Unassuming Entrances Hide the Planet's Hippest Hangouts

By Allison Davis  

January 31, 2011  |  

12:00 pm  |  

Wired February 2011

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Club 33
Photo: David Johnson

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Club 33
Where it is 1313 S. Harbor Boulevard, Anaheim, California—aka Disneyland—in a nondescript housefront next to the Blue Bayou restaurant
Why you want in The Magic Kingdom is dry. Anyone craving a stiff bourbon to help make It’s a Small World a little more bearable is SOL, unless they’re members of Club 33, the secret restaurant—and bar!—behind this door.
How to get in Good luck. There’s an 8- to 12-year waiting list to join the club. Also, they now take only corporate memberships.

Safe House
Where it is 779 N. Front Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Why you want in Every spy needs a refuge … preferably one that serves batter-dipped cheese curds. The plaque next to the door reads INTERNATIONAL EXPORTS, LTD. ESTAB. 1868, but behind it is a spy-themed eatery with a secret escape route and a chair that rises up from a trapdoor in the floor. 
How to get in Go to the website, click on the Top Secret Clearance Agreement to promise you won’t disclose the location, then contact Control (translation: Make a reservation).

Milk & Honey
Where it is 134 Eldridge Street, New York, behind what appears to be a sewing shop
Why you want in This is one very highbrow cocktail joint that keeps a very low profile. “Many New Yorkers assume that Milk & Honey is an urban myth,” the bar’s website says, and that’s how they like it. Order drinks with hand-cut, twice-frozen ice, and be sure to follow the code of conduct: no name-dropping, and gentlemen should not introduce themselves to ladies. 
How to get in Befriend a regular or find the email address (not posted online) for reservations.

Bad Robot Productions
Where it is Somewhere in Santa Monica, California
Why you want in If you dream of personally delivering some fan mail to the production shop responsible forFringe, Alias, and the Star Trek reboot, you have your work cut out for you. It’s harder to find than the island on Lost. But if you’re in SoCal, keep an eye peeled for an outfit called the National Typewriter Company. Hint: They do not manufacture typewriters there. 
How to get in Be J.J. Abrams. Or work for J.J. Abrams. Or follow the hidden clues.

Parallel City
Where it is 140 Piazza Cavour, Naples, Italy
Why you want in The bustling city of Naples sits on top of an enormous, nearly 3,000-year-old network of caves. This particular entrance to the underground city leads to 17th-century aqueducts that were once the property of Ferdinand II, king of the Two Sicilies.
How to get in Make your way sotterraneo by heading through the unmarked doors and down the rickety WWII-era spiral staircase built by Mussolini’s civil defense program.

Are Gamers Safer Drivers?

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday February 01, @03:30AM 

from the stunts-served-me-well dept.

thecarchik writes"Racing video games: many of us play them and love them. But do they really make us better drivers, as some say, or do they make us more dangerous on real-life tarmac? Two studies go head-to-head on the issue."

Scientists Work To Grow Meat In a Lab

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday February 01, @05:12AM 

from the sounds-delicious dept.

codeman07 writes"In a small laboratory on an upper floor of the basic science building at the Medical University of South Carolina, Vladimir Mironov, M.D., Ph.D., has been working for a decade to grow meat. A developmental biologist and tissue engineer, Dr. Mironov, 56, is one of only a few scientists worldwideinvolved in bioengineering 'cultured' meat. It's a product he believes could help solve future global food crises resulting from shrinking amounts of land available for growing meat the old-fashioned way... on the hoof. Growth of 'in-vitro' or cultured meat is also underway in the Netherlands, Mironov told Reuters in an interview, but in the United States, it is science in search of funding and demand."

Nanocade turns your netbook into a lap-friendly arcade cabinet

By Tim Stevens  posted Jan 31st 2011 3:54PM

We'd all like our own personal arcade like Flynn's, but sadly personal finances and a lack of square footage can make that a challenge. The Nanocade is much more affordable and, conveniently, much smaller too. It's a kit from designer Rasmus Sorensen that enables you to turn a netbook or mini-ITX motherboard and 10.1-inch display into a wee MAME cabinet. If you have such a donor machine when this kit starts shipping in March all you'll need is a little adhesive and technical know-how to make your own. Oh, and $349 plus shipping. 

Intel finds Sandy Bridge chipset design flaw, shipments stopped and recalls beginning

By Tim Stevens  posted Jan 31st 2011 10:53AM

A problem requiring a "silicon fix" is bad news in the chipset business, and sadly that's what Intel is announcing. Its new Intel 6 Series chipset, Cougar Point, has been found to have a flaw, something to do with the SATA controller. Intel is indicating that the ports can "degrade over time," leading to poor i/o performance down the road. All shipments have been stopped and a fix has been implemented for new deliveries, but it sounds like recalls will be starting soon for those with this ticking time bomb silicon within. It isn't a critical problem right now, though, so if you own a Sandy Bridge Core i5 or Core i7 system keep computing with confidence while looking for a recall notice, but it is bad news for Intel's bottom line: the company is advising a $300 million hit to revenue.

Stimulating the Brain's Immune Response May Provide Treatment for Alzheimer's Disease

ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2011) — A new target for the prevention of adverse immune responses identified as factors in the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been discovered by researchers at the University of South Florida's Department of Psychiatry and the Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair.

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Facebook-Deprived Man Sues For $500K

Posted by samzenpus on Monday January 31, @09:12AM 

from the farmville-or-die dept.

broggyr writes"According to a story from MSNBC: 'For Mustafa Fteja, Facebook is more than just a hobby. It's the main way the 30-year-old Albanian native has stayed in touch with friends and family all over the world for three years, and when he was inexplicably cut off from it, he did what every other person in this country seems to do when they're mad enough: he sued. In seeking $500,000, Fteja is suing Facebook for disabling his account, in which he had about 340 friends and family and had spent "timeless hours creating content and relationships [Facebook] benefited from," the suit contends. He wants it back on, and he wants the company to pay for the damage of alienating him from his family and friends (about $1500 per friend/family).' Must be nice when you can use a free site and expect to get paid when they cut you off."

Water-propelled jetpack is no dream, can be yours for $99,500 this March (video)

By Vlad Savov  posted Jan 31st 2011 8:15AM

It's taken a long time since that 2005 patent was filed for, but Raymond Li is now finally ready to bring his water-propelled jetpack to the money-spending world. Nailing down a March 2011 launch date and a price of $99,500 hasn't been easy for the inventor, who says his efforts to procure capital and prototyping quotations were mostly met with incredulity -- "almost everyone thought I was crazy." His JetLev personal transporter relies on an engine and fuel tank (which remain on the water's surface) to pump H20 into a backpack that then shoots out streams of the drinkable stuff to keep your airborne. Top speed is 22MPH, max height is nearly 33 feet, and the fun factor is somewhere off the scale, whether you're talking metric or imperial. Levitate past the break for a video demonstration.

[Thanks, Suraj]

Inside London’s Secret Crisis-Command Bunker

By Pete Brook  

January 31, 2011  |  

7:00 am  |  

Categories: Fine Art, Law, Photo Gallery, Politics, War

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Back-door area.

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If nuclear attack or civil breakdown ever threatens the United Kingdom, the heads of government and the military know where to go. Beneath the streets of London, deeper than the capitol’s famous tube system, exists a hidden bunker on constant standby.

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Ski Lifts Can Could Help Get Cargo Traffic Off the Road

Posted by timothy on Monday January 31, @02:11AM 

from the you-either-like-this-or-have-no-soul dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this except from a beautifully illustrated, thought-provoking article:"These days, we use them almost exclusively to transport skiers and snowboarders up snow slopes, but before the 1940s, aerial ropeways were a common means of cargo transport, not only in mountainous regions but also on flat terrain. An electrically powered aerial ropeway is one of the cheapest and most efficient means of transportation available. Some generate excess energy that can be used to power nearby factories or data centers. An innovative system called RopeCon (not to be confused with a role-playing convention held annually in Finland) can move up to 10,000 tonnes of freight per hour."

Molybdenite As an Alternative To Silicon

Posted by timothy on Sunday January 30, @11:09PM 

from the mind-the-gap-sir dept.

An anonymous reader writes"Molybdenite (MoS2) can be used to make transistors that consume 100,000 times less energy in standby state. This mineral, which is abundant in nature, is often used as an element in steel alloys or as an additive in lubricants. Research carried out in Switzerland at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne's Laboratory of Nanoscale Electronics and Structures (LANES) has revealed that is a very effective semiconductor. Molybdenite's 1.8 electron-volt gap is ideal for transistors and gives it an advantage over graphene (which does not have a gap)."

EFF Uncovers Widespread FBI Intelligence Violations

Posted by timothy on Sunday January 30, @08:18PM 

from the man-v-state-the-case-that-never-ends dept.

An anonymous reader writes"EFF has uncovered widespread violations stemming from FBI intelligence investigations from 2001 — 2008. In a report released today, EFF documents alarming trends in the Bureau's intelligence investigation practices, suggesting that FBI intelligence investigations have compromised the civil liberties of American citizens far more frequently, and to a greater extent, than was previously assumed. Using documents obtained through EFF's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation, the report finds: Evidence of delays of 2.5 years, on average, between the occurrence of a violation and its eventual reporting to the Intelligence Oversight Board; reports of serious misconduct by FBI agents including lying in declarations to courts, using improper evidence to obtain grand jury subpoenas, and accessing password-protected files without a warrant; and indications that the FBI may have committed upwards of 40,000 possible intelligence violations in the 9 years since 9/11."

Cheap, Clean Ways to Produce Hydrogen for Use in Fuel Cells? A Dash of Disorder Yields a Very Efficient Photocatalyst

 (Jan. 30, 2011) — A little disorder goes a long way, especially when it comes to harnessing the sun's energy. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) jumbled the atomic structure of the surface layer of titanium dioxide nanocrystals, creating a catalyst that is both long lasting and more efficient than all other materials in using the sun's energy to extract hydrogen from water.

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Homebuilt UAV hunts down hydrogen balloons, shoots firework missiles (video)

By Sean Hollister  posted Jan 30th 2011 2:29PM

Augmented reality is swell, don't get us wrong, but it's no substitute for the real thing -- especially when that thing is a badass tricopter equipped with a jury-rigged firework cannon to rain down miniature hell. Swedish R/C enthusiasts built this first-person flying contraption to carry out a single mission -- destroy a series of hydrogen-filled balloons -- which will hopefully be hard-coded into future automatons too. After all, balloons could serve as an excellent distraction when they inevitably come for you. Still, there's no need to worry quite yet, so kick back and enjoy the video above while you contemplate humanity's end.