German Election Special, Rooney toy: is it the new Action Man?, why cerial sticks together, and what computer games your granny might want...
As a busy mum about town, this week I've been juggling the competing demands of a press week, poverty, redundancy and a social life I don't really understand. But then, we all have stress in our lives. But then, you don't do tar as well, do you?
The mess that emerged from Sunday's election has sparked some colourful terms to enliven the normally staid world of German politics and help voters pick their way through the potentially interminable round of coalition negotiations to come.
Perhaps the most intriguing is the prospect of the Jamaican flag flying over Berlin's Reichstag parliament building.
With neither Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats nor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats securing a governing majority, both parties will be forced to find partners to build a government.
And the sunny Caribbean island more than 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles) away from Germany has been bizarrely dragged into the coalition negotiations.
German political parties describe themselves in terms of colours, and when the possibility was raised of the Christian Democrats (black) joining the pro-business Free Democrats (yellow) and the Greens in a coalition, it prompted the country's top TV political journalist, Joerg Schoeneborn, to describe it as a "Jamaica Coalition" because the colours match the island's flag.
Without a new government to report, a grateful press has seized on the term.
The top-selling Bild newspaper pictured Merkel, the Greens' Joschka Fischer and the Free Democrats' leader, Guido Westerwelle, with Rastafarian-style dreadlocks on Tuesday.
Fischer, never one to shirk from a pithy comment in his seven years as foreign minister, poured scorn on the idea of his pro-environment party working with Merkel.
"Can you imagine Angela Merkel with dreadlocks?" Fischer said. "She will not be chancellor."
He also smirked at the idea of the leader of Bavaria's conservatives, the strait-laced Edmund Stoiber, listening to reggae music and smoking a joint.
Radio stations have decided that Bob Marley's "One Love" and its lyric "Let's get together and feel all right," is appropriate for the situation.
And the business daily Handelsblatt highlighted the possibility that Merkel may not get her wish of being chancellor with a cartoon showing the Christian Democrats listening to Marley's "No Woman, No Cry" as they celebrated forming a government without her.
Unfortunately, the Jamaican ambassador to Germany, Marcia Gilbert-Roberts, has stopped seeing the funny side.
She says she was misquoted in saying she would invite a "Jamaica Coalition" government to visit the island and is worried she has inadvertently overstepped the strictly neutral role of an ambassador.
"I didn't invite anyone in particular. Anyone can come. All politicans and all Germans," she told Wednesday's Berliner Zeitung. (:/)
Anthony Flores, 29, has been paying Frey $175 a month for nearly four years, his attorney, Glenn Wilson, said Wednesday. The father of the 4-year-old girl is actually Fresno restaurant owner Christopher Funch, Wilson said.
No one answered the telephone at Porky's Rib House on Wednesday, and Funch did not have a listed home number. (:/)
Just in there for that almost holy last para.
Starting next month, Nissin Food Products Co. will film a promotional spot on the International Space Station for Cup Noodle, featuring a sales pitch by a hungry Russian cosmonaut.
The commercial will air in Japan in November as part of Nissin's "Cup Noodle No Border" campaign, according to a statement Wednesday by Japan's space program, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.
Space Films, a venture business set up by JAXA that specializes in space images, will send a high-definition camera to the space station aboard a Russian rocket launch Oct. 1 and direct the filming from Russia's Mission Control Center outside Moscow, JAXA said.
The project is part of Japan's push to develop commercial spin-offs to its space program. JAXA did not say how much the commercial would cost, but the agency will be leaving the camera at the space station in the hope of shooting more advertisements.
This is not Osaka-based Nissin's first encounter with the final frontier. In 2002, it announced plans to make "Space Ram," a ramen noodle that homesick Japanese astronauts can eat in zero gravity.
Nissin -- which incidentally also makes U.F.O. brand instant noodles -- is credited with revolutionizing the world's eating habits when chairman Momofuku Ando invented the instant noodle in 1958.
The company is now the world's biggest maker of the instant noodles, selling 20 billion packs a year. Japan wolfed down 5.4 billion of those in 2003, or about 42 packs for every man, woman and child. (:/)
Toy firm Bandai are adding a 30cm doll of the striker to its Kick-o-Mania range of mini aces.
But though the £19.99 figure has moveable limbs which can deliver a good kick, there is one crucial difference between it and the real thing — it can’t yell, scream or hurl abuse as its lips are firmly sealed. (:/)
More for the headline than anything else...
High school baseball team manager forced
The 35-year-old man, whose name is being withheld, became manager of the baseball team at Okayama Sanyo High School in Kamogata, Okayama Prefecture, in July 2002.
He ordered club members to undress when they ran, mostly during night practice sessions.
The manager reportedly insisted that running naked was part of the students' mental training.
School officials initially turned a blind eye but later surveyed baseball club members about the controversial practice.
"We were forced to run naked once last year and another time in June this year," one of the students said.
Officials at the school admitted that they knew what was going on, but didn't take any measures to deal with the issue.
"We thought that players and their parents accepted the method," one school official said.
The school's principal is now saying that running in the nude should have been stopped earlier.
"I heard about it three years ago," the principal said.
After the club failed to report players' cigarette smoking to the Japan High School Baseball Federation in June, three members of the club were banned from the local eliminations of the annual national high baseball tournament.
In response, the school dismissed the manager from his post, and he began working as career advisor for students.
He quit the school on Sept. 1 after hitting a third-year student who ordered younger players to clean their dormitory. (:/)
The world's biggest GameBoy - the GameMan!
spotter - René
You may or may not have pondered why your breakfast cereal tends to clump together or cling to the sides of a bowl of milk. Now there is an easy explanation.
Dubbed the Cheerio Effect by scientists, this clumping phenomenon applies to anything that floats, including fizzy soda bubbles and hair particles in water after a morning shave.
The effect has been known for some time, but an explanation for non-scientists has been lacking.
Dominic Vella, a graduate student now at Cambridge University, and L. Mahadevan, a mathematician from Harvard University, decided to change that. In a study that appears in the Sept. 15 issue of the American Journal of Physics, Mahadevan explains the Cheerio Effect using three basic concepts from physics: buoyancy, surface tension and the meniscus effect.
Simple physics
Buoyancy determines whether an object submerged in water or surrounded by air will sink, float or stay put. Buoyancy is what keeps ships afloat and balloons in the air. If an object is less dense than the water or air surrounding it, the object floats; if the object is denser, it sinks.
Surface tension is a property that makes the surface of a liquid act like a flexible membrane. It results from various weak forces acting between liquid molecules.
In a glass of water, most of the water molecules are surrounded by other water molecules, and they all pull on one another. But like two equally matched opponents in a game of tug-of-war, the net effect is zero and nothing really happens.
Where it gets interesting is at the surface, where water meets air, and along the sides of the glass.
Water molecules at the surface experience a strong inward pull from water molecules beneath them but only a weak outward pull from the air molecules above. So the surface of the water caves in slightly.
On the edge
Water near the side of a glass behaves differently. It curves to form what scientists call a "meniscus." Depending on the properties of the liquid, whether it is attracted to or repelled by the glass, the meniscus either curves upward (concave) or downward (convex).
For water, the meniscus is concave since water is attracted to the glass. Viewed from the side, the surface of the water looks like a less exaggerated version of a skater's U-shaped halfpipe.
What's all this do to your breakfast?
Place a single Cheerio in a bowl of milk, and its weight will cause the milk beneath it to dip slightly, forming a dent in the once-smooth surface of the milk. A second Cheerio placed into the bowl will form its own dent on the surface of the milk, and if the two Cheerios drift close enough to each other, they will appear to "fall into" one another, as if pulled together by an attractive force.
Cheerios near the edge of the bowl float upwards along the curve of the meniscus to look like they're clinging the edge of the bowl.
In both cases, the movements of the Cheerios are determined more by the geometry of the surface of the milk than by any attractive force acting between them. (:/)
The man was spotted leaving a South Auckland branch of Countdown in a wheelchair, loaded up with a basketful of groceries.
Witness Greg Stratton was stacking shelves in the supermarket when he saw the man race out of the store. He says staff ran after the man, who sped off down the street.
He says the man sped close to a kilometre up the street, before coming back past the supermarket to a car full of people waiting for him.
He says the man was only apprehended when he fell from his wheelchair. (:/)
The 18-year-old Hurstville man jumped onto the train tracks from platform five at Town Hall station while trying to flee the transit officers about 7.30pm yesterday, police said.
He crawled under a stationary train but lost his right thumb and suffered serious injuries to his left arm when the train pulled away from the station.
The man was taken to St Vincent's Hospital in a stable condition.
After the incident, several of the man's friends got into a scuffle with police officers.
A 20-year-old man was subdued by OC spray and was later charged with assaulting police and resisting arrest.
An 18-year-old man was also arrested and charged with offensive conduct. (:/)
A Boone [Iowa] High School teacher faces charges in connection with injuring a student with a sword.
Students and the teacher said a confrontation happened Tuesday night when a group came by his house to engage in a traditional high school prank -- putting toilet paper on his property.
"We were all TPing and stuff and a bunch of kids went to his house. And he came from a neighbor's yard with a sword and was chasing after everybody and hit a kid's hand," said Matt Phannes, a student.
Police were then called to the scene. Authorities said Trenton Kerger was arrested and charged with assault causing injury.
Bill Skare, the Boone police chief, said the sword has been taken as evidence.
It's homecoming week at Boone High School, a time when everyone is supposed to be celebrating. But now a lot of the talk is about the alleged sword incident.
"He's a drama teacher so he has all that kind of thing. So it wasn't on purpose or anything," Phannes said. (:/)
We happen to have that data from the Missouri Department of Corrections, though it's somewhat old (1997). Later versions of the department's data omitted the tattoo descriptions.
Here are the most popular inmate tattoos:
Tattoo Inmates
CROSS 1,164
ROSE 550
HEART 533
SKULL 468
EAGLE 440
DRAGON 301
REEPER 172
PANTHER 163
UNICORN 162
STAR 131
WIZARD 127
BUNNY 125
SPIDER 115
BULLET WOUND 107
GRIM REAPER 103
Optical weirdness
Chat with "God"...
10 FEB - The First TAR
Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage when 37-year-old Geoffrey Jones rejected her advances at the end of a drunken house party.
She yanked off his left testicle and tried to swallow it, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
But Monti choked and spat it out before a friend handed it back to her former lover with the words: "That's yours."
In a statement read to the court, Geoffrey said: "Amanda attacked me in an unprovoked manner and the attack has ruined my life."
He added: "I cannot begin to describe the pain I’ve suffered."
Monti, from Birkenhead, Mersyeside, pleaded guilty to wounding.
Doctors were unable to re-attach the organ, and the court heard that Geoffrey, a bodybuilder, is so embarrassed by what happened he is planning to move house.
He ended his long-term relationship with Monti, who is 5ft 1in tall, towards the end of May last year.
In a letter to the court, Monti said she was sorry for what she had done.
She added: "I am in no way a violent person.
"I have challenged myself to explain what has happened but still I just cannot remember. This has caused much anguish to me and will do for the rest of my life." (:/)
I just loved that story.
South Korea will spend 33.4 billion won (18.2 million pounds) over the next five years to develop the robots for the heavily fortified demilitarised zone that divides the peninsula, the Communications Ministry said in a statement on Friday.
South Korea envisages the robots performing roles on the battlefield now done by dogs, such as sniffing for explosives and catching intruders, the ministry said.
The robots will stand knee-high to the average adult, mounted on wheels for road missions or on as many as eight legs to get them over uneven terrain, it said. Equipped with firearms, they will be able to carry out combat missions via remote control.
South Korea's Defence Ministry announced plans this month to reduce the number of its troops in uniform by about 25 percent over 15 years and develop more high-tech weapons systems. (:/)
The three-year-old guinea pig from Wales received 206 cards from as far away as New Zealand to gain a bizarre entry in the latest edition of Guinness World Records published on Friday.
Sooty was joined in the ranks of the world's weirdest and wackiest achievers by Briton Paul Hunn who scooped the record for the world's largest burp. Louder than a pile driver, his burps can be heard from a distance of 30 metres.
Not to be outdone, Canadian Christa Rasanayagam set a new record when accompanied up the aisle by no less than 79 bridesmaids aged from one to 79.
American Ashrita Furman found yet more Guinness immortality by pushing an orange one mile with his nose in 24 minutes and 36 seconds.
Furman is no stranger to Guinness, laying claim to a total of 94 official records with such bizarre feats as climbing Mount Fuji on a pogo stick, underwater rope jumping and lighting 27,000 candles on a birthday cake in New York. (:/)
Farmer Gheorghe Popa, 52, from Galati, had been moving the grain sacks to the barn when he stopped to watch his 25-year-old wife Loredana hang up the washing.
He got himself over excited and dropped the sack on his erect penis, snapping vital tendons and ligaments.
Doctor Nicolae Bacalbasa said: "It was a bizarre accident, and he was in a lot of pain.
"We have done what we can for him but he may never regain use of the organ again, at least for sexual purposes." (:/)
The theme for the Game Design Mash-up was particularly apt in a development age highly concerned with diversity – devise a game for Granny. Robin laid down the rules of engagement and asked some important first questions: the audience is mainstream, casual, female and gray. How do we reach them? Who is your Grandma? What would she play?
The panel assembled for the event were drawn from a wider variety of game design backgrounds. Demis Hassabis, currently spending a year studying cognitive neuroscience was first to address the challenge. He explained he was going to explain his process, look at the concepts he rejected and then present the idea he had selected. His initial question, "What do Grannies like?"
After apologizing for any stereotyping, he proceeded to generalize at an entertaining pace. Grannies, Demis surmised, like knitting, reading, gardening, reminiscing, telling stories, playing bridge, grandchildren and gossiping. The full-house audience murmured an amused recognition at the selections. He went on to point out that complex controls would be unacceptable and that gratuitous violence, sex or profanity would also be a problem. What is clear is that it should be is social, friendly and in a familiar setting.
Demis then presented the ideas he had rejected. He dismissed the Hobby Simulation, real-time knitting guide and landscape gardening program as being 'too obvious'. His 'War Story Constructor' was a fascinating proposition, using voice input to render the wartime memories of the player in the Half-Life 2 engine. Demis conceded however that this was, 'too fantastical' – although he did flag up the tantalizingly possibility of the constructed levels being released as maps for grandchildren to play; FPS-ing their way through Grandma's memory.
He settled on 'The Village', which he billed as the 'World's first MMO gossip simulator' – or at a pitch level, 'Shenmue meets Sims Online meets Eastenders'. A mission based environment invites players to enhance or decimate reputations of others as they see fit, with AI characters playing key roles within the world and stimulating mission content. To the delight of the audience Demis alluded to the possibility of the kids playing within a game-world that they might find entertaining, creating the kinds of GTA-esque content that Grandma might not be so excited about – but actually unwittingly participating in the Grandmothers game.
Nick James from Bizarre Creations had only had the train journey down to prepare and apologized that he wasn't actually going to pitch a game anyway. He began by answering a few questions. Firstly, he explained that being a Granny is, 'a bit like being drunk', having slower reaction times and poor hand to eye coordination. He went on to conclude that Granny is much like everyone else, in that she wants to be entertained, challenged and interact with like-minded people. He argued that Granny needs games that are relevant to her interests with relevant music and other cultural reference points, that the interface need to be much simpler with larger, bespoke controls. Finally he suggested that the gameplay ideas are actually already out there and what is needed isn't a revolution in gameplay, but in marketing.
He did venture an entertaining suggestion as to what a new 'granny game' might be, 'Ballroom Dancing Revolution' is at the right pace with relevant music but unfortunately requires a dance-mat the size of a gymnasium.
Finally Katamari Damacy designer Keita Takahashi took the podium. He introduced his presentation, "I thought really hard about this one, I haven't thought this hard since I was coming up with the idea for Katamari Damacy. I decided that I wanted to get old ladies playing games and bring a little of the sunshine that they end up losing when they stay indoors all the time back into their lives." The focus of his talk began with the controller, he explained that current hardware designs are inorganic and difficult to understand. He introduced the design of his new controller specifically tailored for the Granny, and a picture of a cat appeared on the screen to great amusement. He explained, "the shape of the cat and the heat waves that it gives out really gets the old ladies going as they get quite cold. They like the cat shape. The cat is designed to be rested on the old ladies knees." The cat controller was met with rapture from the audience as Takahashi went on to explain the gameplay concept.
The game would begin with the family suggesting to Granny that she wear the cat because, for example, her knees looked cold. Embedded in the cat is the capability for it to communicate wirelessly with other cat controllers (on other Grannies' knees) in the neighborhood. When the cat connects to another one, "..the onboard a.i. kicks in." This causes the cat to speak, paraphrased as "meow, meow, grandma, meow". Takahashi explains that the family are required to participate in the game by pretending that they haven't heard anything, because of this – Grandma begins to build the perception that she is able to communicate directly with the cat.
As the dialogue with the cat develops, it suggests that Granny make some soup – but faster than the other granny down the street who has also received the instruction. A competitive element emerges and gradually the cat suggests more and more group activities that Grandma might engage in, culminating in trips to the park. "..So they all go outside and eventually they meet other old ladies with cats and they all become friends. So it's a game that involves the participation and love of the entire family." Takahashi ended the presentation by commenting on the possible production path of the cat, "Namco and Bandai are merging so when I get home I will submit my proposal." (:/)
Indeed. Until next time...
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World Wide Weird
Germans see the funny side despite election stalemate
AFP
The country may be in a state of political paralysis and sorely needed economic reforms have been put on the backburner, but the undecided general election is helping Germany to discover its lighter side.The mess that emerged from Sunday's election has sparked some colourful terms to enliven the normally staid world of German politics and help voters pick their way through the potentially interminable round of coalition negotiations to come.
Perhaps the most intriguing is the prospect of the Jamaican flag flying over Berlin's Reichstag parliament building.
With neither Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats nor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats securing a governing majority, both parties will be forced to find partners to build a government.
And the sunny Caribbean island more than 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles) away from Germany has been bizarrely dragged into the coalition negotiations.
German political parties describe themselves in terms of colours, and when the possibility was raised of the Christian Democrats (black) joining the pro-business Free Democrats (yellow) and the Greens in a coalition, it prompted the country's top TV political journalist, Joerg Schoeneborn, to describe it as a "Jamaica Coalition" because the colours match the island's flag.
Without a new government to report, a grateful press has seized on the term.
The top-selling Bild newspaper pictured Merkel, the Greens' Joschka Fischer and the Free Democrats' leader, Guido Westerwelle, with Rastafarian-style dreadlocks on Tuesday.
Fischer, never one to shirk from a pithy comment in his seven years as foreign minister, poured scorn on the idea of his pro-environment party working with Merkel.
"Can you imagine Angela Merkel with dreadlocks?" Fischer said. "She will not be chancellor."
He also smirked at the idea of the leader of Bavaria's conservatives, the strait-laced Edmund Stoiber, listening to reggae music and smoking a joint.
Radio stations have decided that Bob Marley's "One Love" and its lyric "Let's get together and feel all right," is appropriate for the situation.
And the business daily Handelsblatt highlighted the possibility that Merkel may not get her wish of being chancellor with a cartoon showing the Christian Democrats listening to Marley's "No Woman, No Cry" as they celebrated forming a government without her.
Unfortunately, the Jamaican ambassador to Germany, Marcia Gilbert-Roberts, has stopped seeing the funny side.
She says she was misquoted in saying she would invite a "Jamaica Coalition" government to visit the island and is worried she has inadvertently overstepped the strictly neutral role of an ambassador.
"I didn't invite anyone in particular. Anyone can come. All politicans and all Germans," she told Wednesday's Berliner Zeitung. (:/)
Wrong man pays child support to Peterson mistress
AP
The former mistress of convicted murderer Scott Peterson is back in the spotlight after a DNA test showed that her first child was not fathered by the man who was paying child support.Anthony Flores, 29, has been paying Frey $175 a month for nearly four years, his attorney, Glenn Wilson, said Wednesday. The father of the 4-year-old girl is actually Fresno restaurant owner Christopher Funch, Wilson said.
No one answered the telephone at Porky's Rib House on Wednesday, and Funch did not have a listed home number. (:/)
Just in there for that almost holy last para.
Japan noodle maker to film TV ad in space
AP
The makers of Japan's favorite instant ramen noodles will soon be airing a commercial that's truly out of this world.Starting next month, Nissin Food Products Co. will film a promotional spot on the International Space Station for Cup Noodle, featuring a sales pitch by a hungry Russian cosmonaut.
The commercial will air in Japan in November as part of Nissin's "Cup Noodle No Border" campaign, according to a statement Wednesday by Japan's space program, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.
Space Films, a venture business set up by JAXA that specializes in space images, will send a high-definition camera to the space station aboard a Russian rocket launch Oct. 1 and direct the filming from Russia's Mission Control Center outside Moscow, JAXA said.
The project is part of Japan's push to develop commercial spin-offs to its space program. JAXA did not say how much the commercial would cost, but the agency will be leaving the camera at the space station in the hope of shooting more advertisements.
This is not Osaka-based Nissin's first encounter with the final frontier. In 2002, it announced plans to make "Space Ram," a ramen noodle that homesick Japanese astronauts can eat in zero gravity.
Nissin -- which incidentally also makes U.F.O. brand instant noodles -- is credited with revolutionizing the world's eating habits when chairman Momofuku Ando invented the instant noodle in 1958.
The company is now the world's biggest maker of the instant noodles, selling 20 billion packs a year. Japan wolfed down 5.4 billion of those in 2003, or about 42 packs for every man, woman and child. (:/)
Sport
Roo is Over-Reaction Man
The Sun
You’ve heard of Action Man — now here’s Over-Reaction Man, a toy figure of hot-headed soccer star Wayne Rooney.Toy firm Bandai are adding a 30cm doll of the striker to its Kick-o-Mania range of mini aces.
But though the £19.99 figure has moveable limbs which can deliver a good kick, there is one crucial difference between it and the real thing — it can’t yell, scream or hurl abuse as its lips are firmly sealed. (:/)
More for the headline than anything else...
High school baseball team manager forced
players to run naked for 'mental training'
Mainichi, Japan
A former manager of a high school baseball team forced his players to run naked around a field as part of their "mental training," it has been learned.The 35-year-old man, whose name is being withheld, became manager of the baseball team at Okayama Sanyo High School in Kamogata, Okayama Prefecture, in July 2002.
He ordered club members to undress when they ran, mostly during night practice sessions.
The manager reportedly insisted that running naked was part of the students' mental training.
School officials initially turned a blind eye but later surveyed baseball club members about the controversial practice.
"We were forced to run naked once last year and another time in June this year," one of the students said.
Officials at the school admitted that they knew what was going on, but didn't take any measures to deal with the issue.
"We thought that players and their parents accepted the method," one school official said.
The school's principal is now saying that running in the nude should have been stopped earlier.
"I heard about it three years ago," the principal said.
After the club failed to report players' cigarette smoking to the Japan High School Baseball Federation in June, three members of the club were banned from the local eliminations of the annual national high baseball tournament.
In response, the school dismissed the manager from his post, and he began working as career advisor for students.
He quit the school on Sept. 1 after hitting a third-year student who ordered younger players to clean their dormitory. (:/)
Picture Story
The world's biggest GameBoy - the GameMan!
spotter - René
Scitech
Scientists explain the ‘Cheerio Effect’
MSNBC
Here’s why floating things tend to clump togetherYou may or may not have pondered why your breakfast cereal tends to clump together or cling to the sides of a bowl of milk. Now there is an easy explanation.
Dubbed the Cheerio Effect by scientists, this clumping phenomenon applies to anything that floats, including fizzy soda bubbles and hair particles in water after a morning shave.
The effect has been known for some time, but an explanation for non-scientists has been lacking.
Dominic Vella, a graduate student now at Cambridge University, and L. Mahadevan, a mathematician from Harvard University, decided to change that. In a study that appears in the Sept. 15 issue of the American Journal of Physics, Mahadevan explains the Cheerio Effect using three basic concepts from physics: buoyancy, surface tension and the meniscus effect.
Simple physics
Buoyancy determines whether an object submerged in water or surrounded by air will sink, float or stay put. Buoyancy is what keeps ships afloat and balloons in the air. If an object is less dense than the water or air surrounding it, the object floats; if the object is denser, it sinks.
Surface tension is a property that makes the surface of a liquid act like a flexible membrane. It results from various weak forces acting between liquid molecules.
In a glass of water, most of the water molecules are surrounded by other water molecules, and they all pull on one another. But like two equally matched opponents in a game of tug-of-war, the net effect is zero and nothing really happens.
Where it gets interesting is at the surface, where water meets air, and along the sides of the glass.
Water molecules at the surface experience a strong inward pull from water molecules beneath them but only a weak outward pull from the air molecules above. So the surface of the water caves in slightly.
On the edge
Water near the side of a glass behaves differently. It curves to form what scientists call a "meniscus." Depending on the properties of the liquid, whether it is attracted to or repelled by the glass, the meniscus either curves upward (concave) or downward (convex).
For water, the meniscus is concave since water is attracted to the glass. Viewed from the side, the surface of the water looks like a less exaggerated version of a skater's U-shaped halfpipe.
What's all this do to your breakfast?
Place a single Cheerio in a bowl of milk, and its weight will cause the milk beneath it to dip slightly, forming a dent in the once-smooth surface of the milk. A second Cheerio placed into the bowl will form its own dent on the surface of the milk, and if the two Cheerios drift close enough to each other, they will appear to "fall into" one another, as if pulled together by an attractive force.
Cheerios near the edge of the bowl float upwards along the curve of the meniscus to look like they're clinging the edge of the bowl.
In both cases, the movements of the Cheerios are determined more by the geometry of the surface of the milk than by any attractive force acting between them. (:/)
Criminal Negligence
Wheelchair man's alleged robbery foiled
NewsTalkZB
A disabled man has been foiled in his attempts to make a speedy getaway from the scene of his alleged crime.The man was spotted leaving a South Auckland branch of Countdown in a wheelchair, loaded up with a basketful of groceries.
Witness Greg Stratton was stacking shelves in the supermarket when he saw the man race out of the store. He says staff ran after the man, who sped off down the street.
He says the man sped close to a kilometre up the street, before coming back past the supermarket to a car full of people waiting for him.
He says the man was only apprehended when he fell from his wheelchair. (:/)
Teen loses thumb in Town Hall train drama
AAP
A man was hit by a train in central Sydney when he crawled under it trying to escape from CityRail officers.The 18-year-old Hurstville man jumped onto the train tracks from platform five at Town Hall station while trying to flee the transit officers about 7.30pm yesterday, police said.
He crawled under a stationary train but lost his right thumb and suffered serious injuries to his left arm when the train pulled away from the station.
The man was taken to St Vincent's Hospital in a stable condition.
After the incident, several of the man's friends got into a scuffle with police officers.
A 20-year-old man was subdued by OC spray and was later charged with assaulting police and resisting arrest.
An 18-year-old man was also arrested and charged with offensive conduct. (:/)
Boone Teacher Charged With Student's Sword Injury
The Iowa Channel
A Boone [Iowa] High School teacher faces charges in connection with injuring a student with a sword.
Students and the teacher said a confrontation happened Tuesday night when a group came by his house to engage in a traditional high school prank -- putting toilet paper on his property.
"We were all TPing and stuff and a bunch of kids went to his house. And he came from a neighbor's yard with a sword and was chasing after everybody and hit a kid's hand," said Matt Phannes, a student.
Police were then called to the scene. Authorities said Trenton Kerger was arrested and charged with assault causing injury.
Bill Skare, the Boone police chief, said the sword has been taken as evidence.
It's homecoming week at Boone High School, a time when everyone is supposed to be celebrating. But now a lot of the talk is about the alleged sword incident.
"He's a drama teacher so he has all that kind of thing. So it wasn't on purpose or anything," Phannes said. (:/)
Top tattoos of Missouri prison inmates
(blog, taken from Kansas City Star)
The Kansas City home invasion reported today in which one of the robbers had "KC" tattooed on his neck caused us to look up the most popular tattoos of Missouri prison inmates. See our previous post on this.We happen to have that data from the Missouri Department of Corrections, though it's somewhat old (1997). Later versions of the department's data omitted the tattoo descriptions.
Here are the most popular inmate tattoos:
Tattoo Inmates
CROSS 1,164
ROSE 550
HEART 533
SKULL 468
EAGLE 440
DRAGON 301
REEPER 172
PANTHER 163
UNICORN 162
STAR 131
WIZARD 127
BUNNY 125
SPIDER 115
BULLET WOUND 107
GRIM REAPER 103
Play with your brain
Optical weirdness
Play with God's brain
Chat with "God"...
TAR-chive
10 FEB - The First TAR
Testicle ripper jailed
The Sun
A jilted woman who ripped off her ex-lover’s testicle with her bare hands was today jailed for two and a half years.Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage when 37-year-old Geoffrey Jones rejected her advances at the end of a drunken house party.
She yanked off his left testicle and tried to swallow it, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
But Monti choked and spat it out before a friend handed it back to her former lover with the words: "That's yours."
In a statement read to the court, Geoffrey said: "Amanda attacked me in an unprovoked manner and the attack has ruined my life."
He added: "I cannot begin to describe the pain I’ve suffered."
Monti, from Birkenhead, Mersyeside, pleaded guilty to wounding.
Doctors were unable to re-attach the organ, and the court heard that Geoffrey, a bodybuilder, is so embarrassed by what happened he is planning to move house.
He ended his long-term relationship with Monti, who is 5ft 1in tall, towards the end of May last year.
In a letter to the court, Monti said she was sorry for what she had done.
She added: "I am in no way a violent person.
"I have challenged myself to explain what has happened but still I just cannot remember. This has caused much anguish to me and will do for the rest of my life." (:/)
I just loved that story.
Holy Shit!
Battle robots could join dogs on S.Korea border
Reuters
Armed, six-legged robots may one day work alongside man's best friend on the southern side of the Korean DMZ.South Korea will spend 33.4 billion won (18.2 million pounds) over the next five years to develop the robots for the heavily fortified demilitarised zone that divides the peninsula, the Communications Ministry said in a statement on Friday.
South Korea envisages the robots performing roles on the battlefield now done by dogs, such as sniffing for explosives and catching intruders, the ministry said.
The robots will stand knee-high to the average adult, mounted on wheels for road missions or on as many as eight legs to get them over uneven terrain, it said. Equipped with firearms, they will be able to carry out combat missions via remote control.
South Korea's Defence Ministry announced plans this month to reduce the number of its troops in uniform by about 25 percent over 15 years and develop more high-tech weapons systems. (:/)
Record Breakers
New record for most Valentines sent to guinea pig
Reuters
Sooty has set a new world record for the most valentine cards sent to a guinea pig.The three-year-old guinea pig from Wales received 206 cards from as far away as New Zealand to gain a bizarre entry in the latest edition of Guinness World Records published on Friday.
Sooty was joined in the ranks of the world's weirdest and wackiest achievers by Briton Paul Hunn who scooped the record for the world's largest burp. Louder than a pile driver, his burps can be heard from a distance of 30 metres.
Not to be outdone, Canadian Christa Rasanayagam set a new record when accompanied up the aisle by no less than 79 bridesmaids aged from one to 79.
American Ashrita Furman found yet more Guinness immortality by pushing an orange one mile with his nose in 24 minutes and 36 seconds.
Furman is no stranger to Guinness, laying claim to a total of 94 official records with such bizarre feats as climbing Mount Fuji on a pogo stick, underwater rope jumping and lighting 27,000 candles on a birthday cake in New York. (:/)
Ow!
Farmer 'breaks' penis
Ananova
A newly married Romanian farmer fractured his penis after ogling his young wife while carrying a heavy sack of grain.Farmer Gheorghe Popa, 52, from Galati, had been moving the grain sacks to the barn when he stopped to watch his 25-year-old wife Loredana hang up the washing.
He got himself over excited and dropped the sack on his erect penis, snapping vital tendons and ligaments.
Doctor Nicolae Bacalbasa said: "It was a bizarre accident, and he was in a lot of pain.
"We have done what we can for him but he may never regain use of the organ again, at least for sexual purposes." (:/)
And finally
What games do Grannies like?
Gamasutra.com/spotter René Millman
Following in the footsteps of the now recognized highlight of GDC, the game design challenge, host Robin Hunicke explained that the GDCE version of it was going to be more of a remix – a twist on the usual theme. The goal was the same, to approach a hard design problem from a new perspective – and with an important sense of humor still intact.The theme for the Game Design Mash-up was particularly apt in a development age highly concerned with diversity – devise a game for Granny. Robin laid down the rules of engagement and asked some important first questions: the audience is mainstream, casual, female and gray. How do we reach them? Who is your Grandma? What would she play?
The panel assembled for the event were drawn from a wider variety of game design backgrounds. Demis Hassabis, currently spending a year studying cognitive neuroscience was first to address the challenge. He explained he was going to explain his process, look at the concepts he rejected and then present the idea he had selected. His initial question, "What do Grannies like?"
After apologizing for any stereotyping, he proceeded to generalize at an entertaining pace. Grannies, Demis surmised, like knitting, reading, gardening, reminiscing, telling stories, playing bridge, grandchildren and gossiping. The full-house audience murmured an amused recognition at the selections. He went on to point out that complex controls would be unacceptable and that gratuitous violence, sex or profanity would also be a problem. What is clear is that it should be is social, friendly and in a familiar setting.
Demis then presented the ideas he had rejected. He dismissed the Hobby Simulation, real-time knitting guide and landscape gardening program as being 'too obvious'. His 'War Story Constructor' was a fascinating proposition, using voice input to render the wartime memories of the player in the Half-Life 2 engine. Demis conceded however that this was, 'too fantastical' – although he did flag up the tantalizingly possibility of the constructed levels being released as maps for grandchildren to play; FPS-ing their way through Grandma's memory.
He settled on 'The Village', which he billed as the 'World's first MMO gossip simulator' – or at a pitch level, 'Shenmue meets Sims Online meets Eastenders'. A mission based environment invites players to enhance or decimate reputations of others as they see fit, with AI characters playing key roles within the world and stimulating mission content. To the delight of the audience Demis alluded to the possibility of the kids playing within a game-world that they might find entertaining, creating the kinds of GTA-esque content that Grandma might not be so excited about – but actually unwittingly participating in the Grandmothers game.
Nick James from Bizarre Creations had only had the train journey down to prepare and apologized that he wasn't actually going to pitch a game anyway. He began by answering a few questions. Firstly, he explained that being a Granny is, 'a bit like being drunk', having slower reaction times and poor hand to eye coordination. He went on to conclude that Granny is much like everyone else, in that she wants to be entertained, challenged and interact with like-minded people. He argued that Granny needs games that are relevant to her interests with relevant music and other cultural reference points, that the interface need to be much simpler with larger, bespoke controls. Finally he suggested that the gameplay ideas are actually already out there and what is needed isn't a revolution in gameplay, but in marketing.
He did venture an entertaining suggestion as to what a new 'granny game' might be, 'Ballroom Dancing Revolution' is at the right pace with relevant music but unfortunately requires a dance-mat the size of a gymnasium.
Finally Katamari Damacy designer Keita Takahashi took the podium. He introduced his presentation, "I thought really hard about this one, I haven't thought this hard since I was coming up with the idea for Katamari Damacy. I decided that I wanted to get old ladies playing games and bring a little of the sunshine that they end up losing when they stay indoors all the time back into their lives." The focus of his talk began with the controller, he explained that current hardware designs are inorganic and difficult to understand. He introduced the design of his new controller specifically tailored for the Granny, and a picture of a cat appeared on the screen to great amusement. He explained, "the shape of the cat and the heat waves that it gives out really gets the old ladies going as they get quite cold. They like the cat shape. The cat is designed to be rested on the old ladies knees." The cat controller was met with rapture from the audience as Takahashi went on to explain the gameplay concept.
The game would begin with the family suggesting to Granny that she wear the cat because, for example, her knees looked cold. Embedded in the cat is the capability for it to communicate wirelessly with other cat controllers (on other Grannies' knees) in the neighborhood. When the cat connects to another one, "..the onboard a.i. kicks in." This causes the cat to speak, paraphrased as "meow, meow, grandma, meow". Takahashi explains that the family are required to participate in the game by pretending that they haven't heard anything, because of this – Grandma begins to build the perception that she is able to communicate directly with the cat.
As the dialogue with the cat develops, it suggests that Granny make some soup – but faster than the other granny down the street who has also received the instruction. A competitive element emerges and gradually the cat suggests more and more group activities that Grandma might engage in, culminating in trips to the park. "..So they all go outside and eventually they meet other old ladies with cats and they all become friends. So it's a game that involves the participation and love of the entire family." Takahashi ended the presentation by commenting on the possible production path of the cat, "Namco and Bandai are merging so when I get home I will submit my proposal." (:/)
Indeed. Until next time...
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posted by Rupert White at 5:36 pm
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