From the list of 'things we should have all seen coming'...

It turns out there's no profit to be made from pouring sand into the ocean.

Now that the boom has gone bust, both in Dubai and in the United States, Dubai is stuck with a glut of real estate that no one wants to buy or rent. Creditors and markets had always assumed that when push came to shove, its oil-rich neighbor Abu Dhabi would bail out Dubai. But that assumption was called into question this week, and the resulting fear that Dubai might not be able to pay its bills sent a wave of uncertainty rippling through markets just as investors thought the worst of the global financial instability was over.

Read the full article here if you want deeper anxiety about the global economic crisis:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/business/global/28dubai.html?hp

Aliens!

Okay okay, alien bacteria. But still...aliens! Scientists have discovered a new life form whose make-up does not match that of any other life form on earth (see details below). The tiny organisms come equipped with microscopic spaceships, death rays and anal probes. Look out corn field owners, you guys are usually the first to go. Come to think of it, since these guys are so small, their tiny little aircraft could have been hovering above every major city for the last decade firing tiny little beams down and we wouldn't have even known. They're probably pissed because we looked a lot smaller from far away. Seriously, it's a cool news story and the details from someone who has actually done some research are below.

From gizmodo:

NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth. This changes everything.

At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same.

But not this one. This one is completely different. Discovered in the poisonous Mono Lake, California, this bacteria is made of arsenic, something that was thought to be completely impossible. While she and other scientists theorized that this could be possible, this is the first discovery. The implications of this discovery are enormous to our understanding of life itself and the possibility of finding beings in other planets that don't have to be like planet Earth.

How do you know we're relying too much on data?

Because due to a discrepancy in the way a border was rendered between Nicaragua and Costa Rica on Google maps, a Nicaraguan military commander invaded the disputed territory and ordered a Costa Rican flag be replaced with a Nicaraguan flag. The differences between Google's rendering and Bing's rendering is below.



For more on this story, click here.

*From Fast Company:

You may well blame the Nicaraguan military for using Google Maps -- which, for all its usefulness in everyday life, is a relatively imprecise tool for official exercises near borders. But it's been little more than three years since the British Navy had the same problem, straying into Iranian waters by accident

Wikileaks founder accused of rape, has accusation withdrawn and now faces other charges

Think of all of those sweet sweet thrillers where an aide to the President, a maverick FBI agent or some other everyman is framed for some spectacular form of treason only to foil the Feds, run along the top of a train at some point and befriend an Eastern European - the only person he can trust...remember that (those) movie(s)?

I'm not saying the same thing is happening to Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, but it probably is. Last weekend a warrant was issued against him in Sweden on charges of rape, less than 24 hours later it was revoked, now he's being sought on charges of "molestation" which in Sweden is a broadly encompassing charge including sexual harassment.

I bring this up because I'm not adverse to a good conspiracy theory and recently Mr. Assange pissed off the entire American government - a bold move.

Anyway, make your own conclusions on the story but no matter what, this story would make a great Hollywood script.

News story of the day: Pissed off flight attendant curses off plane, grabs Some beers, deploys the emergency shoot and takes off onto the tarmac

From NBCNewYork.com:

A flight attendant ran out of patience on a plane that just landed at JFK on Monday afternoon, so he allegedly cursed a blue streak over the p.a. system, grabbed some beers, pulled the emergency chute, slid down and ran from the plane, sources said.

Jet Blue employee Steven Slater, 38, was working on Flight 1052 from Pittsburgh to Kennedy Airport, which landed at around 12 p.m., when he got into a verbal altercation with a passenger, law-enforcement sources said.

Following a heated exchange, the flight attendant told off the entire plane on the public address system, activated an emergency chute near the back of the plane and jumped down the evacuation slide and ran for it.

The argument began when one of the 100 passengers on the flight, got up early to get her luggage from an overhead compartment, according to sources. Slater told the passenger to sit back down -- but, as he approached, the woman continued to pull her belongings down and struck him in the head with her bag, authorities said.

Slater asked for an apology but the woman cursed him out, saying in effect "go f--k yourself" and calling him a "mo-fo," according to law enforcement sources who are still sorting out the specifics. Then Slater got on the flight's announcement system and allegedly cursed out everyone on the plane -- especially the person who mouthed off to him, according to law enforcement sources.

When his tirade was through, he then took a some beers from the galley and pulled the emergency chute and slid off the Embraer 190 plane.

Nice job man.

Maine Lobster Wars

Chics with shotguns, old dudes with names like Vance Bunker shooting guys in the neck, lies, deception, suspicions and livelihoods? Thats all part of the "lobster wars" taking place off of Matinicus Island, Maine. I've heard stories of lobstermen carrying shotguns in their boats and threatening idiots who mess with traps, but this seems to be a particularly heated case. Check the whole story here. Does anyone else think this could make a sweet movie?

Smith & Wollensky Kicks Off Steak-for-Stock Deal

Likely you know someone who works in finance and likely you've heard them bitching recently about any number of things including Obama, bonuses, blah blah blah.

Anyway, I know Smith & Wollensky (the famous steak house for you hippies, hill-folk, and yogis) has had its ear to the ground because it just kicked off a "Steak-for-stock" deal at its restaurants. This is no joke. Bankers can now take their bonus payouts, which this year were largely paid in stock, and trade them in for lunch or dinner at S&W.

The basic idea here is that S&W, not frequented by the common man, would lose a ton of business if these bankers don't have a lot of disposable cash lying around. So now they accept stock, fat-cats can maintain their girth and servers can keep their jobs. I'm all for the latter at least. S&W kicked this off with a full-page ad in the New York Times.

Side note: Alan Stillman whose company owns Smith & Wollensky started his restaurant empire in the 70s by opening his first TGIFriday's with a $5000 loan from his mom. What?!

Ticketmaster and Live Nation Get Approval To Merge

Ok...this isn't exactly new news, but the actual approval for this merger came through today. Expect astronomical fee-related porkings.

Read about it here:

After months of scrutiny, the United States Department of Justice announced on Monday that it had approved a merger of Ticketmaster Entertainment and Live Nation, creating a giant new company that could reshape almost every aspect of the live entertainment business.

The new company, to be called Live Nation Entertainment, would dominate touring, management and ticketing...

Very cool

What do you do with 58 tons of keys, knives, and guns? Did anybody say... architecture? London's police force collected 3,564 tons of recyclable waste last year, and it's announced that some of the steel and iron from those seized weapons is being melted down for use at the 2012 Olympic site in Stratford. From today's Fast Company...read in full here.

Thank god this is happening in Europe and not here...

Budweiser Shortage Latest Hiccup for InBev's Anheuser-Busch

There was a bit of a bar fight in western Europe this week after Saint Louis-based brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev announced they were cutting 800 jobs-- about 10 percent of their workforce there. Laid-off workers in Belgium have barricaded the doors to their breweries and won't let other employees come to work. The result will likely be--no god no!--a country wide beer shortage if the dispute isn't settled soon.

Read the full piece here.

Survivor of both atomic bombs dies at 93

In today's New York Times they reported on the ultimate survival story:

The only official survivor of both the atomic blasts to hit Japan in World War II has died.

Mr. Yamaguchi, as a 29-year-old engineer for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was on a business trip in Hiroshima when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. He was getting off a streetcar when the “Little Boy” device detonated above Hiroshima.

Mr. Yamaguchi said he was less than 2 miles away from ground zero. His eardrums were ruptured and his upper torso was burned by the blast, which destroyed most of the city’s buildings and killed 80,000 people.

Mr. Yamaguchi spent the night in a Hiroshima bomb shelter and returned to his hometown of Nagasaki the following day, according to interviews he gave over the years. The second bomb, known as “Fat Man,” was dropped on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, killing 70,000 people there.

Mr. Yamaguchi was in his Nagasaki office, telling his boss about the Hiroshima blast, when “suddenly the same white light filled the room,” he said in an interview last March with The Independent newspaper.

So long cul-de-sac? Sure, whatever

In an article in today's Fast Company, the author talks about how many progressive cities are disallowing the development of cul-de-sacs. While this might seem like a really really boring topic to present here at first blush, it's actually showing what is a really cool trend developing across the U.S. We are starting to actually plan suburbs so that they're walkable, easily accessible by public transit and generally, much more accommodating to alternative forms of transportation other than soccer moms driving SUVs.

I like this concept. I did not grow up in a cul-de-sac, but did grow up in a place where walking and biking around were really common. On top of the positive effects it has on your health (ahem...fattest nation) it also creates a larger neighborhood that isn't cordoned off by a circular turnaround at the end of the road.

So...while I could really care less if they allow or disallow cul-de-sacs, I think it's great that we're going to actually plan our suburbs for the 21st century with an eye to the environment and our health.

Russia plans to deflect a huge asteroid that could potentially hit earth

This story is straight out of the movies...click here for the full story.

Russia’s top space researchers will hold a closed-door meeting to plan a mission to deflect 99942 Apophis, an asteroid that will fly close to Earth two decades from now, said Anatoly N. Perminov, the head of Russia’s space agency, during an interview on Russian radio on Wednesday.

Mr. Perminov said Apophis, named for the Egyptian god of destruction, is about three times the size of the Tunguska meteorite, apparently the cause of a 1908 explosion in Siberia that knocked over an estimated 80 million trees. He said that according to his experts’ calculation, there was still time to design a spacecraft that could alter Apophis’s path before it made a dangerous swing toward Earth.

“I don’t remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032,” he said, adding, “We’re talking about people’s lives here. It’s better to spend several million dollars and create this system, which would not allow a collision to happen, than wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people.”

Biomass Power Plant in the UK...great technology, great design

The facility is expected to pump out 49 MWe--enough to power 50,000 homes. Those homes are expected to see their per capita carbon footprint cut by as much as 80%, since the electricity will be generated simply by biomass generators that will burn palm kernel shells, rather than coal.



Not only are the numbers listed above enough to make this plant a great investment, it also looks damn cool. For more info on the design click here.

Burj Dubai: Worlds Tallest Building and Missed Opportunity

The Burj Dubai, when it's actually completed, will be the world's tallest building. Because of its height, there is a more than 8 degree difference at the bottom of the building vs. the top of the building. Scientists have raised two possible ways the building could have been used for good.


1. Because of the "chimney" effect, with an open portal at the bottom and top and an open shaft running the height of the building, hot air could rise naturally not only cooling the building but releasing enough heat to actually alter the weather in the area. Whoa.

2. Again with open portals at the top and bottom and strategically placed wind turbines, the building could have been a large energy generator.

Instead, it's just another half-finished skyscraper in Dubai.

Second City celebrates its 50th Anniversary

Check out this interactive graphic from today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/12/15/arts/20091216_SECONDCITY_TIMELINE.html

Global Energy Consumption...this might make you vomit

As Client 9 is currently in his bunker writing a dissertation that's likely too depraved to print - even on The Coughing Dog - or playing Mario Kart on his iPhone (not sure which but I know he's busy), he passed this gem on to me to post in his absence. Below is a screenshot of a phenomenal interactive graphic from CNN today. Follow this link, watch the circles expand and pray for our future. Or, if you're anything like me, just become increasingly angry with the policy makers. Pretty amazing to compare Africa's statistics to those of North America or Asia.

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/environment/energy/

Booooooo!!! Just pedal your damn bike

The Senseable City Laboratory at M.I.T. has designed a wheel that captures the kinetic energy released when a rider brakes and saves it for when the rider needs a boost.

Carlo Ratti, the laboratory’s director, “biking can become even more effective than what it was.” What the lab is working on, he said, is “Biking 2.0.”

"Biking 2.0"??!! Are these nerds serious?

'Stoned wallabies make crop circles'

Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.

Read the full story here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8118257.stm









Special thanks to Big Wave Dave for passing this along.

Failed Russian Missile Test is Said to Explain Bizarre Light Show in Norway

From the land that forever changed my perspective on international travel, comes this bizarre light show that left millions of people confused. The prevailing theory is that this is the result of a failed Russian missile launch.