Experts in the United States and Europe have examined a painting believed to have been created byLeonardo DaVinci and declared it original.
Painted on a wood panel, the work had been cleaned and refreshed over the years by amateurs using techniques that may have harmed the work of art. As a result, it was heavily overpainted and gloomy.
The current owners of the painting, a consortium that took a chance on its authenticity, recently turned down a $100 Million offer, hoping to auction it later for $200 Million or more.
(Via ARTnews.)
Government sues Apollo 14 astronaut over lunar camera
It appears that NASA is now taking legal action against one of its own. Edgar Mitchell, member of Apollo 14 in 1971, has a lunar camera from that mission that he has had for 40 years. He recently put it up for auction, but NASA claims that it isn’t his camera to sell.
(Via Reuters.)
The Consumerist Blog is reporting that the new fee announced by Verizon Wireless creates an opportunity to get out of your contract with no early termination charge. Verizon’s Consumer agreements contain a clause that allows customers to terminate their contract if there is a “materially adverse change of contract”.
In this case, Verizon is increasing the Regulatory fee form $0.13 to $0.16. It is not much, but is enough to trip the clause.
See the full article for more information on how to leverage this. You only have 60 days from July 1.
(Via The Consumerist.)
“Here are the spending levels proposed by President Barack Obama for each federal agency in his 2012 budget. All totals are in billions of dollars. Because Congress has not completed action on 2011 spending legislation, the 2011 numbers are Obama administration estimates of how much each agency will end up spending this year.
Department 2011 Total 2012 Total % Change
Agriculture 147.8 145.6 -1.5
Commerce 9.2 10.4 13.9
Defense 772.1 727.4 -5.8
Education 49.1 68 38.5
Energy 31.2 27.2 -12.7
EPA 9.8 8.8 -11.2
HHS 895.6 886.8 -1.0
DHS 43.5 44.3 1.8
HUD 55.9 47.2 -15.5
Interior 12.4 11.8 -4.4
Justice 32.6 31 -5.1
Labor 149.5 108.8 -27.2
State 74.2 73.6 -.07
Transportation 76.5 128.6 68.1
Treasury 467.3 520.3 11.4
Veterans 123.4 129 4.5
Social Security 803.1 818.3 1.9
NASA 18.9 18.7 -0.9
Legislative Branch 4.8 5.2 6.9
Judiciary Branch 7.3 7.6 4.3
Army Corps of Eng. 4.9 4.6 -6.1
Other Agencies 120.7 131.5 8.9
TOTAL 3,651 3,685 0.9”
— Federal News Radio 1500 AM: List: Proposed 2012 agency spending levels
Shift of Earth's magnetic north pole affects Tampa airport -
As the magnetic north pole shifts about 40 miles each year towards Russia, it has finally had a profound effect. Tampa’s airport has had to close a runway for repainting and the FAA will send an alert to announce the runways number has changed.
So, what will happen in 2020? 2030?
Okay Facebook friends and users, one more time. When you add an app, fan page, or allow a 3rd party item to access your profile, you are giving it a LOT of access to your info, your posts, pics, and many of your friends as well. As this article now points out, developers have been harvesting that data and holding on to it for all sorts of purposes.
When these get access to your info, it lets them also get access to friend info and anything YOU can see of your friends. So, remember that it isn’t all about what you want. Think no harm can come from a company that made a farming game? Well, what if they shared or sold it to someone else? This data can be extremely valuable.
Imagine Zynga (Farmville anyone?) selling the data to a company that does employment checks and those party pics or status rants with ^&*&% language then show up on the report? Think that will help you get the job? How about those folks who may go for work in a position requiring some sort of clearance?
Or, what about it just bring made public and showing up in a Google search the next time you try to date someone you like?
1) Be careful what you post.
2) Be extremely careful who/what you give access to as you could be hurting your friends as well.
This weekend’s exposure of the problem is only the tip of the iceberg. Here are links to several online articles from the big guys about it.
Body Organs Can Send Status Updates To Your Cellphone -
Interesting convergence of medical technology and personal communications. But, I can’t imagine the complexities of securing the systems and data to ensure privacy.
Also, as we all know, anything that transmits can ultimately be “tooled” with illicitly. Regardless, the potential for enhancing people’s lives by cutting the literal cord to monitoring devices is tremendous.
Smarter Than You Think - Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic -
Google has been experimenting with self-driven vehicles based on artificial-intelligence and multitudes of sensors for some time. Now, it appears that they are on the verge of making them a true success.
I think I remember this scene from iRobot.
Sammy Davis Jr. (Manhattan 1959, photo by Burt Glynn)
Q: Your nightclub and theater audiences are predominantly white. Do you think there may be some element of race consciousness in your compulsion to win their approval?
Sammy Davis Jr.: No question about it…Ever since I recognized what prejudice is, I’ve tried to fight it away, and the only weapon I could use was my talent. Away back, when I was learning the business, I had no education, no power, no influence; entertaining was the only way I had to change prejudiced thinking.
Again in the Army, especially the Army, where I met the most concentrated bunch of haters I ever experienced: On that stage, for the eight months I was in Special Services, that spotlight erased my color. It made the hate leave their faces temporarily. It was as if my talent gave me a pass from their prejudice, if only temporarily. And when I spotted haters in the audiences, I tried to give extra-good performances. I had to get to them, to neutralize them, to make them recognize me.
Q: You said “the most concentrated bunch of haters” you ever met was in the Army…will you give us some idea of what you went through?
SDJ: I met some prejudiced cats—all right? I got pushed and banged around some, got my nose broken twice—all right? But the roughest part wasn’t that; the roughest was the psychological. I had never known one white agent, manager or anybody else who hadn’t been friendly…until the Army, nobody white had ever just looked at me and hated me—and didn’t even know me.
From the day I got into the basic-training center from the first 10 minutes, I started hearing more “nigger” and seeing more sneers and hate looks than I’d ever known all my life. Walked inside the gate, asked a cat sitting on some barracks steps to show me how to get to where I had to go: “Excuse me, buddy, I’m a little lost-” Cat told me, “I’m not your buddy, you black bastard!” When I got assigned a barracks, cats in there—most of them from the South and Southwest—don’t want to sleep nowhere next to me. And there was this one guy elected himself head of the haters. First move he made, he ground his boot heel down on the $150 chronometer watch my dad and Will had borrowed the money to give me as a present. I had treasured that watch.
Man, they did all kinds of things, sick things. One time I remember, I had just done my first show there at the center, and I mean I had entertained them. Well, back in the barracks, suddenly they all acted friendly. Offered me this beer—but it wasn’t beer, man, it was warm piss. Then a cat “accidentally” poured it on me. Well, I went for him, ready to kill. He was a big cat, and I didn’t weigh but 115 pounds. He broke my nose the first punch, but, man, I fought him like a wildcat, and before he beat me unconscious, I broke his nose, too. From then on, nearly as long as I stayed there, maybe every other day I had some knockdown, drag-out fight, until I had scabs on my knuckles! Got my nose broken again. It got so everybody white I saw, I expected to hear “nigger.” Somebody ask me if I want my coffee black, I was ready to fight.
Q: Were all the white soldiers that anti-Negro?
SDJ: No, there was good cats there, too—don’t get me wrong—at least some that didn’t want to get involved, or who didn’t hate Negroes that bad. And I had a sergeant who was one of the finest men I’ll ever meet. Anyway, I met George M. Cohan Jr., and we got an act going with this Women’s Army Corps captain in charge of us. Well, one time some cats from headquarters came and said the captain wanted to see me, and I went with them into a building where they said she was—but there were four other cats waiting instead.
Pushed me into a latrine; some of them held me and the others beat me. They wrote “coon” in white paint across my forehead, and “I’m a nigger” across my chest. Then they ordered me to dance for them. “Dance, Sambo—fast!” Man, I fought to get at them, but they pinned me and punched me in the gut until it looked like I’d have to dance or die. Don’t even like to think about it! Sick cats! I danced until I couldn’t no more. Then—bam! In the gut again—and I had to dance some more, until finally they saw I was ready to pass out. Then they poured turpentine over me, and told me the reason they’d given me “this little lesson”: They’d been watching me “making eyes” at the white WAC captain. She was my boss, man, my commanding officer—and that’s the way I treated her. Didn’t make no difference. Anyway, they finally left me there. I was so sick, I just wanted to crawl into the latrine walls and die, man; I just lay down and cried.
That was when, for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to go out and do my act—go out there and smile at people who despised me. But I made myself do it anyhow. I was fighting myself so hard to stay out there that the fighting made me do maybe one of the best shows I ever did in my life. And I’m glad it did, because I discovered something. I saw some of those faces out there grudgingly take on different expressions. I don’t mean for a minute that anybody suddenly started loving me—I didn’t want that from them anyway—but they respected me. It taught me that the way for me to fight, better than with my fists, was with my talent. For the next eight months, going across the country doing my act, I nearly killed myself every show trying to make them respect me. Maybe I still am.
-excerpted from Alex Haley’s Playboy interview with Davis, December 1966
Wow. Chilling stuff.
'Dry water' could make a big splash commercially, help fight global warming -
If you use dry water, do you need a towel afterwards?
The discovery resembles powdered sugar and has the potential to store more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, thus aiding in the fight against global warming.