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WorldWeird: [Closed] NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 22nd April)

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    • CommentAuthorRenThing
    • CommentTimeMar 29th 2012
     (10575.1)
    But, Kosmopolit, it's on the Internet, how can it not be true?!
    •  
      CommentAuthorD.J.
    • CommentTimeMar 29th 2012
     (10575.2)
    •  
      CommentAuthorYoav
    • CommentTimeMar 29th 2012
     (10575.3)
    I got did.
    •  
      CommentAuthorMorac
    • CommentTimeMar 29th 2012
     (10575.4)
    Canada is ditching the penny.

    Apparently, it costs 1.6 cents to make a one cent coin.
    • CommentAuthorKosmopolit
    • CommentTimeMar 29th 2012
     (10575.5)
    Two new compounds currently undergoing animal testing have widespread effects on metabolism including reducing obesity and lowering cholesterol and blood sugar.

    They do this by affecting the circadian clock and there's some evidence they may also affect insomnia and lack of alertness.

    Even if these first compounds don't lead directly to new drugs they do seem to be giving information abotu fundamental causes for increasing levels of obesity and diabetes.
    • CommentAuthorMrMonk
    • CommentTimeMar 29th 2012 edited
     (10575.6)
    1.6 cents to make a 1 cent coin. Big deal, think how often they are used. I got two pennies in my change from lunch today: 1978 and 1964. How many transactions has each one seen? As silly as the people in the U.S. who resist a change to dollar coins because "it costs more to make a coin than to print on paper."
  7.  (10575.7)
    The Australian Government is currently holding an inquiry into legalising same-sex marriage. The Catholic church isn't very happy about this and is sending a letter about "The True Meaning of Marriage" to 80,000 of their parishioners.

    It actually makes a fairly logical argument, if you accept the base premise that marriage is "a natural institution" - which even a brief glance at the scope of human history and culture shows is absolute crazy talk.

    Also, this - [Opposition to Same Sex Marriage] in no way implies that the Church accepts discrimination against other’s human rights. Nor does it mean we fail to understand the complex nature of human sexual identity and desire. It implies no lack of respect for people who identify as ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’.

    Really Catholic Church? Really?
    • CommentAuthorWood
    • CommentTimeMar 30th 2012
     (10575.8)
    I challenge you to find a more awesome sentence than this one :

    Ken Schweller, a computer scientist and psychologist, and also the chairman of the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, has a vision: He wants to put wireless Android tablets in the hands of bonobo apes.

    Now Schweller wants to go one step further and outfit the bonobos with wireless tablets running custom Bonobo Chat software, allowing the apes to communicate with their keepers (and other bonobos!) from anywhere in the Sanctuary, and to remotely control devices such as vending machines, doors, and the RoboBonobo.


    More details here

    There's a kickstarter funding campaign going on. Give those apes some tablets !
    •  
      CommentAuthorFoamhead
    • CommentTimeMar 30th 2012
     (10575.9)
    •  
      CommentAuthorVornaskotti
    • CommentTimeMar 31st 2012 edited
     (10575.10)
    “Weird Al” Yankovic, the frizzy-haired parody singer best known for his 1980s musical send-offs of stars such as Michael Jackson and Milli Vanilli, filed suit this afternoon against Sony Music Entertainment, claiming the record label has deliberately underpaid him more than $5 million.

    Filed today in federal court in New York, Yankovic’s suit is the latest in a growing list of looming court battles between artists and the nation’s major record labels over accounting and payment practices for music sold and streamed online.


    http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120330/BUSINESS/303300115/Wierd-Al-sues-Sony-Music
  11.  (10575.11)
    Prison Food Loaf in the news again...

    Prison's 'Nutraloaf' May Violate 8th Amendment

    Nutraloaf is perhaps the most reviled food in the nation. It's a meatloaf-like substance designed to meet a prisoner's nutritional needs, and is often composed of leftover fruits, vegetables, meats and grains. It's bad-tasting and is often used as a form of punishment.

    Terrance Prude, who is usually housed at a Wisconsin state prison, was moved to the county jail on several occasions for the purpose of attending court proceedings. During his second and third stays, he was fed nutraloaf, explains the court. The food caused him to lose 12 pounds even though he was not overweight. It also caused him to vomit and experience severe gastrointestinal pain.

    The county jail gave him antacids and a stool softener and sent him back to the state prison. Once there, he was diagnosed with an anal fissure, which Judge Posner explains is "no fun at all."
    • CommentAuthorFlabyo
    • CommentTimeApr 1st 2012
     (10575.12)
  13.  (10575.13)
    !

    http://dotsies.org/

    Dotsies is a font that uses dots instead of letters. The latin alphabet (abc...) was created thousands of years ago, and is optimized for writing, not reading. About time for an update, no? Dotsies is optimized for reading. The letters in each word smoosh together, so words look like shapes.
    • CommentAuthorWood
    • CommentTimeApr 2nd 2012
     (10575.14)
    Man whose WMD lies led to 100,000 deaths confesses all

    The chemical engineer claimed to have overseen the building of a mobile biological laboratory when he sought political asylum in Germany in 1999. His lies were presented as "facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence" by Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, when making the case for war at the UN Security Council in February 2003.

    But Mr Janabi, speaking in a two-part series, Modern Spies, starting tomorrow on BBC2, says none of it was true. When it is put to him "we went to war in Iraq on a lie. And that lie was your lie", he simply replies: "Yes."

    US officials "sexed up" Mr Janabi's drawings of mobile biological weapons labs to make them more presentable, admits Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, General Powell's former chief of staff. "I brought the White House team in to do the graphics," he says, adding how "intelligence was being worked to fit around the policy".
    •  
      CommentAuthordorkmuffin
    • CommentTimeApr 2nd 2012
     (10575.15)
  16.  (10575.16)
    Coins and candy all over the highway in Canada!

    What I don't get is how they're apparently picking up coins with an electromagnet in the pictures... colour me ignorant but aren't coins generally copper/nickel alloys, while magnets only attract iron?
  17.  (10575.17)
    • CommentAuthorroadscum
    • CommentTimeApr 3rd 2012
     (10575.18)
    Thank you Mr Vornaskotti, you have just destroyed all my arguments, ever. I hope you're proud of yourself.
    • CommentAuthorFlabyo
    • CommentTimeApr 3rd 2012
     (10575.19)
    I think I need to print that one out at pin it up in public places...
    •  
      CommentAuthorFoamhead
    • CommentTimeApr 3rd 2012 edited
     (10575.20)
    Broken-down truck + tow-truck + police camera + snow-covered mountain road =



    (the tow-truck driver got out before the tumble whereas the truck driver wasn't quite so lucky, surviving with only a couple of broken bones and is in a stable condition.)

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