The Bush administration is seeking to develop a powerful ground-based laser weapon that would use beams of concentrated light to destroy enemy satellites in orbit.
The largely secret project, parts of which have been made public through Air Force budget documents submitted to Congress in February, is part of a wide-ranging effort to develop space weapons, both defensive and offensive. No treaty or law forbids such work.
The laser research was described by federal officials who would speak only on the condition of anonymity because of the topic’s political sensitivity. The White House has recently sought to play down the issue of space arms, fearing it could become an election-year liability.
This lightbulb is 105 years old and has been burning continuously since 1901! From the website:
# Installed: First installed at the fire department hose cart house in 1901. Then moved to fire station at First and McLeod, then to its present site in 1976 at the fire station, 4550 East Ave., Livermore, California
# Vital Statistics: Made by the Shelby Electric Company, a handblown bulb with carbon filament. Approximate wattage-4 watts. Left burning continuously in firehouse as a nightlight over the fire trucks.
Forbes has compiled another list, this one of best places to go to prison:
The days of "Club Fed"–think golf courses and lobster bakes–are long gone. But minimum security facilities, known as federal prison camps, are the best suited for disgraced CEOs and other white-collar criminals. In theory, inmates in these camps show no risk of violence or escape. Both shoe-mogul Steven Madden and Martha Stewart are FPC alums.
Why are prison camps the way to go, if you must go at all? Among other perks, federal prison camps have a relatively low staff-to-inmate ratio, dormitory-style accommodations and little to no fencing. In fact, inmates could walk away from these camps. Few do, however, because recaptured inmates face severe consequences.
The one on the left is FCI Ashland in Kentucky:
Population: FCI 1,295; Camp: 331
Prisoner Perk: Inmates can partake in Ashland’s "wellness" program, which focuses on nutrition, aerobic exercise and stress reduction.
Among the many neat things at his website, James has a very cool collection of vintage matchbooks. This one is captioned:
Most of the matches in the 170-220 series come from a brittle collection of WW2-era matches. Nothing was immune from helpful wartime advice – not a matchbook, not a matchbook for chewing gum.
Kudos to Topps for working the word “Chum” into the campaign, since it connotes both friendliness – hey, chum! – and the defining phonemes of “chew” and “gum.” The drawing has the unmistakable style of O. Soglow, creator of the famous “Little King” strip.
War’s over, Soglow’s dead, but Topps maintains. As does the presence of Gis in places with conspicuous minarets, as it turns out.
Posted by Alex in Travel on May 4, 2006 at 2:12 am
This one is from Toronto Don Valley Brickworks, titled "Spider Ducts": a surreal photo of tunnel of ducts in an abandoned industrial plant.
See more photos of "abandoned buildings, industrial sites, derelict structures and other places we’ve forgotten or ignored over time": Link (Thanks Yayo!)
This one above is by Thomas Hart Shelby, titled "Just Married". See more winning photos of PDN Top Knot 2006 Wedding Photography Contest: Link (via grow-a-brain)
The night before the burial of her husband’s body, Katherine Cathey refused to leave the casket, asking to sleep next to his body for the last time. The Marines made a bed for her, tucking in the sheets below the flag. Before she fell asleep, she opened her laptop computer and played songs that reminded her of "Cat," and one of the Marines asked if she wanted them to continue standing watch as she slept. "I think it would be kind of nice if you kept doing it," she said. "I think that’s what he would have wanted."
The Final Salute by photographer Todd Heisler and reporter Jim Sheeler of the Rocky Mountain News won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. It is photojournalism at its best.
King Tutankhamen’s penis – long thought to be missing, turned out to be there all along…
From the website:
Photographed intact by Harry Burton (1879-1940) during Howard Carter’s excavation of Tut’s tomb in 1922, the royal penis was reported missing in 1968, when British scientist Ronald Harrison took a series of X-rays of the mummy.
Speculation abounded that the penis had been stolen and sold.
"Instead, it has always been there. I found it during the CT scan last year, when the mummy was lifted. It lay loose in the sand around the king’s body. It was mummified," Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Discovery News.
In early April 2006, University of Tokyo’s Institute for Cosmic Ray Research announced the near completion of the Super-Kamiokande, an underground neutrino detection facility:
Last week, the University of Tokyo’s Institute for Cosmic Ray Research (ICRR) announced the near completion of full-scale reconstruction work on its giant Super-Kamiokande underground neutrino detection facility, which was severely damaged in a 2001 accident. Super-Kamiokande, the world’s largest facility of its kind, detects neutrinos as they pass through the 50,000 tons of water held in its cylindrical water tank, which measures 39 meters (128 feet) in diameter and 42 meters (138 feet) in depth and is located 1 km underground. Solar neutrino measurements will resume when the tank is refilled with water at the end of June.
About 7,000 of the facility’s 11,000 neutrino-detecting photomultiplier tubes, which are shaped like 50-centimeter diameter light bulbs, were destroyed in 2001 when a chain reaction of implosions occurred after one of the tubes failed.
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