moonbuggy

‘How do you get rid of the body of a dead astronaut on a three-year mission to Mars and back?

When should the plug be pulled on a critically ill astronaut who is using up precious oxygen and endangering the rest of the crew? Should NASA employ DNA testing to weed out astronauts who might get a disease on a long flight?

With NASA planning to land on Mars 30 years from now, and with the recent discovery of the most “Earth-like” planet ever seen outside the solar system, the space agency has begun to ponder some of the thorny practical and ethical questions posed by deep space exploration.’

‘This real estate agent will likely do a house check before letting her prospective customers tour on their own from now on, after a couple happened upon a homeowner dead in bed.

Linda Chabucos-Galow, a real estate agent with Shorewest, stood in the dining room while Justin and Colleen McKeen walked through a house Monday night.

Before long, she heard Colleen scream as the couple stood at the doorway.

“I thought, ‘What’s wrong?’ Maybe it was a dead mouse or something,” Chabucos-Galow said.

But then she peered into the bedroom and saw the body of Linda L. O’Leary, 55, the owner of the home. She had been dead for about two weeks, officials say.

“It looked like a Halloween prop,” Chabucos-Galow said.’

Yippee kai aye, motherfuckers.

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‘A Jetstar call centre operator was allegedly told the budget airline had “just created a terrorist” after it charged excess baggage fees to a disgruntled Brisbane passenger.

Denis William Malizani, 30, of Morayfield in Brisbane’s north, was yesterday charged with making a threat to destroy an aircraft after being told he had to pay the baggage fee while checking in for a flight to Adelaide on April 26. [..]

He allegedly rang Jetstar’s call centre at a later stage and became “aggressive” when he was referred to the operator’s supervisor to further discuss the fees.

Prosecutor Clive Porritt said Malizani had told the operator “I will take it fucking further. I will tell you what I’ll do – I’ll blow up your fucking aircraft. You’ve just created a terrorist.”‘

‘A 29-year-old man wearing a purple wizard outfit was taken into custody in Daytona Beach and charged with abandoning his fiance’s 4-year-old son in a booth at a Denny’s restaurant, according to police. [..]

Workers at Denny’s restaurant located off International Boulevard said Nathan Sierbrasse, 29, left the 4-year-old asleep in one of the booths.

When officers investigated, they found a note for law enforcement with the boy’s name and contact information.’

‘A Chinese judge charged with corruption died in his cell from “adult sudden death syndrome”, Xinhua news agency said today.

Investigators said Li Chaoyang, 38, had been unco-operative while in detention in Xing’an county in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southwestern China.

“Cuts on his face and other injuries” had been caused by a fall during an escape attempt, they said. [..]

“Li Chaoyang’s sudden death conforms with adult sudden death syndrome,” said Mr Shi, citing a forensic report.’

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‘When AACS was revealed as the encryption format of choice for HD DVD and Blu-ray, bets were placed on how long it would take for it to be cracked. Since the first HD DVD and Blu-ray discs began shipping, hackers have been hard at work figuring out how to break the encryption; DVD Jon even registered DeAACS.com. We’ve covered both crackers’ efforts and the attempts by the AACS Licensing Authority to keep those cracks from seeping into the public consciousness. Yesterday, all of that came to a head.’

‘A woman accused of holding police at bay by brandishing poisonous snakes was sentenced to house arrest and probation.

“I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind that night,” said Terry Jackson, 36, at her sentencing Monday.

Officers were trying to prevent the despondent woman from harming herself with a hunting knife when the confrontation took place October 25, police said.

Jackson picked up two western diamondback rattlesnakes, a pigmy rattlesnake and two copperheads to try to keep police from taking her into custody, authorities said.

Jackson, who was raising the snakes for laboratories, received several bites during the standoff and was taken to a hospital after police subdued her with a stun gun.’

Children don’t like to fly as much as they think they do. :)

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‘What they found surprised them — corkscrew-shaped oviducts, with plenty of potential dead-ends.

“Interestingly, the male phallus is also a spiral, but it twists in the opposite, counterclockwise, direction,” said Yale ornithologist Richard Prum in a statement.

“So, the twists in the oviduct appear designed to exclude the opposing twists of the male phallus. It’s an exquisite anti-lock-and-key system.”

Brennan believes females evolved convoluted oviducts to foil the male rapists.

“You can envision an evolutionary scenario that, as the male phallus increases in size, the female creates more barriers. You get this evolutionary arms race,” Brennan said.’

‘Carson admitted to police that he had been “making it hard for her to get far in the game.” He said that after repeated online threats from the woman, she sent her husband and friends over to his house to “take care of him.” Carson later said that he had made the mistake of telling her where he lived and “if her husband was man enough to just come meet me to settle this.”

2 weeks leading up to the assault he said he had been harassed by a few characters constantly during game play. “I knew that I might be messed with in the game but I didn’t really expect her husband to come looking for me. I couldn’t have been more wrong.”‘

‘A Utah County Republican delegate may not be catching hell for calling illegal immigration a satanic plot, but he isn’t gaining any converts, either.

Utah County GOP Chairwoman Marian Monnahan says District 65 Chairman Don Larsen’s resolution – asserting that illegal immigration is the devil’s plan to destroy the nation by “stealth invasion” – “in no way” is endorsed by the Republican Party.

“It’s just free speech,” Monnahan said Thursday. “It’s Don’s right to do that.”

Provo Mayor Lewis Billings, a prominent Utah County Republican, says he understands Larsen’s frustration with the federal government’s slow response to immigration issues, but he doubts “there will be a lot of support for the resolution in its current form.” [..]

Members of Utah’s Latino community searched for diplomatic words to respond to the measure.

“It sounds like someone who is way out in left field, living in some fantasy world,” [..]’

‘Electronics giant Sony has sparked a major row over animal cruelty and the ethics of the computer industry by using a freshly slaughtered goat to promote a violent video game.

The corpse of the decapitated animal was the centrepiece of a party to celebrate the launch of the God Of War II game for the company’s PlayStation 2 console.

Guests at the event were even invited to reach inside the goat’s still-warm carcass to eat offal from its stomach.’

I don’t quite understand how he managed that.

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‘From the moment of birth, we begin the battle against death — against the inevitable. Statistics say that a newborn child can expect to live an average of 76 years. But averages may not be what they use to be.

In 1786, life expectancy was 24 years. A hundred years later it doubled to 48. Right now, it’s 76.

“Over half the baby boomers here in America are going to see their hundredth birthday and beyond in excellent health,” says Dr. Ronald Klatz of the American Academy of Anti-Aging. “We’re looking at life spans for the baby boomers and the generation after the baby boomers of 120 to 150 years of age.”‘

‘Underworld figure turned author Mark “Chopper” Read appeared in a Melbourne court today where he was fined $300 for careless driving. [..]

His lawyer Bernie Balmer told the court his client – who appeared to be sleeping at times in court – admitted bumping the other car while trying to get into a tight carpark.

However, he disputed the claim that the collision caused $1,500 damage to the other car, saying when Read inspected the cars he could not see any damage to either vehicle.

In a lighter moment, after the court was told Read had no relevant priors, Mr Balmer joked it was a “wonderful day” when you could say in court no priors for Mr Read.’

‘Think your new $1,200 Vista-ready desktop is a bit pricey? Try this on for size: a keyboard that retails for more than $1,500. I’m not talking about your standard, plastic clickity-clak keyboard, mind you. Meet the Optimus Maximus, a much-anticipated — and long-delayed — masterpiece of a keyboard, which has tiny OLED displays on each key that change the layout of the entire keyboard depending on the application you’re running.

The Optimus Maximus first emerged almost two years ago as little more than a lofty concept and some clever graphic renderings of how the dynamic keypad might work. However, while the Maximus looks suspiciously like one of those much-ballyhooed products that never sees the light of day, Engadget is reporting that the keyboard will finally debut in November — albeit in very limited quantities.’

Followup to Optimus keyboard staggeringly expensive.

‘Villagers at a wedding in eastern India decided the groom had arrived too drunk to get married, and so the bride married the groom’s more sober brother instead, police say.

“The groom was drunk and had reportedly misbehaved with guests when the bride’s family and local villagers chased him away,” Madho Singh, a senior police officer told Reuters after the marriage in a village in Bihar state’s Arwal district.

The younger brother readily agreed to take the groom’s place beside the teenage bride at her family’s invitation, witnesses said.

“The groom apologised for his behaviour, but has been crying that word will spread and he will never get a bride again,” Singh said by phone.’

Ouch. Don’t fuck with a ninja.

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‘This is Samsung’s trio of concept PCs. What do you think they were called during that process known in the business as Development Hell? My money’s on Wonky Wizard Hat, Lampstand That Thinks It’s a Hatstand That Thinks It’s a Tree, and Balls On a Breakfast Tray.’

‘Scientists have identified the Godzilla of fungi – a giant, prehistoric fossil that has evaded classification for more than a century.

A chemical analysis has shown that the 6-metre-tall organism with a tree-like trunk was a fungus that became extinct more than 350 million years ago. [..]

“No matter what argument you put forth, people say it’s crazy,” says C. Kevin Boyce, a geophysicist at the University of Chicago in Illinois, US. “A 6-metre-fungus doesn’t make any sense, but here’s the fossil.”‘

‘An employer in eastern India beheaded one of his workers for failing to milk his cows, police said on Saturday.

Neighbors watched in horror as Upendra Yadav was dragged out of his house in Jharkhand state on Friday by his angry employer.

The employer’s father and brother held Yadav down before he was beheaded with a sword, police said.

The employer has been charged with murder.’

‘This site is dedicated to the worlds of the Metal Mouth, and the beautiful females that have them.’

‘Police apologised to the family of a decapitated motorcyclist on Sunday after photographs of the biker were shown without their consent.

There have been calls for North Wales Police Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom to resign after he used images of 40-year-old Mark Gibney, who died in a crash in 2003, in a private briefing to journalists to back up his anti-speeding policy.

One picture showed Gibney’s headless torso, while another showed his severed head, in a helmet, on a grass verge.’

‘An 82-year-old man wielding a bag of shopping has driven an armed robber from a village post office.

George Smith hit the man twice with a bag containing an iceberg lettuce and bottles of bleach and washing liquid.

The masked raider, who had a shotgun, fled from the shop in Speldhurst, near Tunbridge Wells, Kent, leaving the takings untouched. [..]

Mr Smith himself said his actions were “entirely automatic”.

“The best method of defence is attack – so I did. I whacked him in the face and then I clobbered him again.

“He ran off down to the corner still with the gun pointing my way.

“I took a couple of paces towards him and told him to clear off. And he did.”‘

Hooray for good engineering, I s’pose. :)

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