Tag: strange

Sharks Are Eating Asia’s Internet

Shark species in the region may be drawn to chow down on undersea cables, which send off electromagnetic waves that can act as shark bait.

If you live in Southeast Asia and can’t stream YouTube videos or access Facebook, sharks may be to blame.

The underwater trans-Pacific cable that provides Internet to most of Southeast Asia broke again yesterday, leaving millions with slow or spotty connectivity. The region faces an estimated repair time of up to a month.

The Asia-America Gateway (AAG), launched in 2009, is an enormous underwater cable line stretching 12,000 miles across the Pacific. It connects 10 points throughout the Pacific islands and Southeast Asia and provides vital connectivity to several countries between Malaysia and California.

But one branch of the $500 million AAG has been continually beset with problems. The segment of the cable that runs between Vietnam and Hong Kong has ruptured four times within the last six months—twice near Hong Kong and twice near Vietnam. The latest incident occurred yesterday, when the cable broke near the Vietnamese city of Ba Ria.

In addition to Vietnam, the outage effects the cable’s offshoot points further west, which means Internet users in Brunei, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia are also feeling the slow-down. Although these other countries rely on the cable, it is managed by one Vietnamese telecommunications company.

Investigators have not confirmed a reason for the latest rupture. One common explanation in these cases is that anchors from passing fishing trawlers snagged the cable and caused damage. Increasingly, however, cable watchers believe that the problem may be sharks.

Shark species in the region, these experts say, may be drawn to chow down on the cables, which send off electromagnetic waves that can act as sharkbait. One theory holds that sharks mistake the cables for the bioelectric fields surrounding schools of fish. Others suggest that perhaps sharks are merely overly curious.

To prevent sharks from chomping through fragile and expensive fiber-optic wires, Google, which has pledged to collaborate on a similar $300 million undersea cable to Japan, has started wrapping its cables in kevlar.

Eerie, 1970s ‘Crack’ Monster from Sesame Street

The “crack creatures,” as they are known, are spindly, skinny and spooky – a nightmare for any child worried about the potential of monsters under the bed.

If your childhood self watched Sesame Street in 1975, you may have a vague yet haunting memory of a character known as Master Crack, who emerged through your bedroom ceiling and transported you to an alternate crack world. You are not alone.

On December 31, 1975 this short animated segment followed a young woman as she interacted with the various shapes and creatures formed by the cracks on her walls. The “crack creatures,” as they are known, are spindly, skinny and all around spooky — a sure nightmare for any child worried about the potential of monsters under the bed.

For a while the clip circulated only as folklore, as grown internet users who were traumatized by the cartoon in their youth banded together to reminisce about the mysterious “crack creatures” and their frightening “Crack Master.” The short was rumored to be the work of animator Cosmo Anzilotti, though he reportedly has no memory of ever creating it.

crack monster

Trippy Spiral Hacks a Hummingbird’s Hover

A moving view, like a trippy morphing spiral, is enough to make a hummingbird unstable. Little is known about how birds use senses to control flight.

If a sipping hummingbird starts to wobble when near a flower, it’s probably not because its nectar has been spiked. A moving view, like a trippy morphing spiral, seems to be enough to make it lose its stability (see video above).

To investigate how Anna’s hummingbirds control their body position, Douglas Altshuler and his team at the University of British Columbia in Canada set up a hummingbird bar in front of a screen with moving patterns. The group found that even minimal background movement affected the birds’ hovering, causing them to wobble back and forth while feeding or to jam their bills in too far, depending on the direction of motion.

Given that the birds’ natural environment is full of moving elements, it is surprising how sensitive they are to movement in their visual field, says the team. Little is known about how birds use their senses to control flight.

The effect, however, doesn’t stop hummingbirds from being spectacular aerial acrobats: Anna’s hummingbirds can shake faster than any other vertebrate and dive at record-breaking speeds.

Trippy spiral hacks a hummingbird's hover

What is it? Mysterious “Dumb Starbucks” Appears in Los Angeles Neighborhood Overnight

@MarkMcCune

A mysterious “Dumb Starbucks” has opened in a Los Angeles neighborhood. The store opened up Friday night, February 7, using a logo almost identical to the official Starbucks corporate logo. The store is almost identicalto a normal Starbucks, with the exception of the word “Dumb” being added to anything Starbucks-related. On the menu – Dumb Coffee & Iced Tea, Dumb Espresso (which of course includes a Dumb Caramel Macchiato) and Dumb Frappuccinos.

@MarkMcCune
@MarkMcCune

A mysterious Dumb Starbucks has opened in a Los Angeles neighborhood. The store opened up Friday night, February 7, using a logo almost identical to the official Starbucks corporate logo. The store is almost identical to a normal Starbucks, with the exception of the word “Dumb” being added to anything Starbucks-related. On the menu: Dumb Coffee & Iced Tea, Dumb Espresso (which of course includes a Dumb Caramel Macchiato) and Dumb Frappuccinos.

@dumbstarbucks
@dumbstarbucks

No one knows who is behind the store which popped up in the Los Feliz neighborhood of L.A. and has been serving free coffee throughout the weekend. There are no business licenses or health code ratings posted in the store, and the baristas say that they were hired off of Craigslist. The only official communications from the store have come from its @dumbstarbucks Twitter account and an FAQ flyer posted in the store.

Dumb Starbucks FAQ

So what is it? Given that some of the first people to tweet about the store were TV writer Dan Harmon and “The Office” actor Rainn Wilson, many think the store is a viral marketing stunt or part of a TV show.

Source: Southern California Public Radio