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May 31, 2006
In the kingdom of the ballless, the one balled man is king. (Redux)
Following on from the report last year that the French authorities had found banned substances in an old sample from Lance Armstrong
Dutch investigators cleared Lance Armstrong of doping in the 1999 Tour de France on Wednesday, and blamed anti-doping authorities for misconduct in dealing with the American cyclist.A 132-page report recommended convening a tribunal to discuss possible legal and ethical violations by the World Anti-Doping Agency and to consider "appropriate sanctions to remedy the violations."
The French sports daily L'Equipe reported in August that six of Armstrong's urine samples from 1999, when he won the first of his record seven-straight Tour titles, came back positive for the endurance-boosting hormone EPO when they were retested in 2004.
Vrijman said Wednesday his report "exonerates Lance Armstrong completely with respect to alleged use of doping in the 1999 Tour de France."
The ethical and legal violations result from being unable to retest the sample as it had been destroyed/contaminated/the dog ate my homework.
Here's to a twenty first sequential French defeat in the Tour.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 05:03 PM
Arsenic, Old Lace and Automobiles.
Mortimer Brewster: Now look, darling, how did he die? Abby Brewster: Oh, Mortimer, don't be so inquisitive. The gentleman died because he drank some wine with poison in it. Mortimer Brewster: Well, how did the poison get in the wine? Martha Brewster: Well, we put in wine because it's less noticeable. When it's in tea it has a distinct odor.Arsenic and Old Lace
From the Boston Globe
Undercover detectives watched the blind man climb into the suspect's car and start writing on document after document. They worried that he was signing his life away.As 74-year-old Josif Gabor would later tell it, he was walking to the bank when a woman he had met briefly before offered to drive him and translate some banking documents into his native Hungarian.
The nice septuagenarians, however had several small vices. One was for lawsuits, having filed almost 40 lawsuits between them over the last two decades, usually demanding money for alleged wrongs.
One was life insurance fraud, both having being indicted Tuesday on 10 counts for amounts totalling two million dollars. The policies were taken out on two homeless men that were struck and killed by cars in 1999 and 2005.
Once inside, Gabor thought the woman was just trying to be helpful when she asked: Could she buy him some life insurance?The woman, 72-year-old Olga Rutterschmidt, is now accused with a friend in a scheme to befriend vulnerable men, insure their lives for millions of dollars, and then cash in after they die in mysterious back alley hit-and-runs.
In an interview translated by his neighbor, Gabor said he has been afraid to leave his apartment since last Friday, when Rutterschmidt and 75-year-old Helen Golay were arrested and a police detective came to his door.
"She told me I was the next victim," said Gabor, a retired chiropractor who moved to the United States in 1980.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 01:56 PM
May 30, 2006
No, Signor da Vinci. Nessun elefanti, nessun cavalieri.
SKETCHES hidden beneath one of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous works have been revealed to the public for the first time after scientists discovered the provocative images under a thick layer of paint.
New findings by Maurizio Seracini (who even pops up in that Dan Brown novel, the only real person) using multispecrum imaging reveal that the underdrawing of the 'Adoration of the Magi', whilst mostly reproduced in the overpainting, omited certain aspects. Like the knights fighting, the corpses, workers rebuilding a temple and an elephant.
The imaging of the original design revealed that were deliberately obscured and the monochromatic paining was carried out by an anonymous, minor artist some twenty years after Leonardo had abandoned the preparatory work.
Da Vinci was commissioned to do the Renaissance work by a monks in Scopeto, in 1481, and historians agree the monks were probably shocked when they saw the work.
I suppose a battle raging just over the Madonna's head is a little unusual.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 01:20 PM
May 22, 2006
Forget snakes on a plane...
A WOMAN who arrived in London on a flight from Africa yesterday is reported to have died from the deadly and contagious ebola virus.Panic has spread among cabin crew and hospital staff after the death of the 38-year-old Briton.
The unnamed woman is understood to work at an embassy in the African kingdom of Lesotho.
Aparently the syptoms matched that of haemorragic fever (which are similar to malaria and typhoid), they're waiting on a post mortem to identify the fever. The cabin crew have been told to monitor their health.
Richard Preston's "Hot Zone" as a fairly good, primer (take it with a grain of salt, it is rather sensationalized) on the history of Ebola (Sudan, Zaire and particularily the Reston strain) and Marburg, and he had the prescience to mention that "we are only an airplane ride away from the outbreak of a pandemic.". Both "Level 4: Virus hunters of the CDC" by Joe McCormick and Susan Fisher-Hoch, and "Virus Hunter" by C. J. Peters are far better, though a little drier, having been written two CDC workers with extensive experience and a leading epidemiologist respectively.
And, if you've no idea what these filoviruses can do to people, here's a snip from Preston's book (only about 10% of victims 'crash and bleed' liker this):
Ebola ravages every organ system of the human body except for the muscles and bones. It is the perfect virus because it uses every part of the body to replicate. It thickens the blood until it clogs veins causing parts of the body to die due to lack of blood. The skin begins to rash and liquefy. Sometimes the skin will split open and bleed from the slightest touch. Ebola turns every opening in the body into faucets of blood. The lining of a victim's throat begins to sloth[sic] off. The body begins to vomit up black bile. It is black as a result of being filled with the remains of dead cells. The brain also deteriorates causing the infected person to go insane.
The best way to describe the effects of Ebola on a person is to take the victim’s insides, liquefy them a blender, and spill its contents across a floor. Of course, its saturated with the virus.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 01:23 PM
May 19, 2006
Timing, timing, timing.
A senior Microsoft executive told a BBC documentary that people should use commercial software if they're looking for stability.
Some people want to use community-based software, and they get value out of sharing with other people in the community. Other people want the reliability and the dependability that comes from a commercial software model. And again, at the end of the day, you make the choice based on what has the highest value to you," Murray continued.
Which wouldn't be particularily notable, except that the very next story starts with...
A zero-day flaw in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word software program is being used in an active exploit by sophisticated hackers in China and Taiwan, according to warnings from anti-virus researchers.
Well, we can depend on MS for at least one thing.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 04:22 PM
The Muffin Man
The Muffin Man is seated at the table in the laboratory of the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen... He turns to us and speaks:"SOME PEOPLE LIKE CUPCAKES BETTER. I FOR ONE CARE LESS FOR THEM!"
Arrogantly twisting the sterile canvas snoot of a fully charged icing
anointment utensil he poots forths a quarter-ounce green rosette
near the summit of a dense but radiant muffin of his own design.
Later he says:"SOME PEOPLE... SOME PEOPLE LIKE CUPCAKES EXCLUSIVELY, WHILE MYSELF, I SAY THERE IS NAUGHT NOR OUGHT THERE BE NOTHING SO EXALTED ON THE FACE OF GOD'S GREY EARTH AS THAT PRINCE OF FOODS... THE MUFFIN!"
Muffin Man, Frank Zappa
Hot on the heels of last weeks laxitive cookies for the teacher, the muffin man strikes:
Muffins that made 18 staff members at a Dallas-area high school ill contained the active ingredient found in marijuana, Dallas County health department officials said Thursday.Meanwhile, the FBI released frames from a surveillance video showing a young man delivering the muffins to Lake Highlands High School on Tuesday. The FBI said the man is considered a "person of interest" in the case.
The muffins were left in a teachers lounge and eaten by school employees, who later complained of nausea and feeling lightheaded.
Have you seen the muffin man,
The muffin man, the muffin man?
Update:
The FBI have now released a photo.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 03:48 PM
May 18, 2006
The Elephants Dream
The Elephant's Dream has been released as...
the world’s first open movie, made entirely with open source graphics software such as Blender, and with all production files freely available to use however you please, under a Creative Commons license.
As a confessed animation junkie (who also likes the idea of open source), this is fantastic. The score, the animation files, and, of course, the movie, are available at The Elephant's Dream, for use, reuse and otherwise learning from.
The site is being slightly overwhelmed by traffic at the moment, but refreshing will eventually load the page.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 04:07 PM
May 17, 2006
A new display technology
IO2 Technology have released their Heliodisplay unit. It projects an image "onto a nearly invisible plane of transformed air" (which I'm assuming means heated, as no substances are added to the air).
What results is something that looks very three dimensional, as there are no depth cues from a monitor to be had. And its a touch 'screen'. The resolution isnt' great (800x600) and the image shimmers a bit. But...
I could see myself having a rotating animation of a nearly-completed Death star on one of these...
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 02:05 PM
May 16, 2006
Abracadabra1. Or just use pesticides.
I say, then, that such was the energy of the contagion of the said pestilence, that it was not merely propagated from man to man but, what is much more startling, it was frequently observed, that things which had belonged to one sick or dead of the disease, if touched by some other living creature, not of the human species, were the occasion, not merely of sickening, but of an almost instantaneous death.The Decameron, Boccaccio, c.1348
Having read some histories and accounts of the black death, the bubonic plague that reduced Europe's population by (an estimated) one-third in the 14th century, I'm always curious to read more when I see it in the news. In Utah this time.
Utah Campground Closed Because of Plague
A campground at Natural Bridges National Monument has been closed because of bubonic plague detected among field mice and chipmunks.Plague also has been found this spring in rodent populations at Mesa Verde National Park and Colorado National Monument.
...
"We come down on the conservative side when it comes to closing campgrounds," said Joe Winkelmaier of the U.S. Public Health Service. "We just like to be sure when it comes to plague."
Which certainly gets my vote for understatement of the week. Good to know they take Pestis bubonica seriously.
It did bring to mind a story from last year, where three lab mice, infected with the plague were stolen and one from a few weeks back, where a woman in Los Angeles was hospitalized with it.
Reading up on the CDC site reveals that the plague has a happy home in the wilds, with 10-15 human casts per year 'Most ... occur in two regions: 1) northern New Mexico, northern Arizona, and southern Colorado; and 2) California, southern Oregon, and far western Nevada.'
1. Abracadabra was an incantation intended to cure fevers and inflammations, and employed in the 16th Century to ward off the plague. It didn't work.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 11:56 AM
May 14, 2006
Teleportation patented!
The US Patent office is a haven for the offbeat. Now someone has beaten Scotty to it and applied for a patent on whole body teleportation.
Some of the more entertaining extracts:
Brief Summary
[0001] This invention is a system that teleports a human being through hyperspace from one location to another using a pulsed gravitational wave traveling through hyperspace.
Which was enough to make me want to read more. Not for any hope of a working theory, simply to see what was the genesis of the idea. There wasn't long to wait.
[0002] The basis for this invention is an event, referring to FIG. 1, occurring on May 2, 2004, in which the inventor ("he") personally experienced a full-body teleportation while walking to the bus stop (A) along a road (B) that runs perpendicular to the nearby commercial airport runways where planes are landing. There is a wide iron grating (D) for water drainage that crosses the road at the center of the bus stop. The grating width is such that one has to make a concerted effort to jump across it in order to get from one side to the other. Approximately 50 meters from the iron grating, he (E) felt a vertical wave (F), similar to a flag waving in the breeze, traveling down the street toward the bus stop. The wave velocity was about 1 meter per second, which was slightly faster than his walking speed. In the next instance, he (G) found himself down the street near the corner of the next block. Realizing that he had passed the bus stop, he turned around to see the iron grating approximately 50 meters up the street in back of him. Because there was no recollection of having jumped across the iron grating nor of having passed the bus stop's yellow marker line, he realized that he had been teleported a distance of 100 meters while moving along with the traveling wave. It was obvious that the wave was pulsed because the front edge overtook the inventor, moved with him momentarily, and then the back edge of wave left him as it moved on down the street. While contemplating this sequence of events, he then looked up and saw in a span of a few seconds a twin-turboprop airplane (C) in the distance crossing above the road while making a shallow descent in order to land at the airport.
After several days of intense thought, what had happened became clear. 43 steps later through 26 diagrams, (with Chi Kung breathing and anti-gravity via a Chakra Vortex Accelerator, no less) we arrive at the Detailed Description of the Invention (ie. how to build a teleporter).
[0045] 1. The obelisks are quarried out of granite stone and cut with a large-diameter diamond saw that is used in highway construction. The beveled piece at the top is cut separately and cemented in place. A tapered aluminum bracket holds the toroids in place. [0046] 2. The electronics for the magnetic vortex generator are similar to that used in the patent application Magnetic Vortex Wormhole Generator. [0047] 3. The electronics for the toroidal waveguides is the familiar stub and coaxial cable driven by an amplifier and pulsed variable-frequency generator.
I'm rather suspecting Einstein may have at least been entertained somewhat with his job as a patent clerk.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 04:25 PM
May 10, 2006
Spam, spam, bacon and spam, spam.
Read not books alone, but men, and amongst them chiefly thyself. If thou find anything questionable there, use the commentary of a severe friend rather than the gloss of a sweet lipped flatterer; there is more profit in a distasteful truth than in deceitful sweetness. Francis Quarles (1592 - 1644)
Once more the little electric trolls have begun inundating this site with comment spam. Their purpose is not to gain my attentions with their tepid, canned flattery, or have the few that read here click on their links, but instead to drive up their google rankings by sowing URLs in as many sites as possible (the more pages link to you, the better you fare in a google search).
Comments on this site are moderated, and so such spam is never published, however, the numbers to be excorcised has been climbing steadily recently, which has prompted me to look for solutions. Movable Type 3.16 doesn't have the advanced filters that 3.2 does, so my options are a little more restricted. Here are my first thoughts.
The comment scripts are tweaked, my fingers are crossed. If you have a better solution (or think this one abysmal), leave a comment. Just dont forget to post afer previewing.
I'll let you know how successful it is.
Not overly. It appears to have slowed them down a little. I suspect the mt-comments script is being hit directly, bypassing the post buttons.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 10:12 AM
May 09, 2006
Miss, we baked cookies!
In a story from Maine Today, reminiscent of Douglas Lynch and the mormons, a mother has been charged with misdemeanor assault for...
... helping her daughter make cookies laced with the laxative Ex-Lax appeared before a judge Monday and pleaded innocent ...
The cookies were never eaten by the target of the prank, a teacher who had reportedly given one of the girls a low grade ... (they) were left on the desk of the teacher on April 10, along with a note saying "We made these cookies just for you, hope you enjoy them."
According to an affidavit filed in Skowhegan District Court and signed by Maine State Trooper Hugh I. Landry, Hunt told the girls how to crush the laxative pills and add them to the cookie batter. They used an entire box of pills, according to the affidavit.
Which is the kind of young criminal genius activity I would normally appreciate, though the mothers obvious encouragement and involvement negates that. Aparently, the teacher, a sharing type, did not scoff the tainted treats as hoped, and instead shared them with the class.
None of it, however, has the sheer schadenfreude potential of Doug's - which also landed him in court (as reported in Australia's Age newspaper, 16/12/1999 - the original article is available as a pay-per-view here)
Douglas Lynch and his mate Alexander McLean invited some door-knocking mormons in for cookies and tea. For unbeknownst reasons, it appears the mormons got more peckish ...
Elder Tom Pettit, a U.S. citizen, told the court that he and his companion went to the home to teach a man named Doug who they had met in the street earlier in the week. Lynch and McLean then offered the missionaries 30 freshly baked small (hash) cookies, of which the Elders ate 10 to 12 each, while their hosts ate three or four.
Which led to hospital, a stomach pump and legal charges.
McLean plead not guilty ... while Lynch plead guilty to charges of cultivating, using and possessing cannabis. Upon leaving the court, Mclean said that "If they knock on our door again they are quite welcome to come in and have a cup of coffee and a biscuit".
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 09:18 AM
May 05, 2006
Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.
Every now and then a new category must be added, or in this case, a very old category revived. I like to mess about in the kitchen, so this will be where anything notable is posted.
Todays fun: Crepes Suzettes (the easy way, flambé optional)
The crepes
50 grams (2oz) plain flour
50 grams (2oz) self raising flour
1 large egg
150 ml (5 fl oz) milk
150 ml (5 fl oz) water
1 tsp finely grated lemon rind
Pinch salt
Mix the flour and eggs, then slowly add the milk and water until you get a cream-like consistancy. Add the lemon rind and salt and whisk to make a batter. Let it stand for 30 minutes. Melt a little butter in a frying pan (so it just melts and bubbles - not turns brown) and cook the crepes (makes about 4).
The berries
Berries (4 halved strawberries or raspberries or whatever you fancy)
1 tbsp Grand Marnier
Soak the berries in the Grand Marnier - preferable whilst the batter is standing for the crepes.
The butter
100g (2oz) butter
90g (1 1/5 oz) caster sugar
Finely grated rind of one orange
1 tablespoon Grand Marnier/Cointreau
Greased baking tray
Cream butter and 60g (2oz) caster sugar. Mix with 1 tbsp of Grand Marnier and the orange rind. Spread crepes thinly with the flavoured butter, fold in half, spread and fold again, then place on the baking tray. Melt the remaining flavoured butter and pour over the crepes, sprinkle with remaining sugar. Bake at 220∧c (430∧f) until the sugar caremelises.
The Sauce
1 tsp raspberry or strawberry jam/jelly
30ml (1 fl oz) lemon juice
Berries (4 strawberries or raspberries or whatever you fancy)
1 tbsp Grand Marnier
Blend all ingredients well.
The Finish
Serve whilst hot, with the alcohol soaked berries on top, drizzled in the sauce. Serve with cream or ice cream and a dusting of icing sugar.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 12:54 PM
"It doesn't hurt when it begins, But as it works its way on in..."
An Oregon man who went to a hospital with severe a headache was found to have 12 nails embedded in his skull - from a suicide attempt last year involving stupidity, methamphetamines and a nail gun.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 11:13 AM
When advertising companies fail to think.
From CNS News - Mission Illogical: Movie Promotion Puts Lives 'at Risk'
A musical promotion for Paramount Pictures' upcoming movie, "Mission: Impossible III" was designed to turn the "everyday news rack experience" into an "extraordinary mission."
I always have reservations when advertising (or web design companies) talk about 'enhancing the user experience'.
The plan was to conceal digital audio players in 4,500 randomly selected newspaper boxes around Los Angeles and Ventura County. When newspaper buyers opened the racks, the six inch long, two-and-a-half inch wide red plastic boxes -- connected to activator switches on the news rack doors -- would play the easily-recognizable "Mission: Impossible" theme song.
An unidentifiable red device connected by wires (red-black-white) to the door of a news rack. What could go wrong?
One newspaper buyer saw the device and switch, thought it was a bomb and called authorities. After an inspection of the newspaper rack could not determine whether the device was explosive, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department bomb squad blew up the newspaper rack.
All the advertising people together now, hum along: Dumb, dumb, dumb, dum-dum...
But what about the lives at risk? After one was discovered inside the lobby of a veteran's hospital, 300 people were evacuated and doctors were not allowed to enter to treat patients.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 09:54 AM
May 02, 2006
Stupid criminals are the ones who get caught.
Really stupid ones have their humiliating tales exposed in the international news.
Take this week's masked, armed bank robber, for instance. He used the car his girlfriend lent him as the getaway vechicle (after switching the licence plates). Then he abandoned it.
I imagine it would not be hard to track the owner down with anything from the VIN number or (just as likely) stuff in the glovebox.
The girlfriend, in addition to presumably being quite unhappy, told police who she loaned the car out to. Spokesman for the state prosecutors in Trier mentioned that by using his girlfriend's car, he "might as well have left his business card. It was really stupid."
Several police officers also had no trouble identifying the masked man from the surveillance video. It was their Police Commissioner.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 12:18 PM