Goodness, that's quite an abortion, isn't it? Were they trying to outdo the I.M. Pei work at the Louvre? Some sort of a battle of museum wreckovation concepts?

It's one thing to design a new ugly deconstructed structure, but something entirely different to hack up an existing building with a slap-on that makes no attempt to be sympathetic to the original structure. Additions throughout a building's life are ometimes necessary and it's not necessarily desirable that they be 100% seemless (ever see brickwork match perfectly? It's impossible... better not to try) with the original, but they should *respect* the existing design. Architecture is art and it's a shame to have some new architect piss all over a predecessor's work so that he can get more attention.

Bloody awful.

...and see if he suspends writs of habeas corpus?

Poor kitty, but great picture. A good reason to keep the cat inside from here on out, I guess!

You guys with the Faraday cage idea are talking out your asses. Yes, you can put a tin foil hat around the vehicle's ECM (engine control module) itself, but there are dozens (often well over 100 nowadays) wires going into and out of that ECM from all over the car. Add to it the other 3, 5, or 10 control modules on the vehicle all linked through a CAN bus and it will be pretty difficult to make your vehicle immune. The pulse only needs to be strong enough to burp the controller a little -- the engine won't run on its own like cars of old or your weedwacker. Haven't you ever had your PC reset on a slight power droop or surge?

He looks very tall.

Let's see a ginger map. Track 'em down.

Blah, blah, blah... More United Nations one world order pablum & drivel. Abolish the U.N. or at least send it to Brussels or Geneva and free up a lot of parking spaces in NYC.

I think the pulse duration is VERY short -- like maybe milliseconds, so the risk to people is pretty low.

It's a good idea that's been ripe for development for a long time. Yeah, there is the potential for some mayhem if (when) the devices fall into the wrong hands. Not developing it will just mean somebody else does, though... Think of the pfun hackerz will have when somebody cooks up a homebrew version!

1986? You would be pretty hard pressed to find any pump gasoline sold with lead at that time. Catalytic converters have been used on virtually all US-sold cars since 1975 (early Honda CVCC engined cars being an exception). All of these cars had to use unleaded gasoline.

And what Holiday might they be celebrating? Judging from the looks of the decorations, it ain't Kwanzaa...

Well, it's a whole lot easier than running or doing it on a bicycle!

@Johan-
1. Of course the attack was designed as a surprise. The Japanese are very sensitive about this though, because (they claim) that they actually intended to give warning first, albeit with VERY little time to react. To them an attack without ANY warning would be dishonorable, and they (internally) suffered some shame because as it turns out, they played it so tight that there was no warning. To Westerners, the difference between no warning and a half hour warning to the other side of the globe was very little. It's merely amusing that the Japanese considered the tiny bit of warning they intended would absolved them from shame of a dishonorable attack.

2. The attack itself is history -- I'm not judging modern Japanese for what their grandfathers did. But let's not revise it either. The thing that bothers me is that after many decades, MODERN revisionists have suddenly stopped labeling the event as a "sneak attack" because they fear the English terminology carries the implication that the Japanese were "sneaky". Even though for many decades the event was always called (as a complete phrase) "the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor", it has been adjusted in modern reports and writings to be a "surprise attack". The difference in wording is subtle, especially to a non-native speaker of English, but the intent is pretty profound. We are more afraid of offending modern Japanese than honoring the memory our own war dead. Any time people start rewriting history from what was recorded by primary source, I get nervous. It was universally called a "sneak attack" then. Why change it now?

Here's how you get them:

http://www.pobjoy.com/ukworld/section.php?xSec=660

The Isle of Man is a Crown dependency, thus uses teh British Pound Sterling as currency, but they isssue their own coinage & notes. This coin is denominated as "CROWN" which today indicates a £5 denomination (this wasn't the case pre-1990, but I digress).

They'll cost you £12.72 (maybe plus VAT & shipping I didn't get that far) for a 1 CROWN coin. As I said in the prior posting, it's legal currency, but you are paying over face value on account of the numismatic value. If they sell a zillion, it will probably never be worth too much. If it proves unpopular or gets withdrawn for some reason, it will go way up in value... That's the way coin (and stamp and beanie baby and everything else) collecting works...

They'll be legal tender, but the whole point really is numismatic sales, not general circulation. It's the same way with US proof sets sold through the US Mint -- yeah you could spend them, but the face value is a lot lower than the price they sell for, so why would you (unless you are a moron).

The Isle of Man is home to one of the sweetest motorsports events ever, the Isle of Man TT motorcycle race, which has been held there for about 100 years. IF you ever have the chance to catch it on TV, please do -- most exciting race all over the island on closed public roads.

Has anyone else noticed that about 10 years or so ago, news reports and documentaries stopped calling it a "sneak attack" (which it had been termed since 1941) and now refer to the event as a "surprise attack". The difference is subtle yet disconcerting. It's not like Yamamoto's pilots jumped out of a cake somewhere waving banners and throwing confetti. It WAS sneaky and it irks me to see revisionists paint it as anything but that.

Yes, the Japanese did tried to time it so that their famed 14 page diplomatic letter (essential a polite declaration of coming hostility) arrived *just before* the attack took place, but because of time lags in transcribing and decoding in their embassy, it didn't make it until well after the attack. They always use the unintended delay as an excuse that they didn't intend to be sneaky, as in "well, we intended to save face for ourselves by giving Washington a couple of worthless minutes of vague warning that we might be up to something soon on the other side of the world, but it didn't work out that way... so sorry". The crocodile tears they shed later about the unintended lack of warning of hostilities and how bad they felt over it always bothered me. It was a sneak attack then, and still is. Don't weaselword it.