Richard Pearse: A powered airplane nine months before the Wright brothers

Richard William Pearse (3 December 1877 — 29 July 1953), a New Zealand farmer and inventor, performed pioneering experiments in aviation.

Pearse appears to have successfully flown and landed a powered heavier-than-air machine on 31 March 1903, some nine months before the Wright brothers. The documentary evidence to support such a claim remains open to interpretation, however, and he does not appear to have developed his aircraft to match the Wrights’ achievement of sustained, controlled flight. Pearse himself made contradictory statements which for many years led the few who knew of his feats to accept 1904 as the date of his first flight. The lack of any chance of industrial development, such as spurred the Wrights to develop their machine, seems to have suppressed any recognition of Pearse’s achievements.

… Good evidence exists that on 31 March 1903 Pearse achieved a powered, though poorly controlled, flight of several hundred metres. ^[2][3] Pearse himself said that he had made a powered takeoff, “but at too low a speed for [his] controls to work”. However, he remained airborne until he crashed into the hedge at the end of the field.

… Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Pearse continued to work on constructing a tilt-rotor flying-machine for personal use — sometimes described as a cross between a windmill and a rubbish-cart. His design resembled an autogyro or helicopter, but involved a tilting propeller/rotor and monoplane wings, which, along with the tail, could fold to allow storage in a conventional garage. Pearse intended the vehicle for driving on the road (like a car) as well for flying. However he became reclusive and paranoid that foreign spies would discover his work. Committed to Sunnyside Mental Hospital in Christchurch in 1951, Pearse died there two years later. Researchers believe that many of his papers were destroyed at that time. – wiki

100 Year old Tunnel: Toronto Power Company Hydroelectric Plant, Niagara Falls, Ontario

Imagine a tunnel more than ten storeys underground, a hundred years old, bricklined, wet, and completely inaccessible save by descending through a narrow slit in its ceiling thirty feet above the floor, and then returning up the same rope you came down.

Now imagine that this tunnel flows into Niagara Falls, emerging behind the pummeling curtain of water that nearly everyone in North America journeys to see at some point in their lives.

This tunnel exists. In the autumn of 2004, thanks to the work of two people with the experience and equipment to make it happen, I had the chance to feel Niagara Falls. – vanishingpoint

Baby Can Read like a 7 year old At 17 Months

Elizabeth Barrett is now 17 months old. She looks and acts like most babies her age, but Elizabeth can read.

Her mother Katy, a speech pathologist who is married to Michael, another speech pathologist, said that most people don’t believe their infant is a reader.

Aside from reading books every day, play-time means mom writes down a word on paper and Elizabeth figures it out. Katy explained that Elizabeth not only reads the word, but signs them as well.

Katy is convinced that sign language helped launch her daughter’s reading skills, partly by watching shows like “Signing Times” on public television.

So what does her doctor think? Dr. Steve Stripling, Elizabeth’s pediatrician, says at 14 months he saw her sight read the word avocado. “I was floored”, he said.

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Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys

OPEC set to snub Bush call for extra crude oil

Bush, whose nation is the world’s biggest energy consumer, said it would be a “mistake” by OPEC not to hike production to help bring down record-high oil prices of above 100 dollars when the organisation meets in Vienna on Wednesday. … – rawstory

It is not the lack of oil production at work here. It is the absolute plunge of the dollar against other currencies which is causing the problem, and this cannot be remedied by more oil being pumped. And nothing the Fed has tried has been able to remedy this very real problem. – wrh

With a blue Pacman in their logo OPEC will never be taken seriously.

Egypt leaks information about an American military action against Syria

Jordanian newspaper Al-Arab Al-Youm reported today, through sources that an American message leaked by Egypt to Syria shows that the United States is ready to launch a broad military operation against Syria if it insists on its position on the Lebanese crisis and this is the real reason behind the deployment of “USS Cole” in front of the Syrian – Lebanese waters.

The source said that the official announced reason of Condoleezza Rice’s visit to Egypt is to push the Palestinian – Israeli peace process forward but the real reason is to explain the American military actions and the presence of the American ships to the Egyptian leadership.- roadstoiraq