Bizarre News

[gravyluvr]

While we're on the subject of virae, I've been receiving several to my hotmail account, especially from a55a55in and Angelspit.

So you're tired of getting email from them?

[Panda Tar]

I'm getting some of those too, although they're not from any of these boards, like yourself, Kalah.

But IT IS from a MSN contact as well. Maybe they just don't like you.

[theLuckyDragon]

Since this is the Bizzare thread and things have deviated a bit towards e-mail... I once received an e-mail from Kofi Anan "himself".

[Corribus]

Back on topic:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060222/D8FU7HVO0.html

Girl Weds Dog to Ward Off 'Evil Eye'

NEW DELHI (AP) - A 7-year-old girl wed a stray dog as part of a ritual to ward off the "evil eye" on her and her family in eastern India, a news agency reported Wednesday.

Shivam Munda's upper teeth appeared before her lower teeth - considered a bad omen by members of the Santhal ethnic group to which she belongs, the Press Trust of India said in a report from Dhanbad, a coal mining town in the eastern state of Bihar.

Kundan Munda, a coal mine worker, said his daughter married the dog only to "remove the evil eye," a superstitious belief that some misfortune could befall her and the family, and that she would be free to marry a man later.

Friends and family participated in three days of traditional ceremonies and festivities that are part of a Santhal tribal marriage, Munda said, according to the report.

[Corribus]

Well today I think I just have to post two, because this is just too funny..

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060222/D8FUDQ1OE.html

School Pig Castration Sparks Protests

Feb 22, 4:51 PM (ET)


ROSAMOND, Calif. (AP) - A teacher who castrated a live pig in front of her high school class is the target of protests by animal rights activists throughout the country.

The protests began after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals posted information about the incident at Rosamond High School on its Web site last month. The posting does not say when the castration occurred.

"We're concerned not only because animals suffer during these routine castrations but also because of the message it sends to students who are still forming opinions about treatment of animals in our society," said Stephanie Bell, a PETA cruelty case worker.

Rod Van Norman, superintendent of the Southern Kern Unified School District school in the Mojave Desert about 70 miles north of Los Angeles, said animal castrations often occur in agriculture classes and are an important skill for students to learn.

"I don't know why they're picking on a little school district," he said.

Charles Parker, assistant state Future Farmers of America adviser at the California Department of Education, said anesthesia is not normally used during pig castrations, which are done to calm male animals, prevent them from breeding and improve meat quality.

Bell said she hopes the nationwide attention will prompt the school district to reconsider teaching castration.

Van Norman said that's not likely. None of the complaints have come from parents of district students, he said.

A posting on PETA's Web site, however, says the organization learned of the castration from Rosamond parents, who reported that one student vomited after observing the procedure and others were extremely upset.

[ThunderTitan]

A posting on PETA's Web site, however, says the organization learned of the castration from Rosamond parents, who reported that one student vomited after observing the procedure and others were extremely upset.

Duh.... poor emasculated pig.

[DaemianLucifer]

I hate PETA!Really why dont they find something constructive to do with their lives?Like raising food for starving people.They raise such a fuss about nonsenseness.Why dont they protests church then?Bible is so full of animal sacrifices,and yet I havent heard PETA ever complaining about that!But when someone small does somethin "cruel" they immidiatelly want to linch them!Bah,hypocrits!

[Corribus]

DL, you will find the following sites amusing, to say the least:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=grill
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=sponsor
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=eatme
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=animals

The guy's a total ass, but he's funny - I'll give him that.

[DaemianLucifer]

Heh!Ive read the whole maddox some time ago.He is an ass,but he does make a lot of good points.

[Mutare Drake]

School Pig Castration Sparks Protests

Oh good lord. C'mon, nearly everyone who's got a dog or cat had it spayed/castrated...and expecting anesthesia? They don't always knock livestock out for that...just hold 'em still and get in there with the elastrator. It's not the most pleasant sight, I'll agree, but unless the school forced the kids to watch and refused to let them leave if they got sick, there's no reason to complain. What does PETA want, for people to not neuter animals and have billions of strays wandering around? (that doesn't entirely apply to pigs, but close enough)

[Caradoc]

For all those quantum mechanics in the forum:

Quantum computer solves problem, without running program

By combining quantum computation and quantum interrogation, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have found an exotic way of determining an answer to an algorithm – without ever running the algorithm.

Using an optical-based quantum computer, a research team led by physicist Paul Kwiat has presented the first demonstration of "counterfactual computation," inferring information about an answer, even though the computer did not run. The researchers report their work in the Feb. 23 issue of Nature.

Quantum computers have the potential for solving certain types of problems much faster than classical computers. Speed and efficiency are gained because quantum bits can be placed in superpositions of one and zero, as opposed to classical bits, which are either one or zero. Moreover, the logic behind the coherent nature of quantum information processing often deviates from intuitive reasoning, leading to some surprising effects.

"It seems absolutely bizarre that counterfactual computation – using information that is counter to what must have actually happened – could find an answer without running the entire quantum computer," said Kwiat, a John Bardeen Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at Illinois. "But the nature of quantum interrogation makes this amazing feat possible."

Sometimes called interaction-free measurement, quantum interrogation is a technique that makes use of wave-particle duality (in this case, of photons) to search a region of space without actually entering that region of space.

Utilizing two coupled optical interferometers, nested within a third, Kwiat's team succeeded in counterfactually searching a four-element database using Grover's quantum search algorithm. "By placing our photon in a quantum superposition of running and not running the search algorithm, we obtained information about the answer even when the photon did not run the search algorithm," said graduate student Onur Hosten, lead author of the Nature paper. "We also showed theoretically how to obtain the answer without ever running the algorithm, by using a 'chained Zeno' effect."

Through clever use of beam splitters and both constructive and destructive interference, the researchers can put each photon in a superposition of taking two paths. Although a photon can occupy multiple places simultaneously, it can only make an actual appearance at one location. Its presence defines its path, and that can, in a very strange way, negate the need for the search algorithm to run.

"In a sense, it is the possibility that the algorithm could run which prevents the algorithm from running," Kwiat said. "That is at the heart of quantum interrogation schemes, and to my mind, quantum mechanics doesn't get any more mysterious than this."

[DaemianLucifer]

Ah,quantum physics is such a pain to think about.But at the same time it is so easy to understand

[Gaidal Cain]

Ah,quantum physics is such a pain to think about.But at the same time it is so easy to understand

"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood a single word."
-Niels Bohr

[Corribus]

Hmmm... If only I could be at work without actually being here.

[ThunderTitan]

Actualy, if I understood it even a bit, you would be both at work and not, but no one would actualy notice you, just that the work was done.

[Corribus]

Actualy, if I understood it even a bit, you would be both at work and not, but no one would actualy notice you, just that the work was done.

That would be fine, too.

[ThunderTitan]

I'm not actualy sure if you would actualy exert yourself or not, so you might actualy do twice as much work or something (or do the work and relax at the same time). Quantum physics makes my brain bleed....

[theLuckyDragon]

... or not It's an interesting read. Or not.
My my, quantum physics might prove to be good for comedy as well.

[DaemianLucifer]

Hmmm... If only I could be at work without actually being here.

If you live by yourself,then technically most of the time you are at work,you are at home at the same time.Until someone enters your apartment and finds out that you are not there.

[Corribus]

Been a while since I posted the news! Yikes, there's a lot to catch up on. Here are two.

http://reuters.myway.com/article/200602 ... OR-DC.html

His lost wedding ring story is no croc...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Pieter Abrahamse has an original excuse for a lost wedding ring: a crocodile ate it, along with the arm it was attached to.

"He took my wedding ring, I suppose he ate it up," Abrahamse told Reuters by telephone from his hospital Monday as he recounted his life-or-death struggle with a man-eating reptile.

The 47-year-old farm manager had the lower part of his left arm torn off in the attack last Thursday on a citrus plantation in South Africa's northern Limpopo province.

But he's counting his blessings as he could easily have lost his life.

"I took my horse for an evening swim in one of the farm dams. There are lots of crocs and hippos in the area but they move around all the time, from dam to dam and into the river and out again," he said.

"I was on the lookout for hippos and didn't see any. It slipped my mind that there might be crocodiles," he said.

He was standing belly-deep in water about 5 metres from the shore when he felt a biting jolt in his left hip. He said thought it was a hippo but quickly realized it was a crocodile.

"I started to fight immediately. So I hit him with my left arm and then he went for my left forearm," Abrahamse said.

"It pulled me under the water for a few seconds and I knew this was his biggest advantage. I realized if I didn't stand up my wife will never find me again," he said.

Somehow, he managed to stumble to his feet and then he felt the crocodile lose its grip.

"What I didn't realize at the time was that it had let go because it had taken part of my left arm off," he said.

With his right arm, Abrahamse then grabbed the rope of his horse, which fortunately for him chose that moment to take flight, dragging him to safety.

Abrahamse then walked 200 metres to his house and his wife drove him 60 kms (40 miles) to the nearest hospital.

"I'm lucky, I didn't lose too much blood ... The biggest problem with a croc bite is it can be septic. They never brush their teeth," said Abrahamse.

And when he gets out of the hospital does he plan to look for the culprit? "Oh yes, I'll be looking for him alright," he said with a laugh.


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060228/D8G2E3P81.html

Woman Pleads Guilty in Cheese Hit Man Plot

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - A woman pleaded guilty Monday to attempted murder charges for trying to hire a hit man to rob and kill four men for what she thought was cocaine, but turned out to be cheese.

Jessice Sandy Booth, 18, hatched the plot after she visited the home of the men, and mistook queso fresco - a white, crumbly cheese common in Mexican cuisine.

But the hit man she hired turned out to be an undercover police officer.

"They asked her numerous times 'Do you really want to go through with this?'" prosecutor Paul Hagerman said. "They gave her numerous chances to back out, but she said she was serious. She said she needed the money for modeling school."

Booth pleaded guilty Monday to four counts of attempted first-degree murder and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. She would be eligible for parole after serving 20 percent of her sentence, but it generally isn't granted on first request for violent crimes.

Booth planned to take part in the murders, and went with a police officer to buy a handgun. She told investigators that she planned to make sure all possible witnesses were killed.

"Then they would have been murdered, too," Booth said about children or other bystanders in her statement to investigators. "If they would have been babies they would not have been able to talk and then they would not have been murdered."