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[MIKA27]

THE VIOLENT REALITY SEEPING THROUGH MANDELA'S FUNERAL

The sign language translator at Mandela's funeral is tied to grisly murders

We've talked about the wonder of Mandela's dancing, we've talked about Abahlali baseMjondolo, and December 16th has passed with picnics in the park and the unveiling of a Mandela statue. Before we move on, though, let's take a moment to talk about something that has turned not so funny at all. The AP is now reporting that the sign language interpreter who inspired some laughs and also an SNL skit just a few days ago was part of a group that set fire to tires that had been placed around the necks of two men.

And if one shocking bit of violence tied to Mandela's funeral isn't enough, here's one more: Desmond Tutu's house was burgled while he was attending it.

This is no coincidence. There are more homicides in South Africa per year than the United States (16,425 vs. 16,259 as per the National Commissioner and the Centers for Disease Control.) People put flamethrowers on their cars to fend off potential jackers. Then there is state-led violence, including the massacre of defenseless civilians at the Marikana mine this year.

That’s where places like the Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention and the Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation comes in. The latter spent twenty years tracking six categories of violence in South Africa -- “revenge violence and vigilantism, ex-combatants, foreigners (immigrants), hostels and hostel residents, state security forces, and taxi violence” (I’m quoting the International Development Research Center here) -- and they found that the primary driving factor of violence is what was the primary driving factor of violence before the fall of Apartheid: inequality, outright poverty, and the marginalization inherent in something like that.

As The New York Times pointed out in March, though, “the statistics paint an optimistic picture compared to years past. Crime levels have been dropping fairly steadily since the early 2000s, and more dramatically still since peak levels around 1995. Murders have declined by roughly 25 percent since 2002.”

But it’s important to keep in mind how certain problems can endure and linger on, even if people have been chipping away at the issue for years: students protesting for education reform in Chile over the past two years were protesting a system that hadn’t changed since the days of Pinochet.

Lorena Balardini of the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales told students at Oxford that there was a new verdict every week for someone who had committed a crime during the years of the military Junta in Argentina. There is no doubt that Pinochet was defeated or that the Junta was defeated, but the lingering after-effects of a nearly fifty year program of repression are often shocking and pop up when we least expect it.

So we can be surprised when we hear that Thamsanqa Jantjie took part in this assault, this "necklacing" that has an echo of the 80’s about it. But when we tour this flourishing garden of platitudes talking about continuing Mandela’s work and continuing Mandela’s legacy, this is the kind of thing that can and should cut through: tackle the income inequality and you’ll tackle some of the violence.

Not entirely, not altogether, but something is better than nothing.

[MIKA27]

How vegetarian Hitler wanted to ban sick children from eating meat: Musings of a Nazi henchman revealed for the first time as long-lost diary is finally discovered after vanishing during the Nuremberg Trials

A wartime diary of one of Adolf Hitler's senior henchman has been handed over to the Holocaust Memorial Museum after it mysteriously vanished 70 years ago.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement transferred about 400 handwritten pages from the diary of Alfred Rosenberg to the D.C. museum on Tuesday.

Rosenberg, who played a significant role in the slaughter of millions of Jews and other non-Aryans under the Third Reich, once wrote in his diary about having lunch with Hitler - while the Nazi leader, who was vegetarian, offered his opinions on the evils of meat.

Pages dated February 7, 1940 (left) and February 2, 1941 (right) from the diary of German Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg are displayed at the Holocaust Memorial Museum

Although official translations have not yet been completed, a basic translation reveals that at a Berlin lunch around February 1941, Hitler said that sick children should not be given meat but fruit and vegetables to improve their health.

Rosenberg wrote: 'He [Hitler] is convinced that plant eaters... the tenacious forces of life.'

The fascist noted in his diary about his travels around Germany to inspire Nazi forces on the brink of war.

Rosenberg also penned details of his meetings with fellow Nazi henchman Hermann Goering where they discussed 'ethno-psychological foreign policy'.

Rosenberg was convicted of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials after World War II and executed in 1946.

Holocaust Memorial Museum Director Sara J. Bloomfield said on Tuesday that the diary will help in understanding the ideas that led to the extremist ideology of Nazism. The Holocaust Memorial Museum has posted scans of the newly acquired diary pages on its website, with accompanying German transcripts. An official English translation is not yet available.

According to the museum, the diary contains details of Rosenberg's meetings with Hitler, squabbles among senior Nazis and bombing raids on Germany.

The long-lost diary was uncovered earlier this year in upstate New York after disappearing 70 years ago.

The diary pages were found at a publishing business in Lewiston, New York.

Officials say Rosenberg's diary was smuggled into the U.S. after the war, most likely by Robert M.W. Kempner, a government lawyer during the Nuremberg trials.

Born in Germany, Kempner had fled to America in the 1930s to escape the Nazis, only to return for post-war trials.

Kempner cited a few Rosenberg diary excerpts in his memoir, and in 1956 a German historian published entries from 1939 and 1940. But the bulk of the diary never surfaced.

The lawyer died in 1993, and museum officials later took possession of some of his extensive document collection.

But the Rosenberg diary remained missing until recently.

'One of the enduring mysteries of the Second World War is what happened to the Rosenberg diary,' said John Morton, director of U.S. Immigrations and Custom Enforcement said in June.

'We have solved that mystery.'

The search for the diary dates to 1996, when two of Kempner's former legal secretaries approached a Holocaust museum official about Kempner's collection of papers.

Over several years, museum officials assessed and took possession of several documents from Kempner's collection, although some material they initially viewed in 1997 at Kempner's Pennsylvania home were missing when they went to retrieve the papers.

Harrowing tales: A diary has been recovered which belonged to Hitler confidant Alfred Rosenberg with the chilling language of the fascist regime

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deputy Director Daniel Ragsdale (left) transfers the Rosenberg Diary to Holocaust Memorial Museum Director Sara Bloomfield (right) during a ceremony on Tuesday

Officials later learned that the two secretaries and 'another gentleman from upstate New York' had taken the papers.

The papers were found in the hands of Herbert Richardson, an academic publisher in Lewiston who once worked for Mr Kempner, according to The New York Times.

Officials found the materials with the help of a private investigator and former FBI agent.

Acting upon a warrant issued by a federal magistrate judge in Delaware, authorities seized the diary in April.

Gerhard Weinberg, professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina and a leading historian on the Nazi era, said in June that the diary could shed new light on Rosenberg's role in administering the occupied eastern territories, and his relationships with other high-ranking Nazi officials.

Evil workings: Reichsleader Alfred Rosenberg (left) and Reichsminister Dr Henrich Lammers with Adolf Hitler

Learning from the horrors of the past: Rosenberg's diary is now in the possession of the Holocaust Museum in DC

Museum officials said the documents provide valuable information, as Rosenberg helped orchestrate the looting of artwork and other valuables from Nazi-occupied territory during that the time.

'Its discovery will undoubtedly give scholars new insight into the politics of Nazi leaders and fulfills a museum commitment to uncover evidence from perpetrators of the Holocaust,' a web posting said.

Rosenberg, a Nazi ideologue and propagandist, was the author of The Myth of the Twentieth Century, a 1930 book espousing the superiority of Aryan culture over the Jewish race.

He later led the Nazi Party's foreign affairs department and rose through the party hierarchy to become Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories in 1941.

Among early translated excerpts is a passage from 1941 in which Rosenberg wrote proudly of a conference marking 'the first time in European history that 10 European nations were represented at an anti-Jewish conference with the clear program to remove this race from Europe. ...'

Later that year, Rosenberg wrote of reports that Russian leader Josef Stalin had ordered the 400,000 Volga Germans 'to be dragged away to Siberia, i.e. to have them murdered. ...'

'Yesterday I had a proposal drafted for communication by broadcast to Russia, England and the USA that in case this mass murder is implemented, Germany will punish the Jews of Central Europe for this.'

Other translated excerpts involve the 1936 Olympic games, including Rosenberg's assertions that Britons were 'angry about the negroes from the USA as they squeeze out the English during the Olympic Games'.

Historic role: Robert M. W. Kempner, a Nuremberg prosecutor, was long suspected by U.S. officials of smuggling Rosenberg's diary out of Germany after the Nazi trials

Defeated: War criminals of the Nazi regime (left to right) Hermann Göring, Alfred Rosenberg, Baldur von Schirach and Karl Dönitz sit at a wooden table with metal plates and pieces of bread during the Nuremberg Trials in 1946

Reign of terror: Hitler and his retinue, including Rosenberg, on the Koniglichen Platz in Munich

[MIKA27]

KYTE & KEY – WEARABLE CABELET: COMPACT CONNECTOR FOR MICRO-USB/LIGHTNING DEVICES

There is no need to imagine the scenario since we’ve all been there before – Your phone is running low on power when you realized you had no cable/connector for a quick charge via laptop.

While there are already convenient devices such as the BlueLounge Kii, none of them are as fashionable as the Wearable Cabelet from KYTE & KEY.

A derivative of Cable and Bracelet, KYTE & KEY cleverly concealed either a USB-to-Micro USB or USB-to-Lightning underneath a braided genuine leather band. Developed by the former Chief Marketing Officer of PUMA, the Cabelet comes in four different colors with either a stainless steel or bronze metal clasp. With three lengths to select from: Small (5-inch – 6-inch) to Medium (6-inch – 7-inch) and Large (7-inch – 8-inch), all retails for $69.99 USD and is available now through KYTE & KEY online store or Apple Store.

[MIKA27]

Watch A Skier Zoom Through A Forest Of Trees At Unreal Speeds

If skiing isn’t enough of a thrill for you, why not up the ante and zoom through a whole forest? And if that’s still not enough for you, why not make it even scarier by going at warp freaking speed? That’s what Candide Thovex and Aziz Benkrich did. The GoPro footage from their latest ski run is a thrill ride that scares you senseless.

It goes on and on. They’re going so fast and getting so close to wiping out that I can’t even stomach watching it all. What a ride.

[MIKA27]

The US Government's War On E-Cigarettes

It’s here, folks. The battle royale between US regulators and the people over e-cigarettes is upon us. It started a few years ago, calmly, but with New York City banning vaping in public places, the knives are about to come out.

It’s widely understood that 2014 will be the year when local and federal governments hunker down to figure out this e-cigarette situation. Basically, the battery-powered little devices have enjoyed free reign since they first started popping up on the market around 2006. Nobody really knew what to do with e-cigarettes at first. Are they a medical device, a tool for smoking cessation?

Should they be treated like a tobacco product even though they don’t contain any tobacco? Should they be sold to kids?

Initially, the US federal government — more specifically, the Food and Drug Administration — attempted to regulate e-cigarettes as if they were a drug delivery device. That subjected the devices and accessories to the restrictions of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act (FDCA) and the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products arm would be responsible for enforcing the regulations. But that didn’t take.

After a series of legal battles, federal courts determined that e-cigarettes were not medical devices, leaving the FDA no authority to regulate them unless they’re marketed specifically as a therapeutic tool, not unless they managed to win a Supreme Court case.

This gave e-cigarette companies a lot of latitude.

The FDA isn’t giving up, though. The agency is expected to unveil a plan for how it could regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products, but it hasn’t actually laid down any rules yet. In the meantime, it’s up to state and local governments to make the laws. It’s been a slow process, but the number of US states and cities issuing bans on e-cigarettes is approaching a tipping point.

This New York City ban might just be it. The new bill passed the City Council almost unanimously and will go into effect in four months, after Mayor Bloomberg signs it into law. Rather than issuing a new ban, however, the bill simply extends the existing restrictions on cigarettes to e-cigarettes. So anywhere you’re not allowed to smoke a cancer stick, you’re now not allowed to smoke an e-cigarette. The various rules that dictate how cigarettes are sold and advertised will also be applied to the e-cigarette industry.

Meanwhile, similar bans on vaping in public are already in effect in Arkansas, New Jersey, North Dakota and Utah. Similar legislation is also under consideration in major cities like Chicago and Los Angeles. About half the states in the US have issued laws restricting the sale of e-cigarettes to children. And there are plenty more moving towards regulation.

This obviously pisses some people off. It’s not just the Ayn Rand-reading libertarians, either. Some health experts are pushing back against the regulations, arguing that e-cigarettes are a valuable and effective method to help people quit smoking real cigarettes. E-cigarettes could be saving lives, they say — so why make it more difficult for people to buy them?

Well, there’s the kids thing. In the half of the US without restrictions on e-cigarettes, teenagers can buy e-cigarettes freely and vape their little hearts out. E-cigarette cartridges are being sold in all kinds of kid-friendly flavours, too, like fruit punch and bubble gum.

And some e-cigarette companies are even using cartoons to advertise the products. It appears to be working, too. A recent Centres for Disease Control survey showed that e-cigarette use more than doubled from 4.7 per cent to 10 per cent from 2011 to 2012.

Let’s not forget that jury’s still out on the health effects of e-cigarettes, though they’re packed with nicotine which is most definitely very addictive and very bad for children. Some folks also worry that teens who pick up the e-cigarette habit will eventually turn to real cigarettes and the host of health problems that come with.

One widely accepted argument for treating e-cigarettes like real cigarettes is more symbolic, though. Cities, states and even the US federal government have spent years and billions of dollars on anti-smoking campaigns even while allowing e-cigarettes free rein stands to undermine all those efforts. Sure, folks aren’t smoking with fire, clouding up restaurants, and giving people heart attacks, but even the presence of people puffing on something in public sends a message that suggests smoking is ok. E-cigarettes also make it more difficult to enforce the existing ban on smoking. In New York, bartenders have been complaining that they often can’t tell when someone is smoking an e-cigarette or a real cigarette inside.

The US government doesn’t regulate things based on how gross they are, but, clearly, the other concerns matter enough for it to take action. Who knows when the feds will finally crack down, though. It’s likely that the FDA is waiting for some research on the health effects of e-cigarettes to come out so they don’t get their asses kicked in court like they did a few years ago.

Regardless of what the FDA does, though, it’s clear that local governments are taking the lead. And if you remember correctly, New York City has a reputation for starting trends when it comes to stuff like this. After all, Gotham was one of the first cities in the US to ban smoking and now it’s banned pretty much everywhere. Others are sure to follow this time around, too.

[MIKA27]

Terrifying Facts About The World's Deepest Gold Mine

Oh, the things humans will do to get their grubby hands on gold — a metal that’s mostly useless except for the fact that we’ve arbitrarily decided it’s worth, uh, its weight in gold. The deepest gold mine in the world is Mponeng, a 2.5-mile hole in the ground in South Africa. A whole underground city – lightless and lawless –lives inside the mine.

Journalist Matthew Hart, author of Gold: The Race for the World’s Most Seductive Metal, recently spoke about his own visit to the South African gold mine. Here are some of the most fascinating terrifying facts about the gold mine.

The mine is as deep as 10 Empire State Buildings, and its 236 miles of tunnels are longer than the New York subway.

Every day, 4,000 workers descend into the mine through elevators — or, as they’re called in mining parlance,cages. These triple-decked cages fit 120 people at a time, and the first 1.6-mile shaft takes only 6 minutes to descend. A second shaft takes workers deeper down, and the last part is only accessible by foot or vehicle.

The whole, mind-bogglingly huge structure mines a seam of ore only 30 inches wide.

Seriously: the depths humans will do to get to their hands on gold.

The rock is so hot underground that ice has to be pumped down to cool the tunnels.

Because temperatures increase the closer we get to the earth’s core, the rock faces in the mine can get as hot as 140º F. “You can imagine what it’s like to crawl into a cavity there,” Hart said to NPR. “It’s like crawling into a pizza oven.”

To keep those super-temperatures from becoming deadly, an ice-slurry mixed with salt is pumped down from the surface; huge fans then blow air over the ice, forming a controlled cold-air system within the mine — its own internal weather system. The above-ground ice-making plant goes through 6,000 tons of ice a day. Ultimately, this means that many tunnels can be kept at an almost bearable 85 degrees.

Illegal “ghost” miners live, eat, and even visit prostitutes right in the mines.

At least 10% of the gold in South African mines is stolen. Criminal syndicates help illegal “ghost” miners sneak into the mineshaft, where they then hide out for months at a time, turning ghostly from the lack of sunlight. Security guards also tend to let these ghost miners be: the illegal miners are often armed with AK-47s and beer bottle grenades, and it’s all too easy to hear someone coming from far off in the mine. The mine is so big, it’s difficult to police anyways.

There’s also a whole, well, underground economy where legal miners help out their illegal brethren. Since bread, for example, costs twelve time as much in the illegal economy, packing some extra lunch can get you much more than lunch money.

Gold is so expensive, the mine only needs to extract 0.35 ounces from a ton of rock to be profitable.

Mponeng excavates 6,000 tons of rock per day. You do the maths.

The world’s loneliest ecosystem was discovered in Mponeng.

The rod-shaped bacterium Desulforudis audaxviator lives alone in the dark, hot waters of Mponeng; it is the sole member of the only single-species ecosystem discovered. All life forms need basic nutrients like carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and, usually, different bacteria pull different nutrients from the environment to form an ecosystem. But D. audaxviator is self-reliant, capable of producing everything itself. Scientists think the bacterium has not seen the surface of the earth in millions of years.

Bacteria that live in remote places like the depths of the Mponeng mine are called extremophiles for their ability to withstand seemingly impossible conditions. When motivated by money – out of greed or basic economic necessity – humans can do the same, it seems.

[MIKA27]

Scientists Finally Solve The Mystery Of These Rainforest Structures

A few months ago, eye-grabbing images of tiny web-like structures baffled entomologists everywhere because they had no idea who made them. However, Wired recently followed a team of scientists down to the Amazonian rainforest and the mystery is finally solved. Sort of.

The research team observed these tiny structures for days before three eggs hatched and out ran — you guessed it — little baby spiders. Of course, pretty much everybody suspected it was spiders all along. The only problem now is that they have no idea what kind of spiders they are. The one spiderling they managed to capture is orange and a little chubby, but once it matures, they hope to know more about how these amazing little structures are made.

[MIKA27]

This Was The First Plane To Cost $US1 Billion More Than The US Expected

Delivering America’s military might to foreign shores is no small feat, especially when that might is the size of an M-1 Abrams tank. For more than half a century, the US has relied on one of the largest military aircraft in existence to do so — a plane that ended up costing just a little more to build than we expected.

During the Cold War chess match between the West and the Soviets, both sides routinely shuffled their forces throughout Europe and South Asia. However, by the early 1960s, the old Douglas C-133 Cargomasters simply weren’t cutting it anymore. So in 1961, the US military set up design requirements for a successor. By 1965, Lockheed had won the contract to develop what would become the C-5 Galaxy.

Built as a heavy intercontinental-range strategic airlift vehicle, the C-5 can carry up to 270,000 pounds of cargo, as well as 73 servicemen and the plane’s seven-person crew. If it can be air-certified, the C-5 can carry it. It’s powered by four wing-mounted turbofans and is equipped with 12 internal wing tanks. The C-5 can also be refuelled in-flight which, given its nickname of FRED (******* ridiculous economic/environmental disaster, due to its massive fuel consumption) happened quite frequently.

It isn’t just expensive to operate. Developing the C-5 nearly bankrupted Lockheed. Due to the plane’s massive size and complicated development cycle, the Galaxy program haemorrhaged money continually, which is why it has the dubious distinction of being the first military plane program incur a $US1 billion cost overrun — and that’s in 1967 dollars.

Adjusted for inflation the C-5 would have cost an extra $US6.98 billion in 2013 money.

Since the first C-5A came online in 1969, the Galaxy has served in every major combat operation from Vietnam on, as well as in humanitarian aid and disaster relief missions. It has even toted a Space Shuttle for NASA. But continued technical issues with the planes — like the rather large cracks that developed in their wings — severely limited their use into the 1980s. It wasn’t until President Reagan allotted funding to the Galaxy program in order to keep up with growing Soviet airlift capabilities that the fleet received new and stronger wings under the $US1.5 billion H-Mod program. Further upgrades came in 1998 with the start of the Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) and the creation of the latest Galaxy iteration, the C-5M.

The new C-5M is outfitted with new engines and modernised avionics. As the Lockheed website explains:

AMP adds a new, modern cockpit with a digital, all-weather flight control system and autopilot; a new communications suite; flat-panel displays; and enhanced navigation and safety equipment. Enhancements such as the integrated datalink capabilities, predictive flight performance cues and situational awareness displays (the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System) greatly ease crew workload and enhance situational awareness. AMP is the digital backbone to support RERP.

Now, with more powerful GE CF6-80C2 commercial engines (military designation F138-GE-100) engines and 70 major enhancements, the C-5M Super Galaxy can deliver the globe in one flight, unrefueled. The C-5M is an airlift revolution.

With more capability, reliability and affordability than its predecessors, the world record-setting C-5M is rewriting the strategic airlift playbook. The new engine produces more than 50,000 pounds of thrust — a 22 per cent increase over current TF39 engines — and is Stage IV noise compliant. The C-5M also has a 58 per cent greater climb rate to an initial cruise altitude that is 38 per cent higher than the current C-5. This capability delivers fuel savings greater than 20 per cent compared to other airlifters.

All in all, Lockheed will convert 52 C-5 planes into the new M models, and they’ve already completed five. The upgrades should be complete by 2016 — and they’re expected to keep these behemoths in the air well beyond 2040.

[MIKA27]

Archaeologist Uses 2000-Year-Old Sky To Study Roman Ruins

If archaeology was once about digging through dirt, it is increasingly — like almost every other profession — about programming computers. Bernie Frischer, an Indiana University “archaeo-informaticist”, has came up with a new theory about two Roman monuments. His finding are based on 3D reconstructions of the monuments using video game technology and calculations of the sun’s position 2000 years ago.

Frischer’s work is made possible in part by ephemerides, or tables that give the position of celestial bodies at different points in time. Ephemerides were once actual tables written on paper, but now they’re software programs, like NASA’s Horizons system that can generate the position of an object in the sky at any time in history.

For Frischer, the time of interest is 2000 years ago, when Rome’s Ara Pacis, “Altar of Peace” was dedicated to then-emperor Augustus. The Ara Pacis sits in front of the 21.6m high Obelisk of Montecitorio. Archaeologists had long believed that the two monuments were so positioned that the shadow of the Obelisk would point directly at Ara Pacis on September 23, Augustus’s birthday.

After creating 3D models of the two monuments using the game engine Unity and studying the sun’s position, however, Frischer and his team believe the real date of interest is October 9. On this day, the sun would would pass directly over the top of the obelisk. He explains in an Indiana University press release:

“Inscriptions on the obelisk show that Augustus explicitly dedicated the obelisk to his favourite deity, Apollo, the Sun god,” Frischer said. “And the most lavish new temple Augustus built, the Temple of Palatine Apollo, was dedicated to his patron god and built right next to Augustus’ own home.

“So the new date of the alignment, Oct. 9, is actually what we know to be the annual birthday festival of the Temple of Palatine Apollo,” he said. “No other date on the Roman religious calendar would have been as appropriate as this.

”

It’s old-school historical research combined with 3D video game design and computer programming — archaeology for the 21st century.

[MIKA27]

The Secret Machine War Against Snow Taking Place At The Super Bowl

A war is brewing between machines and snow, and its battle tactics are being studied — rehearsed, practiced, mapped, rerun, and mastered — in the vast parking lot of New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, home of Super Bowl XLVIII.

The New York Times waxed poetic, reporting the scene: “As ballets go, this one was rather mechanical. A cast of front-loaders twirled and turned and performed parking-lot pas de deux with a machine that can melt 600 tons of snow in an hour.” They are getting ready, nearly two months ahead of time, to ensure that this season’s Super Bowl is free of the horrors of snow.

Graceful, operatic, weighing as much as small Transformers, these half-robotic snow-removal machines form a veritable anti-snow army, and the NFL — assisted, of course, by the taxpayer-funded infrastructure of the state — is preparing quite a rollout for the big game.

Take a look at this list of equipment at the ready:

821 trucks would be ready for snow duty within 30 miles of the stadium and an additional 2400 trucks could be called in from elsewhere in the state. In New York, the officials said, 2,000 garbage trucks that double as plows would be standing by, along with 440 salt spreaders and more than 230 front-loaders.

The stadium itself has six plows, 30 front-loaders and 12 trucks to haul snow in addition to the 600-tons-an-hour melter and a couple of smaller ones, and the stadium went through what amounted to a dress rehearsal in the snowy weather last weekend. Brad Mayne, the president and chief executive of the stadium, said crews cleared and melted 5000 tons of snow from the parking lots.

These crawling landscape technicians will thus shape and clear the roads and parking lots of eastern New Jersey, leading into and out of New York, and pushing — plowing, melting — further afield, deep into the football-loving suburbs and to all the airport hotels and train stations these routes are eventually connected to.

In the meantime, this otherwise overlooked army of plows, melters, salt-spreaders, trucks, and massive snowblowers paw the ground, steaming, testing out new formations and plays in the MetLife parking lot, waiting for the big day, determined that Snowmageddon will never happen again — especially when there’s a game to play

[MIKA27]

Searching For Dead Geometries Amidst The Trees

As the analytical tools of archaeology rapidly shift toward the use of non-invasive, digital visualisation — including such things as ground-penetrating radar and LiDAR — we’re seeing more and more examples of archaeologists setting off into distant landscapes, drones in hand.

A short news item posted by the University of Alabama in Huntsville this week is thus just one story among many: it describes the work of a team of University earth scientists who are heading down to Guatemala to map ruined buildings with a remote-control quadcopter. Their quadcopter, kitted out with a multi-spectral camera, will produce images “similar to those from Landsat but in much higher resolution,” they explain, as it drifts and hums above the canopy.

But what’s interesting is one tiny detail about how this is actually done. The scientists, we read, are not looking for huge, hulking blocks of masonry or previously unseen Mayan towers sticking out of the leaves; they’re on the lookout for sick vegetation.

It turns out that “trees growing over Maya ruins aren’t as lush because the stone blocks and lime plaster used by Maya builders prevent those plants from getting the nutrients and moisture” they need to thrive.

This means that slightly more anemic or leafless patches of forest might not be straggling behind the others due to some rare disease or an invasive beetle; it’s because they are growing on top of old buildings, their shallow roots struggling down through soil, desperately uncurling through small stone rooms and foundations, searching for something to keep them alive.

These lost rooms and structures down there — buildings crushed and ruined by the humid landscape — then leave an additional imprint on the landscape, not unlike a form of 3-dimensional photography: “The multi-spectral camera can see differences in plant cover and, when an area of stressed tree canopy has sharp linear edges or unnatural geometric shapes — such as a perfect square or rectangle — that could indicate the location of a Maya town or building.” In other words, the sick groves of trees are perfect squares or rectangles, deeply unnatural shapes for a rain forest, like architectural pixels materialised by trees and only visible from above.

Hunting for dead geometries amidst the roots and leaves, flying their remote control quadcopter through the jungle, this is what archaeology is increasingly becoming, it seems: a technologically enabled hunt through seemingly familiar but just slightly off landscapes, searching for uncanny artifacts and lost ruins without ever lifting a spade.

[MIKA27]

This Interactive Moto X Ad Isn't Online, It's In A Magazine

After a long day in front of the computer, the ads in a paper magazine can seem a little flat. Where’s the interaction? Where’s the content? In the US, Moto is filling that gap with this cool full-page magazine advertisement that lets you pick your favourite Moto X colour with the push of a button. Just like the internet!

The ad, which appears in Wired‘s January 2014 issue, packs LEDs, membrane buttons and a paper-thin battery in a single page, though it’s probably the thickest page in the book. It appears on newsstands today, but only in New York City and Chicago, where Moto has run extensive ad campaigns touting the Moto X‘s ultra-customisable nature. Maybe print really isn’t dead — at least not until that tiny battery wears out.

[MIKA27]

The Billion-Dollar Megaprojects That Will Transform NYC By 2030

As Michael Bloomberg’s reign comes to a close, our mayor/billionaire underwriter is talking up his next move, which involves teaching other cities to be more like New York. But behind the scenes, he’s also scrambling to push through dozens of building projects that will define his legacy.

A few days ago, the mayor announced his plans to form a consulting group that will teach other cities to be more like New York, an “urban SWAT team” in the words of The New York Times, helping other municipalities achieve the same economic, health, and cultural growth that New York has seen under El Bloombito.

But behind the scenes, the outgoing administration is quietly hustling to gain approvals on a whopping $12 billion worth of building projects. It seems that Bloomberg would rather be remembered for the economic miracle he nurtured into being — and the building boom it spurred — than for nannying his constituents. After all, the NYT reminds us that 40 per cent of New York City has been rezoned under Bloomberg — and this new crop of approvals and tax breaks will cement that physical legacy.

Let’s get to know some of the biggest, shall we?

Domino Sugar: 1.5 Billion

The tortured project to rebuild Williamsburg’s post-industrial waterfront as a gigantic luxury housing development is finally underway — the SHoP-designed towers span 11 acres of waterfront, and though they’ve been redesigned to be more “porous.” Many still oppose the development, but on December 11, Community Board 1 approved the project with only minor quibbles.

Hallets Point: $US1 billion

“Halletts Point is one of the few remaining New York neighborhoods that feels like a timeless, undisturbed backwater, forgotten by the city and left to urban entropy,” writes Nathan Kensinger in this photo essay on the neighbourhood. Well, not for long: This billion-dollar project — approved this fall by City Council — is going to turn a grassy park that points from Queens towards Manhattan into a complex of 2,100 luxury apartments, restaurants, shops, and a waterfront promenade.

St. George outlet mall and observation wheel: $US580 million

Even New York isn’t safe from the race to build a bigger Ferris wheel. This plan will combine America’s two favourite things: Amusement parks and outlet malls. Nestled along the Staten Island waterfront, it calls for the construction of 125 outlet shops and the largest Ferris Wheel in the Western Hemisphere. The project was approved by City Council in November, though funding remains uncertain — construction is slated to begin in 2016.

Hudson Yards: $US1.2 Billion

Destined to add an insane 13 million square feet of residential and commercial property to Manhattan’s market over the next 10 to fifteen years, this 16-tower development is the largest the city has seen in years. Here’s a great example of a project that incoming mayor Bill de Blasio might not look so kindly upon: Last week, the city approved $US120 million in tax breaks for the developers of Hudson Yards, a practice De Blasio has said he will cut back on.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Hunter College: $US1.7 billion

A joint project between Sloan-Kettering and Hunter, this complex will build a 1.15-million square foot tower along FDR Drive by 2018. The plan was approved in November — and according to The New York Times, it will be too late to reverse it by the time De Blasio takes office in January,

Greenpoint Landing: $US2 Billion

Here’s the big one. Perhaps the most controversial plan on the docket, this mega-development received the go-ahead from City Council last week. The development will transform the sleepy Greenpoint waterfront with 10 glassy residential towers, adding 5,500 units to the neighbourhood.

Willets Point: $US3 Billion

Another example of a project that would come under fire from De Blasio. Though locals argue their neighbourhood isn’t as blighted as the city claims it is, this 62-acre development — including 2,490 units of housing, a shopping center and an entrainment complex — was approved by City Council October. Last week, the city approved a $US43 million tax break for its developers.

Bloomberg might be sneaking these projects into the world like a teenager tiptoeing through the backdoor after curfew, but that’s not to say that De Blasio is anti-development. As Gothamist points out, he received thousands of dollars of campaign donations from the very developers mentioned in this article. He’s more likely to be a “development pragmatist,” in the words of Capital NY, driving harder bargains but not giving developers the complete (and very tall) cold shoulder.

Whether he’ll continue or simply amend Bloomberg’s party line? We’ll have to wait for 2014 to see.

[MIKA27]

Deadly Superbugs Are Breeding Like Crazy In Chinese Sewage Plants

Gird your immune system because what you’re about to read will make you sick. No, seriously, it’s dangerous. Contagion-level dangerous.

Scientists have discovered deadly bacteria breeding in Chinese wastewater treatment plants. These superbugs can’t be killed with even the strongest antibiotics and can survive the purification process. That means they can make their way into the drinking water.

Oh yeah, and they’re breeding at an alarming rate.

Pedro Alvarez, an environmental engineer from Rice University, recently led a study about the frightening trend. His assessment of the risk is worth quoting in full:

It’s scary. There’s no antibiotic that can kill them. We only realised they exist just a little while ago when a Swedish man got infected in India, in New Delhi. Now, people are beginning to realise that more and more tourists trying to go to the upper waters of the Ganges River are getting these infections that cannot be treated.

We often think about sewage treatment plants as a way to protect us, to get rid of all of these disease-causing constituents in wastewater. But it turns out these microbes are growing. They’re eating sewage, so they proliferate. In one wastewater treatment plant, we had four to five of these superbugs coming out for every one that came in.

Told you it was scary. What’s even more unnerving is the fact that it’s not one specific kind of bacteria that’s causing the problems but, rather, a gene that can be picked up by virtually any kind of bacteria. The so-called New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1) gene can actually make common yet deadly bugs like E. coli and salmonella completely antibiotic resistant. Are you scared yet?

The good news (I guess?) is that the threat is so far limited to Asia. OK, that’s terrible news for people who live in Asia. And, now that I mention it, the superbug that killed Gwyneth Paltrow and all her friends — and most of the world, in fact — in Contagion started out in Asia. And so did SARS and even the bird flu, which, by the way, is killing people.

The actual good news is that scientists are finding ways beyond antibiotics to kill superbugs — which is good, because we’re apparently now living in a post-antibiotic world. So at least there’s a little hope.

[MIKA27]

The Wristworn Automatic Jetpack: OK, Aquaman, Now We Get It

For all we know, the personal jetpack that will let you fly through the air like an eagle may never become a reality. So this X2 Underwater Jet Pack, from S.C.P. Marine Innovation in the UK, could very well be the next best thing. Instead of soaring like a bird, it lets you zip through the water like a human torpedo thanks to a pair of jetpacks strapped to your wrists.

The X2 is probably a heck of a lot safer than a flying jetpack anyways, because if its rechargeable lithium batteries die when you’re in the middle of a fancy underwater manoeuvre, you’ll just lose momentum. There’s no deadly fall, and you won’t even sink. Unless you’re outrunning sharks, it’s a minor inconvenience at best.

The X2′s creators are currently raising funds to help refine, perfect, and put the getup into production, and if all goes well they anticipate it could sell for around $US5,700. So it will be considerably more expensive than a set of flippers and a pair of webbed gloves, but being able to glide over miles of coral reef without getting tired sounds like an awesome excuse to order one for your next tropical holiday — or trip to Atlantis.

[MIKA27]

Let’s Talk About A Possible 9/11 Cover Up

“If one were to suggest that there are still questions that remain regarding the September 2001 terrorist attacks, they would be called a conspiracy theorist. If you were to go so far as to suggest that there was an obvious cover-up involved, which withheld information from the public at large that made clear connections between the attacks and a planned, state-sponsored act of war, some would call you delusional.”

The passage above is excerpted from a portion of recent commentary provided on this subject, discussing elements that, when given only a cursory glance, are capable of arousing interest, suspicion, and disgust all at once. The title of this post, however, features a string of words I hadn’t expected to catch myself writing at any point soon… ever, perhaps. And yet, according to a number of reliable sources, there may in fact be a “smoking gun” after all, pertaining to the most horrid act of terrorism ever to occur on United States soil.

There’s little need for talk of an inside job, nor the idea of foreknowledge of an attack (the latter being a position I’ve certainly questioned) in order to see that the entire story about September 11, 2001, has yet to be told. The question, however, is whether we would still call it purely an act of terror once–or if, I should say–the whole truth were to be revealed.

A recent article appearing in the New York Post discussed the work of Paul Sperry, an author who, like many others, including congressmen and civilian researchers, believe that there may be evidence of a Saudi connection to the terrorist attacks of September 2001.

“The Saudis deny any role in 9/11,” Sperry writes, citing a CIA memo that purportedly references “incontrovertible evidence” that elements within the Saudi government “helped the (9-11) hijackers both financially and logistically. The intelligence files cited in the report directly implicate the Saudi embassy in Washington and consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war.”

The investigative report, commissioned by Congress, contained a 7200 word redacted portion that was allegedly ordered to be removed by then President George W. Bush, and while specific information about the redacted portion of the document has not–and cannot, presently–be discussed, the evidence based on certain information that has been leaked already seems to point to a Saudi connection with the terror plot that brought down the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001:

President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood.

Bob Graham, a former U.S. Senator from Florida, has championed the cause for reinvestigating the possible Saudi ties to the 9/11 plot, having authored a book on the subject, along with several articles, and having conducted numerous interviews on the subject.

He notes that, despite the fact that the 9/11 Commission failed to include substantial information about the Saudi connection in its report, Dr. Philip Zelikow, who had served as executive director during the investigation, has changed his mind in recent years, based on forthcoming evidence:

Despite the carefully orchestrated campaign to protect our Saudi “friends,” ample evidence of Saudi Arabia’s intimate ties to al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks has come to light. The executive director of the 9/11 Commission, Dr. Philip Zelikow, stated in 2007 that while at that time he did not feel the evidence established “Saudi government agents,” were involved “there is persuasive evidence of a possible support network…”

The “evidence” includes a number of dumbfounding connections between Saudi officials operating in the United States prior to the attack, as well as strange departures carried out shortly afterward. Among these, perhaps most damning were the meetings between two of the hijackers, shortly after their arrival at LAX, with Omar al-Bayoumi, a man presumed to be a Saudi intelligence agent operating in the United States at the time.

The three supposedly met in a restaurant, by chance, on the day the hijackers arrived; however, experts have pointed out that al-Bayoumi had allegedly driven more than 40 miles to reach the restaurant where the chance-meeting transpired. Of equal suspicion had been the suspected meeting on the night before the attacks between three hijackers and Saleh Hussayen, who had left one hotel already, and moved (rather conveniently) to a second hotel where the trio had been staying. When questioned about this later by the FBI, Hussayen allegedly faked having a seizure during the interrogation, after which he was taken to a hospital, found to be perfectly healthy, and was subsequently released by the FBI. Again, no mention of this convoluted incident made its way into the 9/11 Commission’s report.

Despite the strange circumstances that have already managed to arouse suspicions about a Saudi connection to the attacks, the lingering possibility of confirmation which the redacted 7200 words might offer is tantalizing, to say the least. The question, however, is would that information, kept hidden away since the early years of the Bush administration, really be worth the risk of releasing now… even under the pressure from government officials pressing for truth? Perhaps most importantly, if that information were to be released and confirmed, would questioning so-called “alternative” narratives as to what occurred in 2001, even in the light of new evidence, still be relegated to the realm of being mere “conspiracy theories”?

[MIKA27]

TRANSPORTER SYNC

Remember the social storage drive "Transporter” by Connected Data?

Now the same company have presented the "Transporter Sync” a clever little device that turns your external hard drive into a personal, secure cloud! Simply sync the tiny little device with your network, and it stays in sync with all of your devices on and off your network, plug in any USB external drive and and get as much storage as you need! Huraah! you have you´re own personal cloud, with no monthly fees or subscriptions!

[OZCUBAN]

Thanks for this thread and the time you put into mate ,its a lot of work but appreciated and fun to read

cheers Mate

[MIKA27]

Thanks for this thread and the time you put into mate ,its a lot of work but appreciated and fun to read

cheers Mate

Thanks Steve - My pleasure mate.

[BehikeLover2]

Thanks for this thread and the time you put into mate ,its a lot of work but appreciated and fun to read

cheers Mate

Exactly the same words.

[MIKA27]

Thank you all for reading and contributing to the success of this thread. I truly appreciate it and it wouldn't be as successful if it weren't for you the reader and to be honest like anything, if it were not popular, I'd have stopped long ago.

I truly hope you and your families enjoy the Holiday festive season weather you follow Christmas or not, I will still be posting here where possible, it may not be as often for the next couple weeks, but I'll do my best to keep adding every couple days.

Be well, safe, enjoy some good drink and cigars!! If you can, post a few pics of your holidays!!

Regards

Mika

[MIKA27]

AK47 assault rifle designer Kalashnikov dies at 94

The inventor of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, has died aged 94, Russian officials say.

The automatic rifle he designed became one of the world's most familiar and widely used weapons.

Its comparative simplicity made it cheap to manufacture, as well as reliable and easy to maintain.

Although honoured by the state, Kalashnikov made little money from his gun. He once said he would have been better off designing a lawn mower.

Kalashnikov was admitted to hospital with internal bleeding in November.

He died on Monday in Izhevsk, the city where he lived 600 miles east of Moscow, an official there said.

Mikhail Kalashnikov receiving the Hero of Russia award in 2009

Matching the Germans

Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov was born on 10 November 1919 in western Siberia, one of 18 children.

In 1938, he was called up by the Red Army and his design skills were used to improve the effectiveness of weapons and equipment used by Soviet tank regiments.

He designed the machine gun after being asked by a fellow soldier why the Russians could not come up with a gun that would match the ones used by the Germans.

Work on the AK47 was completed in 1947, and two years later the gun was adopted by the Soviet army.

Kalashnikov continued working into his late 80s as chief designer at the Izhevsk firm that first built the AK-47.

He received many state honours, including the Order of Lenin and the Hero of Socialist Labour.

Kalashnikov refused to accept responsibility for the many people killed by his weapon, blaming the policies of other countries that acquired it.

However, pride in his invention was tempered with sadness at its use by criminals and child soldiers.

"It is painful for me to see when criminal elements of all kinds fire from my weapon," Kalashnikov said in 2008.

Mikhail Kalashnikov's 1947 design became the standard equipment of the Soviet and Warsaw pact armies. Versions were manufactured in several other countries, including China.

The Kalashnikov - which is still widely used today - will go down in history. If the name of Samuel Colt and his revolver is associated with the 19th Century, then the gun of the 20th Century is undoubtedly the Kalashnikov.

MIKA: R.I.P - There may be some who wouldn't agree but like most inventors who design "items" or weapons, one doesn't put that weapon in another's hands to do evil with it. Mikhail was sensitive to any criticism that his gun had caused countless casualties around the world. He said he had simply designed the rifle to defend the Soviet Union. The uses to which it had been put elsewhere were nothing to do with him.

[MIKA27]

Chile Caravan of Death: Eight guilty of murder

A judge in Chile has found eight former members of the military guilty of murdering political opponents during the rule of Gen Augusto Pinochet.

The accused were part of the Caravan of Death, a military operation thought to have killed almost 100 opponents of the 1973 military coup.

They were sentenced to between three and 15 years in jail for killing 14 people in the northern city of Antofagasta shortly after the coup.

The ruling can be appealed against.

Firing squad

The Caravan of Death was a "delegation" of military men sent to Chile's provincial towns by Gen Pinochet, the leader of the 1973 coup.

Gen Pinochet said there would be no mercy for "extremists", and was reportedly annoyed by news that some commanders in provincial towns had been "soft" on political opponents.

Gen Pinochet had said there would be no mercy for "extremists"

He despatched an army unit under the command of Gen Sergio Arellano Stark to impose "uniform criteria in the administration of justice to prisoners".

The unit, which came to be known as the Caravan of Death, travelled from town to town in a Puma helicopter, armed with grenades, machine guns and knives, killing opponents of the coup.

It arrived in the northern city of Antofagasta, where on 19 October 1973 it ordered that 14 political prisoners held there be taken to a ravine.

There, the men were executed by firing squad. The prisoners had been tried and convicted by military tribunals but not yet sentenced.

'Once and for all'

The Caravan of Death landed in 16 towns in the north and south of Chile and killed 97 people between 30 September and 22 October 1973, according to figures compiled by the NGO Memory and Justice.

Marcos Herrera Aracena, who worked as a military prosecutor in Antofagasta when the army unit arrived, told a court in 1999 what Gen Arellano had said about his mission.

"General Arellano informed me that what Pinochet wanted was to bring an end to the remaining legal processes... In other words, finish with them once and for all."

Gen Arellano was sentenced in 2008 to six years in prison for his role in the Caravan of Death, but he was spared jail when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

According to official figures, 40,018 people were victims of human rights abuses under the dictatorship and 3,065 were killed or disappeared.

[MIKA27]

This Is How The Most Famous Photo Of All Time Was Taken

Today is the 45th anniversary of Earthrise. We take it for granted now but, along with Blue Marble, it’s the most important and famous photo ever taken. In a world saturated with fakery and cynicism, it’s easy to ignore the magnitude of its impact. But in 1968, this photo changed everything.

To commemorate its anniversary, NASA Goddard has produced this video explaining exactly how this seminal image was taken:

Nowadays people don’t stop to think twice about what they’re seeing — that precious blue jewel engulfed in the pitch black nothingness of space. However, this was a vision that deeply affected the view of ourselves as species and our place in the world and the universe. Earthrise truly made everyone realise that we’re all living in a fragile tiny ball that we needed to protect in order to survive. Humans are — for now — alone in the void.

Some of the immediate and most obvious effects of these images were the promotion and passing of the Clean Water Act the Clean Air Act in the US, and the first Earth Summit, the UN Conference on the Human Environment. At the private level, people started to organise worldwide non-for-profit organisations, like Greenpeace or Doctors Without Borders.

It’s not a coincidence that Earthrise is the “cover photo of TIME’s Great Images of the 20th Century, and is the central photo on the cover of LIFE’s 100 Photographs That Changed the World.” In the words of Ernie Wright, project lead with the Scientific Visualisation Studio at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center:

Earthrise had a profound impact on our attitudes toward our home planet, quickly becoming an icon of the environmental movement.

In his book Earthrise: How Man First Saw the Earth, Robert Poole also talks extensively about it:

A newer strand of thought rose with the Earth: reverence for the environment. ‘No man ever before has looked at the world in one piece and told us about it,’ said the Sunday Denver Post. ‘Perhaps with the new understanding will come reverence for our planetary home and for the uniqueness of life.’ ‘We should cherish our home planet,’ advised the Christian Science Monitor. ‘Men must conserve the Earth’s resources. They must protect their planetary environment from spreading pollution. They have no other sanctuary in the solar system. This, perhaps, is the most pertinent message for all of us that the astronauts bring back from the Moon.’

Or in the words of Apollo 8 Commander Frank Borman and crew members William A. Anders and James A. Lovell:

Borman:

Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! Here’s the Earth coming up. Wow, that is pretty!

Anders:

Hey, don’t take that, it’s not scheduled.

Borman: (Laughter).

You got a colour film, Jim?

Anders:

Hand me that roll of colour quick, will you –

Lovell:

Oh man, that’s great!

Anders:

Hurry. Quick… Lovell: Take several of them! Here, give it to me…

Borman:

Calm down, Lovell.

[MIKA27]

BREATH ALCOHOL MONITOR | BY LAPKA - Perfect For Holidays!

Lapka BAM is a beautifully designed accessory for your phone that measures the amount of alcohol in your blood from a breath sample.

The elegant Breathalyzer fits in your palm and doesn´t require a mouthpiece(the edge of your hand becomes the mouthpiece), simply hold it in your fist, take a deep breath and blow for 4 seconds. The result will be wirelessly transmitted to your phone´s app that will start the measuring process and give you an accurate reading.

Available now for Android devices, iOS coming soon.