What are you gonna do, play with your prick for another 30 years? ... George Carlin
The Associated Press: Police Reward Good Drivers With Coffee
Topic: Society
10:46 am EST, Dec 19, 2007
RANCHO CORDOVA, Calif. (AP) — Happy holidays. Now pull over to the side of the road.
Motorists may be in for a surprise if they spot flashing red lights in their rearview mirrors in this Sacramento suburb during the holiday season.
Police are stopping law-abiding motorists and rewarding their good driving with $5 Starbucks gift cards.
A traffic officer came up with the idea to "promote the holiday spirit and enhance goodwill between the traffic unit and the motoring public," police Sgt. Tim Curran said.
Local businesses donated money to buy the gift cards.
"They raised a substantial amount of money," Curran said. "They'll be pulling over a lot of people."
I don't like this precedent. This sounds a lot like being pulled over for no reason.
The Disney Blog: College course to study Disney as a religion
Topic: Society
10:51 am EST, Dec 18, 2007
It's something I've pondered for a while, heck I even have a category called "Disneyism" on the blog to track it, does Disney fandom ever cross the lines into religion? Well now Jennifer Porter (homepage), a Canadian professor, is prepared to study that issue in a course at Memorial University in St. John's.
The theme park productions, fireworks displays and so on always involve a morality tale and a requirement of the audience to believe in the power of good, and believe in the power of wishes," she said.
I know theres a temple below disneyland with the severed head of Walt Disney.
The entire cast of Karate Kid (minus Miyagi) re-assemble for this music video re-creation of the climactic events depicted in the film, with a surprise ending.
Girl born with 8 limbs leaves hospital - Yahoo! News
Topic: Health and Wellness
2:03 pm EST, Dec 17, 2007
BANGALORE, India - A 2-year-old girl who was born with four arms and four legs left a hospital in southern India on Saturday, little more than a month after surgeons successfully removed her extra limbs. ADVERTISEMENT
The surgeon who led more than 30 doctors in the marathon surgery said Lakshmi was making good progress and should be mobile soon.
"Lakshmi is fine and stable," chief surgeon Dr. Sharan Patil told The Associated Press. "She should face no problem in walking."
I wonder if she still has godlike powers, or if those were in the dead twin.
WHO to investigate Pakistan bird flu - Yahoo! News
Topic: Health and Wellness
1:51 pm EST, Dec 17, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - International health experts have been dispatched to Pakistan to help investigate the cause of South Asia's first outbreak of bird flu in people and determine if the virus could have been transmitted through human contact, officials said Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT
Four brothers — two of whom died — and two cousins from Abbotabad, a small city about 30 miles north of Islamabad, were suspected of being infected by the H5N1 virus, said WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl in Geneva. A man and his niece from the same area who had slaughtered chickens were also suspected of having the virus.
Another person in a separate case who slaughtered poultry in nearby Mansehra, 15 miles away, also tested positive for the disease, he said.
Details surrounding the cases remained confusing, with Pakistan's Health Ministry issuing a statement Saturday saying six people had initially tested positive for the virus last month, while the WHO said eight had been reported. Hartl said the discrepancy was likely linked to a technicality since six patients had tested positive using an internationally recommended method while a less reliable test was used on the others.
The fit may have just shit the fan. Merry Christmas! I hear gas-masks are the new hot item.
Dad sells son's 90-dollar video game online for more than 9000 - Yahoo! News
Topic: Games
1:45 pm EST, Dec 17, 2007
MONTREAL (AFP) - After catching his 15-year-old smoking pot, a father sold the hard-to-get "Guitar Hero III" video game he bought his son for 90 dollars for Christmas at an online auction, fetching 9,000 dollars.
The sale took place after the father spent two weeks searching for the video game for the Nintendo Wii gameboard.
"So I was so relieved in that I had finally got the Holy Grail of Christmas presents pretty much just in the nick of time. I couldn't wait to spread the jubilance to my son," the father wrote on the eBay website.
"Then, yesterday, I came home from work early and what do I find? My innocent little boy smoking pot in the back yard with two of his delinquent friends."
The man, a school teacher, who kept his identity private, said he sold the coveted video game to punish his son and discourage him from smoking dope.
The sale was a boon for the family's bank account, since the game the father purchased for 90 dollars (US) was finally sold to an Australian who plunked down 9,100 dollars for it.
The naughty son, however, will not go without a present on Christmas.
"I am still considering getting him a game for his Nintendo. Maybe something like Barbie as the Island Princess or Dancing with the Stars ... I know he will just love them," the father said, tongue-in-cheek.
AKRON -- It looks and fires like something out of Star Wars, but the latest weapon that Akron Police have in their arsenal certainly appears to be from a galaxy far, far away. It's called "Corner Shot", and it allows officers to load their sidearm into an expandable arm that extends around a corner. Using a video monitor to see that target, the officer can fire a round at a 90-degree angle while staying protected behind cover.
Sort of cowardly. If crooks get these too, shoot-outs are going to become real pointless.
Imagine enjoying a friendly lunch with co-workers at the company restaurant. Now imagine every bite, sip and swallow being monitored by company researchers, in a kind of culinary Big Brother scenario.
That's the reality at the new Dutch Restaurant of the Future, where 23 cameras track customers' every move. Facial recognition technologies record every smile and every frown, and a scale built into the floor weighs customers as they check out. Specially designed chairs note diners' heart rate as they get their first taste.
It's all part of a life-size, 10-year social science experiment designed to answer one seemingly simple question: Why do we consume the way we do?
"We're trying to understand what the underlying factors of eating and drinking habits are," said Rene Koster, the project manager and an economist at Wageningen University, which hosts the restaurant.
Why do I have the feeling that this will be ultimately be used for something more ominous?
Schneier on Security: Defeating the Shoe Scanning Machine at Heathrow Airport
Topic: War on Terrorism
11:51 am EST, Dec 17, 2007
Defeating the Shoe Scanning Machine at Heathrow Airport
For a while now, Heathrow Airport has had a unique setup for scanning shoes. Instead of taking your shoes off during the normal screening process, as you do in U.S. airports, you go through the metal detector with your shoes on. Then, later, there is a special shoe scanning X-ray machine. You take your shoes off, send them through the machine, and put them on at the other end.
It's definitely faster, but it's an easy system to defeat. The vulnerability is that no one verifies that the shoes you walked through the metal detector with are the same shoes you put on the scanning machine.
Here's how the attack works. Assume that you have two pairs of shoes: a clean pair that passes all levels of screening, and a dangerous pair that doesn't. (Ignore for a moment the ridiculousness of screening shoes in the first place, and assume that an X-ray machine can detect the dangerous pair.) Put the dangerous shoes on your feet and the clean shoes in your carry-on bag. Walk through the metal detector. Then, at the shoe X-ray machine, take the dangerous shoes off and put them in your bag, and take the clean shoes out of your bag and place them on the X-ray machine. You've now managed to get through security without having your shoes screened.
This works because the two security systems are decoupled. And the shoe screening machine is so crowded and chaotic, and so poorly manned, that no one notices the switch.
U.S. airports force people to put their shoes through the X-ray machine and walk through the metal detector shoeless, ensuring that all shoes get screened. That might be slower, but it works.
EDITED TO ADD (12/14): Heathrow Terminal 3, that is. The system wasn't in place in Terminal 4, and I don't know about Terminals 1 and 2.
