One-Armed Afghan War Vet to Climb Everest with Badass Prosthetic Ice-Pick [Everest]

Losing an arm in Afghanistan isn't stopping Private Jaco Van Gass from climbing the highest mountain in the world. The 25-year-old South African soldier is testing a prosthetic ice axe of his own design, which he'll use to climb Mt. Everest next month. More »

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BlackBerry Curve 9320 shows up on T-Mobile's site, heading to the UK next month?

Last month we heard the Curve 9320 was readying itself for a discrete trip to India, and a recent "coming soon" page on T-Mo's site suggests the device could soon be heading to the UK. While the carrier's register sheet isn't revealing many details (save for the teasing photo above), The Inquirer claims the handset's warming up for an eventual launch in May. Of course, don't count on this OS 7.1-packing Curve to change much in comparison to the Indian flavor, as it's still expected to ship with identical lower-end specs, including the 3.2-megapixel rear camera, a 320 x 240 screen and 512MB of RAM. No word on pricing yet, but we're guessing it'll fall somewhere between "mildly tempting" and "almost free."

BlackBerry Curve 9320 shows up on T-Mobile's site, heading to the UK next month? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 06:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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'Mad Men' Takes A Turn For The Geeky

AMC series nerds out with 'Lost' references and Ken Cosgrove's sci-fi novel about a robot and a bridge.
By Josh Wigler

Embeth Davidtz and Lane Jared Harris in "Mad Men"
Photo: AMC

All right, AMC, if we didn't get it before, we certainly do now: You dudes are a bunch of nerds.

No one is going to argue that point what with your record-smashing "Walking Dead," or the developing series based on "Dead" creator Robert Kirkman's "Thief of Thieves" comic book. But all those many, many geek references on this week's "Mad Men"? Consider the message received, loud and clear.

What, you missed the '60s-set drama's absurd amount of nerd-out moments last night (April 15)? For good measure, then, we'll walk you through them all.

"Mad Men" season five draws major attention for "fattening up" Betty Draper actress January Jones.

First and foremost, the episode, titled "Signal 30" and directed by series star (and "Iron Man 2" actor) John Slattery, heralded the arrival of science fiction and fantasy novelist Ben Hargrove, the pen name for ad man Kenny Cosgrove (played by actor Aaron Stanton, already a fixture in geek culture for providing his voice and likeness to the lead role in video game "L.A. Noir"). Previously operating in secret, Ken's private passion was outted by Cynthia, Ken's all-too-forgettable wife who is suddenly a whole lot more memorable when you realize that she's played by Larisa Oleynik, formerly the titular shape-shifter on '90s Nickelodeon series "The Secret World of Alex Mack."

Cynthia (or is it Cheryl? Like Don's new wife Megan, we can't really recall) spilled the beans on "The Punishment of X4," an old story of Ken's, during a dinner party held at Pete and Trudy Campbell's home. Her description of the plot: "There's this bridge between these two planets and thousands of humans travel on it every day, and there's this robot who does maintenance on the bridge. One day he removes a bolt, the bridge collapses, and everyone dies."

"There's more to it than that," a nervous Cosgrove tells the hushed room. Don pushes for further details: Why does the robot destroy the bridge? "Because he's a robot," Ken answers, clearly encouraged by Don's interest. "Those people tell him what to do and he doesn't have the power to make any decisions, except he can decide whether that bolt's on or off."

"Or he just hates commuters," Pete quips in response.

Ken's fledgling career as a sci-fi novelist wasn't the only nerdy reference at the Campbell family's eventful dinner: Texas college sniper Charles Whitman was briefly misidentified as Charles Widmore, a clear Easter egg for "Lost" fans. Indeed, "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof (who already enjoyed a shoutout to his six-season sci-fi series earlier in the evening on "The Simpsons") took it upon himself to further flesh out Cosgrove's "X4" through a series of fan-fiction tweets. Well worth a read from the man behind the DHARMA Initiative.

"The solution seemed obvious... create a commuter colony that would work on Nephytus, but live on Aton."

— Damon Lindelof (@DamonLindelof) April 16, 2012

Later, at the same dinner, the faucet at Chez Campbell burst for the second time in the same episode, prompting Don to remove his dress shirt and get to work on fixing the sink. The heroic action drew immediate Superman comparisons from the onlooking housewives, which is far from the first time that Jon Hamm has been connected to the Man of Steel.

Superman is a "young man's game," according to "Mad Men" superstar Jon Hamm

Meanwhile, on a subtler note, Pete Campbell took a turn for the super-villainous this week. Aside from being completely shown up by Don's ability to fix a sink in seconds, Pete spent the episode flirting with and fantasizing about a high school senior in his driver's education class, and later having sex with a prostitute, but only after she switched into king-worshipping role-playing mode. He even got into an intense fist fight with fellow Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce partner Lane Pryce; usually the consummate British gentlemen on the AMC series, don't forget that Lane is played by Jared Harris, who also appears as science terrorist David Robert Jones on Fox's cult sci-fi series "Fringe" and recently enjoyed a celebrated turn as legendary villain Professor Moriarty in "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows." Pete clearly hasn't seen the aforementioned show and film, but he nevertheless learned the hard way (and by hard way I mean via serious ass-kicking) that you never, ever get into a knockout brawl with Dumbledore's son.

All of this served as a reminder to me that Pete, whose views on Don oscillated between hero worship and pure spite throughout the episode, has known about Draper's secret identity for several seasons now. With his latest turn toward the dark side, can it really be much longer before he uses that bit of proverbial kryptonite against the artist formerly known as Dick Whitman? Only Matt Weiner knows for sure.

Finally, we return to Ken's side-career as a writer, news of which spread throughout SCDP like wildfire. After a scolding from silver fox playboy Roger Sterling (played by the aforementioned Slattery, whose own Roger got his groove back a bit in this week's episode, albeit to mixed results for his company), Cosgrove was persuaded to let his alter-ego Ben Hargrove go, but not before Peggy Olsen was able to read one of Ken's short sci-fi stories, "the one in Galaxy about the girl who laid eggs." (Lindelof has titled the story "Ova," though whether or not he tweets excerpts from the yarn remains to be seen.)

But where Ben Hargrove dies, Ken is reborn anew as Dave Algonquin, writer of "The Man with the Miniature Orchestra." The episode closes with a reading from Cosgrove's latest effort: "There were phrases of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony that still made Coe cry. He always thought it had to do with the circumstances of the composition itself. He imagined Beethoven deaf and soul-sick, his heart broken, scribbling furiously while Death stood in the doorway, clipping his nails. Still, Coe thought, it might have been living in the country that was making him cry. It was killing him with its silence and loneliness, making everything ordinary too beautiful to bear."

Ken's latest written effort isn't exactly nerd-worthy, no, but it's the perfect example of why it's so fantastic to have "Mad Men" back after a year and a half, geek call-outs be damned.

Tell us what you thought of the latest "Mad Men" episode in the comments section or hit me up on Twitter @roundhoward!

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Rock Hall responds to Axl Rose's diss

By Peter Gicas, E! Online

Well, we already know that Axl Rose won't be knockin' on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's door.

After all, the singer made it more than perfectly clear in an open letter yesterday that he has no desire to be inducted this Saturday as a founding member of Guns N' Roses.

So what does the music shrine in Cleveland have to say about the singer's decision?

MORE: Sorry, Guns N' Roses Fans--Axl Rose Rejects Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

"We are sorry Axl will not be able to accept his induction in person," a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame spokesperson tells E! News. "We are looking forward to still inducting Guns N' Roses this weekend and will proceed forward with our original plan whether Axl is present or not."

While Rose himself obviously has no plans on being there for the ceremony, the Los Angeles Times reports that other members of the band are still expected to attend, including Slash and Duff McKagan.

PHOTOS: Rock Star Kids

In his letter, Rose wrote, in part: "I strongly request that I not be inducted in absentia and please know that no one is authorized nor may anyone be permitted to accept any induction for me or speak on my behalf. Neither former members, label representatives nor the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame should imply whether directly, indirectly or by omission that I am included in any purported induction of Guns N' Roses."

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Why it's so difficult to get pandas to mate

A newly published study of eight male pandas in China describes changes in their physiology as they prepare to mate. The peak panda breeding period lasts just over three weeks in spring, with each female's interest in sex lasting just 24 to 72 hours.

Maybe?Tian Tian has a headache. Or maybe?Yang Guang just isn't that into her.?

Skip to next paragraph

Whatever the cause, the panda mating season is drawing to a close without a successful coupling between the fuzzy pair at Scotland's?Edinburgh Zoo. The rather Freudian headline on the zoo's press release reads "Close, but no cigar."

Panda breeding is a tricky business.?Females are in the mood for only?one to three days each year. This reproductive limitation initially gave researchers a hard time getting pandas to mate. But they're now having more success.

Though extensive research has explored female pandas' reproductive behaviors, the other half of the panda population has not been well described.

"There is a lot we don't know about the male giant panda," said Copper Aitken-Palmer head veterinarian at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the lead author of a new study on male pandas' reproductive habits.

To remedy this gender inequity in panda research, Aitken-Palmer and her co-authors spent three years studying eight giant male pandas at the Chengdu Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China. The team monitored testosterone levels, sperm concentration, testes size, and reproductive behaviors in these animals.

The researchers found that several months before the female pandas enter estrus, the males are getting ready. It's probable that sperm production increases for this extended period of time to accommodate the females' brief and unpredictable window of sexual interest.

Pandas' peak breeding season is between March 22 and April 15. This information helps researchers understand when are good times to collect sperm for artificial insemination and when more natural breeding might take place.

The new study appears in the April 4 issue of Biology of Reproduction?Papers in Press.

But reproductive challenges aren't the only things making giant pandas' future look bleak. Another study produced by the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute recently examined the impact that climate change is likely to have on giant panda habitat. Using two climate models, this study found that pandas are likely to lose about half of their already limited habitat by 2080.

In their article, published in March in the International Journal of Ecology, the researchers suggest that land protection may mitigate these losses.?

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Costa Concordia captain's blunders detailed in Vanity Fair

According to a new article in Vanity Fair, the captain of the Costa Concordia made a laundry list of blunders before the cruise ship ran aground off the coast of Italy. NBC's Mara Schiavocampo reports.

By Elaine Porterfield , msnbc.com contributor

A new magazine article on the sinking of the Costa Concordia cruise ship details a series of blunders and errors on the part of her captain that led to the deaths of at least 32 people and the largest shipwreck in maritime history.

The shipwreck in January off the coast of Italy precipitated a nightmarish scene of almost unimaginable chaos after the ship?s captain, Francesco Schettino, delayed calling for rescue aid after his navigation blunders forced the cruise ship onto rocks, according to the story.

Journalist Bryan Burrough, writing in the May Vanity Fair magazine, paints an unsparing portrait of that chaos in which passengers ??given almost no information about the calamity that had befallen the ship ??fought to find their children and other family members, free themselves in darkness from under deck as the ship tipped onto its side and attempted to reach life boats.?

Burrough, who interviewed dozens of witnesses, also details previously unsung heroes from some crew members to rescue divers and Italian Coast Guard officers and even the deputy mayor from the small town overlooking the wreck who combined forces to save most of the ship?s 4,200 passengers.

The story is damning in its details of Schettino?s actions, many reported for the first time. They include:

• One passenger?s claim, though it is elsewhere unconfirmed, that he saw the captain and a friend ?polish off a decanter of red wine while eating? prior to the catastrophe.
• That the captain was going too fast for the conditions and seemed to be navigating by eyesight rather than with the aid of maps and radar, when he saw a set of rocks off the Tuscan coast prior to the crash. ?What he failed to notice was another rock, nearer to the ship,? that was largely underwater, the story says. ?An officer later told investigators he heard the captain say, ?(expletive)?I didn?t see it!? ?
• The captain, who was casually talking on the phone when the ship approached the rocks, wrongly ordered the ship to turn to starboard, rather than port, to avoid the mostly submerged rock when he finally did see it. That caused the ship?s stern to swing around and slam into it, ripping open a 230-foot-long gash below the waterline.
• When crew members spoke with the Coast Guard, Schettino ordered them to say that there was only a blackout on board and they did not need any immediate assistance. Schettino?s apparent refusal to ?promptly admit the Concordia?s plight ? to lie about it, according to the Italian Coast Guard ??was not only a violation of Italian maritime law but cost precious time, delaying the arrival of rescue workers by as much as 45 minutes,? the story says.
• When the ship began listing to starboard, the captain dropped its massive anchors to prevent it from tipping further, but played out too much line ??so the anchors never caught and were of no help. It was a ?jaw-droppingly stupid mistake,? according to a veteran American captain and nautical analyst, John Konrad, quoted in the story.
• The captain, who made it ashore in a lifeboat he claims to have fallen into, begged in a phone call with a Coast Guard officer not to be sent back to the ship to look for survivors. That shocked the officer, who in return threatened Schettino by saying, ?Tell me how many people are still on board and what they need. Is that clear? ... I?m going to make sure you get in trouble. I?m going to make you pay for this.?

In one of the few lighter reported details in the story, the ship?s hotel director survived for more than a day inside the tipped ship, trapped on a table above flooding waters, by drinking cans of Coke and bottles of Cognac he found floating by.

The ship remains on its side, and will take more than 10 to 12 months to remove, according to the story. As for the Schettino, he could face charges of manslaughter and illegally abandoning his ship. ?Several survivors remarked on afterward, that amazingly, in a world of satellites and laser-guided weapons and instant communications almost anywhere on earth, ships could still sink,? the story says.

Read an excerpt of the article at Vanity Fair.

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Roofing Murfreesboro - Attic Insulation - Fessler Home Improvement ...

Last updated 1 hour 42 minutes ago

Summer is just around the corner, so it?s time to start preparing your home for the hot Tennessee sun! One of the most important ways to keep your home comfortable and energy efficient this year is by upgrading your home?s insulation. Here are a few signs that your home could use an insulation upgrade from a home improvement company:

• Your Home Doesn?t Stay Comfortable.?
  One of the most obvious signs that you need more insulation is if your home?s temperature is difficult to stabilize. Indoor comfort is primarily determined by how well your HVAC system heats and cools your home. If you don?t have sufficient insulation, your home will often be too cold in the winter and too warm in the summer.

• You Have High Heating and Cooling Costs.?
  Because a poorly insulated home has trouble maintaining its temperature, your heating and cooling costs are probably very high. Without the appropriate amount of insulation, your home doesn?t have the ability to contain hot or cold air produced by your furnace or air conditioner. This means your HVAC system has to work overtime to keep you comfortable, which leads to higher energy costs.

• You Can See Attic Joists.?
  Your attic is one of the most important parts of the home to insulate. Heat in your attic builds up on hot summer days and then radiates down into the home. Access your attic and take a look around. If you can see the joists or plywood in your attic floor, you need more insulation. Ideally, your attic should be completely covered with insulation.

For expert insulation services in the Murfreesboro area, contact Fessler Home Improvement & Construction at?(888) 473-0630. We specialize in all home improvement services, including storm damage repair, insulation, remodeling, gutters, and roofing!

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