From discovery.com: Tiny Bot Walks on Walls.
A robot inspired by cockroaches and spiders is getting some researchers to look up and take notice.
The Spinybot, developed by professor Mark Cutkosky and his students at Stanford University in California, takes its cue from nature and employs tiny spines on its toes to scale walls made of concrete, stucco and brick.
The device can be useful for inspecting areas difficult to reach by humans, such as disaster sites, skyscrapers or highway underpasses. [continue, see photo]
OK, so I have a slightly twisted sense of humour, and I've had two glasses of wine. Well, whatever. This article about the Jesus diet at the Times Online has me hooting with laughter. It's And the Word was made flesh (but not pork).
Day 1
Ungodly foods: lots. Alcohol: lots. Weight: a bit under 13 stone.
Pigs: one.I'd wager Jesus never had a weekend like the one I just had.
My friend Ben is getting married, and he's marrying a vegan. So, as a celebration of his impending life of quorn, we went to St John, in Smithfield Market. There was beer, and wine, and tequila, and whisky, and something else that was blue. But also, between the 14 of us, we ate - and I'm not proud of this - 12 ox-hearts and a whole pig. We really did. Ben ate the nose. I'm guessing Jesus wouldn't have been okay with that.
"Certainly not a pig, no," says Dr Don Colbert, over the phone from his practice in Florida. "The meal itself actually isn’t a problem. There was the Passover feast, and the fatted calf at the feast of the Prodigal Son, and all the other feast days mentioned in Leviticus. So certainly, Jesus ate at feasts. But no pig."
I don't quite have the guts to press him on the tequila. Dr Colbert is the author of What Would Jesus Eat? the book at the centre of a new dieting craze that is sweeping America (and doing particularly well in states that voted Republican). "We seek to follow Jesus in every area of our lives," he writes in the introduction. "Why not in our eating habits?" Biblical health has become big business in the USA. Alongside Dr Colbert's 50-odd books on the subject, other authors have produced The Maker's Diet, Body by God and the Hallelujah Diet. Not all are about healthy eating (Colbert himself is the author of The Bible Cure for Candida and Yeast Infections) [continue]
And that's where I complelty lost it. Hahahaha!
Link found here at The Commonplace Book of Zadok the Roman. Thank you, Zadok.
From the Beeb: Vanishing lake baffles Russians.
Residents of a village in central Russia are trying to solve the mystery of a lake that disappeared overnight.
Russia's NTV channel showed a huge, muddy basin where the lake once was, in the village of Bolotnikovo.
"It looks like somebody has pulled the plug out of a gigantic bath," said the TV's correspondent, next to a deep debris-filled hole. [continue]
From the about page at Nek Chand Foundation website:
One day 36 years ago, Nek Chand, a humble transport official in the north Indian city of Chandigarh, began to clear a little patch of jungle to make himself a small garden area. He set stones around the little clearing and before long had sculpted a few figures recycled from materials he found at hand. Gradually Nek Chand's creation developed and grew; before long it covered several acres and comprised of hundreds of sculptures set in a series of interlinking courtyards.
After his normal working day Chand worked at night, in total secrecy for fear of being discovered by the authorities.When they did discover Chand's garden, local government officials were thrown into turmoil. The creation was completely illegal - a development in a forbidden area which by rights should be demolished. The outcome, however, was the enlightened decision to give Nek Chand a salary so that he could concentrate full-time on his work, plus a workforce of fifty labourers. Nek Chand's great work received immediate recognition and was inaugurated as The Rock Garden of Chandigarh. [continue]
The site includes photos and press clippings for you to browse through.
From news.com: Get ready for the AirScooter.
The AirScooter II, a personal aircraft that can hover or fly at 55 knots, is the latest invention from Elwood "Woody" Norris.
Norris, who has developed high-end stereo speakers and an alarm that signals when a hip replacement might be in trouble, is one of the founders of AirScooter, a Henderson, Nev.-based company specializing in small, light-flying vehicles. Some of its other planned products include an unmanned helicopter-like flying vehicle and a diminutive "ready to fly" model that can be assembled in 15 minutes, the company says.
The AirScooter II, though, is designed for people. It weighs around 300 pounds and doesn't require a pilot's license, according to the company's Web site. The company is seeking regulatory approval but has said it expects to release the product this year. [continue]
Just what you've always needed in order to have a tasteless wedding — an inflatable church!
One of the world's VERY FIRST inflatable churches is here to allow couples to get married wherever their hearts desire. The complete structure will comprise of two sections; The house, 5m in width (external) with frontal facade, 7m highand 6.5m wide (Approx). The tower will be 5x5m base and 12m in height (Approx) Walls are to be 0.6m thick. (Approx.) The attention to detail is heavenly complete with plastic "stained glass" windows and airbrush artwork which replicates the traditional church. Inside it has an inflatable organ, altar, pulpit, pews, candles and a gold cross. Even the doors are flanked by air-filled angels. The church can be built in 2 hours and dis-assembled in less than one. [continue]
Reminds me of bouncy castles, but I don't think the church would be bouncy.
From csmonitor.com: A musician who tastes each chord - literally.
When you listen to music, what does it taste like? That's not a silly question. Swiss researchers are studying a young musician who consistently identifies musical intervals by the flavors they induce on her tongue.
For example, a minor second is sour. A major second is bitter. A perfect fourth is mown grass. A minor sixth is cream. An octave has no taste at all. Neuroscientists call such mixed perception synaesthesia. It's a nagging reminder that what we perceive is not just a simple processing of stimuli from one or another of our senses. [continue]
Go look at the The Hudspith Steam Bicycle. How'd you like to ride that around town?
Want a custom ring? Biojewellery certainly offers that - just think, you could have a ring made of bioengineered bone tissue! The site's project page explains:
The project is seeking couples who want to donate their bone cells - a couple having their wisdom teeth removed would be ideal. Their cells will be prepared and seeded onto a bioactive scaffold. This pioneering material encourages the cells to divide and grow rapidly in a laboratory environment, so that the scaffold disappears and is replaced by living bone tissue.
The couple’s cells will be grown at Guy’s Hospital and finished bone tissue will be taken to a studio at the Royal College of Art to be used in the design of a pair of rings. Following consultation with the couple, the bone will be combined with traditional precious metals so that each has a ring made with the tissue of their partner. [continue]
(Or start at the home page.)
Well, yuck! Fascinating, though.
Thanks to Elsa of macbebekin for writing to tell me about this. (She found it at Neil Gaiman's blog.)
More bone weirdness on Mirabilis.ca:
Kostnice Ossuary
Underground Paris
Capuchin Catacombs
From the Telegraph: Robotic ball that chases burglars.
A large black ball, originally designed by Swedish scientists for use on Mars, could be the latest weapon in the war against burglars.
The device, developed at the University of Uppsala, acts as a high-tech security guard capable of detecting an intruder thanks to either radar or infra-red sensors. Once alerted, it can summon help, sound an alarm or pursue the intruders, taking pictures.
It is capable of travelling at 20mph, somewhat faster than a human being. Even worse for intruders, the robot ball can still give chase over mud, snow and water.
The ball relies on an internal pendulum to control its motion which, when shifted, changes the centre of gravity and starts it rolling. [continue]
That's deeply weird.
There's more about the robot here at New Scientist, and still more at the Rotundus website, where you'll find photos and movies of the robot.
Engadget points out a very strange stove:
Just because we have precisely no practical use for a wood-burning stove made of nonflammable textiles doesn’t mean that if you’re a fan of experimental industrial design you wouldn’t want this Danish button-tufted stove made by UNDERDOGMA. Because who knows, maybe you really want to burn your logs in fabric, or, you know, tempt fate.
Here are a couple of photos of the stove. And yes, Underdogma has lots of other peculiar items. Don't miss their moulded mole slippers.
From the Beeb: Japan snaps up ‘lucky’ Kit Kats.
Students in Japan have reportedly caused sales of Kit Kat bars to soar, by adopting them as lucky charms.
The name of the chocolate bar resembles a Japanese expression - "kitto katsu" - used by students to wish each other luck before exams.
The phrase has been translated roughly as: "I hope you will win."
Kit Kat has introduced a range of flavours designed for the famously sweet-toothed Japanese market, including green tea flavour.
Other variations include passion fruit, white chocolate, and lemon cheesecake. [continue]
Yuck.
I learned about cargo cults a while ago, and today happened upon a mention of them in this fun and interesting commencement address Richard Feynman gave at Caltech back in 1974. Go read it.
Wikipedia has a more details on cargo cults :
The term cargo cult is a reference to aboriginal religions that grew up in the South Pacific, especially New Guinea and Melanesian islands, initially in the mid 1800s, but most commonly in the years during and after World War II. There was no one Cargo Cult so this proper name is a misnomer — no one who participated in a cargo cult actually knew that they were doing so.
The vast amounts of war materiel that were air-dropped into these islands during the Pacific campaign against the Empire of Japan necessarily meant drastic changes to the lifestyle of these islanders as manufactured clothing, canned food, tents, weapons and other useful goods arrived in vast quantities to equip soldiers — and also the islanders who were their guides and hosts. When the war moved on, and ultimately when it ended, the airbases were abandoned and no new "cargo" was then being dropped.
In attempts to get cargo to fall by parachute or land in planes or ships again, islanders adopted a shallow version of the same practices they had seen the soldiers, sailors and airmen use. They carved headphones from wood, and wore them while sitting in control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on the runways. They lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses.
The cultists thought that the foreigners have some special connection to the ancestors, who were the only beings powerful enough to spill such riches. By mimicking the foreigners, they hoped to bypass them. [continue]
...this spring, watch for the world's first working ornithopter to take to the air, taking off by flapping its mechanical wings, and coming even to a sky near you. Maybe.
An ornithopter is an aircraft that flaps like a bird for both lift and thrust (which is how it gets the name, as in "ornithology").
You can buy toy ones for 12.95 on the Internet. But no human has ever piloted one that really sustained flight. (Someone tried in the 1920s, but his craft had to be towed aloft and released, like a glider.)
Prof. James DeLaurier of the University of Toronto says this may be the year that his ornithopter flies at last.
That's part of an Ottawa Citizen article that was reprinted in Saturday's Vancouver Sun.
For more about ornithopters, start with the pages at Project Ornithopter, and those at the Ornithopter Zone.
Related links:
The Ornithopter Project -ornithopter.info
Flying Like the Birds: how one team in Canada could change the way we fly - nd.edu
The wings on this plane go up and down - CNET.com
Da Vinci's Orinthopter ready to fly after 500 years - gizmo.com.au
CBC Radio's ornithopter page (Includes sound file of a CBC interview with Prof. James De Laurier, in Real Audio format.) - CBC.ca
Prof hopes to succeed where da Vinci failed - CTV.ca
This is the strangest anime I've seen: SuperPope.
Link found here at Pontifications.
If treehouse living doesn't quite do it for you, perhaps a mock medieval castle in London might. From the Financial Times:
In the heart of London's Mayfair neighbourhood, hidden down a passage off a quiet side street, stands a mock medieval castle, so out of place that visitors can't help but gasp, giggle or gaze open-mouthed in wonder.
The four-bedroom, 2,507 sq ft Berkeley Castle, created in the 1920s by architect Frederick Etchells, seems to cry out for an eccentric celebrity owner, someone to match the idiosyncrasies of a house with linen-fold panelled walls, a turret, crenellated parapets and 700-year-old stone fireplaces. [continue]
There's more here at the Telegraph. And look, the castle is for sale! Just £4 million.
I know you've always wanted a suspended spherical housing module. Moco Loco describes it:
It's 2.9 meters in diameter and is made to be suspended from a tree. "There is a double bed, counter, table and bench seats as well as ample storage lockers. The spheres are wired for 110 volt AC and equipped with lights and outlets." Four attachment points on the top and four on the bottom securely carry the weight of the sphere and its contents. The spheres are made of laminated wood strips over laminated wood frames with the outside surface covered with clear fiberglass. Not unlike a fine yacht.
Should be fun in a wind storm, hmmm? There's more info FreeSpiritSpheres.com.
The CBC reports on a peculiar contest.
A flushable toilet brush that cautions people "Do not use for personal hygiene" helped a man from Ontario snatch first prize in an international competition for wackiest consumer warning of the year.
There's a contest? Nobody told me there's a contest. And to think, I've just been throwing those silly warning labels away.
Anyway, on with the article:
The sponsor, Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, says the goal of its competition is "to reveal how lawsuits, and concern about lawsuits, have created a need for common sense warnings on products."
The $250 second-place award went to a man from Illinois who spotted a label on a popular scooter for children that warns: "This product moves when used." [continue]
Robotic fish? Whoever heard of robotic fish? From the Beeb: Roboshark to hunt tourists.
Roboshark's inventor, Andrew Sneath, has designed a giant aquarium, which will house an impressive panoply of robotic fish in a seven metre deep tank.
Visitors will be invited to explore the aquatic world of robots from the safety of little submarine pods.
Indeed, tourists will be very glad of their bite-proof pods, because Roboshark is programmed to enjoy a spot of human hunting. [continue]
They've got robotic tuna, too. Just think: robotic shark, robotic fishies... perfect for terrifying swimmers at your next pool party.
Related Mirabilis.ca content:
Robo-bird
Feel like staying in an unusual hotel this winter? I have just the place for you: this five-star hotel made of ice.
So you've already climbed to the top of Everest, snorkeled in the Red Sea, rafted the Grand Canyon rapids, and danced at the Carnival in Rio. Why are adventurers being drawn to Canada to sample the latest "hot" tourist destination?
The Ice Hotel Quebec-Canada is built of 4,500 tons of snow and 250 tons of ice, making it unique in North America. Jacques Desbois, founding president of Ice Hotel Quebec-Canada Inc. says, "The construction of Ice Hotel Quebec-Canada is quite an assignment for our team. Snow and ice are challenging materials to work with in order to build such a huge structure in only five weeks." [continue]
Here are more links related to Quebec's Ice Hotel:
Ice Hotel (the hotel's website)
Quebec's Ice Hotel - roadandtravel.com
photo of the bar at Quebec's Ice Hotel - The Guardian
Quebec: Chill out at the Ice Hotel - CNN
If you'd prefer a trip to Scandinavia, check out the Icehotel Jukkasjärvi in the far north of Sweden. Here are some photos of that hotel being built, and here are a couple of photos and videos of the Swedish ice hotel.
I've seen photos of ossuaries before (maybe you remember that Underground Paris thing I blogged? And the one about the Capuchin Catacombs?) Well, I wonder if anything can top the Kostnice Ossuary in the Czech Republic. Here, this is from the site's history page:
The present arrangement of the bones dates from 1870 and is the work of a Czech wood-carver, František RINT (you can see his name, put together from bones, on the right-hand wall over the last bench).
Our ossuary contains the remains of about 40 000 people. The largest collections of bones are arranged in the form of bells in the four corners of the chapel.
The most interesting creations by Master Rint are the chandelier in the centre of the nave, containing all the bones of the human body, two monstrances beside the main altar and the coat-of arms of the Schwarzenberg noble family on the left-hand side of the chapel. [continue]
Take a look around, and have a peek at the Quicktime Virtual Tour. It's all quite mind-boggling.
You might also want to see this photo of stacked skulls at the Kostnice Ossuary from TrekEarth. Oh, and don't miss this site, which has tons of amazing photos of the ossuary.
Link to the Kostnice Ossuary found through this post at Boing Boing.
From Reuters: New Maldives Island Rises from the Depths.
Life can be cramped when you live on a remote cluster of tiny coral islands in the Indian Ocean, so the Maldives has plumped for a novel if seemingly extreme solution — build a new island from scratch.
Emerging from the sea where a turquoise lagoon used to sit, man-made Hulhumale is springing to life as an overflow to the congested capital, Male, a short boat ride away.
Around 1,500 people now live in a first cluster of housing erected on the 465-acre island, a giant building site to which the government hopes around 15 percent of the country's 300,000 mostly Sunni Muslim inhabitants will opt to migrate over the next 15 years. [continue]
Related:
Conquering the ocean, Maldives scoops island from sea for growing population - Clari.net, October 2003
The President inaugurates the Hulhumale’ Exhibition - President's Office, Maldives
Maldives - Wikipedia
From Mosnews.com Lithuania Discovers Belarussian Liquor Pipeline.
Lithuanian border guards have unearthed a three-kilometer pipeline for smuggling in moonshine liquor from neighboring Belarus, Reuters reported on Friday.
The thin plastic pipeline, buried a few centimeter underground, ran under several roads, along a riverbed and ended next to the home of a Lithuanian citizen. [continue]
That's one impressive pipeline!
From Aftenposten: Svalbard takes over ice golf.
Temperatures around minus 30C (-22F), the danger of snow blindness and the possibility of a tragic meeting with a polar bear - if these strike you as exciting instead of terrifying, then you should consider signing up for the Ice Golf Championship 2005 on Svalbard, golf.no reports.
Are you tempted?
Armed guards keep the polar bears at bay while the golfing takes place, and specialist equipment is highly recommended. Tinted goggles are needed to prevent snow blindness, and colored golf balls are advisable if you want to have a chance of making a second shot. Clubs should have shafts of steel, since graphite shatters when exposed to extreme cold and force. [full article]
Related:
Not your usual round of golf - athropolis.com
From the BBC: Colombia's bullet-proof tailor.
There may be few advantages to living in a country with an international reputation for violence, kidnapping and murder, but a Colombian tailor appears to have found one.
Based in Bogota, Miguel Caballero's eponymous company constructs clothes which help protect the wearer against bullets, knives and other weapons. [continue]
From The Beeb: Flower power turns up the volume.
Green-fingered gardeners have long espoused the positive benefits of talking to plants.
Now a gadget developed in Japan is allowing flowers to answer back — with music.
Called Ka-on, which means "flower sound" in Japanese, the gadget consists of a doughnut-shaped magnet and coil at the base of a vase.
It hooks up to a CD player, TV or stereo and relays sounds up through a plant's stem and out via the petals.
[continue]
Related:
"Canon" Turns Plants, Flowers Into Speakers - Gizmodo.com
The flowers....are speakers? - TechJapan.com
From The Guardian: In a secret Paris cavern, the real underground cinema.
Police in Paris have discovered a fully equipped cinema-cum-restaurant in a large and previously uncharted cavern underneath the capital's chic 16th arrondissement.
Officers admit they are at a loss to know who built or used one of Paris's most intriguing recent discoveries.
"We have no idea whatsoever," a police spokesman said.
"There were two swastikas painted on the ceiling, but also celtic crosses and several stars of David, so we don't think it's extremists. Some sect or secret society, maybe. There are any number of possibilities."
Members of the force's sports squad, responsible - among other tasks - for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the complex while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access. [continue]
From the Beeb: Condoms oil wheels of industry.
The Indian city of Varanasi is getting through around 600,000 condoms a day, but this is no population control exercise.
The weavers of the holy city, home to the world-famous Banarasi saris, have made the contraceptives a vital part of garment production.
The weaver rubs the condom on the loom's shuttle, which is softened by the lubricant thus making the process of weaving faster.
The lubricant does not leave any stain on the silk thread which might soil the valuable saris.
There are around 150,000 to 200,000 hand and power looms in Varanasi alone and almost all are using the technique. [continue]
Link found at Kottke.org's remaindered links.
Oh my. Expressions for automobiles? From the New York Times: An Automobile With Feelings.
The expression "road rage" usually refers to infuriated drivers who lose control of their temper and lash out at other motorists. But what if a car could also express anger, crouching low on its wheel base and glowering with red headlights like a lion about to pounce?
Four inventors working for Toyota in Japan have won a patent for a car that they say can help drivers communicate better by glaring angrily at another car cutting through traffic as well as appear to cry, laugh, wink, or just look around.
The inventors explain in the patent that they want drivers to have more than a one-note horn and on-off headlights to signal other drivers. The horn sounds the same, they write, whether a driver is "asking for permission to cut in front and in showing gratitude for having been allowed to cut in front," so other people often do not know what the honking is about. [continue]
You'll need a password to read the rest of the article.
I never would have dreamed of using text messaging to light up a tent. From the BBC:
Bewildered festival-goers at Glastonbury 2004 have had a helping hand finding their way "home" with a tent that lights up by text message.
Over 100,000 music lovers have made the annual trek to the Vale of Avalon which means thousands of identical tents.
Orange has designed a Text Me Home Tent with a receiver and antenna in it with a unique number to text.
The limited edition tent is to show how mobile technology can make festival life a bit easier, says Orange.
With a lightweight antenna and receiver box, as well as special luminous ribbing embedded on the tent's edge, the whole contraption is not overly cumbersome.
The antenna simply slots into the dome of the tent, and a wire feeds through the fabric of the tent to the receiver box.
When the receiver is sent a text message, it triggers the antenna to rise and light up as an orange beacon. [continue]
From Ananova: Trolley helps you shop till you get fit.
A supermarket trolley that helps you get fit is being introduced into the UK.
The Trim Trolley features equipment normally found in gym equipment with a resistance wheel letting customers increase or decrease the effort needed to push the trolley around.
It can monitor your heart rate, check the number of calories you're burning and set the speed and length of your session. continue.
Posted at 12:54 PM . Permalink
Remember reading the dragon in a jar news a couple of months ago? Everybody wondered who made that dragon, when, and why. Here's the update, from the BBC website: Book deal for dragon hoax author.
An author who was so desperate to get his book published that he staged a hoax involving a baby dragon has won a lucrative publishing contract.
After numerous rejections Allistair Mitchell concocted a tale that a dragon had been found in a garage last year.
He said: "I created the hoax in order to attract potential readers."
Mr Mitchell, based in Oxford, has now signed an book deal with Waterstone's for his book Unearthly History, a thriller featuring a dragon. [continue].
Thanks to Cronaca for the link.
From Ananova: Violinists want pay rise for playing more notes.
Violinists at a German orchestra are suing for a pay rise on the grounds they play more notes per concert.
The 16 violinists at the Beethoven Orchestra in Bonn argue they work more than their colleagues who play instruments like the flute, oboe and trombone.
Is there some sort of award for stupidest lawsuit of the year? There should be, and this one would be a contender. It's not nearly as insane as the world's most outrageous Biblical lawsuit though. Just try to top that.
From The Telegraph: GM scientists create brand-new butterfly.
Imagine a world where butterflies are adorned with advertising slogans, logos and exhortations from the Government to keep fit and eat less.
Although scientists frown on this application of their work, designer butterflies are now a possibility after the announcement that one of their kind has been genetically altered for the first time by scientists.
"RAF circles would be quite cool, as part of a recruitment campaign," said Brian Millar, creative director of the creativepartnershipmarketing agency in London.
Some brands might not want to be associated with genetically modifying nature, he added. And there could be a new form of genetic pollution: "Brands should consider what would happen if the butterflies breed. Would this produce unthinkable mutant Coke⁄Pepsi⁄McDonald's⁄Burger King offspring? These would have to be hunted down and eradicated by a new breed of brand entomologists." [continue].
The Exorcist in 30 Seconds (And Re-Enacted by Bunnies). Requires Flash.
Thanks to Idle Type for the link.
From the BBC: MPs battle over Robin Hood.
A centuries-old debate over the birthplace of one of England's most famous heroes is being aired in parliament.
The argument over the birthplace of Robin Hood has moved to the House of Commons - where Yorkshire MPs have pitted themselves against their opponents in Nottinghamshire.
The Yorkshire delegation has a numerical advantage in the battle - as 19 MPs are backing a motion affirming Yorkshire as the outlaw's birthplace against only four for Nottinghamshire.
The motion will be raised in the House of Commons. [continue]
From the Sydney Morning Herald: Pickled dragon mystery.
A pickled "dragon" that looks as if it might once have flown around Harry Potter's Hogwarts has been found in a garage in Oxfordshire, England.
The baby dragon, in a sealed jar, was discovered with a metal tin containing paperwork in old-fashioned German of the 1890s.
Allistair Mitchell, who was asked to investigate the dragon by a friend, David Hart, who discovered it in his garage, speculates that German scientists may have attempted to use the dragon to hoax their English counterparts at the end of the 19th century, when rivalry between the countries was intense. [continue]
You must go see the photo.
From Popular Mechanics: How To Control A Runaway Camel.
You're about to park your camel (your car's in the shop) by a meter on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. But, before you can dismount and feed your pocketful of quarters for 10 minutes' parking, your camel is startled by a bus and bolts. What should you do? [continue]
How can you start your week without knowing this?
Similarly essential answers are waiting for you at the Worst-Case Scenarios website, where you can learn how to wrestle free from an alligator, how to jump from a building into a dumpster, and how to fend off a shark.
Related:
More worst-case scenarios - popularmechanics.com
From The Guardian: Computer's chips turn into potatoes.
Staff at a department store in the German city of Kaiserslautern called detectives after an angry customer tried to return a computer stuffed with potatoes to the shop twice on the same day.
The man berated sales assistants in the store, complaining that the computer he had bought only hours before did not work, according to police reports.
The store's staff opened the machine and discovered it was not functioning because its working parts had been replaced with small potatoes. The bemused shop assistants gave the man a new computer free of charge.
But bemusement turned to suspicion when the shopper returned a short while later with another computer - again potato-filled. [continue]
Weird, wonderful, awful, hilarious. Yes, it's recordings of Dylan Thomas, reading his poems... um, and somebody has set them to music. "You could play those in a nightclub," my husband notes. I can just imagine Dylan there with his backup band. Oh my. The music page of the Dylan Thomas Project offers these .mp3s:
No Dominion
Do Not Go Gentle
Exit US
Rub of Love
UPDATE: This entry used to link to the Dylan Thomas Project website. Unfortunately, that site doesn't seem to be around anymore. How sad.
It's not like I need another clock, but one of these weird and wonderful clocks from klockwerks.com would be a riot.
Which one would you choose? The Jules Verne Table clock, perhaps?
Link via Boing Boing.
From the Guardian: Monkeys Terrorize India Workers, Tourists.
NEW DELHI (AP) - In a capital city where cows roam the streets and elephants plod along in the bus lanes, it's no surprise to find government buildings overrun with monkeys.
But the officials who work there are fed up. They've been bitten, robbed and otherwise tormented by monkeys that ransack files, bring down power lines, screech at visitors and bang on office windows.
The Supreme Court has stepped in, decreeing that New Delhi should be a monkey-free city after citizens filed a lawsuit demanding protection from the animals.
Easier said than done. A past initiative to scare off the army of Rhesus macaques with ultrahigh frequency loudspeakers didn't work. A plan to deport them to distant regions has stalled because local governments refused to have them.
There's an ape patrol of fierce-looking primates called langurs, led about on leashes by keepers. But whenever a langur looms, the pink-faced, two-foot-tall hooligans simply move elsewhere on government grounds. [continue]
From the explanatory entry on the House in Progress blog:
We bought this 1917 bungalow from a woman whose family owned it for 60 years. With all that history and an interest in collecting, they'd developed quite a houseful. As a result, we gave the seller a 30-day rent-back period after closing to remove her family possessions. Then, one week before she was to be out we received the letter...
The seller had not removed their things and didn't intend to. Surprise!! We were caught a bit off guard, as you might expect. That night we went through the house and found that 50% of what was originally there still remained. Books, furniture, kitchenware, rocks (really) and boxes and boxes and boxes.
After some discussion we ended up negotiating an agreement. We were rather inconvenienced (we had to rent storage for our own things for an additional month) but figured we could rent a dumpster still quickly get to the task of renovating our new home. But then came the second surprise--the stuff in the house was really cool! So, we're going to start posting photos of the items we've found. Well, some of the 1000's. We'll just keep plugging away until you have no more patience to peek in there with us. [full page]
What an amazing collection of stuff! Some of the items are for sale here.
Found at Linkfilter.
Elephant polo? There are people who play elephant polo? Yup, and Ananova reports that the Scots just lost the elephant polo final to the Germans.
Scotland captain Peter Prentice said: "There was a massive tropical storm about 30 minutes before the game began. The sky went black and for half an hour it just rained cats and dogs. It was a quagmire and as a result the ball slowed right down. On occasions the elephants just stamped the ball into the ground." [continue]
Related links:
King's Cup Elephant Polo Tournament -from ThaiElePolo.com
King's Cup Elephant Polo Tournament - from the Tourism Authority of Thailand
World Elephant Polo Association
Step right up and read about The World's Most Outrageous Biblical Lawsuit.
Egyptian law dean plans suit against "all the Jews of the world" for Exodus theft.
When, after the Ten Plagues, Pharaoh finally let Moses lead the Israelites out of Egypt, says the book of Exodus, the former slaves "plundered the Egyptians."
Now, more than three millennia later, Egypt wants its stuff back.
Nabil Hilmi, dean of the law school at Egypt's University of Al-Zaqaziq, is suing "all the Jews of the world" for stealing "from the Pharaonic Egyptians gold, jewelry, cooking utensils, silver ornaments, clothing, and more, leaving Egypt in the middle of the night with all this wealth, which today is priceless," according to the Cairo newspaper Al-Ahram Al-Arabi (translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute).
"If we assume that the weight of what was stolen was one ton, [its worth] doubled every 20 years, even if the annual interest is only 5 percent," Hilmi told the paper. [continue]
Drop everything and go read the rest of this article at Christianity Today. It's utterly hilarious.
And a good point, noticed at Quenta Nârwenion:
"... if it they succeed, maybe then the Catholic Church could try to get back all those stolen parish churches in England...."
Plenty peculiar, if you ask me. From Ananova: Hi-tech changing room ‘will tell you what not to wear’.
A British company has developed a "smart" changing room that tells clothes shoppers what not to wear.
The QinetiQ system uses 3D digital cameras which not only take pictures but also record precise measurements from more than 1,000 points on an object.
Installed in a changing room, an array of about six cameras would feed data to a computer running software that matches particular styles to individual body shapes.
The inventors say it could provide advice like "your bum looks too big in this" - or words to that effect. [continue]
From Ananova: Luxury underwater hotel planned for Emirates.
A German architect has unveiled plans for a £350 million underwater hotel off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.
The emirate of Dubai says it will be the first development to be fully owned and operated by a foreign investor.
The 220-suite, bubble-like Hydropolis Hotel is to float just below the waters off the coast of Dubai's upscale Jumeirah area. [continue]
I suppose it would be interesting to stay in a giant reverse aquarium, but could one relax? I'd want my scuba gear at the bedside, just in case.
Related articles:
Dubai to build undersea hotel
The underwater hotel
Underwater hotel for mind, body and soul
Dubai to build world's first $500m underwater hotel
An amusing article from wired.com: Luxury Loo: The Seat Also Rises.
Steve Marshall vividly remembers the night he was terrorized by a toilet.
Marshall, an embedded systems programmer, had just arrived in Tokyo to deliver a sales pitch. After a couple of hours happily spent swilling sake to celebrate the closing of a deal, he, not surprisingly, had to use the facilities.
"When I approached the toilet, the lid lifted automatically," said Marshall. "Then, as I stood in front of it, the seat also lifted. All I could think was, whoa . . haunted bathroom! I just could not urinate for fear of what might happen next." [continue]
(You really must continue. It's hilarious.)
While we're on the subject of toilets, here's the funniest toilet-related disaster story I've ever read: Ask the pilot.
From the BBC: Calculating the perfect marriage.
Delegates at a conference in Dundee have heard how mathematics can determine the fate of a marriage.
Professor James Murray from the University of Washington believes he has formulated a model which can predict the chances of staying with a chosen partner.
He claims data from a couple's conversations, converted into algebra, is 94% accurate in determining how long a couple will remain wed. [continue]
You might drive around town in a strange vehicle of some sort, but can you beat Sean Irving's camera on wheels? From wired.com:
He constructed the machine, dubbed Peanut, out of an old mail-delivery truck he bought on eBay and surplus military parts, including a lens that came straight from a submarine periscope. The camera truck takes photos that are 4 feet tall and 8 feet wide -- more than 3,000 times larger than the typical negative.
It's essentially one step above a pinhole camera, the standard prop used in introductory photography classes. Irving composes his images by driving closer to or farther away from his subjects and stands inside the camera to make the images.
"It's amazing to be inside a camera as it takes a picture," said Irving. "You step in there, shut all the doors, and you see this projection of everything outside ... only it's upside-down. [continue]
From the extreme ironing website:
Welcome to the home of extreme ironing - the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt.
Includes extreme ironing news, photos from the first extreme ironing world championships, and an FAQ. (Q: "Who does extreme ironing?" A: "the fearless!" )
Always wanted to join a mob? Maybe this Flash Mob thing is for you. From wired.com:
Flash mobs are performance art projects involving large groups of people. Mobilized by e-mail, a mob suddenly materializes in a public place, acts out according to some loose instructions, and then melts away as quickly as it formed.
In New York, the city's finest turned out in force to block the city's third mob gathering last Wednesday evening.Set to gather at 7 p.m. at Grand Central Station for what promised to be an elaborate "mob ballet," the crowd of about 250 was greeted by a "huge" police presence, according to the Mob Project's anonymous organizer known only as Bill.
Bill said the mob moved to the Grand Hyatt next door instead. The crowd walked quietly upstairs to the hotel's mezzanine and gathered shoulder-to-shoulder around the balcony."At 7:12, we burst into thunderous, screaming applause for 15 seconds, and then dispersed, just as police cars came screaming around the corner to where we were," said Bill. "It was fabulous." [continue]
Related link:
Flash mobs page at cheesebikini.com
Flash mobs: a new social phenomenon? - from abc.net.au
In case you were wondering, the key to wife carrying is upside down. From the Wall Street Journal:
VAIKE-MAARJA, Estonia -- Take it from a world champion: The best way for a man to carry a woman is to dangle her upside down over his back, with her thighs squeezing his neck and her arms around his torso.
"That way, your arms are free to help with balance. It's more stable. There's less shifting of the weight," says Margo Uusorg. He has just carried Egle Soll, her pigtails flapping against his back, around a 278-yard oval track that includes a 3-foot-deep water trough and two hurdles of wooden logs. In just over one minute, they won the Estonian championship here, and qualified for this coming weekend's Wife Carrying World Championship in Sonkajarvi, Finland, where Mr. Uusorg is a heavy favorite to win his third world crown.
"When you carry this way," he says, "it's much easier."
Ms. Soll, upright again and flushed by the experience, if not the victory, says, "It's not so bad. But you don't see much."
Estonian men turned up in this little farming village lugging their women upside down five years ago, and the sport of wife carrying hasn't been the same since. Suddenly, gone were the glory days of the piggyback carry, the fireman's carry, the wrap-around-the-shoulders carry. The "Estonian carry," as it was dubbed, was in. And Estonians have won five straight wife-carrying world championships. (Actually, "wife carrying" is a misnomer, for the rules in the freestyle competition allow the man to carry any woman older than 17, his wife or not.)
This Estonian dominance doesn't sit well with the Finns, who have been wife-carrying since the late 1800s, when marauding gangs would make off with women from neighboring villages. According to legend, a notorious brigand of the time named Rosvo-Ronkainen recruited only men who had first proved their worth by carrying heavy weight on a challenging track.
Now, it is the neighboring Estonians who are getting the spoils of victory. And a frosty Baltic Sea rivalry is getting fiercer. [continue]
Related links:
Estonia's clean sweep at wife-carrying - BBC
Wife Carrying, Finland - LonelyPlanet.com
From Ananova, Robot bird of prey ‘will give pigeons a fright’.
Two inventors have developed a flying robotic bird of prey designed to scare off pigeons and seagulls by swooping in on their territory.
Bob McIntyre, 59, and Allan Davie, 60, developed the fibreglass peregrine falcon, which can move its head and call like a real bird, to work alongside an earlier, non-flying model.
The first bird, Robop, was launched last year and the inventors hope its sibling will work alongside it to scare more birds away from farmland and fish ponds.
Mr McIntyre, a former pest control officer of Longniddry, East Lothian, said he and Mr Davie wanted to keep details of the falcon under wraps until it was patented, including how it flies.
"The bird is very high tech. It's got the peregrine falcon call thanks to a voice box and it can be controlled by remote control," Mr McIntyre said.
"It can even give you a call on your mobile phone to let you know when its battery is running down. [continue]
I'd rather have the pigeons and seagulls.
The Quackatorium introduces "the fascinating and somewhat creepy world of antique medical quackery and electrotherapy devices." Photos and descriptions included.
Have you ever dreamed of floating into the sky with a giant bouquet of colorful toy balloons? That's the idea behind cluster ballooning. The pilot wears a harness, to which a cluster of large, helium-filled balloons are attached. Control is achieved by releasing ballast to ascend, or by bursting balloons to descend.
The most famous cluster balloon flight took place in 1982. Larry Walters, with no prior ballooning experience, attached 42 helium weather balloons to a lawnchair, intending to go up a few hundred feet, but instead soaring to 16,000. Surprisingly, Walters survived his flight. However, both before and since Walters' adventure, experienced balloonists have experimented with helium balloon clusters, some rising to even greater heights.
This is from clusterballoon.org, where there are more details and photos. I still can't believe people actually do this. (Thanks to linkfilter for the URL.)
Related links:
Lawnchair Larry's honorable mention from the Darwin Awards.
Lawnchair Larry - truthorfiction.com
From Ananova, 106 year-old offered free bus rides to school.
A 106-year-old Norwegian woman received an offer from local authorities for free bus rides to the school where she is supposed to attend next autumn.
Ingeborg Thuen, born in 1897 when the Klondyke gold rush was going strong, actually started school just before she turned six in 1903.
Computers in the Os township near Bergen read the '97 of her birth year as 1997, meaning she would be starting the first grade the next autumn.
She welcomed the free ride, saying that the last time she started school, she had to walk for an hour every morning.
The letter from the township also encouraged Ingeborg's parents to list the children she would like to have in her class.
"Since I can already read, maybe I should skip a couple grades," she joked.
From a Moscow Times article, 'Walruses' Find a Better Life in the Icy Neva.
While Sergei Ivanov's colleagues in the St. Petersburg metro grab a bite to eat on their lunch breaks, he races off for a quick dip in the frozen Neva River.
"I feel extreme excitement and physical euphoria when getting out of that cold water," said Ivanov, a 43- year-old engineer, pulling on his clothes over skin reddened by the sub-freezing water. The outside temperature that recent afternoon was minus 2 degrees Celsius.
Ivanov is one of at least 100 St. Petersburg ice swimmers -- or morzhi (walruses) -- who regularly make their way to a 12-square-meter pool cut through 30-centimeter-thick ice on the Neva near the Peter and Paul Fortress.
Nina Lyubitskaya, an energetic 66-year-old with sparkling eyes, is another of the pool's aficionados. After undressing and stepping into the pool, she swam gracefully back and forth across the opening, smiling all the while.
"It was a passionate desire to live that made me take this up," Lyubitskaya said after her swim. "You don't need to have a strong will for this."
But her husband, Alexei Kirillov, also 66, undressing for his swim on the snowy edge of the pool, wasn't quite as certain.
"I have to force myself every time to get into that water," Kirillov said. "It was only because of pressure from my wife that I tried it for the first time.
"I had to obey. She is the head of the family, and she knows what's best," he said with a grin. [continue]
If I told you that two-metre high urinals pop out of the ground at night time, only to disappear beneath the pavement again in the morning, would you believe me? You should, of course. The Guardian has the details and a flash interactive guide.
From the Guardian, People send the funniest things.
"You shouldn't send anything alive in the post, to be honest with you," says Ray Kennedy, his face quite serious as he sits in the Royal Mail's special office in Belfast's quayside. "I would also prefer that people didn't send anything dead in the post." He has just been telling me about the time staff opened up a Jiffy bag envelope only for a live snake to fall out and start wriggling on the floor. But the dead things are no more fun. "We've had a mummified hand, which wasn't too bad," he says. "But once we had this packet and it was stinking the place out. When they opened it up, it was a putrid salmon. Somebody had caught a salmon fresh, wrapped it up and posted it to his mate. It was sitting for three weeks in the delivery office uncollected."
Ray knows all about what people try to send in the post because he is in charge of the Royal Mail's undeliverable mail service. Letters and parcels - and there are millions of them - that people probably think are lost end up here. In fact, they are usually just undeliverable: address incomplete, handwriting illegible, street name wrongly spelt, and sometimes no address at all. The operation, known as the National Return Letter Centre, also deals with letters and packages where the addressee has moved, or failed to pick up an item from the post office. [. . .]
The National Return Letter Centre was originally known as the Dead Letter Office, a name coined in the days when people used to send game through the post. Game that could not be delivered would end up in a room at the post office. Ray has a photograph of the Dead Letter Office circa 1900 with dead pheasants, rabbits, hares and turkeys hanging from the ceiling.
There are other such offices around the world. But nowhere do they go to quite such lengths as they do here to return undelivered mail. [continue]
From SFGate.com, Soaring under the Bay
To a chorus of ooohs and aaahs, a San Anselmo engineer ushered in a new era of undersea exploration Thursday when he zipped around the Bay in an innovative homemade submarine. (...)
His one-of-a-kind craft is long and sleek and bright blue. It is made of high-tech stuff like kevlar and carbon fiber. It looks like something NASA might build or the Blue Angels might fly.
If all goes according to plan, Hawkes and his investors said, Deep Flight Aviator will revolutionize exploration by making it easier and cheaper for everyone from scientists to filmmakers to plumb the ocean's depths.
What makes Hawkes' sub unique is how it works. Rather than using ballast to dive and rise like traditional subs -- which Hawkes said are to undersea exploration as dirigibles are to flight -- Deep Flight Aviator slices through the water like a jet through the sky.
"We don't sink, we fly," said Hawkes, a slight, 54-year-old bespectacled man with a slight British accent. "It moves fast and it moves beautifully." [continue]
Related Mirabilis.ca entry:
Homemade submarine - October 28th, 2002.
From the Guardian, Soccer row over sign of the cross.
It is used the world over by anxious and celebrating football players and fans alike, but members of the Scottish parliament want to banish the sign of the cross from football grounds across the country.
Under controversial proposals designed to tackle sectarianism north of the border, MSPs are advising police to crack down on the religious gesture when it is used "provocatively" by players or fans to rile opponents. [continue]
From Reuters, Demanding Payment from 8th Century Saint:
Germany's television license fee agency apologized Monday for sending an angry letter demanding payment from an eighth century saint.
"This was quite embarrassing," said Eckhard Ohliger, an official at the Cologne-based GEZ fee collection headquarters, which collects 6.5 billion euros ($6.8 billion) per year from viewers. "But unfortunately mistakes happen."
Father Karl Terhorst said the agency had sent letters demanding payment of the monthly 16.15 euro fee to a woman named "Frau Walburga St." at the address of the Roman Catholic Church in Ramsdorf, 80 miles east of Cologne.
"At first I just ignored the letters," Terhorst said. "But after the last letter demanding payment threatened the saint with 'legal action' and a 1,000-euro fine, I figured it was time to write back."
Terhorst informed the GEZ that St. Walburga, born in 710 in England, was an abbess and missionary who played an important role in St. Boniface's organization of the Frankish church. She headed a monastery, and was later made a saint in 880.
Update:
TV licence demands try patience of a saint - from the Guardian, Jan 7-03.
Ananova reports on a seriously devoted Muslim dog:
A stray dog in India responds to Muslim calls for prayers five times a day.
Socksy, a black mongrel, runs towards the Memon Mosque when the muezzin calls out the faithful for azaan, and begins to wail in tune.
The Mid-day newspaper reports that locals at Lonavala, near Bombay, say the dog has not missed a single prayer in the last nine years.
Alka Bhandurkar, a female resident, said: "She is extremely alert. She stops baying exactly at the same time the azaan stops."
That reminds me of the EWTN story about Preta, the dog in Spain who apparently walks 16 miles each Sunday, by herself, to go to Mass.
Christian merchandising today has many mansions. Start with faith-on-your-sleeve fashion, such as the T-shirts promoting J.Christ instead of J. Crew, Fruit of the Spirit instead of Fruit of the Loom, Christ Supreme instead of Krispy Kreme. This "witness wear," a manufacturer's rep explains, evokes the familiar logo without quite crossing the line to trademark infringement--"We have lawyers."
A half-dozen companies produce Scripture-clad candy. Some truncated verses on wrappers work nicely: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Others could use a bit more context: "Because thou art lukewarm . . . I will spew you out of my mouth"--not a sentiment one expects from a peppermint.
Then there's the Bible Bar, featuring the seven foods listed in Deuteronomy 8:8--"Nutrition As God Intended." "The Women of Color Study Bible." The Last Supper jigsaw puzzle. And the "Depend Upon Christ the King" rubber ducky.
Oh. my. Here's the rest of the article at the Weekly Standard.
The Royal Ontario Museum has decided to adopt politically correct dating terms. From a National Post article CE is pointlessly PC:
...it is difficult to think of a more pointless exercise in political correctness than replacing BC ("before Christ") and AD ("Anno Domini" or "in the year of the Lord") with BCE ("before common era") and CE ("common era"). Such a change is not only ludicrously hypersensitive; it is also delusional, given that our entire system of datekeeping revolves around the birth of Jesus Christ. Indeed, one need not be a Christian to understand that, 2,000 years after the fact, it might be a bit late to rewrite history. (...)
It is not merely the fact but also the timing and irony that is galling about this latest act of multicultural intolerance toward the country's majority Christian tradition. The first artifact to have the new policy inflicted on it will be the James ossuary. Believed to have been used to bury Jesus' brother, it may prove to be one of the world's most important Christian artifacts. To abandon the Christian dating system just in time to classify this relic -- at the start of the Christmas season, no less -- calls into question just how "sensitive" the ROM really is.
It is up to individual historians and archaeologists to decide whether they wish to use the traditional or "common era" method of dating; in their own work, after all, they should be free to do as they wish. But when a reputable institution such as the ROM adopts this revisionist methodology, it only does itself -- and its city -- a disservice.
I bet they have a seasonal festive tree at the ROM.
From a Vancouver Sun article, 60-acre spider web baffles biologists: [Update: Vancouver Sun article no longer available.]
A warning: If the thought of tens of millions of tiny spiders spinning a web 24 hectares — 60 acres — in size and crawling all over it scares the wits out of you, you might want to tread carefully over the following.
Because that's exactly what happened last month on a farmer's field near McBride, about 220 kilometres east of Prince George.
Just what are those spiders trying to catch, anyway? Sheep? Here's more from the CBC News website: Spiders weave huge natural wonder.
A biology professor in northern British Columbia has spotted a clover field crawling with spiders and the results of their efforts.
Brian Thair of the College of New Caledonia in Prince George said he saw a silky, white web stretching 60 acres across a field.
"When you see horror movies with spider web festooned from this place to that place and so on, it comes nowhere near approaching what occurred in this field," Thair told CBC Radio's As It Happens.
A typical barbwire fence on wood posts surrounded the field about six kilometres east of McBride in the Robson Valley. Thair said it looked like the whole area was covered with an opaque, white plastic grocery store bag.The thin, elastic coasting was not soft and fluffy like webs built by individual spiders. There were about two spiders per square centimetre laying the silk, which first appeared in early October.
Thair said the web showed great tensile strength– enough to put a handful of coins on it without them falling through.
Here's the web of mystery photo gallery.
You know, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.
You know those rowing machines at the gym? OK, now imagine that same "push with feet, pull with arms" motion powering a recumbent bicycle. It's an eyeful, really. Go have a look at the rowing bicycle.
You might have seen a few unusual bicycles, but I'll bet they weren't nearly as odd as this conference bicycle. It seats seven, and the riders sit in a circle, facing each other. For just 9500 euros (that's about $14,571 Canadian), you could have one of your very own.
When your cousin asks you to be the wedding photographer and you'd rather be boiled in oil... well, maybe Lewis the robot could take those reception snapshots.
A few days ago the Social Studies column in the Globe and Mail had an amusing bit about corporate anthems. This led me to ZDNet's Top 20 Corporate Anthems page. Oh my! They've got lyrics, audio files, and sometimes (see the IBM entry) even animation. The songs are pathetic enough to be quite funny. Just imagine this to the tune of Jingle Bells: "IBM, happy men, smiling all the way. Oh what fun it is to sell our products night and day."
What were they smoking?
If they'd said they were going to church every day to recharge their batteries, I'd have thought they were going for the good of their souls. Apparently not. A couple visiting a church in Milan were plugging their cell phone into an electricity socket behind a statue of the Madonna. Every day. For an hour. For a month. When he discovered this, the priest said they're still welcome. An Ananova article quotes Fr. Don Antonio Columba: "Letting them charge their mobile is a bit like giving them a glass of water."
Related link:
Couple Hooked on Madonna
"Research is nearing completion on a system that will allow the melting and casting of bronze, silver, gold, and even cast iron, using an unmodified domestic microwave oven as the energy source. A potential foundry in every kitchen !!"
This is from David Reid's microwave melting of metals page. Here are some photos of the process.
The "kids, don't try this at home" label must certainly apply here, at least for people as good at spilling things as I am. How would one remove drops of molten metal from the counter?
In Ohio, Judge Michael Cicconetti has ordered Michael Logar to run a five mile race. Mr Logar ran from the police a while ago, so the Judge says "I'm going to give him a chance to run away as hard as he can."
This same judge has given all sorts of other interesting sentences. Possibly the most amusing sentence went to Steven Thompson, who was charged in January with disorderly conduct for calling a police officer a pig. Courttv.com wrote that "His sentence was to "serve three days in jail or stand in a pen for two hours on a city sidewalk next to a 350-pound pig with a sign reading "This is not a police officer." Thompson picked the latter and served his sentence on Feb. 8 in front of a jovial lunchtime crowd that included his teenage daughter and several friends, according to a Painesville police department spokesman."
They wanted to marry on the top of Mt Ranier, and the minister agreed. The weather, though, did not, and all three were blown off the mountain into a crevasse. After their rescue, the groom had this to say: "I wanted to paraphrase, 'I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?' My help comes from the helicopters and the folks at St Joe's."
Here's the rest of the story.
"Mustapha Riat said he had been woken in his ground-floor flat on Sunday morning to find a large figure with five-foot hairy arms towering over him. "
I'd just think I'd been reading too much fiction, but reports suggest that there's a chimpanzee burglar in the Hackney area of London. And it's not even April 1st.
