Bizarre News

[ThunderTitan]

Staring in the Abyss... such a good idea. Of course i guess that would assure a place for those with the inclination to torture people.

And no society ever had any nice punishments for even the most mundane crimes...

What i wonder is when will society realize that monsters are made, not born...

[MistWeaver]

Staring in the Abyss... such a good idea. Of course i guess that would assure a place for those with the inclination to torture people.

Philosophy is nice thing, no doublt, too bad that sometimes real world is far more complicated. And btw, making someone's death anguished - doesnt need direct involvement.

And no society ever had any nice punishments for even the most mundane crimes...

I give you a "F" on "History"

What i wonder is when will society realize that monsters are made, not born...

Yeah, right .. blame Canada.

[asandir]

don't we always?

[asandir]

Crank callers invite Sarkozy to 'dinner of fools'
Two Canadian comedians have fooled France's president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy with a crank phone call.

The 'Masked Defenders' - Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel - called Mr Sarkozy pretending to be Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The caller apologised for his poor French skills and invited Mr Sarkozy to visit Canada to eat a popular Quebec dish of fries, cheese curds and gravy.

Mr Sarkozy accepted, but hung up when the comedian suggested they invite the US President George W Bush and said he had always wanted to host a "dinner of fools".

The comedians played a similar prank on France's outgoing President Jacques Chirac last year.

and

Police nab wheelchair man on motorway brothel trip
Spanish police pulled over a man in a electric wheelchair who was riding along on a motorway after he got lost while looking for a brothel.

The 42-year-old man, who is tetraplegic, used his chin and mouth to drive the specially-designed wheelchair which keeps him in a stretched position, regional newspaper El Ideal Callego reported.

He was stopped by police while travelling "at considerable speed" on the highway linking Ferrol with As Pontes in the north-western Spanish region of Galicia.

A policewoman in the town of Naron in Galicia said the man was not driving at excessive velocity, "but he nonetheless posed an obvious danger to traffic and to himself."

The man was taken to a police station where he was tested for alcohol. The test turned out negative.

[ThunderTitan]

And btw, making someone's death anguished - doesn't need direct involvement.

Pushing a button only means you don't see it... which reduces the psych dmg that makes you depressed, which is why the germans started using gas chambers instead of bullets.

I give you a "F" on "History"

See, that's the problem with the USA, you only have one grade for failure.

Crank callers invite Sarkozy to 'dinner of fools'

Saw this one in a free paper over here...

[asandir]

Star Trek Scotty's ashes go missing
Beaming him up was the easy part - the problem was transporting him back to Earth.

A search team continues to look for a rocket carrying ashes of the actor James Doohan, who played Scotty on Star Trek, almost two weeks after it hurtled to the edge of space from New Mexico.

Remains of the Canadian-born actor, who died two years ago at the age of 85, blasted off from a remote launch site on April 29 carrying a payload that included the ashes of astronaut Gordon Cooper and several experiments.

A spokeswoman for Houston-based Space Services Inc, which organised the "memorial spaceflight," says the telephone-pole sized rocket descended by parachute into a rugged area that a search team has repeatedly failed to reach.

"The terrain is very mountainous; it's not somewhere that you can walk or drive to. My understanding is that it will take some time to get up into there," Susan Schonfeld said.

"They know the general location, and we have the utmost confidence that they will recover it."

Schonfeld says the search had been hampered by "horrendous" weather in the desert state, but expected the Up Aerospace Spaceloft XL craft to be recovered in coming days.

Doohan played the starship Enterprise's chief engineer Montgomery Scott in the original 1966-1969 Star Trek television series.

He inspired the legendary catch phrase "Beam me up, Scotty" - even though it was never actually uttered on the show.

Hundreds of spectators clapped and cheered as his ashes roared aloft along with those of some 200 other people, including astronaut Gordon Cooper, who first went into space in 1963 and died in 2004 at age 77.

[ThunderTitan]

Hey... i wanted to post that. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18594384/?GT1=9951

[Corribus]

This one's REALLY stupid (see a picture by following the link):

'Do I look fat in this picture?' Copies of paper with bare-belly photo vanish

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. - Two female college students who bared their bellies at a lacrosse game couldn't stomach a front-page newspaper photo of their stunt and now are in trouble for swiping copies, campus officials said.

They apparently felt the photo made them look fat, the paper's faculty adviser said.

The photo in the April 27 edition of the Gatepost at Framingham State College shows seven fans at a women's lacrosse game with "I (heart) N-O-O-N-A-N," the name of a friend on the team, spelled out on their stomachs. They are wearing hip-hugger shorts and abbreviated tank tops.

Campus police won't pursue criminal charges, but two students face possible disciplinary action, college spokesman Peter Chisholm said.

English professor Desmond McCarthy, the faculty adviser, said he was told by other students the women who took the papers thought they looked fat.

"This is the most stupid reason the paper has been stolen," said McCarthy, adding that editions of the Gatepost have been stolen four times in the past 15 years.

Megan Turner, the Gatepost's editor in chief, said about half of the 2,000-paper press run disappeared, though Chisholm said the number was far lower, perhaps 150.

"I just kind of got caught up in the moment and grabbed a whole bunch of copies," 18-year-old Jennifer Carsillo, a freshman from Salem, Conn., told the Boston Globe. She says she took around 130 copies, but then gave them to campus police and apologized a few days later.

Chisholm declined to identify the second woman.

Freshman Courtney Wall, who was in the photo, told the Associated Press the other women in the photo thought the paper swipe was "dumb," and that she's upset to be associated with the theft through the picture.

"If I went out dressed like that, I don't care if it's in the paper, obviously," she said. "I don't see a problem with the picture. I see a problem with me getting in trouble for something I didn't do."

[ThunderTitan]

Now those are some fat 'ho's right there...

[Panda Tar]

http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/PlanetaBiz ... 91,00.html

Here, in Thailand they are trying to stimulate the panda to have sex, like that time in China (which was successful ). He'll be trained for more 7 days before the D-Day, when they'll treat the problem in another way.

The poor panda is being trained...oh, boy.

Another news about pandas is that in China they are feeding them with apples (yes, APPLES!! *histerically*) to keep them calm, while examinating. Pandas don't like to be bit by sedatives, so they are distracting them with apples.

What a shame!

[asandir]

man, those panda's sure get some play!

as for the ladies and the swiping .... so they don't mind a few hundred people seeing them in person at the game, but have a problem with being seen in a pic by a few hundred more?? dumb, dumb, dumb!

Map of Virgin's shrine offers pilgrims sex ads
Pilgrims to a holy shrine in Portugal are being given free maps of the site that show the Virgin Mary on one side and adverts for sex aids and aphrodisiacs on the other.

The maps, thought up by an advertising company, have raised eyebrows among the Catholic faithful and ire from the authorities at the popular Sanctuary of Fatima.

"The map is not official and makes the wrong use of the picture of the Virgin Mary," a shrine spokeswoman said on Friday.

"The Sanctuary is saddened and will carry out the necessary measures to end its distribution."

Thousands of pilgrims are expected to travel on foot to Fatima on Sunday to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the first appearance of the Virgin Mary to three shepherd children on a hillside near the town, 120 kilometres north of Lisbon.

About 3.5 million people flock to the shrine every year.

One of the children who reported to have seen visions of the Virgin Mary later became a nun and is said to have foretold the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981.

The pontiff later placed one of the bullets that nearly killed him in the crown of the statue of Fatima.

[ThunderTitan]

Google may use games to analyse net users


· Players' behaviour could be used by advertisers
· Tracking idea disturbs privacy campaigners

David Adam and Bobbie Johnson
Saturday May 12, 2007
The Guardian

Internet giant Google has drawn up plans to compile psychological profiles of millions of web users by covertly monitoring the way they play online games.

The company thinks it can glean information about an individual's preferences and personality type by tracking their online behaviour, which could then be sold to advertisers. Details such as whether a person is more likely to be aggressive, hostile or dishonest could be obtained and stored for future use, it says.

The move is intended to customize adverts shown to players of online video games by tailoring them to specific tastes and interests. But it has worried privacy campaigners, who said the implications of compiling and storing such detailed information were "alarming".

Sue Charman of online campaign Open Rights Group said: "I can understand why they are interested in this, but I would be deeply disturbed by a company holding a psychological profile.

"Whenever you have large amounts of information it becomes attractive to people - we've already seen the American federal government going to court over data from companies including Google."

The plans are detailed in a patent filed by Google in Europe and the US last month. It says people playing online role playing games such as Second Life and World of Warcraft would be particularly good to target, because they interact with other players and make decisions that probably reflect their behaviour in real life.

The patent says: "User dialogue (eg from role playing games, simulation games, etc) may be used to characterise the user (eg literate, profane, blunt or polite, quiet etc). Also, user play may be used to characterise the user (eg cautious, risk-taker, aggressive, non-confrontational, stealthy, honest, cooperative, uncooperative, etc)."

The information could be used to make adverts that appear inside the game more "relevant to the user", Google says.

Players who spend a lot of time exploring "may be interested in vacations, so the system may show ads for vacations". And those who spend more time talking to other characters will see adverts for mobile phones.

The patent says Google could also monitor people playing on any game console that hooks up to the internet, including the Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft's Xbox. It says information could be retrieved from previous game details saved on memory cards: "Such saved information may be thought of state information, and offers a valuable source of information to the advertisers."

Not all the inferences made by monitoring user activity rely on subtle psychological clues, however. "In a car racing game, after a user crashes his Honda Civic, an announcer could be used to advertise by saying 'if he had a Hummer, he would have gotten the better of that altercation', etc," the patent says. And: "If the user has been playing for over two hours continuously, the system may display ads for Pizza Hut, Coke, coffee."

Some web companies already scan online activity such as internet searches and email for keywords in order to display adverts based on basic attributes and behaviours. But the extensive profiles proposed in the patent go some way beyond existing examples. It would be relatively straightforward to combine information sources to put names and addresses to the anonymous profiles, experts said.

When contacted by the Guardian, Google said it did not have any plans to roll out the technology in the near future, and that it was just one of a large number of patents that it has filed in recent months. A spokesman said: "Google registers different patents irrespective of whether we actually intend to use them."

The company, which has built its success on delivering adverts over the internet, spent $23m (£11.5m) this year acquiring a game advertising company called AdScape. The move was seen as part of a broad expansion of its business into other media, including television and radio.

Although using the proposed profiling techniques would require games publishers to actively incorporate Google's technology, industry experts said that games publishers are increasingly looking for new ways to make money.

"Publishers are becoming more like media companies," said Justin Townsend, the chief executive of IGA, an in-game advertising company. "More games are being optimised for advertising." But he said that privacy concerns should be paramount. "Both consumers, publishers and the advertising industry are very aware of privacy issues," he said. "You cannot afford to be vague in these areas."

Booming market

Experts estimate that around $500m (£250m) will be spent on advertising inside games this year, rising to $2bn by 2010. While more straightforward games such as online poker are already hugely profitable, it is predicted that virtual three-dimensional worlds and role-playing games will soon be among the biggest moneyspinners on the net.

One of the biggest titles is the Lord of the Rings-style fantasy game World of Warcraft, which has more than 8 million subscribers worldwide who each pay around £9 per month to take part in the action.

Second Life, an online virtual community which mimics the real world, has more than 5 million registered users and 1.2 million regular visitors. It is famous for allowing its residents to buy and sell virtual goods, or rent "land" inside the game for up to $300 per month.

A recent report by analysts Screen Digest suggests that the market for virtual worlds in the west already surpasses $1bn per year.

[winterfate]

Second Life and World of Warcraft would be particularly good to target, because they interact with other players and make decisions that probably reflect their behaviour in real life.

That holds true even for trading card games...your playing style is somewhat similar to your personality.

But I find that whole game observation concept disturbing...one day we'll wake up and a camera will be staring us right in the face, documenting our whole life...

[asandir]

Italian prefers prison over mother's arguing
A 24-year-old Italian man under house arrest called for police to take him to jail because he could no longer put up with arguments with his mother and stepfather.

Marcello Lazzara, under house arrest in connection with counterfeit CD sales, preferred going outside the house to be arrested for escape rather than remain with his family in Palermo, Sicily, Ansa news agency said.

"I am lucky to meet you," the man told police when they arrived to arrest him in the street outside his home.

and

French workers biggest whingers: study
French workers are the world's biggest whingers, according to a study which also says the Irish complain least about their lot.

According to the study by the FDS research group, Britons come second to their Gallic cousins in in the moaning stakes, followed by Sweden, the United States and Australia.

Japanese workers have the lowest morale, but do not complain so much.

The lowest levels of whingeing were found in the Netherlands, Thailand and Ireland.

"It is interesting to note that after France, Britain and Sweden, the world's biggest workplace whingers are Americans, despite their having by far the highest levels of income," FDS chief Charlotte Cornish said.

"Compare them to Thai workers: while real levels of income are more than eight times higher in the States, more workers in the US feel their pay is a problem than in Thailand."

The study, entitled 'What Workers Want, A Worldwide Study of Attitudes to Work and Work-Life Balance', draws on data from 14,000 employees in 23 countries.

They were notably asked about their satisfaction with issues including pay levels and their work-life balance, as well as average working hours.

The study says in terms of worker morale, Dutch workers are the happiest, followed by their Thai and Irish counterparts. The lowest morale of all is found in Japan, followed by Germany.

[winterfate]

Italian prefers prison over mother's arguing

:lolu::lolu:

Now that is funny! I prefer the arguments thank you very much!

He's probably regretting his decision now...I think.

[asandir]

maybe he isn't

[Panda Tar]

Brazilians workers also have low morale, but we're under the eternal effect of the Mirth spell....or is it myrth? Now that I think of it, I forgot how to spell that. - See?! SEE!? Spell the spell....hohohohoh-hohohohohaohohohaohhahahah...hahaha....hahah...ha - hicough - hahah.







ha.

[ThunderTitan]

But I find that whole game observation concept disturbing...one day we'll wake up and a camera will be staring us right in the face, documenting our whole life...

Here's a nice documentary to freak you out even more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_Of_The_Self

Also:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/s ... 7/20070507

Canadian poppy quarter triggered U.S. spy alert

Updated Mon. May. 7 2007 8:15 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Canada's harmless poppy quarter has given some suspicious U.S. army contractors red faces after it was revealed they filed espionage accounts on the world's first coloured coin.

The contractors came across the 25-cent coin, which features the red inlaid image of a poppy over a maple leaf, while travelling in Canada.

The contractors described the suspicious coins as "anomalous'' and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology,'' some once-secret U.S. government reports and emails said.

"It did not appear to be electronic (analog) in nature or have a power source,'' one U.S. contractor wrote after he found the coin in the cup holder of a rental car.

"Under high-power microscope, it appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear but different material, with a wire like mesh suspended on top.''

The technology they referred to was actually a protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to the coins to ensure the poppy's red colour couldn't be removed.

Nearly 30 million poppy coins were produced by the mint in 2004 to commemorate Canada's 117,000 fallen soldiers.

The classified accounts lead to warnings from the U.S. Defence Security Service, an agency of the Defence Department, that the quarters contained radio frequency transmitters and were strategically planted on U.S. contractors.

One contractor was so suspicious of the red coins that he believed someone has planted two quarters in his coat pocket after he had emptied the contents of his coat hours earlier.

"Coat pockets were empty that morning and I was keeping all of my coins in a plastic bag in my inner coat pocket,'' the contractor wrote.

Canada's senior intelligence officers were annoyed with the U.S. espionage warnings.

"That story about Canadians planting coins in the pockets of defence contractors will not go away,'' Luc Portelance, now deputy director for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, wrote in an email.

"Could someone tell me more? Where do we stand and what's the story on this?''

Intelligence experts believed the warnings, which stated the quarters could be used to follow the whereabouts of contractors with high-level clearance, were ridiculous when the information was first released.

"I thought the whole thing was preposterous, to think you could tag an individual with a coin and think they wouldn't give it away or spend it,'' H. Keith Melton, a leading U.S. intelligence historian, said.

However, Melton said the army contractors were only doing their jobs when they reported their suspicious findings.

"You want contractors or any government personnel to report anything suspicious,'' he said.

"You can't have the potential target evaluating whether this was an organized attack or a fluke.''

The Defence Security Service has since renounced its warning about spy coins but this is the first time that details of the embarrassing accounts have been made public.

The U.S. government said it performed an internal review to determine why the false information was included in a 29-page published report detailing espionage concerns.

The coins were never actually examined by the Defence Security Service.

"We know where we made the mistake,'' Cindy McGovern, a Defence Security Service spokesperson, said.

"The information wasn't properly vetted. While these coins aroused suspicion, there ultimately was nothing there.''

Some of the U.S. documents obtained by the Associated Press were deemed "Secret/Noforn,'' meaning the documents were never supposed to be seen by foreigners.

Many passages in the report were censored, citing national security reasons, before it was turned over under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

Next to one blacked-out section of the report was the cautionary sentence, "This has not been confirmed as of yet.''

The Canadian intelligence documents, which also were censored, were released under the Access to Information Act citing protection against subversive activities.

[asandir]

Granny, 95, graduates uni to set record
Nola Ochs wanted to study history, but the 95-year-old Kansas woman made it herself when she graduated from university, becoming the world's oldest-ever recipient of a bachelor's degree.

On Saturday (local time) Ms Ochs, born in 1911, garnered a standing ovation from her classmates at Fort Hays State University when she received her degree in general studies and history from the governor of Kansas.

"It was great ... Everybody stood up and cheered," she said.

Asked why she studied history, she replied: "Because well, I've seen a lot of history... and I'm interested in it".

Ms Ochs lived the life of a farm housewife for years in Jetmore, Kansas, and began taking university correspondence courses at the age of 67, after her husband died.

"I was a farmer's wife. Then my husband died and my children were grown and I just sought outside entertainment, pastimes, something I like to do," she explained.

After a time learning by mail was not enough. She moved onto the campus of 4,500, living side by side with students who could be her great-great-grandchildren.

"I am very happy to say that students accepted me on the campus as just another student. They call me by my first name," she said, who still drives herself around town.

She did not just study history: public speaking, composition, and computers figured in her courses as well. And she is planning more classes ahead, on the Internet and story-telling.

As for breaking a world record for oldest graduate, that just added cream on top of the occasion, she said.

"I was really happy about it. It's something totally unexpected and I appreciate the response that the public has given me," she said.

"I hope it inspired people into seeking further learning. Just keep on learning. We don't ever finish our education."

oh and it's mirth btw

[ThunderTitan]

Teachers stage fake gunman attack on sixth-graders

MURFREESBORO, Tennessee (AP) -- Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.

The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip.

"We got together and discussed what we would have done in a real situation," he said.

But parents of the sixth-grade students were outraged. (Watch student recount incident, mother react Video)

"The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them," said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.

Some parents said they were upset by the staff's poor judgment in light of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech that left 33 students and professors dead, including the gunman.

During the last night of the trip, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose. They were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on a locked door.

After the lights went out, about 20 kids started to cry, 11-year-old Shay Naylor said.

"I was like, 'Oh My God,' " she said. "At first I thought I was going to die. We flipped out."

Principal Catherine Stephens declined to say whether the staff members involved would face disciplinary action, but said the situation "involved poor judgment."

Hiding under your desk, usefull for everything from armed psychos to nuclear armageddon.