It was developed to be used as agricultural vehicle but has found favour with many armies in the world. With a strong chassis and huge amount of torque, there is little that can stop the versatile Unimog. It can carry and pull big loads. 

The new generation Unimogs are available in many configurations for use in agriculture, industrial, military and transport applications and even as a personal recreational vehicle. You’ll find one of the seven 4 or 6-cylinder diesel BlueEfficiency engine options to suit your challenging needs. There’s even a gas engine option available. As gizmag points out:

“Output ranging from 115 kW (156 hp) and 260 kW (354 hp). The latter is a 7.7 liter beast of a thing developing 885 lb.ft. of torque to help pull trains and buildings and such.”

Obviously, you’ll need to dig deep into your pocket to buy and then to run one of these funky-looking toys. They cost $100,000 upwards and use around 3 gallons of gas per hour, depending on the model. But, heck, they are kinda cute! In 2012, even Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced his Hummer with a customized Unimog for an estimated $250,000.

Back in 1996 when England fell to Germany in a UEFA Euro game, riots broke out in Trafalgar Square. In 2007, four Bulgarian men bit off part of a Greek man’s ear after Greece’s 4-1 loss to Turkey in a European Championship qualifier. 

In 2012 in Port Said, Egypt, 74 people died and thousands were injured when soccer hooligans stormed on to the field after an unexpected 3-1 win by the home team Al-Masry against the country’s top club, Al-Ahly.

Not only do soccer hooligans turn on each other, they also attack players and referees. Sadly, there also are many instances of frustrated, drunk fans turning on their spouses after a game.

The silly antics are not the domain of the fans only. The often-overpaid, under-performing soccer players have their share in on-field scandals. Recently Liverpool player Luis Suarez bit Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic. In 2010, he was suspended for 7 matches with an incident while playing for Dutch club Ajax.

To churn your stomach even more, see the Duke University Soccer Politics article.

Soccer wars

Wars were fought for strange reasons – but none as bizarre as the one that led to the 4 days long skirmish between El Salvador and Honduras in July 14, 1969.

The former lost to the latter in a play-off game for the 1970 World Cup. El Salvador fans then proceeded to beat up their Honduran counterparts.  Soon, the two countries were engaged in a full-blown war, known ever since as the Soccer War. It left 3000 dead, 6000 wounded and more than $50 million in damages. It led to the election of Colonel Sanchez Hernandez as president of El Salvador a year later.

But this was merely the latest manifestation of constant friction between the two neighboring polities. Their international border was never undisputedly demarcated. Honduras was the destination country for 300,000 impoverished El Salvadoran immigrants. Hondurans long campaigned to have them expelled. In 1968, thousands of them were. Honduran and Salvadoran businesses bitterly competed in the same markets. The Soccer War merely epitomized this deep-set rivalry.

From the original article by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. – republished with permission. Intro facts added. 

The 25-year-old law student seemed to have thrown out all the rules and achieved what many had dreamt of and what some did not dare dream about. In the process, he has, for better or for worse, created a new global industry. 

The Cody gun – somewhat prophetically called “The Liberator” –  is made out of 16 pieces of ABS plastic and one small piece of steel. The firing pin is a 170g (6 oz) piece of steel to make it detectable, making it compliant with the Undetectable Firearms Act. The gun was made on a 3D printer, bought for $8,000 on eBay.

The Liberator is part of Cody & Co’s Wiki Weapon Project, trading under Defense Distributed, a pending 501(c)(3) status nonprofit corporation in the state of (obviously) Texas. The aim of the corporation is clear:

“The specific purposes for which this corporation is organized are: To defend the civil liberty of popular access to arms as guaranteed by the United States Constitution and affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, through facilitating global access to, and the collaborative production of, information and knowledge related to the 3D printing of arms; and to publish and distribute, at no cost to the public, such information and knowledge in promotion of the public interest.”

Their “Our Plan” is also clear:

1) DEVELOP A FULLY PRINTABLE FIREARM

2) ADAPT THE DESIGN DOWN TO CHEAPER 3D PRINTERS

3) BECOME THE WEB’S PRINTABLE GUN WIKI REDOUBT

Lords of War

Soon many may be Lords of War. Freedoms are won or lost through the barrel of a gun. This gun is a game changer – both in the world of gadget 3D printing and in the “fight for freedom” (where war often is a mind without reason) everywhere. As the wiki states:

“This project might change the way we think about gun control and consumption. How do governments behave if they must one day operate on the assumption that any and every citizen has near instant access to a firearm through the Internet? Let’s find out.”

The features are impressive. “Smart Screen” pauses a video if you look away. “Air Gesture” allows you to answer a phone call, change songs in playlist, swap browser tabs or activate other functions just by waving your hand over the screen. “Air View” lets you hover over an item (social, email, calendar, etc.) to display a preview of what is inside. 

There are so many features on the S4 GT-I9500 model that Samsung included an Easy Mode which limits the home screen to three panels. ReadWrite has the story:  The Phone So Complicated, It Has An ‘Easy’ Mode.

Samsung WatchON technology brings the S4 into the phablet (phone + tablet) sector: an IR blaster connects the app to your TV so that you can view and control your TV from your smartphone. You even can order movies on demand from the phone interface. How cool is that?!

Samsung Galaxy S4 reviews

Early reviews of the Samsung Galaxy S4 are pure raves. Most people like it. But some experts disagree. Gizmodo’s Brent Rose finds the S4 “Better, But Not Best.” Referring to the useability, he says, “It’s definitely one of the best phones you can buy. It’s just shame it couldn’t stay out of its own way.” [It's no surprise to this blogger that Rose states, "In fact, were it not for the HTC One, it would be the best Android phone you can buy."]

AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg echoes Rose: “Galaxy S 4 Is a Good, but Not a Great, Step Up.” And while he admits to “admire some of its features” he also says of the HTC One:

“While many will compare the Galaxy S 4 with the iPhone 5, I also compared it with the $200 HTC One, which came out April 19. The HTC has a handsome, sturdier, aluminum body, dual stereo speakers, an excellent camera, better screen resolution than the new Samsung and twice the base memory for the same price.”

CNET reviewers point out that the HTC One also has an IR blaster to control a TV and is “a far more impressive phone physically” but praise the S4′s camera and powerful quad-core processor. Their bottom line: “the Galaxy S4 is the top choice for anyone looking for a big-screen, do-everything smartphone.”

David Pogue of New York Times thinks the S4 is “basically, it’s an updated Galaxy S3″ and TIME’s Harry McCracken concurs that while the “new apps are among the best-designed ones … If you want the most polished phone with the best selection of apps, the iPhone 5 still has no peer” but concludes:  ”And if what you want is the mainstream phone with the biggest screen and the most built-in stuff, the Galaxy S4 is your most logical option.”

Jordan Crook of TechCrunch says ”it’d be foolish to think that the Galaxy S4 isn’t a top-notch phone.” Mashable’s Christina Warren strong feels “It’s undoubtedly the best Android phone on the market right now.”

Mixed reviews, then. But it is anticipated that brand recognition and sharing features such as GroupPlay will make the S4 the biggest selling Android phone of 2013 and increase Samsung’s commanding 33% market share in the highly competitive smartphone marketplace.

Samsung Galaxy S4 GT-I9500 specs:

At the heart of this desirable gaming gadget are two fully equipped Tahiti XT2 GPUs, each core with 4.3 billion transistors. So, that gives you 8.6 billion transistors, with 4096 Stream processors, delivering 8.2 terraflops of processing power. 

Radeon HD 7990 reviews

Of course you have noticed that the HD 7990 has 1.5 billion more transistors than the impressive nVidia Titan card and obviously you would want to compare it with 2012′s fastest graphic card in the world, the GeForce GPX690. Well, this is what AMD says:

In tests by AMD as of 28 February, 2013, the AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 showed higher average performance than the NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 690 in the 3DMark® Fire Strike Extreme (FS6407 vs. FS5316) and Crysis 3 (1080p & 1600p at all quality presets).

Expert reviewers say that “OpenGL performance doesn’t seem too off from the competing Nvidia card, but the 7990 dominates when using OpenCL.” You’ll find full HD 7990 reviews on guru3D and the authoritative Tom’s Hardware.

UltraHD/4K

From the AMD press release: ”Surely most have heard about “4K” or “UltraHD” TVs and monitors. These displays have a gigantic resolution of 3840×2160, which is twice as many pixels as a 2560×1600, and a whopping four times the resolution of a normal 1080p display! That’s a lot of pixels to move, but the AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 graphics processor enables completely playable performance and high image quality.”

Free games

The HD 7990 costs a grand (1000 bucks). But it does include an awesome bundle of games: Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, Crysis 3, Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider, Far Cry 3, Hitman Absolution, Sleeping Dogs and Deus Ex Human Revolution are included. Enjoy!

AMD Radeon HD 7990 specs:

They’re all nice bikes but if you suddenly hit a sandy twisty or rocky hill any of them suddenly weighs a ton-and-a-half. Drop it a few times and even the BMW G650 X-Challenge, KTM 690 Enduro R and Honda XR650R become back-breakers. 

If you need more power and have the necessary adventure riding skills, the BMW F800GS and Triumph 800XC will handle rough roads decently, of course. As would the latest big adventure bikes: the Yamaha Super Ténéré 1200, Triumph Tiger Explorer 1200, the BMW R1200GS and the KTM 1190 Adventure R. But try picking up any of those – especially on a steep hill.

Adventure trick bikes 

Wouldn’t it be nice to have an adventure trick bike? Something that is not as demanding as adventurized Enduro/MX bikes (KTM 500 XC-W, Beta 450RS, Sherco SE510IR or Husaberg FE570).

Remember the GasGas Pampera? That was a trick bike that had potential as a short distance adventure bike.

Yamaha is still producing their Tricker XG250 models but only for their local market.

The KTM Freeride is more light enduro than trick bike but there are the impressive Ossa Explorer (pictured) and the Sherco X Ride to consider.

Now, if only the trick bikes were fitted with sturdy pannier racks and have bigger gas tanks. No? So it’s back to the old faithfuls then? Or the new all-wheel-drive Christini 450DS in camouflage!

Ardent gamers are big spenders. They want the latest, fastest CPU and GPU and enough memory and hard drive space to fight a war with. Which is exactly what happens once they move in behind the keyboard. 

Gaming chassis

Almost all of the top-end motherboards and graphics cards aimed at gamers are big. Packed with features, they require a strong, sizeable gaming chassis – usually a full size tower case – which can take a strong power supply and, at the same time, provide enough cooling features to channel away the heat generated by those great gaming gadgets.

There is no shortage in gaming chassis designs. Search the phrase and you’ll quickly find the big boys in the gaming industry throwing impressive specs of their latest offerings your way. And impressive they are, each with their own unique selling proposition. To name just a few:

Auzentech’s Z-7 X-Station has a front panel LCD that displays fan speed, thermometer, and HDD conditions.

The gunmetal grey CMStorm Scout 2 can house 15.7 inch graphics cards and has steel reinforced carrying handles.

Zalman’s GS1200 features a dedicated HDD cooling fan and docking support on top of the case.

The Raidmax Cobra has a patented wide body design and rail slide HDD racks.

Corsair’s Vengeance C70 has room for two 240mm radiators and is designed for travelling gamers.

Antec has the full tower Dark Fleet and military green GX700 gaming series but their most impressive offering actually is their mid-tower Eleven Hundred chassis.

Antec Eleven Hundred

The Antec Eleven Hundred is what is called a super mid-tower. It costs far less than most gaming chassis – selling for $100 on amazon – yet it can host a full size XL-ATX motherboard and 13-inch GPUs such as the 4-way AMD CrossFireX and 3-way NVIDIA SLI. It has nine expansion slots, 11 drive bays and can accommodate 9 cooling fans. In a value/performance comparison, the Eleven Hundred is hard to beat.

Antec Eleven Hundred chassis specifications: