EXCERPT: After hitting the market in 2013, La Miniatura (aka The Millard House, 1923) was originally listed at approximately $4.5MM. The final sold price hasn't been made public...
EXCERPT: [...] The Millard House was the first of Frank Lloyd Wright's four "textile block" houses — all built in Los Angeles County in 1923 and 1924. Wright took on the Millard House following his completion of the Hollyhock House in Hollywood and the Imperial Hotel in Japan. By this time, Wright felt typecast as the Prairie house architect and sought to broaden his architectural vision. Wright turned to the concrete block as his new building material. Wright wrote in his autobiography that he chose to build with concrete blocks as they were "the cheapest (and ugliest) thing in the building world," and he wanted to see "what could be done with that gutter-rat."
[...] The initial critical response to Millard House and the textile block structures was not positive. The homes were greeted with "howls of laughter", as Beaux Arts-trained architects were "appalled" to see a common building material used for the facades and interior walls of expensive homes.
[...] However, Wright himself took great pride in Millard House. He said of it: "I would rather have built this little house than St. Peter's in Rome." Over the years, critical views of Millard House became positive, and it is now considered one of Wright's finest works.
In 1965, the Los Angeles Times columnist Art Seidenbaum wrote: "Environmentally, the place is fascinating because it still looks modern in a neighborhood that is gracious but aging. Or, maybe better, the Millard house is of no time and its own place."
In 1969, Millard House was ranked as one of the 12 most significant landmarks in the Los Angeles area by a panel of ten distinguished citizens and architecture experts.
In 1980, The New York Times noted that the Millard House was known around the world and ranked it among the few buildings in Los Angeles that "have become classic works of the 20th Century."
"For Jay Torres, the hardest part of California's devastating drought wasn't the shorter showers or the fact that he couldn't wash his car. It was looking at his lawn, which withered and died when he cut back on watering. So he got creative. The San Bernardino resident hired someone to paint his grass green.
"It became a real eyesore, and we live in an area where everyone keeps their yard really nice," Torres said. "I heard about a service where people paint your lawn so it looks like the real thing and thought, why not? "
A Long Beach landscaper armed with a canister of paint showed up at Torres's front door a few days later. Now the lawn sports a glittering shade of emerald green that should last anywhere from three to six months.
"We've had lots of people stop over and say it looks good," Torres said. "It's this really bright, popping green." Some of the neighbors have even said they're thinking of dyeing their grass green to match.
The story is far from unique. Companies that promise to paint lawns are cropping up all over California. The service lets homeowners cut back on water use without sacrificing curb appeal.
But the cosmetic cover-up masks an ugly reality: The Golden State is three years into what has now become its worst drought on record. And it's only getting worse.
The U.S. Drought Monitor upgraded the intensity last week with a warning that more than half the state is now experiencing "exceptional" drought—the most severe category, according to federal researchers.
Mandatory statewide water restrictions took effect at the start of the month, as state officials work to save what little water remains. Hosing down driveways is off-limits, and lawn water runoff is strictly forbidden under the new rules. Anyone found in violation can be fined up to $500.
"We don't know how long it's going to last, so we need to prepare for the worst-case scenario," said Felicia Marcus, the chairwoman of the California State Water Resources Control Board.
The Golden State has seen its fair share of drought. And, in the past, water shortages have lasted as long as six years. But scientists are starting to predict that this drought could last much longer. Lynn Ingram, a paleoclimatologist at the University of California (Berkeley), says the state might be in the midst of a "megadrought," that could continue for more than a century.
The drought has not been kind to California. Massive wildfires have devastated state parks, forced people to leave their homes, and stretched the state's budget. Water shortages have created havoc for farmers and ranchers. And ski resorts have had to shut down due to lack of snow.
In the movie with Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, he bumps into a table in his dressing room, presumably rupturing his appendix. But here's a more plausible account:
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"Harry Houdini died of peritonitis, secondary to a ruptured appendix at 1:26 p.m. on October 31, 1926 in Room 401 at Detroit's Grace Hospital, aged 52. In his final days, he optimistically held to a strong belief that he would recover, but his last words before dying were reportedly, "I'm tired of fighting."[18] Eyewitnesses to an incident at Houdini's dressing room in the Princess Theatre in Montreal gave rise to speculation that Houdini's death was caused by a McGill University student, J. Gordon Whitehead, who delivered a surprise attack of multiple blows to Houdini's abdomen.
The eyewitnesses, students named Jacques Price and Sam Smilovitz (sometimes called Jack Price and Sam Smiley), proffered accounts of the incident that generally corroborated one another. Price describes Whitehead asking Houdini "if he believed in the miracles of the Bible" and "whether it was true that punches in the stomach did not hurt him". He then delivered "some very hammer-like blows below the belt". Houdini was reclining on a couch at the time, having broken his ankle while performing several days earlier. Price states that Houdini winced at each blow and stopped Whitehead suddenly in the midst of a punch, gesturing that he had had enough, and adding that he had had no opportunity to prepare himself against the blows, as he did not expect Whitehead to strike him so suddenly and forcefully. Had his ankle not been broken, he would have risen from the couch into a better position to brace himself.
Throughout the evening, Houdini performed in great pain. He was unable to sleep and remained in constant pain for the next two days, but did not seek medical help. When he finally saw a doctor, he was found to have a fever of 102 °F (39 °C) and acute appendicitis, and advised to have immediate surgery. He ignored the advice and decided to go on with the show.[72][73] When Houdini arrived at the Garrick Theater in Detroit, Michigan, on October 24, 1926, for what would be his last performance, he had a fever of 104 °F (40 °C). Despite the diagnosis, Houdini took the stage. He was reported to have passed out during the show, but was revived and continued. Afterwards, he was hospitalized at Detroit's Grace Hospital.
It is not entirely clear what relationship the encounter in the dressing room had on Houdini's eventual death. As Snopes points out, the relationship between blunt trauma and appendicitis is not clear. One theory suggests that Houdini was unaware that he was suffering from appendicitis. If he had not realized that his stomach pains were symptomatic of appendicitis, he would not have appreciated the potentially critical effect of the blows to his abdomen.
After taking statements from Price and Smilovitz, Houdini's insurance company concluded that the death was due to the dressing-room incident and paid double indemnity."====http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Houdini
"Car drivers in South Africa are being offered a new method of preventing hijacking.
A blaster, flame-thrower operated by a foot pedal inside the car, blasts a jet of fire at a would-be hijacker.
A person confronted by an armed hijacker simply presses a pedal and the "blaster" ignites gas that shoots from the under-side of the car.
Doctors say the device is lethal - but the police have confirmed it is perfectly legal.
Johannesburg seems to fill car drivers with fear. In the province which includes the city, there were 4,000 car hijacks between January and June this year.
People pull up at traffic lights, they stop their car and then someone comes up to the window with a gun and tells them to get out.
Charles Fourie, who invented the blaster, says drivers should put their hands up and then step on the gas.
"This is a case of opting for the lesser of two evils," Mr Fourie said.
"Either you get shot, your wife is raped, your child is murdered - against him getting burned."
Police say they cannot see any legal problems with the blaster - so long as the right people are blasted.
But Dr Kenneth Boffard, a surgeon who runs a trauma unit, said he is extremely concerned.
"I don't think the average person on the street has any concept of the appalling damage that burns cause," Dr Boffard said.
"The result of that is permanent, extensive and disfiguring."
"Innocent people are going to get caught.
" That's unacceptable."
EXCERPT: Rachel Swaby, author of a book highlighting women’s contributions to science, chooses her favourite female scientists, from the greatest dinosaur hunter to the inventor of Kevlar...
EXCERPT: Russia's Roscosmos space program doesn't have a lot of cash to waste after its budget was cut by 35 percent in March. But an internal audit found that it flushed $1.8 billion down the toilet anyway, according to the Moscow Times. The nation's deputy prime minister said many of the losses were caused by "acts of fraud, abuse of authority and forgery of documents." Referring to two recent setbacks, including the loss of an ISS cargo ship, he added that "with such a level of moral decay, one should not be surprised at the high accident rate."...
EXCERPT: The National Security Agency has tested the use of smartphone-swipe recognition technology, according to the tool’s manufacturer. The mobile device feature, created by Lockheed Martin, verifies a user's identity based on the swiftness and shape of the individual’s finger strokes on a touch screen.
[...] "Nobody else has the same strokes," said John Mears, senior fellow for Lockheed IT and Security Solutions. "People can forge your handwriting in two dimensions, but they couldn't forge it in three or four dimensions. Three is the pressure you put in, in addition to the two dimensions on the paper. The fourth dimension is time. The most advanced handwriting-type authentication tracks you in four dimensions."
The biometric factors measured by Lockheed's technology, dubbed "Mandrake," are speed, acceleration and the curve of an individual’s strokes. Lockheed officials said they do not know how or if the agency has operationally deployed the Mandrake smartphone doodling-recognition tool. The company also is the architect of the FBI's recently completed $1 billion facial, fingerprint, palm print, retina scan and tattoo image biometric ID system. That project, called the Next Generation Identification system, could tie in voice and "gait matching" (how a person walks) in the future, the bureau has said....
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