`It costs more than $900 million and looms more than 28 stories over the ocean — about 10 stories taller than Aloha Tower.
Longer than a football field, the Sea-Based X-Band Radar is a high-tech, fifth-generation semisubmersible oil-drilling platform that is self-propelled and can be positioned any place in the world. [..]
Although much of what the mobile radar platform can do is classified, Pam Rogers, spokeswoman for the Missile Defense System in Huntsville, Ala., said its radar system is so sensitive that “if a baseball was launched on the West Coast, it could be detected on the East Coast by this radar.”‘
`Antig Technology and AVC Corp. will demonstrate a production-ready fuel-cell insert for notebook PCs at the CeBIT trade show next week. [..]
The methanol-powered Antig fuel cell provides 45 watts of power on a single “tank” of methanol, and weighs 3.7 pounds (1.7 kg). In total, the additional power should be enough to operate the notebook for eight hours, AVC said, which was responsible for engineering the fuel cell into the notebook housing.’
`A teen who pinched and twisted another boy’s nipple while standing in line at a deli has been sentenced to four days in juvenile detention because he refused to write a letter that explained his actions.
David Thumler, 16, was convicted of offensive physical touching in July 2005, after the victim’s parents complained to police. The Crater High School student paid a $67 fine and served three days of community service.
“I emptied trash cans, mowed lawns and shoveled gravel,” Thumler said.
But Thumler’s refusal to comply with the final piece of his sentence will cost him four days in detention. He was required to write the letter during four classes put on by Mediation Works, which operates the victim-offender program for Jackson County Community Justice.’
‘One man gets the opportunity of a lifetime when he goes on a blind date with a very special lady.’
see it here »
`How do you win a presidential election in Bolivia? Give the same answer to every question. Study the polls. Don’t spend too much time meeting voters. Buy attack ads making your rival look like the greater of two evils.
In other words, do exactly as your well-compensated, slick-suited American political consultants tell you. That’s the route Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, aka Goni, took in his 2002 campaign.
The documentary Our Brand Is Crisis opens a window onto a troubling trend: the export of high-tech, American political consultants to countries around the world. Brand, which opened in New York this week, follows as strategists James Carville, Jeremy Rosner and Stan Greenberg spin Goni toward the presidency.’
`A motorist has been fined £80 for making offensive gestures towards a speed camera as he drove home from work.
Simon Thompson, 41, extended his middle finger at the mobile speed camera as he passed it whilst driving safely under the speed limit. Simon, from Colchester in Essex was astonished when half an hour later the two policemen who had been operating the camera knocked on his front door. The officers handed Simon a fixed penalty notice for £80 for making offensive gestures under the Public Order Act.’
`Backyard astronomers, grab your telescopes. Jupiter is growing a new red spot.
Christopher Go of the Philippines photographed it on February 27th using an 11-inch telescope and a CCD camera [..]
At first, Oval BA remained white—the same color as the storms that combined to create it. But in recent months, things began to change:
“The oval was white in November 2005, it slowly turned brown in December 2005, and red a few weeks ago,” reports Go. “Now it is the same color as the Great Red Spot!”‘
`After a night of drinking in June 2004, Lisa Merola and her boyfriend hooked up with Michael Trammell and his wife for a “swinger’s party” in Trammell’s tiny room at a Boynton Beach motel.
Merola disappeared the following day, prosecutor Aleathea McRoberts said, after her boyfriend reported last seeing her in Trammell’s vehicle. Merola’s partially nude body — covered with Trammell’s DNA — was found in Gulfstream Park near Boynton Beach on June 13, 2004. Authorities say Trammell strangled her. A Palm Beach County jury began hearing the second-degree murder case on Thursday.
Trammell, 34, claims that the couples engaged in various sex acts for hours that night, until Merola’s boyfriend, Greg Winterbottom, wanted to leave, McRoberts said. Winterbottom said the party ended after a brief period, when Merola became visibly repulsed by the then 460-pound Trammell, according to McRoberts.’
`A full 2′ long, this unique robotic shark has a full-range of motion to replicate the smooth, sleek swimming of one of nature’s most efficient predators. It is able to gracefully maneuver up, down, left, right, and even backwards through water, in depths up to 9′. The shark can swim up to 40′ from its handheld remote unit which is also submersible, allowing you to swim with your shark.’
This would be so cool.. For 15 minutes or so then I’d be too lazy to recharge the batteries. :)
Fucked if I know.. [shrug]
`A British man who kept his $2.5 million Lotto win a secret from his wife has blown the fortune on gold-digging women. [..]
“These women must see me coming,” he told his mates. [..]
The news isn’t all bad for the Lotto loser, who put some money is trust for his two sons, but the bulk of it has flown the coop.
The lovelorn former millionaire’s search for romance continues as he spends $750-a-month on internet dating services.’
`Scientists have discovered a huge crater in the Saharan desert, the largest one ever found there.
The crater is about 19 miles (31 kilometers) wide, more than twice as big as the next largest Saharan crater known. It utterly dwarfs Meteor Crater in Arizona, which is about three-fourths of a mile (1.2 kilometers) in diameter.
In fact, the newfound crater, in Egypt, was likely carved by a space rock that was itself roughly 0.75 miles wide in an event that would have been quite a shock, destroying everything for hundreds of miles. For comparison, the Chicxulub crater left by a dinosaur-killing asteroid 65 million years ago is estimated to be 100 to 150 miles (160 to 240 kilometers) wide.’
`Scientists who study the sun, moon, planets and stars on Thursday protested the Bush administration’s plan to send humans back to the moon and on to Mars.
They say the president’s two-year-old Vision for Space Exploration program is gobbling up billions of dollars that they think could be better used for less expensive projects, including new telescopes and unmanned robots such as the twin rovers on Mars.
NASA has cut more than $3 billion from what it had promised for Earth and space science programs to make room for the moon-Mars exploration missions and 16 more shuttle flights to the half-finished International Space Station.
Partly as a result, the launch of the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope has been delayed until 2013, the search for Earthlike planets around other stars has been deferred indefinitely and the budget for the “astrobiology” program – the quest for life on other worlds – has been slashed by 50 percent.’
`The owner of a bakery in Romania addressed to his workers with rather an unusual request. He suggested that they should all shave their heads.
The baker had an intention to create an easily recognizable bakery brand. Shaved heads would probably attract everyone’s attention, the man thought. To his mind, that would put the enterprise above all competitors and, moreover, make the bread production process more sterile. [..]
“I think, this step will make our production more hygienic while the appearance of the staff will become a peculiar brand. Especially now, when similarity between the shaved heads and the bread that they bake is so evident”, – the owner of the bakery said.’
`A small-town police chief was accused in a federal lawsuit Thursday of stopping a would-be rescuer from performing CPR on a gay heart attack victim because he assumed the ailing man had HIV and posed a health risk. [..]
The lawsuit accuses Bowman of pulling off Green’s friend Billy Snead as Snead was performing chest compressions on the man. Snead was a passenger in Green’s pickup truck when Green collapsed; Snead had managed to pull over the vehicle.
Snead said in an interview that he didn’t realize at first it was Bowman giving the order and continued working on his friend. Bowman repeated his command to get away, saying that Green was HIV positive, then grabbed Snead by the shoulders and told him to sit on the curb, Snead said.’
`Katherine Albrecht is on a mission from God.
The influential consumer advocate has written a new book warning her fellow Christians that radio frequency identification may evolve to become the “mark of the beast” — meaning the technology is a sign that the end-times are drawing near.
“My goal as a Christian (is) to sound the alarm,” said Albrecht, in a conversation over tea at a high-end grocery store. [..]
If the VeriChip becomes a common payment device similar to the “contactless” payment system in the Exxon Mobil Speedpass, all who wish to buy and sell goods will be compelled “to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads,” as it says in Revelation, the Spychips Threat authors contend.
Another passage in Revelation describes a vision in which “a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.” Albrecht and McIntyre write, “Interestingly, an implanted RFID device like the VeriChip could potentially cause such a tormenting sore if it is subjected to a strong source of electromagnetic radiation,” such as a directed energy weapon.’
`Film star Jessica Alba demanded that Playboy magazine pull its March issue, saying Thursday that its editors made her an unwitting cover girl and misled readers into thinking they could see her nude inside.
Lawyers for Alba sent Playboy a letter threatening to sue if it did not remove the issue — which features a publicity photo of the bikini-clad actress on the front — from the stands and pay for damages to her reputation and career.’
`The cone moves 6 inches peak to peak under full-tilt output.
The actual cone diameter is 54 inches, with the 3 inch wide surround on the outside of that. The radiating surface area is 2,290 square inches. That yields a one way displacement of 6,871 cubic inches. That is equivalent to the displacement of 161 ten inch woofers that move 1.5 inches peak to peak.
The motor is capable of producing 6,000+ pounds of linear force, which is necessary when considering the very large surface area and displacement volume required to produce high SPL levels.
The woofer was designed with the capability to produce SPL levels of 188 dB, which are entirely possible, given an appropriately built vehicle. It is simply a matter of displacement and containment.’
`A Framingham man arrested in May on gun charges after police found an exact tattoo of the weapon, down to the serial number, on his hip was sentenced to five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to 10 charges. [..]
Breakspear originally pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in Middlesex Superior Court on July 19, but changed his plea to guilty on all charges. He pleaded guilty to two counts of the illegal possession of a machine gun, second offense, two counts of illegal possession of a firearm without an FID card and two counts of improper storage of a large capacity firearm. [..]
At first he denied the guns were his, but the tattoo convinced police otherwise.’
`Having obviously woken up to the fact that nobody is writing any decent films for him these days, John Travolta has put pen to paper himself in the hope of coming up with something a little more graciously cinematic.
“I don’t get the kind of roles offered that I would like, so here is my answer”, the Qantas spruiker tells Sky News.
Travolta has written a romantic-comedy, which he tells the site, will film in the U.K.
“It’s a tear-jerker. Fans will love it, but there’s a love theme throughout”, he says, adding that he also plans to sing the movie’s theme song.’
`A renowned psychiatrist from UC Irvine was duped into squandering at least $1.3 million of his family’s fortune on a Nigeria Internet scam, according to a lawsuit recently filed by his son.
The son, also an Orange County doctor, said his father — Dr. Louis A. Gottschalk — gave as much as $3 million over a 10-year period in response to an Internet plea that promised the doctor a generous cut of a huge sum of cash trapped in African bank accounts in exchange for money advances.
The court documents, filed last month in Orange County Superior Court, allege Gottschalk even traveled to Africa to meet a shadowy figure known as “The General.”‘
`Pope Benedict XVI got an iPod on Friday, thanks to a group of workers at Vatican Radio.
According to a Catholic News Service story, the pontiff got a 2GB white Nano, loaded with, among other things, the radio station’s programming in English, Italian and German, as well as classical tunes from Mozart, Chopin and Stravinsky.’
`A sticker on a bicycle that said “this bike is a pipe bomb” caused a scare Thursday at Ohio University that shut down four buildings before authorities learned the message was the name of a punk rock band, a university spokesman said. [..]
Police blocked streets around the restaurant and the Columbus police bomb squad came from about 65 miles away.
The bomb experts hit the bike with a high-pressure spray of water, then pried it apart with a hydraulic device normally used to rescue accident victims trapped in cars, acting Athens Fire Chief Ken Gilbraith said. Once they had it open, they saw there was no bomb.
The buildings, including some classroom facilities, were reopened after a couple hours.’
`In the mid 1990s, Tom Katt began regularly appearing in gay porn videos. The versatile bodybuilder made at least 15 sex flicks in his first two years. Handsome and talented, he started earning a lot of money. And for what it’s worth, Tom Katt became famous — in the world of erotica.
Over the years, steroids and growth hormones augmented his physique. Cocaine and pot made the good times seem happier, but the party train kept crashing. Inside, he felt something was missing. And in 2003, he walked away from the biz. Katt, who now goes by his birth name, David Papaleo, had found God.
Last month, Papaleo appeared on “The Gravedigger Show,” an Atlanta-based Christian TV program where he renounced the adult video world and said he was heterosexual.’
`A group of German scientists has deciphered the meaning of one of the most spectacular archeological discoveries in recent years: The mystery-shrouded sky disc of Nebra was used as an advanced astronomical clock.
The purpose of the 3,600 year-old sky disc of Nebra, which caused a world-wide sensation when it was brought to the attention of the German public in 2002, is no longer a matter of speculation.
A group of German scholars who studied this archaeological gem has discovered evidence which suggests that the disc was used as a complex astronomical clock for the harmonization of solar and lunar calendars.
“This is a clear expansion of what we knew about the meaning and function of the sky disc,” said archeologist Harald Meller.’
`While many teenagers who use the myspace website boast about using drugs, one 16-year-old from Bensalem actually showed them.
He posted pictures on the popular website of him posing with a gun, and various drugs, while bragging he made 250,000 dollars a year by selling them. Police found the Bensalem High school student after a lengthy investigation.
“One of our detectives saw this guy and thought he seemed a little bit more real than the next kid and it was enough to launch an investigation,” said Harran.
The teenager has since been charged with possession and many of those who knew him at the high school are shocked.’
`Lawyers in South Korea have filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of more than 230,000 victims of identity theft in an online game.
The suit will claim damages of about $1,000 for each plaintiff whose identity was used to register new accounts in NCsoft’s popular games, Lineage and Lineage 2, according to media reports.
Most of the identify thefts took place over the past six months as underground gaming syndicates stole victims’ official Korean ID numbers in hacking attacks and used them to register hundreds of thousands of Lineage accounts.’
`The US Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the online music pricing of the world’s major music labels, sources say.
The probe closely tracks a similar investigation by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer into the pricing of digital music downloads, sources familiar with the matter said. One music industry source said some subpoenas may have been issued already in connection with the probe, while other labels had been tipped off that subpoenas would likely be coming in the next few days. It appeared that Sony BMG had already received a subpoena. The major record labels include Warner Music Group, EMI, Universal Music Group and Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony and Bertelsmann.’
`Google Inc. is switching its servers to run on Advanced Micro Devices Inc. chips instead of those made by Intel Corp., according to a Morgan Stanley report.
Google, which has more than 200,000 servers, has started to buy Advanced Micro’s Opteron processors with almost all new purchases, Morgan Stanley analyst Mark Edelstone said. He raised his earnings estimates for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Advanced Micro.’
`A Danville high school student faces a felony charge of furnishing marijuana after allegedly feeding half a marijuana-laced cookie to a 4-year-old boy, a Contra Costa County sheriff’s spokesman said today.
The 17-year-old Monte Vista High School senior allegedly gave the piece of cookie to the boy during a daycare class at the high school on Feb. 21, spokesman Jimmy Lee said.
Lee couldn’t release the suspect’s name because he is a juvenile. [..]
The maximum penalty for the charge of furnishing marijuana is four years in prison, Lee said.’
