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Submission + - Museum of Failure opens in Sweden (failuremag.com)

Submitted by swellconvivialguy
swellconvivialguy writes: A new museum in Helsingborg displays more than 70 failed products and objects, including the Apple Newton, Google Glass, Sony Betamax, Harley-Davidson perfume, and the Donald Trump board game. According to curator Samuel West, “none of the companies that I contacted wanted to cooperate. I approached quite a few innovation directors and asked them for examples of failure that they’ve learned from. I thought it would be easy to get them to collaborate but none of them—zero—choose to cooperate.”

Submission + - How Much Is That Click, Clack Worth? (failuremag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: “Most of us are now drowning in digital media, and the flood of information has robbed [us] of the ability to focus and concentrate—or do much of anything, uninterrupted, for an extended period of time. Perhaps this explains why a small but distinctive minority of people are now embracing decidedly old-fashioned technologies” like vinyl records, 35mm cameras, and the typewriter, the latter a strong “symbol of resistance against the over-digitization of our lives,” as it was replaced by the personal computer. Of course, you’re still not likely to see people committing public acts of typewriting, but you learn there’s a surprising amount of fascinating things happening in the typewriting community if you consult The Typewriter Revolution, a new ‘typist’s companion’ that covers everything from privacy issues (think: intelligence agencies using typewriters) to artistic endeavors (like the Boston Typewriter Orchestra) to the clever ways enthusiasts are bridging the typewritten and digital worlds (the USB Typewriter). In this interview with Richard Polt, the book's author answers the burning question: “Is it a Mad Max-ish world where people are scrounging for every [typewriter] ribbon they can get?”

Submission + - MIT Creates Tor Alternative That Floods Networks With Fake Data (softpedia.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: MIT researchers create an alternative to Tor, a network messaging system called Vuvuzela that pollutes the network with dummy data so the NSA won't know who's talking to who. First tests show a 44-seconds delay, but the network can work fine and keep anonymity even it has more than 50% of servers compromised.

Submission + - EFF begins a Campaign for Secure and Usable Cryptography (eff.org)

Submitted by Peter Eckersley
Peter Eckersley writes: Over at EFF we just launched our Secure Messaging Scorecard, which is the first phase in a campaign to promote the development of communications protocols that are genuinely secure and usable by ordinary people. The Scorecard evaluates communications software against critical minimum standards for what a secure messaging app should look like; subsequent phases are planned to examine real world usability, metadata protection, protocol openness, and involve a deeper look at the security of the leading candidates. Right now, we don't think the Internet has any geninely usable, genuinely secure messaging protocols — but we're hoping to encourage tech companies and the open source community to starting closing that gap.

Submission + - Russia's Dyatlov Pass Incident explained by modern science? (failuremag.com)

Submitted by swellconvivialguy
swellconvivialguy writes: Fifty-five years ago today, nine young Russians died under suspicious circumstances during a winter hiking trip in the Ural mountains. Despite an exhaustive investigation and the recovery of the group’s journals and photographs, the deaths remained unexplained, blamed on “an unknown compelling force.” Now American film and television producer Donnie Eichar believes he has solved the mystery of the Dyatlov Pass Incident. Working in conjunction with scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, CO, Eichar developed a theory that the hikers died because they panicked in the face of infrasound produced by a Kármán vortex street.

Submission + - Insects as Weapons (failuremag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Timothy Paine, an entomologist at the University of California-Riverside, recently “committed to the scientific record the idea that California’s eucalyptus trees may have been biologically sabotaged, publishing an article [in the Journal of Economic Entomology] raising the possibility of bioterrorism.” Specifically, Paine argues that foreign insect pests have been deliberately introduced in the Golden State, in hopes of decimating the state’s population of eucalyptus (especially the two species regarded as invasive, which “are particularly susceptible to the pests.”) In California’s Bioterror Mystery, Paine (and scientists who are sceptical) make their arguments. What isn’t in dispute is that the insect pests have already inflicted hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, making the story a cautionary tale about what might happen if a food or crop were intentionally targeted.

Submission + - Scientific Cruise Meets Perfect Storm, Inspires Extreme Wave Research (failuremag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The oceanographers aboard RRS Discovery were expecting the winter weather on their North Atlantic research cruise to be bad, but they didn’t expect to have to negotiate the highest waves ever recorded in the open ocean. Wave heights were measured by the vessel’s Shipborne Wave Recorder, which allowed scientists from the National Oceanography Centre to produce a paper titled “Were extreme waves in the Rockall Trough the largest ever recorded?” It’s that paper, in combination with the first confirmed measurement of a rogue wave (at Draupner platform in the North Sea), that led to “a surge of interest in extreme and rogue waves, and a renewed emphasis on protecting ships and offshore structures from their destructive power.”
Books

Submission + - Remembering Sealab (failuremag.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: “Some people remember Sealab as being a classified program, but it was trying not to be,” says Ben Hellwarth, author of the new book Sealab: America’s Forgotten Quest to Live and Work on the Ocean Floor, which aims to “bring some long overdue attention to the marine version of the space program.” In the 1960s, the media largely ignored the efforts of America’s aquanauts, who revolutionized deep-sea diving and paved the way for the underwater construction work being done today on offshore oil platforms. It didn’t help that the public didn’t understand the challenges of saturation diving; in this comical exchange a telephone operator initially refuses to connect a call between President Johnson and Aquanaut Scott Carpenter, (who sounded like a cartoon character, thanks to the helium atmosphere in his pressurized living quarters). But in spite of being remembered as a failure, the final incarnation of Sealab did provide cover for a very successful Cold War spy program.
Science

Submission + - BP-owned toxic lake filled with cancer-fighting ex (failuremag.com)

Submitted by EagleHasLanded
EagleHasLanded writes: The Berkeley Pit, an abandoned open pit copper mine in Butte, Montana—part of the largest Superfund site in the U.S.—is filled with 40 billion gallons of acidic, metal-contaminated water. For years the water was believed to be too toxic to support life, until Andrea and Donald Stierle, a pair of organic chemists at the Univ. of Montana discovered that the Pit is a rich source of unusual extremophiles, “many of which have shown great promise as producers of potential anti-cancer agents and anti-inflammatories.” In the course of their ongoing investigation, the two self-described “bioprospectors” have also discovered an uncommon yeast, which might play a significant role in cleaning up the site. In the meantime, the Pit has become a tourist attraction in Butte, which charges $2 for the opportunity to take in the view from the Viewing Stand.
Transportation

Submission + - Are Folding Containers the Future of Shipping? (failuremag.com)

Submitted by swellconvivialguy
swellconvivialguy writes: Earlier this year Maersk ordered 20 super-size container ships—each to have “16 percent larger capacity than today’s largest container vessel, Emma Maersk.” But instead of embracing the bigger/more-is-better mentality, Staxxon, a NJ-based startup, has engineered a folding steel container (it folds like a toddler’s playpen), which is designed to make shipping more efficient by “reducing the number of container ship movements.” No one has yet succeeded in the marketplace with a collapsible container, but Staxxon has made a point of learning from the mistakes of others.
Science

Submission + - Studying the Impact of Lost Shipping Containers (failuremag.com) 3

Submitted by swellconvivialguy
swellconvivialguy writes: Looking at a picture of the world’s largest container ship it’s easy to visualize how 10,000 containers fall overboard from these vessels every year. Now scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute are undertaking the Lost Container Cruise, an attempt to gauge the effects of shipping containers lost at sea by studying a tire-filled container, which marine biologists discovered in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. ( The research is being funded by a multi-million dollar settlement with the operators of the Med Taipei, the ship that lost the cargo.) The work is not unlike studying a deep water shipwreck: Use robotic submarine to take pictures and collect sediment samples; repeat.

Submission + - Earthquake hazard in Midwest equal to California? (failuremag.com)

Submitted by swellconvivialguy
swellconvivialguy writes: Next year marks the bicentennial of the 1811-12 New Madrid earthquakes, with earthquake drills and disaster tourism events planned across the Midwest, including the Great Central U.S. ShakeOut. But despite the fact that Earthquake Hazard Maps equate the New Madrid seismic zone with California, geologist Seth Stein says new science (especially GPS data) tells us the hazard has been significantly overestimated and that we should not spend billions on earthquake preparations in the Midwest.

Submission + - The Search for the Mount Everest of caves (failuremag.com)

Submitted by NoMeansYes
NoMeansYes writes: An interview with James Tabor, author of the new best-selling book “Blind Descent,” reveals that it's a pair of accomplished scientists — American Bill Stone and Ukranian geologist Alexander Klimchouk — that are the two most prominent figures in extreme caving, and both have figured prominently in the ongoing quest to discover the deepest cave on earth. Tabor describes what conditions are like inside supercaves like Cheve (-4,869 feet) and Krubera (-7,188 feet), before discussing Stone and his far-reaching technological innovations, which include The Posideon Discovery Rebreather and NASA’s ENDURANCE. Extreme caving probably won't remain underground (so to speak) much longer, however. The article notes that James Cameron is planning to release a 3D film next year about extreme cave divers.

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