‘A man in the German city of Cologne fatally stabbed his elderly father before cutting off his own head with an electric chainsaw, police said today.
The headless body of the 24-year-old offender was found when police raced to an the apartment yesterday after an emergency call, apparently from the dying father, had been broken off in mid-sentence, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.
Alf Willwacher, a senior prosecutor, said an electric chainsaw was next to the son’s body.
“We do not believe any third party was involved,” he said.’
‘Would you like to be the exclusive owner of a number, with the right to sue other people for knowing your number or telling other people what it is? Now you can.
Last week, the AACS consortium made history by issuing legal threats against the 1.8 million web-pages (and counting) that mentioned its secret code for preventing HD-DVD discs from being copied.
In effect, AACS-LA (the AACS Licensing Authority) claimed that it owned a randomly chosen 128-bit number, and that anyone who possessed or transmitted that number was breaking the law. Moreover, it claimed to own millions more random numbers — claimed that the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which criminalises telling people how to break anti-copying software, gave it exclusive dominion over its many keys.
Why should the AACS get all the fun? Princeton prof Ed Felten has come up with a great way of giving out legally protected 128-bit numbers to anyone who wants them. If he gives out 2^128 of these, then all 128-bit numbers will be owned and no one will ever be able to use a 128-bit key without breaking the law. Good times.’
BTW, I now own the following numbers:
E5 30 A4 6C BF AF 7B 85 59 26 F6 75 32 B2 02 36
06 80 45 C8 3F 90 1D B6 FC DD AE 35 0B C0 2F 64
C7 7C B3 43 96 66 C6 69 0C 0F 9D DA CC B1 2D 5C
If you wish to use them, please email me and we can discuss licensing fees. :)
‘A couple of gutsy storm chasers escape the fury of a killer tornado in Ellis County Texas.’
That’ a pretty cool looking tornado, and they seemed quite close.
(11meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘The pursuit of science in President Vladimir Putin’s Russia is driven by profit alone and there was less government interference even under Josef Stalin, a Russian Nobel Prize winner said in a interview.
Vitaly Ginzburg’s comments to the Sunday Telegraph newspaper are likely to put Russia’s scientists back on a collision course with the Kremlin.
In March, Russia’s Academy of Sciences, founded by Tsar Peter the Great, spurned a government plan to establish a new supervisory council that would control the body’s finances and include officials from the presidential administration.’
‘A 52-year-old man was killed after getting stuck in the propeller of a ski boat Sunday afternoon on Lake Sonoma, according to authorities.
“It was pretty gruesome,” said Lt. Greg Contos of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s office. [..]
Contos said another boater flagged down a sheriff’s patrol boat on the lake around 3:45 p.m. Sunday. When the patrol boat arrived at the boat, the victim was wedged underneath the propeller and already dead. The patrol boat then called additional help from the Sheriff’s Helicopter and the Army Corps of Engineers marine unit.’
You know you’re pretty well fucked when they have to call in Army engineers to get your body untangled from a propeller.
‘Socialite Paris Hilton said police officers “hit on her all the time” and posed in a zebra-print outfit meant to resemble jail stripes before a judge ordered her to spend 45 days in prison.
The 26-year-old multi-millionaire said she attracted attention because of who she was, but added that officers did not usually arrest her. [..]
She tells the magazine: “I think I get in more trouble just because of who I am.
“The cops do it all the time. They’ll just pull me over to hit on me. It’s really annoying. They’re like, ‘What’s your phone number? Want to go to dinner?’
“They just pull me over, and the paparazzi, of course, take a picture. All the time. I have so many cops’ business cards.”‘
Followup to Paris Hilton gets 45 days in jail.
‘The Kursk sailed out to sea to perform an exercise of firing dummy torpedoes at Pyotr Velikiy, a Kirov class battlecruiser. On August 12, 2000 at 11:28 local time (07:28 UTC), the missiles were fired, but an explosion occurred soon after on Kursk. The only credible report to-date is that this was due to the failure and explosion of one of Kursk’s new/developmental torpedoes. The chemical explosion blasted with the force of 100-250 kg of TNT and registered 2.2 on the Richter scale [1]. The submarine sank to a depth of 108 metres, approximately 135km (85 miles) off Severomorsk, at 69°40′N, 37°35′E. A second explosion 135 seconds after the initial event measured between 3.5 and 4.4 on the Richter scale, equivalent to 3-7 tons of TNT [2]. Either this explosion or the earlier one propelled large pieces of debris far back through the submarine.’
With images.
‘A city police officer who recently received an award from Mothers Against Drunk Driving has been charged with drunken driving, authorities said.
Specialist Charles Beebe’s SUV was pulled over Wednesday in Aurora, Ind., after a motorist reported that he had forced two vehicles off the road, the arresting officer’s report said. Beebe failed a field sobriety test and agreed to a chemical test.
His blood-alcohol content was 0.08 percent, the point at which a motorist is considered legally drunk in Indiana, according to the arrest report. [..]
The 32-year member of the Cincinnati Police Department received a Top Cop award this year from MADD’s Southwestern Ohio chapter.’
‘These guys were not exactly Snap, Crackle and Pop.
What began as a faint popping in a 9-year-old boy’s ear — “like Rice Krispies” — ended up as an earache, and the doctor’s diagnosis was that a pair of spiders made a home in the ear.
“They were walking on my eardrums,” Jesse Courtney said. [..]
Dr. David Irvine said it looked like the boy had something in his ear when he examined him.
When he irrigated the ear, the first spider came out, dead. The other spider took a second dousing before it emerged, still alive. Both were about the size of a pencil eraser.’
‘A British man who went on a wild spending spree after doctors said he only had a short time to live wants compensation because the diagnosis was wrong and he is now healthy — but broke.
John Brandrick, 62, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer two years ago and told that he would probably die within a year.
He quit his job, sold or gave away nearly all his possessions, stopped paying his mortgage and spent his savings dining out and going on holiday.
Brandrick was left with little more than the black suit, white shirt and red tie that he had planned to be buried in when it emerged a year later that his suspected “tumor” was no more than a non-life threatening inflammation of the pancreas.
“When they tell you you’ve got a limited time and everything, you do enjoy life,” Brandrick, from Cornwall in the west of England, told Sky television.’
Either they have a baby with some sort of titanium alloy skin, or they’ve removed the fangs from the snake.
Either way, it’s a bit crazy.
(3.5meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘The international and Hong Kong authorities said Monday that they had received little information from mainland Chinese officials about a mysterious ailment killing pigs in southeastern China or about Chinese wheat gluten contaminated with plastic scrap, raising questions again about whether Beijing is willing to share data on global health issues.
The Chinese government, and particularly the government of Guangdong Province, next to Hong Kong, suffered heavy criticism in 2003 after concealing the SARS virus for the first four months after it first emerged in Foshan, 150 kilometers, or 95 miles, northwest of Hong Kong. After SARS spread to Hong Kong and around the world, top Chinese officials promised to improve disclosure.
But officials in Hong Kong as well as at the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization said Monday that they had received practically no information about the latest pig deaths and limited details about wheat gluten contamination.’
‘Before he was extradited to the United States, Hew Griffiths, from Berkeley Vale in NSW, had never even set foot in America. But he had pirated software produced by American companies.
Now, having been given up to the US by former justice minister Chris Ellison, Griffiths, 44, is in a Virginia cell, facing up to 10 years in an American prison after a guilty plea late last month.
Griffiths’ case — involving one of the first extraditions for intellectual property crime — has been a triumph for US authorities, demonstrating their ability to enforce US laws protecting US companies against Australians in Australia, with the co-operation of the Australian Government. [..]
In some corners of the Australian legal community, however, there is concern about Griffiths’ case. In a recent article for the Australian Law Journal, NSW Chief Judge in Equity, Peter Young, wrote: “International copyright violations are a great problem. However, there is also the consideration that a country must protect its nationals from being removed from their homeland to a foreign country merely because the commercial interests of that foreign country are claimed to have been affected by the person’s behaviour in Australia and the foreign country can exercise influence over Australia.”‘
‘Fun at work?
A helter skelter is an amusement park ride with a slide built in a spiral around a high tower. Users climb the tower and usually slide down on a mat. It is thus similar to a waterless hydroslide…’
‘On the tape, a young female voice can be heard berating David Hasselhoff, urging him not to drink and even warning him that he could lose his gig in the Las Vegas run of The Producers if he doesn’t sober up. The former Baywatch star released a statement on Thursday which read, in part, quoted by Reuters, “Despite that I have been going through a painful divorce and I have recently been separated from my children due to my work, I have been successfully dealing with my issue. Unfortunately, one evening I did have a brief relapse, but part of recovery is relapse.”‘
Followup to David Hasselhoff Drunk.
(14.8meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘Until this week, the only people who really hated the Jersey Guys were corrupt politicians. Now, corrupt state troopers hate them, too.
Craig Carton and Ray Rossi walked out in the middle of their popular afternoon talk radio show and took their families into hiding after learning of a press conference in which New Jersey state police union leader David Jones gave out their home addresses and threatened to “crush” the people who leaked anonymous Internet postings by state troopers in which they apparently were plotting a ticket-writing blitz. [..]
In an interview, Jones said, “I don’t believe in intimidating anyone.” [..]
“If guys, be they troopers or not troopers, choose to vent on a blog board, that’s their right, and that’s a board that’s supposed to be shared,” Jones said. “A couple of cowards obviously compromised it, and when I find out who those Girl Scouts are I’m going to crush ’em like bugs.”‘
‘A Brazilian brewery has been ordered to pay $49,000 (£24,570) to an alcoholic beer taster who claims the company failed to prevent his condition.
The man, who has not been named, said the company, Ambev, did not provide him with adequate health care to stop him from developing alcoholism.
He said that for more than a decade he drank around one and a half litres of beer each day.
But Ambev says that the employee was an alcoholic before he took the job. [..]
But Judge Jose Felipe Ledur said the company was still negligent because an alcoholic should have never been employed as a beer taster.’
‘More than 18,000 people stripped down and bared it all in Mexico City’s vast main square Sunday for U.S. photographer Spencer Tunick’s biggest nude shoot yet.
Standing up to salute, crouching in fetal positions and lying prone on the tiles of the Zocalo plaza, the volunteers formed a sea of flesh that Tunick snapped from balconies and a small crane in the morning light.
“What a moment for the Mexican art scene!” Tunick said in a news conference. “I think all eyes are looking south from the United Sates to Mexico City to see how a country can be free and treat the naked body as art. Not as pornography or as a crime, but with happiness and caring.”‘
I really like this image.
Yet again some Japanese TV show has left me amused and confused.
I think I need to add a “why?” category. [shrug] :)
(26meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘Setting wheelie bins on fire and inhaling fumes to get high is the new ‘drug of choice’ for teenagers, police say.
The craze is behind more than 50 bin fires in Barnsley, they add.
Anti-solvent abuse charities warn that inhaling bin fumes could be more dangerous than sniffing glue or petrol.
Wheelie bins are made from high density polyethylene – composed of double-bonded carbon and hydrogen molecules.
Burning an empty one releases carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.
These deadly gases starve the brain of oxygen, giving a headacheheavy short high.’
What the fuck is wrong with children these days?
‘It is rarely a pleasant task and one that demands a caring and tactful approach.
So when bosses at a struggling department store were faced with the prospect of letting 140 staff go, it was a particularly heavy responsibility.
But rather than call each employee in one by one or sending an apologetic letter to each, they chose a different approach.
They set off the fire alarm, assembled the workforce in the car park and then read out a short statement informing them they no longer had a job to go to.’
’03/29/2005 at 03:25:55
I go into 2 player mode in fighting games on my gamecube and put one controller down my pants and beat the shit out of the other guy with the other controller to make the one down my pants vibrate. I always end up cumming all over the thing and I have to clean it. It’s a hassle but it’s worth it…’
‘Rose, the goat that found international celebrity last year after being forced into marriage with a Sudanese man, has died after accidentally swallowing a plastic bag.
The town of Juba in southern Sudan, if not in mourning, at least has the satisfaction of having had the world in stitches as the source of one of the internet’s best-read news items. [..]
Tragedy struck last month when Rose swallowed a plastic bag as she scavenged for food scraps on the streets of Juba.
She left a male kid – goat, not human – and a grieving widower. It is not known whether she was cremated or turned into curry.’
Followup to Sudan man forced to ‘marry’ goat.
‘On January 16, 2007, a dazzling blue flame blasted across the sands of the Mojave desert. In many respects, it looked like an ordinary rocket engine test, but this was different. While most NASA rockets are powered by liquid oxygen and hydrogen or solid chemicals, “we were testing a methane engine,” says project manager Terri Tramel of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). [..]
The main engine, built and fired by the NASA contractor team Alliant Techsystems/XCOR Aerospace, is still in an early stage of development and isn’t ready for space. But if the technology proves itself, methane engines like this one could eventually be key to deep space exploration.
Methane (CH4), the principal component of natural gas, is abundant in the outer solar system. It can be harvested from Mars, Titan, Jupiter, and many other planets and moons. With fuel waiting at the destination, a rocket leaving Earth wouldn’t have to carry so much propellant, reducing the cost of a mission.’
Check out the video.
(3.3meg Windows media)
‘Voyager 1 and 2 both carry with them a golden record that contains pictures and sounds of Earth, along with symbolic directions for playing the record and data detailing the location of Earth. The record is intended as a combination time capsule and interstellar message to any civilization, alien or far-future human, that recovers either of the Voyager craft. The contents of this record were selected by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan.
The following is a selection of pictures electronically placed on the phonograph records which are carried onboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft.’
‘The locks on a block of public toilets are being changed following complaints it was being used as cheap lodgings.
With heating, a wash basin, a peg and a mirror, the eight cubicles in Stamford Hill, Hackney, east London, are cheap accommodation at just 20p a night.
Local businesses said there was competition for the cubicles and many wanted the more spacious disabled loo.’
‘An environmental consulting firm and other developers here have come up with a non-perishable food pack that creates steaming hot rice with the simple addition of cold water.
The group has recently introduced the product, named “Hotto! Raisu,” to the market.
By subjecting rice to 4,000 times normal atmospheric pressure, the developers were able to preserve rice for long periods in a soft form that holds moisture. When water is poured over an exothermic agent in the pack, steam warms the rice contained within, and after about 15 minutes, the dish is piping hot.’
There’s some graphs showing the change in light levels that indicate the planet is there. Also a graph of light from a binary start system.
