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They were the Stutz Bearcats of the water in their day, with names like Garwood, Hackercraft and Ventnor. And, like the Stutz, these striking, hand-built wooden runabouts have become prized collectors’ items. Restoring one of these vintage speedboats can cost upward of 100 grand. Plan B is to go with a repro model. One of the nicest and visually most faithful to the original is the Ventnor 20-ft. Runabout.The original version made its debut at the 1945 New York Boat Show....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Obama administration has decided to authorize additional assistance to rebels fighting the Assad regime in Syria. The civil war there has claimed nearly 100,000 lives already, and the rebels have lost key ground to the regime and their allies, fighters with Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah. The United States has already provided nonlethal aid, such as medical supplies and communications equipment, but will now provide weapons. Details are lacking—the debate is being waged behind closed doors in Washington, D....

As the front door creaks open, fog and darkness entomb the teens entering this 19th century mansion. Floorboards groan beneath the strain of their steps. Their murmuring and laughter cannot conceal real fear. All of a sudden, a blast of air freezes them. A hideous inhuman sound makes them shake. Out of the darkness, a monstrous ghoul lunges at them from the coat rack in the corner. Screams fill the room....

Media Platforms Design TeamDriving unlit back roads in the late hours of the night is one of the rare moments of solitude in motoring. Just you and the relaxing dull rumble of the engine, with your high beams cleaving a swath through the thick black night. But every few minutes, a set of headlights pops into view, breaking your zen-like driving flow as you reach to flip the high beams off....

Wednesday night, weather permitting (there have already been two delays), SpaceX will take a second shot at what would be a rocketeering first: After its Falcon 9 rocket blasts the DSCOVR spacecraft into orbit, SpaceX will try to land the first stage of that rocket on a platform at sea:View full post on YoutubeBy now this might not be news to you. You might know that SpaceX came close to success with its first try, when the rocket reached the platform but a last-minute error cause a fiery crash....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn an effort to keep its entries as unbiased as possible, the Wikimedia Foundation struck back this week against companies that get paid to edit Wikipedia entries. The Foundation filed complaints with the World Intellectual Property Organization to stop four sites from using the Wikipedia trademark on their sites, in logo form, and in their URLs. WIPO accepted the complaints and ordered the sites (wikipediapagecreators.com, getawikipedia.com, getonwikipedia.com, and onwikipedia....

Media Platforms Design Team MANCHESTER, Vermont— Maybe it’s misplaced emotion, but at times, one finds it hard not to feel a little sympathy for the car companies these days. After all, skyrocketing fuel prices have taken a big bite out of the historically profitable truck and SUV segments. Sure, small-car sales are up, but the consumer demand for more fuel-efficient cars has caught a number of automakers off-guard. So launching a premium SUV—even one powered by diesel—takes something of a leap of faith....

Media Platforms Design Team MALLORCA, Spain — Tall stone walls on either side along the single lane stretch of tarmac echo and exaggerate the muted whine of a supercharged V6. We pull back on the paddle for another instantaneous dual-clutch shift and the ensuing pop from the exhaust makes the experience just that much more fun. The 2009 Audi S4 produces a relentless wave of torque that completely belies the manufacturer’s ratings....

Search for the Blues7 days * 683 milesClick here for a printable version of this road trip map and guide. [PDF, 1.5MB]| Day 1 to 2: ChicagoThe Windy City has the liveliest blues scene in the world. Unlike the acoustic sound of the Mississippi Delta, Chicago-style blues has a hard, electrified edge. You can find someone wailing on a guitar every night of the week.Interstate 55Often referred to as the Mississippi Delta Highway because of its proximity to the Mississippi River, I-55 overlaps Route 66 down to St....

Problem: There’s a hole in your roof and shingles are destroyed.Media Platforms Design Team+ Solution: Cover the damaged area with a tarp or plastic sheet and nail it in place with 1 1/2-in.-ga. roofing nails, placing a 3/16 x 1-in. fender washer under each nailhead.> Problem: The house’s framing has been damaged by a downed tree.Media Platforms Design Team+ Solution: Once the tree is removed, provide temporary support to load-bearing elements with a 4 x 4 slammed into place with a sledgehammer until plumb....

Media Platforms Design TeamNot even your refrigerator is safe from hackers.Between Dec. 23 and Jan. 6, Internet security firm Proofpoint discovered a cyber attack that delivered about 750,000 malicious emails. There’s nothing unusual about that. What surprised the experts was what the hackers used—the messages were coming from inside the kitchen.“In the course of tracking down the source of these attacks we discovered many of the messages were not emanating from traditional PCs or servers,” says David Knight, Proofpoint general manager of information security....

Media Platforms Design TeamMaj. Gen. Michael Carey didn’t know his career was on the verge of total collapse when he arrived at Popular Mechanics’ New York City office in late July 2013. At the time, Carey was Commander of the 20th Air Force, which controls America’s land-based nuclear missiles. He was in town to meet with members of NASDAQ, where we would ring the opening bell in September, and a visit to PopMech happened to fit his schedule....

Media Platforms Design TeamAs if smoke monsters and tropical polar bears weren’t enough to keep our heads spinning, Thursday’s episode of Lost, “The Constant,” opened up a whole new can of worms: the fourth dimension.Flying from the island toward a mysterious freighter, pilot Frank Lapidus can’t keep his helicopter on the bearing that physicist Daniel Faraday says will get Desmond and Sayid to the freighter safely—presumably through a wormhole. They encounter some turbulence, and Desmond begins, yes, traveling through time, with increasingly rapid lapses between 1996 and the present (which, on the show, is still 2004)....

Media Platforms Design Team1. FERMENTING VESSELSYeasts work their magic in these stainless steel conditioning tanks. Encased in an electronically controlled layer of glycol, each tank can cool thousands of just-boiled gallons some 40° within 48 hours.2. AIR TESTERThis glass Zahm & Nagel tester is used to spot-check levels of air in bottles before they go to market. Keeping air content down reduces spoilage. “It’s a pretty expensive little unit,” says Avery....

Media Platforms Design TeamLE MANS, FRANCE - It’s been nearly ten years since Bentley claimed first and second place finishes at the grueling 24 Hours of Le Mans, but the ultraluxury brand has faced its own set of competitive challenges since then, namely a global recession that put the Volkswagen-owned company in the red until last year.With money finally flowing back into their coffers, the Crewe-based manufacturer is eyeing a return to racing, and to find out how they’re sizing up the scene, I sat down with Bentley’s head of motorsports Brian Gush at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans races....

How far can you go with no fuel? If aeronautical adventurer Bertrand Piccard has any influence, the answer will be: all the way around the world.Piccard, 47, hatched his latest scheme while working on the Breitling Orbiter, the hybrid helium/hot air balloon in which he and copilot Brian Jones made a pioneering round-the-world flight in 1999. “All the journalists were saying it was the last possible adventure in the atmosphere,” Piccard says....

Before heading out into the Southern Ocean, double-check that you have the following equipment (this is one place you don’t want to be caught unprepared): two two-way radios, two jerrycans of fuel, a boat box with safety equipment, a map of the area and a dry bag with food, water, warm, dry clothes, goggles and—not to be overlooked in the austral summer—ample sunscreen.02) Use redundant means of communication to tell station staff where you are going....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhen we interviewed writer/director Drew Goddard about his genre-subverting horror film The Cabin in the Woods, out today, we couldn’t resist asking him about another project he has in the works: The script for Robopocalypse, based on PM advisor Daniel H. Wilson’s book about the aftermath of a robot uprising. The film, slated for release in 2013, will be directed by Stephen Spielberg. “It’s going well,” Goddard tells PM....

You’re almost enjoying a long drive on a nice, flat interstate. Almost, because it’s windy and you need to saw the steering wheel back and forth, tacking like a sailboat, to stay in your lane. That is, until you make a short rest stop and realize that there’s no wind whatsoever. The kids in the back seat are screaming for Dramamine, and you’re fatigued after only an hour of driving.There’s no doubt about it–you definitely have some steering issues....

Media Platforms Design TeamToday NASA announced that its Curiosity Rover has successfully collected the first sample drilled from the interior of a Martian rock and stands ready to perform the first analysis of material taken from beneath the surface of Mars.The rover spent the past month exploring Yellowknife Bay, an area hypothesized to have once been water-rich. Curiosity conducted preliminary drill tests, and eventually its first full-fledged drilling of Martian bedrock....