- Even the Mayans can't make up their damn minds about the
end of the world, so maybe the rest of civilization should chill about the
ancient empire’s 2012 doomsday prediction as well. In a bit of a contradiction
to the whole world ending on Dec. 21, 2012 idea, archaeologists have uncovered the only known
mural adorning an ancient Maya house in the last known largely unexcavated Maya
megacity and the art’s markings suggest dates thousands of years in the future.
The colorful scene of a king and his retinue is accompanied by scores of calculations
that helped ancient scribes track vast amounts of time and they project out
well past the supposed end of the world. "The paintings we have here—we've never found them anyplace
else," excavation leader William Saturno said. The painting in question
was discovered in Xultún, hidden in the midst of 6 square miles of jungle floor.
Saturno, a Boston University archaeologist, and Ph.D. student Franco Rossi were
inspecting a looters' tunnel in the Guatemalan jungle in 2010 and the student noticed
a few flecks of paint on a thin stucco wall. After scraping off 1,200-year-old mud, the pair found more paint
and realized they had stumbled across something amazing. "Suddenly Bill
was like, 'Oh my God, we have a glyph!'" Rossi said. A full excavation in
2011 unearthed what is s likely the ancient workroom of a Maya scribe, a
record-keeper of Xultún. "The reason this room's so interesting,"
said Rossi. "is that ... this was a workspace.” The disintegrated books
that once filled the room were likely marked with elaborate calculations
intended to predict the city's fortunes. Numbers were then etched on the wall
as references. It’s the only example of such a room discovered so far and it
exists near the remains of a massive Maya plaza circled by pyramids, where
kings and high priests conducted ceremonies. Archaeologists first discovered
parts of Xultún in 1915, just five miles from another Maya metropolis, San
Bartolo, where Saturno uncovered 2,000-year-old Maya murals about a decade ago.
The murals at San Bartolo were a great find, but maybe if Saturno had tracked
down this new find sooner, a whole lot of nonsense about the supposed
apocalypse later this year could have been avoid……….
- This is what happens when a) your NHL franchise hasn’t won
a Stanley Cup in a couple of decades, b) is suddenly and surprisingly good and
c) you have far too much SoCal sand handy. The Los Angeles Kings have taken the
hockey world by storm in the past month, entering the playoffs as the No. 8
seed and proceeding to stun top-seeded Vancouver and second-seeded St. Louis,
dispatching the two in a combined nine games, one over the minimum needed to
win two best-of-7 series. As the Kings prepare to kick off the Western
Conference finals against an equally surprising Phoenix Coyotes team that has
never advanced this far into the postseason, the Kings are going über-cheesy by
building a special “Sandley” Cup in
Nokia Plaza near Staples Center. Nearly 30 tons of sand arrived at the plaza
shortly after 7 a.m. Saturday morning in the area next to the Toyota car
display and a Starbucks and championship sand castle builders (yes, there are
championships for these glorified 8-year-olds with their buckets and shovels at
the beach) went to work. The finished product will be a 12-14 foot Stanley Cup
accompanied by a life-size depiction of Kings goalie Jonathan Quick in net and
three or four Kings jerseys showcasing player names and numbers. The 20-foot
square space is expected to be completed between 3-5 p.m. on Sunday, just in
time for bandwagon-ing Kings fans who didn’t care about hockey at all until
their local team toppled Vancouver to head over to the official Kings watch
party at ESPN Zone L.A. LIVE with Bailey, Jay Flats and members of the Kings Ice
Crew. Yes sir, nobody can front-run quite like Los Angeles………..
- Look at you, India, gettin’ all gun-happy. Either Indians
are angling for Tea Party and NRA membership or they feel the need to gear up
for a coming firefight the world doesn’t know about because countries typically
do not purchase
145 howitzers from an American defense contractor just for the hell of it. In a
concerted push to modernize its military India has agreed to spend 30 billion
rupees ($560 million) on the M777 artillery from BAE Systems Inc., a U.S.
subsidiary of London-based BAE Systems PLC. Defense Ministry spokesman Sitanshu
Kar confirmed the purchase of the 155mm M777s, which have been used by both the
United States and Canada in Afghanistan, but did not comment further. The need
to modernize has stared India in the face for years and as the country has
become a closer strategic and military ally of Washington following decades of
hostile relations during the Cold War, the opportunities are there to upgrade. India
is expected to spend $80 billion over the next 10 years to upgrade its military
and has become the world’s top arms and defense equipment buyer in recent years
because of perceived threats from China’s growing power in the region a border rivalry
with neighbor Pakistan. The Indian military has to be fired up about the
purchase, as the government last purchased new howitzers for its army in 1986,
buying 400 guns from Swedish defense company AB Bofors. Needless to say, its
military peers have been making jokes about its outdated equipment since then.
Sadly, this arms deal won't be nearly as riveting as the 1986 exchange, which
was mired in controversy amid allegations that AB Bofors paid millions of
dollars in bribes to Indian officials. Maybe some unknown bribes will
eventually surface to liven up this transaction as well……….
- The Post Secret blog has become a place troubled souls
can post images of postcards anonymously revealing their darkest secrets to the
world in a single cathartic sweep. That same idea has led to an unusual scene in front
of an old dry cleaning building that is currently under construction at Q
and 14th Streets near Logan Circle, NW. A local couple, who have tried their
best to remain out of the spotlight and not draw attention to themselves for
their idea, set up a large chalkboard and wrote some of their hopes and dreams
for the future on it. Others in the area latched on to the concept and began
sharing their own hopes and dreams, writing messages like, "I'm writing I
want to be photographed in Vogue." They are spurred on by a simple,
three-word prompt: "Before I die... " that asks them to look into
their own future. One by one, these dreamers have grabbed the chalk and written
out their bucket list entries. "I want to sit on a Glacier before they
melt away," an environmentally conscious individual wrote. Others
expressed travel dreams like, “Visit every continent” and “to see the seven
seas before I die." One of the coolest angles of the story is that the
chalkboard was set up without permission and so far, no one has objected to it.
More than a few of the entries on the board are serious and extremely person,
like one man who wrote, "To stay sober." Others have written hopeful
messages of repaying college loans, finding cures for fatal diseases and
spreading love and tolerance in the world. Hopefully the board is able to
continue for some time and no one turns it into a controversial issue for some
petty reason………….
- Not everyone goes to the movies and simply enjoys the
explosions. Sure, “The Avengers” may earn in excess of $1 billion worldwide and
become the rare blockbuster to live up to the hype, but the analytic minds at Kinetic
Analysis Corp. were asked not to break down the movies merits or
award-worthiness, but the cost of the damage its six-pack of superheroes caused
in the fictional world they saved. In a key part of the movie’s plot(spoiler
alert), Thor's (Chris Hemsworth) twisted brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) raises
an alien army in an attempt to enslave Earth as his own kingdom. A massive
battle results and in the process, Manhattan is decimated. After analyzing the
fictional big-screen damage, Kinetic Analysis Corp. determined that the
physical damage to the city would cost $60-70 billion and clean-up costs would
amount to $90 billion. Throw in the loss of thousands of lives and the
associated costs and the total would exceed $160 billion. That figure leads to
an obvious question: Why wouldn’t the fictional victims of this imaginary
damage sue SHIELD, the secretive military law-enforcement agency that assembles
the heroes? Believe it or not, Kinetic Analysis Corp. predicted that SHIELD would
in all likelihood be protected from liability through sovereign immunity. Worse
still, because the battle was waged by Loki, who hails from the mythical Norse
world of Asgard, insurers would probably be protected from paying out due to an
“act of God.” Even so, the entire saga would be only marginally more of a
disaster than another recent Disney film, the bomb-tastic “John Carter,” which
is projected to cost the studio an estimated $200 million and led to the “resignation”
(i.e. firing) of studio chief Rich Ross. Kinect Analysis Corp. used computer
models originally created for predicting damage in Japan from Godzilla, Mothra
and Mechagodzilla to create its projections………
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