CIA Releases Secret UFO Files - Including Spaceships Over Britain In 1962

It’s the moment UFO fans have been waiting for -  the CIA has hand-selected some formerly top-secret files and photos to ‘prove’ extraterrestrials exist.
Sadly for extraterrestrial fans, the files are a bit lacking in alien autopsies and crashed flying saucers - but they’re a fascinating insight into the height of the ‘flying saucer’ era.
The CIA released the files - seemingly to coincide with the new X-Files episodes - provoking disbelief on UFO websites.

Crash test video pits 2009 Chevy Malibu against 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air – guess who wins?

 If a 2009 Chevy Malibu got in a head-on collision with a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air, which car would emerge with the least amount of damage? At first glance, you’d expect an old tank like the Bel Air to obliterate the Malibu, right? But nothing could be further from the truth.

As you’ll see in the video below, the Bel Air is destroyed in this dangerous head-on collision that was posted in 2009 on Consumer Reports’s YouTube channel and rediscovered by Kottke.

The light Malibu is much better at absorbing the shock of the impact, and the airbags deploy well ahead of the impact. The passengers will undoubtedly feel a jolt, but they’ll have a much better chance of surviving accidents.

Military Wife Expresses Heartfelt Gratitude to Furnace Repair Man

A mother of two boys was touched by a selfless act of kindness when her local repair man fixed her furnace free of charge.

Bridget Stevens returned to her Pittsburgh-area home earlier this month and realized her furnace was not functioning.

Stevens' story, which she shared on Facebook, has now gone viral.

Stevens texted her husband, Bobby, who is deployed overseas with the National Guard. When Bobby couldn't figure out what to do, she called Betlyn Heating and Cooling in Moon Township, Pennsylvania. Owner Paul Betlyn immediately came to the rescue.

One astronomer has an unsettling reason we haven't found aliens

In 1950, physicist Enrico Fermi raised a very important question about the universe and the existence of extraterrestrial life.
Given the size and age of the universe, he said, and the statistical probability of life emerging in other solar systems, why is it that humanity has not seen any indications of intelligent life in the cosmos?
This query, known as the Fermi Paradox, continues to haunt us to this day.
If there are indeed billions of star systems in our galaxy, and the conditions needed for life are not so rare, then where are all the aliens?
According to a recent paper by researchers at Australian National University's Research School of Earth Sciences, the answer may be simple: They're all dead. In what the research team calls the "Gaian Bottleneck," the solution to this paradox may be that life is so fragile that most of it simply doesn't make it.
To put this in perspective, let's first consider some of the numbers. As of the writing of this article, scientists have discovered 2,049 planets in 1,297 planetary systems, including 507 with multiple planets. In addition, a report issued in 2013 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA indicated that, based on Kepler mission data, there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-size planets orbiting in the habitable zones of sun-like stars and red dwarfs within the Milky Way and that 11 billion of these may be orbiting sun-like stars.

China warns George Soros against going to 'war' on its currency

China officially issued a warning to George Soros: beware of going to "war on the renminbi."
The message comes in a piece published in China's People's Daily, titled "Declaring war on China's currency? Ha ha."

People's Daily is the Communist Party's mouthpiece. 

"Soros's war on the renminbi and the Hong Kong dollar cannot possibly succeed — about this there can be no doubt," the opinion piece by a commerce ministry researcher warned, according to the Financial Times.

This warning comes at time when China's officials are trying hard to get everyone confident in the renminbi again. The currency has fallen by about 5.7% since August, when the People's Bank of China first depreciated it.

As for Soros, last week the billionaire investor told Bloomberg TV that he had best against the S&P 500, Asian currencies, and commodity-linked economies.

Navy SEAL in DeLand fatal-parachute crash wasn't jump certified

An investigation has concluded that a Navy SEAL who died in a parachute training accident in DeLand last year became unconscious after exiting the plane.
The investigation also found that Petty Officer 1st Class William Blake Marston was unable to open his main chute, The Virginian-Pilot reported.
It also determined that Marston shouldn't have been on the plane to begin with because of a discrepancy over whether he was up to date with a required certification.

GoPro Cutting Jobs

GoPro Chief Executive Nicholas Woodman announced today that his company would be cutting seven percent of its workforce. Shares were down twenty eight percent in extended trading.

GoPro Inc said it was cutting 7 percent of its workforce and estimated revenue for the holiday quarter below estimates as it sold fewer action cameras than expected, sending its shares plunging 28 percent in extended trading. GoPro said it expects revenue to be about $435 million for the fourth quarter, well below analysts' average estimate of $511.9 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Intel: Integrated Graphics Are Catching Up With Discrete GPUs

Did you hear that guys? We can all ditch our SLI and Crossfire setups in favor of integrated graphics! Think of all the money we'll be saving! 

The top-level graphics processors integrated in Intel’s chips, called Iris and Iris Pro, can outperform 80 percent of discrete graphics chips, Bryant said. "We have improved graphics 30 times what they were five years ago," Bryant said during a speech at a J.P. Morgan forum last week at CES.

Yahoo Class Action: $4 M For Lawyers, $0 For Users

Unfamiliar with the way class action lawsuits work? Here's a perfect example of how they can go wrong in a hurry. Since this is still subject to the court's approval, there is still a slim chance things might change.

Last week, they asked US District Judge Lucy Koh to accept a proposed settlement (PDF). Under the proposal, the massive class of non-Yahoo users won't get any payment, but the class lawyers at Girard Gibbs and Kaplan Fox intend to ask for up to $4 million in fees. (The ultimate amount of fees will be up to the judge, but Yahoo has agreed not to oppose any fee request up to $4 million.)

Walmart is closing hundreds of stores and laying off thousands of employees

(AP) A Walmart employee in Walpole, Massachusetts. Walmart is closing 269 stores and laying off thousands of employees.

The move will affect more than 16,000 employees, including 10,000 in the US.

The closings include 154 locations in the US — 102 of which are the company's smallest stores, called Walmart Express, which have been in pilot since 2011.