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

[MIKA27]

It Was So Cold In Canada, The Ground Exploded

Even before the polar vortex put large swathes of the US into a deep freeze, subzero temperatures in Canada were causing frost quakes. A few nights ago, residents around Ontario woke up to mysterious booms — like an explosion or falling tree. Turns it was just the cold.

Like a glass jar of water in the freezer, the ground can crack as liquid water expands while freezing into ice. Frost quakes, or cryoseisms, require a sharp temperature drop: It must be warm enough for water to first saturate the ground and then suddenly cold enough for a quick freeze. The explosions are so loud because frost quakes happen so close to the surface. And as disruptive as they sound, they’re unlikely to be dangerous.

Frost quakes have also been reported in the midwest and New England, but they are generally quite rare. Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson told the Toronto Star it was the first he experienced in 30 years.

[MIKA27]

Monster Machines: This Super Icebreaker Is Heading To Antarctica To Free Two Frozen Ships

It may not be the largest or most powerful ice breaker ever to set sail (that record is held by Russia’s nuclear-powered NS Yamal), but America’s Polar Star is easily one of the most badass. This 75,000 horsepower ship can crush a two storey ice wall in a single swipe of its mighty bow.

Ice floes in both the arctic and antarctic oceans are constantly jostling and shifting like ice cubes in a tumbler of whiskey. Normally, ships can simply push individual bergs out the way when navigating these polar sea routes. However, as was the case with a Russian research vessel, the Akademik Shokalskiy, last month, these routes can and do freeze solid, trapping ships for weeks or even months at a time.

When that happens, stranded crews can request assistance from specially built icebreakers like the US Coast Guard’s Polar Star Heavy Icebreaker. Built by Lockheed in 1976 and stationed in Seattle alongside its sister, the Polar Sea, the Polar Star is one of the most powerful non-nuclear ships in existence.

The Polar Star — which just received a three-year, $US90 million overhaul — measures nearly 122m long and displaces 12,000 tonnes of water. Six 3000 HP diesel engines supplement a trio of Pratt & Whitney 25,000 HP gas turbines to provide the ship with sufficient ramming speed to decimate almost any ice wall. At a sustained pace of three knots, the Polar Star can shred through a solid 1.8m of ice pack. With a running start, the ship can pound through walls of ice up to 7m tall, no problem.

The ship’s ice-breaking abilities come not just from its massive power-plant but also its specially-designed hull. Clad in nearly 5cm of steel shell plating and supported by an internal steel beam structure, the Polar Star essentially pushes its bow onto ice floes and then relies on the ship’s weight to crush it.

Spending six to eight months rolling around the polar ice caps is enough to make even the hardiest Coast Guarder long for shore leave. To compensate for the arduous work, the Polar Star is outfitted nearly as well as modern submarines. The ship’s 15 officers and 126 enlisted enjoy access to four lounges, a library, a gym, a general store, even a US Post Office among other amenities. And since everything outside the ship is either white or more white, the ship’s interior forgoes the typically drab grey of US naval vessels for more colourful paint schemes.

And when the Polar Star isn’t saving stranded ships, it performs a number of secondary duties, including transporting science teams, surveying the year’s ice formation, SAR operations and resupplying the National Science Foundation’s antarctic science stations.

The Polar Star was actually on its way to deliver supplies to the NSF in Antarctica when it was pressed into service last week, charged with saving the Akademik Shokalskiy vessel, as well as the Xue Long ice breaker that had previously tried and failed to save it. The Polar Star is expected to reach the ships by January 12 and should have them extracted from their icy tombs shortly thereafter.

Update: Figures. Just when the Polar Star gets on the scene, both the Xue Long and Akademik Shokalskiy manage to navigate themselves free through a narrow crack in the ice sheet. Still, all’s well that ends well.

[MIKA27]

Volvo’s Jacked-Up Hatchback Blends Safety With Sophistication

The Volvo C30 is one of the best-looking hatchbacks to come out in a decade. But what if you wanted to get a little mud in the wheel wells? That’s what the XC Concept is for.

Volvo’s latest attempt to blend safety, sophistication, and sex appeal onto four wheels will make its debut at next week’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit, and while it doesn’t foretell the future of the C30, it will inspire the design of Volvo’s future crossovers, specifically the XC90, which is long overdue for a refresh.

The XC Concept sports 21-inch wheels, a new grille design, and T-shaped daytime running lights that are set to infiltrate the Volvo lineup in the coming years. There’s no word on powertrains — no surprise since this is just a rolling art project for now — but regardless, we can never get enough high-riding hatchbacks, and Volvo just created the best one yet. Now they just have to build it.

[MIKA27]

The Eruption and Humanitarian Crisis at Indonesia’s Sinabung Continues

In what is becoming a larger danger (and potential disaster), activity at Sinabung appears to beincreasing daily, with more explosions and resultant pyroclastic flows streaming down the slopes of the volcano (see right) in North Sumatra, Indonesia. Some of these flows are reaching up to 5 km from the summit of Sinabung.

All of this activity is centered around the growing lava dome at the summit of Sinabung — that dome was filmed in low light this past weekend and it really shows the glowing dome with hot debris (the main component of the pyroclastic flows) cascading down the slopes. The pyroclastic flows are leaving a clear light grey deposit on the volcano, ominously pointed towards the location of the PVMBG webcam (see below). The plume from Sinabung is regularly reaching 4-5 km (13,000-16,000 feet) with hundreds of small-to-moderate explosions over the past week.

Looking up information on this eruption, I came across what might be the most striking image I’ve seen that brings together this volcanic eruption with the people being impacted by this activity (see above). This woman is holding her daughter in front of crops that are grown near Sinabung, all with a stunning pyroclastic flow from the volcano being erupted in the background. I can’t even fathom what it must be like to be near your home knowing that it could be destroyed by an eruption of this scale.

With eruptions such as this current activity at Sinabung, it can be easy to forget how disruptive to people’s lives they can be. Although some eruptions do have singular explosions that cause destruction, many eruptions are not simply a single event. Activity can stretch on for weeks, months, even years and the displacement of people living near the volcano can cause a crisis independent of the activity itself.

How does a country deal with the displacement of tens of thousands of people for an undefined time or, in some cases, forever? Two main problems arise: (1) keeping living conditions sanitary and safe at refugee camps can be very difficult and (2) long-term evacuations can cause people to become complacent and then they try to return homes/farms before it is safe. These are some of the biggest challenges during volcanic hazard mitigation.

It may have taken a few months, but currently, at least 22,000 people have been evacuated fromdanger zone (now defined at 5-7 km) around Sinabung. This has put a heavy strain on the refugee camps set up to deal with the influx of refugees and if the eruption continues to intensify, then these numbers will grow. We mustn’t forget that even without the “big bang” eruption, people are put in danger’s way by merely being moved

[MIKA27]

Navy’s 757-Sized Drone Will Provide Big-Time Surveillance

A new drone with the mammoth wingspan of a Boeing 757 is set to give the U.S. Navy some serious surveillance power.

Northrop Grumman and the Navy say they’ve just completed the ninth flight trial of the Triton unmanned aircraft system (UAS), an improvement upon its predecessor in the Air Force, the Global Hawk.

With its 130-foot wingspan, Triton will provide high-altitude, real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) from a sensor suite that supplies a 360-degree view at a radius of over 2,000 nautical miles, allowing monitoring from higher and farther away than any of its competitors.

But should a closer look be necessary, unique de-icing and lightning protection capabilities allow Triton to plunge through the clouds to get a closer view and automatically classify ships. And in recent tests, the drone was able to easily recover from perturbations in its flight path caused by turbulence.

Although Triton has a higher degree of autonomy than the most autonomous drones, operators on the ground will be able to obtain high-resolution imagery, use radar for target detection and provide information-sharing capabilities to other military units.

Thus far, Triton has completed flights up to 9.4 hours at altitudes of 50,000 feet at the company’s manufacturing facility in Palmdale, California. According to Northrop Grumman, Triton could support missions up to 24 hours.

Northrop Grumman reported earlier that Triton had demonstrated structural strength of the drone’s wing — a key capability that will allow the aircraft to descend from high altitudes to make positive identification of targets during surveillance missions — even when it was subjected to a load at 22 percent above the Navy’s requirement.

“During surveillance missions using Triton, Navy operators may spot a target of interest and order the aircraft to a lower altitude to make positive identification,” said Mike Mackey, Northrop Gumman’s Triton UAS program director, in a statement. “The wing’s strength allows the aircraft to safely descend, sometimes through weather patterns, to complete this maneuver.”

Under an initial contract of $1.16 billion in 2008, the Navy has ordered 68 of the MQ-4C Triton drones with expected delivery in 2017 — a slip from the initial anticipated date of December 2015.

[MIKA27]

St Petersburg 1914: The door to another age

As war approached in 1914, the Russian capital St Petersburg was the scene of imperial splendour and abject poverty, utopian hopes and portents of impending doom.

I have never met anyone who is more proud of her kitchen door than Firuza Seidova. In fact, Firuza is so proud of the door in her St Petersburg kitchen that she has invited me to her flat on Liteiny Prospekt to see it.

I'm here very early in the morning - the night train from Moscow has whisked me to a St Petersburg which is still dark and sleepy and bitterly cold. But at home, Firuza is wide awake and welcoming. She's made me breakfast - black bread with thick slices of cheese and a cup of piping hot green tea.

We're sitting at her kitchen table eating our buterbrody - and staring at the door. To be honest, it doesn't look very special. The old wooden panels have faded. They're blotchy - and scratched. I can't help thinking the whole thing could do with a fresh lick of paint.

But when Firuza starts recounting the history of her apartment, I realise this is much more than just a battered old door - it's a gateway to a golden past, to the St Petersburg of 1914.

"Back then, all sorts came through my kitchen," she says. "The Emperor Nicholas was here, Sergei Prokofiev, too, and some of the most famous names in the history of chess."

Firuza shows me an old black and white photograph of two men engrossed in a game of chess. I instantly recognise the door at the back of the picture - it's the one in Firuza's kitchen!

One hundred years ago, Firuza Seidova's flat was the headquarters of the St Petersburg Chess Society. The kitchen door is all that's left of the original rooms - the last surviving link to an intriguing story.

It was spring 1914. And to mark its 10th anniversary, the St Petersburg Chess Society organised a tournament for some of the greatest players on the planet. Not everyone could make it. Chess stars from Austria-Hungary had to decline their invitations, because of pre-war tension with Russia.

Nevertheless, the list of competitors was impressive.

The favourite was from Germany: the world champion for the last 20 years, Emanuel Lasker - such an elegant, inspirational player that the St Petersburg press dubbed him "the poet of the chess table". His main rival was the man soon to be hailed as "the human chess machine", the flamboyant Cuban diplomat Jose Raul Capablanca.

From England came the heavy-drinking Mancunian Joseph Blackburne (nickname "The Black Death"). From America, top tactician Frank Marshall. Representing Russia, the attacking Alexander Alyokhin. And there they all were, fighting it out in Firuza's flat.

Jose Raul Capablanca (left) plays Emanuel Lasker in 1923

For one glorious month Europe seemed to forget it was on the precipice of war and was transfixed by battles on the chessboards of St Petersburg. Each move, every twist and turn in this grand tournament was transmitted back across the continent by an army of reporters. The venue wasn't nearly big enough for the crowds that came. One journalist complained that "the stuffiness and the heat were almost tropical".

And this is how newspaper Novoe Vremya described the atmosphere:

"Spectators were packed in unceremoniously like sardines in a barrel. They craned their necks; they stood on tiptoes, even on chairs so they could see the play… and the room was so thick with tobacco smoke, it was like a mortuary where they're busy cutting up corpses."

And yet, in this stifling, smoky hell of a chess club, there was a feeling that something very special was being forged from the intellectual tussles taking place here, something which transcended chess, something great that would change the world for the better. The newspaper Kopeika predicted that in St Petersburg "the noble game of chess" would "promote the idea of world peace".

In the journal Rech, Emanuel Lasker went even further. He seemed to imply that the competitors would be thinking so hard about their chess moves that, somewhere along the way, they would think up a whole "new set of values" for mankind. A very lofty, rather ambitious thought.

Nevsky Prospekt

But even "chess poets" and "human chess machines" need some down time. So one day the competitors were treated to a tour of St Petersburg. And what they would have seen that day would have made them feel very much at home. For St Petersburg was Russia's most cosmopolitan city, a capital created with one purpose - to make Russia look like Europe.

The palaces were like those you'd find in France, Italy or Germany; the canals were like Amsterdam or Venice. Even the city's name, Sankt Peterburg, had been deliberately chosen by Peter the Great to sound more Dutch than Russian. Over the centuries, architects, engineers, shipbuilders and shopkeepers travelled here from across Europe, taking part in this unique project to westernise Russia. Many of the visitors put down roots and foreign communities became part of the fabric of St Petersburg. In 1914 the city boasted German butchers, Austrian bakeries, English sweet shops. At the city's grandest delicatessen, the Yeliseyev, goods were advertised in Russian, French and German.

And then there were the cinemas, with their exotic, non-Slavic names. St Petersburg's main street, Nevsky Prospekt, was full of them - the Crystal Palace, the Majestic, Folies Bergere, foreign titles which conjured up images of European grandeur. In 1914 a new cinema opened up on Nevsky, the Parisiana. It was, by all accounts, a remarkable building. The auditorium was built in the style of Louis XVI of France, with stucco walls and a giant marble staircase. Some of the stalls and the balcony lodges even had their own telephones. And the cinema roof could be opened mechanically so you could relax, watch a film and gaze at the stars.

The Parisiana symbolised everything Russia wanted to be in 1914 - a world leader, an innovator, an industrial, technological and cultural powerhouse. I try to find the Parisiana on Nevsky Prospekt. Sadly, it's no longer there. It's been replaced by a Swedish clothes store. Still, I suppose that even Swedish sweaters, socks and braziers keep up that St Petersburg tradition of embracing Europe.

I get chatting to a security guard in the clothes shop. He tells me about an old cinema that has survived, just down the road. A narrow archway leads me into a back yard and there it is - a hidden jewel of St Petersburg cinema history. Since communist times, this semi-circular structure with classical columns has been known as the Aurora - in honour of the naval cruiser which, legend has it, fired the first shot in the Russian Revolution.

The foyer of the Aurora cinema (originally the Piccadilly)

But the cinema's original name was the Piccadilly. It, too, was new in 1914 and, like the Parisiana, was conceived as a sumptuous palace of film. Inside I discover the most stunning cinema foyer I've ever seen, with gigantic Chinese vases and exquisite frescoes.

If the spectacular St Petersburg cinema halls of 1914 projected a brash confidence, a country oozing money and ambition, the films themselves told a different story. That year, Russian silent movies were obsessed with destruction and violence.

In the film Life in Death, a doctor is so keen to preserve his wife's beauty that he kills her and embalms her body. And in Child of the Big City, director Yevgeny Bauer foretells the disintegration of Russian society. Desperate to escape her sweatshop existence, seamstress Mary seduces a wealthy gentleman called Viktor. She then drains him of all his money and throws him penniless onto the street. Viktor shoots himself. On seeing his lifeless body, the heartless Mary is quoted as saying, "Well, they do say that meeting a dead man brings you good luck." She steps over his corpse and never looks back.

In many ways, the silver screen reflected the dark reality of St Petersburg 1914. True, this was a city of plenty, where you could buy anything from foreign maple syrup to coats made of kangaroo fur. But it was also a place of abject poverty for many of the workers, of poor housing, appalling sanitation and widespread disease.

The death rate in St Petersburg was higher than in any capital in Europe. Suicide was on the rise, too. And it was a violent city. A sharp increase in street crime pointed to growing hostility between the social classes.

The local press lamented the disturbing new phenomenon of "hooliganism". Little did they know that in Vladimir Putin's Russia, female punk bands and Greenpeace activists would be charged with the same crime.

There were strikes at factories, arrests of suspected revolutionaries. More than anything, there was a sense of impending doom. On 19 May, St Petersburg was invaded by dragonflies, a bizarre infestation of biblical proportions - the skies, the streets and the River Neva were teeming with insects. Many people in the city saw it as a terrifying omen.

This was a very different St Petersburg from the city experienced by the stars of the 1914 chess tournament - they were treated to concerts, lavish banquets and presented with gilded wine glasses specially made by Faberge. Locked in their intellectual bubble, the players could think grand thoughts about changing the world. But outside, the world was changing anyway, and it wasn't the masters of chess who would shape the future.

One week before the dragonflies descended, Lasker was declared chess champion of St Petersburg. That summer, there was another international chess competition, in Mannheim, Germany. It featured 11 players from the Russian empire.

St Petersburg reservists assemble for military duty at the outbreak of WW1

By this time, though, few people believed in the power of chess to change the world. After round 11 of the Mannheim tournament, Germany declared war on Russia. All the Russian players were arrested and imprisoned, including the future world champion, Alyokhin. Later he'd be put in solitary confinement for smiling at a guard.

In response to the declaration of war, Tsar Nicholas II renamed his capital. Suddenly "Sankt Peterburg" sounded too German and the city became Petrograd - far more Russian. Of course, Russia's 20th Century nightmare was only just beginning. World war would lead to revolution and brutal civil war.

But what I find most remarkable about the St Petersburg of 1914 is that it was this moment in history - the eve of cataclysmic change - when Russia reached her creative peak. When artists and composers decided that anything goes, experimenting like never before with words and sound and colour.

Many of Russia's most creative writers and poets gravitated towards the Stray Dog Cafe in St Petersburg - an artistic salon in a cellar where they could stay up all night reciting their works, and arguing about art and politics. The Russian Revolution would destroy many of them. Mandelstam died in a Soviet prison camp. Tsvetaeva and Mayakovsky committed suicide.

Sitting at her kitchen table, in what was once the St Petersburg Chess Society, Firuza Seidova has a simple explanation for this explosion of creativity, which preceded Russia's catastrophe.

"It's the same with my house plants, when I don't look after them properly," she says, pointing to flowerpots on the windowsill.

"You see, when flowers feel that they're dying, they try to blossom one last time."

[MIKA27]

A Beautiful Facebook Post From Volgograd After a Terror Attack Paints a Picture of a Failing Russia in 2014

Michael Ryabikov was packing for a trip to see his family's home in Volgograd, Russia when the first of two suicide bombs went off in the Volgograd-1 train station. The blast killed 18 people and injured 44 more.

Undeterred, he still set off on a train to Volgograd. That's where he heard of a second attack, one that killed 16 more and injured another 41 on a trolleybus in the city's downtown. Really, he'd heard of three more attacks, but the rumors were unfounded.

Ryabikov outlined the entire ordeal on his Facebook page hours after the attack. We're posting it here. His post not only depicts the chaos and panic during a terrorist attack in a city where word gets around slowly, but it also paints a vivid picture of Russia as it is now from the inside. Industrialization is failing. Plants are closing, leaving skilled workers to work at the supermarket. Transportation is spotty at best. Corruption has rendered government either useless or dangerous. Widespread unrest is causing a renewal of support for a stronger Communist Party in the city formerly known as Stalingrad.

Ryabikov's story is a beautiful read. You can read it in his native Russian on Facebook. Thanks to Esquire Russia Editor-in-Chief Dmitry Golubovsky for the tip and Elena Kim for the translation.

We decided to celebrate the New Year in my native Volgograd a couple months ago. I hadn’t seen my parents, goddaughter, friends, and colleagues in a while. We were packing our bags and sorting presents when we heard news about the first explosion, which overwhelmed us, to say the least. We learned that the terrorists didn’t limit themselves to just the railway station when we were already on the train, getting closer to Volgograd. (The bombs were allegedly on a) trolleybus on Kacha, a van on Tulaka Street and a tram somewhere. Our traincar neighbor woke us up by reading the text message from her friend.

People always behave in a weird way when they are anxious to share horrible news. On one hand, they’re scared. On the other hand, they’re proud to break the news, to deliver it sensationally. Their eyes are glowing. They think that the higher the victim count, the better it is both for themselves and, apparently, for us. To be honest, I didn’t believe her. No way! How is it possible? Again? This can’t be happening! They’re just panicking!

We went online. Got a good connection. The web confirmed the second terrorist attack. The web denied the other two. Again, the list of dead and injured. Again, the sigh of relief. The third one in the last two months.

Where exactly we would arrive even train attendants didn’t know. A train station in the outskirts or Volgograd-2 station?

In the end, our train arrived to the central station, the one with the bad reputation. The one that back in the day even Nazis didn’t want to bomb but that so suddenly became of interest for the terrorists.

Volgograd at night met us with sleet and mysterious and enveloping milky fog. We had to walk on the rails. Some people snuck in between the trains. The crowd slipped and fell, intuitively moving towards poorly lit subway entrance somewhere far away that led to the next platform. There we saw the police men that we'd heard about on the web, then several more directing people to the second subway entrance that led to the outskirts railway station. Half of the windows in the entrance were broken. Ice mixed with glass crunched under our feet.

We took a cheap taxi. "Brother, where are you going?" Voices with familiar accents met us at the exit. Nearby, on the bridge over the railways stood a truck with a raised crane. A worker was turning off New Years lights hung across the lamp posts. The last signs of New Years were being destroyed. We plodded to our parents through the slush, slurping the dirt spilled on the non-existent sidewalks and broken roads of the city.

My mom, as usual, met us with hugs and tears. Her friend was crying, too. They just spoke on the phone. A lump in my throat—that’s what people of Volgograd are notorious for. It’s hard to realize that the city where you were born, where you grew up, is left to face its fate. Thousands of unemployed from the best plants of the country — Traktor, Barrikady, Red October – they work now as cashiers in Pyaterochka (a large Russian supermarket chain) and sell mass-produced goods from China on local markets.

Gritting teeth and pumping fists, people are walking on snowdrifts when a new snowfall builds up. The only salvation is Metrotram. It's, in a way, a symbol of Volgograd, which is not able to transport all the passengers. Instead, people are walking along the roads of a multikilometer city. They did it ten years ago; they’re doing it now. Only now, they’re being blown up in the very center.

People are laughing openly at the government's ideas to organize Kazakh patrols to “sharpen the population's alertness” and put metal detectors everywhere. Doing anything in a completely destroyed city is useless.

Volgograd has drowned in dirt over the last decade: the arrest of one mayor, the scandalous ouster of another, throngs of city managers not responsible for anything, the arrest of the head of the local Department of Internal Affairs, appointment of an absolutely powerless governor and, finally, a murder of the “watchman” who didn’t let the Chechens organize their own organized crime group. The merge of judicial, political and criminal systems isn’t surprising to anyone any more. In some way, this is the only way to maintain stability and manage Volgograd, a people who, in general, dream of getting the title of capital of the Red Belt back to the city.

Actually, not everyone wants it. Many are satisfied with their lives. Near the front steps of houses, just like during my youth, some boys in leather jackets drink beer, discussing something cheerfully, blocking the entrance. From the next entrance there’s a crowd of even more drunk guys falling outside, getting in the car and screaming: “And now let’s raid the *******!” Somewhere far away there’s a firework. “Red belt!” “Third explosion!” All the same slush where they swim but keep afloat.

[MIKA27]

This Video Compilation Of Hilarious Military Fails Is Comedic Gold

I’m sorry. People who serve in the army make incredible sacrifices for their countries, and I am incredibly thankful for them. They do amazing things. They make our lives a lot better. But I can’t help but laugh at this wonderful compilation of fails in the military.

They look like failed skits on sketch comedy shows. Made by Hashtango, it’s a freaking riot to get through.

http://youtu.be/Z1TJk2VneLw

[MIKA27]

Never-Before-Seen Alfred Hitchcock's Holocaust Documentary Unearthed

http://youtu.be/xI_6oLPC-S0

The film you can see over these lines has never seen the light. It was made by Alfred Hitchcock after being traumatised by the images recorded by the British Army Film Unit at the Nazi concentration camps of Dachau and Mauthausen. It’s a devastating film that should be shown at high school everywhere.

Directed and written by Hitchcock, only a few of these images were shown in 1985 under the title Memory of the Camps. The film is truly horrifying and heartbreaking, made by a Hitchcock that apparently fell into a depression after seeing the original material, shutting himself inside his home for a week. I have to confess that I had to stop watching half way because I couldn’t take it anymore. The narration stops at some of the most horrible and sad moments.

The American and the British wanted to release this film fast, to make the Germans accept their collective responsibility for the horrible acts that they allowed or conveniently ignored in their own and occupied territories. However, it was never shown. Why?

Dr Toby Haggith — the Senior Curator at the Department of Research at the Imperial War Museum — told The Independent explains that the political situation changed.

By the time the film was finished in 1945, the Allies thought that humiliating the Germans once again with such a soul-breaking documentary wouldn’t help in the post-war reconstruction and reconciliation effort. So they buried it.

I think that was a mistake. In fact, this film should probably be seen by everyone, everywhere. Fortunately, now it is available in YouTube.

[MIKA27]

BMW i3 Australian Hands-On: The Car That Future Built

Today, I went for a drive in a Time Machine. That time machine is called the BMW i3, and it’s a car that belongs in 2050, not 2013. The best part? It’s affordable, and goes on sale later this year. Hit the road with us.

It’s called the BMW i3.

It’s a four-door hatchback which appears to borrow its shape from the new Mini. Under the hood is, well, nothing really. Under the car itself, rather is a 125kW all-electric motor which produces 250Nm of torque and propels this little tech-filled wonder to a top speed of 150km/h. It deals with 0-100km/h in 7.2 seconds, and can travel 190km before it needs to be rejuiced.

Charging is dealt with in 3 hours with a 7.4kW power supply, but dependent on the region (China for example), it may take twice as long due to lower voltage available. To keep you on the road longer, BMW will make available a DC charging kit which takes the battery up to 80 per cent in just 20 minutes.

This thing is made up of a crazy array of recycled materials, infotainment gadgets and science, all sewn together with BMW quality.

The body shell is a flexible thermoplastic designed to save weight while being rigid and tough, the wheels are forged aluminium for strength and lightness, and the headlights and tail lights are LEDs to save power.

On the inside, everything is recycled and put on display in a New York loft-style design (exposed beams, etc) which looks breathtaking. The glove box lid is made of eucalyptus wood which actually changes and becomes more rich as it ages. The leather on the seats and doors is tanned using olive leaves rather than formaldehyde, and the cloth is made out of old water bottles and wool.

Even the roof is made up of off-cuts from other BMW cars. When an off-cut is made from say a 1-, 3- or 5-Series for example, it’s thrown into a recycle bin, melted down and recast into parts for the BMW i3. Incredible.

Driving sees you select one of three modes: Comfort, EcoPro and EcoPro+. Comfort keeps all the mod-cons on for you, while EcoPro mode simply ratchets down how much power these features use. EcoPro+ is militant power management, turning off all non-essential driving systems to save power. BMW says that each mode extends the range by 12 and 24 per cent respectively versus driving in Comfort mode.

The i3 is full of sensors to tell you just how you’re driving in order to save power. The E-Drive consumption history shows you the power flow of the car, how your driving style affects power drain and shows the impact your ancillary systems are having on the battery, and in turn, mileage. It also gives you tips as you drive to try and save power.

The infotainment system is built especially for the i3. Powered by the awesome Tegra chip from NVIDIA, the main infotainment screen is a 7-inch horizontal tablet controlled by a selector knob in the centre console. The instrument panel is another 4-inch tablet display which shows you power drain, speed and information as you drive.

The car takes advantage of these tablets and allows you to connect to the internet with them.

The most special thing about the infotainment system is how BMW has configured it specifically for the electric i3. It has something called Dynamic Range Map which displays the range of your vehicle against a map and shows you where you can go. It then overlays charging stations, points of interest, petrol stations, as well as topographic data on hills in the area which may affect your range. It’s truly intuitive.

It even taps into a back-end which can tell your car if someone is currently using the charging station you want to navigate to and routes you somewhere else. !!!

Sure, it’s full of blinking lights, incredible numbers, recycled everything and futuristic designs, but none of that feels important once you clip your seatbelt and actually go for a drive. The way this thing handles on the road is incredible. Moving the steering wheel is a joy, as it gently sails around corners without a hint of obnoxious body roll which you normally find on some small cars, and as you put your foot down, you almost immediately forget it’s an electric car. Bam. Zoom. Straight to the moon. While it’s not the fastest accelerating car in the world, its definitely the smoothest accelerating electric car I have ever driven. The maximum torque delivery is immediate due to the fact that it’s an electric motor and not a traditional engine, and the power is immediate.

You’re reminded that it’s an electric car when you hear this little whirr from behind your head like a the world’s most adorable jet is chasing you up the freeway. It’s a beautiful little sound that makes you feel like your driving the world’s most civilised fighter jet.

You lift your foot from the accelerator, and BMW’s one-foot drive system takes over, decelerating the car and recovering power from the brakes to put into the battery. Unless you need to make a sudden stop or hold yourself on a hill, you rarely need to use the brake pedal around a city in the BMW i3.

This car makes me feel like the future of driving is in safe hands. It’s so refreshing to see a car company develop something ground-breaking and instead of just leaving it in concept, actually produce it and put it on the road.

It’ll come out later this year in the US for a sticker price of $US42,000. No word on when it will come out in Australia, but BMW tells us it might be late 2014, early 2015, given the fact that it launches in China and around Asia at that time also.

[MIKA27]

ROLLS-ROYCE GHOST V-SPECIFICATION

For the guys out there who can't decide between absolute luxury and serious horsepower, the fine folks at Rolls-Royce have dropped a more-powerful engine into the Ghost, calling it the Ghost V-Specification ($450,000).

Sporting a twin-turbocharged 6.6-liter V12 engine, this four-door sports 593 horsepower, up from 563 in the previous model, giving it enough power and acceleration to put a smile on your chauffeur's face.

It also sports 21-inch two-tone alloy wheels, a beautifully-appointed interior, a custom dashboard clock, and more. Additionally, this highly-limited edition Ghost is now available in a white, grey, or three shades of black, with both a standard and extended wheelbase variant.

[NJP]

How, that Hitchcock Doco flawed me..

[MIKA27]

Hubble Finds 800,000 Stars In New Amazing View Of The Tarantula Nebula

Looking at this new Hubble image of the Tarantula Nebula overwhelms my vision and brain. Especially when you consider this is just a fraction of the Large Magellanic Cloud, “a small satellite galaxy 170,000 light years away from the Milky Way.”

From NASA: “Like lifting a giant veil, the near-infrared vision of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope uncovers a dazzling new view deep inside the Tarantula Nebula. Hubble reveals a glittering treasure trove of more than 800,000 stars and protostars embedded inside the nebula.”

[MIKA27]

US Military Once Asked Walt Disney To Build Real-Life Iron Man Suits

In 1965, the US military approached Walt Disney for a very special project. They wanted Disney engineers to build them an exoskeleton — basically a real-life Iron Man suit.

The US Navy sent a request for proposals to WED Enterprises — Disney’s design and architecture shop, now called Walt Disney Imagineering — hoping that they’d jump at the opportunity. But unfortunately for the US military, Disney had no interest in the project.

Disney collectibles dealer Phil Sears has two internal Disney memos talking about the RFP up on his site. Despite the fact that there could have been considerable overlap with Disney’s research and the military’s needs at the time, there was a tremendous amount of scepticism by the big man himself. You can see Walt Disney’s own handwritten “NO” scrawled in thick red pencil.

From one of the memos dated June 11, 1965:

The Navy specifications call for a complex device to be worn by a man that would enable him to lift 1500 pounds to a height of six feet and carry that load 20-five feet in 10 seconds. Some of the areas of development might parallel with our research in servo control and programming of “Audio-Animatronics.” However, we cannot be sure of this fact until we investigate further, which would require additional correspondence with the Navy and probably visits with their technicians.

The Navy was apparently inspired by the robotics that Disney had displayed at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. The company had been working on everything from animatronic dolls on Pepsi’s “It’s a Small World” attraction to a robot Abe Lincoln that stood up and gave speeches at the Illinois State Pavilion. Robo-Abe was so impressive that one newspaper reporter at the Fair even wrote that this faux-Lincoln not only stood up, made lifelike hand gestures, and could talk — but that he could actually walk around.

Sadly, that last part wasn’t true. But it speaks to the realism that Disney was accomplishing with its robots at the time, as well as why the military was so impressed.

This wasn’t the first time that Disney was approached to serve its country. The mouse house produced a number of different propaganda and safety films for the government during World War II — most of which can be seen on the Walt Disney Treasures DVD set, On the Front Lines.

After Disney declined to bid on the government project, General Electric wound up developing the exoskeletons for the military. But it’s quite a future that never was, left now for alt-historians to ponder. Perhaps we could have had an army of robo-Lincolns stalking the battlefield. That is, if Honest Abe could find time between vampire slayings.

[MIKA27]

1941 Extraterrestrial Craft Crash and Retrieval

Sikeston, a town of 16,318 people, is nestled in the green bluffs of southeast Missouri about 24 miles from the nearest town in Illinois and 35 miles from the nearest in Tennessee. In 1941, Sikeston’s population was just under 8,000 people, and a scant few of them knew an extraterrestrial flying craft had crashed in the woods just outside the city limits. The United States government did everything it could to keep it that way.

Linda Wallace was born in Sikeston, a town known for Lambert’s Café, the home of “throwed rolls,” and the Southeast Missouri Agricultural Museum. It’s not known for a UFO crash. Information Linda has uncovered may change that.

When Linda was young, her father worked at the Missouri Institute of Aeronautics in Sikeston and may have been privy to information of a downed UFO between Cape Girardeau and Sikeston six years before the alleged crash of a flying saucer at Roswell, New Mexico. “I would like to think if your father knew something, he’d share it,” Linda said. “But I have no answers.”

In the spring of 1941, at about 9 p.m., Baptist minister William Huffman of Cape Girardeau was asked to deliver last rights to the pilot and passengers of an aircraft that crashed about 15 miles outside of town in the direction of Sikeston, according to a letter from Huffman’s granddaughter Charlette Mann to UFO investigator Leo Stringfield.

When Rev. Huffman arrived, police, fire officials, the military, and the FBI poured over the crash site of a disc-shaped craft. The pilot and passengers were “little gray people” with large, almond-shaped black eyes, according to Mann’s letter. Huffman was sworn to secrecy. So, it seems, was everyone else.

Linda discovered the local fire, sheriff, and police departments have no records for 1941, nor do records from that year exist for the Missouri Institute of Aeronautics. She said stories have been removed from microfilm issues of the Sikeston Herald around the time of the alleged crash. “I thought that was unusual,” Linda said. “I had gone to other dates and they did not have problems. And looking for an original for that paper, it’s not anywhere.”

So Linda did what any researcher does. She started asking questions. “One source spoke about ‘little people’ that died and were transported from the alleged crash site,” she said. “An unrelated source spoke about a fairly recent visit by a former associate of the Missouri Institute of Aeronautics. In her words, ‘There is a man, somewhat confused, who said he ‘picked up the bodies’ of crash victims from the base.”

Linda found that man in a locked wing of a Sikeston nursing home. “I identified myself and my father’s name,” she said. “The man’s face went from a blank look to an ear-to-ear grin. ‘Your Dad was my crew chief. That was so long ago.’”

After a few questions, Linda was satisfied this man had known her father. “I told the aging patient I would like to discuss the Missouri Institute of Aeronautics and the air crashes that were never reported,” she said. “The blank look returned to his face. ‘I do not know, I do not know.’ He was lost again and we did not reconnect.”

After the man died, she discovered this is the man who had spoken with the “unrelated source” about the bodies. These are the interviews that keep Linda’s research going. “I get bits and pieces of stories,” she said. “Evidence to either prove or disprove the event only leads to more questions. Two senior Sikestonians recall talk of the crash of an unidentified craft, others recall a meteor crash, and still others recall no incident. I continue the search.”

That research has lead her to write the book, “Covert Retrieval: Urban legend or hidden history?” In the book, Linda details accounts of people native to the Sikeston area who “share family history accounts that include an unidentified crash retrieval pre-World War II.”

One such account is from a young man who tells stories from his grandmother, who was a ten-year-old girl at the time of the event. “The grandmother spoke often about witnessing retrieval personnel at an unidentified crash site in a southeast Missouri farm field,” Linda said.

“The retrieval personnel asked the grandmother’s father, a large strong man, to assist the retrieval personnel in lifting wreckage onto a flatbed truck. The officials that were apparently in charge thought the wreckage would be heavy, but according to the father, the wreckage was lightweight.”

“Covert Retrieval” also covers thegovernment’s role in covering up the crash.

You can contact Linda through her Web site, www.seekingmoinfo.com.

[MIKA27]

The Glowing Dawn of the Atomic Age, Seen From 1950s Los Angeles

America had a lot going for it in the 1950s — economic prosperity, technological innovation, military might, a baby boom — but in the current times of nuclear non-proliferation, it’s easy to forget it also had nuclear bomb tests in the Nevada desert whose glow could be seen from Los Angeles.

These photos, taken in L.A. at that time, show the pre-dawn luminescence caused by A-bomb tests carried out at the vast Nevada Test Site, northwest of Las Vegas.

Between October 1951 through September 1992, 928 atomic tests were conducted at the NTS, 100 of which were completed above ground more than 300 miles away from L.A. in the sprawling Desert National Wildlife Range. If that seems like a long distance for the glow from an atomic bomb to be visible, consider that the mushroom cloud could be seen as far as 100 miles from the blast site.

While Los Angeles, ever famous for its unique light, got to see the nuclear glimmer, the radioactive fallout had a tendency to drift northeast into Utah.

The light from the tests seems to light up the entire sky, a dull incandescence sharply outlining anything between it and the camera.

At first, the images seem rather mundane for looking so much like a sunrise — the difference of course is that this fission-born light comes straight from man’s handiwork, and heralds the beginning of an arms race that in the 1960s tilted perilously close to Armageddon. An interesting theme in the handwritten captions accompanying these photos is the regular reminder that the blast is much more powerful than any previous, which makes sense given that during this period the yields of nuclear tests were definitely on the rise.

The pictures with people in them demonstrate the utter (and now seemingly morbid) fascination with nuclear weapons that many Americans had at the time. The Nevada detonations became such a source of interest for the City of Angels that on April 22, 1952, local TV station KTLA joined several other networks in broadcasting the massive Tumbler-Snapper test detonation. The event got surprisingly high ratings for 5:30 in the morning — before that, they had to broadcast tests secretly. Unless a TV station told you tune in for one, the only way anyone within eye- or ear-shot of a test would know a bomb had gone off was when they saw or heard it announcing itself over the horizon.

• 
  This Herald-Examiner photo was taken May 7, 1952. "Atomic blast gives Los Angeles a early 'sunrise.' It was still night in Los Angeles at 5:15 a.m. today when the 'early sunrise' flashed momentarily on the northeastern horizon. The flash came from the latest atomic blast in Nevada. Photo above was taken from top of hill at Sixth and St. Paul streets. City Hall and its beacon clearly show."
  

• 
  An atomic bomb from testing in Nevada lights the sky in this photograph taken on March 1, 1955 from the Los Angeles Times Mirror Building. Los Angeles City Hall is on the left hand side of the photograph. Note that the clock in the far left foreground states the time of 5:27 (a.m.)
  

• 
  How the largest of the Nevada atomic blasts looked from Los Angeles, looking northeast from the tower of Los Angeles City Hall March 7, 1955. "Los Angeles had a premature 'dawn' that lasted 20 seconds beginning at 5:20."
  

• 
  Atomic blast seen from the San Fernando Valley, March 7, 1955. Photo by Bob Steele. "Atomic fire lights pre-dawn valley skies. Blazing light from biggest atomic blast in current Yucca Flats, Nev., tests illuminates Valley skies -- 275 air miles away -- at 5:20 a.m. today, 20 minutes after explosion. Photo was taken from Mulholland Drive. Cluster of lights at left is Lockheed Air Terminal. At right is Burbank residential and business district."
  

• 
  From the Herald-Examiner, June 4, 1953. "Evidence that today's atomic bomb, detonated at Yucca Flat, Nevada, was the most powerful of all in the series is revealed in this picture taken here. The sky is as bright as day, but even more notable is the fact that downtown buildings are not only silhouetted, as in previous atomic explosions, but actually are illuminated on this side, the side farthest away from blast source."
  

• 
  From the Herald-Examiner, May 5, 1955. "Early risers were a bit disappointed this morning when they went to roof of a downtown Los Angeles building to see the flash from the big atomic blast in Nevada. Because of heavy layer of clouds between here and there, they saw only a faint glimmer. Blast was at 5:10 a.m."
  

• 
  Atomic blast seen from the San Fernando Valley, July 5, 1957. Photo by Justin Westerfield. Photo reads: "Blast lights valley sky. Brilliant flash lights sky over Valley at 4:40 this morning as biggest nuclear explosions is set off in Nevada. Picture taken from Mulholland Drive with Studio City in foreground and Burbank at right.
  

• 
  This damaged print from the Herald-Examiner is dated March 12, 1955. "A-bomb blast brightens L.A. at 5:20 a.m. as seen from the 9th Street cutoff of the Harbor freeway."
  

• 
  On this photo from the Herald-Examiner, dated March 7, 1955, was written 'Los Angeles' atomic dawn.' "This is another version of how the atomic bomb blast in Nevada looked over Los Angeles from the roof of the Statler Hotel. Note the sharpness of City Hall (right background), the Richfield Building (right foreground) and other buildings. Ridge of mountains is also sharply outlined."
  

• 
  This Herald-Examiner photo from May 7, 1952, shows a Firestone Tire and Rubber Company building in downtown Los Angeles, lit by atomic testing in Nevada. "Today's atomic blast on Yucca Flat proving grounds in Nevada was plainly visible to early risers at 5:15 a.m. in Los Angeles. Photo taken from the roof of the Herald-Express building, shows blast lighting up the northeastern horizon."
  

[MIKA27]

Meet the Nazi Hunter: Israel’s Efraim Zuroff Helps German Court Case

Efraim Zuroff never aspired to become the world’s most prominent Nazi hunter. Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1960s, his dream was to be the first Orthodox Jew to play basketball in the NBA. That would have been a career, he says, packed with a lot more adrenaline than the one that fell into his lap. Around 1980, when he first began through a series of coincidences – “right place,” he says, “right time” – to track down Nazi war criminals for the Simon Weisenthal Center, a Jewish advocacy group based in Los Angeles, he quickly realized that the work is not nearly as exciting as the title of “Nazi hunter” makes it seem.

“People ask me what my job is like,” he says by phone from his book-cluttered office in Jerusalem, inflecting his vowels with a thick Brooklyn drawl. “And I say I’m one third detective, one third historian and one third political lobbyist.” The lobbying aspect, over the years, has become the most important part of his work, as his more immediate adversaries these days are not so much the aging perpetrators of Nazi war crimes, but the bureaucrats and politicians who are dragging their feet in the pursuit of justice.

An unusually exciting moment for his campaign came on Wednesday, Jan. 8, even though the news he received that afternoon was mixed. In the German city of Cologne, a court filed charges that day against an 88-year-old former member of the Nazi SS in connection with a massacre that wiped out an entire French village in 1944. That was the good news for Zuroff. The bad news was that another German court, in the city of Hagen, dropped all charges that same day against a 92-year-old former Nazi. The potential witnesses in the Hagen case had all passed away, so the court did not have enough evidence to proceed with that trial for murder.

Still, the Cologne case was a major victory for Zuroff. At least in part, it seems to have resulted from one of his more recent – and more desperate – initiatives, part of what he calls the “Operation Last Chance” campaign. Launched in July, this campaign’s latest effort arranged for about 2000 large posters to be plastered around three German cities – Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne – showing an eerie photograph of railroad tracks leading to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Over the photo, the caption reads in German, “Late, but not too late,” and offers a reward of 25,000 euros ($34,000) for information leading to the capture of Nazi war criminals who remain at large.

In the months that followed, Zuroff says 285 people called the hotline listed on those posters, yielding a total of 111 suspects. Along with a colleague in Germany, Zuroff then conducted the meticulous work of trying to find evidence against these suspects in government archives and other open sources. The search yielded what Zuroff and his colleagues felt were four cases worthy of investigation, all of which they passed along to German prosecutors.

One involved a female guard from Auschwitz, another was a male guard at the Nazi death camp of Dachau, and a third was either a potential witness or a perpetrator of the massacre in the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane in 1944. (The fourth tip Zuroff passed to German authorities came from an artisan who had been hired to work inside a home filled with guns and Nazi memorabilia; even if the owner of the home was not a Nazi war criminal, Zuroff felt the arsenal was at least worth looking into.)

Because of a recent legal precedent, Zuroff felt that the tips involving former guards at concentration camps were particularly promising. In 2011, a German court convicted John Demjanjuk, a retired Ukrainian-American auto worker, of alleged war crimes.

Based on the fact that Demjanjuk had worked during the Holocaust as a guard at the death camp near Sobibor, in Nazi-occupied Poland, the court found that he was an accessory to the murder of nearly 30,000 Jews at that camp. Before his appeals process ran its course, Demjanjuk died in prison, but his conviction “very substantially changed the legal landscape,” Zuroff says. “It showed that if you worked as a guard at a death camp, you’re automatically an accessory to murder.”

But the tip that German authorities seem to have wound up using from Operation Last Chance did not involve the former guards Zuroff had tracked down. The more useful tip appears to have been the one about the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane. On June 10, 1944, Nazi troops from the Waffen-SS company slaughtered nearly all the residents of that village – more than 600 men, women and children. On Wednesday, the court in Cologne charged one of the alleged perpetrators (whose name is being withheld due to German privacy laws) with 25 counts of murder and hundreds of counts of accessory to murder.

The suspect’s lawyer, Rainer Pohlen, told the New York Times that the work of Zuroff and his colleagues at the Simon Wiesenthal Center “certainly had an effect” on that case being brought to trial. “I do believe that the German legal system looked the other way for decades after World War II. Much was swept under the rug,” Pohlen said.

Zuroff took that as a vindication of his efforts. Usually, he says, his interactions with German prosecutors “are mostly a one-way conversation.” He passes along tips and information, but the authorities do not tell him whether they are using any of them in any of their investigations.

“Sometimes I think they wish we would go away,” he says.

“They are a bureaucracy. They move slowly. And we are trying to expedite the process as much as possible.”

The main hurdle to his cooperation with German authorities, Zuroff says, is the so-called Datenschutz, or data protection laws, which forbid government agencies from disseminating any personal information about German citizens, including the names of alleged Nazi war criminals. Ironically, those laws grew out of the German desire never to repeat the country’s totalitarian past, when the private information of citizens was used to target them for persecution. “But those laws are a double-edged sword,” says Zuroff. By keeping the lists of German war veterans out of the hands of private investigators like Zuroff, “these laws are helping Nazi war criminals hide,” he says.

The other challenge he faces is, of course, the passage of time. Even the youngest Nazi soldiers would now be well into their 80s, and according to Zuroff’s research, about 98% of them are already dead. If only he could access the German government’s lists of veterans who are still receiving state pensions, he would at least be able to tell which potential war criminals are still alive. “But God forbid!” he says. “The Datenschutz! The whole business of data protection is one of the holy concepts of the Federal Republic.”

So for now he is left to rely on other tactics in his search. In November, the Weisenthal Center expanded its poster campaign to other German cities, including Munich, Dresden and Leipzig. But there were far fewer calls to the hotline that time around. Perhaps this was because everyone who wanted to come forward had already seen the posters and called, Zuroff says, or perhaps there are simply too few Nazis left to inform against. Once in a while, it crosses his mind that eventually he will have to call off his search, because all of his targets will have escaped justice, at least in this world. “But I would never announce that publicly,” he says with a laugh. “I would never want to bring joy to the heart of any Nazis by telling them, ‘Hey guys, you’re off the hook.”

And so the hunt goes on.

[MIKA27]

Fidel Castro Makes First Public Appearance in Nine Months

Former President of Cuba Fidel Castro made a rare public appearance to attend the opening of an art studio in Cuba’s capital on Wednesday, the Associated Press reports.

Cuban newspapers, broadcasts and websites all publicized a photo Thursday of Castro at the event. The photo shows the back of the former leader’s head as he points to a statue. He last appeared in public on April 9, 2013 when he attended the inauguration of a school in Havana. Video footage of the event showed the former leader’s face.

Castro, 87, led Cuba for 48 years before he fell ill in July 2006. His brother Raul took over as president in January 2008.

[MIKA27]

H7N9 Bird Flu: Fresh Cases Making Hong Kong and South China Authorities Nervous

Hong Kong and the southern Chinese province of Guangdong on Wednesday each confirmed a new case of H7N9 bird flu, reports the South China Morning Post, leading Hong Kong officials to demand more stringent regulations for poultry imported from the mainland.

A 51-year-old Chinese woman apparently contracted the disease in the Foshan, a city of 7.2 million people in Guangdong, while a 65-year-old Hong Kong resident is currently in critical condition after briefly visiting the neighboring Chinese city of Shenzhen on Jan. 1.

Two other cases of bird flu have been reported in Hong Kong in past week, the sufferers also falling ill after visits to Shenzhen. One of the cases was fatal. There have been seven other cases of bird flu in cities near Hong Kong along with three cases in Yangjiang, west of Macau.

[MIKA27]

Is a Suspended Death Sentence Enough for a Chinese ‘Gutter Oil’ Dealer?

“Gutter oil” is one of the most revolting substances in the culinary pantheon. It sprang from the ingenuity of Chinese entrepreneurs, who fished out used cooking oil from drains, sewers and trash cans, decanted it into fresh bottles and sold it to an unsuspecting public.

On Jan. 7, the Jinan Intermediate People’s Court in eastern China handed out a suspended death sentence to a mastermind of one of the largest gutter-oil schemes ever recorded, worth more than $8 million in illicit sales. (A suspended death sentence usually means the convict escapes execution if no further crimes are committed.)

Seven others were sentenced to between five and 15 years in jail for the cooking-oil deception, according to state newswire Xinhua. In China’s lively microblog sphere, a slim consensus felt that the gutter-oil judgment was not harsh enough. Wrote one outraged person: “Criminals involved in food-safety issues should be sentenced to death and immediately executed.”

Gutter oil not only induces mental queasiness but it can also be laced with carcinogens. Its emergence is just one of many food scandals to befall China in recent years, as law enforcement has struggled to match the resourcefulness of unscrupulous traders. Every week brings news of a tainted or fake product, from deadly infant formula to glow-in-the-dark meat.

Just this week, abattoir workers in southern China were nabbed for injecting up to 6 kg of filthy pond water into each lamb carcass in order to bulk up its weight — and therefore price — at market. Last week, Walmart admitted that five-spiced donkey-meat treats sold in some of its Chinese stores were tainted by the addition of fox flesh. (Donkey is a common enough protein in northern China, but fox is not widely consumed.) Last fall, aficionados of skewered meat in Shanghai discovered the lamb they were savoring was actually rat.

The latest gutter-oil plot sprang from the minds of three brothers in eastern Shandong province, according to Xinhua. Beginning in 2006, the trio began selling dirty cooking oil to 17 dealers in two highly populated provinces. In October, in eastern Jiangsu province, a man was condemned to life imprisonment for using inedible animal fat, along with chicken feathers and fox fur, among other unusual substances, to bulk out the cooking oil he sold to more than 100 companies.

These convictions are part of a nationwide crackdown, with even state officials admitting the severity of China’s gutter-oil problem. Food-safety regulations have been tightened repeatedly since 2009. “Before in China, the punishment for violating food safety was very minor,” says Zheng Fengtian, a professor at the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at Renmin University in Beijing. “You would just pay some fine and that would be it, so the cost of committing food-safety crimes was too low.”

But Zheng says there still is no nationwide standard on what constitutes safe cooking oil. Still, because of the current crackdown, he believes gutter oil is a waning phenomenon in Chinese kitchens. Zheng’s bigger concern is the widespread use of harmful pesticides and fertilizers in modern Chinese agriculture, with little oversight. “The issue of the origins of a food source will be a bigger problem for us to solve,” he says. Little wonder that food-safety concerns are among the top reasons given by Chinese who have recently quit their homeland for what they hope are cleaner pastures.

[Fuzz]

1941 Extraterrestrial Craft Crash and Retrieval

Aliens had better not bloody crash on Australian soil... the public, nor I, are willing to pay for Abbott to buy their busted spacecraft and send them back to Zeta Reticuli!

[MIKA27]

Italy police decipher coded 'Mafia initiation text'

Police in Italy say they have deciphered a mysterious coded text that appears to reveal the details of a secretive mafia initiation process.

It was apparently written in a special alphabet devised by members of the 'Ndrangheta, a crime network based in the Calabria region of southern Italy.

The document was found during an investigation into a high-profile murder in Rome in January last year.

The 'Ndrangheta are said to be the biggest cocaine smugglers in Europe.

Rich in symbolism

"Finding such a document shows that even if they are projected towards big businesses and are a criminal group with a global presence, they still use archaic systems," said Renato Cortese, head of the police rapid response team in Rome.

The script is said to be part of the oath-taking process used when new members join a mafiosi clan known as the "San Luca".

"Its content is basically the formula that a person must recite to become part of the 'Ndrangheta," Mr Cortese said.

It was the first time such a document had been found in Rome, he added.

Three sheets of note paper, that carried a hand-written message, were discovered alongside weapons and ammunition.

Two policemen with a passion for crosswords spent weeks cracking the code, says the BBC's Rome correspondent Alan Johnston.

The letters looked like a mix of Arabic, Cyrillic and Chinese-type script, he says.

The document sheds a little light on the quasi-mystical aura that the mafiosi like to create when they take in new recruits, our correspondent adds.

The translated text is said to be rich in symbolism, and describes how to recognise a mafioso - a so-called "Man of Honour" - by the signs around him.

The 'Ndrangheta is now reckoned to be Italy's most powerful mafia, having overtaken Sicily's Cosa Nostra. The network operates across Europe and has connections with Colombian drug cartels.

[MIKA27]

Aliens had better not bloody crash on Australian soil... the public, nor I, are willing to pay for Abbott to buy their busted spacecraft and send them back to Zeta Reticuli!

Ahhhh... but what I would pay for the Aliens to take Abbot and the rest of his cabinet back to Zeta Reticuli!!

[MIKA27]

SONY 4K ULTRA SHORT THROW PROJECTOR

Usually, setting up a projector in your house involves measurements, mounts, and dedicated screens. Sony's out to change all that with the Sony 4K Ultra Short Throw Projector ($30,000-$40,000).

Unlike most projectors, this one is housed in a lengthy case that's worthy of display alongside the most upscale of furnishings, and uses a laser diode system to project a 4K Ultra High-Definition image up to 147-inches along any wall you set it up against.

No installation, no fuss, just a huge, spectacular picture — for a spectacular amount of money.

[MIKA27]

WHISTLEPIG THE BOSS HOG RYE WHISKEY

You might already be familiar with WhistlePig Rye, it's one of the only 100% rye whiskies on the market, and is run by former Apprentice cast member Raj Peter Bhakta.

The standard WhistlePig is a great rye, and now the family is growing with the release of The Boss Hog ($150), a select bottling from the Vermont based distillers.

The Boss Hog weighs in at barrel strength, with no water added, at a hefty 134 proof after over 12 years of aging. The flavors also push their weight around as caramel, vanilla and gingerbread are present and welcome. This release is a must for rye whiskey lovers, and with less than 3,000 bottles, it's sure to be gone quickly.