Month: December 2024

Experts Alarmed by Huge Wall at Airport That Jet Crashed Into, Killing 179 Passengers

Experts Alarmed by Huge Wall at Airport That Jet Crashed Into, Killing 179 Passengers

“Normally, on an airport with a runway at the end, you don’t have a wall.” Localizer Tragedy In South Korea, a jet quite literally crashed and burned when it hit a wall that was placed at the end of an airport runway, killing 179 passengers. As the BBC reports, the pilot of the Jeju Air plane reported to the control tower at Muan International Airport that the Boeing 787-800 jet had struck a bird and needed to make an emergency landing. Despite failing to deploy its wheels and other gear, the emergency landing was looking okay — until the plane crashed into the concrete structure atop a dirt embankment at the end of the runway. That wall held a navigational system called a localizer that’s meant, ironically, to help planes land safely. While localizer structures are common at airports, they’re generally not supposed to be placed at the end of runways like the one at Muan, experts told the BBC. Air safety specialist David Learmont told the broadcaster that if the “obstruction,” as he called the localizer …

Elon Musk reportedly discussed a Tesla battery factory in South Africa

Elon Musk reportedly discussed a Tesla battery factory in South Africa

Elon Musk reportedly discussed with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa the potential of Tesla building a battery factory in South Africa. The conversation between Musk and Ramaphosa reportedly happened earlier this year, but it was only now reported by Bloomberg. According to the report, Musk approached the president of his home country to ease regulations and allow Starlink, his satellite-based internet service operated by SpaceX, to operate in the country. South Africa has rules requiring Starlink to be at least 30% Black-owned to operate, which would likely require SpaceX to partner with locals. How does Tesla play into this? According to the report, Musk and Ramaphosa discussed the potential of Tesla to build a battery factory in South Africa as part of a deal to encourage the country to relax its rules to enable Starlink to operate locally. It’s unclear what kind of “battery factory” they are discussing. Tesla does produce its own battery cells at Gigafactory Texas, but the production is somewhat limited, and the company is still having issues ramping up. The cells …

Amazon’s 10 Books That Defined 2024

Amazon’s 10 Books That Defined 2024

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Amazon’s 10 Books That Defined 2024 Amazon editors made the impossible selection of just 10 books that defined this year. There were three books I was 99% sure would make the list: James by Percival Everett, Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, and All Fours by Miranda July. If you’ve kept up with even a few best of and big literary awards list, you too would have made this guess because these books were on all the lists, including this one. I loved The God of the Woods by Liz Moore, which became the big book club book of the year, so I was glad to see it make the list along with my other faves, James and Martyr!. I was most surprised by the inclusion of Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I mean, I know the adaptation has received huge …

Notable Artists, Dealers, and Collectors Who Died

Notable Artists, Dealers, and Collectors Who Died

There were times in 2024 when it felt as though an entire chapter of art history was being lost. Crack open a modern art textbook, and note how many figures from the section on Minimalism died this year alone: Frank Stella, Carl Andre, Richard Serra. Stella and Serra’s deaths, plus those of artists working at the same time like Faith Ringgold and Jackie Winsor, recently moved critic Barry Schwabsky to ask if an entire New York scene had died this year as well. It wasn’t just artists in New York who died this year, of course. Giants of other countries also passed: the German sculptor Rebecca Horn, the Austrian performance artist Günter Brus, the Saudi Arabian painter Safeya Binzagr, the Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe. And it wasn’t just artists, either. Dealers Barbara Gladstone and Pierre Levai died this year, along with collectors Rosa de la Cruz and Leonard Riggio, curator Kasper König, and art historian David Anfam. Below, a look back at some of the most notable art-world figures who died in 2024. Read more …

The 4 Most Important Cultures in Ancient Anatolia

The 4 Most Important Cultures in Ancient Anatolia

  The peoples of ancient Anatolia developed several cultures that, although interconnected, were also distinct in several ways. Beginning with the Hittites in the Bronze Age and ending with the Lydians in the Classical period, the Anatolian peoples traded, fought, and engaged in diplomacy with each other and other notable ancient Near Eastern peoples. The Anatolian peoples truly affected the course of ancient history in many ways. The following is a survey of the five most important Anatolian cultures in chronological order: the Hittites, the Arzawa, the Phrygians, and the Lydians.   1. The Hittites  Gold Hittite Amulet, Hittite, 1400-1200 BCE (Hittite New Kingdom), via the British Museum, London   Before beginning this survey, it is important to understand where and what Anatolia is. Anatolia is the name that historians and archeologists of ancient Near Eastern history apply to the landmass that is roughly equivalent to the modern nation-state of Turkey. The Hittites were Indo-Europeans who arrived in Anatolia in the late third millennium BCE and by the middle of the second millennium, they had …

Increased Drone Sightings Highlight New Risks, Aviation Experts Say

Increased Drone Sightings Highlight New Risks, Aviation Experts Say

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Ground observers across an increasing number of U.S. states are reporting aircraft in the sky that appear to be unmanned aerial systems (UAS), or drones, leaving the public on edge. Illustration by The Epoch Times, AP Photo/Seth Wenig, Shutterstock With no definitive answers available, aviation experts—perplexed by the federal government’s limited response—suggest multiple origins for the unidentified aircraft. During weeks of sightings pooling out of states such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts, California, Ohio, and Utah, some observers reported seeing aircraft as large as SUVs. Now, state and local officials are demanding answers from Washington. A Dec. 17 joint statement released by the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the Department of Defense confirmed more than 5,000 reported drone sightings in the past few weeks, “with approximately 100 leads generated.” These reports consist of a “combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars …

Blinking may give your brain a micro break during cognitive tasks

Blinking may give your brain a micro break during cognitive tasks

Blinking may do more than just keep our eyes healthy gaiamoments/Getty Images Blinking serves a crucial physiological function, by clearing debris from our eyes and keeping them lubricated. But now, scientists have found it may also have a cognitive role. In 1945, Arthur Hall at the University of Sheffield in the UK reported on the frequency of blinking as people read aloud, finding that it mostly coincided with gaps in the print. He suggested that blinking may help people take pauses as they read. To expand on… Source link

How ‘Trophy’ Videos Link Paramilitary Commanders to War Crimes in Sudan

How ‘Trophy’ Videos Link Paramilitary Commanders to War Crimes in Sudan

[EXPLOSION] “The people are running away from the bombing. People are dying. We just send this to the nation to see what is happening in Nuba Mountains.” [GUNSHOTS] “Yeah.” Sudan is in the grip of a brutal civil war. Eleven million people have been driven from their homes, and tens of thousands have been killed. As a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces — [CRIES] — battles the Sudanese Army for control of the country. The U.N. has accused both sides of abuses. But a six-month investigation by The New York Times shows that the R.S.F. is committing systemic atrocities across Sudan, including ethnic cleansing – often under the watch of its commanders. The opaque structure of the R.S.F. makes it hard to identify the leaders responsible. But by analyzing dozens of slick propaganda videos, where the commanders are presented as benevolent actors, we mapped out for the first time a command structure of at least 20 key figures and the regions they operate in. R.S.F. fighters under these commanders often film atrocities themselves, …