`As NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft winds its way on a nine-year journey toward Pluto and the outer solar system, at least one expert wonders why such missions need to take so long.
Paul A. Czysz, a 30-year veteran of the industry, continuing consultant to the U.S. military and professor emeritus of aerospace engineering at St. Louis University, thinks NASA can curb the travel time to the outer planets from nearly a decade to a matter of weeks – something he considers critical for the human exploration of the solar system. What’s required, he said, is a renewed commitment to nuclear propulsion.’
`A Star Trek fan has gone bankrupt after spending £12,000 turning his home into the Starship Voyager.
Tony Alleyne’s flat in Hinckley, Leics, has moulded walls, touch-panel blue lighting and a life-size model of the show’s transporter room. [..]
He took out two huge loans and ran up debts of over £100,000 on 14 credit cards marketing his idea and paying for the merchandise and has filed for bankruptcy.
Tony, who split from his wife Georgina after he replaced their fridge with a “warp coil” said: “I was convinced Trekkies all over the world would want a house like mine and pay me to do it.’
`The Frenchwoman who received the world’s first partial face transplant showed off her new features to the public today, saying in a heavily slurred voice that she now looks “like everyone else” and hopes to resume a normal life. [..]
She said she was passed out when the dog bit her, and she did not immediately realize the extent of her disfigurement when she awoke.
“When I woke up, I tried to light a cigarette, and I didn’t understand why I couldn’t hold it between my lips,” she said. “That’s when I saw the pool of blood and the dog next to me. I looked at myself in the mirror, and there, horrified, I couldn’t believe what I saw — especially because it didn’t hurt. Ever since this day, my life has changed.”
The dog was euthanized.’
with video.
follow-up to My strange life with someone else’s face.
`Forget everything you think you know about China and take a couple minutes to ponder these images.
Few people in the Western world know about the hidden beauty of China. Well….. of course it helps to have an ace photographer who can capture this land of enchantment as no other has. But these are some truly inspiring photos.’
`Referrer Karma is a rather simple script that prevents malicious bots from accessing your pages, flooding your logs and possibly draining your server’s bandwidth. All it does is check that an incoming bot has a valid referrer field URL (i.e. that the page it claims to come from, does exist and does have a link to your site). If RK thinks the incoming visitor is a malicious bot, it displays a 403 error page (which will not be counted as a visit by log analyzer tools) and uses HTML redirecting to the original URL to avoid blocking legitimate visitors (See below for details).’
I’ve been getting a lot of referrer spam lately. Hopefully this will help out a bit..
`U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Thursday that disclosure of once-secret projects like President George W. Bush’s no-warrant eavesdropping program have undermined their work.
“The damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission,” CIA Director Porter Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing disclosures about a variety of CIA programs that he suggested might have been compromised.
Goss said a federal grand jury should be impaneled to determine “who is leaking this information.” ‘
`Water, water everywhere and we are duped into buying it bottled.
Consumers spend a collective $100 billion every year on bottled water in the belief–often mistaken, as it happens–that this is better for us than what flows from our taps, according to environmental think tank the Earth Policy Institute (EPI).
For a fraction of that sum, everyone on the planet could have safe drinking water and proper sanitation, the Washington, D.C.-based organization said this week. [..]
“Even in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing–producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy,” said [a researcher]. “Although in the industrial world bottled water is often no healthier than tap water, it can cost up to 10,000 times more.”‘
`A team of British scientists investigating whether a tiny tropical hookworm could provide a cure for asthma and hay fever have committed the ultimate act of bravery by infecting themselves with the parasite to observe the effects.
The experts wanted to see if there would be any unpleasant or dangerous side effects from the worm, Ancylostoma duodenale, so they made the bold decision to allow their own bodies to be infected. Each scientist had to stick some of the tiny hookworm larvae on to their skin with a plaster and wait for the larvae to wriggle through the skin into the lungs, through the bloodstream and into the intestine, where they would produce eggs. [..]’
`Scientists at IBM Corp. have developed a chipset that they claim is capable of allowing wireless devices to operate more than 10 times faster than today’s advanced Wi-Fi networks.
The chipset, using silicon germanium, is designed to operate in the 60GHz band, an unlicensed portion of the radio spectrum that can be used to transport data-intensive formats such as HDTV (high definition television), IBM said Monday.’
`The recent revelations about illegal eavesdropping on American citizens by the U.S. National Security Agency have raised many questions about just what the agency is doing. Although the facts are just beginning to emerge, information that has come to light about the NSA’s activities and capabilities over the years, as well as the recent reporting by the New York Times and others, allows us to discern the outlines of what they are likely doing and how they are doing it.
The NSA is not only the world’s largest spy agency (far larger than the CIA, for example), but it possesses the most advanced technology for intercepting communications. [..]’
`Or, how to be the biggest network geek you can in only 1 square foot of space. Starting last year after reading Ward Mundy’s How-To Bonanza, I knew I needed to use the Mac Mini as the core hardware component for my home network. Mostly because it looks good and small form fits easily on my desk. Good as that might be, the Mac Minis do have drawbacks and, if you’re serious about your hosting choices, these do have to be overcome; this is what my post is all about.’
`Sydney is the Australian city most at risk of an earthquake, while Brisbane and Townsville are the most likely to be hit by a tropical cyclone, according to a global insurance company.
Swiss Reinsurance Company launched Australia’s first ever natural catastrophe bond on Monday as a way of covering against major disasters. [..]
“How real are the risk exposures covered by this capital?” said Swiss Re head of Australia and New Zealand property and casualty business Keith Scott.
“Very real,” he said.’
`Whee! More remake madness from Bollywood but unlike Zinda – the largely shot for shot remake of Oldboy – which evidently gave all the irritation of a pointless and inferior remake with none of the added camp value you’d hope for from Bollywood this take on Fight Club is going for the full song and dance approach and there’s video to prove it. Plus they seem to have added a healthy comic element, so if you’re looking for any Palahniuk angst in this one I think you’re pretty much wasting your time.’
`Many students, and other young people, have little in the way of cooking skills but can usually get their hands on a couple of mobile phones. So, this week, we show you how to use two mobile phones to cook an egg which will make a change from phoning out for a pizza. Please note that this will not work with cordless phones.
To do this you will need two mobile phones -they do not have to be on the same network but you will need to know the number of one of them.’
`The vast bulk of international telephone and Internet traffic travels through underwater cables. This map shows the cables that were in use as of the end of 2004 and gives an indication of where traffic is heaviest.’
`The nation’s largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.
Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets–corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers–would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.’
`A man running a counterfeit piracy operation, selling games, CDs and DVDs from his ice cream van has been convicted.
William Agnew from South Lanarkshire was sentenced at Hamilton Sheriff Court after admitting to the offences. 4,000 DVDs, CDs and games (PlayStation, Xbox and PC) were seized during a raid on the man’s business premises. The goods, if sold new, are estimated to be worth in the region of £100,000.’
`Australian and other scientists have found a “Lost World” in a remote Indonesian mountain jungle, home to exotic new species of birds, butterflies, frogs and plants as well as mammals unafraid of humans despite being hunted to near extinction elsewhere.
“It’s as close to the Garden of Eden as you’re going to find on Earth,” said Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the US, Indonesian and Australian expedition to part of the cloud-shrouded Foja mountains in the province of Papua that covers the western half of New Guinea.’
`Tissue engineers like Vladimir Mironov of the Medical University of South Carolina, and Thomas Boland of Clemson University, have been printing biomaterials with modified ink-jet printers.
The cartridges are washed out and refilled with suspensions of living cells; the software that controls the characteristics of the ink is reprogrammed and you’re good to go. Boland and Mironov use layers of “thermo-reversable” gel to build up three-dimensional structures like tubes—capillaries, to use the medical term. When the tiny droplets, or clumps, of cells came together closely, they fused; the gel can be easily removed, leaving a tube of tissue.’
`Peace activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested Tuesday in the House gallery after refusing to cover up a T-shirt bearing an anti-war slogan before President Bush’s State of the Union address.
According to a blog post on Michael Moore’s Web site attributed to Sheehan, the T-shirt said, “2,245 Dead. How many more?” — a reference to the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq.’
`14 February 1999:
hrhw@england.com is wrongly listed in WhoWhere as the e-mail address for “HRH Prince William”
21 February 1999:
I notice that strangers are emailing me, or actually Prince William. The emails continue to arrive until…’
.. and then he publishes all the emails people thought they were sending to Prince William.
Drag phrases around, make speeches.
Not too easy to contruct. Needs a few more phrases, I think. Fun anyway. 🙂
Defend Your Castle style goodness.
`How Products Are Made explains and details the manufacturing process of a wide variety of products, from daily household items to complicated electronic equipment and heavy machinery. The site provides step by step descriptions of the assembly and the manufacturing process (complemented with illustrations and diagrams) Each product also has related information such as the background, how the item works, who invented the product, raw materials that were used, product applications, by-products that are generated, possible future developments, quality control procedures, etc.’
`A Catawba Island Township man has been convicted of attacking his girlfriend with a sack of potatoes.
Jeffrey B. Goehring, 27, has pleaded guilty in Ottawa County Common Pleas Court to aggravated assault and aggravated menacing. Charges of kidnapping and abduction were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.
Authorities accused Goehring of detaining the 22-year-old woman at his home during an argument Nov. 1. He choked her with a belt, and hit her with the sack of potatoes.’
`Six people have been stabbed in an altercation between two groups of men in Sydney’s eastern beachside suburb of Bondi overnight.
One group of men, described as being of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean appearance, left after an argument at about midnight and later returned armed with knives and bottles, police said today. They then attacked members of the other group.’
`Modesto police said Kelli Pratt wanted her feeble 65-year-old husband to have sex with her the night of Oct. 7.
When Arthur Pratt refused, police said, his 45-year-old wife held him down and bit him repeatedly during a savage attack that ultimately killed him.
Arthur, whose skin was riddled with more than 20 deep tooth marks, died Sunday at Doctors Memorial Center in Modesto — six days after the attack.’
`Iran is the country most widely viewed as having a negative influence in the world, with the US in second place, a new poll for the BBC suggests.
The survey for the BBC World Service asked how 39,435 people in 33 nations across the globe saw various countries.
Views of China, Russia and France have declined in comparison to a similar survey at the end of 2004.
Japan is most widely seen to have a positive influence. Europe has the most positive scores of all in the poll.’
`Police should not use Taser stun guns to subdue small children, a Miami-Dade grand jury said Thursday.
But it did not propose an outright ban on using stun guns to subdue all minors because some larger children could threaten police regardless of age.
“We are aware that there are 11 and 12-year-olds who are as large as some high school football players and who would create more of a risk to an officer than someone older,” the grand jury said in a final report focusing on law enforcement’s use of stun guns as an alternative to deadly force.’
