St. Louis County St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar [above] told reporters that the shooting incident at the Michael Brown “protest” in Ferguson, MO involved plainclothes police officers “tracking looters.” They were following a suspect who had, apparently, exchanged … Read More
A new HBO series from Jonathan Nolan (writer of The Dark Knight and Interstellar) based on Michael Crichton’s classic sci-fi film about a wild-west theme park inhabited by lifelike humanoids. With an all-star cast led by Anthony Hopkins.
via The Awesomer Westworld (Teaser)
On July 18th, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Stratton intercepted a narco sub about 200 miles south of Mexico. On board the homemade semi-submersible were 16,000 pounds of cocaine worth almost a quarter of a billion dollars. Yes, billion, with a B. The Coast Guard pulled 12,000 pounds out of the turquoise-colored sub before it sank to the seafloor
Over the last decade and a half, submarines have been increasingly popular for drug running. They range widely in capability and complexity, from semi-submersible vehicles with very low radar signatures, to fully submersible ones. They are largely built under the jungle canopy, away from the prying eyes of aerial and satellite surveillance, and are then launched on the coastline after being stuffed with drugs and sent north.
The sub caught on the 18th was classed as a “Blue Semi-Submersible” which has been a cartel favorite for years. It runs right below the waterline, with just its exhaust, air stack and tiny wheel house sticking out up from the waterline.
According to the NyTimes.com, these subs can cost well over $1M to build and are equipped with a valve in their hull that can be actuated so that the ship can be quickly flooded. This way, if the mission is compromised, the sub and its contents can be sunk while the crew bobs in the water waiting to be plucked out by the Coast Guard.
Way, way back in 79 AD, a baker put a loaf of bread into his oven and then Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried the city. The oven was found and opened in 1930 during excavations and the recipe has been recreated by chef Giorgio Locatelli. He uses buckwheat flour, which was more readily available then, and re-creates the quirks of the bread.
Welcome to Daily Deals, the post where the staff of MacNN searches online retailers for offers, bundles, sales, and discounts on hardware, software, games, and gadgets for you, the discerning reader. Yesterday’s still-active deals are joined by a new batch, including an Apple TV for $50, Sony Bluetooth headphones for $100, and a Canon EOS Rebel T5 DSLR for $280….
While I would never zero a rifle without shooting a group, those with a supremely accurate system or low ammo budget would be keen to watch the NSSF video on zeroing your rifle in two shots. The key is to hold the rifle at the point of aim and to then move the cross hairs […]
If you feel like you’re headed in the wrong direction with your current career path, this tracing exercise can help show you what moves you might want to consider making.
LinkedIn is great for networking and looking for new opportunities, but it can also show you how other successful people got to where they are now. Clark Valberg, the cofounder and CEO of InVision, suggests you use LinkedIn to perform a simple exercise that can help you find direction and get motivated. Here’s how it breaks down:
Pick five people on LinkedIn that are doing what you want to do.
Go to their LinkedIn pages and trace their career path backwards to help you see what kind of work you should consider doing now.
Apply to “lookalike” jobs that match your experience level.
If you like, you can also email the five people you chose and let them know how they helped you. You might strike a chord and get a mentor out of the situation. If you’re feeling lost or stuck, see what successful people did to get where they are. You may not get a new job out of it right away, but you’ll have a better understanding of where you should set your compass. Check out the link below to learn more.
Ocean conditions in the Pacific Ocean are increasingly suggestive of a potent El Niño event later this year. While that might seem like good news to the water-starved regions of the United States, the resulting torrential rains could be exceptionally hazardous.
“We have not seen a signal like this in the tropical Pacific since 1997,” noted NASA JPL climate scientist Bill Patzert at NASA’s Earth Observatory. “It’s no sure bet that we will have a strong El Niño, but the signal is getting stronger. What happens in August through October should make or break this event.”
New NASA images taken by the OSTM/Jason-2 satellite show averaged sea surface height anomalies since March 2015. Red indicates regions where oceans have risen above sea level—a sign of warming ocean water. Sea-surface heights have shifted about 50 cm across the Pacific, a strong indication of El Niño’s strength. To add insult to injury, 2015 is poised to be the hottest year on record.
Above is a comparison of sea surface height in the Pacific as measured at the end of July in 1997 and 2015. NASA explains:
The left-side measurements come from the TOPEX/Poseidon mission, while the right side is from Jason 2. Comparing the two years, 1997 seems slightly less intense. But trade winds collapsed and the eastern Pacific warmed dramatically from August through November 1997, setting the stage for a turbulent winter that brought flooding rains and landslides across the West Coast of North and South America.
Indeed, and as noted by Patzert, some people in the American west are touting El Niño as “the great wet hope,” but he warns that the ensuing rains could produce the same “mayhem” experienced in 1997. This archived article from National Geographic should give you a good idea of what we might expect—everything from torrential rains and flooding through to the spread of diseases and social unrest.
Traditionally, El Niño reaches it peak between December and April, so there’s still time for conditions to change. Factors that could influence its growth include the “warm blob” in the Pacific and shifts in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
Contact the author at george@io9.com and @dvorsky. Top image: Storms eroding the California coast during the 1997-98 El Niño. Credit: The Earth Institute at Columbia University. All other images by NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, using Jason-2 data provided by Akiko Kayashi and Bill Patzert, NASA/JPL Ocean Surface Topography Team
We’re the first to admit that we are not easy on cables. It’s not unheard of them to end up in the bottom of our laptop bag, bunched up and crushed together. We also might have a slight problem with being able to put our iPhones and iPads down long enough for them to charge fully, which often leads to the ends becoming crimped, which eventually leads to wire breakage, which eventually leads to the death of a poor, defenseless cable. Sound familiar? That’s why Griffin decided to make their Premium Braided Lightning Cable, to give us serial cable-breakers something that can live up to the abuse….