Author: Serkadis

Harmonix has provided for us some fresh new details regarding Green Day: Rock Band. In a video interview with G4TV, Chris Foster revealed that the whole album of “American Idiot” will definitely be included in the roster

The World Health Organization has spoken, and while it’s nothing exactly new, it’s still not any less troubling. According to their most recent study, about a third of the world’s kids population are fat. The kicker: videogames

Filed under: Concept Cars, BMW

Some of BMW’s most unusual and least well-known concept vehicles have been created by Technik GmbH. Technik was launched by BMW 25 years ago as a research think tank. While only one Technik vehicle has ever made it all the way to production, many of the technologies developed there, including iDrive and active cruise control, are now common on BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce vehicles.

The one Technik concept that did get to production was the low-volume Z1, which brought BMW back into the roadster segment after a long absence. The Z1 Coupe never got past the concept stage, but the shooting brake design did evolve into the Z3 coupe of the mid-1990s. The E1 concept was the first electric-drive BMW, and although it will have taken over two decades, it shares a lineage with an upcoming BMW production EV. Along the way, the 2001 Z29 coupe was built up from a Formula One-style carbon-fiber monocoque powered by a then-current M3 inline-six.

The latest product from Technik is the 1 Series-based fuel cell hybrid concept, which uses a compact hydrogen fuel cell to maintain charge on a lithium ion battery for extended-range driving. Check out the whole gallery of Technik concepts below.

[Source: BMW]

BMW’s forgotten concept cars originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 03 Apr 2010 19:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Woolaroc

An oil baron’s wild paradise and the winner of an ill-fated air race

In August 1927, eight small planes lined up for a historic air race across the Pacific, from Oakland to Honolulu. At the controls of the Woolaroc monoplane was WWI veteran and Hollywood stunt pilot Art Goebel, determined to claim the $25,000 prize.
The race seemed cursed from the start. First, two upstart Army pilots decided to take it upon themselves to complete the route two months before the scheduled contest. Then, in the days before the race start, four planes crashed in preliminary flights, killing all aboard two.
On race day, eight planes set out to take off, but only four planes made it off the ground.
Some 26 hours later, only two landed – the other two planes were never seen again. Three days later, one of the grounded planes from Oakland took off to search for the two lost planes – and they also, were never seen again.
Goebel and the Woolaroc won the race in 26 hours, 17 minutes, and the Woolaroc was returned to a place of pride in Oaklahoma at Frank Philips’ ranch of the same name.
At Woolaroc ranch, Oilman Frank Philips’ developed his property into an artistic and cultural compound surrounded by wildlife. The name is a portmanteau mashed together from woods, lakes, and rocks that cover the 3,700 acres. Woolaroc is intended to be more than just a nature preserve or a museum, but a record of Oklahoma’s untamed past.
Woolaroc was established in 1925 in the Osage Hills in Northeastern Oklahoma, outside of Bartlesville where Frank Philips founded Philips Petroleum Company. On entering Woolaroc, visitors drive through two miles of open wildlife preserve, where buffalo, deer, and Longhorn cattle graze at the side of the road, and exotic animals like water buffalo and Scottish Highland cattle watch passing cars.
At the end of the road is a complex of stone buildings with the museum at its center. Colorful mosaics of Native American dancers border the museum’s high doors, and inside rooms are packed with Western art, cowboy memorabilia, Colt firearms, and Native American artifacts from over 40 tribes. Alongside works by Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, Thomas Moran, and the Taos Society Artists are taxidermy animals, chairs made from horns, and mounted animal heads. There are also several shrunken human heads (although one is said to be a monkey), a diorama depicting a human sacrifice, and an electric miniature powwow where hoop and fancy dancers bounce in a circle to drum music. The museum began as a pavilion for the triumphant Woolaroc single-engine monoplane, still on display.
Overlooking the lake is Philips’ lodge, holding 97 mounted animal heads and 107 sets of horns in its Great Room. Each animal is said to have died from natural causes, not hunting, although their deaths may have been equally unpleasant. One of the giraffes perished at Woolaroc when it fell off a cliff shortly after its arrival and broke its neck, prompting Philips to stop another expected giraffe from coming to the treacherous Oklahoma terrain. In addition to being his ranch home, the lodge was where Philips met with oil investors, outlaws, cowboys, and Native American tribal leaders like his friends Bacon Rind and Fred Lookout.
Nature trails are accessible from the museum complex and the Baby Animal Barn has a petting zoo with buffalo, deer, donkeys, and other young animals. A taxidermy buffalo equipped with a vacuum in its mouth will take any trash from your hands while telling stories in a slight drawl.
Although he died in 1950, Frank Philips remains at his beloved Woolaroc, entombed in the mausoleum visible in the distance from the road exiting the ranch.

Read more about Woolaroc on Atlas Obscura…

Category: Museums and Collections, Unique Collections
Location: Bartlesville, Oklahoma, US
Edited by: cosmicautumn, Annetta

Filed under: Videos

Thank God for crazy people. They’re the ones who give us the best YouTube videos. To wit, after the jump, you’ll see a couple of Icelandic snowmobilers with a lot of confidence and an unhealthy lack of fear showing off their winter-edition “Jackass” skills.

The pair ride their sleds into a local reservoir featuring some incredibly steep concrete walls for a bit of “fun.” The video starts out slowly enough, until the first guy drives his snowmobile up the side of a 30-foot cliff. Impressive, if not foolhardy stuff. The next guy decides to top his pal with a move that would leave Einstein and Newton scratching their heads. We aren’t sure if we want to send him to a psych ward or present him with a Liberty Bell-sized set of Truck Nutz. Hit the jump only if you’re fully prepared to be stupefied.

[Source: YouTube]

Continue reading Video: Snowmobiles, Iceland and 70-foot cliffs. You guess the rest…

Video: Snowmobiles, Iceland and 70-foot cliffs. You guess the rest… originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 03 Apr 2010 18:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Sedan, Wagon, Alfa Romeo

With the new Giulietta now out in the open, Alfa Romeo‘s attention is turning to its big brother. Set to replace the 159 sometime next year, the highly-anticipated nuova Giulia promises to improve on the outgoing sedan’s lackluster driving dynamics.

Based on Alfa’s variable C/D platform, the Giulia is tipped to get a McPherson front suspension with a twin-link rear setup. As with the Alfa 159, the Giulia is expected to be front-drive, with the trick Q4 all-wheel-drive system available as an option, hooked up to a variety of turbodiesel and MultiAir gasoline engines.

Unlike the MiTo and Giulietta, both of which are hatchback-only, the Giulia promises both four-door sedan and five-door wagons as part of the mix. The tantalizing end of the range, however, is tipped to include an in-house GTA model – with at least 300 horsepower, all-wheel drive and seven-speed dual-clutch transmission – and a lightweight, front-drive version with 350 horsepower to be co-developed with famed Alfa tuner Autodelta.

We’ll have to wait to see if the speculation proves accurate – and, for that matter, if the car will take its design cues from the 8C Competizione, the Bertone Pandion or the Pininfarina 2uettottanta. But in the meantime, you’re invited to tinker around with the online configurator that Alfa just launched for the Giulietta hatchback, where you’ll find you can order it in any color you want, as long as it’s a shade of gray.

[Source: CAR magazine]

Report: Alfa Romeo Giulia sedan to launch next year? originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 03 Apr 2010 16:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here is a graph of the unemployment rate seasonally adjusted and not seasonally adjusted – plus, by request, two more graphs of the duration of unemployment.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

The first graph shows the calculated unemployment rate – both seasonally adjusted (SA) and not seasonally adjusted (NSA).

Some sites noted the NSA rate was “only” 9.5% when the SA moved above 10% last October. Other sites noted that the NSA rate had hit 10.6% in January. Both sites were correct – but there is a clear seasonal pattern for employment, so the SA unemployment rate is the one to use. Note: the SA rate will be above the NSA rate in April.

ALSO – the graph above uses the calculated unemployment rate (unrounded). For March, the calculated unemployment rate was 9.749% up from 9.687% in February. Both were rounded to 9.7% …

And on duration of unemployment, by request:

This graph shows the duration of unemployment as a percent of the civilian labor force (line graph unstacked). The graph shows the number of unemployed in four categories as provided by the BLS: less than 5 week, 6 to 14 weeks, 15 to 26 weeks, and 27 weeks or more.

Note: The BLS reports 15+ weeks, so the 15 to 26 weeks number was calculated.

This really shows the change in turnover – there was more turnover in the ’70s and ’80s, since the ‘less than 5 weeks’ category was much higher as a percent of the civilian labor force than in recent years. This changed in the early ’90s – perhaps as a result of more careful hiring practices or changes in demographics or maybe other reasons – but if the level of normal turnover was the same as in the ’80s, the current unemployment rate would probably be the highest since WWII.

The last graph is a repeat, but the information is stacked in reverse order.

In March 2010, there were a record 6.55 million people unemployed for 27 weeks or more, or 4.3% of the labor force.

For more on duration (and possible causes) see my post yesterday: Duration of Unemployment

Earlier employment posts yesterday: