19-year-old Kendall Jones caused international controversy recently by posting pictures of her exotic animal kills to Facebook. Her argument? Hunting them helps protect the species. Can it? We asked The Texas Huntress.
How do you pack two patients that are infected with one of the world’s deadliest viruses into a pressurized aluminum tube that is filled with healthy care takers and pilots for 12 hours and not get almost everyone infected in the process? You use this old ex-Royal Danish Air Force Gulfstream III that is highly modified to convey very ill people over very long distances.
Last week, we asked you to name the gadgets you love to aimlessly diddle around with —the tools and toys you can just pick up and play with for hours. Here are some of your very favorites. Warning: it’s about to get real nerdy in here.
Casio’s team of smart-ish G-Shock watches is getting a new member next month that’s fixated on finding new music. The romantically-named GBA-400 retains the same smartphone-friendly features that we’ve already seen, but this time you’ll be able to…
James Cameron emerges from the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER after his successful solo dive to the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean. (Mark Thiessen/National Geographic)
There came a moment halfway through Deepsea Challenge 3D when I realized James…
It seems that one of Google’s mystery barges will forever remain that. A mystery. According to the Portland Press Herald, one of two Google-owned barges, the one moored on the coast of Maine has been towed to Turner’s Island Cargo Terminal where, according to the owner of the terminal, it will be dismantled, scrapped, and sold off to an unknown … Continue reading
Watching television is a common pastime, but the way it is done is rapidly changing, with many gravitating away from traditional cable to get their fix through the Internet. Downloading individual episodes was the most common way to do this, but with the introduction of set-top boxes like Roku and streaming apps for smartphones, this has too changed. The ways … Continue reading
When we talk about Microsoft, it is more often than not that we think about them as a software house, although the company has clearly indulged in the world of peripherals before. In fact, Microsoft has come up with their fair share of keyboards and mice in the past, although it does not look as though this is one business that will rake in the big bucks for them since it will never be their bread and butter. I still remember the ergonomic Microsoft keyboard that came out many years ago which was a joy to type, but not so when it came to my Quake bindings while involved in a deathmatch. Microsoft’s latest addition to the computer peripherals front? The new limited edition Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500 which features Master Chief from Halo.
As you can tell by the model number alone, the Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500 will be ahead of the Wireless Mobile Mouse 1850 that we looked at earlier this year in March. This particular model would be one that will target those who are fans of the Halo game series which first came into mainstream consciousness with the release of the Xbox console many years ago.
The Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500 Halo Limited Edition: The Master Chief is certainly a mouthful to pronounce, where you might just prefer to place this behind a glass cabinet. After all, the outside of the mouse would gloriously feature a highly detailed Master Chief in his classic two-tone green MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor and iconic gold hued visor. Sporting an ambidextrous design, it does not matter whether you are a southpaw or not – you will still be able to give it a go on your left hand, and let your right handed sibling work with it afterwards.
There is also a snap-in nano transceiver that runs on 2.4 GHz wireless technology, alongside a two-color battery light indicator which will let you know whether the time is nigh to replace the battery. The presence of BlueTrack Technology will also allow you to make use of this mouse on virtually any surface including granite, marble, carpet, and wood, although I would recommend working on a proper working desk. Expect the Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500 Halo Limited Edition: The Master Chief to be available for pre-order from GameStop, where it ought to ship later this October at $29.95 apiece.
Press Release
[ Microsoft reveals the Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500 Halo Limited Edition: The Master Chief copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Hassan al-Hallaq and his family — two boys, ages 4 and 6, and his pregnant wife, due to give birth in days — were preparing to break the Ramadan fast in Gaza City on a Sunday night earlier this month. They had recently moved in with Hassan’s sister, who lives closer to the center of town, trying to stay safe during the latest round of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
They never expected two missiles to hit their new home shortly after 7 p.m. that night, killing Hassan’s kids and 29-year-old wife, Samar. His 62-year-old mother, sister and brother-in-law, as well as four children from the floor below, were also killed in the blast.
“You think it’s never going to happen to you, you’re in denial to keep yourself sane,” said Mariam Muhanna, one of Samar’s cousins who lives in Gaza. “The breaking point was when Samar passed — it became real,” she added, her voice shaking.
Hassan’s young family was among more than 100 people killed that Sunday, July 20, one of the bloodiest days of fighting in the region. Since then, the death toll in the conflict has leapt to more than 1,400 Palestinians and more than 60 Israelis. Hassan’s wife, mother, sister and two children became part of a staggering statistic — nearly half of at least 827 Palestinian civilians killed have been women and children, according to the U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs.
“Since the Israeli ground offensive started, a child has been killed approximately every 90 minutes in Gaza — they have been among the worst affected,” said Alun McDonald, spokesman for the international development organization Oxfam. “The biggest difference in this offensive compared to the last two has been the targeting of people’s homes … which put women and children at more risk.”
While recovering from severe injuries at the hospital, Hassan asked about his family. Relatives initially told him that his wife and kids were ok, but he knew something was wrong, said Yara al-Zinati, Samar’s cousin.
“How can you feel when you lost everything in one moment?” al-Zinati asked.
The Israeli military, which aims to stop the militant group Hamas from firing rockets and destroy tunnels the group uses to stage deadly attacks, says that it has “no intention to harm civilians.” Israel also says that it issues warnings to Gaza residents, which had prompted Hassan to move his family twice in the past few weeks. His relatives said he did not receive a warning before the most recent strike.
“They were actually heeding the warnings of the Israeli army, it’s just ironic that [Samar] left her house for safety,” said Muhanna, a cousin of Samar.
The 24-year-old, originally from Texas, saw something of a role model in Samar.
“She was fluent in English, and for her to be a college graduate and a working mom, well that’s difficult in Gaza,” Muhanna said. “She just loved helping people. She just wanted to make life a little better.”
Samar studied English education in Gaza and taught at a U.N.-sponsored school before marrying Hassan seven years ago and having two children, Kenan and Saji. They recently spent time in England after Hassan won a prestigious scholarship at Oxford Brookes University for a master’s program in e-business.
Since moving back to Gaza last year, Hassan has been working as an IT manager for the Bank of Palestine.
Iain Chalmers, one of the founders of the scholarship, and his wife, Jan, said that Hassan has been committed to developing the region’s banking system. They helped organize a vigil for about 200 people in Oxford last week to honor the family.
“The whole thing [in Gaza] is a tragedy. But when it’s someone you know…” Jan Chalmers said, breaking off. “Now the unthinkable has happened.”
“He was on the crest of a wave, a Ph.D. in the pipeline and business going well,” she added. “They both had great prospects.”
Chalmers had recruited Samar to the Palestinian History Tapestry Project, a nonprofit in England that supports Palestinians who make traditional embroidery. She was working as the coordinator of a women’s sewing circle in Gaza before she died, Chalmers said.
A few days after the strike, Yara al-Zinati, Samar’s cousin, wrote on Facebook from south Gaza that she had never felt her heart “choking the way it was when [she] heard the news.”
“At the very moment when you lose your favorite people, you realize that our lives are not ours; they will be gone in any moment,” she wrote.
Al-Zinati had called Samar’s mother a few days before the strike to check in. “She said, ‘They are good and safe. They managed to move to safer ground,'” al-Zinati recalled.
She said that she keeps going back to Samar’s Facebook page to look at photos of her children.
“She just wanted to raise her children in a peaceful environment, so they could become something in the future,” al-Zinati said. “She did do her best to give them a peaceful life, but in the end they didn’t get a chance to live.”
In the magical world of Harry Potter, witches and wizards can fly on broomsticks, become invisible, and make things levitate. Wingardium leviosa!
What if we could wave a wand to end bigotry? That’s still a bit of a stretch at this point, but new research suggests that Harry Potter may be able to work some real-world magic along these lines. It suggests that reading Harry Potter books may curb intolerance of gay people and immigrants.
“Harry Potter empathizes with characters from stigmatized categories, tries to understand their sufferings and to act towards social equality,” the study’s leader, psychologist Dr. Loris Vezzali, told The Huffington Post in an email. “So, I and my colleagues think that empathic feelings are the key factor driving prejudice reduction.”
The finding may come as welcome news to the books’ author, J.K. Rowling, who has called the series “a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry.” Rowling has acknowledged liberal social and political themes in the books and revealed that she always thought of Harry’s headmaster, Dumbledore, as gay.
The research was conducted at at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia’s Research Center on Interethnic Relations, Multiculturality and Immigration in Italy. It included two related studies of elementary school and high school students.
For the first study, 34 fifth-graders completed questionnaires about their attitudes toward immigrants. Then once a week for six consecutive weeks, a researcher met with students in small groups, reading passages from Harry Potter to the students and facilitating discussions about them. Next, the students completed the same questionnaire — and said whether they identified more with Harry Potter or his evil nemesis, Voldemort.
Half of the students listened to Harry Potter passages that spotlight prejudice — including a passage when Harry’s nasty schoolmate Draco Malfoy calls Hermione Granger a “filthy little Mudblood.” Discussion following the reading focused specifically on discrimination and how it had affected the characters. The other half of the students were exposed to passages not associated with prejudice.
What did the researchers find? Students who discussed the prejudice-related passages showed “improved attitudes toward immigrants” — but only if they identified emotionally with Harry Potter.
In the second study, 117 Italian high school students noted how many Harry Potter books they had read and then completed surveys to assess their attitudes toward gay people. Again, students who had read more of the books tended to be more gay friendly.
Vezalli said he thought the findings held an important lesson for teachers.
“Attitudes of young children are more malleable,” he said, “and so it should be a priority of educators to tackle prejudiced attitudes from a younger age, when attitudes are still not ‘too resistant to change.'”
The research was published online in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
