished.

While Malick had previously gained a reputation of making few yet tremendous films like Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, and The Tree of Life, he went on a tear in the 2010s churning out a number of stream-of-consciousness films to varied results. Nothing seemed to match the otherworldly heights of his previous movies, but when A Hidden Life premiered at Cannes earlier this year, the movie was hailed as Malick’s best film in a long while.

The trailer here is classic Malick. The short lenses, handheld camera, meandering shots of nature. While the filmmaker had a fruitful relationship with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki in his previous films, for A Hidden Life he’s working with DP Jörg Widmer, who served as a camera operator on many of Malick’s 2010s films.

There are no A-list stars to be found in A Hidden Life as there were in Knight of Cups or Song to Song, but you probably recognize star August Diehl from Inglourious Basterds. As a fan of Malick’s work (I like To the Wonder!) I was enthused to hear he may be back on his game with this new movie, and I can’t wait to see what the filmmaker has put together when this one hits theaters.

A Hidden Life will continue to play the festival circuit this fall before Fox Searchlight releases the film in theaters on December 13th. Check out the A Hidden Life trailer and poster below, which first debuted on Indiewire, and click here to read our review from Cannes.

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Elmer T. Lee 100 Year Tribute Single Barrel Bourbon

Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel is one of the best bourbons out there if you can manage to find a bottle at retail. The man behind the brand, and on the sticker, was a former distiller for Buffalo Trace (when they were still Stagg) and created the first single barrel bourbon. Buffalo Trace is honoring Elmer T. Lee on what would have been his 100th birthday with a 100-proof commemorative bottling of the bourbon. Elmer T. Lee 100 Year Tribute Single Barrel Bourbon is the same mash bill and age as the original, but it’s bottle at a slightly higher 100-proof. “What Elmer did for American whiskey is hard to grasp in today’s terms, but in 1984, bourbon was in the doldrums and sales were low,” stated Harlen Wheatley, Buffalo Trace’s current master distiller.  “Elmer took a big risk creating a single barrel bourbon, but he hoped it would generate new interest in bourbon and revive the industry.  At first Blanton’s wasn’t popular, and Elmer feared it may not take off.  But today, I think it’s safe to say Elmer made a wise move.” Given that we find ourselves almost exclusively drinking single barrel products these days, we’re inclined to agree with Harlen Wheatley. Elmer T. Lee 100 Year Tribute Single Barrel Bourbon is hitting shelves later this month in very limited quantities at a suggested retail price of around $100, which means it’s probably going to be impossible to find and ludicrously priced on the secondary market. It’s also worth noting that proceeds from the sale will benefit the VFW that Elmer was a member of until his death in 2013.

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‘Dolemite Is My Name” Official Trailer

Can’t get enough Eddie Murphy after watching his recent appearance on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee? You’re in luck because Eddie Murphy is coming back in the fall, baby. This time around Murphy is suiting up as the multi-talented Rudy Ray Moore–a real-life legend who was best known as the uniquely articulate pimp Dolemite from his films in the 70s–for the upcoming feature Dolemite Is My Name. There’s kung-fu and explosions and sex and general absurdity all wrapped around a tale about a man trying to make his mark on the world. Netflix describes it as “Heartfelt, Raunchy, Irreverent” which is pretty much everything we want in a film based on a true story. Murphy is joined on screen by an absurd list of other stars–Wesley Snipes. Keegan-Michael Key. Chris Rock. Craig Robinson. Tituss Burgess. Mike Epps. T.I. Luenell. Dolemite Is My Name will hit Netflix and select theaters in the fall.

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Nixon Regulus SS

Nixon have introduced a stainless steel version of their best-selling Regulus watch. The new Nixon Regulus SS blurs the lines between tactical ops and streetwear flash, it has a 100m water-resistant case and pushers, as well as shock-absorbent materials to help withstand any terrain and condition. An oversized display and customizable LED backlight make time, date, and other info easy to read in the dark or underwater, and the five-year battery life means changes will be few and far between. Available now in black, gold, and silver stainless steel and finished with a three-link bracelet.

 

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1958 Porsche 356 Emory Special

Rod Emory restores Porsche 356 coupes and convertibles at his shop in northern Los Angeles. His company Emory Motosports are specialists in customising the Porsche 356s since the late 1980s. The timeless model was taken out of production in 1956 but has since remained a favorite of car collectors worldwide. Dubbed the "Emory Special", this modern take on the classic sports car has been updated with some premium flourishes for the exterior and interior, plus several performance upgrades, all without losing that timeless appeal. Beneath the elegant and impossibly minimal exterior lies a 2.4-litre 185bhp flat-four engine along with Weber IDA carburettors, Carrera-style dry sump and custom intake/ exhaust manifolds. Other details include a shark-like gills on the side to facilitate cooling of the rear-mounted engine, a safety roll-cage, aerodynamic fender-mounted mirrors, custom built front bumper, caged vintage headlamps, and old-school fog lamps that beautifully blend into the design. If you want something similar, be prepared to wait, it takes 18-months to build an Emory with the kind of detailing done upon the car both mechanical and aesthetic. One look at it and you know why. 

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U.S. Trailer for ‘Parasite’ Promises a Twisted New Vision from Director Bong Joon-ho

Neon has released the U.S. trailer for Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or-winning thriller Parasite. The film centers on two families—the wealthy Parks and the aspirational Kims—who collide when the Kims find a way to insert themselves into the Parks’ lives and start living off the largesse of the wealthy family. However, when a “parasitic interloper” comes along, a battle breaks out that threatens the relationship between the families.

This is one of my must-see movies of 2019, and I love how the trailer makes the plot look intriguing without really revealing the major twists and that Bong has in store. Bong is one of the most exciting filmmakers working today, and judging by the response out of Cannes, it appears he has another sensational picture on his hands. I’ll definitely be making time to see this one when it swings by the Toronto International Film Festival next month.

The film opens in the U.S. on October 11th

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Joaquin Phoenix Reveals Real World Origin Of His Joker Laugh

Joaquin Phoenix reveals how he created his laugh for Joker, and the inspiration he drew from. Warner Bros. and DC Films are stepping outside of their shared universe to bring a different type of movie based on comic book characters to the screen. Joker will be an origin story for the Clown Prince of Crime, with Phoenix portraying the iconic Batman foe.

Joker is written and directed by Todd Phillips, who's been allowed to take liberties with the character thanks to the film's standalone status. He isn't changing everything about the character though, with the clown makeup and a maniacal laugh being examples of sticking to the source material. Early looks at Phoenix in the makeup started to get people excited for Joker, but it was the release of the first trailer that really sparked interest. One of the highlights of it was finally getting to hear Phoenix's version of a Joker laugh. After hearing his chilling take, Phoenix is now revealing how he created it.

During an interview with the Italian magazine Il Venerdi, Phoenix explained where he got his Joker laugh from. It was one of the first aspects of the character that Phoenix wanted to figure out and perfect, and the hunt for his laugh brought him to real world influences. After being translated back into English (via CBR), here is what Phoenix said: "I watched videos of people suffering from pathological laughter, a neurological disorder that makes individuals laugh uncontrollably."

Phoenix noticeably transformed his body to play the skinny Joker, but now we know the lengths he went through to nail his personality and characteristics. It isn't clear this real world inspiration for Joker's laugh means that he also has the pathological laughter disorder in the movie though. Either way, Phoenix using uncontrollable laughter as the root of his Joker laugh does fit, and may explain why it's so effective. If nothing else, Phoenix's ability to use this to create his version of Joker could add another layer of realism to it and Joker as a whole, which is certainly something the film is striving for with its look, tone, and story.

While Joker has been the subject of plenty of debate over the film's script, the one aspect of it that is almost universally anticipated is Phoenix's performance. This interview comes as Joker is gearing up for its world premiere on the festival circuit. The movie will debut at the 2019 Venice Film Festival on August 31, and then also play at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival in September. Many believe that this rollout ahead of the film's theatrical release in October gives Joker a chance to be in the awards conversation for the next several months, with Phoenix's performance expected to be the biggest takeaway. But, with the movie projected to open big as well, Joker could be a movie that performs very well at the box office and garners awards attention.