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

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NEOMANO ROBOTIC GLOVE

Most of us take common tasks like opening a door or holding a cup for granted. For those with hand paralysis, they can be serious obstacles. The NeoMano is a robotic glove that helps restore some of their independence. It uses a motor attached to a battery pack on the arm to bring the thumb, index, and middle fingers together, letting the wearer securely grab onto a variety of items. A Bluetooth wireless remote engages and releases the motor, and the glove's soft, Red Dot Award-winning design makes it comfortable enough for all-day wear.

PRE-ORDER FROM INDIEGOGO / $599

 

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The Elite Sake Brewer on Route 66

In the Arizona desert, Atsuo Sakurai found the freedom to make something great.

ONLY 5,049 PEOPLE LIVE IN Holbrook, Arizona, and one of them, Atsuo Sakurai, reputedly makes the best sake brewed anywhere outside of Japan. That a tiny, quirky, high-desert town could be home to a world-class sake brewery is as unlikely as it is wonderful. I need to see for myself.

The road into town was once part of the iconic Route 66, a highway that stretched from Chicago to Los Angeles and figures large in American folk history. But by 1984, Route 66 had been bypassed by an interstate highway, which crippled the economies of many towns, Holbrook included, that were once sustained by travelers. Today, the main road is lined with relics of that era: abandoned gas stations, the kitschy Wigwam Motel, and a ragged row of shops trading in rocks and “Indian art.” Brightly painted dinosaurs—fitting for a town on the edge of Petrified Forest National Park, where fossils from the Late Triassic have been found—are clustered in front of the rambling and literally named Rock Shop.

I’ve arranged to meet Sakurai at Holbrook’s annual Old West Fest, where he has a booth. The festival is housed on the lawn of the historic courthouse, now a history museum. There is a sparse crowd, food vendors, crafts for sale, games, even a pie-eating contest. A historical-reenactors troupe has set up a “saloon” on the lawn. Next to them is the beer booth. Next to that, under a small EZ-Up canopy, is Arizona Sake. It is marked by a hand-painted wooden sign and manned by a slight, dark-haired man with a mustache and scraggly beard: Sakurai. Wearing the requisite western wear—jeans, plaid shirt, cowboy hat, and bandana—he is selling a steady stream of customers $5 tastes of Arizona Sake.

A couple walk past; each holds a plate of barbecue and a bottle of beer. “Would you look at that,” the woman says, nudging the man. “Sake. Isn’t that from Japan? Let’s try it!”

Nothing in Holbrook’s history suggests it would produce great sake. In 1881, the railroad came through and cowboys, many of them reportedly on the run from the law, moved in and founded the town. In 1886, a staggering 26 Holbrookians were reportedly shot to death—from a total population of about 250. One notorious gunfight at Terrill’s Cottage Saloon—perhaps started over a disputed poker game, perhaps the result of a cowboy rivalry—left the floor awash in blood and gave it a new name: Bucket of Blood Saloon. You can still see the shuttered building in town.

Several large dinosaurs greet visitors to the Rainbow Rock Shop in Holbrook, Arizona.

Sakurai’s interest in sake began in his college dorm room. Drinking with friends, he became curious about the process that transforms rice and water into social lubricant, and eventually got a job in a sake factory. It took a decade for him to master every step of the process. After passing a rigorous government exam, he was awarded the title of Certified First-Grade Sake Brewer, the highest designation.

Despite his success, something was missing. Sakurai wanted independence, to open his own business. But in Japan, he says, his dream was impossible because the government doesn’t issue new sake licenses anymore. “That means for me there was no chance,” he says with a shrug.

Four years ago, Sakurai was working as a tour guide at a sake factory in Yokohama, Japan, when a young American woman named Heather took his tour. Heather, who is Navajo and from Holbrook, was working in Japan as an English teacher.

They fell in love, married, and started a family. But Heather missed her family and the wide Arizona sky. So they left Japan and moved to Holbrook.

Nothing in Holbrook’s history suggests it would produce great sake.

The town has moved past its lawless days, but for Sakurai, the move freed him from the government regulation that kept him from brewing on his own. In a corner of his two-car garage, he started making small batches of sake, fermenting the brew in a silver vat squeezed in next to his Ford pickup truck.

In 2018, Sakurai entered Arizona Sake in the Tokyo Sake Competition and won the gold medal for the best sake made outside of Japan. Earlier this year, he won another gold medal at the Los Angeles International Wine Competition.

Paul Ortega, who owns West End Liquor, a store with a drive-thru and a hand-lettered sign that advertises “Ice” and “Coldest Beer in Town,” was one of his first customers. Thanks to Sakurai, Ortega’s store has become an international destination.

“Every day, tourists come in here to buy his sake,” Ortega says. “Every day, tourists from other countries come. Everybody in town, they love what Atsuo is doing, what he has done for tiny, little Holbrook.”

Why is this sake so good? According to Sakurai, it’s elemental.

The Painted Desert at the Petrified National Forest near Holbrook, Arizona.

Water: Holbrook’s excellent water is pulled from an aquifer under the Little Colorado River Basin.

Air: Arizona’s dry climate mitigates the problem of unwanted molds encountered in more-humid Japan.

Earth: Sakurai sources the best rice from California.

Fire: Sakurai’s all-consuming intensity for his craft means he is constantly brewing.

As Sakurai pours me a taste of Arizona Sake at his Old West Fest booth, a shot rings out. We both jump. Kids playing on the lawn run toward the historical reenactors to watch the show. More shots crack the air. “My sake, it’s super fresh,” he says. “Each batch is very small.”

I take a sip.

I’m not entirely sure what terroir means. Nor do I speak the language of notes, bouquet, and finish. But my first impression is: fresh. Sakurai serves his sake chilled, and although I’m expecting something heavy and sweet, it is light, crisp, and far more than the sum of its two mundane parts. I taste neither rice nor water. I taste dry desert sunshine—the sunshine of early morning, when the light washes soft across the silvery sage and the sky is just beginning to cycle through its anthology of blues.

I am self-conscious about my reaction, peering around as if someone can see my flight of fancy. But all eyes are on the mock carnage in the mock saloon, so I take another sip. I buy two bottles and make plans to meet Sakurai for a tour of his factory in the morning.

Sakurai recently moved his business out of his garage and into a new, bunker-style building on a dusty acre between a Super 8 Motel and Dollar General store. But Arizona Sake remains a one-man show. Sakurai does it all, from the mixing to the delivery. He checks each batch to ensure an alcohol content of 15 to 17 percent. He sells to stores, restaurants, and individuals in Arizona, New York, Hawaiʻi, and California. He considers the relationships he forms with customers and collaborators the core of his business. He envisions Holbrook as the center of a web of friendships, its strings made of sake.

“I just want to make people happy with my sake,” he says.

For Sakurai, a move across the globe opened a world of possibilities. “Thanks to Holbrook and Arizona,” he says, adjusting his Route 66 ballcap. “Because I didn’t have a chance in my home country, I’m happy to be in Holbrook.”

My curiosity and thirst sated, I tuck my sake into a cooler and head home, past the crumbling remains of the Bucket of Blood Saloon, past the courthouse, past the dinosaurs, thinking about serendipity, the taste of sunshine, and unlikely pairings.

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New Trailer for ‘The Rhythm Section’ Sees Blake Lively on the Warpath

Blake Lively stars as Stephanie Patrick, an ordinary woman on a path of self-destruction after her family is tragically killed in a plane crash. When Stephanie discovers that the crash was not an accident, she enters a dark, complex world to seek revenge on those responsible and find her own redemption. Based on the novel by Mark Burnell, from director Reed Morano (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) and the producers of the James Bond film series, The Rhythm Section also stars Jude Law and Sterling K. Brown.

Look for it in theaters on January 31st.

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The Vanishing World of Neon Motel Signs

A photographer has spent decades capturing these symbols of Americana and the open road. [Grand View Motel, Raton, New Mexico; December 18, 1980]

A distant glow appears on the edge of a desolate two-lane highway. As you pull up, the buzzing grows loud, drowning out the engine and the desert crickets outside. Voicelessly, it promises color TV, a kitchenette, and a phone in every room. Symbols of American expansionism and the Space Age, these iconic neon signs once topped countless motor lodges on Route 66 and other stretches of two-lane blacktop.

The rise of automobile culture at the end of World War II gave Americans an easy and affordable way to see the country. Subsequently, mom-and-pop motels began appearing to meet the demand created by these new travelers. The motels strove to differentiate themselves with kitschy themes and eye-catching neon signs, which eventually emerged as distinctive images of Americana.

Bel Shore Motel, Deming, New Mexico; December 31, 1980.

Steve Fitch, who refers to himself as a visual folklorist, has documented the changing landscape of the American West since the mid-1970s. His new photo book, Vanishing Vernacular: Western Landmarks, is a striking visual commentary on how these once ubiquitous signs—alongside thousand-year-old petroglyphs, small-town murals, and drive-in theaters—are becoming part of the collective memory of the West.

Aside from his work as a photographer, Fitch also creates neon sculptures as an amateur neon bender. Atlas Obscura has a selection of images from his new book, and spoke to him about his interest in neon bending and his views on the changing landscape of the West.

Arrow Motel, Espanola, New Mexico; March 23, 1982.

What is it that appeals to you most about neon?
The way that you can draw with light.

What inspired you to work with neon, and how did you learn the craft?
I became inspired to learn to bend neon because of the photography that I was doing in the early 1970s, photographing vintage neon signs along our highways. In 1972 I made my first night photograph of a motel in Deadwood, South Dakota, that had a neon clock in the window. I began to make more and more photographs at dusk and at night, and I became very attuned into the many striking neon signs and murals that adorned our landscape. There were many beautiful neon murals on drive-in theaters, as well as figurative neon signs at motels and restaurants, many of them animated.

Many of these photographs are in my first book, Diesels and Dinosaurs. I was so taken by the beauty of the material that I started to think about making my own neon art pieces, and decided that I needed to learn how to bend (i.e., “fabricate”) neon. At the time I was living in Berkeley, California, and would go to various sign companies in the Bay Area asking if they would teach me the craft. None of them were interested because at the time neon was dying out. When I moved to New Mexico in 1978 I encountered the same response. Then in 1981 I learned of a small neon school in Antigo, Wisconsin, that offered six-week, full-time courses in the skills needed to work with neon. The class I took was small, with only six students, and it got me started on the road to becoming a skilled neon bender. In 1982 I set up my own shop and began making my own neon artwork. It is a difficult craft and takes hours and hours of practice to become good.

Two works made by Steve Fitch: Radiation Pines, c.1983; Insane-O-Matic, installed at the Graham Gallery, Albuquerque, New Mexico, c. 1987

How do you find places with neon signs to shoot?
Discovering neon signs or murals to photograph was simply a matter of spending a lot of time driving on our two-lane highways. I developed a sixth sense as to what roads might be good ones to explore. Cross-country highways like Route 66 were prime hunting grounds for interesting neon motel signs, and the state of Texas and the city of Los Angeles had many drive-in movie theaters with beautiful murals using neon. I was looking for neon signs or murals that were beautifully designed, well made, and that had a special flare or character to them. Often this meant that they related to their environment, such as neon cowboys in the West or animated neon Indians in the Southwest.

Vaughn, New Mexico; June, 1979.

What are the special challenges of shooting neon signs?
It actually can be quite difficult to make a good photograph of a neon sign. I learned that working at dusk was usually the optimum time of day because you can show detail in the surrounding environment without the neon itself flaring out and becoming too bright. Because I am using a tripod and making long exposures, another difficulty can be all the commotion of the place, such as the streaks left by the lights of passing cars. I grew to appreciate the beauty of light at dusk, which is this charged time between day and night.

Motel, Highway 287, Hedley, Texas; January 8, 1981.

Do you have a favorite sign or photograph in this new collection?
That is a tough question because I like so many of the photographs. Perhaps I could pick the photograph of a motel off of Highway 287 [above], which to me is very melancholy, even sad and lonely. Or the photograph of the Greyhound Motel [below], which I find to be funny: a row of cacti measured against a neon line, almost like a police lineup of suspects.

Greyhound Motel on the Tucson to Nogales highway, Tucson, Arizona; December 30, 1980.

What appeals to you about places like old truck stops, diners, and motor lodges?
When I was a kid in the 1950s, my family would make road trips from northern California to visit relatives on the family farm in South Dakota. We would stop at rock shops and dinosaur parks and eat in funky roadside diners and stay in neon-lit motels. What happened along the way, especially to a kid, was thrilling. Today, so much of our travel is on planes or interstates, where the excitement of exploration has been diminished or eliminated. What appeals to me about many of my subjects is the sheer folk inventiveness of so many of the signs and drive-ins. Many of the signs, for example, are not particularly sophisticated, but they are not ordinary, either. And, as I write in my book, they represent a pre-franchise and pre-interstate highway period, when there were many treasures to be discovered along our two-lane highways. The message they send, I think, is that the journey is as important as the arrival.

AA Motel, Highway Highway 6, Holdrege, Nebraska; May 22, 1981.

Ukiah, California; January, 1980.

Vaughn, New Mexico; June, 1979.

Santa Fe, New Mexico; August, 1980.

Blue Swallow Motel, Highway 66, Tucumcari, New Mexico; July, 1990.

Starlite Motel, Mesa, Arizona; December 28, 1980.

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The World’s Oldest Asteroid Strike Might Have Triggered A Global Thaw

The world’s oldest remaining asteroid crater is at a place called Yarrabubba, southeast of the town of Meekatharra in Western Australia.

Our new study puts a precise age on the cataclysmic impact – showing Yarrabubba is the oldest known crater and dating it at the right time to trigger the end of an ancient glacial period and the warming of the entire planet.

What we found at Yarrabubba

Yarrrabubba holds the eroded remnants of a crater 70 kilometres wide that was first described in 2003, based on minerals at the site that showed unique signs of impact. But its true age was not known.

The Yarrabubba crater is about 70 kilometres across.

We studied tiny “impact-shocked” crystals found at the site, which show the crater formed 2.229 billion years ago (give or take 5 million years).

This new, precise date establishes Yarrabubba as the oldest recognised impact structure on Earth. It is some 200 million years older than the next oldest, the Vredefort impact in South Africa.

More intriguing, the geological record shows the Earth had glacial ice before the time of the impact – but afterwards, ice disappeared for hundreds of millions of years. Was the Yarrabubba impact a trigger for global climate change?

How to date an asteroid hit

An asteroid strike is one of the most violent geologic events. In an instant, Earth’s crust is squeezed to unimaginable pressures, before exploding and ejecting carnage across the landscape. Large impacts leave behind scars the size of a small city.

The basin formed by an impact will partly fill with molten and pulverised rock from the Earth and from the asteroid itself. The edge of the crater forms a ring of mountains; over time erosion gradually erases the story.

Today, Yarrabubba has been worn down into a minor feature on a barren landscape.

To place the Yarrabubba event in a geologic context, we had to find its age. To find the age, we had to look carefully at minerals in the rocks shocked by the impact.

Geologists date events using “isotopic clocks” in minerals like zircon and monazite. These minerals contain small amounts of uranium, which gradually decays into lead at a known rate.

A shocked zircon crystal used to date the Yarrabubba impact. The margin (pink) recrystallised during impact, leaving the inner core (blue) intact. Scale bar is 80 micrometres, the width of human hair

Asteroid strikes raise the temperature in rocks they hit, causing minerals to lose their accumulated lead, which resets the clock. After impact, the isotopic clocks start ticking again as new lead accumulates.

So by measuring the isotopes of uranium and lead in these minerals, we can calculate how much time has passed since the impact.

At Yarrabubba, we identified tiny crystals of zircon and monazite – each about the width of human hair – with textures that show they had been heated by a massive impact.

We analysed the amounts of lead and uranium isotopes in these crystals using mass spectrometry, and found their clocks had been reset 2.229 billion years ago (give or take five million years). That’s when we realised Yarrabubba coincided with a major change in Earth’s climate.

A different Earth

The Yarrabubba impact occurred during a period in Earth’s history called the Proterozoic eon. Long before plants, fish, or dinosaurs, life at this time consisted of simple, multicellular organisms.

These simple bacteria had already begun changing the composition of air. Previously dominated by carbon dioxide and methane, Earth’s atmosphere gradually became oxygenated by life about 2.4 billion years ago.

As oxygen levels built up, rocks started weathering more, and the atmosphere cooled down. And then ice came, plunging Earth into globally frigid conditions.

Earth has repeatedly dipped into glacial conditions over the last 4.5 billion years. We know about these periods because of deposits of solidified rock and mud that were ground up by glaciers as they bulldozed across Earth’s surface.

Studies have found multiple periods in Earth’s history in which glacial deposits occur in rocks of the same age across many continents. These deposits may represent worldwide glacial conditions, often referred to as a “Snowball Earth” event.

In these periods, ice forms from the poles well into the tropics, covering nearly all of Earth.

There is geological evidence that Earth was in an icy phase during the Yarrabubba impact. Rocks in South Africa show that glaciers were present at this time. But it’s not clear if the amount of ice was similar to today, or if it covered the world.

Fire and ice

So we found Earth’s oldest preserved impact crater, and worked out when the asteroid hit. We also know Earth had ice at the time, but not how much.

To understand the effect of the impact on an ice-covered world, we used computer models based on the physics of shockwaves to estimate how much ice would end up in the atmosphere as water vapour. As it turns out, it’s quite a lot.

Our models show that if the Yarrabubba asteroid hit an ice sheet 5 kilometres thick (not an unreasonable estimate), more than 200 billion tons of water vapour would be ejected into the atmosphere. That’s about 2% of the total amount of water vapour in today’s atmosphere, but would have been a much bigger fraction back then.

Water vapour is a serious greenhouse gas. It’s responsible for about half of the heat absorption from solar radiation today.

Global climate models don’t yet exist for the Proterozoic Earth, so we don’t yet know for sure if the Yarrabubba impact pushed the planet past a tipping point that led to more warming and the end of a possible Snowball Earth.The Conversation

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America’s First Family of Bourbon: The Beams

James Beauregard Beam was distilling bourbon well before Prohibition, and when Prohibition ended, he was eager to do it again. At the news of Repeal, Jim Beam (as he was commonly known) turned to his son Jeremiah, his brother Park Beam and Park’s two sons, Carl and Earl, and said, “boys, time for us to get back to work.”

But the Beams were broke. Prohibition had not been kind to them. A family knack for success in the distilling business proved to be less than translatable to other endeavors, including a rock quarry and an orange grove. So, Jim had to scramble and find investors in Illinois to fund a new distillery. Once he got the money together, with his son and two nephews, they built a distillery in 120 days, doing a lot of the work themselves. Even though Jim was 70-years-old, he was on site every day. The new distillery opened on March 25, 1935. 

After Prohibition, James Beauregard Beam A.K.A. Jim Beam, restarted his family’s whiskey business.

Before Prohibition, the Beam family brand had been Old Tub Bourbon Whiskey. To Jim’s dismay, he learned that the rights to the name had been sold during Prohibition. Despite this setback, he was undeterred and that’s when the whiskey officially became Jim Beam Bourbon. Real man; real whiskey; true story. 

It’s a great piece of whiskey history, but it’s only a small, small part of the Beams’ story. The family had a huge influence on distilling in America and helped build dozens of bourbon brands, including Maker’s Mark, Stitzel-Weller, Early Times, Four Roses, Michter’s, Barton, and, quite famously, Heaven Hill. 

The Beams can truly lay claim to being America’s first family of bourbon. Read on for more about the family’s incredible legacy.

THE PATRIARCH

All of the branches on the Beam family tree lead back to a single man who was born in southeastern Pennsylvania to German immigrants in the early 1750s: Johannes Jakob Boehm. 

His friends would later convince him to Americanize his name and he became Jacob Beam. (Some records have him born in Germany, but it is most likely he was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1752. We think.)

Beam lived in Pennsylvania and Maryland, where he married a woman named Mary Myers before passing through the Cumberland Gap in the late 1780s and settling in Kentucky. Mary got 100 acres of land in Kentucky from her father in the 1790s; 100 acres on a stream, presumably with good distilling water. There are no records per se, but both Beam family tradition and company lore point to 1795 as the year when Jacob Beam first started selling his “Old Jake Beam” whiskey by the barrel. 

Jacob and Mary had a dozen children. Their eighth child, David, was born in 1802. When he turned 18, in 1820, Jacob was in his sixties, and apparently decided that David would take over the family’s Old Tub Distillery. He soon after married Elizabeth Settle and they had around a dozen children. All of the Beams who got into the bourbon business are descendants of David’s three sons: John “Jack” Beam, David M. Beam and Joseph M. Beam.

TWO OF THE THREE SONS

Jack Beam worked at the Old Tub Distillery until his older brother David M. relocated it and named it for himself. (Put a pin in that; we’ll get back to David later.) Jack got the message and opened his own distillery, which he called Early Times. It became a huge success, and although Jack lost financial control of the distillery, he still did very well as its head distiller. His son, Edward Beam, took over in 1894. Tragically, Jack and Edward died within two months of each other in 1915. (Yes, this is that Early Times brand, which is still available and currently owned by Brown-Forman; they bought the remaining stocks and the intellectual property during Prohibition.)

Jack’s brother Joseph M. Beam and his wife Mary Ellen had fourteen children; we know of two who made whiskey. One was Minor Case Beam (and sadly, the origins of his unique name is a mystery), who would eventually run his own distillery, the M.C. Beam Distillery, in Gethsemane, Kentucky. His son, Guy, worked in the business, and would distill in Canada during Prohibition. 

Guy’s son Jack, in turn, worked at the Barton Distillery. His other son, Walter, Minor Case’s grandson, wasn’t a distiller, but almost every time I go to Kentucky I visit the business he started. Walter, who was known as “Toddy,” opened Toddy’s Liquors in Bardstown, Kentucky, which is still thriving. It’s a small store with a great selection of special bottles. Fred Noe even worked there when he was young...but I’m getting ahead of the story.

Earl Beam was the master distiller at Heaven Hill for many years. He was succeeded by his son Parker.

Minor Case’s brother was Joseph L. Beam, who came to be known as “Mister Joe.” Mister Joe worked at the Stitzel Distillery, which would ultimately become the Stitzel-Weller Distillery of Pappy Van Winkle fame, and at the Old Heaven Hill Springs Distillery (the original name of Heaven Hill). 

That would start about 80 years of Beams distilling for Heaven Hill. After Mister Joe, his son Harry became the first master distiller at the new Heaven Hill Distillery. He was followed by Harry’s second cousin Earl, who was master distiller for many years. He turned over the reins to his son, the revered Parker Beam who passed away in 2017. Parker is remembered in the ongoing Parker’s Heritage Collection of bourbon, and in the line of Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage Bourbon he created. I learned a lot from Parker. His son Craig was also co-master distiller at Heaven Hill with Parker for some time. 

Heaven Hill’s legendary master distiller Parker Beam who passed away in 2017.

But Harry wasn’t Mister Joe’s only whiskey making son. He had six other sons who went into the business! Wilmer worked at Taylor & Williams. Roy would work at the Frankfort Distillery; his sons Jack and Charlie would work at Taylor & Williams and Four Roses, respectively. Desmond also worked at Frankfort, and Otis worked at the Old Judge Distillery. Elmo worked at Maker’s Mark, and Everett Beam wound up at the original Michter’s Distillery in Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania. 

THE DANT CONNECTION

Let’s go back to Guy Beam, Minor Case’s son, since that leads to a whole other branch of distillers. Guy married Mary Burch in a double wedding; her younger sister Cora married Michael Dant. If that last name sounds familiar to you, you’re a connoisseur of great value bourbon; Michael was the grandson of J.W. Dant, immortalized in the brand still sold by Heaven Hill, J.W. Dant Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon. 

Two great bourbon families tied the knot that day, but the families weren’t done intermarrying. Michael Dant’s cousin, Kathleen Dant-Bowling, had a daughter named Dottie Ann Bowling. She married Guy and Mary Beam’s son, James P. Beam. (Keeping track of the Beams is a full-time job, and the plethora of men named James doesn’t make it any easier!) Dottie and James had two sons, Stephen Beam and James P. “Paul” Beam, who are in the whiskey business today and co-founded the Limestone Branch Distillery. 

But stick with me, we’re not quite done here. In 2014, Stephen and Paul merged Limestone Branch with Luxco, the St. Louis-based bottler of Rebel Yell and Ezra Brooks. They are now making Yellowstone Bourbon, a brand originally begun by their great-great-uncle, J.B. Dant. Everything eventually comes back around in the bourbon world. 

DAVID BEAM & SONS

For the final chapter in this Book of Beams, let’s go back to David M. Beam, the third distilling son of David Beam. You’ll remember that he took over Old Tub and renamed it the D.M. Beam Distillery. His sons James B. “Jim” Beam and Park Beam would both distill there, and their brother-in-law Albert Hart would work there as well, and the distillery would be renamed Beam & Hart (although most people apparently still called it Old Tub). When Prohibition came along and shut them down, Jim Beam was 56-years-old. He would, fortunately, outlast the “Noble Experiment” and rise again.  

Jim Beam may not have owned the new post-Prohibition distillery with his name on it, but it was very much a Beam family operation. Jim’s son Jeremiah ran the company with his brother-in-law, Frederick Booker Noe. Park’s son Carl was the master distiller, and his two sons, Baker (the Baker’s” of the Small Batch Bourbon) and David would both distill there.

Booker Noe was the master distiller of Jim Beam through the 1970s and ’80s and developed its pioneering Small Batch Bourbon collection that helped save the industry.

Frederick Booker Noe’s son, Booker Noe Jr., would become the famous big man who was the master distiller of Jim Beam through the lean years of the 1970s and ’80s, the man who developed the Small Batch Bourbons that helped save the industry. It is his name that is on the powerful uncut and unfiltered Booker’s Bourbon. His son, Fred Noe, has become the modern face of Jim Beam Bourbon around the world, a wise old head with a sharp palate. Booker’s grandson and Fred’s son, Frederick Booker Noe IV A.K.A. Freddie, is a promising blender who created the excellent “Little Book” series of blended Beam straight whiskies. 

THE BEAM FAMILY’S REACH

The Beam family represents an amazing generational influence on American whiskey. There are other great bourbon families with multi-generational connections to the industry–the Medleys, the Wathens, the Browns, the Samuels, the Moores, the aforementioned Dants, and others–but the Beams stand alone. 

Fred Noe is Jim Beam’s great grandson and the Beam family’s seventh-generation distiller.

Beams have been making whiskey in America from 1795 till today. Well, almost; they had to go to Canada and Mexico to continue making whiskey during Prohibition, but they did make the trek and kept distilling. At least 30 of Jacob Beam’s descendants were distillers or master distillers. At least 30 different distilleries in North America have run under a Beam at some point. And at least 40 different brands of whiskey were developed by Beams. No other family comes close to that kind of influence. 

The Beams are, of course, still making whiskey: besides young Booker Noe at Beam, Carl Beam’s great-grandson Ben Beam is working at Michter’s. This whiskey drinker hopes there will always be Beams making great whiskey in America. 

Carl Beam’s great-grandson Ben Beam is now working at Michter’s new Fort Nelson distillery.

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James Norton & Vanessa Kirby Uncover a World War II Conspiracy in Exclusive ‘Mr. Jones’ Trailer

If 1917 has you hungry for more period piece war drama, set your sights on Mr. Jones the new World War II thriller inspired by the remarkable real-life story of the young journalist who uncovered a crime against humanity. James Norton (Little Women) stars as Gareth Jones, an ambitious reporter who travels to Moscow to uncover the truth behind Stalin’s propaganda machine and receives a tip that could expose an international conspiracy — but could also cost him and his informant their lives.

Today, we’re happy to debut an exclusive new trailer for Mr. Jones ahead of the film’s upcoming spring theatrical run. The film earned solid reviews when it screened at Berlinale last year, and it’s certainly a fascinating new story I’m eager to learn more about. Plus, there are all those Bond rumors surrounding Norton, which makes anything he’s up to right now an added point of curiosity. And then there’s the fact that Vanessa Kirby generally just rules.

Directed by Agnieszka Holland from a script by Andrea Chalupa, Mr. Jones also stars Peter Sarsgaard, Joseph Mawle, Fenelia Woolgar, and Kenneth Cranham. Samuel Goldwyn Films will release the film in theaters in April 2020 before rolling out to On Demand and Digital in July 2020.

[MIKA27]

The Cruise Origin Is An Expected Step In Autonomous Vehicles But There Are Many Unanswered Questions

Cruise Automation, the autonomous vehicle startup owned by a big bank and GM, along with help from Honda, seems to have a gift for hyperbole. In a tweet, the company suggested that they were aiming for their new autonomous shared ride van to have the same sort of impact as the “compass, train, car, light bulb, radio, internet, computer, and mobile phone,” which is, of course, eye-rollingly ridiculous. Still, the vehicle they unveiled yesterday, the Origin, is a significant step in the progress of AVs. It’s not revolutionary, but more evolutionary, and there are still many, many questions to be answered.

First, let’s talk about what the Cruise Origin is: an autonomous, four-passenger shuttle bus. The introduction gives a good overview of the car:

While they breathlessly talk about how astounding and revolutionary the design is, the truth is that this is possibly the most expected design for an autonomous vehicle. That’s not an insult, it’s because, for the job this thing is expected to do, a big box on wheels makes the most sense.

This has been understood for a while; Olli’s big box on wheels was first shown back in 2016 and is designed to do very similar people-moving sorts of things as the Origin, Canoo’s new EV van, while not currently autonomous, uses this design, partially because they do have future autonomy plans, and I can even think of a book out there that talks about the “room on wheels” AV concept in detail.

So, while it’s nice everyone at Cruise is excited, this is hardly a revolutionary AV design. Again, I want to be clear that I don’t mean this dismissively—this is the best design for such a vehicle and its intended job, though I wonder if the four-seat limitation may be a little low.

Technically, it looks to be a near-standard EV design with a powered “skateboard” that houses the batteries, and most of the hardware at the ends. Suspension seems to be MacPherson struts in front, multi-link at the rear, a beefier variant of what’s used on something like the Chevy Bolt.

Here are my best guesses at the interior packaging and layout of the Origin:

Front is facing left, by the way, making it rear-motored. I think.

I have a lot of questions about the Origin, a lot having to do with exactly how autonomous it is. On the SAE scale of autonomy, where Level 1 is any old conventional car, Level 2 is the semi-autonomy of something like Tesla Autopilot or GM’s SuperCruise (also the highest level you can actually buy today), and 5 is fully, completely autonomous, where does the Origin fit?

I asked Cruise this and many other questions. Here are the answers I got, in bold:

What level of autonomy would it be classified as?

Quote

- We don’t talk about our technology in terms of SAE levels.

Is it geo-fenced in any way?

Quote

- Nothing more to share on this topic at the moment other than to remind that we currently test in the entire 7x7 of the city of San Francisco.

Will it be designed to run on set routes, or is it free to pick its own routes and paths?

Quote

- It’s designed to operate just like traditional rideshare, only safer, with more space, and a more consistent experience.

What sort of failover behaviours does it have in case of a sensor fault, etc?

Quote

- Fully redundant systems on everything from sensors to computers.

What is the maximum speed it will operate?

Quote

- Highway speeds.

Will it go on highways as well as city streets?

Quote

- It will have the capability to go on highways as well as city streets.

What sorts of records does it store about its trips, and where does that information go?

Quote

- Nothing more to share on this topic at the moment.

Can these be remotely piloted?

Quote

- Nothing more to share on this topic at the moment.

Aside from your own ride-sharing programs, where would these be deployed? Airports, campuses, etc?

Quote

- Our current plan is to start in cities and expand from there.

OK, so, there’s some good information here, but a lot of questions as well. Their refusal to use the SAE levels is puzzling, but I suspect that’s because their system may operate in multiple modes, and they don’t want to get classified in something lower than what they feel they should.

If I had to guess, I’d think it’s likely somewhere between Level 3 and Level 4—pretty impressive, but I do not believe it’s full Level 5. And I would not be surprised to find that it can only achieve optimal results in a geo-fenced area, even if that area is as large as the city of San Francisco.

When pressed about the level of autonomy, Cruise added:

Quote

“We view in terms of scale–by scale, we mean you can and will want to use our self-driving car service to go anywhere, at any time. It’s why our testing occurs primarily in complex, urban environments that are more than 40 times more challenging than a simple suburban setting. If we can safely deploy at scale in the most complex environments, we can quickly expand everywhere else.”

It’s hard to determine exactly what this really means—what’s the basis for that “40 times more challenging” number? Hopefully, we’ll learn more soon.

I’m very curious to see how this turns out; in addition to ride-sharing, there’s a lot of delivery potential use as well. If Cruise can actually manage to get over the considerable legal and technical hurdles to get as many of these things deployed as they want, we should learn a lot about how AVs will actually work in the world, and how people will interact with them.

Nothing Cruise is doing is unexpected or absolutely revolutionary, as the vehicle and the use cases behind it have been considered and planned for years now. But, they could be the first to actually put these ideas into practice, and, if they do, that actually is a very big deal.

[MIKA27]

Anthony Bourdain’s “World Travel: An Irreverent Guide”

Anthony Bourdain comes back to haunt us in the best of ways via the medium that made him famous: a book. Written by Bourdain and his faithful assistant, Laurie Woolever, it covers key insights into his favorite global locations, including access, accommodations, and of course, food. More than just a travel book, the Irreverent Guide oozes Bourdain’s straightforward and biting personality, as well as his special love for globetrotting, people, and the flavors of the world. It will also include essays written by those who were close to him and loved him the most, and the special illustrations throughout add a special flavor to the book. Originally slated to publish before his untimely death, it’s now available for pre-order for publication on October 13th of this year. Fans will devour it, and new fans will wonder what they missed when he was with us. $40 or $24 Via Amazon

[MIKA27]

Badass Mercedes Unimog Trucks Set New World Altitude Record For Wheeled Vehicles

Generally, we think of altitude mostly when it comes to aircraft. For our wheeled vehicles, they tend to be pretty well tethered to the ground via gravity, that same magical force that also keeps your bathroom ceiling relatively free from urine stains.

Wheeled vehicles can achieve near-aeroplane-like levels of altitude, though, if they can find ground high enough. And that’s just what a Mercedes-Benz Unimog U 5023 truck did, driving nearly 7,000 metres above sea level.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Unimogs, they’re Mercedes-Benz line of tough, go-anywhere trucks with flexible ladder-frame chassis and portal axles that they’ve been making since 1948. The funny, slightly alien-sounding name is actually an acronym for UNIversal-MOtor-Gerät which, kind of hilariously, just translates to Universal Motorised Machine, which is a gloriously vague name for, well, any motorised machine.

Two of these Unimogs were being used on the highest volcano in the world, the Ojos de Salado in Chile to install emergency radio units at high-altitude camps up on the volcano. These units would allow radio connections between them and three other base camps, which will help provide more safety for science researchers and mountaineers.

The two Unimogs took the expedition team up the rough, rocky terrain of the mountain to the Amistad high-altitude camp, located 6,100 metres (20,013 feet) above sea level to install the final radio unit, then decided, since they were already so close, to set the new world altitude driving record for a wheeled vehicle, and sent one of the Unimogs on up to 6,694 metres (21,962 feet).

The trucks weren’t entirely stock, however. According to Mercedes-Benz’ press release,

Quote

“The expedition was supported by Mercedes-Benz Special Trucks which provided two extreme off-road Unimog U 5023 vehicles of the latest generation to carry the expedition team and all of their equipment required to these extreme altitudes. To ensure that the vehicles were ready to tackle the challenges of such extreme altitudes, both Unimog trucks were equipped with special tyres, strong winches and special bodies with variable centre of gravity balancing developed by the specialists at the Unimog Museum, Unimog bodybuilder AS Söder and by engineers from the Unimog development team.”

That variable centre of gravity system sounds interesting; maybe it’s using some sort of sliding weight system? I’ll have to look into that, because it sounds very cool.

So, just in case any of you were considering breaking the wheeled-vehicle altitude record, you’ll probably have to go for plan B, which involves a helicopter carrying a small round track for you to drive on.

Just, you know, be careful.

[MIKA27]

Watch This Veteran Collapse On Antiques Roadshow When He Learns His $345 Rolex Is Actually Worth $700,000

There’s rarely as satisfying a moment on TV as watching someone strike it rich on Antiques Roadshow when a random item turns out to be worth a fortune. That’s exactly what happened on this evening’s episode when an Air Force veteran learned a rare Rolex he’d never worn was worth upwards of $US700,000 ($1,035,726).
The episode was filmed in Bonanzaville in West Fargo, North Dakota, and as the story goes a member of the United States Air Force, who was stationed in Thailand in the ‘70s, noticed commercial airline pilots wearing Rolex watches and assumed it was a respected brand. A few years later while looking for a suitable watch for diving the veteran ordered a Rolex Oyster Cosmograph Reference 6263 from his base’s exchange for $US345.97 ($512): a price that probably has watch collectors doing a spit take right now, but in 1974, when this timepiece was ordered, enlisted soldiers only made about $US300 ($444)-$US400 ($592) a month so it was definitely a spurge.

When he took possession of the watch a year later, the veteran decided it was too nice to muck up with saltwater while SCUBA diving, and even too nice to wear at all. So he locked it away in a safe deposit box with the original packaging and paperwork, only removing it a couple of times over the years to admire his investment. It was that decision that will potentially leave this veteran with a nice chunk of change should he decide to put his Rolex up for auction.

The Rolex Daytona, as this timepiece is also known, is coveted by watch collectors for many reasons, including the fact that Paul Newman wore a similar model in the film Winning. This Rolex Daytona is considered a step up from the model appearing in that movie, however, with improved water resistance as denoted by the word “Oyster” on the face, making this model especially rare.

But because this veteran never actually wore his Rolex, preserving even a foil label on the back of the watch that usually rubs off over time, the watch is essentially in brand new condition even though it was manufactured back in 1971. That, with the original packaging, paperwork, receipts, and warranty documentation that was never filled out, led the Antiques Road appraiser to estimate that it could fetch anywhere from $US500,000 ($739,805) to $US700,000 ($1,035,726) at auction, given the recent popularity and demand for this specific Rolex model. That is a significant return on investment, and a good enough reason to rifle through your grandparents’ watch drawer the next time you stop by for a visit.

[MIKA27]

Kylo Ren Returns To Saturday Night Live For Another Round Of Undercover Boss

And he only kills, like, a couple of people. Truly, he’s growing.
Last night, Adam Driver returned to host Saturday Night Live for the third time, and since SNL has never had a good idea that it wouldn’t repeat, that means Kylo Ren is back, too.

During Driver’s first appearance, we saw Ren go undercover in a parody version of Undercover Boss, learning the struggles of the regular people working to serve the First Order. Now, he’s back in a followup, where Kylo Ren again goes undercover to find out how the other half lives.

This outing, admittedly, isn’t as funny as the original, but Driver remains a better comedic presence than, well, most of SNL’s cast and it remains a pretty fun time. I like the intern fashion, too—that vest with the First Order logo is actually pretty fetching. And SNL’s wig game is definitely more on point than it was a few years ago.

Previous skits:

 

[Duxnutz]

4 hours ago, MIKA27 said:

Watch This Veteran Collapse On Antiques Roadshow When He Learns His $345 Rolex Is Actually Worth $700,000

There’s rarely as satisfying a moment on TV as watching someone strike it rich on Antiques Roadshow when a random item turns out to be worth a fortune. That’s exactly what happened on this evening’s episode when an Air Force veteran learned a rare Rolex he’d never worn was worth upwards of $US700,000 ($1,035,726).
The episode was filmed in Bonanzaville in West Fargo, North Dakota, and as the story goes a member of the United States Air Force, who was stationed in Thailand in the ‘70s, noticed commercial airline pilots wearing Rolex watches and assumed it was a respected brand. A few years later while looking for a suitable watch for diving the veteran ordered a Rolex Oyster Cosmograph Reference 6263 from his base’s exchange for $US345.97 ($512): a price that probably has watch collectors doing a spit take right now, but in 1974, when this timepiece was ordered, enlisted soldiers only made about $US300 ($444)-$US400 ($592) a month so it was definitely a spurge.

When he took possession of the watch a year later, the veteran decided it was too nice to muck up with saltwater while SCUBA diving, and even too nice to wear at all. So he locked it away in a safe deposit box with the original packaging and paperwork, only removing it a couple of times over the years to admire his investment. It was that decision that will potentially leave this veteran with a nice chunk of change should he decide to put his Rolex up for auction.

The Rolex Daytona, as this timepiece is also known, is coveted by watch collectors for many reasons, including the fact that Paul Newman wore a similar model in the film Winning. This Rolex Daytona is considered a step up from the model appearing in that movie, however, with improved water resistance as denoted by the word “Oyster” on the face, making this model especially rare.

But because this veteran never actually wore his Rolex, preserving even a foil label on the back of the watch that usually rubs off over time, the watch is essentially in brand new condition even though it was manufactured back in 1971. That, with the original packaging, paperwork, receipts, and warranty documentation that was never filled out, led the Antiques Road appraiser to estimate that it could fetch anywhere from $US500,000 ($739,805) to $US700,000 ($1,035,726) at auction, given the recent popularity and demand for this specific Rolex model. That is a significant return on investment, and a good enough reason to rifle through your grandparents’ watch drawer the next time you stop by for a visit.

I guess Airline pilots did pretty well back in the 70s.

[Derboesekoenig]

4 minutes ago, Duxnutz said:

I guess Airline pilots did pretty well back in the 70s.

If you fly for the major airlines today, you're doing pretty well. Average pay is $180k-$250k across the top 10 major airlines. It's common to see $250k-$300k+.

[MIKA27]

Incredible DIY Flight Simulator Simulates G-Forces With Auto-Tightening Seatbelts

How many times have you gotten to the checkout at the flight simulator store only to remember you don’t actually have $US12 ($18) million in your pocket? Lacking a military-sized budget, André Pointner built his own three-axis flight simulator at home that can spin and rotate in 360 degrees, plus a few other clever tricks.

Before you ask why Pointner chose such a small monitor for his simulator (or why he’s not actually running his flight simulator software in full screen) look closer at his helmet. That’s not Air Force standard issue equipment, it’s instead a basic helmet like a skateboarder would wear that’s paired with an HTC Vive strapped to Pointner’s face. Outside of multiple projectors and a domed screen completely surrounding this rig, virtual reality provides a similarly immersive experience while requiring less space and less of a hit on the budget.

The simulator’s ability to completely flip Pointner upside down helps the experience of performing barrel rolls or vertical loops feel almost exactly like it would in a real aircraft, but what’s missing are the G-forces the human body is subjected to when performing manoeuvres at the speed of sound, and faster. To recreate those feelings, Pointner designed and built a system that uses cable tensioners to automatically tighten the simulator’s five-point seatbelt harness when excessive G-forces would be affecting a pilot. It’s not as intense as what an actual fighter pilot would experience, but it’s enough to make the simulator pilot understand the limitations of what is and isn’t possible in a dogfight.

Pointner has shared some behind the scenes details of his build in a series of posts on the X-Sim forums (a piece of software that powers simulators and syncs movements to flight sim games) and while they’re not in-depth enough for someone to use as a guideline for building their own simulator, he has shared some terrifying tips if you’re planning to start a project like this:

Quote

Don’t use more then max. 3kW actuator. Or at least make very sure that the motor don’t get more power then 3000W peak. Why? 2000W brake your bones, but you will survive likely. But at 5000W everthing is just ripped apart instantly.

Good advice for any aspiring pilots who don’t want their limbs torn off during a simulated skirmish.

[MIKA27]

What Happens When They Find a World War II Bomb Down the Street

German authorities with a 500-pound bomb discovered during construction work. Such discoveries are regular occurrences in cities that were bombed during World War II.

I found out about the bomb down the street by text message on Tuesday at 4:22 p.m., just as I was locking my bike outside our son’s preschool. It was a screengrab, actually: My wife had passed on a tweet from the Berlin police department with a photo of a huge archaeological excavation and construction site that we can see from our balcony in the center of the city.

“A World War II bomb was found today at about 11:30 during construction work on the corner of Grunerstr. and Juedenstr. Our colleagues have blocked off the area, the bomb squad technicians are on the scene.” What, my wife wanted to know, were we going to do?

This question is not as unusual as one might think, at least in German cities and others hit hard during the war. Between 1940 and 1945, Allied forces dropped 2.7 million tons of bombs on Nazi-occupied Europe. That’s about 1.25 million explosive objects in total—ranging from small incendiary charges meant to set fire to wooden buildings to multi-ton “blockbusters.” An estimated one in five bombs dropped failed to explode, which translates to about 250,000 duds. Often, the explosive-packed shells penetrated several feet into the ground, and were later covered up by rubble and debris from other, more successful explosions.

Two B-26 Marauder bombers of the U.S. Ninth Air Force drop bombs over Germany.

This means many German cities are, more or less, built on top of live explosives. Western cities such as Cologne, Duesseldorf, and Bremen, which are closer to air bases in Britain and full of industrial targets, were particularly hard-hit, and bombs regularly turn up there.

Berlin, then and now the German capital, was a major target, too. Since the war’s end, more than 2,000 live bombs have been recovered here. Some experts estimate 15,000 more may remain hidden under the fast-growing city. In the surrounding state of Brandenburg, the scene of bitter fighting in the last months of the war, police deal with 500 tons of munitions each year.

On my way up the stairs to the preschool, I scanned the local news. No one seemed overly alarmed. Headlines focused on the impending traffic chaos, not the 500-pound bomb itself. The street that passes the construction site is one of Berlin’s busiest, and nearby Alexanderplatz is a major transport node, with several subway lines and regional trains connecting in its multistory train station.

We had dinner plans and a babysitter on the way, and were going to see a drag show across town later that night. I was optimistic: As far as I could tell, only the building site itself had been closed off. Strapping my son into the box of our cargo bike, I told him we’d ride home and see what the situation was.

The bomb—German-made, but with a Soviet fuse—will be taken out of the city to be detonated safely.

Thinking back on the whole thing a few days later, pointing my five-year-old in the direction of a live bomb was perhaps a sign I wasn’t worried enough. Defusing all these weapons, it turns out, gets trickier with time. The TNT and other explosives used in World War II munitions have no known expiration date, and their fuses get more unstable as the materials inside—including 1940s-era plastics, capsules filled with acid, and complex mechanical timers—decay and rust.

But as we rode towards the apartment around 5 p.m., I saw neither police nor barricades. Our babysitter was waiting outside the building, and we all went upstairs. I grabbed an overnight bag and threw in some spare clothes, toothbrushes, and a Paddington Bear book. Just in case.

Within half an hour, my wife burst in with news. The police had tweeted again, this time with a map. The safety zone had been expanded to 300 meters, which included our historic neighborhood in the center of Berlin and Alexanderplatz, a massive, communist-era plaza that was the centerpiece of former East Berlin. Squinting unhappily at her phone, I saw a red line snaking right past our stoop. We’d all have to clear out while the bomb squad tackled the heavily corroded bombshell and its mechanical fuse.

Nach Beratung mit unseren Kriminaltechnikern wird ein Sperrbereich⭕️ eingerichtet, der für die Entschärfung evakuiert werden muss. Im erweiterten blaumarkierten Bereich bleiben Sie bitte in den Gebäuden und halten Sie die Fenster geschlossen.#Weltkriegsbombe in #Mitte

Back on the cargo bike, my son and I stopped to talk with a police officer parked on the corner. “In a little while they’ll start knocking on doors and going through with loudspeakers,” he told me, leaning out of his window into the wintry night. “As soon as we’ve had time to clear everyone out they’ll start working on the bomb—no way to know how long it’ll take.” We had a head start, then.

It was getting to be dinnertime, and we decided to take a chance on a nearby pizza place. The host shrugged when I asked if they were going to stay open. “Didn’t they take care of that this afternoon?” he asked. “As far as I know we’re out of the blast zone.” Information, it seemed, was traveling slowly.

As we ate, our phones chimed periodically with updates from a WhatsApp group of neighbors: The loudspeaker trucks were outside, hotel rooms nearby were being hastily booked. Suddenly my wife pointed out the window: Police were stringing crime scene tape outside, blocking off the plaza. Our bike was parked on the wrong side of the red-and-white barrier.

I rushed outside to move it, briefly panicking the host, who thought I was trying to skip out on the check. After some fast talking, I was allowed into the closed-off, empty plaza to retrieve it. Soon I was rolling it back under the tape, past two amused young cops. “Go ahead, park it anywhere, just not in the danger zone,” they called after me. Meanwhile, loudspeakers were blaring into the night: “This area is now closed because of a World War bomb found nearby. Please leave.”

Berlin, near the end of World War II.

By 8 p.m., half the area had been cleared. Anyone who couldn’t afford a hotel or find someone to stay with was taken to the cafeteria of a nearby municipal building. By then we were drinking wine with friends who had offered us their guest room. Our son, apprehensive at first about leaving home and Legos so suddenly, was excited about the unexpected sleepover. School night rules were forgotten, and we stayed up long past his bedtime.

Because it’s 2020, we were getting live updates from the disposal scene via the police Twitter account. Once up close, the bomb squad discovered that the bomb was German, but equipped with a mechanical Russian fuse. In the final days of the war, it seems, the Red Army ruthlessly repurposed captured German munitions, arming them with Soviet detonators to rain German explosives down on the besieged German capital. Poetic justice. I poured another glass of wine.

At 9:38 p.m., another neighbor posted a message to the WhatsApp group: For some reason they’d decided to stay until police knocked on their door, and now they were on their way out. Altogether, 1,900 people had been cleared from their apartments, offices, and hotels in the space of a few hours. Bus lines were rerouted, traffic backed up, and subway service to the area canceled.

By German standards, all this was pretty minor. In 2011, an unusually dry summer revealed a 4,000-pound bomb in the middle of the Rhine River where it passes through Koblenz. Authorities hurriedly cleared 45,000 people out.

A dry spell in 2011 revealed a 4,000-pound bomb in the city of Koblenz, leading to the evacuation of 45,000 people.

The threat is present and persistent enough that new construction projects often require permits from specialists, who sign off only after examining World War II–era aerial photography for signs of unexploded bombs. In 2017, authorities had to move 60,000 people out of central Frankfurt when a British bomb containing a 1.4-ton explosive payload was located based on aerial photos that had been taken from a spotter plane a few days after a raid. The logistics were daunting: The danger zone included two hospitals, 10 old-age homes, the city’s police headquarters, the German Central Bank, and one of the country’s national libraries.

Hell, our evacuation wasn’t even the biggest to take place that Tuesday. Around the time the bomb down the street from me was uncovered, 10,000 office workers in Cologne were cleared out of the city center at mid-day while technicians defused an American-made 1,000-pounder. “Those of us in Cologne are pretty used to this,” a police spokeswoman told the media dismissively afterwards. “We dealt with 25 bombs just like this last year alone.”

Still, as I went to sleep I felt a weird rush, as though after 15 years of living in Germany and writing about the country’s history, I had successfully completed a rite of passage. I was asleep around 11:45 p.m., when the bomb disposal technicians began their work. At 12:13 a.m., less than half an hour later, the device was defused. In the early hours of the morning it was transported to a forest on the edge of town, where it will be safely detonated in the next few weeks.

The next day, our son had something new to tell his friends at preschool. Meanwhile, our neighbors posted updates to the WhatsApp group one by one—and couldn’t resist some commentary. “It was all a little over the top. Surely there are better ways to defuse bombs nowadays,” one wrote. “So much work and effort, and not even a little bang.” Berliners can be hard to impress.

[MIKA27]

Bentley’s 626HP Continental GT GP Ice Racer Is Ready To Slay The Slopes

On the heels of Bentley’s domineering Pikes Peak run last year, the luxury brand has announced that it’ll be taking its award-winning Continental GT into new areas of the road racing circuit — most notably, its ice-faring counterpart. For 2020, the powerful platform aims to secure yet another storied performance at the upcoming GP Ice Race in Zell am See, adding to the company’s record-breaking 2007 and 2011 showings.

Bentley’s transition from the blacktop to the less-predictable, ice-covered roadway doesn’t come without its own intricacies. For the GP, the company’s 626-horsepower, W12 twin-turbocharged Continental GT has taken on a slew of winter-ready parts, including three-chamber air springs, a 48V active anti-roll control system, and iron brakes. But that’s not all — a selection of performance-oriented safety measures have been implemented to keep the car as dependable as possible, calling upon an on-board fire suppression system, rear roll cage, race-approved harnesses, and seats, and a ride-height increase to clear obscured objects. On the vehicle’s roof, a bespoke rack system displays a set of Bomber for Bentley Centenary Edition skis. Look for the car at this year’s GP Ice Race, where it will be helmed by Bentley’s first modern-day female rally racer, Catie Munnings.

[MIKA27]

Atari Is Opening The World’s First Chain Of Video Game-Themed Hotels

With the rise of Esports and the upcoming release of a new generation of home consoles just over the horizon, it seems like video gaming is more popular and accepted than ever before. And that’s what Atari appears to be banking on, as the gaming giant has just announced the world’s very first chain of video game-themed hotels.

Obviously, based on the renders, you can see that these resorts will feature Atari’s signature logo infused into the architecture — but the gaming connection goes far deeper than just appearances. The brand is also promising, on top of all the normal hotel accommodations, that each location will also feature immersive experiences for all ages, including the latest-and-greatest in VR and AR tech, as well as state-of-the-art venues and studios for esporting events. The first location — in Phoenix, AZ — is slated to break ground in the spring of 2020 with seven other locations around the United States to follow shortly thereafter.

[MIKA27]

DeLorean Is Bringing Back The Legendary DMC-12 With Modern Upgrades

If the 1981-1982 DeLorean wasn’t already on your radar, it should be. Not only was the car shrouded in mystery following the bankruptcy of its manufacturer in the early 1980s after releasing only 9,000 models of its one-hit-wonder, the DMC-12, but its sudden inclusion as the staple platform for 1985’s Back To The Future helped to reignite interest in the car, etching its name into the annals of automotive history. Since then, it’s been nothing more than a distant memory — until now.

After almost four decades, the DeLorean DMC-12 is poised to make its contemporary comeback. Stephen Wynne, one of the platform’s long-time promoters, spent the vast majority of his days in 1995 restoring and remodeling the car, becoming intimately aware of its iconic status, and formulating a plan to revive the DMC-12 for modern buyers. After sifting through legal matters surrounding the brand’s name and likeness, the newly-resurrected DeLorean Motor Company seeks to reproduce the timeless vehicle from its Texas-based manufacturing plant. Below the hood, a powerful 350-horsepower engine drives the updated DMC, working in parallel with modern suspension, braking, and quality-of-life additions to make it more attractive to buyers. Head to the company’s website for more information.

[Duxnutz]

23 hours ago, Derboesekoenig said:

If you fly for the major airlines today, you're doing pretty well. Average pay is $180k-$250k across the top 10 major airlines. It's common to see $250k-$300k+.

Yup. Good money at the top of the list. Just need the geezers who make up that list to retire. 

[Fuzz]

21 hours ago, MIKA27 said:

Atari Is Opening The World’s First Chain Of Video Game-Themed Hotels

 

I just hope they don't hire Donkey Kong as a porter.

[MIKA27]

A New Documentary Strongly Argues That Aliens Exist, And We've Got The Trailer Debut

If aliens exist, eventually we’ll know about it. How will we find out? What will they want? These are the kinds of questions that spark our imaginations every single day. Could the revelation possibly come in the form of a documentary? If the language being used to promote The Phenomenon is right, maybe it will.
Directed by James Fox and narrated by Peter Coyote, The Phenomenon is a new documentary that covers over 70 years of UFO history. It uses “never-before-seen archival footage” and interviews with major government officials (such as former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta) to tell a story, it claims, that “opens by proving there is a shocking ‘hidden history’” of UFOs, and ends with “an unsettling, unavoidable conclusion: ‘We are not alone.’”

Bold claims to be sure—and, to be fair, we haven’t seen the movie yet. But based on the possibility alone, Gizmodo is excited to exclusively debut the trailer.

“Twenty-five years into investigating unidentified aerial phenomena, I’m faced with the unavoidable fact they’re real, they’re global, and we’re potentially dealing with a form of consciousness that shares our world and impacts our lives in powerful ways,” Fox said in a press release. “Our team has assembled the most compelling testimony and evidence from around the world that will lead even the most ardent sceptics to the inescapable conclusion that we are not alone.”

Now, let’s be honest here. Even if Fox brought an actual alien out in this movie and interviewed it for the entire runtime, people wouldn’t be convinced. Assuming it doesn’t do that though, the challenge for The Phenomenon will be to illuminate new stories in the realm of extraterrestrials and maybe make people question their own beliefs. No one expects actually this movie to prove anything. But it’s a pretty simple expectation, and almost a requirement, that it does the job of pointing the conversation about aliens in new directions, and it seems like it’s certainly going to do that.

The Phenomenon will be in theatres this September. Head to its official site here, or its distributor 1091 Media, for more info.

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New ‘Fantasy Island’ Trailer

 

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CAVIAR CYBERPHONE

The design of Tesla's forthcoming Cybertruck is so striking that it has inspired everything from homes to Lego sets. Smartphones can now be added to that list. The Caviar Cyberphone is an Apple iPhone 11 Pro, given a dramatic Tesla-like overhaul. The back of the phone is switched to an angular, PVD-coated titanium panel, while the screen itself is covered by a titanium panel that folds back to serve as a built-in stand. All other specs remain the same, including the outstanding cameras, the various storage capacities, and the option for a larger Max version. $5,250+

MIKA: That's an expensive "Phone case" and also ugly IMHO

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Scientists Make First-Ever Observation Of Warm Water Undercutting Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier'

The climate crisis is causing ice in Antarctica to melt faster than at any other time in recorded history. And scientists just found another troubling sign for Antarctic ice. Record warm water is surging under an Antarctica glacier that’s fate is intertwined with the millions of people who live along the coast. Needless to say, the results could be catastrophic.

The massive Thwaites Glacier slides down from the West Antarctic ice sheet into the Amundsen Sea, which part of the glacier floats over. It’s the most vulnerable glacier on the entire continent, and its collapse could be part of a chain of events that would cause seas to rise 10 feet. No wonder it’s nicknamed the doomsday glacier. Researchers have known for decades that it’s unstable, but a recent daring research expedition onto the ice has revealed for the first time that warm water have reached a particularly crucial location underneath it.

A team of 100 researchers from the U.S. and UK were deployed to the glacier in November as the first major expedition to Thwaites Glacier. The team fanned out across the ice in groups to do a variety of work, including capturing stunning video from under the ice. While out on the ice, another group drilled an almost 2,000-foot deep hole through ice to ocean below. The scientists then dropped a device that could sense temperatures and ocean turbulence down into the depth. They recorded water temperatures of about 0 degrees Celsius. That’s more than 2 degrees Celsius warmer than that location’s freezing point owing the chemistry of saltier water.

The alarming readings were taken at the glacier’s “grounding line,” where the ice transitions between resting on bedrock and floating on the ocean. Thwaites has unfortunate under-ice topography where the bedrock slopes downward, allowing waters to cut deep under the ice. To make matters worse, the waters there were turbulent, which means the ocean’s saltwater and the glacial freshwater are mixing together. That turbulence may push the warm water toward the glacier, causing the ice to melt even faster.

The finding “suggests that it may be undergoing an unstoppable retreat that has huge implications for global sea level rise,” David Holland, a glaciologist from New York University who performed the research, said in a press release.

Those rising sea levels won’t just affect the remote areas where the glaciers are melting. Communities up and down the world’s coasts would have to contend with the extra water pouring into the ocean.

“Warm waters in this part of the world, as remote as they may seem, should serve as a warning to all of us about the potential dire changes to the planet brought about by climate change,” said Holland.

The Thwaites Glacier spans 74,000 square miles (191,659 square kilometres), which is roughly the size of Florida, and it already contributes to four per cent of global sea level rise. If it collapses, Thwaites alone would drain enough ice from the West Antarctic to raise global sea levels almost three feet.

But the effects could be even worse than that. Thwaites and another large glacier, the Pine Island Glacier, act as a brake on part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Pine Island has a similar setup to Thwaites with bedrock sloping downward under the ice and warm water swirling beneath it. If they both melt, huge amounts of ice could break off and flow into the sea. That would cause the oceans to rise up to 10 feet (3 metres), drowning many coastal cities.

It’s not clear exactly how fast the Thwaites will melt, but it is clear that the climate crisis is accelerating the process. And that’s dangerous for many parts of the world because what happens in Antarctica doesn’t stay in Antarctica.