Beard-Tax Got Rid Of Beards In The 1800's

Peter the Great's attempts to modernize the Russia of the early 18th century found a focal point in a campaign to end the wearing of beards. Facial hair was taxed and non-payers were compulsorily shaved—anathema to Karp Lykov and the Old Believers.

For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact

beside a stream there was a dwelling. Blackened by time and rain, the hut was piled up on all sides with taiga rubbish—bark, poles, planks. If it hadn't been for a window the size of my backpack pocket, it would have been hard to believe that people lived there. But they did, no doubt about it.... Our arrival had been noticed, as we could see.
The low door creaked, and the figure of a very old man emerged into the light of day, straight out of a fairy tale. Barefoot. Wearing a patched and repatched shirt made of sacking. He wore trousers of the same material, also in patches, and had an uncombed beard. His hair was disheveled. He looked frightened and was very attentive.... We had to say something, so I began: 'Greetings, grandfather! We've come to visit!'
The old man did not reply immediately.... Finally, we heard a soft, uncertain voice: 'Well, since you have traveled this far, you might as well come in.'

Read more:  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html#ixzz2JSVGuvpt



The Lykovs lived in this hand-built log cabin, lit by a single window "the size of a backpack pocket" and warmed by a smoky wood-fired stove.

People Are Awesome 2013

A dog with a special talent

A dog with a special talent

US Drone Tweets Reveal 'Double Tap' Trend

Known as the "double tap," the tactic involves bombing a target multiple times in relatively quick succession, meaning that the second strike often hits first responders. 
A 2007 report by the Homeland Security Institute called double taps a "favorite tactic of Hamas" and the FBI considers it a tactic employed by terrorists.

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-drone-tweets-reveal-double-tap-plan-2012-12#ixzz2FE9zIo1B 

 

Parasite tales: The jewel wasp's zombie slave

Intermezzo commercial

1.8 gigapixel ARGUS-IS. World's highest resolution video surviellience platform by DARPA.

The U.S. Army, along with
Boeing, has developed and is preparing to deploy a new unmanned aircraft
called the “Hummingbird.” It’s is a VTOL-UAS (vertical take-off and
landing unmanned aerial system). Three of them are being deployed to
Afghanistan for a full year to survey and spy on Afghanistan from an
altitude of 20,000 feet with the ability to scan 25 square miles of
ground surface.

25 Signs American Women Are Being Destroyed By The Sexual Revolution And Our Promiscuous Culture

#1 There are 19 million new STD infections in the United States every single year. Approximately half of them happen to young people in the 15 to 24-year-old age bracket.

#2 It costs the U.S. health care system approximately $17,000,000,000 every single year to treat sexually transmitted diseases.

#3 There were more than 1.4 million cases of chlamydia reported in the United States in 2011. An astounding 33 percent of those cases involved Americans that were younger than 20 years of age.

#4 It is estimated that about one out of every six Americans between the ages of 14 and 49 have genital herpes.

#5 24,000 American women become infertile each year due to undiagnosed STDs.

#6 In the United States today, approximately 47 percent of all high school students have had sex.

#7 Sadly, one out of every four teen girls in the U.S. has at least one sexually transmitted disease.

#8 According to one survey, 24 percent of all U.S. teens that have STDs say that they still have unprotected sex.

#9 Amazingly, one out of every five teen girls in the U.S. actually wants to be a teenage mother.

#10 If you can believe it, the United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate on the entire planet. In fact, the United States has a teen pregnancy rate that is more than twice as high as Canada, more than three times as high as France and more than seven times as high as Japan.

Read more:

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/25-signs-american-women-are-being-destroyed-by-the-sexual-revolution-and-our-promiscuous-culture

Have We Raised An Entire Generation Of Young Men That Do Not Know How To Be Men?

What comes to your mind when you think of men under the age of 30 in America today?  Does an image of an irresponsible, sex crazed, beer swilling slacker come to mind?
Unfortunately, that stereotype is way too true.  We have failed our young men.  We did not teach them how to be men.  Yes, as I noted earlier, there are definitely exceptions to this, but in general we have a real problem on our hands.
Let take a look at some of the hard numbers.
As a recent CNN article noted, young men between the ages of 25 and 34 are almost twice as likely to live with their parents as young women the same age are….

 http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/have-we-raised-an-entire-generation-of-young-men-that-do-not-know-how-to-be-men

 

Miniature Star Trek style 'tractor beam' built

Sadly for sci-fi enthusiasts the technique, detailed in the Nature Photonics journal, has only been proven to work on a particle five microns wide, and can not be scaled up to suck in spaceships because too powerful a laser would be required. 

"If you imagine you would like to attract a football, the amount of energy it would transfer would be huge and it would immediately burn up the football. 

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9825165/Miniature-Star-Trek-style-tractor-beam-built.html

 

The Big Bang Theory - Sheldon Exposing Astrology

Soon You'll Be Able To Print Out Your Clothes

Van Herpen worked with architect and MIT Media Lab professor Neri Oxman to design and print this skirt and cape outfit. According to Mashable, what makes this process especially distinctive is that "3D-printed objects are made from the ground up, layer by layer, as opposed to traditional fashion being cut from a larger piece of cloth, or a sculpture being created by chipping away pieces of marble or metal."

 http://www.buzzfeed.com/alannaokun/soon-youll-be-able-to-print-out-your-clothes

 

Is Facebook envy making you miserable?

Witnessing friends' vacations, love lives and work successes on Facebook can cause envy and trigger feelings of misery and loneliness, according to German researchers.
A study conducted jointly by two German universities found rampant envy on Facebook, the world's largest social network that now has over one billion users and has produced an unprecedented platform for social comparison.
The researchers found that one in three people felt worse after visiting the site and more dissatisfied with their lives, while people who browsed without contributing were affected the most.

 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50549322/ns/business-us_business/t/facebook-envy-making-you-miserable/#.UQBT82c25xi

Big Hungry Cat Called For Dinner!

Why did men stop wearing high heels?

"The high heel was worn for centuries throughout the near east as a form of riding footwear," says Elizabeth Semmelhack of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.

Good horsemanship was essential to the fighting styles of the Persia - the historical name for modern-day Iran.
"When the soldier stood up in his stirrups, the heel helped him to secure his stance so that he could shoot his bow and arrow more effectively," says Semmelhack.
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21151350

McDonald's settles $700,000 suit over Islamic diet in US

The lawsuit alleged that Ahmed bought a chicken sandwich in September 2011 at a Dearborn McDonald's but found it wasn't halal -- meaning it didn't meet Islamic requirements for preparing food. Islam forbids consumption of pork, and God's name must be invoked before an animal providing meat for consumption is slaughtered.

 http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/01/22/mcdonald-settles-700000-suit-over-islamic-diet-in-us/

German court rules internet "essential"

A German court ruled on Thursday that people have the right to claim compensation from service providers if their Internet access is disrupted, because the Internet is an "essential" part of life.
The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe made the ruling after hearing the case of a man who was unable to use his DSL connection, which also offered a telephone and fax line, for two months from late 2008 to early 2009.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/24/us-germany-internet-idUSBRE90N15H20130124

Flu vaccine backlash: 800 children in Europe develop narcolepsy after swine flu vaccine

Eight hundred children in Europe have developed narcolepsy after taking the swine flu vaccine, according to Reuters.
Reuters reported the children in Sweden and across Europe came down with the sleep disorder after being vaccinated with the Pandemrix H1N1 vaccine which is made by GlaxoSmithKline.
Regulators there have ruled Pandemrix should not be given to anyone under the age of 20....

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/health/130122/800-children-europe-develop-narcolepsy-after-swine-flu-vaccine-report

MEDIAS W dual-screen Android smartphone #DigInfo

100in HECTO Laser TV Projector

Lindsay Lohan Is An 'Escort,' According To Her Father

“The dates last for days, and the guys pay for everything – hotel, travel costs, food, whatever – as well as jewelry and other gifts,” the source revealed, adding that one of Lindsay's most high-profile clients is third in line to the throne in Brunei, and paid the actress $100,000 to join him in London on New Year's Eve.
To be clear, no one has claimed that Lindsay is having sex for money, but she's allegedly being paid to act as "arm candy" for wealthy men.
This isn't the first time Lohan has been tied to escorting. In 2010, Lohan reportedly lost out on a $150,000 pay day from billionaire Richard Lugner, who brings a celebrity escort each year to the Vienna Opera Ball.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/16/lindsay-lohan-escort_n_2487361.html 

 

US taps pension fund to avoid passing debt limit

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the government has begun borrowing from the federal employee pension fund to keep operating without surpassing its debt limit. 

 http://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-taps-pension-fund-avoid-211937220.html

Bundesbank to pull gold from New York and Paris in watershed moment

The move marks an extraodinary breakdown in trust between leading central banks and has set off ferment among gold enthusiasts, with some comparing it with France’s withdrawal of gold from the US under President Charles de Gaulle as the Bretton Woods currency system crumbled in the late 1960s.

Handelsblatt said the Bundesbank will announce on Wednesday that it intends to relocate the gold to vaults in Frankfurt, said by insiders to include parts of the old archive library. Germany has 3,396 tons of gold worth roughly £115bn, the world’s second-largest holding after the US. Most of the reserves were stored abroad for safety during the Cold War. 

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/gold/9804444/Bundesbank-to-pull-gold-from-New-York-and-Paris-in-watershed-moment.html

 

18 human heads discovered this week at O'Hare International Airport

Displair gives you a touchscreen out of thin air

LAS VEGAS—You can build more than you might expect with just a little bit of air flow and two microns of water. Like a virtual touchscreen display that appears out of nowhere. That's what Displair can boast anyway, with one of the more eye-catching demos I saw at CES 2013. 

 

Cleaning Woman Crashes Train Into Building

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/01/cleaning-woman-crashes-train-into-building/

“The woman stole the four-car train at a depot outside Stockholm,” Tomas Hedenius, spokesman for Arriva train operator, was quoted as saying in the U.K.’s Independent. “She then drove it about a mile to the end station on the railway line, where it jumped off the tracks, careered for about 30 yards and crashed into a three-story building.”

Windoro Window-Cleaning Robot Demo

Power Loader power amplification exoskeleton robot #DigInfo

Extraordinary: New island rises from the sea off German coast

An island the size of 25 football pitches has appeared seemingly out of nowhere off the coast of Germany.

The landmass, which is composed of sandbanks, gradually emerged from the violent waters of the North Sea over the past few years.

It lies 15 miles off the coast of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany’s far north in a stretch of coastline known as the Wattenmeer, a marine national park.

 http://beforeitsnews.com/environment/2013/01/extraordinary-new-island-rises-from-the-sea-off-german-coast-2458786.html

 

Disney World’s RFID Tracking Bracelets Are A Slippery Slope, Warns Privacy Advocate

On Monday, the Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) announced an ambitious plan to transform the visitor experience at its Disney World Resort near Orlando, Fla. The MyMagic+ program, which will roll out this spring, combines an interactive website and mobile app with an all-purpose electronic bracelet that acts as a guest’s room key, theme-park ticket and payment account all rolled into one. The bracelets, dubbed MagicBands, will also track which rides visitors use, which characters they interact with, where they go and what they buy within the park.
The bracelets monitor behavior with radio-frequency identification technology, or RFID, a wireless tracking system that transfers data from tiny tags attached to objects. RFID has long been used to track product inventory in various industries, but it has become increasingly invasive over the last decade, with tags being implanted in I.D. badges, transit cards and even passports.   

http://www.ibtimes.com/disney-worlds-rfid-tracking-bracelets-are-slippery-slope-warns-privacy-advocate-1001790

CES 2013: Share Battery Power Between Mobile Devices

Fulton Innovation, manufacturer of eCoupled wireless chargers, demonstrated at CES this week what it hopes will be a feature of the next generation of wireless power products—two-way wireless power. The company plans to introduce this technology to the Wireless Power Consortium, the group that developed the wireless power standard Qi, for inclusion in its next update. 
Given that people tend to carry multiple mobile devices, two way charging, the company says, will let people easily share power between devices rather than worrying about making sure they are all fully charged. For example, say a pad computer’s battery is almost out of power, but the user wants to catch the ending of a movie before shutting it off; he might decide to pull a little power from a mobile phone. Alternatively, a laptop or pad computer could act as a backup power source for a smartphone.














http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/consumer-electronics/portable-devices/mobile-devices-share-everything

Saturday night live

Did he just play a trance song on a guitar?

Flying a Helicopter with Brain Waves - CES 2013

IllumiRoom Projects Images Beyond Your TV

Expressing negative emotions could extend lifespan

German researchers just published a study that shows statistically that people who constrain themselves and don't express anger live on average 2 years shorter than individuals who do.
Researchers Marcus Mund and Kristin Mitte at the University of Jena in Germany analyzed data from more than 6,000 patients to find that exhibiting self-restraint and holding back negative emotions could have serious repercussions for a person's physical and mental well-being - those who internalized their anxiety suffered from an elevated pulse.
Raised pulse can result in high blood pressure and increase a person's risk of developing a wide range of conditions from heart disease to cancer, kidney damage and more, according to researchers.

 http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/4339/20121227/expressing-negative-emotions-extends-lifespan.htm

Diego

"DIEGO-SAN", by Hanson for the Machine Perception Lab at the UCSD Institute for Neural Computation. With a face by David Hanson and Hanson Robotics, which mounts on a body by Kokoro, this robotic baby boy was built with funding from the National Science Foundation and serves cognitive A.I. and human-robot interaction research. With high definition cameras in the eyes, Diego San sees people, gestures, expressions, and uses A.I. modeled on human babies, to learn from people, the way that a baby hypothetically would. The facial expressions are important to establish a relationship, and communicate intuitively to people. As much a work of art as technology and science, this represents a step forward in the development of emotionally relevant robotics, building on previous work of David Hanson with the Machine Perception Lab such as the emotionally responsive Einstein shown at TED in 2009

Wanted: Mars Colonists to Explore Red Planet

The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One, which hopes to put the first boots on the Red Planet in 2023, released its basic astronaut requirements today (Jan. 8), setting the stage for a televised global selection process that will begin later this year.
Mars One isn't zeroing in on scientists or former fighter pilots; anyone who is at least 18 years old can apply to become a Mars colony pioneer. The most important criteria, officials say, are intelligence, good mental and physical health and dedication to the project, as astronauts will undergo eight years of training before launch.

http://www.space.com/19174-mars-one-colony-astronauts-wanted.html 

German Military Laser Destroys Targets Over 1Km Away

A German company has brought us one step closer to the kinds of shootouts only seen in Sci-Fi films. Düsseldorf-based Rheinmetall Defense recently tested a 50kW, high-energy laser at their proving ground facility in Switzerland. According to the company, the laser passed the test with “flying colours.”
The system isn’t actually a single laser but two laser modules mounted onto Revolver Gun air defense turrets made by Oerlikon and attached to additional power modules. The laser modules are 30 kW and 20 kW, but a Beam Superimposing Technology (BST) combines two lasers to focus in a “superimposed, cumulative manner” that wreaks havoc on its targets.

http://transmissionsmedia.com/german-military-laser-destroys-targets-over-1km-away/

Tethercell, the World's First App-Enabled Battery Controller

Tactus Touchscreen Tablet Has a Keyboard You Can Really Feel

http://technabob.com/blog/2013/01/07/tactus-tactile-touchscreen-tablet/

China uses controversial brain surgery to cure drug addiction

A small handful of doctors in China are going to extremes to rid people of addiction. As a last resort against intractable addiction to heroine and alcohol, these doctors are attempting to erase motivation by erasing a part of the addict’s brain. And they are doing it in the face of worldwide condemnation, and in the name of scientific research...

Read more:

http://singularityhub.com/2012/12/30/chinas-uses-controversial-brain-surgery-to-cure-drug-addiction/

8 million mummified animals found

SAQQARA, Egypt -- Archaeologists in Egypt uncovered about 8 million mummified animals during excavations of a dog catacomb in Saqqara about 19 miles from Cairo, officials said.

"We are recording the animal bones and mummification techniques used to prepare the animals," Salima Ikram, professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, told Ahram Online. Saqqara features numerous pyramids and is an ancient burial ground.

 http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/index.php/sid/211734060/scat/b8de8e630faf3631/ht/8-million-mummified-animals-found

Leap Motion ‘Minority Report’ Computer Interface Preps For Big 2013

http://singularityhub.com/2013/01/03/ready-leap-motion-app-development-lays-critical-foundation-for-early-2013-launch/

Autodidacticism

Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) is self-directed learning that is related to but different from informal learning. In a sense, autodidacticism is "learning on your own" or "by yourself", and an autodidact is a self-teacher. Autodidacticism is a contemplative, absorptive procession. Some autodidacts spend a great deal of time reviewing the resources of libraries and educational websites. One may become an autodidact at nearly any point in one's life. While some may have been informed in a conventional manner in a particular field, they may choose to inform themselves in other, often unrelated areas. Many notable contributions have been made by autodidacts.
Autodidactism is only one facet of learning, and is usually, but not necessarily, complemented by learning in formal and informal spaces: from classrooms to other social settings. Many autodidacts seek instruction and guidance from experts, friends, teachers, parents, siblings, and community. Inquiry into autodidacticism has implications for learning theory, educational research, educational philosophy, and educational psychology.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidacticism

Gold bars that can be used as emergency payment

An employee shows a gold Combibar at a plant of gold refiner and bar manufacturer Valcambi SA in the southern Swiss town of Balerna. The divisible gold combibar has a purity of 99.9 percent, weighs 50 grams and also has predetermined breaking points which allow it to be easily separated without any loss of material into 1 gram pieces.

50 Grams of 23.98 karat Gold = 2,024.684 EUR

http://gulfnews.com/business/general/gold-bars-that-can-be-used-as-emergency-payment-1.1123894?page=1#content

National Geographic - The world's biggest cave

3 jaar cel voor 'anoniem' bellen

NAIROBI - 
Iedereen die in Kenia zonder abonnement mobiel belt, moet zijn simkaart op naam laten registreren. Wie 'anoniem' prepaid blijft bellen, riskeert een celstraf van 3 jaar.

 http://www.telegraaf.nl/digitaal/21193039/__3_jaar_cel_voor__anoniem__bellen__.html

Amazing Facts to Blow Your Mind Pt. 2