Krusty the 'Simpsons' Clown Gets His Own Roller Coasters

The silly shill with the fuzzy green hair and the oversize shoes expands his empire with a pair of theme-park rides.

Air Hostesses of Yesteryear

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From "sky girls" to "stews" to "flight attendants," the story of the airline stewardess is an evolutionary tale. Originally established as an in-flight nursing corps, the earliest stewardesses also served as waitresses, baggage handlers and auxiliary ground crew. As commercial flying grew up, the role of the stewardess changed. Along the way, she reflected her time, evolving from novelty to workhorse to sex symbol, yet always serving with professional competence.

For more on the origins of what we now know as female flight attendants, see This Day In Tech.

Left: In the days before computer check-in, the stewardess kept a passenger manifest on her clipboard.

Miniskirts, hairspray and polyester, the official look of the 1960s air hostess.

With a stew's welcoming smile and casual manner, how could flying possibly be scary?

These waving TWA stews pose in front of the distinctive tail of a Constellation, a workhorse in the 1950s and one of the more successful planes in the history of commercial aviation.

Remember walking across the tarmac and boarding the aircraft from the rear door? This TWA stewardess does.

United Airlines stewardesses were prized for their manual dexterity. At least, that's what this ad from the '60s would have you believe.

Working hard, yet fresh as a daisy. Notice all those stops along the way home.

Which do you prefer? High hair with hot pants, or the more restrained miniskirt?

No carrier traded on the female charms of its hostesses quite like Pacific Southwest Airlines did. The neon-colored micro minis were regulation, as were those unfortunate hats.

Southwest Airlines did not staff each Boeing 727 with a dozen stewardesses. This is merely a publicity shot.

In the 1960s, regional carriers used sexy stews in hot pants to lure passengers aboard. This one appears to be rolling a joint, although she probably isn't.

Landline Use Falls Off as Mobile Usage Grows

Three in 10 Americans now do most, if not all, of their talking on cellphones, a study finds. A growing number, mostly the young and less affluent, use mobiles exclusively.

Alt Text: Workin' at the Internet Cafe -- Laptop Dilemma

I love internet cafes. Given that my job requires hours of sitting and typing, sitting and drawing, or sitting and procrastinating, a change of scenery is welcome, allowing me to be around people without actually having to interact with them, listen to them or acknowledge their existence beyond sharing a power outlet. To me, a cafe is like a large desktop image that dispenses caffeinated beverages and scones.

However, as any science-fiction writer can tell you, with any new technology come new problems and new sex acts. I haven't gotten to the sex act part yet, but the problem is quite apparent: What do I do with my laptop when I have to use the bathroom?

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Solution 1: Leave it there on the table

Yeah, great idea. I'll just throw my credit cards and loose change on the table, too, maybe carve my Social Security number and bank password into the wood to maximize the convenience of anyone who wants to ruin my life.

Solution 2: Ask the person next to me to keep an eye it

It's not that I think the guy next to me is going to steal my laptop -- he's already got one, and his is generally nicer -- it's just that I don't think he's going to do a damn thing if a desperate-looking hood and/or thug walks right up and grabs my iBook. Hell, if he's like me, he won't even notice. If I were the sort of person who paid attention to his surroundings, I wouldn't be bringing a laptop into public spaces.

Solution 3: Bring it in with me

The easiest thing would be just to tuck it under my arm and head to the head. And yet ... I feel like that raises questions. "Why is he bringing a laptop into the bathroom? Has he been overwhelmed by the erotic power of superheroine porn? Is this some sort of sick YouTube stunt? Who said he could do that? Why won't somebody stop him?" I don't trust people to say one word if a pod of roving computer thieves leaps from a running van and grabs my laptop, but I'm sure someone will tackle me at the knees to prevent me from carrying it into the john.

Solution 4: Bring everything in with me

OK, this doesn't even make sense to me, but here's what I often do: I put my laptop back into my satchel, put my iPod back into my coat and bring my entire life with me into the bathroom. I don't know why I feel this is more socially acceptable. What do I want them to think is in there? A makeup case? A wide selection of hygiene products? Maybe I'm trying to fool them into thinking I'm just stopping by the men's room on the way out. If so, it works, because I generally come back to find my coffee cup in the bus bin and my seat taken.

Solution 5: Lock the thing up

I haven't tried this, but it would be the very avatar of simplicity to get one of those laptop locks and attach my laptop to the table or chair. I'm reluctant, though, because I don't want to come across as one of those twitchy people who obsess about extremely unlikely crimes and devise elaborate schemes to foil largely fictional criminals. However, looking back over this, I guess I am one of those people. I should probably just blog from an underground bunker in rural Montana, pausing every three paragraphs to re-oil my shotgun. I'd probably get more work done.

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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a Beat poet, a beatboxer and a beat frequency.

Pop Artist Robert Rauschenberg, 82, Dies

The pop art pioneer turned everyday objects into art, sometimes bizarrely so, but he was also an accomplished painter, sculpture and choreographer, a major 20th century American artist.

How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

Your earthquake preparedness kit is well-stocked, but are you ready for a zombie apocalypse? Make sure you have what it takes to repel an undead army should one appear on your doorstep. Follow our guide and submit your own tips on Wired's How-To Wiki.

They That Go Down to Sea ... on a Permanent Basis

An underwater cemetery off Key Biscayne, Florida is touted as the perfect final resting place for lovers of the sea. It's also turning into a pretty popular dive spot.

Craft Brewers Reformulate Beer to Cope With Hop Shortage

OAKLAND, California -- At Pacific Coast Brewing here, brewer Donald Gortemiller is reworking his recipes and altering his brewing styles like never before.

Gortemiller isn't acting on a spurt of creativity. He's coping with a worldwide shortage of hops -- the spice of beer. The dry cones of a particular flowering vine, hops are what give your favorite brew its flavor and aroma. Prices of the commodity are skyrocketing as hop supplies have plummeted, forcing smaller brewmasters around the United States to begin quietly tweaking their recipes, in ways that are easily discerned by serious imbibers.

The shortage -- caused by a dwindling number of hop growers worldwide, and exacerbated by a Yakima, Washington, warehouse fire -- has forced Gortemiller to use fewer and different hops than before, changing the flavor of his beer. He's also resorted to beer hacks, like "dry hopping," in which the hops are added late to the mix, consuming fewer hops and yielding a more consistent flavor.

"When hops were $2 a pound, compared to $20 or $30 a pound now, it didn't matter. We'd throw them into the boil at various times," Gortemiller says. "That was an inaccurate way of doing things. We're modifying recipes and using about 20 percent less hops."

Brewer Chuey Munkanta at the 21st Amendment Brewery pulls the grain out of the wash tub.
Photo Jim Merithew, Wired.com

The beer-brewing situation demonstrates how the global-commodity shortage is spilling over to affect diverse industries in unexpected ways. The hop shortage lives on the outer edges of a food crisis that's prompted riots across the planet, and last month led U.N. Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon to implore the world's governments to increase food production to stave off a 40 percent jump in the cost of staples.

While nobody in the craft-beer industry is going hungry, they are being forced to adapt. There's no replacement for hops in beer -- they give the brew its flavor. But other key ingredients are in short supply, as well. Malt, which comes from sprouted barley, produces the alcohol and body of beer -- its prices have doubled along with hops. The price of rice, used by industrial brewers, has charted a similar course.

The larger commercial brewers are better off. Most have long-term contracts for hops, barley and rice, and are doing whatever is necessary not to tinker with their brand names.

"Coors Banquet has been tweaked very little since it was introduced in the 1800s," says Molson Coors spokeswoman Jenny Volanakis. "We don't play around with our beers."

But even the big brewers aren't immune from the shortage, says industry analyst Jack Russo of Edward Jones in St. Louis. "Most everybody has raised prices in the 2-to-3-percent range," says Russo.

The small, craft brewers are taking the brunt of the beer crisis, though. "When I called my hop supplier," Gortemiller says, "they told me you're 250th on the list."

At the 21st Amendment Brewery in San Francisco, brewer Shaun O'Sullivan says he just increased the price of a pint 25 cents, to $5.50. Like Gortemiller, he's reducing the amount of hops used in some recipes. "We've backed off," O'Sullivan says. "We had to get smart. We could have easily limped along."

O'Sullivan is lucky. One of his most popular beers is Watermelon Wheat, which "has virtually no hops in it," he says.

Jesse Houck is head brewer at the 21st Amendment Brewery.
Photo Jim Merithew, Wired.com

Ken Grossman, the head brewer at Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, California, says he's not tinkering with his brand-name recipes, such as his Pale Ale. He has long-term contracts in place to purchase his hops of choice.

He's paying more for barley, though -- the price has jumped because of a drought in Australia, flooding in Europe and a trend that has farmers worldwide switching to corn to produce biofuels.

"A lot of brewers got caught short on hops," says Grossman. Still, that hasn't stopped him from brewing a new, hop-laden beer called Torpedo Ale, produced with New Zealand hops. "We have been in a fortunate position," Grossman says.

But not everybody in the business is as beer savvy as is Grossman, one of the first to commercialize microbrewing.

Ian Ward, president of Brewers Supply Group in Shakopee, Minnesota -- the nation's largest craft brew supplier -- says things are only going to get worse. "That's the crisis that brewers are finding themselves in," Ward says. "They're having to review their recipes. The crisis really hasn't hit hard yet."

The hop shortage became noticeable around July, when a market glut and hop reserves stored in extract began dwindling.

The bulk of U.S.-grown hops are produced in the Yakima, Washington, area. Farmers weren't getting a profitable return and got out of the market, switched crops or went bankrupt. The same was happening in Germany, the world's No. 1 hop-growing country.

In the United States alone, there were an estimated 515 hop growers in 1950; 75 in 2000 and just 45 today, Ward says. In 2006, about 2 million pounds of hops were destroyed in an S.S. Steiner warehouse in Yakima, equaling about 4 percent of the U.S. hop crop.

All the while, beer sales are increasing worldwide by about 1 to 2 percent annually. The craft brewing industry is growing yearly by 12 percent. That economic reality is pushing hop growers back into the fields.

21st Amendment's Jesse Houck adds hops to the brew.
Photo Jim Merithew, Wired.com

About 8,500 acres of hops were just planted in Yakima alone, and about 2,500 thousand acres in Germany, Ward says.

"The cure for high prices is high prices," he says.

But that isn't sitting well with Omar Ansari, the owner and brewer of Surly Brewing in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, who just signed a long-term hop deal.

"My jaw hit the floor when I saw the price," Ansari says. And next year, he'll have to reformulate his brown ale Bender beer, a blend he described as a "flagship" flavor requiring the "Willamette" hop from the Pacific Northwest.

"We were informed by our supplier that next year we can't get that hop. It's just gone," Ansari said. "We're going to have to make changes."

"Everybody," he says, "is crossing their fingers there is going to be good hop crop."

Stitched-Together Pencils Evolve Into Beastly Sculptures

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Before pencils, Maestre was originally building with nails and a liquid rubber-type glue. She started to worry about inhaling all the toxic fumes, however, and began to experiment with different techniques until she settled on beading. Her method of choice? The peyote stitch.

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Basilisk is one of Maestre's most technically difficult sculptures because she wanted to create a more specific four-legged form. Depending on the size of the sculpture, it can take her up to two months to complete one sculpture. Of course, there's plenty of trial and error involved.

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In Watchtower, Maestre focuses on a more architectural form. Peer inside and you'll see a series of pencil struts spiraling up like a staircase in a tower. "I like to make sculptures that people can look into," Maestre explains. "That's why I leave a lot of openings. I really like the contrast of the different textures."

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This Pokemon-like creature may look cute and cuddly, but don't get too friendly. Maestre was originally inspired by the push-pull reaction she had to sea urchins. The alluring yet dangerous interplay led her to create the prickly sculptures she's come to master today.

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Hive is one of Mastre's unintentionally more suggestive sculptures. "Certain viewers find it a little obscene," she says. "Maybe because I used the pink eraser ends to outline the orifices."

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Some see a frog, others a gorilla, and some even an Egyptian mask. What does Threnody look like to you? Maestre may not know herself, but her primary goal was to convey the feeling of something howling.