Bizarre News

[Sir William S Titan]

this isn't gonna make the italians happy!

Perhaps not. But, to me, the Pisa tower will remain the leaning tower. I'll, likely, forget about this German steeple in a month.

[Elvin]

Now that's interesting:

Watch it, Tom! Experts find fearless Jerries

Fear may be linked to the sense of smell, and can be switched off simply by shutting down certain receptors in the brain, Japanese scientists have found.

In an experiment with mice, the researchers identified and removed certain receptors on the olfactory bulb of their brains -- and the result was a batch of fearless rodents.

To prove their point, the scientists showed pictures of a brown mouse within an inch of a cat, sniffing up its ear, kissing it and playing with its predator's collar.

"They detect the smell of predators ... like a cat and urine of a fox or snow leopard, but they don't display any fear. They even show very strong curiosity but they can't tell the smell is a sign of danger," said Hitoshi Sakano at the University of Tokyo's department of biophysics and biochemistry.

"So these mice are very happy with cats. They play with cats. But before taking the picture, we had to feed the cat," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Experts have long thought that fear in animals may be prompted by their keen sense of smell.

But this is the first time scientists have discovered that smell detection and how that translates to fear take place in different parts of the olfactory bulb.

"How do our brains interpret the odorous information? What we found is that in the mammalian system, there are two circuits, one is innate and one is associative learning for detecting smells," Sakano said.

Sakano and his colleagues created two lines of mice -- one lacking the receptors to translate odors and the other lacking receptors for smell detection. They were then exposed to the urine of predators such as snow leopards and foxes.

"(The first group) keeps smelling and they turn around and they show very strong curiosity but they never can tell any danger," Sakano said.

As for the second group, Sakano said: "They are very poor in detecting smell, but as soon as they detect the fox urine, they would freeze and they will pretend to be dead.

"They are very poor in detecting smell, discriminating them and associating their memory with detecting information. They are very slow. But when they do, they can immediately tell the danger."

Mice have about 1,000 smell receptor genes, while humans have only 400 functioning ones and about 800 non-active ones, he said.

"Our sense of smell in us is bad. We can't detect this year's wine from last year's," he said.

[asandir]

scary isn't it

[ThunderTitan]

Also, blind people don't get scared of images, news at 11...

[asandir]

Celeb chef whips up six kilo cookbook

Star French chef Alain Ducasse, who runs an empire of gourmet kitchens the world over, this week delivered a mammoth culinary treat - a 1,136-page cookbook weighing in at six kilograms.

The Grand Livre de Cuisine (Big Cookbook) gathers more than 500 recipes from 60 chefs toiling in Ducasse restaurants from Paris to Tokyo, Las Vegas and London. It also comes with a whopping price tag of 215 euros ($355).

Like many of Ducasse's own intricate recipes, some in the book require a fabulous amount of ingredients.

An Australian barramundi dished up with a "geometry of vegetables and a strong cocoa sauce" lists 35 ingredients including the fish.

Famed for having two three-stars in the Michelin Red Guide - in Paris and Monaco - Ducasse this month opens at London's Dorchester and next month takes over the prized Jules Verne restaurant in the Eiffel Tower.

[winterfate]

35 ingredients?

I'll stick to ham and cheese sandwiches, thank you very much!

[asandir]

Heffernan named Australia's most sexist

Senator Bill Heffernan has been awarded a Golden Ernie at an annual Sydney awards ceremony highlighting sexist comments by Australian public figures.

The award is decided in a boo-off by a riotous audience of New South Wales women politicians, business and community leaders.

The controversial Liberal took out this year's award for his description of deputy Labor leader Julia Gillard as "deliberately barren".

Ernies founder, state Upper House member Meredith Burgman, says Senator Heffernan faced tough competition for the award.

"He's up against Joe Hockey for saying: 'Well, it's exhausting for me, her being pregnant - I don't know why during the birth process they only focus on the women'," she said.

[Ethric]

Man marries b1tch to atone for his sin

A classic, that one

edit: eh, female dogs not allowed?

[ScarlettP]

While the bridegroom and his relatives had a sumptuous meal the bridal dog was given a bun.

*sigh* The Bride always ends up on the short side of the stick.

[ThunderTitan]

Women Indicted for Stealing Candy from Kids --- on Halloween --- at Gunpoint

It's bad enough for adults to steal candy from kids, but to do it on Halloween is even worse. And to have to resort to using a gun? What could possibly be more heinous?

Kendra Grace Butts, 18, and Amber Marie Martin, 20, both of Wasilla, Alaska -- were indicted Friday on seven counts of robbery, one of attempted robbery and eight of assault.

According to state troopers, the robbery occurred around 5:15 p.m. Oct. 31, according to troopers. A Dodge truck drove past the children, made a U-turn and returned. Two women wearing ski masks exited the truck. One pointed a gun at the children and fired a warning shot into the air.

The women told the children to hand over their candy or be killed, the children told troopers.
Although this crime is the easiest to prosecute, as they have the children as witnesses, the pair and their boyfriends, Michael Scott Wilson and Aaron J. Tolen, both 24, have been linked to a string of burglaries in the Upper Susitna Valley area.

Personally, I wonder if the women just had the "munchies," if you get my drift.

[Elvin]

Like stealing candy from a baby

[ThunderTitan]

Suicide Bombing Makes Sick Sense in Halo 3

I used to find it hard to fully imagine the mind-set of a terrorist.

That is, until I played Halo 3 online, where I found myself adopting -- with great success -- terrorist tactics. Including a form of suicide bombing.

This probably bears some explanation. I'll begin by pointing out a basic fact: A lot of teenage kids out there play dozens of hours of multiplayer Halo a week. They thus become insanely good at the game: They can kill me with a single head shot from halfway across a map -- or expertly circle me while jumping around, making it impossible for me to land a shot, while they pulverize me with bullets.

I can't do those things. I haven't got enough time to practice as they do: I'm an adult, with a job and wife and kid, so I get maybe an hour with Halo on a good day. I wind up sucking far, far more than most other Halo 3 players, and despite the best attempts of Xbox Live to match me up with similarly lame players, I usually wind up at the bottom of my group's rankings -- stumbling haplessly about while getting slaughtered over and over again.

So after a few weeks of this ritual humiliation, I got sick of it. And I devised a simple technique for revenge.

Whenever I find myself under attack by a wildly superior player, I stop trying to duck and avoid their fire. Instead, I turn around and run straight at them. I know that by doing so, I'm only making it easier for them to shoot me -- and thus I'm marching straight into the jaws of death. Indeed, I can usually see my health meter rapidly shrinking to zero.

But at the last second, before I die, I'll whip out a sticky plasma grenade -- and throw it at them. Because I've run up so close, I almost always hit my opponent successfully. I'll die -- but he'll die too, a few seconds later when the grenade goes off. (When you pull off the trick, the game pops up a little dialog box noting that you killed someone "from beyond the grave.")

It was after pulling this maneuver a couple of dozen times that it suddenly hit me: I had, quite unconsciously, adopted the tactics of a suicide bomber -- or a kamikaze pilot.

It's not just that I'm willing to sacrifice my life to kill someone else. It's that I'm exploiting the psychology of asymmetrical warfare.

Because after all, the really elite Halo players don't want to die. If they die too often, they won't win the round, and if they don't win the round, they won't advance up the Xbox Live rankings. And for the elite players, it's all about bragging rights.

I, however, have a completely different psychology. I know I'm the underdog; I know I'm probably going to get killed anyway. I am never going to advance up the Halo 3 rankings, because in the political economy of Halo, I'm poor.

Specifically, I'm poor in time. The best players have dozens of free hours a week to hone their talents, and I don't have that luxury. This changes the relative meaning of death for the two of us. For me, dying will not penalize me in the way it penalizes them, because I have almost no chance of improving my state. I might as well take people down with me.

Or to put it another way: The structure of Xbox Live creates a world composed of two classes -- haves and have-nots. And, just as in the real world, some of the disgruntled have-nots are all too willing to toss their lives away -- just for the satisfaction of momentarily halting the progress of the haves. Since the game instantly resurrects me, I have no real dread of death in Halo 3.

I do not mean, of course, to trivialize the ghastly, horrific impact of real-life suicide bombing. Nor do I mean to gloss over the incredible complexity of the real-life personal, geopolitical and spiritual reasons why suicide bombers are willing to kill themselves. These are all impossibly more nuanced and perverse than what's happening inside a trifling, low-stakes videogame.

But the fact remains that something quite interesting happened to me because of Halo. Even though I've read scores of articles, white papers and books on the psychology of terrorists in recent years, and even though I have (I think) a strong intellectual grasp of the roots of suicide terrorism, something about playing the game gave me an "aha" moment that I'd never had before: an ability to feel, in whatever tiny fashion, the strategic logic and emotional calculus behind the act.

And the truth is, I'm probably going to keep doing it. Because when it comes to online Halo -- I still suck.

And some visual aid:

[Elvin]

Lol!

[asandir]

that is rather amusing

Saudi prince splashes out on 'Flying Palace'

Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has become the first person to buy the ultimate status symbol - his own A380 superjumbo.

Airbus has named the Saudi royal, whose interests span hotels and banking to the operator of Disneyland Paris, as the mystery buyer of a VIP version dubbed the 'Flying Palace'.

Leg room will not be a problem on the Flying Palace, which has 551 square metres of floor space, enough to hold the ballroom of London's Savoy Hotel - which the prince owns.

Sales of private jets are booming amid security concerns.

Boeing has three VIP clients who have bought five of its latest giant, the 747-8 Intercontinental which is due to enter service with airlines in 2010, a Boeing spokesman said.

Prince bin Talal is the world's 13th richest person, according to Forbes magazine, and US banking group Citigroup's largest individual shareholder.

The buyer's identity had been secret for months.

[ThunderTitan]

Bah... unless it's a real flying palace (Netherese like) it's not worth it...

[Omega_Destroyer]

Real Police Cross Over Into Virtual World Again; Arrest Teen For Theft Of Virtual Furniture
from the bad-precedent dept

Just a few weeks ago, we pointed to a lawsuit involving two Second Life users, with one accusing the other of "theft." We pointed out, as we have for quite some time, how problematic it is when real world laws are applied within a virtual world. The point of a virtual world is that anything is possible -- and putting the constraints of the real world on those worlds not only seems counterproductive, but potentially dangerous. That Second Life lawsuit was between two users, but over in the UK, a similar situation has gone even further: involving the police.

The police have arrested a teenager accused of "stealing" virtual furniture from another player in the virtual world Habbo Hotel. Again, it's true that the virtual furniture has real monetary value, but it's the sort of thing that should be taken care of within the framework of Habbo Hotel. The folks who run the world should be able to deal with the situation, as they are the world's de facto government. If you don't think this is a problem that's going to get more and more problematic, then just start to think through the scenarios of what happens next. What happens in an online virtual world where "theft" is designed to be a part of the gameplay? Can players then call the real cops when they lose in the game? That situation may be a bit more black and white, but many of these virtual worlds are designed to be defined by the users. So what if the users decide that "theft" is a part of the gameplay? What if some users decide it is and others don't? Bringing real world laws and real world cops into virtual worlds is guaranteed to cause problems.

[ThunderTitan]

Call the cops quickly... he stole my pixels.

SL is stupid anyhow.

[asandir]

oh dear, that's just super sad

[Omega_Destroyer]

Not as sad as this:

Poll: NYU Students Would Sell Their Right to Vote for Free Tuition
Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Sixty-six percent of NYU students would sell their right to vote in the next presidential election in exchange for a year's tuition at the pricey private university, Politico.com reported Tuesday.

According to the report, a survey of 3,000 students conducted by an NYU undergraduate journalism class found that an overwhelming majority of those polled said their right to vote could be for sale; in addition to the 66 percent who said they'd trade their vote for a free year of college, 20 percent said they'd exchange their vote for an Ipod Touch. Half of the students polled said they'd forfeit their right to vote forever for $1 million.

Dalton Conley, chairman of NYU's sociology department, told Politico.com that the results are actually encouraging. The high price tag most students put on their vote showed that they actually think the right to vote is very valuable and important.

Only a fool would find such results encouraging.

[asandir]

Bankrupt shop owners strip in protest

Small businesses owners who say they went bankrupt because of the design of a Lend Lease shopping centre have stripped down to their underwear in protest outside the company's annual general meeting.

More than 80 businesses went bankrupt at the Erina Fair complex on the New South Wales Central Coast in 2003.

Several of the protesters, who say their livelihoods have been destroyed, held placards saying "Lend Lease Took The Shirt Off My Back" outside the Sydney meeting.

The president of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, John Farrel, says Lend Lease's design of the complex doomed the businesses from the start and the tenants deserve compensation.

"In the case of Erina Fair, they built what we call a 'black hole'," he said.

"Part of the establishment didn't work at all and people put millions of dollars into setting it up and basically went out of business.

"Eight of 10 of the people in that business went out of business within 12 months."

The spokeswoman for the Erina Fair Tenant's Action Group, Joanne Howarth, says many of the affected people have attempted suicide, had family breakdowns and lost their homes.

"There's people in Erina that as a result of this conduct, they can't feed their children," she said.

Inside the meeting, Lend Lease's chairman David Crawford has told shareholders the demands of the protesters have become unrealistic.

"That protest is part of a media campaign, led by a former tenant at Erina Fair, to try and extract undue compensation from the centre's owners and Lend Lease as manager," he said.