Blog Heap o' Transport Links

…one of only three built by pioneering industrial designer Brooks Stevens… same guy who built the Weinermobile…

[Interior pictures - beautiful vehicle!]

NASA launched four identical spacecraft Thursday on a billion-dollar mission to study the explosive give-and-take of the Earth and sun's magnetic fields.

…quartet of observatories is being placed into an oblong orbit stretching tens of thousands of miles into the magnetosphere - nearly halfway to the moon at one point. They will fly in pyramid formation, between 6 miles and 250 miles apart, to provide 3-D views of magnetic reconnection on the smallest of scales.

Magnetic reconnection is what happens when magnetic fields like those around Earth and the sun come together, break apart, then come together again, releasing vast energy. This repeated process drives the aurora, as well as solar storms that can disrupt communications and power on Earth. …

…Alex has two favourite things, riding his bike and superheroes. But Alex has a birth defect, his right arm is only partially formed making it difficult to ride his bike. Limbitless… builds 3D-printed bionic limbs for disabled children… enlisted a fairly special friend to [give Alex his bionic arm].

[I can imagine a 7yo thinking, I know he's just an actor who plays genius inventor Tony Stark in the movies, but he brought me a real bionic arm! Don't know which is cooler, that I've got a bionic arm, or that I got it from Iron Man!]

[Video, 2:19, officevideos on YouTube]

"A deaf 8-year-old boy went on an overnight joyride through Oklahoma City, driving 20 miles before crashing into a curb on the other side of the city Thursday…"

[He couldn't hear the sirens?]

"GALENA, Ill. — At least eight railcars derailed this afternoon south of Galena, sparking a massive fire and smoke that can be seen for miles. … No injuries have been reported…."

"…the last thing you'd likely expect is for a new experimental array to literally light nearly 130 birds in mid-flight on fire. And yet, that's exactly what happened near Tonopah, Nevada last month during tests of the 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project. …"

[Actually, that's just what anyone who's been paying attention would expect.]

Ted Cruz: "We must refocus our investment on the hard sciences, on getting men and women into space, on exploring low-Earth orbit and beyond, and not on political distractions that are extraneous to NASA’s mandate. I am excited to raise these issues in our subcommittee and look forward to producing legislation that confirms our shared commitment to this vital mission."

"Cellphone, Internet, and telephone services across half of Arizona went dark on Wednesday after vandals sliced a sensitive fiber optic cable, according to those familiar with the situation…"

All too easy.

President Obama said on Tuesday that he vetoed the Keystone pipeline legislation because it “attempts to circumvent longstanding and proven processes for determining whether or not building and operating a cross-border pipeline serves the national interest.”

They misspelled "because he wants America destroyed."

…Bounds grabbed his cellphone off the bed and walked into the kitchen. As soon as he did, he heard the harrowing squeal of colliding metal and looked outside into the snowstorm. Just 50 feet away, he could see a train crashing.

He bolted out the front door as fast as his bad knees could take him. He didn’t have time to grab his shoes and trudged through the snow in his socks. Temperatures were in the teens. …

As he ran, the wreckage burst into spectacular fireballs that shot into the sky. The yard was on fire and “it blew that hot oil on both sides of me, all over the house, my trucks.” …

"The U.S. Coast Guard and its Canadian counterpart are working to free a 647-foot freighter that got stuck in the almost completely frozen Lake Erie Wednesday near Conneaut Harbor. …"

"…92-year-old man told officers he became confused and panicked behind the wheel."

The interstellar spacecraft builds on previous designs that thoeretically allow distant travel by bending space-time… Called IXS Enterprise… Alcubierre's theory was published in 1994 and involved enormous amounts of energy being used to expand and contract space itself - thereby generating a 'warp bubble' in which a spacecraft would travel. Allowing space and time to act as the propellant by pulling the craft through the bubble would be like stepping on an escalator….

NASA Is About to Test a Mega-Parachute at the Edge of Space - If the largest ever supersonic parachute works, we'll be a step closer to putting a human on Mars.

…19-year-old who held his breath while driving [through a tunnel] and fainted, causing a three-vehicle crash on U.S. 26 that injured four people….

...She posted her sign right under the DOT's parking sign in her Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, neighborhood and left a spot for people to leave comments.

"The first person wrote like, 'The mayor should hire you. This is great,'" she says. "Things like that."

Projects like Nkki's are part of a growing trend called "tactical urbanism" in which regular citizens using tactics to try to improve the urban environment without the government's help.

[IOW what people outside the Big Dependencies do all the time!]

...the Obama administration Tuesday opened the door for states to collect tolls on interstate highways to raise revenue for roadway repairs.

The proposal, contained in a four-year, $302 billion White House transportation bill, would reverse a long-standing federal prohibition on most interstate tolling....

Drillers in Utah and Colorado are poking into a massive shale deposit trying to find a way to unlock oil reserves that are so vast they would swamp OPEC. … "In the past 100 years — in all of human history -- we have consumed 1 trillion barrels of oil. There are several times that much here,"

…isolating the key control systems of our critical infrastructure from the Internet should be a national goal. But the trend is in the opposite direction.

Fisker released the following statement: “It was reported today that several Fisker Karmas were damaged by fire at the Port of Newark after being submerged in sea water during Superstorm Sandy. We can report that there were no injuries and none of the cars were being charged at the time…. [Yes, that's warmly comforting, isn't it!]

"We cannot, I don't believe, be energy independent, totally, in the United States. But what I've proposed and I've worked on the Romney plan—they have a good energy plan. Obama has no plan, he has only conversation," Pickens said.

“My frustration is that, Minnesota and North Dakota Departments of Transportation would allow these deer crossing in such high traffic areas. I mean, I’ve even seen them on the interstate,” Donna began. “Why are we encouraging deer to cross at the interstate? I don’t get it,” Donna said to two stunned radio hosts. [VIDEO (slideshow/audio)]

When he pulled up to a traffic light in East Providence, another driver told him there was a dog wedged in the front grill of his car. … “It had a concussion from a bang to the head (and) a small rupture in its bladder. It was a very lucky dog,”

Taking the notion of online collaboration to a whole new level, VinylMint has created a cloud-based solution for musicians to jam and record in real time.

…presents American oil and natural gas producers as money-grubbing villains purportedly poisoning rural American towns. It is therefore of particular note that it is financed in part by the royal family of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. … produced “in association with” Image Media Abu Dhabi, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Media … wholly owned by the government of the UAE.

Once the winning candy bar wrapper is opened, the tracking device will go off and Nestle officials will be able to find the exact location of the customer. [What could go wrong?]

The Solar Super Storm of 1859 -- named the Carrington Event after the amateur English astronomer who first reported it -- began as a sunspot array spotted on the morning of September 1. As Carrington watched, the spots suddenly erupted into two brilliant flares, twice as bright as the sun itself, peaking within 5 minutes and subsiding.

The following morning, brilliant aurora displays became visible over much of the world as far south as the tropics. Suddenly, telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed as wires melted and sparks sprayed out over telegraph poles igniting widespread fires.

On your phone or tablet… move your phone around in space… It’s like augmented reality, except it’s even more augmented because your phone is showing you things that aren’t there… phone becomes a moving window to the place and time in which the panorama was created… 360-degree panorama tool… when we played with these in the newsroom at VentureBeat we were soon moving our phones through the air like complete idiots … and enjoying every second of it.

For decades, city centers and intercity roads have suffered from heavy traffic congestion and air pollution from car emissions. To diminish these effects, governments have tried to get people out of their cars and onto public transport such as trains, trams, buses and metros, as well was using non-polluting bicycles. Unfortunately, this has mostly proven to be unsuccessful. At least partly to blame here are poor connections between different modes of transport, longer traveling times and delays, as well as a lack of comfort and privacy. Designers and engineers are now exploring new public transport concepts, which are more capable of competing with the car by offering quicker, and in some cases individualized, transportation, as well as introducing a new range of personal city vehicles. [Mostly to blame is that mass transportation is not what people want! That said, there are some nice designs here. And flying cars!]

“It’s time we focused on reality instead of rhetoric.” The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity released this powerful ad recently. The group boldly mocks the #occupy criminal movement in the powerful pro-American ad. [Video]

At around four o’clock they decided to move from the playhouse to the side yard 200 yards away. It was a decision that kept them from becoming the first Americans killed by a nuclear weapon released on U.S. territory. Minutes later the woods behind the playhouse were destroyed by a nuclear bomb. [Sort-of]

Environmentalists have persuaded the Department of the Interior to remove four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. These dams not only provide clean, green energy to the Klamath community, they sustain area ranches and farms with continual access to water. An environmentalist’s dream, right? But the fish! We must always put fish ahead of people!

America is addicted to chocolate. Foreign chocolate.

A majority of us consume chocolate each day. Although the U.S. produces only 6% of the world’s cocoa, we consume more than 20%.

The threat is obvious. It’s time for government to step in and promote alternatives.

[Former Okla. Congressman Ernest Istook, chocolate-covered tongue in cheek]

Officials with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said the demand for wind turbines in North America had stagnated, with new contracts difficult to obtain. The company is also in an ongoing legal battle with General Electric related to patent claims on wind-turbine equipment.

Resembling a futuristic visor, the £480 ($800) device is worn like a pair of chunky goggles and earphones in one. It is equipped with two 0.7in high definition organic light emitting diode (OLED) panels and 5.1 channel dynamic audio headphone. The gadget enables the wearer to experience cinema-like viewing, equivalent to watching a 750-inch screen from 20 metres away.... It seems unlikely that most people - or even technology enthusiasts - will want to buy a product that involves sitting alone and wearing a little helmet. [Oh, REALLY??]

There is so much junk in space that collisions could start to increase exponentially, leading to a continuously growing pile of rubble in orbit

My own theory is that we are in the middle of a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift in which software companies are poised to take over large swathes of the economy. More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services—from movies to agriculture to national defense. Many of the winners are Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial technology companies that are invading and overturning established industry structures. Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not. ... Over two billion people now use the broadband Internet, up from perhaps 50 million a decade ago, when I was at Netscape, the company I co-founded. In the next 10 years, I expect at least five billion people worldwide to own smartphones, giving every individual with such a phone instant access to the full power of the Internet, every moment of every day. On the back end, software programming tools and Internet-based services make it easy to launch new global software-powered start-ups in many industries—without the need to invest in new infrastructure and train new employees. ...

An unmanned Russian cargo ship carrying tons of supplies for astronauts on the International Space Station suffered a major malfunction after launching today and ultimately crashed back to Eart ... Ship was hauling 2.9 tons of food, fuel and supplies to space station; 2nd Russian spacecraft to be lost during launch in six days

After scrutinizing several of the natural gas articles produced by ProPublica, the Independent Institute uncovered several "errors and exaggerations" that cast the industry in very bad light. There is, for example, a 2002 study from the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission that could not find any evidence of groundwater contamination resulting from hydraulic fracturing contrary to what was reported in ProPublica. The commission surveyed agencies in 28 states. This effort spanned the entire history of hydraulic fracturing in those states. Another key player here is the Heinz Foundation, which has expanded the number grants devoted to studying the natural gas industry. Heinz is headed up by Teresa Heinz, wife of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) ... The slanted reporting and misinformation could come with a serious price tag

A U.S. businessman who went into a drunken rage on board a transatlantic flight to the UK was arrested after allegedly threatening to stab the pilots with a shard of glass. ... 'Petrified' passengers claimed 32-year-old ... was drinking large quantities of wine and beer before raving at passengers and attacking staff. [Petrified? Really? Over a "shard of glass"? In this post-9/11 day and age?]

a 22-year-old woman, her mother and grandmother were killed when the family's SUV blew a tire on northbound I-95 in Wilson County, the driver lost control and the vehicle overturned.

A 40-year-old Seminole County man arrested for allegedly attaching an improvised explosive device to a natural gas pipeline in Oklahoma... Daniel Wells Herriman of Konowa...

A historic Ford Tri-Motor will make a stop at the Bartlesville Airport on September 15 — 18. ...played a major role in the development of safe and reliable air transportation in the United States.... manufactured on August 21, 1929....

London's Metropolitan Police have created a Flickr page, entitled "London Disorder — Operation Withern," which includes the "first of many" CCTV images of rioters suspected of looting, committing violence and other criminal acts. Police hope the public can help identify the alleged criminals and bring them into custody. ... Police also launched the Twitter hashtag #tweetalooter, which they urge citizens to use if they have information about rioters or criminal acts. ... Police aren't the only ones setting up websites to help catch looters. ...

Wreckage from shuttle Columbia was uncovered in East Texas this week, the result of a prolonged drought lowering water levels in a lake. The spherical tank, which is about four feet in diameter, is stuck in the mud alongside Lake Nacogdoches. ...part of Columbia's power-producing fuel cell system. ...thought to be either a liquid hydrogen or liquid oxygen tank.

At least 32 people died when a high-speed train smashed into a stalled train in China's eastern Zhejiang province Saturday, state media said, raising new questions about the safety of the fast-growing rail network. The accident occurred on a bridge near the city of Wenzhou after the first train lost power due to a lightning strike and a bullet train following behind crashed into it.... The total power failure rendered useless an electronic safety system designed to warn following trains of stalled trains on the tracks up ahead, and automatically halt them before a collision can occur.... The flagship Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail line has been plagued by power outages, leaving passengers stranded on stuffy trains for hours at least three times since opening a month ago.

Thune and Klobuchar's bill takes the tax revenue gained from ending the VEETC (which, again, doesn't help ethanol producers), and dedicates most of the money to other ethanol subsidies, such as tax credits for small ethanol producers and for ethanol blender pumps to be installed at gas stations. The bill, of course, leaves in place the mandate, which is by far the biggest ethanol subsidy. Lobbyists for the American Coalition for Ethanol and the Renewable Fuels Association applaud the bill -- which tells you just about all you need to know.

A Salinas car manufacturing company that was expected to build environmentally friendly electric cars and create new jobs folded before almost any vehicles could run off the assembly line. The city of Salinas had invested more than half a million dollars in Green Vehicles, an electric car start-up company. All of that money is now gone

Transportation Ray LaHood visited Europe to check out HSR there in person and came back proclaiming, "High speed rail is coming to America." The $8 billion, we were told, was a down payment, and that in little more than two decades, America's largest cities would be linked by a web of high speed trains. But as it turns out, a series of snafus and reversals has left Obama's HSR agenda on life support. ... But beyond those philosophically opposed to HSR, some high speed rail advocates have done themselves no favors either. They've resolutely backed pretty much any and every rail project regardless of whether it is potentially useful or an outright boondoggle.

A cellphone-size stun gun found aboard a JetBlue plane arriving from Boston did not appear intended to be used in an attack

I'm growing sour on travel. I have always disliked it. When I was a kid my parents took us all over Europe and the Caribbean, and it really exhausted me. Now that I'm a grown up, I am better able to articulate why I think travel is a waste of time. Here are four reasons why I think the benefits of travel are largely delusional

Russia said there was little hope of finding any more people alive on Monday after an overloaded tourist boat sank in the Volga River, killing as many as 128 people in Russia's worst river accident in three decades.

An Illinois man is being held at the Christian County Jail after a tractor-trailer he was driving hit a horse-drawn buggy, killing a young Amish girl and injuring three members of her family ... being held for murder, operating a vehicle under the influence, criminal mischief and three counts of assault

Today the Space Shuttle Atlantis took off for the last time, as Obama has scrapped our space program in favor of using NASA to "make muslims feel good" and America will now have to hitch rides with Russia, which will now control the International Space Station. It is a sad day.

Airlines are being warned by the government that terrorists are considering surgically hiding bombs inside humans to evade airport security. As a result, travelers may find themselves subjected to more scrutiny when flying in the heart of summer vacation season, especially to the U.S. from abroad. ... People-scanning machines in airports aren't able to detect explosives hidden inside humans. ... Jimmie C. Oxley, a chemistry professor at the University of Rhode Island and explosives expert, said it would be tough to carry out such an effort successfully. She said there are only so many places to hide a bomb in the body, and a suicide bomber would have to recover enough from the surgery to travel and set off the device. ... [ALL PASSEENGERS SUBJECT TO IMPROMPTU SURGERY BY TSA AGENTS]

ONONDAGA, N.Y. — A man riding bareheaded on one of about 550 motorcycles in an anti-helmet law rally lost control of his cycle, went over his handlebars, hit his head on the pavement and died...

Metro has responded to 339 calls for service in the first half of 2011 involving a suspicious person, package, bomb threat or similar condition, according to the transit agency. That's almost two cases every day. ... It was not immediately clear how many — if any — of the 339 cases involved actual bombs or credible threats.

The metal object that killed a Waterbury woman while she was riding in a sport utility vehicle on Interstate 95 south in Greenwich on Saturday was a locking pin that likely flew off a one-ton dump truck, State Police said Wednesday. Investigators at Troop G in Bridgeport are trying to uncover what happened around 12:34 p.m. that led to the object smashing through the windshield of a 2003 Ford Escape and striking the victim, Sara Betancourt, who was sitting in the front passenger seat....

A 7-year-old Michigan boy barefoot and in pajamas drove a car for 20 miles, sometimes hitting speeds of 50 mph, before finally slowing down and stopping with the help of authorities.

A bad case of superiority complex, maybe! There can only be one thing worse than someone talking loudly on the train ... and that's someone talking loudly on the train about how intelligent they are. Captured on a cellphone by a fellow passenger on a New York-Connecticut train is a commuter straight out of the 'do you know who I am?' school.

Earlier this year, the Transportation Security Administration halted a program that allowed airports to privatize their screeners, citing safety concerns, but airport administrators say TSA stopped the program with little warning and without adequate justification.

A North Carolina-based bus company was ordered Saturday to cease operations because government inspectors say the company hires drivers who don't have the required licenses or who aren't medically examined and qualified. It was the third company ordered to shut down within a few days in a string of inspections that follows the deaths of four people in a wreck involving a bus owned by another North Carolina company.... The FMCSA earlier ordered Sky Express Inc. of Charlotte to shut down after an accident on May 31 in Virginia that killed four passengers and injured dozens of others. Within days, the government had to order the company to shut down again after investigators discovered the carrier was repainting its buses and continuing to sell tickets ... Also Saturday, the government ordered Haines Tours of Gladwin, Mich., to cease commercial bus operations after passengers were found in a luggage compartment with mattresses and pillows during a trip to Ohio. And on Thursday, regulators shut down Georgia-based JCT Motor Coach Inc. for the second time since 2009, saying the company changed its name to avoid a previous order to cease operations because of safety violations.....