Archive for 2005

copyright

Monday, December 26, 2005

 

Radio spoof triggers diplomatic row

`A church-controlled radio station has apologised for a stunt in which a radio comic posing as Spain’s prime minister called Bolivia’s future president.

Spain and Bolivia have accepted the apology from Cope radio.

The station’s comic, pretending to be Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, telephoned Evo Morales.

He implied that Bolivia and Spain would join a left-wing axis involving Cuba and Venezuela. [..]

When Mr Morales said he had received many congratulatory phone calls, the fake Zapatero said he imagined he had not been called by US President George W Bush.

“He hasn’t called me yet either, and I’ve been in office two years,” the fake Zapatero added.

The real Mr Zapatero angered the US by pulling Spanish troops out of Iraq immediately after taking office in 2004.’


marketing

Wrong Number Lands Man In Jail

`Dialing a wrong number landed a Des Moines man in jail.

Police said Randy Wessel thought he was calling his buddy, but he actually called someone else. Wessel then told the person on the other end about some criminal activity.

The person on the other end of the phone was an undercover police officer.

Wessel is now charged with theft for stealing a car from a pizza deliveryman.’


content

Old aunt spurned by Sting

`The aunt of rock star Sting got a letter from the Queen on her 100th birthday — but no card from her famous nephew. [..]

Former actress Rose — who lives in a nursing home in Exeter, Devon — said “it would have been nice” if Sting had remembered her big day.

But she added: “I realise that he’s busy being a rock star.”’


partner

Adult Industry Donations Turned Away by Family Medicine

`The Family Medicine division of the Harbor UCLA Hospital has turned back several donations from companies in the adult industry. [..]

Miles said she is on the neighborhood council in the Harbor-Gateway area, and in September she distributed 25 letters of request to local mainstream companies at a Chamber of Commerce meeting.

“Everybody was going to help me at the meeting back in September, and then when it came time to ante up, only one person, Costco, gave me three lousy wrapping papers,” Miles told AVN.com. “The rest of them said they didn’t have any money in their budget this year.”

“I wanted to help [the families] so bad, so I called people in the adult industry that I haven’t even spoken to in almost four years, and for them to get a slap in face was very hard for me to take. I felt so horrible.”’


Raider in pink robs Scottish arcade

`Police in Scotland said they were hunting a man who staged an armed robbery while dressed in a bright pink dress and brown wig. The robber escaped with about 4,000 pounds (5,840 euros, 6,932 dollars) from an amusement arcade in Glasgow after threatening two female members of staff with a knife and tying them up, the police said.’


help

Brat Invasion

Stop the brats getting their christmas presents early. By killing them.


research

New battery puts power plant in your pocket

`Japanese electronics maker Toshiba launched two MP3 players in October that run on DMFC fuel cells, using methanol as fuel. The larger of the two devices has a hard drive and an edge length of more than 12 centimetres. The fuel cell has a ten-millilitre tank offering an active life of up to 60 hours, Toshiba reports.

The smaller device is no larger than a pack of gum, offers Flash storage, and holds 3.5 millilitres of fuel – good for 35 hours of musical enjoyment.

Canon has announced plans to operate its printers, cameras, cellphones, and MP3 player using so-called PEM fuel cells. A prototype was presented in early November in Tokyo. Unlike many of their competitors, Canon’s developers have cast their lot with hydrogen energy sources.’


Kansas City Man Fills 360 Box With Charcoal For Naughty Kid

`Selling My Kid’s XBox 360–$100

My kid has been an absolute terror for the last month. He has been demanding more and more from my wife while constantly pestering us to give him his X-box 360 early so he can play it. Last night was the last straw when he kicked my $2000 stereo system after I refused to give it to him early. [..]

To purchase this system, you must be able to pick it up at my house or at work during normal hours. Call in advance so I can get the wife to take the kid out for a drive or distract him downstairs.

I am asking $100 cash. I will also need you to bring a bag of charcoal so I can fill the box up with. Let me stress again that you will get the full contents of the box-the 360, controller, headset, those cords, etc. YOU WILL NOT GET THE BOX, as we will need it along with the charcoal for a little x-mas surprise.’


faq

Watermelons Everywhere in St. Bernard Parish

`This one is puzzling thousands of people. St. Bernard Parish, virtually wiped out following Hurricane Katrina, is seeing the spontaneous growth of watermelons. They’re everywhere! It’s a post-Katrina phenomenon that has even the experts baffled.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Dr. Ron Strahan of the LSU Ag Center as he surveyed the watermelon infestation.’


Workers exposed to plutonium at Los Alamos

`Five workers at New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory are being monitored after an accident resulted in plutonium being found inside their noses.

Details of the accident inside building TA-55 Monday are sketchy, but lab official Kevin Roark verified automated sensors picked up the plutonium release, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday.

Four other workers in the room weren’t contaminated and no contaminants escaped into the environment, Roark told the Chronicle.’

Gotta watch what you snort, obviously.


Man electrocuted while trying to steal copper wire from electrical station

`A man was electrocuted by 69,000 volts of electricity after he tried to steal copper wire from an electrical substation near Bellmead on Friday.

The man, who police have yet to identify, was cutting the copper wire off functional transformers at the substation behind the old General Tire plant on U.S. Highway 77, about a half mile north of Orchard Lane shortly after noon when he was hit by the surge, according to Steve Anderson of the Waco Police Department. [..]

“It’s like a blast of fire going through you, essentially,” Flores said.

Anderson said he was amazed at the man’s disregard of posted warning signs.

“If you’re going to be stupid, you’d better be tough,” he said.’


copyright

Exploding Overclocking Extreme AMD Duron Vaporizing

‘They overclock a cpu over 4ghz, remove the heatsink, and boom! “Theres a hole in the motherboard!”‘

Looks like the hole goes right through the table too.

see it here »


Who is snooping on my email?

`With all of the controversy about the news that the NSA has been monitoring, since 9/11, telephone calls and email messages of Americans, some folks might now be wondering if they are being snooped on. Here’s a quick and easy method to see if one’s email messages are being read by someone else.

The steps are:

1. Set up a Hotmail account.
2. Set up a second email account with a non-U.S. provider. (eg. Rediffmail.com)
3. Send messages between the two accounts which might be interesting to the NSA.
4. In each message, include a unique URL to a Web server that you have access to its server logs. This URL should only be known by you and not linked to from any other Web page. The text of the message should encourage an NSA monitor to visit the URL.
5. If the server log file ever shows this URL being accessed, then you know that you are being snooped on. The IP address of the access can also provide clues about who is doing the snooping.’


marketing

Sunday, December 25, 2005

 

DIY Laser Engraved Toast

`People have long found miraculous faces and mysterious apparitions in food, clouds, stains, and sundry ordinary places. The list below consists of a few highly publicized (in the US) recent manifestations. Not surprisingly these appearances are usually linked to religious figures. [..]

Discontented with my apparition-free foodstuffs, I took advantage of access to a laser engraver and the ultimate Christmas gift was born. Be the first on your block to own a miracle! Why pay the big bucks on ebay for grilled cheese sandwiches or stained X-Boxes?’


content

London may have won Games on voting error

`A senior Israeli member of the International Olympic Committee says London won the bid for the 2012 Games only because of a misplaced vote.

Alex Gilady told Army Radio on Friday that in the third round of voting, with Moscow and New York already out and only London, Paris and Madrid remaining in the race, one of his fellow IOC members asked to recast his ballot but was told it was too late.

“Apparently, he forgot who he voted for and wanted to change his vote,” Gilady said. He did not reveal the name of the IOC member in question, but Britain’s Press Associated identified him as Greek delegate Lambis Nikolaou.’


partner

Man pleads no contest to sex with cattle

`A 64-year-old man has pleaded no contest to charges in Clark County Circuit Court after telling police he regularly had been using calves for sexual gratification. [..]

According to the criminal complaint, the family living on the farm Hart visited, installed a motion sensor because they had seen suspicious footprints and vehicle tracks. [..]

Hart told police he had gone to the farm at least 50 times in the last year, sometimes two to four times in a week.’


Opera buys Opera

`Amidst mounting speculation of an all-out bidding war between Microsoft, Google and the Korean bakery down on 3rd, Opera Software announced today that it inadvertently purchased itself in a $0 million recursive merger set to complete on Monday.

“I’m as surprised as everyone else,” said Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner. [..]’


help

Clockwork Orange killers set woman on fire for fun

`Three Spanish teenagers fascinated by the film Clockwork Orange burnt a homeless woman to death for kicks.

María Rosario Endrinal Petite, 50, who had been sleeping in a Barcelona doorway, was attacked and set on fire with solvent. She died in hospital. It is believed to be the culmination of months of attacks on homeless people by the gang, who had become obsessed with the Stanley Kubrick film and with violent video games.

The case has cast a shadow over Barcelona, seen by Britons as a highly fashionable and relatively crime-free city.’


research

Reuters Pictures of the Year 2005


Man jailed for over a year with no lawyer

`A man was jailed for more than a year without ever seeing a lawyer as he waited for a repeatedly postponed court hearing, gaining release only after a cellmate told an attorney about the case.

Walter Mann Sr., 69, was released Dec. 16 after a year and three months – more than twice the time he would have served if he had been convicted in his contempt-of-court case. [..]

His release came after cellmate Jim Brooks, 64, heard from Mann that he had never seen a lawyer.

“I said, ‘Man, why don’t you call your people?’ He said, ‘Nah, I don’t want to bother them with anything,'” Brooks said.

Brooks, jailed on minor theft charges, told his public defender, who told another public defender, Shoshana Paige. She made several calls and Mann was released the same day.’


faq

Fuck Christmas

`[..] And fuck Easter too, you fertility–rite–celebrating, whiny, self-righteous, don’t–know–the– history–of–your–own–religion assholes. Fuck off.’


Large Lego Sculptures

`You can tell these guy don’t get out much. But hey, atleast they are having a good time !’


Boy Scout Gets Knife Lodged In Brain

`An incredible and un-suspecting accident leaves a Utah Boy Scout just inches from death when he was stabbed right between his eyes.

Jeff Jaeger spoke to Kevin Coulter and tells 2News how this was a truly freak accident.

While raking leaves for a Boy Scout event, one of the leaders flung a knife from his hand while trying to catch another scout who had tripped.

“It was dark, it was like 8:30 and there was a light and I saw it flash before it hit me,” said Kevin.’

With pictures.


copyright

43rd Known Mersenne Prime Found

`On December 15, 2005, Dr. Curtis Cooper and Dr. Steven Boone, professors at Central Missouri State University, discovered the 43rd Mersenne Prime, 230,402,457-1. The CMSU team is the largest contributor to the GIMPS project.

The new prime is 9,152,052 digits long. This means the Electronic Frontier Foundation $100,000 award for the discovery of the first 10 million digit prime is still up for grabs! The new prime was independently verified in 5 days by Tony Reix of Bull S.A. in Grenoble, France using 16 Itanium2 1.5 GHz CPUs of a Bull NovaScale 6160 HPC at Bull Grenoble Research Center, running the Glucas program by Guillermo Ballester Valor of Granada, Spain.’


Federal agents’ visit was a hoax

`The UMass Dartmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security agents over his request for “The Little Red Book” by Mao Zedong has admitted to making up the entire story.

The 22-year-old student tearfully admitted he made the story up to his history professor, Dr. Brian Glyn Williams, and his parents, after being confronted with the inconsistencies in his account.

Had the student stuck to his original story, it might never have been proved false.’

Follow-up to Agents’ visit chills UMass Dartmouth senior.


marketing

An Explosion on the Moon

`NASA scientists have observed an explosion on the moon. The blast, equal in energy to about 70 kg of TNT, occurred near the edge of Mare Imbrium (the Sea of Rains) on Nov. 7, 2005, when a 12-centimeter-wide meteoroid slammed into the ground traveling 27 km/s.

“What a surprise,” says Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) researcher Rob Suggs, who recorded the impact’s flash. He and colleague Wes Swift were testing a new telescope and video camera they assembled to monitor the moon for meteor strikes. On their first night out, “we caught one,” says Suggs.’


content

Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report

`The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries, they said. [..]

One outside expert on communications privacy who previously worked at the N.S.A. said that to exploit its technological capabilities, the American government had in the last few years been quietly encouraging the telecommunications industry to increase the amount of international traffic that is routed through American-based switches.’


partner

Saturday, December 24, 2005

 

‘Fiancee’ actually a man

`An Egyptian man discovered on his wedding day that his fiancee of three years was a man who had been concealing his identity behind a veil.

The 26-year-old groom-to-be, Tamer Shehata, was notified by a female guest attending his wedding that his would-be wife was a man in women’s clothing. [..]

Mr Abo Zeid, whose face was obscured to Mr Shehata by a niqab or burka (face veil) said he had intended to tell after they were married, and had hoped to convince Mr Shehata to consummate the marriage.

Mr Abo Zeid was held for 45 days on charges of swindling and posing as a woman.’


Shoe Salesman Knocks On Wrong Door, Sets Off Crazy Chain Of Events

`A confusing shooting case in Greensboro Friday night landed a man in the hospital.

The people involved told police a guy selling shoes knocked on the door of a vacant house on Hackett Street around 8:00pm.

The salesman says four men pulled him inside the house and locked him in a closet.

Then, the four went outside and tried to steal the shoe salesman’s car. The salesman kicked his way out of the closet and used a lamp to smash his own car window as the four tried driving away and that’s when they backed into a tree.

Seconds later, one of the men in the car shot at the salesman, but hit one of his buddies instead.’


help

SafariTest – Mac Screenshot Compatibility Test

‘How does your website look on Apple Safari ? Enter your URL in the box above and click View. SafariTest will return a screenshot of your page as viewed with Safari.’

My page is compatible with Safari, by the looks of it. What’s really cool is that it makes an actual image file for the screenshot. I dunno why, but I like the idea of moonbuggy.org as a 800 x 16849 pixel PNG. 🙂

It’s about 2 megs, btw, and since it looks identical to the HTML rendered by Firefox it’s probably not worth your bandwidth. But it’s cool none the less. 🙂


research