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

[MIKA27]

Spy novelist Tom Clancy dies aged 66

Best-selling US author Tom Clancy has died at the age of 66, his publisher Penguin has confirmed.

Clancy wrote a string of best-selling spy and military thrillers. His 17th novel, Command Authority, is due out in December.

Several of his books featuring CIA analyst Jack Ryan have been adapted into successful Hollywood films.

The former insurance broker died in a Baltimore hospital near his Maryland home, according to reports.

Clancy, who died on Tuesday, was remembered as "a master of his craft" by Tom Weldon, chief executive of Penguin Random House UK.

"Tom Clancy changed readers' expectations of what a thriller could do," he said. "He will be greatly missed by millions of fans in the UK and around the world."

'Real gentleman'

Written in his spare time, The Hunt for Red October (1984) was Clancy's first published novel and sold more than five million copies.

President Ronald Reagan helped to fuel the success of the book when he called it a "perfect yarn".

The novel was made into a film in 1990, starring Alec Baldwin as Ryan and Sir Sean Connery as Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius.

Baldwin paid tribute to "the great writer Tom Clancy" on Twitter, remembering him as "a real gentleman of the old school".

Harrison Ford went on to play Ryan in film versions of Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, while Ben Affleck played him in 2002 release The Sum of All Fears.

Jack Ryan: Shadow One, a new film to feature the character directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh, is set for release this December.

Clancy usually wrote a book a year, making him one of the wealthiest authors in the world.

In 2002 he was ranked at 10 in Forbes magazine's Celebrity 100 list with estimated earnings of $47.8m (£33m).

As well as a successful writer, Clancy also became closely associated with the world of video gaming.

In the 1990s he founded Red Storm Entertainment, later bought by Ubisoft, which developed games based on Clancy's ideas.

Blockbuster video game titles bearing his name included Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six.

"Tom Clancy was an extraordinary author with a gift for creating detailed, engrossing fictional stories that captivated audiences around the world," said Ubisoft on its Facebook page.

"We are humbled by the opportunity to carry on part of his legacy through our properties that bear his name."

British author Barbara Taylor-Bradford also paid tribute to Clancy on her website.

"I'm stunned to learn of the sudden passing of [a] legendary novelist," she wrote. "A remarkable talent whose books and movie adaptations held me captive for many enjoyable hours."

Clancy was known for his technically detailed espionage and military science storylines. One, written in 1994, told of a crazed Japan Airlines pilot who flies into the Capitol building in Washington.

In a 2003 interview, CNN presenter Wolf Blitzer suggested his precise accounts of the US military techniques were giving away secrets to terrorists.

"I never got any fan mail from Osama bin Laden, and I don't really know how many books I sold in Afghanistan," the author replied.

"You have to talk to the marketing people about that. But I'm not really concerned about it."

"He was ahead of the news curve and sometimes frighteningly prescient," said Ivan Held, president of Penguin imprint G P Putnam's Sons.

"To publish a Tom Clancy book was a thrill every time."

[MIKA27]

Miners Want To Ignite An Inferno Deep Beneath Wyoming

Out in Wyoming, an energy company is getting creative about extracting coal from deep below the surface. Rather than blast a hole in the side of the Earth and go digging for it, Linc Energy just wants to set the stuff on fire and gobble up the gas emitted by the blaze. What could go wrong?

The process proposed by Linc is known as underground coal gasification, and it’s not without its downsides. It involves drilling thousands of feet deep into the ground and setting fire to the coal reserves there. This produces gas that can then be converted into natural gas or used to produce chemicals like ammonia. However, letting all of these noxious fumes loose underground runs the risk of contaminating the groundwater. Linc says they have 44 groundwater monitors in place to make sure this doesn’t happen.

All that said, there’s a good chance this setting-the-Earth-on-fire technique will cause less damage than the alternative which is digging up all that coal. Or everybody could just chill out, not set the Earth on fire and wait patiently. We’re going to be mining asteroids in no time anyway.

MIKA: Sounds like one massive BBQ to me!

[MIKA27]

‘America’s Safest Car’ Ablaze After Fire Starts in Battery Pack

Tesla stock dives amid new worries about lithium-ion safety

A Tesla Model S electric car, touted as the safest car in America, caught fire on Tuesday, spurring new worries about the possible risks of lithium-ion batteries. In two recent incidents, involving Boeing’s new 787 plane and Chevrolet’s Volt hybrid car, fires have emanated from batteries of the same type.

Tesla spokeswoman Liz Jarvis-Shean said the fire was caused by a large metallic object hitting the battery pack, and pointed out that no one was injured. Company shares still dropped by more than 6 percent, following the appearance on the Internet of a video showing flames spewing out of the vehicle (mild pr

[MIKA27]

White House Ghosts Continue Working During US Government Shutdown

The US Government shut down at the beginning of October while political parties argue over policy leaving many government employees wondering when their next regular paycheck will come, but to best of our knowledge, the shutdown has not affected the half dozen or more ghosts reportedly haunting the White House halls.

The home of the US president is known for its historical hauntings as much as it is known for being the place where political decisions are made. At least a dozen people have died in the White House since its completion around 1800, including two presidents and several presidential family members. Several of those who died at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue are allegedly haunting it to this day, as are several others with White House connections including David Burnes, the man whose property was taken in 1790 so it could be built.

Some of those who died in the White House include:

• Elisha Hunt Allen (d. Jan. 1, 1883) – The Kingdom of Hawaii’s Minister to the United States died while attending a dinner for diplomats hosted by President Chester Arthur. He was 79 years old.
  
• Fredrick Dent (d. Dec. 15, 1873) – The father-in-law of President Ulysses S. Grant, who also had a history of military service, Dent’s funeral was held in the White House Blue Room. He was 86.
  
• Caroline Scott Harrison (d. Oct. 25, 1892) – She was the wife of President Benjamin Harrison, and died in the White House of tuberculosis at the age of 60. Her funeral was held in the East Room.
  
• William Henry Harrison (d. April 4, 1841) – Harrison was elected president and took the oath of office March 4, 1841. He died 32 days later of pneumonia, allegedly due to his inaugural celebrations in the rain and cold. He was the grandfather of President Benjamin Harrison. He is one of only two presidents to die inside the White House. He was 68.
  
• William Wallace Lincoln (d. Feb. 20, 1862) – President Abraham Lincoln’s son, only 11 at the time of his death, is believed to have succumb to typhoid. Funeral services were held in the Green Room of the White House.
  
• Rev. John Witherspoon Scott (d. Nov. 29, 1892) – Father of First Lady Caroline Scott Harrison, he lived with the Harrisons throughout Benjamin’s term of office. The 92-year-old died in the White House one month after his daughter.
  
• Zachary Taylor (d. July 9, 1850) – The second president to die in the White House, Taylor became ill at a Fourth of July celebration and died just days later. It is believed severe gastroenteritis was to blame. Taylor was 65.
  
• Letitia Christian Tyler (d. Sept. 10, 1842) – First Lady to John Tyler, she was known to be reclusive due to illness, and eventually died of a stroke at the age of 51. She was the first of three presidential wives to die in the White House.
  
• Rebecca Van Buren (d. 1840) – The daughter of Abraham and Angelica Van Buren, Abraham being the son of President Martin Van Buren, she died in the fall of 1840, just a few months after her birth. She is believed to be the first person to die in the White House.
  
• Margaret Elizabeth “Madge” Gates Wallace (Dec. 5, 1952) – Mother-in-law to President Harry S. Truman, Wallace died in the White House at the age of 90.
  
• Ellen Louise Wilson (d. Aug. 6, 1914) – The wife of President Woodrow Wilson, Ellen died in the White House due to complications of Bright’s Disease. She was 54.
  

Dead Presidents Do Not Just Appear on Money

Andrew Jackson

Considering that Andrew Jackson basically declared war on the established banking system of his day, it’s ironic his face is on the US $20 bill. The banks weren’t the only known enemies of Jackson during his presidency. He also swore to get back at the political mud slingers who went as far as trash talking his wife during the election of 1828. It’s no surprise this spiteful man’s ghost has been spotted at the White House. One would also presume Jackson’s ghost would take joy in all the current political strife, and be more active than usual.

First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln was the first notable person to have an experience with Jackson’s ghost in the White House. Lincoln, who was known to host seances in the presidential home hoping to communicate with her dead sons, Willie and Eddie, reported hearing Jackson’s stomp and curse through the White House’s residential halls. There have also been reports of Jackson’s maniacal laughter being heard in the Rose Room of the White House, which is the room where Jackson slept during his presidency.

Among the other stories surrounding Jackson’s Rose Room is an odd perpetually cold spot on the room’s canopy bed.

Jackson was spiteful enough for his ghost to work for free, even if the government shutdown resulted in his pay, whatever one might pay a resident ghost, being stopped.

Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s presidency was the most tumultuous in the nation’s history. During his presidency the nation split and erupted into a civil war, his young son died in the White House, he was alleged to have severe depression-like emotional issues, his wife was institutionalized at one point, and he would eventually be assassinated. With a life so conflicted, it’s no surprise his ghost is the most frequently seen by White House residents and guests. Winston Churchill claimed to have seen Lincoln’s ghost during a stay in the Lincoln Bedroom. Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Herbert Hoover, also reported seeing Lincoln’s ghost in the White House. Lincoln is by far the superstar of White House ghost stories. When it comes to government shut downs, there is no political figure in US history with more experience dealing with dysfunctional governmental situations. It will take more than just a work stoppage to stop his haunting activity.

More Than Just Presidents Haunt White House HallsDavid Burnes

Ever wonder how the government came to own the property where the White House was built? It was taken from a man named David Burnes who initially had no desire to hand it over to the government. During repeated attempts to get Burnes to willingly sell the land, it is alleged he insulted President George Washington by saying, “I suppose, Mr. Washington, you think people are going to take every grist from you as pure grain; but what would you have been if you hadn’t married the rich widow Custis.” Washington referred to him as the obstinate Mr. Burnes from that point forward. Lillian Rogers Parks, a White House employee of more than 30 years, told the story of a valet to President Franklin Roosevelt who claimed to hear a voice saying, “I’m Mr. Burnes,” in the White House’s Yellow Oval Room. A White House staffer during Harry Truman’s presidency reportedly had a similar experience. Reports of Burnes’ voice being heard in the White House attic above the Oval Office have also been somewhat common over the years. The ghost of David Burnes would likely be giddy to witness any difficulties afflicting the US government, and like Jackson, wouldn’t let a work stoppage affect his mission.

Anne Surratt

Anne Surratt’s mother, Mary Surratt, was the first woman to be executed by the US government for her involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Mary Surratt ran a boarding house that John Wilkes Booth, and other co-conspirators, used as a meeting place to discuss the assassination plan. She is also alleged to have been a go-between among the co-conspirators, transporting and supplying weapons intended for use in the assassination. Anne Surratt’s ghost has reportedly been seen pounding on the White House doors begging for her mother to be spared execution. Her ghost is alleged to appear on the White House steps every July 7, the date her mother was executed in 1865.

British Soldier

During the War of 1812, British soldiers tried to burn down the White House, and the ghost of the man who put the torch to the building is alleged to still walk the grounds at night with a blazing torch. There is at least one reported incident where the fire-bug of a soldier has been seen inside the White House. A husband and wife who stayed in a second-floor bedroom at the White House claimed the ghost tried to set fire to their bed. The incident occurred in the room where Abraham Lincoln’s son, Willie, died. Lynda Johnson, daughter of President Lyndon Johnson, occupied this same room during her father’s presidency. She claimed to have seen Willie’s ghost there on several occasions.

If there was ever a ghost with an opportunity to make a splash during the government shutdown, it’s the torch-wielding soldier looking for something to burn.

What is really going on in the White House?

Eleanor Roosevelt

These stories are just a snippet of the ghost stories surrounding the White House, yet, finding evidence of it being investigated by knowledgeable paranormal experts to substantiate the many claims is difficult. The evidence hinges entirely upon word of mouth, and often that word comes from political hacks known for their rhetoric.

Aside from Mary Todd Lincoln’s seances in the White House, there are stories of other residents reaching out to the other side to communicate with the many ghosts believed to reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The most recent of which is Hillary Clinton.

In his book, The Choice, Bob Woodward, one of the journalists who broke the story of the Watergate scandal involving President Richard Nixon, alleged Clinton held a seance at the White House and channeled not only Eleanor Roosevelt but Ghandi too.

Dr. Jean Houston, New Age author and psychologist, who was with Clinton during the alleged incident, claims Woodward’s allegation is untrue. Houston claims she helped Clinton through a role-playing exercise meant to assist her in the writing of the book It Takes a Village. Again, with all the rhetoric in Washington DC, it’s often difficult to tell what’s true and what isn’t.

Nancy Reagan

President Barack Obama found himself under fire for comments he made about White House ghosts in relation to former First Lady Nancy Reagan, who was known to have sought advice from astrologers during her husband’s presidency. As president-elect, Obama was asked if any former presidents had offered him any advice for his upcoming presidency. He replied by saying he had spoken to all of the former presidents who were living. He then added, “I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances.” The next day he issued a public apology to Reagan.

Perhaps with nothing going on in government at the moment, it would be a good time to allow a team of paranormal investigators access to the White House to do an in-depth investigation on what is reputed to be one of the most haunted places in the United States.

What would it hurt?

In the meantime, we’ll just have to wait and see how the political situation shakes out, and hope someone comes through with a good ghost story from shutdown, proving no matter what, the ghosts of the White House take their jobs seriously. Unlike the people who occupy the White House, the ghosts there will stop at nothing to get the job done.

[MIKA27]

The living statue who refuses to give up:

Woman, 31, on living with rare condition that slowly turns her muscles to bone and has already robbed her of one arm

Brave: Ashley (right) is slowly losing her ability to move thanks to a disease turning her muscles into bone

Ashley is one of an estimated 700 people worldwide with Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP), an incurable disease sometimes known as 'stone man syndrome' because its devastating effects can leave sufferers completely immobilised, like living statues.

'My condition has made me who I am - an optimistic person with an inner strength and determination to succeed,' said Ashley.

'If I want to do something, then I normally find a way to do it. I don't know how much longer I will have movement in my body, so I want to experience as much as I can now.

'In other cases of FOP people have frozen solid, their jaws locking shut. They can't move and have to talk through their teeth long before they get to my age. So I actually feel extremely lucky.'

The condition arises from a mutation of the body's repair mechanism which causes muscles, tendons and ligaments to convert to bone material when damaged.

Ashley, whose mother Carol emigrated to Georgia from Hornchurch in Essex before she was born, was diagnosed with the condition when she was three years old - six months after her right arm was amputated by surgeons who wrongly suspected she had cancer.

Childhood: Ashley, pictured with her mother Carol, was initially diagnosed with cancer at the age of three

Ambassador: Ashley now hopes to raise awareness of her condition and met the Dalai Lama in 2007

'During my childhood my mobility was fine, because I was still young,' she added. 'But I was quite unhappy. I felt very different from the other children at school, and I didn't have many friends. I was quite shy and kept myself to myself. It wasn't much of a life.'

Her symptoms first began to show when she was a teenager, with gradual muscle stiffening accelerating as she grew older.

'I began to feel my body stiffen gradually. I knew I was finally facing the onset of the condition,' she remembers.

'I'd been told what was going to happen, and feeling the first symptoms made me want to experience everything life had to offer - before it was too late.'

She married Shawn Keeney, 31, a man she met online, but the pair divorced in 2005 after three years of marriage.

'I'm still on good terms with Shawn and I look back on our time together with nothing but fondness,' says Ashley.

'Walking down the aisle, with full use of my limbs, was one of the happiest days of my life, and no one can take that memory away from me.

Despite her happy memories, in May 2006, Ashley's life took a turn for the worse after she was involved in a serious car crash.

She escaped without any broken bones but her right leg took a heavy impact.

'My doctor warned me that just the slightest bump could trigger the FOP to take hold. After the smash I fully expected my leg to freeze up permanently,' said Ashley.

'One of my worst fears was that my body would fuse upright, meaning I'd never be able to sit again.

'When my leg locked in a standing position I was sure I was facing a worst-case scenario. Luckily when the swelling went down I was able to bend the leg slightly.

'I spent a lot of time sitting in the hope it would fuse in that position. At least then I could sit in a wheelchair and be wheeled around.'

Her leg locked into a bent position permanently in May 2007, and Ashley was fitted with a special platform shoe to help her maintain as much mobility as possible.

Since the setback, Ashley has been determined to do more with her life and so far, has learned to surf and completed a five kilometre course in a specially-adapted wheelchair in August last year.

She has also become a full-time ambassador for amputees and families affected by the FOP and in December she is going on a Caribbean cruise with 100 friends who are amputees.

'I've been blessed to meet so many truly amazing people, especially the Dalai Lama - that was a real honour,' said Ashley of the religious leader, whom she met in 2007.

'I feel so humbled that so many people have taken an interest, and hopefully found some inspiration, in my life.'

[MIKA27]

Inside A Boeing Engineer's Impossibly Small Dream Pad

Steve Sauer, Seattle resident and Boeing aircraft interior designer, was simply looking for some storage space when he found the tiny room that would become his home. But at just 17 square metres, these DIY living quarters required a decade of work, countless hours of wrangling with city planners, and just about all of Sauer’s engineering expertise.

Fair Companies recently toured the micro-apartment, dubbed the “pico dwelling”, with Sauer offering insights into his design process. “When I very first started designing this thing and started thinking about it, I was thinking ‘bicycle messenger:’ a 22-year-old bicycle messenger with eight pieces of clothing and a bicycle and almost nothing else, just living in the city,” he explained.

Moreover, he said, “I like pushing the limit to see what I can do with the smallest kind of thing, I guess, in all ways. I guess being an engineer I like pushing the limits of efficiency all over the place. It’s just interesting to me.” Indeed, the way he was able to not only design but build virtually everything himself, mostly using re-purposed IKEA tables, is some Tony Stark level genius.

[MIKA27]

How Tom Clancy's Techno-Thrillers Helped Us Understand Modern Warfare

In the days after 9/11, as the media tried to assume some kind of normalcy, I remember watching talk shows attempt to dissect the week’s unbelievable events. And I remember one guest who kept popping up night after night: Novelist Tom Clancy, who died Tuesday at 66.

Clancy was a darling of CNN and Charlie Rose because the author had an uncanny ability to predict real-life events in his books.

The attacks on 9/11 bore an eerie similarity to a plotline in his 1994 book Debt of Honour, for example, when a Japanese character flies a 747 into the Capitol during a Presidential address. In fact, Clancy said he had conversations prior to 9/11 with military officials about how they had not planned sufficiently to handle a hijacked plane flown as part of a suicide mission.

How exactly a former insurance agent fascinated with military tech became one of the most successful writers of our time is a compelling story that could well have been written by Clancy himself. His books spawned four blockbuster films and influenced the genre so thoroughly you can see hints of Clancy in thrillers from the Bourne Identity to Homeland. Clancy also founded a gaming company to bring some of his titles to life, creating the ultimate universe for his characters to live on in forever. His books and the films they inspired acted as a kind of social studies primer — at a time when we were trying to make sense of the quickly changing world around us.

http://youtu.be/5ak917meUoo

Clancy’s first book, The Hunt for Red October, was published in 1984 to popular and critical acclaim — it remains one of the most successful debuts in literary history. The mutiny plotline was loosely based on actual historic events, but what was even more fascinating than his gripping Cold War narrative was his deep understanding and seeming familiarity with military tech. Most notable was his description of a “gradiometer” being used on board the Red October, which helped the Soviet submarine navigate using the measurement of gravitational fields instead of sonar. The same technology is used today by oil and mining ships to generate images of the sea floor, but, at the time, was still an experiment on a handful of the Navy’s Ohio-class Trident submarines, part of a black project by Bell Aerospace. According to a CIA publication, this technology was declassified a few months after the film came out in 1990.

Rumours flew after his books were published that the CIA thought he was a mole — there were even reports that the White House had debriefed him. When he later met John F. Lehman, the former secretary of the Navy, Lehman greeted him with one question about the book: “Who the hell cleared it?”

Through his extensive research process, Clancy also gained an innate knowledge of foreign military operations, which, in a sense, drew a cognitive map of the world for his readers. According to the critic and Marxist theorist Fredric Jameson in his book The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World System, thrillers — like Clancy’s, or like classic ’70s paranoia, such as The Parallax View — offer a way to understand world events through narrative, using cinema as a lens. Though Jameson suggests the analytic power of those story lines has dissipated in the face of overwhelming geopolitical complexity, we can nonetheless still see how semi-documentary techno-thrillers — Black Hawk Down, Zero Dark 30, or even, why not, the works of Tom Clancy — help us to parse global events we would otherwise be unable to describe. Clancy wove these complicated themes into a neat, comprehensible narrative.

Clancy also introduced a much more realistic portrayal of contemporary warfare. Although you might not agree with his politics — he was buddies with Ronald Reagan, a lifetime Republican and a longtime member of the NRA who was praised by fellow conservatives for positively portraying their ideals in his books — he did introduce us to a post-James Bond era of diplomacy. Instead of the “conniving foreigner” built from cartoonish stereotypes and racist colloquialisms, he introduced nuanced characters from other countries; instead of envisioning war as a bombastic clash of cultures, he detailed the very nuanced accumulation of data and intelligence, a vision that’s much more true to how these battles play out today.

But how was his writing on both military tech and current events so prescient?

Clancy thanks the First Amendment. During an interview with Larry King in 2000, he said pretty much everything he wrote about was already out there — it just required finding it. “You’re allowed to publish just about anything you want, as long as it’s not real secret information,” he said. “Of course, nobody really does that except for, you know, you guys in the media. And if you really know where to look, there’s a lot in the open. There really are no important secrets.” Then he gave an even more ominous statement: “There are things I know [that] I don’t write about, which I could not responsibly put into my books. Interestingly enough, though, the scariest one of those things is not classified at all. But nevertheless, I don’t write about it, because it would make the world a somewhat more dangerous place.” WHAT THE HELL, TOM?

Clancy often said that the real reason the Soviet Union lost the Cold War was because they didn’t allow freedom of information, something that he continued to push the U.S. government on: “The average guy is fairly smart, if you give him the ability to make decisions for himself. That’s the whole premise of America, and that’s why America has prospered, and it prospers because if the average guy can get information, he can make his own decisions. Therefore, anything that gets information to the people is good.”

That “average guy” sounds a lot like his protagonists, John Clark and Jack Ryan, a type of everyman-turned-hero — much like insurance agent-turned-novelist Clancy. In a sense his works predicted cyberterrorism long before the deed: All Clark and Ryan needed was access to the right information to beat the bad guys, or vice versa.

We’ll get one final chance to see how Clancy envisioned the world to transform before our eyes. Here’s the description of his forthcoming book, Command Authority: “There’s a new strong man in Russia but his rise to power is based on a dark secret hidden decades in the past. The clue to the mystery lies with a most unexpected source, President Jack Ryan.”

[MIKA27]

5 Surprising Facts About Nikola Tesla

The brilliant inventor gets a new statue in Long Island.

A new statue of Nikola Tesla now graces New York's Long Island, the latest homage to the celebrated visionary. At the statue's unveiling last week, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic told the dedication crowd at Tesla's former Wardenclyffe laboratory that the scientist and inventor had been a man whose "ideas were larger than his time."

Long overshadowed in public memory by his one-time employer, Thomas Edison, Tesla (1856-1943) was a brilliant scientist and engineer who earned more than 700 patents. He is most famous for developing alternating current, but his work also led to advances in wireless communications, lasers, x-rays, radar, lighting, robotics, and much more.

"A lot of people nowadays are more interested in Tesla," said Jane Alcorn, a retired teacher who is president of the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, home to the new statue. "He speaks to those who work hard but don't get recognition, and people are starting to recognize how important his contributions were."

As a sign of that growing appreciation, Elon Musk's start-up electric car company Tesla Motors was named after the visionary inventor in 2003.

Brilliant Inventor

Tesla was born to Serbian parents in what is now Croatia, but he emigrated to the U.S. as a young man, where he eventually became a naturalized citizen. Besides Edison, who later became his bitter rival, Tesla often worked with inventor George Westinghouse. In 1893, the pair demonstrated their advances in lighting and motors in the "White City" at the Chicago World's Fair. In 1895, Tesla and Westinghouse developed the world's first hydroelectric power plant, at Niagara Falls.

At the turn of the century, Tesla set up a laboratory called Wardenclyffe in the small community of Shoreham, Long Island, where he conducted some of his most ambitious experiments. The building was financed by J. P. Morgan and designed by acclaimed architect Stanford White.

The most prominent feature was Wardenclyffe Tower, also called Tesla Tower, a 187-foot-tall (57-meter-tall) metal lattice tower topped with a big, bulbous antenna that was intended to beam communications and even energy across the Atlantic.

The tower is long gone, but the three-quarter-length statue of Tesla unveiled last week is a fitting memorial, said Alcorn. "This is the last remaining Tesla laboratory anywhere in the world," she said.

It took years for Alcorn's nonprofit to buy the property, with some help from an Internet cartoonist.

Tesla ran out of money while building the tower and was foreclosed on twice. As with his previous Colorado Springs lab, assets were sold to pay down his debts. In 1917, the U.S. government blew up the tower, fearing that German spies were using it in World War I.

The metal was sold for scrap, according to Alcorn. For decades, the building was used for photo processing.

Today, the octagonal concrete and granite base of the tower remains. There may be remnants of the giant tesla coil that was placed below ground, Alcorn said, although she hasn't yet raised the money to look for the remnants with ground-penetrating radar.

Alcorn hopes to open the lab building as a museum to Tesla and as an educational science center for the area.

Here are a few surprising facts about Nikola Tesla:

1. The Tesla museum was helped by a cartoon.

In May, Wardenclyffe was purchased by the Tesla Science Center, using $1.37 million raised on the crowd-funding website Indiegogo (New York State then provided a matching grant). The campaign was launched by Matthew Inman, creator of the popular web comic The Oatmeal.

At the statue unveiling last week, Inman told the crowd that the money was raised by "geeks" who felt kinship with Tesla, a "geek at heart."

Perhaps building on that success, a separate Kickstarter campaign raised $127,000 from 722 backers to create a seven-foot tall statue of Tesla for Palo Alto, California, to be unveiled December 7, 2013. Hosting a free Wi-Fi hotspot and a time capsule, the statue is intended to "represent the power of the creative spirit and will inspire people from around the world to focus on humanity's greatest challenges."

2. Tesla was an environmentalist.

According to Alcorn, Tesla was "very concerned about the fact that we were using up the Earth's resources too quickly, and he wanted to make sure that we were using nonfossil, renewable fuels."

So Tesla researched ways to harvest the natural energy in the ground and in the sky. He created artificial lightning in his lab, and probed electrical potential differences in the Earth and across tall objects.

J. P. Morgan reportedly took exception to that line of research, arguing that he wasn't interested in funding a power source that he couldn't meter.

3. Tesla died a broke humanitarian.

"Tesla did what he did for the betterment of humanity, to help people have a better quality of life," said Alcorn. "He never seemed to be interested in monetary gain, although a possible downside of that was he never seemed to have enough money to do what he needed to do."

Tesla had famous friends, including Mark Twain and French actress Sarah Bernhardt, but he struggled financially. Edison and Westinghouse were much more successful businessmen, which partly explains the strength of their legacies.

4. Tesla rarely slept and suffered from OCD.

Tesla claimed to have required only two hours of sleep a night, although he occasionally napped. He loathed jewelry and round objects and wouldn't touch hair. He was obsessed with the number three and polished every dining implement he used to perfection, using 18 napkins.

5. Many of Tesla's inventions were classified.

When Tesla died in 1943, during World War II, the Office of Alien Property took his belongings, Alcorn said. Most of his things were later released to his family, and many ended up in the Tesla Museum in Belgrade, which opened in the 1950s. But some of Tesla's papers are still classified by the U.S. government.

"I know people have requested things through the Freedom of Information Act, and they are released heavily redacted," said Alcorn.

As a result of the years of secrecy, many people have speculated about what fantastic inventions might have been suppressed, perhaps to keep them out of enemy hands or, more darkly, to perpetuate the status quo. Perhaps supporting the former theory, Tesla had spoken publically about working on a "death beam." Those who fear the latter theory often point to his work on harvesting the energy in the forces of nature as something that would upset powerful oil companies.

For her part, Alcorn said she is inspired by both the genius and the perseverance of Tesla. "He taught us that when you believe in yourself, work on your goals, and follow through, a lot is possible," she said.

[MIKA27]

Rolio by Bluelounge

New by Bluelounge is Rolio, a wall dock and cable management, rolled into one. Rolio keeps your cable neat and organized, the cord wraps around the wheel and when attached to a power adaptor, doubles into a super-portable wall dock.

[MIKA27]

Bacon Soap: WTF!?

Everyone loves the smell of freshly-cooked bacon in the morning, so it stands to reason that adding the smell of bacon to your morning shower routine could only make it better.

With Bacon Soap ($10), you can do exactly that. Made from natural, vegan ingredients (that's right, no actual pigs went into this soap) like coconut oil, avocado oil, castor oil, and olive oil, it works up to a nice lather, leaving you feeling clean and smelling great.

Each bar is dyed and shaped to look like a slab of bacon straight from the butcher, and comes wrapped in a burlap bag, adding to its rustic appearance.

[MIKA27]

Sensefly eBee Drone:

Whether you're using it to digitally map your surroundings, scout the terrain for your next outdoor adventure, or realize your lifelong dream of becoming a pilot, the SenseFly eBee Drone ($12,000) is one versatile UAV.

Small, light, and portable, the eBee features foam modular construction, letting it break down to fit in a carry-on size case, and launch from your hand — so it's easy to use and take anywhere. It features artificial intelligence and comes with flight planning software, allowing even the most inexperienced pilots to fly and land with ease. Professional-quality mapping software and an onboard 16 megapixel camera give you a view of the ground like you've never seen before, ideal for charting a run down an unfamiliar slope, plotting your course down a river, or just getting a bird's-eye-view of your city.

[BrotherBear]

Bacon Soap: WTF!?

Everyone loves the smell of freshly-cooked bacon in the morning, so it stands to reason that adding the smell of bacon to your morning shower routine could only make it better.

With Bacon Soap ($10), you can do exactly that. Made from natural, vegan ingredients (that's right, no actual pigs went into this soap) like coconut oil, avocado oil, castor oil, and olive oil, it works up to a nice lather, leaving you feeling clean and smelling great.

Each bar is dyed and shaped to look like a slab of bacon straight from the butcher, and comes wrapped in a burlap bag, adding to its rustic appearance.

Wait... didn't we just learn about Castor oil...?

LOL

[Fuzz]

Wait... didn't we just learn about Castor oil...?

LOL

Better castor oil than Castrol Oil.

[CanuckSARTech]

Bacon Soap: WTF!?

Everyone loves the smell of freshly-cooked bacon in the morning, so it stands to reason that adding the smell of bacon to your morning shower routine could only make it better.

With Bacon Soap ($10), you can do exactly that. Made from natural, vegan ingredients (that's right, no actual pigs went into this soap) like coconut oil, avocado oil, castor oil, and olive oil, it works up to a nice lather, leaving you feeling clean and smelling great.

Each bar is dyed and shaped to look like a slab of bacon straight from the butcher, and comes wrapped in a burlap bag, adding to its rustic appearance.

I have a premonition that David will try his dry-age rub and try to cook it and eat it.

[MIKA27]

DARPA's ATLAS Humanoid Can Officially Replace Humanity

As we creep closer to the Robotics Challenge officially getting under way, Boston Dynamics gives us another glimpse of its DARPA-funded ATLAS robot being tested in the lab. This time we get to see the unsettling peek at our future carefully tip-toeing its away across a rock-strewn simulated debris field, with surprising ease and balance.

The robot’s still not quite ready for primetime just yet, after all, scampering over rocks is a challenge that most toddlers can handle with relative ease. But remember, we only got our first look at ATLAS back in July, and this is how far the robot’s advanced since then. At this pace by Christmas it will be ready for grade school, and by sometime next year it should be graduating university with all the tools it needs to start usurping humanity.

[MIKA27]

This Responsive Lighting Pavilion Looks Like It's Alive

This giant colourful honeycomb is called the SOL Dome. Made from thousands of interconnected fibre optics, the structure responds to its environment as if it were a living, breathing plant.

Created by London-based design firm Loop.pH, the SOL Dome was built in Midland, Michigan, for a local art festival that lasts through the end of the month. It’s relatively small and lightweight — eight metres by four metres, and it weighs only 40 kilograms.

But what it lacks in size, it makes up for in animation. Its chicken wire-like frame is made of thousands of individual circles woven from composite fibres that change according to its surroundings. These loops are lighted by a circular matrix of solar-powered LEDs that create a symphony of light powered by a CO2 sensor. There’s a video below that shows a little bit about what that looks like in real life.

The whole design of the structure has a little science behind it too — the geometry of the SOL Dome is based on the chemical and molecular bonds between carbon atoms. Loop.pH says the SOL Dome is somewhat of a basis for what it sees as a future of building design:

Ultimately, we have a vision for an entirely new type of architecture that responds and adapts to its environment, similarly to a plant and its surrounding ecosystem. We dream of a living architecture that photosynthesises, moves and orientates in accordance to the sun. It is an architecture whereby the inhabitants can actively participate in its shape, form and function.

If you suspend disbelief for a second, it kind of feels like the SOL Dome is alive.

http://youtu.be/qT4Dfn3Et5k

[MIKA27]

A Desk Toy For Fidgety Types That Appears To Bend Time And Space

Part sculpture, part toy, part perfect time waster, the OSM — or Object for Spatial Manipulation — is like a kaleidoscope brought into the 3D world that you can manipulate and morph without having to look through a faux telescope.

Comprising six interlocking plastic discs, the $10 distraction doesn’t require you to solve any puzzles or unlock any mysteries. It’s simply there for your enjoyment, ready to help you kill a few minutes, or pass the time during a phone conference when nobody can see you. Available in black and white, the OSM’s can be mix and matched, or even combined into one epic distraction that may prevent you from ever getting work done again.

[CanuckSARTech]

You guys do know what DARPA is, right???

Bring on the Terminator ominous foresight analogies....

[MIKA27]

This 4000-Year-Old Brain Was Burned, Boiled, Shaken, And Is Still Intact

It might look a bit like a lump of charcoal, but this is a 4000-year-old human brain that’s been shaken, scorched and boiled in its own juices. Somehow, though, it’s still in one piece.

It is, in fact, one of the oldest brains ever found. It was discovered in Seyitömer Höyük, a Bronze Age settlement in western Turkey, and its preservation is a mystery which is slowly being unpicked. New Scientist explains:

The skeletons were found burnt in a layer of sediment that also contained charred wooden objects. Given that the region is tectonically active, Altinoz speculates that an earthquake flattened the settlement and buried the people before fire spread through the rubble…The flames would have consumed any oxygen in the rubble and boiled the brains in their own fluids. The resulting lack of moisture and oxygen in the environment helped prevent tissue breakdown.

The soil surrounding the bodies was also rich in potassium, magnesium and aluminium that reacted with fatty acids in human tissue to form a soapy substance called adipocere — or, colloquially, “corpse wax” — which helped preserve the shape of brain. Nice.

[MIKA27]

You guys do know what DARPA is, right???

Bring on the Terminator ominous foresight analogies....

Yep - SKYNET is real!!

[MIKA27]

Monster Machines: Russia's Unstoppable Terminator Tank Is Now Even More Deadly

After being thoroughly worked over by Chechen separatists at the Battle of Grozny in 1995, Russia set about reinventing its armoured divisions. The existing BMP-2 vehicles were scrapped in favour of the improved BMPT “Ramka”, better known as the Terminator. And, earlier this year, an even bigger sequel was delivered: The BMPT-72. Call it Terminator 2.

Built by Uralvagonzavod, the BMPT-72 packs every bleeding edge technology in the Russian armoury into a T-72 main battle tank chassis, one of the most successful and widely-adopted armoured platforms in the world.

Compared to the previous BMPT iteration, which entered service in 2005, the Terminator 2 features a host of design and technology improvements. The internal cabin is roomier, the turret now sports a lower profile and better small arms protection for its exposed missiles, and the both the fire control and navigation systems have been upgraded as well. The Terminator 2 sports an 850 hp B84MC engine or an optional 1000 hp B92C2. Both are V12 liquid-cooled, turbocharged diesels.

The Terminator 2′s armament has been significantly improved. It now carries a pair of 30mm, 600rpm A242 auto-cannons capable of firing tracing, armour-piercing, and fragmentation rounds as well as a 7.62mm machine gun, four anti-tank guided missile launchers, and a pair of 81mm smoke grenade launchers. The gunner is also outfitted with an optical/IR scope with laser rangefinding, as are the two drivers.

The Terminator 2 made its official debut on September 25 at this year’s Nizhny Tagil arms expo. “The key advantage that the BMPT-72 gives to all the counties that operate T-72 tanks is that they can promptly and at minimal cost upgrade their armies to an ultra-modern level, and enhance capacity, mobility, protection and armament without purchasing new high-cost machines,” Uralvgonzavod said in press release.

So when you see one of these rolling down the street or, even worse, one of these heavy flame throwers ,run.

[MIKA27]

The Pentagon's Super-Fast Robot Now Runs On Its Own

Last year, DARPA unveiled Cheetah: a robot that could run faster than Usain Bolt. Now, the same team has managed to create a version that doesn’t need a power cord, making the electronic beast free to roam wherever it chooses. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

A relative of Cheetah, say hello to WildCat. This robot is based on the same design as Cheetah, but doesn’t have the tethered power cable of its predecessor; instead, it has a large — and quite loud! — motor attached to it.

That extra weight does means it can’t quite match the pace — Cheetah can reach 45km/h, while WildCat can only manage 25km/h. But, hey, given that’s faster than most of us can run, it’s not too bad. And remember, WildCat can keep up that speed for as long as it motor runs, which humans definitely can’t.

[MIKA27]

How A Total Accident Saved The French Wine Industry

Amy Harmon’s excellent, recent article in the New York Times describes how the Florida orange juice industry may soon be wiped-out because of a new bacterial disease spread by an introduced insect. It looks like there could be a technology-fix for the problem using genetic engineering. The question is whether the growers will get to apply that solution.

The sort of crisis situation now facing the Florida orange industry is not at all unique in the history of farming. There have been many times when some new pest threatened the economic viability of a major crop. Sometimes the pest “wins” and a particular farming industry simply goes away. In the mid 1880s when Coffee Rust made it from Africa to the coffee plantations that supplied England from Java and Sri Lanka, the industry collapsed, and so the English had to switch to tea to get their caffeine.

When Wheat Stem Rust made it too hard to grow wheat in the Southern colonies of what would later become the US, the farmers shifted their cropping to cotton and tobacco. That involved much higher labour requirements which in turn lead to the sad institution of slavery in that region.

But there have been other times when some new technological breakthrough has saved a threatened crop, as it possibly could for the Florida orange growers. I’ll give just one example here.

Back in 1874, a plant scientist name Pierre Millardet was walking down a road in Bordeaux France. The famous vineyards he was passing were being devastated by a fungal disease called downy mildew. It had been unwittingly brought across the Atlantic by the British who came back with specimens of the wild grape species they found in North America (e.g. Vitis labrusca – Concord types).

Those grapes harbored the downy mildew which was not too problematic for them, but the Vitis vinifera grapes of the Old World were extremely susceptible. The wet climate of Europe was also ideal for fostering the fungal epidemic.

Millardet was very concerned about this problem as were all the French looking at the possibility of not continuing to be able to produce wine. As he walked past vineyard after vineyard nearly defoliated by the disease, he came upon one small part of a vineyard that looked remarkably healthy. He quickly sought out the owner to ask why those vines looked so good. It turned out that the grape grower had been frustrated by the fact that so many passer-bys on the road would help themselves to his grapes as they ripened. He had concocted a mixture of copper sulfate and hydrated lime and sprayed it on the grapes to make them less attractive.

By accident the farmer had developed a reasonably effective fungicide. Millardet promoted that option, and soon the “Bordeaux mix” saved the French and other European grape industries. It also saved the European potato crop which was also being devastated by a related disease that belatedly followed the potato from its origins in the Andes and caused the epic Irish Potato Famine.

Fortunately today we have many superior fungicide options to protect these crops. Copper-based fungicides were “state of the art” in the 1870s, but by modern standards they are rather toxic to mammals, persistent in the environment, and bad for aquatic invertebrates. One of their remaining uses is for organic farming which has only a few fungicide options that qualify as “natural.”

New, synthetic fungicides that protect grapes, potatoes, wheat and other crops in Europe and elsewhere are far better for health and the environment. Still, without the accidental discovery of the “Bordeaux Mix,” the European wine grape industry could have disappeared.

[MIKA27]

Bees Can't Find Flowers Thanks To Diesel Exhaust

Diesel exhaust is pretty nasty stuff. Pass an overloaded 18-wheeler clouding up the highway, and that acrid plume of hydrocarbons will overpower even your best little tree air freshener. As new research lays out, that exhaust doesn’t just smell bad, it messes with the scent of flowers. And that’s big trouble for our already struggling bee friends.

In a Nature paper published today, researchers from The University of Southampton found that components of diesel exhaust completely change the odour makeup of the (unfortunately named) rapeseed flower. The team measured eight components that make up the flower’s perfume before and after exposure to diesel exhaust. Six of the compounds showed significantly reduced levels after fumigation, while two disappeared entirely. The change in scent is so drastic, bees offered a clean sample (identical to the after-smoke odour, but without the diesel exhaust) didn’t even recognise it.

Pretty smelling flowers are a life necessity for bees — and for us humans, who get over $US200 billion in economic value out of insect pollination every year. Maybe we can train them to fight back by swarming idiot diesel drivers who cruise around rolling coal.

That, my friends, would be the sweet smell of justice.

[MIKA27]

Why Is China Testing Satellite-Hijacking Space Weapons?

Last week, China tested out a satellite that’s capable of grabbing and capturing other satellites as they orbit the Earth. This normally wouldn’t be such a big deal, except that it amounts to China conducting a weapons test in space. And that’s worrisome — especially to the Pentagon.

So what’s up with this space weapons test? First of all, we’re not diving into a Star Trek-like future any time soon — at face value, the Chinese satellite test sounds rather benign. Experts are unclear about how exactly the test went down, but it’s pretty clear that a satellite with a moveable arm reached out to grab another satellite, and then reeled it in. No bombs, no guns, no lasers, no nothing.

What worries the Pentagon is the fact that this represents significant progress in China’s space warfare program. Officials suspect that it’s a test of China’s ASAT (anti-satellite) strategies. The last time we saw a Chinese ASAT test was in 2007, when they blew up an orbiting satellite with a missile. This created all kinds of space debris, which continues to be a problem for every country with a space program. However, this new grab-and-capture technique would bypass the issue of debris, should China ever wanted to disable another country’s satellite. Even worse, the grappling arm could be used to manipulate an orbiting satellite without its owner even knowing.

For all intents and purposes, this little test isn’t going to start a war. But it is giving some Pentagon officials a few new things to add to their to-do list. If China is testing weaponised satellites today, they could be using weaponised satellites tomorrow.