Update: Oh and check out delays for airports around the country. As you can see from the image above, delays of 16 to 45 minutes are hitting flights EVERYWHERE.

Head to Popular Mechanics to see the official timeline of the crash. [Popular Mechanics]

When the system detects an accident, it deploys the bridge bar in 70 milliseconds using a high-power spring, which is being held by a coil. The coil is made of an special alloy that recovers its original shape instantly when it receives an electric impulse, releasing the spring just before the impact. The resulting structure decreases the penetration of the incoming object by as much as 3 inches, as well as reducing the speed and violence of the crash.

Side impacts are almost impossible to avoid even at very low speeds, like 20-30 mph. They are also very dangerous, not only because they can kill you straight away, but also because it's very easy to suffer permanent brain damage from the lateral forces involved. The system may avoid this, transferring these energies through the car structure. [New Scientist]

The Launch Complex 40—and 41—was the base for the largest US expendable rocket, the Titan IV. It started operations in 1965 with Titan IIIC rockets, and it was home for the legendary Mars Viking (1975) and Voyager missions, which has been crossing our solar system since 1977. The site was also the launch pad for the failed Mars Observer mission, as well as the successful Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, which departed Earth on October 15, 1997.

The last launch was for a Lacrosse-5 reconnaissance satellite, launched on April 30, 2005 on board a Titan IVB rocket.

The camera works by translating hand and body motions into an avatar's movements in Second Life. Tip a bit forward and the avatar will walk, tip faster and the avatar will run, tip too fast and you'll fall down (presumably). The included demo also shows the camera translating various movements into jumping, flying and landing "gracefully."

Low-priced 3D cameras, such as the Zcam, will not only make playing Second Life more immersive than other peripherals out there , it'll also completely rethink human-computer interactions, Kapor said.

Well, we'll see about that. All I know is, if years from now I'm suddenly standing in a Los Angeles parking lot half naked and swinging away at things with my katana thanks to a particularly crazy bar fight in a virtual reality world - I'll know who to blame. [New York Times]

[Ares via Danger Room]

Monitors of the Epilepsy Foundation's board responded quickly and managed to take down all the offending posts about 12 hours after the attacks began. Though the foundation reports that nobody was killed by the prank, a handful of people were adversely effected. It's like Snow Crash with fewer katanas and more 15-year-old kids who need to be pummeled in the face. Where's Hiro when we need him?

RyAnne Fultz, a 33-year-old IT worker in Ohio, clicked on a forum post that caused her screen to suddenly be overtaken by a pattern of various colored squares flashing rapidly. The assault made her "lock up," she said.

"I don't fall over and convulse, but it hurts," she told Wired. "I was on the phone when it happened, but I couldn't move and couldn't speak."

Very circumstantial evidence points to Anonymous, the infamous hacker clan with a grudge against the Church of Scientology. But, even with my limited knowledge of the hacking world, they don't sound like the right culprit to me. Though various members of Anonymous are pricks, they're also sanctimonious pricks. I've never head of them doing anything without loudly attaching a cause to it first. [Wired]

The B-2 Spirit follows the same ideas pioneered by John Knudsen Northrop, who founded Northrop to pursue his flying wing designs, and the Nazi Horten Ho-IX, one of the most advanced planes at its time, designed by the Horten brothers.

The Ho-IX, also called Gotha Go 229 or Ho 229, took off for the first time in 1944 and was the only plane to meet Luftwaffe's chief, frustrated transvestite and absolute nutter Hermann Göring 1000-1000-1000 performance standards: the Horten was capable of transporting 1,000 kilograms of bombs (2,200 lb) over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) at 1,000 kilometers an hour.

Fortunately, it never reached production and most airframes were destroyed by US forces to avoid the Soviets getting their paws all over them. The U.S. VIII Corps of General Patton's Third Army captured one, however, and its low-drag, no-unnecessary surfaces live now in the B-2.

Unlike the experimental Horten and the flying wing designs that Northrop designed in the 40s (like 1948's Northrop YB-49, a jet-based variation of the 1946's YB-35 strategic bomber) the Spirit became fully operational.

The B-2 bombers are amazingly efficient: like its 20 sister vessels still in service, the Air Vehicle-12 Spirit of Kansas was capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear bombs to any target around the world in a few hours, with just one refueling. Powered by four General Electric F118-GE-100 turbofans capable of 17,300 pounds of thrust each, the aircraft can reach 410 knots (470mph) at a maximum altitude of 50,000 feet.

Another advantage of its simple design —coupled with its radar-absorbing coating, called Alternate High-Frequency Material—is that their radar profile is extremely low. Coupled with its operational altitude, this make them extremely hard to detect and shoot down. That's the reason why this crash, with no known reasons yet, is so exceptional. That and the effect of watching $1.2 billion dollars disappearing in an crater in a concrete runway.

According to the Air Force, an investigation is currently under way about why the Spirit of Kansas went to Oz at Guam. But don't worry, taxpayers, I'm sure you will get a cool 3D simulation of how it all happened from the Wizard in Chief, General Dorothy and Commander Toto, at the Pentagon. [Military.com, Ho-XI at Wikipedia, Jack Northrop at Wikipedia, Air Force — Main photo by Bobbi Garcia for the AFFTC]

Looking at this video it seems that the F-15s are quite formidable machines, even while the USAF investigation is pointing at Boeing's responsibility for a "faulty manufacturing process" that led to the failure of the long structural beams (longerons) that keep the fuselage together.

"The accident investigation board president (Wignall) found, by clear and convincing evidence, the cause of this accident was a failure of the upper right longeron, a critical support structure in the F-15C aircraft," the report says.

About 20 minutes after takeoff from an airfield near St. Louis on Nov. 2, the forward fuselage of Maj. Stephen Stilwell's $42 million F-15C Eagle shook violently and then broke apart 18,000 feet above the ground. Stilwell, his left shoulder dislocated and his left arm shattered, barely had time to safely eject as pieces of his aircraft tumbled from the sky over the Missouri countryside.

More troubling, however, are the results of a parallel examination finding as many as 163 of the workhorse aircraft also have flawed support beams, or longerons. The aircraft remain grounded as the Air Force continues to search for how serious the problem is and whether extensive, costly repairs are needed. Another 19 of the aircraft have yet to be inspected and also remain grounded.

Nearly 260 of the A through D model F-15s, first fielded in the mid-1970s, were returned to flight status Tuesday following fleet-wide inspections.

[Defense Tech and Military.com]

Although we still doubt such a crash would be survivable, this demo certainly changes our opinion of the safety of the diminutive Smartcar. We saw these cars all over the place on a recent trip to Montréal, and thought they looked way-cool, gadgety and almost toy-like. You might be seeing such cars around the United States sometime next year, and you can reserve a 2008 Smart fortwo now for $99. [SmartUSA, via New Launches]

The cost of this limited-edition helmet is $378 ( 189) and it's available in the UK. There, I managed to use the words wood, helmet and head without even the tiniest bit of innuendo. Are you proud of me, or just very disappointed? [Treehugger]

[Jalopnik]

Slot Machine Suffers Blue Screen of Death [The Inquirer]

Since we can't answer that question, we can ask ourselves why he had "representatives" from "Homeland Security" aka some bus drivers from San Gabriel Valley who came to pick him up after the crash, to no avail. Finally, who the hell is Dietrich? And, finally, how the hell does an international convicted felon get two Enzos and a MacLaren SLR and most of us can barely afford a used Caprice Classic?

Strange saga of smashed Ferrari back in court [CNN]
Our Gizmondo Coverage

He is charged with bringing two Enzos and a Mercedes McLaren SLR — altogether worth an estimated $3.8 million — into the United States even though he allegedly did not have permission from the British banks that provided them on "lease purchase" agreements.

Defense attorney Paul Takakjian argued that Eriksson stopped paying because his business collapsed.

Poor, crazy Bo.
Trial ordered in case of hot Ferrari [CNN via Jalopnik]