Okay, so maybe this isn’t a real thing yet… but, c’mon, you know it’s coming! With the tagline “Bringing eye contact back to the 21st century” the Texting Hat is here to solve all your phone zombie problems. What a great invention. You look like you actually care when in reality who gives a f#@k!
Right now they’re not for sale, but the Texting Hat website encourages you to just make your own goddamned hat:
Allianz Arena is a football stadium in Munich, Bavaria, Germany with a 70,000 seating capacity for international matches and 75,000 for domestic matches. Widely known for its exterior of inflated ETFE plastic panels, it is the first stadium in the world with a full colour changing exterior. Located at 25 Werner-Heisenberg-Allee at the northern edge of Munich’s Schwabing-Freimann borough on the Fröttmaning Heath, it is the second-largest arena in Germany behind Westfalenstadion in Dortmund.
In-Q-Tel (IQT), formerly Peleus and known as In-Q-It, is an American not-for-profit venture capital firm based in Arlington, Virginia. It invests in high-tech companies for the sole purpose of keeping the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability. The name, “In-Q-Tel” is an intentional reference to Q, the fictional inventor who supplies technology to James Bond.
The firm is seen as a trend-setter in the information technology industry, with the average dollar invested by In-Q-Tel in 2012 attracting nine dollars of investment from other companies.
Originally named Peleus and known as In-Q-It, In-Q-Tel was founded by Norm Augustine, a former CEO of Lockheed Martin and by Gilman Louie, who was In-Q-Tel’s first CEO. In-Q-Tel’s mission is to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve United States national security interests. Origins of the corporation can be traced to Dr. Ruth A. David, who headed the Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Science & Technology in the 1990s and promoted the importance of rapidly advancing information technology for the CIA. In-Q-Tel now engages with entrepreneurs, growth companies, researchers, and venture capitalists to deliver technologies that provide superior capabilities for the CIA, DIA, NGA, and the wider intelligence community. In-Q-Tel concentrates on three broad commercial technology areas: software, infrastructure and materials sciences.
Former CIA director George Tenet says,
We [the CIA] decided to use our limited dollars to leverage technology developed elsewhere. In 1999 we chartered … In-Q-Tel. … While we pay the bills, In-Q-Tel is independent of CIA. CIA identifies pressing problems, and In-Q-Tel provides the technology to address them. The In-Q-Tel alliance has put the Agency back at the leading edge of technology … This … collaboration … enabled CIA to take advantage of the technology that Las Vegas uses to identify corrupt card players and apply it to link analysis for terrorists [cf. the parallel data-mining effort by the SOCOM-DIA operation Able Danger ], and to adapt the technology that online booksellers use and convert it to scour millions of pages of documents looking for unexpected results.
In-Q-Tel sold 5,636 shares of Google, worth over $2.2 million, on November 15, 2005. The stocks were a result of Google’s acquisition of Keyhole, the CIA funded satellite mapping software now known as Google Earth.
As of August 2006, In-Q-Tel had reviewed more than 5,800 business plans, invested some $150 million in more than 90 companies, and delivered more than 130 technology solutions to the intelligence community. In 2005 it was said to be funded with about $37 million a year from the CIA.
In-Q-Tel is a Virginia-registered corporation, legally independent of the CIA or any other government agency. The corporation is bound by its Charter agreement and annual contract with the CIA, which set out the relationship between the two organizations. In-Q-Tel’s mission to support the Intelligence Community’s technical needs is promoted by the In-Q-Tel Interface Center (QIC), an office within the CIA that facilitates communication and relationships between In-Q-Tel and government intelligence organizations. While In-Q-Tel is a nonprofit corporation, it differs from IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity) and other models in that its employees can profit from its investments.
Many companies listed on In-Q-Tel’s investment website page are secret. In-Q-Tel functions partially in public; however, what products it has and how they are used is strictly secret. According to the Washington Post, “virtually any U.S. entrepreneur, inventor or research scientist working on ways to analyze data has probably received a phone call from In-Q-Tel or at least been Googled by its staff of technology-watchers.”
| Rank | Country | Railway length (km) | Date of information | Notes | Electrified length (km) | Historic peak length (km) | Area (km2) per km track | Population per km track | Nationalized or Private |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  United States | 250,000 | 2014 | <1,600 | 409,000 | 43.71 | 1,373 | Private | |
| 2 |  China | 121,000 | 2015 | 65,000 | Present length | 79.31 | 11,218 | Nationalized | |
| 3 |  India | 115000 | 2016 | 27,999 | 48.34 | 17,796 | Nationalized | ||
| 4 |  Russia | 86,000 | 2013 | “Commercial operational length” | (50,000) not verified | 198.82 | 1,669 | Nationalized | |
| 5 |  Canada | 46,552 | 2008 | 129 | 214.48 | 716 | Private | ||
| 6 |  Germany | 43,468 | 2010 | 19,973 | 58,297 | 8.22 | 1,881 | Nationalized | |
| 7 |  Australia | 38,445 | 2008 | 2,715 | 199.94 | 572 | Both | ||
| 8 |  Argentina | 36,966 | 2008 | 136 | 47,000 | 77.45 | 1117 | Nationalized | |
| 9 |  South Africa | 31,000 | 2014 | not verified | 24,800 | 39.39 | 1,742 | Nationalized | |
| 10 |  France | 29,640 | 2008 | 15,140 | 21.53 | 2201 | Nationalized | ||
| 11 |  Brazil | 29,303 | (2012) | 1,520 | 285.57 | 6397 | Private | ||
| 12 |  Japan | 27,182 | 2009 | 16,702 | 16.10 | 5451 | Both | ||
| 13 |  Italy | 24,179 | (2007) | 16,683 | 12.46 | 2507 | Both | ||
| 14 |  Ukraine | 22,300 | (2010) | 9,752 | 27.07 | 2048 | Nationalized | ||
| 15 |  Romania | 22,298 | (2008) | 3,971 | 10.69 | 854 | Both | ||
| 16 |  Poland | 19,627 | (2008) | 17,358 | about 24000 before 1989 | 15.93 | 1946 | Nationalized | |
| 17 |  United Kingdom | 17,732 | (2008) | 5,328 | 34,000 (before Beeching axe) | 15.00 | 3825 | Both (Franchised) | |
| 18 |  Mexico | 17,166 | 2008 | 22 | 114.43 | 6,697 | Private | ||
| 19 |  Spain | 15,947 | (2012) | 9,623 | 33.55 | 3062 | Nationalized | ||
| 20 |  Kazakhstan | 15,372 | (2010) | 4,000 | 180.71 | 1,171 | Nationalized |
–
A couple and their two teenage daughters decided to get away from it all. They were living in the Los Angeles area and got fed up with the fast pace, noise and crazy traffic. Husband and wife are both professionals in television and commute back to L.A. a few days a week. But their home is now located dab smack in the barren desert of Death Valley, California.
There are no neighbours for over 20 miles. The nearest town is 35 miles away. They are out there with the coyotes and eagles. Complete isolation. Strangely enough, it does look quite peaceful, yet invigorating. After all, they are out there with nature in its most pure state.
The house derives most of its power from solar panels. Water is provided from a natural spring nearby.
The desert sun keeps the house perpetually bright.
No swimming pool, but a little hot tub to cool off during the day, or warm up at night.
(UPI) — The new owners of an unusual shoe-shaped Pennsylvania house built in 1948 announced the facility is now available to rent for short-term accommodations.
Waylon and Naomi Brown purchased Hellam Township’s Haines Shoe House in July and they announced on Facebook the house is now available for short-term rentals on Vrbo.
The house was built in 1948 to promote Mahlon Haines’ chain of shoe stores and it has since gone through multiple owners and served as a honeymoon suite, an ice cream shop and a tourist attraction.
The house was renovated by the Browns. Its three bedrooms, which are all filled with shoe memorabilia, have been dubbed “Shoelace Space,” “Instep Suite” and “Ankle Abode.”
“We really tried to help preserve some of the original features, like the stained-glass windows, in order to make sure that it lives on for many more years for people to enjoy,” Naomi Brown told WGAL-TV.
Reservations, which are currently available through the end of the year, start at $269 per night.
The MarkoZen Blog 