`Federal scientists say they will consider requests to ship the recently recreated 1918 killer flu virus to select U.S. research labs.
There are 300 non-government research labs registered to work with deadly germs like the Spanish flu, which killed millions of people worldwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will consider requests for samples from those labs “on a case-by-case basis,” CDC spokesman Von Roebuck said Wednesday. [..]
“Obviously, that contradicts what most people were led to believe when the results of the 1918 experiments were published,” said Edward Hammond, director of the Sunshine Project, an Austin, Texas-based organization that advocates more control of biological weapons and biotechnology.’
`The Hard Drive Coffee Table top is an original 26″ diameter hard drive platter from an early storage device (circa 1970). The center hub of the platter is solid aluminum. The custom-created pedestal is also solid aluminum; a cylinder measuring 5.9″ in diameter and 18.5″ in length. It has a machined top and bottom to fit into the hard drive hub and base, respectively. The base is a solid aluminum 12″ diameter, 1.75″ high round obtained from a now-defunct government laboratory. Four bolts are screwed into tapped holes in the pedestal in order to secure the hard drive platter and the pedestal is press-fit into the base. It is covered with standard 1/4″ table glass. The completed design measures 19.5″ high and weighs 64 pounds.’
`NASA scientists have come up with a surprisingly simple yet effective way to deflect an Earth-bound asteroid park a large spacecraft close by and let gravity do the work.
Previous suggestions have focused on deflecting an incoming asteroid with nuclear explosions. But NASA experts believe a “gravity tractor” should be able to perform the same feat by creating an invisible towline to tug the rock off its deadly course.
“Most people think of the Hollywood treatment throw a nuclear weapon at it,” says Edward Lu, a NASA scientist and astronaut who developed the idea. But this would produce shattered pieces, some of which might still head towards Earth. “Thats the blast-and-hope strategy,” Lu adds.’
`Police say a man who previously handled the toes of a sleeping burglary victim reverted to his old ways Sunday night, allegedly sneaking into a Greenwood apartment and stealing money before touching a slumbering resident’s feet.
William Russell was arrested at a hotel not long after he allegedly entered a Greenwood apartment without invitation and stole $52 while its occupants were sleeping, police said.
Police said that after Russell took the money, he entered a bedroom where a man and woman were asleep. Russell touched the man’s feet, Greenwood police Detective Matt Fillenwarth said.
The man who was sleeping “woke up and felt someone rubbing his leg and fondling his toes, and finally … he realized it was not his girlfriend,” Fillenwarth said.’
`Convicted rapist Stephen Terry Bolden told a Russell County judge he was being “real rude” during a sentencing hearing, which prompted the judge to add extra days to Bolden’s already lengthy sentence. [..]
While reading aloud Bolden’s sentences Wednesday, Greene said Bolden was a “menace to society.” Bolden laughed and shook his head before shouting “you’re real rude” to the judge, the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer reported Thursday.
“You treated your victims like garbage and put them through trial,” Greene said to Bolden as officers escorted him from the courtroom. “You’re lucky you didn’t get the death penalty today.”‘
`Katazukue is a table which ensures it is always clear. The table has a powerful pair of integrated conveyor belts which periodically move anything on the table onto the floor.’
`Robert Petrick searched for the words “neck,” “snap,” “break” and “hold” on an Internet search engine before his wife died, according to prosecutors Wednesday.
More than two years after Janine Sutphen’s body was discovered floating in a Raleigh lake, investigators continue to find new evidence on computers seized from Robert Petrick’s home that prosecutors say support their arguments that Petrick killed his wife.
The Google search was the latest in recently discovered evidence found in the 100 million pages of content removed from computers.
Last week, a forensic investigator discovered that Petrick allegedly researched lake levels, water currents, boat ramps and access about Falls Lake just four days before he reported Sutphen missing on Jan. 22, 2003.’
`Typically that means big-ticket items. One thinks of dazzling intellectual breakthroughs: the telescope, the steam engine, the airplane, the wheel…. Those were all tremendous, of course.
But often it’s some mundane little nothing of a device that changes history. It might be no more than a slight improvement on some earlier invention. If it intersects with a historic moment, it can become a pivot. Then, like the lever that lifts the elephant, it produces consequences far out of proportion to the ingenuity of the thing itself.’
`This was bound to happen.
Anti-virus maker Sophos is reporting that it has spotted an e-mail going around that tries to exploit the controversial file-hiding abilities of anti-piracy software embedded on some of Sony BMG’s music CDs. [..]
Sophos, which is based in the United Kingdom, said it would issue a tool later today to detect the existence of Sony’s DRM copy-protection on Windows computers, disable it, and prevent it from re-installing.
Sony could be in big trouble soon. The emergence of this virus should provide ample fodder to the class action suit that was recently filed in California against Sony.’
‘New Yorkers go about unaware of what is happening just beneath their feet: Power pulses, information flies, and steam flows. The city’s infrastructure starts just below street level, but it doesn’t stop there.’
`These are real personal ads found in cyberspace. Some have been edited because of excessive length, but a majority are simply cut and pasted as is. All of the ads you read on PP are from actual people who could potentially make babies.’
Contains gems such as:
`I don’t have a lazy eye as it appears in my photo. That bugs me because the original is not like that. Anyway, I am single and intelligent ready to commit to the man of my dreams. I have a zest for life and all that it has to offer. Don’t like alot of negativity; plenty of that on my job. I am a 100 percenter who knows what it takes to be in a relationship. [..]
well letssee im a white male im 63,220lbs brown hair and eyes.Im a milk truck driver real exciting not!! [..]
I am an inventor of a machine that turns waste thngs into “energy products” – my new machine- process has ZERO emissions– only energy out…. I need a woman in my life. I perfur a non-fat woman who loves to be hugged and has a good sense of humor. I like all the normal boy and girl stuff.. I like to cook…. and have sex too! ( not at the same time?)’
`I met Tyler Hall last week. He was friendly and all, but Im sorry, he was clearly told my name at least four times. Its not like its hard. “Hannah.” HA-nah. Not “Ha-Ha.” Whats so funny? Somebody tell you a stupid knock-knock joke? Please.
I mean, sure, hes only 15 months, and yeah, I know he can barely walk, but am I supposed to just nod and smile like a fool while this brat BUTCHERS my name right to my face no less? I think not. When it comes to my name, Im like the French, OK? You say it wrong, and Im gonna get majorly pissy until you say it right. Which is why if I had it to do all over again, yeah, I would still pinch his ear until he cried.’
..abandon hope all ye who enter here.
It’s funny because it’s an accurate representation. ๐
(12meg Quicktime)
Take a tour of a new creationist museum they’re building.
People are stupid. ๐
`Hello! My name is Eli Lapp and I’d like to welcome thee to the first Amish Homepage, made by the American Amish for the American Amish. Now that we’ve hit the 21st Century, our church elders have decided that we will try to not be so “technologically impaired”. We are discovering electricity, computers, and other modern wonders. I’m especially enjoying this thing called Internet!’
with handy buggy safety tips.
`A gamer who spent ฃ13,700 on an island that exists only in a computer game has recouped his investment, according to the game developers.
The 23-year-old gamer known as Deathifier made the money back in under a year.
The virtual Treasure Island he bought existed within the online role-playing game Project Entropia.
He made money by selling land to build virtual homes as well as taxing other gamers to hunt or mine on the island.’
`A new explosive has begun to replace 19th century black powder as Alaska Natives seek more humane weaponry in the traditional hunt for bowhead whales.
“It’s a lot safer,” said Eugene Brower, a Barrow whaling captain who chairs the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission’s weapons improvement program.
Brower trains Native whaling captains to handle a harpoon-launched grenade loaded with penthrite, a World War I-era explosive used in demolition.
“They love it,” Brower said of the whaling captains. “It’s four times the strength of black powder. With black powder, the meat has a gas taste.”‘
`Once again, we were defending both ourselves and the safety and survival of civilization itself. September 11 signaled the arrival of an entirely different era. We faced perils we had never thought about, perils we had never seen before. For decades, terrorists had waged war against this country. Now, under the leadership of President Bush, America would wage war against them. It was a struggle between good and it was a struggle between evil.’
`American president George W. Bush stunned the world yesterday by showing everyone that he has an extremely small penis. Though he never actually took off his clothes, the irrefutable evidence of his miniscule manhood was made official when he declared war on the nation of Iraq without any apparent justification.
First lady Laura Bush, who saw the president’s pecker once after a tractor pull in Austin, was on hand to confirm the diagnosis.
Speaking to reporters, she said it was ‘about the size of a hanging chad’, and ‘harder to find than Al Gore’s name on a Florida ballot’.
The historic announcement marks the first time the size of a presidential penis was not revealed by way of a White House intern.’
`With that recall, the Prius joined the ranks of the buggy computer — a club that began in 1945 when engineers found a moth in Panel F, Relay #70 of the Harvard Mark II system.1The computer was running a test of its multiplier and adder when the engineers noticed something was wrong. The moth was trapped, removed and taped into the computer’s logbook with the words: “first actual case of a bug being found.”
Sixty years later, computer bugs are still with us, and show no sign of going extinct. As the line between software and hardware blurs, coding errors are increasingly playing tricks on our daily lives. Bugs don’t just inhabit our operating systems and applications — today they lurk within our cell phones and our pacemakers, our power plants and medical equipment. And now, in our cars.
But which are the worst?’
It’s not every day you see the phrase `largest non-nuclear explosion in the planet’s history’ in a story about computers. ๐
`The crew of a luxury cruise ship used a sonic weapon that blasts earsplitting noise in a directed beam while being attacked by a gang of pirates off Africa this weekend, the cruise line said Monday.
The Seabourn Spirit had a Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, installed as a part of its defense systems, said Bruce Good, a spokesman for Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line. The Spirit was about 100 miles off Somalia when pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns as they tried to get onboard.’
Just a quick one. Worth a chuckle.
(550kB Windows Media)
see it here »
`One is possibly the greatest scientist who ever lived, and the other is a maverick physicist from Adelaide.
But Reg Cahill says he can prove Albert Einstein and his hundred-year-old theories of relativity are wrong.
The problem for Professor Cahill is that many of his contemporaries line up with Einstein.
“I’ve been treated with utter contempt and hostility,” he told The Australian. “This is pretty shocking stuff — but it’s what you’d expect.”
In 2002, Professor Cahill started to question what he thought were anomalies in Einstein’s theory that time and space are relative.
“They all agreed with one another and they were all indicating a huge speed difference in different directions,” he said. “When you find out the speed of light differs, the whole Einstein theory starts collapsing.”‘
I’ve seen bigger losers in my life. And fatter people aswell. [shrug] ๐
(4.7meg Windows Media)
`In the course of studying physics one is officially taught that liquid nitrogen is simply (and mainly) used to cool things down to 77K. But everybody who once has observed students in practical courses “working” with this stuff knows that this is not true.
My intention is now to tell the truth about what is really done with liquid N2 before its remains are taken and used for cooling.
- Get about a liter of soap bubble solution hot and pour about a cupful of liquid nitrogen in it. Bubbles go everywhere!
- Break a light bulb, put the filament into liquid nitrogen and turn it on. Looks cool!
- Freeze a can of shaving cream and then peel the can away from the cream. Put the canless cream into someone’s car. Let the oven-like heat from the car’s sitting in the sun defrost the shaving cream. 2 cans will fill an entire car.’
I’m going to have to try some of this at work. ๐ Fuck cooling the analytical equipment, I have friends who are desperately lacking in shaving cream. Although they may not know that yet. ๐
`A Melbourne man is today counting his blessings that he still has a job after inadvertently drawing a diagram resembling a penis and scrotum during a presentation to a major client last week.
Jerry Rouse maintains the phallic nature of the diagram was accidental and that the written warning he received was too severe.
‘I was just drawing a diagram consisting two concentric circles representing disparate production units and drew a large ellipse connecting then to represent a convergent process,’ a slightly embarrassed Rouse admitted to reporters.
‘I really didn’t mean to draw a crude penis and testicles. I was actually just doing my job’.’
`Scientists in US have built a robot that is operating on biological principles and without any pre-specified instruction.
Researchers at the Neurosciences Institute (NSI) in La Jolla, California have developed ‘Darwin VII’ a trashcan-shaped robot that has just 20,000 brain cells.
The infant crawls across a floor strewn with blocks, grabbing and tasting as it goes, its malleable mind impressionable and hungry to learn, reports New Scientist. ‘
`An Auckland adventurer wants overweight people to have liposuction so he can turn their fat into biofuel to power his boat around the globe.
Peter Bethune’s biofuel-powered attempt at the round-the-world powerboat speed record will run on his own fat, and he hopes, many more well-endowed contributors.
The Dominion Post reports the lean Auckland adventurer has had about four syringes of fat removed by liposuction from his own “love handles”, but needs others to donate their fat for his cause.’
`This ingenious tuning fork dildo brings new meaning to “making beautiful music together.” The dildo has a smooth insertable end that is solid and great for g-spot play, and a tuning fork end that makes bell-like sounds that pleasantly vibrate when struck with the plastic wand. Made of polished aluminum, the dildo end is 5ฝ” long, with a graduated head and is 1ฝ” at it’s widest point. The tuning fork end is 5″ long, with two tines that have rounded balls at the ends. A clever gift for any music enthusiast.’
