`In the nineteenth century there was no such thing as the female orgasm. It was simply called ”the relief of tension in the female.” When a woman was feeling especially sexually aroused, her husband, not knowing what to do, would take her to a doctor. Masturbation was the cure to this ”hysterical tension.” After the diagnosis, a midwife or the doctor himself would arouse the woman until orgasm by means of a steam-powered vibrator.
It wasn’t until the 1940s that the female orgasm and the g-spot were introduced into the mainstream. Until Dr. Ernest Grafenberg’s discovery of the ”small mass of erectile tissue around the female urethra,” the clitoris was thought to be the only source of female orgasm. After Grafenberg’s discovery, research into the g-spot was practically dropped for about 30 years.’
`Rotenberg became a porn-hound back in Brooklyn Heights in the late seventies when his neighbor—an heirless man who had been hoarding prints, magazines, first editions, and pornography for decades—died. City workers hauled armloads of obviously valuable first editions out of the apartment, but they left everything else to be tossed into the trash. Already something of a pack rat, the then-26-year-old Rotenberg scavenged Cruikshank drawings, Civil War newspapers, signed Picasso lithos, and lots of erotic material. He wasn’t even into the porn at first. It was only after a friend suggested he show his finds to an editor at Screw that he realized there might be money in it.
Today, Rotenberg earns his living from pornographic books and sales on his Website, vintagenudephotos.com. Recently, a single buyer bought $1,400 worth of erotic playing cards, and Rotenberg was once offered $30,000 for a rare film by the early-twentieth-century California photographer Albert Arthur Allen.’
`The XCP program, developed by British software firm First4Internet and used by Sony BMG to restrict copying and sharing of music CDs, is already highly controversial because it acts like virus software and hides deep inside a computer where it leaves the backdoor open for malicious hackers. [..]
It turns out that this music player contains components from an open-source project, an MP3 player called LAME.
“Multiple software components on the CD have references to the LAME open-source MP3 code,” Finnish software developer Matti Nikki said in an e-mail.
After unraveling the code, others found similar evidence.
“We can confirm that at least five functions in the XCP software are identical to functions in LAME,” said Thomas Dullien at security software firm Saber Security [..]
“That’s the flipside of open source: If you don’t respect the open-source rules, the old regime of copy protection comes back in full force,” said Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm, an attorney and internet specialist at law firm SOLV in the Netherlands.’
`In what is a shocking and disturbing case, more than a dozen students have been arrested for allegedly torturing and sexually assaulting a girl repeatedly for more than a year at a North York Roman Catholic high school.
Police told thestar.com earlier this afternoon that 16 young offenders have been arrested in the case, which has just come to light. [..]
Last Thursday, a 15-year-old boy was arrested and charged with sexual assault, forcible confinement and criminal harassment.
Today, police descended on the school while students were in class and school staff rounded up the 14 suspects. The teens, two of them girls, were then handcuffed and taken to the local police detachment.
Twelve male students were charged with criminal harassment and the two female students have been charged with threatening bodily harm.’
`Authorities in California are now searching for one “cop” who’s on the wrong side of the law. Victor Edward Willis, who played the part of the policeman in the 1970s band the Village People is wanted on charges of possession of narcotics. Police say Willis skipped out on a court hearing on October 21, 2005, and now a California judge has issued a warrant for his arrest.’
`The history behind the Wizard of Oz programming is interesting. It suggests that the Wizard of Oz has had an important part in the occult world all along. One of the secrets of the Mystery Religions, especially the Egyptian Isis mystery religion was the ability to use drugs and torture to create multiple personalities. The word Oz is known to have been used by its author as an abbreviation for Osirus. Monarch victims have the “golden penis of Osirus” placed into them. The Grimm brothers, who were cabalistic jews, gathered the folk occult stories together. Their stories are full of spells, trances, and drugs. Sleeping Beauty is put to sleep, and the trigger to wake her is a kiss on the lips. These are serious hints that the occult world didn’t stop programming people with dissociative states and triggers when the ancient Egyptian empires fell. Instead of using modern lingo such as “hypnotize”, they would say “cast a spell.” Later in Freemasonry, the Right Worshipful Master would “charge” (meaning hypnotize) an initiate. The occultist Baum, a member of the Theosophical Society, was inspired by some spirit who gave him the “magic key” to write the Wizard of Oz book, which came out in 1900. The book’s story is full of satanic activity and satanic thinking.’
`Michael Jackson has stirred a small controversy in the United Arab Emirates by entering the ladies room in a shopping mall.
The pop star’s publicist said Jackson, who arrived in Dubai this week as the guest of a champion rally driver, did not understand the Arabic sign on the door and left the bathroom as soon as he realized his mistake.
In the statement released late Tuesday, Jackson’s publicist, Raymond K. Bain said: “Upon his exit (from the ladies bathroom), he was recognized and a crowd ensued. He had to wait in a nearby bookstore until police arrived to escort him through the crowd.”
But local newspapers reported that the 47-year-old performer did not quickly leave the bathroom and was spotted applying makeup before leaving.’
`Ghetto hardware fun’
All sorts of interesting hardware mods and the like here. Worth a look. :)
`Grand Theftendo is a new homebrew game for the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It is a tribute to Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto III running on the 8 bit, 256×240 resolution, 2 bit colour x 2 bit palette, 1.79 Mhz system, written entirely in 6502 Assembly Language! [..]
Here you will find information on the game, it’s history, and how it is being developed. From the paper to the PC, to the NES, it’s come a long way since it began. Read further for all of the details!’
It’s things like this that make me want to get a car. :)
- `Instead of Being Born Again, Why Not Just Grow Up?
- Militant Agnostic: I Don’t Know And You Don’t Either
- Religion Ruled The Dark Ages Too
- GOD TOLD ME TO HATE YOU
- Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial’
Lots of rarely used quotes. Including:
`I feel a lot more like I do now than I did when I came in. [..]
You have the distinction of being the only one who is not exceptional. [..]
You’ve outdone yourself, as usual. [..]
If you think about it long enough, you’ll see that it’s obvious.’
`A 33-year-old Grafton woman was fighting for her life Thursday night after she drank concentrated drain cleaner given to her by a man who then videotaped her violent vomiting for his sexual gratification, Milwaukee police said.
Detectives are studying a videotape that shows the woman drinking the solution and then throwing up. Police said the tape shows at least three other women drinking solutions and becoming ill.
On Tuesday, police arrested Sean A. Kobin, 20, of Mequon, near the former Northridge Mall on suspicion of first-degree recklessly endangering safety, according to arrest records.
A registered sex offender in Wisconsin, Kobin was convicted last year of exposing a 13-year-old girl to harmful materials by urging her, in a series of phone calls and computer messages, to drink bleach, lighter fluid and urine to arose him sexually, according to a Waukesha County criminal complaint.’
People are crazy. Think of the most vile, digusting thing you possibly can, and I guarantee you there is someone in the world somewhere who finds it sexy. Yes, even Zac’s mum.
`Standard water treatment plants use oxygen-hungry bacteria to break down human waste. To feed the microbes, plants must aerate sewage sludge with costly, power-hogging equipment.
But Brocadia anammoxidans, or anammox bacteria, survive without oxygen, producing energy from nitrite and ammonia, which is found naturally in human waste. [..]
Scientists first discovered anammox bacteria in yeast and later in the open ocean in the late 1990s.
The unusual microbes consume ammonia, producing hydrazine—better known as rocket fuel—in the process. The ability still puzzles scientists.
“They are the only organism on Earth that produces hydrazine, so until their discovery, [hydrazine] was thought to be a man-made substance,” Strous said.’
`Picard: Sigma Indri, that’s the star,
So, Data, please, how far? How far?
Data: Our ship can get there very fast
But still the trip will last and last
We’ll have two days til we arrive
But can the Indrans there survive?
Picard: LaForge, please give us factor nine.
LaForge: But, sir, the engines are offline!
Picard: Offline! But why? I want to go!
Please make it so, please make it so!’
`Traffic is so bad along the eastern rim of Los Angeles’ suburban ring that regional planners are considering the once unthinkable an 11-mile tunnel through a mountain range in earthquake country.
Critics question the logic of building a multibillion-dollar project in a region so prone to earthquakes that an alternate proposal for a double-decker highway was deemed too dangerous. The tunnel would begin barely a mile from a fault that produced a 6.0-magnitude earthquake about a century ago.
“It’s absolutely absurd to have a tunnel 700 feet below ground in earthquake country,” said Cathryn DeYoung, mayor of Laguna Niguel and a vocal opponent. “I mean, would you want to be in that tunnel?”‘
Lots of videos of things being put into industrial shredders.
`The spyware that Sony installs on the computers of music fans does not even seem to be correct in terms of copyright law.
It turns out that the rootkit contains pieces of code that are identical to LAME, an open source mp3-encoder, and thereby breach the license.
This software is licensed under the so called Lesser Gnu Public License (LGPL). According to this license Sony must comply with a couple of demands. Amongst others, they have to indicate in a copyright notice that they make use of the software. The company must also deliver the source code to the open-source libraries or otherwise make these available. And finally, they must deliver or otherwise make available the in between form between source code and executable code, the so called objectfiles, with which others can make comparable software.’
This is hilarious. :) Sony breaching other peoples copyright to protect their own. We should send cease and desist letters to the grandmothers of all the Sony executives. :)
`Up to 3000 schools have been targeted in a DVD blitz aimed at challenging Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in favour of an “intelligent designer”.
The right to teach intelligent design in science classes is being tested in US courts and a fiery debate has erupted in Australia that has pitted scientists against advocates for the “alternative theory” to evolution. [..]
The Minister for Education, Carmel Tebbutt, said intelligent design “can’t be taught as part of the NSW school science curriculum” because it was not scientific or based on evidence.
More than 100 schools are already teaching intelligent design as science, alongside the mandatory curriculum requirement to study evolution. These schools include Christian community, Seventh Day Adventist, and a small number of Anglican schools.’
I don’t think it’s the bird flu coming out of Asia that everyone should be worrying about. It’s the pandemic of stupid originating in the southern states of America that we should be concerned about.
`The Thames Estuary Army Forts were constructed in 1942 to a design by Guy Maunsell, following the successful construction and deployment of the Naval Sea Forts. Their purpose was to provide anti-aircraft fire within the Thames Estuary area. Each fort consisted of a group of seven towers with a walkway connecting them all to the central control tower. The fort, when viewed as a whole, comprised one Bofors tower, a control tower, four gun towers and a searchlight tower. They were arranged in a very specific way, with the control tower at the centre, the Bofors and gun towers arranged in a semi-circular fashion around it and the searchlight tower positioned further away, but still linked directly to the control tower via a walkway. All the forts followed this plan and, in order of grounding, were called the Nore Army Fort, the Red Sands Army Fort and finally the Shivering Sands Army Fort. All three forts were in place by late 1943, but Nore is no longer standing. Construction of the towers was relatively quick, and they were easily floated out to sea and grounded in water no more than 30m (100ft) deep.’
`In typical fashion, the daily Spanish newspaper Diario Extra published on the front page of today’s edition, gruesome photos of the remains of the man attacked by two rottweilers Thursday morning.
The graphic photos are, according to the newspaper editor, published as a reminder of what a mortal danger of a rottweiler attack.
Meanwhile, the Nicaraguan government, is asking Costa Rican authorities for a complete investigation into the death of 25 year old Nicaraguan, Leopoldo Natividad, who was illegal in Costa Rica and was attacked while attempting to rob, along with two other thieves, the installations of Taller Zuńiga, located in Cartago.’
With the images in question. I think the fact that these sorts of photos end up in the newspaper at all, let alone on the front page, is more interesting that the story itself. I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing. There’d probably be less debate and more action about allowing people to have dangerous dogs if more pictures like this were published. [shrug]
`A top White House official today refused to rule out the use of torture in an effort to prevent a major terrorist attack, arguing the war on terror could present a “difficult dilemma” and the US administration was duty-bound to protect the American people. [..]
“The president has said that we are going to do whatever we do in accordance with the law,” the national security adviser said.
“But… you see the dilemma. What happens if on September 7th of 2001, we had gotten one of the hijackers and based on information associated with that arrest, believed that within four days, there’s going to be a devastating attack on the United States?”
He insisted that it was “a difficult dilemma to know what to do in that circumstance to both discharge our responsibility to protect the American people from terrorist attack, and follow the president’s guidance of staying within the confines of law”.’
Fucking bullshit. Motherfucking hypocrite cunts!
How not to winch your 4WD.
`Enrique Iglesias has shocked his female admirers – by announcing he wants to release his own range of extra-small condoms.
The Latin heartthrob admitted he can’t find sheaths to fit the smaller man, and wants to save people who aren’t well-endowed any embarrassment.
The 30-year-old, who is dating stunning tennis pin-up Anna Kournikova, is quoted in America’s Houston Press newspaper as saying: “The next product I’m gonna put my name on is extra-small condoms.
“I can never find extra-small condoms, and I know it’s really embarrassing for people – you know, from experience.
“Hopefully people won’t be ashamed when I step forward.”‘
`The London Cage was used partly as a torture centre, inside which large numbers of German officers and soldiers were subjected to systematic ill-treatment. In total 3,573 men passed through the Cage, and more than 1,000 were persuaded to give statements about war crimes. The brutality did not end with the war, moreover: a number of German civilians joined the servicemen who were interrogated there up to 1948.
Knoechlein [a prisoner] alleges that because he was “unable to make the desired confession” he was stripped, given only a pair of pyjama trousers, deprived of sleep for four days and nights, and starved.
The guards kicked him each time he passed, he alleges, while his interrogators boasted that they were “much better” than the “Gestapo in Alexanderplatz”. After being forced to perform rigorous exercises until he collapsed, he says he was compelled to walk in a tight circle for four hours. On complaining to Scotland that he was being kicked even “by ordinary soldiers without a rank”, Knoechlein alleges that he was doused in cold water, pushed down stairs, and beaten with a cudgel. Later, he says, he was forced to stand beside a large gas stove with all its rings lit before being confined in a shower which sprayed extremely cold water from the sides as well as from above. Finally, the SS man says, he and another prisoner were taken into the gardens behind the mansions, where they were forced to run in circles while carrying heavy logs.
“Since these tortures were the consequences of my personal complaint, any further complaint would have been senseless,” Knoechlein wrote. “One of the guards who had a somewhat humane feeling advised me not to make any more complaints, otherwise things would turn worse for me.” Other prisoners, he alleged, were beaten until they begged to be killed, while some were told that they could be made to disappear.’
A fairly short clip showing a few features of Windows Vista. It actually looks kinda nice.
Still, doesn’t change the fact that Microsoft sucks. :)
(1.8meg Windows Media)
`Feathers fly and teddies soar as you converge on Dundas Square for a giant urban pillow fight! Swing and whack as you evade pillow-wielding assailants. Join us for this London-style silliness: bring a soft pillow to the middle of the square at 2 PM and wait for the signal. Pillow fight! [..]
Rules:
Soft pillows only! Do not hit anyone who does not have a pillow. Do not hit people who are holding cameras. Swing lightly, there will be many people swinging at once! Remove expensive glasses beforehand. Extra pillows may come in handy. Feather pillows are even more fun. Do not begin until the signal (a referee whistle.) Forward this to fun people!
Pyjamas optional.’
`The picture is of a fixed-head disk, very similar to a Borroughs unit I had the pleasure of disassembling (in 1975) after a catastrophic head crash (I got authorization from Gordon Bell himself to do it). It took me 3 days to whittle it down to nuts and bolts, and the platter weighed 18 pounds. The hub upon which the platter was mounted was phosphor bronze, and weighed an additional 17 pounds. So imagine the inertia of 35 pounds spinning at 3600 RPM. It had electric brakes, because if you just switched off the power, it would spin for a loooong time. There is an (apocryphal) story of movers just hitting the circuit breaker (not the off switch that engaged the brakes), and after waiting the requisite 5 minutes for spindown, loaded the drive into a truck. All the moves and hallways were right angles, of course. Since brakes had not been engaged, it was still spinning at 2000 RPM or so by the time it was loaded. When the truck turned a corner, the drive precessed right out through the side of the truck.’
There’s a slightly clearer picture of the giant hard drive of doom [as I have dubbed it :)] at Flickr.
`As for this Plamodel camera, while really you assembling one one part by your, it is possible to make the compact which really can photograph & the camera which it is the kit.
As for the adhesive being unnecessary, using the clock driver which belongs lastly combining the part of the plastic which consists of 33 points, just sets the screw, the camera completes. The Japanese explanation book has belonged, it just assembles in sort of illustration. If direction above elementary school high grade being single, it is possible to make, probably is.’
All Engrish aside, it’s an interesting concept – a working camera you build yourself with parts that snap out of a plastic frame. Much like those model cars and aeroplanes and such that used to be so cool when I was a kid.
`UC Berkeley physics professor, Raphael Bousso, is trying to break down the mysteries of the universe with a concept called the holographic principle. Physicists stumbled on the idea while studying black holes. It is a concept, which ultimately questions whether the third dimension exists. [..]
The discovery ultimately says the concept shows the third dimension could be an illusion because complex calculations can’t prove it exists. The recognition is a step of progress, but Bousso doesn’t know where it will ultimately lead.’
So, because physicists cannot find a mathematical model for the reality we all experience, rather than doubt their mathematical skills, they begin to doubt our reality. Clever. :)
`Criticizing a ballot measure passed by 60 percent of San Francisco voters urging public high schools and colleges to prohibit on-campus military recruiting, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly declared on the November 8 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, “[I]f Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to say, look, every other place in America is off-limits to you, except San Francisco.”‘
