High Definite/Actual News

I can’t imagine a better way to honor a 1922 volcanic eruption than by throwing lit balls of gasoline-soaked rags at one another.

From The Telegraph:

Residents in the town of Nejapa, located some 18 miles north of San Salvador, gather every August 31 to hurl fireballs at one another in honour of a huge volcanic eruption in 1922 that forced all of the residents to abandon the town.

Local churches and their worshippers have embraced the tradition with urban legend saying that the hot lava that flowed from the volcano was actually the local Christian Saint Jeronimo fighting the devil with balls of fire.

The fireball hurling is meant to remember the old town which was destroyed in the battle.

Via

Scientists have discovered a subterranean river 4km (do your own conversion) beneath the Amazon River that may be 6,000km long and hundreds of times wider than the Amazon.

From The Guardian:

Both the Amazon and Hamza flow from west to east and are around the same length, at 6,000km. But whereas the Amazon ranges from 1km to 100km in width, the Hamza ranges from 200km to 400km.

The underground river starts in the Acre region under the Andes and flows through the Solimões, Amazonas and Marajó basins before opening out directly into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Amazon flows much faster than the Hamza, however, draining a greater volume of water. Around 133,000m³ of water flow through the Amazon per second at speeds of up to 5 metres per second. The underground river’s flow rate has been estimated at around 3,900m³ per second and it barely inches along at less than a millimetre per hour

Via | Pic via

Steve Jobs has announced that he will resign from the position as CEO of Apple Inc. in a letter to the Board of Directors:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

The Board has announced that Tim Cook, previously Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, will indeed become the company’s new CEO, while Jobs will serve as the new Chairman of the Board.

Via | Pic: Matt Yohe

A 5.8 earthquake that started in Virginia was felt in the District and up through NYC. The Pentagon and the Capitol Building have been evacuated. Colorado was also hit with a 5.3 magnitude quake.

USGS | Photo: DC Earthquake Devastation

Related: The Best Twitter Responses To The Earthquake

What you need to know neatly wrapped up in a couple of paragraphs.

Pic via

Haven’t done one of these in a while, but a lot of stuff happened over the weekend so here you go.

S.& P. Downgrades U.S. Debt Rating For The First Time – [NY Times]

Standard & Poor’s removed the United States government from its list of risk-free borrowers for the first time on Friday night, a downgrade that is freighted with symbolic significance but carries few clear financial implications.

The company, one of three major agencies that offer advice to investors in debt securities, said it was cutting its rating of long-term federal debt to AA+, one notch below the top grade of AAA. It described the decision as a judgment about the nation’s leaders, writing that “the gulf between the political parties” had reduced its confidence in the government’s ability to manage its finances.

31 U.S. Soldiers Die, Including 22 SEALs from Team Six, In Helicopter Hit With RPG – [The Atlantic Wire]

Yesterday’s news that 30 U.S. troops had died when the Taliban shot down a helicopter, marking the deadliest day for Americans in the war in Afghanistan, was met with mourning across the nation. Furthermore, details emerged that 22 of the troops killed were members of Navy SEAL Team 6, the elite unit that carried out the operation that killed Osama bin Laden (although none of those who died were participants in his death themselves). Considering how few members of the armed forces are Navy SEALs, the loss was called “unbearable.”

More reports are being released on the fatal operation. The U.S. Navy Seals and other troops in the helicopter were on a rescue mission, the Associated Press reports, according to two U.S. officials. They were rushed to the mountainous area in eastern Afghanistan to help a U.S. army ranger unit that was under fire from insurgents. The rescue team had completed the mission, subdued the attackers, and were departing when their helicopter was hit.

Riots Erupt In Tottenham Over Shooting Of 29-Year-Old By Metropolitan Police – [The Daily What]

Riots erupted in the North London area of Tottenham last night, ostensibly over the recent shooting of 29-year-old Mark Duggan by the Metropolitan Police near Tottenham Hale station.

Duggan was reportedly a target of an ongoing police investigation into gun crime in London’s black communities, and was shot after allegedly firing on a Specialist Firearms Command officer with an illegal handgun.

A protest march organized by family and friends of Duggan turned violent after a rumor that police officers assaulted a teenage girl caused longstanding tensions to boil over. Many shops were looted and vehicles were set on fire, including two police cars and a double-decker bus. Several buildings sustained heavy damage after being petrol bombed by the rioters.

Captain Morgan’s Pirate Ship Found Near Panama – [Discovery]

The lost wreckage of a ship belonging to 17th century pirate Captain Henry Morgan has been discovered in Panama, said a team of U.S. archaeologists — and the maker of Captain Morgan rum.

Near the Lajas Reef, where Morgan lost five ships in 1671 including his flagship “Satisfaction,” the team uncovered a portion of the starboard side of a wooden ship’s hull and a series of unopened cargo boxes and chests encrusted in coral.

The cargo has yet to be opened, but Captain Morgan USA — which sells the spiced rum named for the eponymous pirate — is clearly hoping there’s liquor in there.

Pic via

Samuel K. Sia, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia Engineering, has developed a credit card-sized chip that can perform an HIV test on a blood sample in 15 minutes with a reported 100% detection rate, all for about a dollar.

“We have engineered a disposable credit card-sized device that can produce blood-based diagnostic results in minutes,” said Sia. “The idea is to make a large class of diagnostic tests accessible to patients in any setting in the world, rather than forcing them to go to a clinic to draw blood and then wait days for their results.”

Sia and his team performed testing in Rwanda over the last four years in partnership with Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and three local non-government organizations in Rwanda, targeting hundreds of patients. His device, known as mChip (mobile microfluidic chip), requires only a tiny finger prick of blood, effective even for a newborn, and gives—in less than 15 minutes—quantitative objective results that are not subject to user interpretation. This new technology significantly reduces the time between testing patients and treating them, providing medical workers in the field results that are much easier to read at a much lower cost. New low-cost diagnostics like the mChip could revolutionize medical care around the world.

Via

A hobbyist codebreaker named Corey Starliper claims to have broken the code to the Zodiac Killer’s infamous 41-year-old “340″ cipher, which confirms that long-time suspect Arthur Leigh Allen was indeed the Zodiac Killer:

According to Robert Graysmith, in “Zodiac”, tips received by police after Darlene Ferrin’s murder indicated that the killing was connected to the U.S Virgin Islands. Starliper believed that the “340” of the 340 cipher was significant, and had some tie-in with the U.S. Virgin Islands. It was then that he found out that 340 is the area code for a portion of the U.S Virgin Islands — not an insignificant connection.

“So that’s what I started with,” said Starliper. “I thought, there’s no way … that Zodiac is going to be prosaic enough not to mention the U.S. Virgin Islands in this code. This is where it gets even creepier. 3+4+0=7. Right. So you get 7+0=7. 707…707 are the area codes for Vallejo, Napa, and Solano. So I figured, why not start this with Caesar code using 3,4.”

This doesn’t mean the 340 is such an easy task to decode, considering the fact that the original 340 cipher is full of symbols: >, +, and ▲ being just a few of the signs found in the code. To combat this problem, Starliper extracted symbols and changed them to letters they could correspond with. For example, a ^ or < symbol could be interpreted as inverted or sideways “V”s.

After two sessions of 6 hours and 3 hours, Starliper was left with this message:

“KILL SLF DR HELP ME KILL MYSELF GAS CHAMBER AEIOUR DAYS QUESTIONSABLE EVERYY WAKING MOMENT IM ALIVE MY PR IDE LOST I CAST GO ON LIVING IN THIS WAY KILLING PEOPLE I HAV KILLD SO MANY PEOPLE CANT HELP MYSELF IM SO AN GRY I COULD DO MY THINK IM ALONE IN THIS WORLD MY W HOLE LIFE FUL O LIES IM UNABLE TO STOP BY THE TIME YOU SOLVE THISI WILL HAV KILLD ELEVEN PEOPLE PLEASE HELP ME STOP KILLING PEOPLE PLEASE MY NAME IS LEIGH ALLEN”.

Many have claimed to have solved this cipher with different results, so if you’re a skeptic, this is your cue.

Via Kottke & Boing Boing

Don’t worry. The police are saying it isn’t suspicious, so it’s definitely unrelated to the News Corp shenanigans. Definitely.

From the Guardian:

Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbusiness reporter who was the first named journalist to allege that Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead .

Hoare, who worked on the Sun and the News of the World with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems, was said to have been found at his Watford home.

Hertfordshire police would not confirm his identity, but the force said in a statement: “At 10.40am today [Monday 18 July] police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for the welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street. Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after.

Man, what a crazy coincidence.

Via the Guardian’s live coverage

Today, President Obama awarded Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Arthur Petry the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions in Afghanistan, joining Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta as the only living recipients of the award since the Vietnam War. The Army explains his actions that earned him the highest military decoration offered by our country:

During his last mission, Petry was to locate himself with the platoon headquarters in the target building once it was secured. There, he was to serve as the senior noncommissioned officer at the site for the remainder of the operation.

But things quickly got dangerous for Petry and his team. Insurgents opened fire on Petry and his men.

Petry had fellow Ranger Pvt. 1st Class Lucas Robinson at his side. The two were to clear the outer courtyard of the target building. It was there the two first saw the enemy.

“I remember seeing the guy out of my peripheral vision,” Petry said. “Two guys with AKs at their hip, just spraying. And one happened to strike me right in the thighs. I didn’t know I was hit in both thighs, but it hit my left thigh.”

Robinson was also hit, Petry said. “He was struck right in his ribcage on his left side and he continued along and followed behind me.”

While wounded and under enemy fire, Petry led Robinson to the cover of a chicken coop in the courtyard. The enemy continued to deliver fire at the two Soldiers.

Petry reported contact was made with the enemy, and as a result, team member Sgt. Daniel Higgins moved to the outer courtyard. As Higgins moved toward the chicken coop to meet with the two wounded Soldiers, Petry threw a thermobaric grenade toward the enemy. That explosion caused a lull in enemy fire.

As Higgins evaluated the wounds of both Petry and Robinsion, an insurgent threw a grenade over the chicken coop. The grenade landed about 10 meters from the three Rangers, knocked them to the ground, and wounded Higgins and Robinson.

With three Soldiers taking cover in the coop, an insurgent threw yet another grenade. This time, the grenade landed just a few feet from the three Soldiers — much closer than the earlier grenade.

“It was almost instinct — off training,” Petry said of his response to the situation. “It was probably going to kill all three of us. I had time to visually see the hand grenade. And I figure it’s got about a four-and-half second fuse, depending on how long it has been in the elements and the weather and everything and how long the pin has been pulled. I figure if you have time to see it you have time to kick it, throw it, just get it out there.”

That’s when Petry picked up the grenade and threw it away from him and his buddies. As it turns out, he did have the time to save all three of their lives — but not time to save his hand.

The grenade exploded as he threw it — destroying his throwing arm.

“I actually didn’t think it was going to go off,” Petry said. “I didn’t really feel much pain. I didn’t know it had gone off and taken my hand until I sat back up and saw it was completely amputated at the wrist.”

Thanks to a prosthetic hand and the unbridled desire to continue being a badass, Sgt. 1st Class Petry was able to re-enlist with the Rangers last year.