There is a rapidly growing subculture of e-cigarette users across the globe who spend countless hours tricking out their hardware. Vape modding, as it’s known, blends technical craftsmanship, engineering creativity and artistry into one — and…
What could it be?!
Scientists once again are scratching their heads over a mysterious surface feature on the Saturn moon Titan that some are calling a “magic island.”
The feature — observed in a large sea on Titan known as Ligeia Mare — was first spotted in images taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in July 2013. Photos snapped of the area over the ensuing months failed to show the feature, but it reappeared in images from a Cassini flyby on August 21, 2014.
Between the two sightings, the feature doubled in size from 30 to 60 square miles (see below).
These three images, created from Cassini Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, show the appearance and evolution of a mysterious feature in Ligeia Mare, one of the largest hydrocarbon seas on Saturn’s moon Titan.
“Science loves a mystery, and with this enigmatic feature, we have a thrilling example of ongoing change on Titan,” Stephen Wall, deputy leader of Cassini’s radar team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a written statement. “We’re hopeful that we’ll be able to continue watching the changes unfold and gain insights about what’s going on in that alien sea.”
The researchers say they’re confident the feature isn’t simply a glitch in their data. Rather, they think it might be evidence of bubbles, surface waves, solids floating on or just below the surface, or “perhaps something more exotic,” according to NASA. They believe the “magic island’s” appearance may be linked to the onset of summer in Titan’s northern hemisphere.
Cassini was launched in 1997 and entered into orbit around Saturn in 2004. The probe has conducted flybys of Titan — which scientists consider to be one of the most Earth-like worlds — for 10 years.
While some scientists believe Titan’s liquid seas of methane and ethane suggest the alien world may be habitable, the researchers say it’s unlikely the strange feature is linked to any sort of life form.
“There’s no reason to suspect this is a signal for biology,” Jason Hofgartner, a planetary scientist at Cornell University and one of the researchers involved in the mission, told NBC News. “But in general, more energetic processes may enhance the suitability for life on Titan.”
Frankie De Soto is a Global SEO Analyst for Hilton Worldwide, where he also works as a national ambassador for @HiltonSuggests, offering insider tips for travelers visiting Puerto Rico, his homeland. Frankie currently lives in Dallas, Texas, but was born in Puerto Rico and frequently visits today. When he’s away, he enjoys teaching first-time visitors about the country’s beauty, people and culture, while making recommendations on the best places to stay, see and eat, even if it’s just for the weekend.
I was born in the small town of Ceiba in the northeastern corner of the island, but I consider all of Puerto Rico my home.
When reminiscing about Puerto Rico, it’s not just the beautiful beaches, the cool ocean breeze and the mystical El Yunque rainforest that keep tight reigns on my heart. It’s also the history, the culture and the people that make up the island that is so aptly nicknamed “The Star of the Caribbean.” Even though I live full-time in Texas today, I always look forward to my future visits back home and frequently reminisce about my childhood summer trips.
My family is spread across San Juan, Cataño and Bayamon. When I was a boy, we would start the weekends at Luquillo Beach, one of the largest beaches on the island. We’d enjoy relaxing with great food before taking a dip in the warm ocean water. You never forget a great beach day in Puerto Rico – even though they are not hard to come by.
Aside from playing in the sand, I often used the weekends to explore small towns. In particular, Old San Juan, which is deeply rooted in the island’s history, comes to mind. For nearly 400 years it has expressed itself through gorgeous Spanish architecture on ornate cobblestone roads. It is there that you will pass the famous El Morro Fort, a 16th-century Spanish citadel stronghold that kept pirates and invading naval ships at bay.
Beyond Old San Juan, on summer weekends I remember venturing to the small town of Guavate. Local restaurants across both sides of the mountain roads were set preparing traditional roast pork that filled the air with sights and smells beyond words. In combination with the famous pork, rice and beans, chicken, sweet plantains and sweet potatoes were always ready for those looking to savor authentic Puerto Rican cuisine.
After dinner, the dance halls were filled with music as the young and old hit the floor with rhythmic sounds of Salsa, Merengue and Bachata music that fueled them through the night. No matter where you go in Puerto Rico, there is always a gathering of locals and travelers from abroad getting together to share their love of good times and good food. It’s the island’s diversity and sense of community that allows this. A mix of Spanish, African and Taino, a native island descent, culture inspires visitors to share in the island’s rich identity.
My first child will be born soon, and I cannot wait for him to experience Puerto Rico and introduce him to his family back home and let him live his heritage. I’d like to start by taking him to Old San Juan to explore its colonial history, to listen to beautiful music and to see the colorful art and architecture of our people. Beyond that, I want the island to take him away, setting him forth to create his own memories that he can pass to his children. I hope he grows to love Puerto Rico and keeps it close to his heart, because I certainly do and always will.
Puerto Rico, I love you.
As I turn 30, I ask myself: When my 20s were yet to unfold, what do I wish I’d known, been told, or better understood?
While I have not heeded all of the pieces of advice that follow, some came instinctively, some were learned from watching other people, and plenty of insights are a consequence of plenty of mistakes.
What wisdom would be on your list? Share with me on Twitter (@PGSittenfeld) what you think can help people make the most of their first decade of adulthood.
1) Become friends with your parents. They no longer need to parent you in the same way as when you were growing up. There’s a wonderful freedom in getting to know, appreciate, and value each other as adults.
2) Get comfortable and get good at working the phone. Old-fashioned, maybe, but it’s by far the most high-impact mode of non-face-to-face communicating and for getting things done.
3) Invite friends and acquaintances over for meals. Your hosting performance need not be fancy; the act of simply breaking bread together is the important part.
4) Get enough sleep. The real world rewards performance, and squeezing more hours out of the day but ending up less rested and performing less well is a bad trade-off.
5) Be very intentional and thoughtful in identifying and defining your values. Take a piece of paper and write them down. Until you’ve given specific thought, those values might remain vague in your own mind.
6) It’s fun to have a favorite TV show or two that you watch regularly, but it’s highly doubtful you’ll look back on your 20s and say, “I wish I’d watched more TV!”
7) Choose your friends, rather than letting proximity or routine choose them for you. It’s one of the first times that school isn’t dictating who you’re around and interacting with.
8) Network like crazy — you can almost certainly do more. Think of it this way: there are 21 meal slots a week, and that doesn’t count daytime coffees and after work drinks. How many of those slots are you using to meet and get to know new and interesting people? Be sure to include thoughtful people whose perspectives are different from your own.
9) Live by yourself before living with your partner. It can be lonely, it can be liberating, but most of all, it enables important growth by getting to know yourself better and not simply in the context of circumstances dictated by others.
10) Know how you un-plug. Don’t do something because it’s supposed to be relaxing, but because it actually relaxes you.
11) Be careful about how you look for a significant other. Let’s be honest: the odds aren’t in your favor for meeting your soul mate at a bar after midnight. But having friends set you up on dates or being more thoughtful about matching interests through online dating can raise the odds.
12) Seeks out mentors — ideally several.
13) Send as many hand-written notes as you can. In an increasingly impersonal world, they distinguish you, are appreciated, and are long-remembered.
14) Make every effort to go the weddings and significant occasions that you’re invited to: if it’s important to someone you value, it should be important to you.
15) There’s no shame in getting laid off. Some smart and capable people will, and you might be one of them. Unless warranted, don’t let it cause you to doubt yourself.
16) As an adult, your best friends can be totally new friends: duration alone doesn’t determine the depth of a relationship.
17) That said, hold tight to your longtime friends, too. They, more than most others, can keep you on track and call it as it is.
18) Become a comfortable dancer. This is different than being a good dancer.
19) Make getting drunk increasingly rare behavior. Socializing over drinks is fine, normal, and fun. Regularly drinking as you might have in college isn’t likely to serve you well.
20) Make a commitment to serving others: pick an organization, goal, or dream in your community. You’ll feel good about helping, and you’ll make a difference.
21) Find exercise that you genuinely enjoy — because it only gets harder to find the time and motivation to do it.
22) Learn to cook adequately — for your own survival; for wooing a significant other; and for sharing with friends.
23) Giving rides to the airport, no matter the hour, is something you do for your friends. Helping a friend move a couch up a staircase, on the other hand, is a fair place to draw the line.
24) Map out your plans and goals. Again, actually put pen to paper and be specific. What do you want to be doing and have accomplished when you’re 30? And 40?
25) As your siblings and close friends have children, be a good, attentive aunt or uncle or role model. Do it for your relationship to the little ones, but also do it for your relationship with those important to you.
26) Don’t be afraid to tell people, directly and specifically, how they can help you. This applies equally to co-workers, significant others, and mentors. Invite those people to lean on you as well.
27) Identify and forge a community for yourself outside of work. This can range from a trivia night team to a marathon training group to a Bible study group or so many other things. Have some regular engagement separate from your core daily responsibilities.
28) Increasingly focus on those qualities that make for a built-to-last relationship. This will demand drilling down from the more surface level question of “Am I having fun dating this person?” to “Do both of you offer the commitment and stability to grow together over time?”
29) Consciously make sacrifices for your significant other and for those most important to you — but never keep score.
30) When someone is struggling or addressing a tough challenge, show up and be there for them. Don’t be intimidated by thinking, “I don’t know that to say to them.” Your presence will convey: “I’m thinking about you, I’m there for you, and I want you to let me know what I can do to help.”
Since early 2012, the Garmin Forerunner 910XT has been the best triathlon watch, period. Others have tried to step up, but to this date nothing has equalled its wealth of features. And now it seems Garmin has raised the bar for itself. The new Forerunner 920XT is everything the 910 was, and much more.
Stormtroopers Sailors stand by to move an imperial starfighter E-2C Hawkeye in the hangar bay of the Galactic Empire’s Star Destroyer aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76). [U.S. Navy]
SHEUNG SHUI, Hong Kong — Banners blowing over Hong Kong’s protester-occupied streets demand the resignation of the city’s much-reviled chief executive, but here in Sheung Shui, a border town nestled between central Hong Kong and mainland China, many of the protesters rail against a different villain: milk powder smugglers.
“If you want to know why Hong Kongers don’t like the Chinese government, it’s that,” declared Yvonne Choy as she pointed at a woman sitting on two newly purchased cans of milk powder outside the Sheung Shui train station. “Everything is snatched up by them: our daily necessities, milk powder and diapers. Our study opportunities, job opportunities … everything is gone just because the government lets them come.”
Choy, a young woman working part-time at a call center, delivered her diatribe during one of the first protests to take place in Sheung Shui. A small but vocal group of demonstrators gathered Monday night outside the train station, which was bustling with mainland Chinese visitors. Their voices represented the most distant echoes of the pro-democracy protests rocking central Hong Kong.
Once a quiet farming village, Sheung Shui now serves as a top destination for Chinese smugglers and shoppers hoping to snap up goods at discount prices. Hong Kong and mainland China maintain different customs and regulatory regimes for many foreign imports, which creates opportunities to profit off goods purchased in Hong Kong and illegally exported to the mainland.
When the Chinese government loosened travel to Hong Kong in 2009, it opened the floodgates for mainlanders engaged in smuggling activities involving everything from infant milk powder to iPhones. Foreign-brand milk powder has been a hot commodity ever since a 2008 safety scandal in China, and locals report that mainland runners continue to clear out Hong Kong shelves and skirt customs restrictions in pursuit of lucrative profits.
There are smugglers who make multiple cross-border runs a day to illegally import and resell goods. There are also many mainland buyers who travel to Hong Kong to make bulk purchases for friends and family. Together, their impact is tremendous.
Cross-border sales funnel money into local Hong Kong businesses, but also help fuel an anti-China upswell that taps deep cultural and economic anxieties. At their worst, those anxieties have led to public campaigns smearing mainlanders as “locusts” raiding Hong Kong’s resources and driving up prices.
“Hong Kong people, we have endured enough in silence,” read an infamous 2012 ad printed in the Apple Daily, a major Hong Kong newspaper. The ad featured a locust hovering over the skyline and railed against so-called birth tourism, demanding an end to “the unlimited infiltration of mainland Chinese couples into Hong Kong.”
Young protesters in central Hong Kong are striving to alter the political balance with Beijing, but places like Sheung Shui find themselves squarely on the horns of an economic dilemma. Many businesses rely on the demand from mainland buyers — employees at the wholesale outlets that line Sheung Shui’s streets report 60 to 70 percent of their business comes from mainland shoppers. But that demand also sends prices of everyday goods skyrocketing for local residents.
“Housing price are soaring on speculation, and everything is becoming more expensive,” lamented Chan Wai-kuen, a 27-year-old pharmacy employee in Sheung Shui who wore the symbolic yellow ribbon of Hong Kong’s protest movement. “What’s the use of having more customers?”
Home prices in Hong Kong have climbed 120 percent since 2008 and reached a record high last year. Those costs have turned the screws on the approximately 1.3 million Hong Kongers, one in five residents, who live below the poverty line.
Despite these tensions, there are many longtime Sheung Shui residents who take a benign view of the recent arrivals and instead cast a wary eye on the democracy movement. Tong Kai-leung, 61, moved to Hong Kong from neighboring Guangdong Province in 1982, right at the dawn of the economic reforms that would transform mainland China. Back then the town relied on rice farming, but as Hong Kong’s global trade ties expanded, Tong became a visa agent for international travelers. Now retired, he tends a small Buddhist shrine near the center of the town, and he sees trouble brewing with the protests.
“They’re meaningless. They do no good to Hong Kong at all,” Tong said while sweeping up around the shrine. “Stocks are dropping, and people can’t commute to work because the traffic is blocked.”
He stopped his 25-year-old son from attending the protests in downtown Hong Kong.
“What’s democracy for?” Tong asked. “What’s the point in asking for democracy while losing the economy?”
But for 14-year-old Gary Cheung, the calculus is different. Born and raised in the nearby town of Tai Po, Cheung worries that Cantonese, the local language, and indeed Hong Kong’s culture are under threat at his school, where most of his classmates are recent arrivals from the mainland.
“Often I can’t hear a single word in Cantonese,” said Cheung. “People like me from Hong Kong have become the minority instead.”
Cheung took that frustration to a major march and sit-in this July, where he was reportedly the youngest of more than 500 people arrested by local police.
For Yvonne Choy, the grievances growing out of the daily grind in her border town have begun to take on a political tint. While warning of rising crime rates due to new arrivals, she handed out fliers detailing desired election reforms. To date she hasn’t made it to the main occupy protests in central Hong Kong, but that may change soon.
“I’m getting ready to go,” Choy pledged.
When supermarket giant Tesco announced it was closing its free Clubcard TV streaming service, it didn’t come as much of a surprise. However, bigger changes could be afoot, after The Times caught wind of the company’s plans to get out of the streaming…
The nice thing about traveling for work is that you can hop in a taxi without worrying about the cost since, after all, you’re not picking up the tab. The downside of that privilege is that, about a week or two after that, you’ll have to sit down and…
PHOENIX (AP) — Jury selection resumes in the penalty retrial of convicted murderer Jodi Arias as prosecutors try again for a death sentence.
On Monday, roughly a third of 300 potential jurors were dismissed after telling a judge they had seen too much media coverage of her first trial to be impartial or had already made up their minds about her punishment.
Another 100 prospective jurors are being called in Wednesday.
Arias was convicted of murder last year in the 2008 killing of her ex-boyfriend at his suburban Phoenix home, but jurors couldn’t agree on a sentence.
Prosecutors have one more shot with a new jury to secure the death penalty, otherwise Arias will face life in prison. The case is expected to last into December.
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