Serious doubts about whether Iraq was developing nuclear weapons were communicated to Australia months before John Howard repeated the claims in parliament, according to Greg Theilmann, a former senior United States official with the State Department
For centuries, researchers have been confounded by the fact that the Incas apparently ruled a mighty empire without any written records. Now Gary Urton, a professor at Harvard University, believes he has uncovered a language of binary code recorded in knotted strings — a writing system unlike virtually any other
Christopher Blommel has a vision for a better world — one where every man would carry in his wallet a small cellophane packet containing a product that can come in handy in an emergency — pocket duct tape
Gerbils, hamsters and guinea pigs will be able to go on holiday almost anywhere in Europe after the EU extended pet passports to most domestic animals
It’s bad enough having to pummel your well-intentioned friends when they e-mail you with urban legends disguised as dire warnings without having to weed the same crap out of the media as well.
US News & World Report editor Mort Zuckerman recently provided anecdotes to make the point that these days anyone… can haul anybody into court for just about anything
. Unfortunately Zuckerman is either a lazy journalist, completely clueless or amazingly gullible, as his facts turned out to be fiction.
The Urban Legend Reference Pages traces the bogus lawsuit anecdotes back to spam from 2001, which listed six separate supposedly outrageous legal awards.
US News is refusing to issue a correction, even after copping a reaming from the Washington Post.
Nerve cells derived from human embryonic stem cells and transplanted into paralysed rats have enabled the animals to walk again. The findings add to a growing number of studies that suggest embryonic stem cells could have a valuable role to play in treating spinal injuries
All new Victorian homes will have to have solar hot water or rainwater tanks under building regulation changes. The changes are part of the State Government’s mandatory five-star energy standards to come into full force in July 2005
Australian federal politicians will soon debate proposed legislation that will make open-source software the first choice for Commonwealth departments and agencies. Australian Democrats senator Brian Greig has announced his intention to introduce a private members’ bill into the Senate that may see federal agencies forced to justify their expenditure on proprietary software
Sydney police have arrested a man who allegedly used home PCs to create
hundreds of forged documents using stolen identities. They must be on a roll, having discovered what they believe to be another counterfeiting ring which had been producing imitation drivers licences, birth certificates, group certificates and tax returns
lucie sent me a site with a collection of sometimes funny, but mostly scarily pathetic, quotes from IRC chats. If nothing else, it does offer proof for why I hate IRC so much and feel that stupid 13-year-old boys should not be allowed near computers.
Invisible soft walls
in the skies around city centres and other likely terrorist targets could make it impossible for hijacked planes to fly anywhere near them. The new avionics system comprises an on-board GPS database containing the coordinates of no-fly zones. If pilots try to enter these areas, they are physically countered by the onboard computer and gently steered from the area
If big business hopes to regain the dwindling trust of consumers, demanding a right to lie is hardly the way to do it. So perhaps the US Supreme Court helped save corporate America from itself — at least temporarily — by declining to rule on the Nike Corporation’s claim of a constitutional right to lie
The California Supreme Court has ruled that a former employee of Intel was free to send email messages to current company employees, overturning a lower court’s injunction. The court rejected Intel’s argument that the messages represented illegal trespassing into its computer systems
Steven Low, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and his colleagues have been developed that drastically improves download performance from the net. Running at 3,500 times faster than traditional broadband this software achieves download speeds of up to 7 gigabytes per minute
This one’s on a guy who blows up household appliances — amongst other things — for a living.
I found this hysterical link on Bruce Sterling’s blog. It’s the website for a venerable 1800’s museum with an enviable collection of TR-909 kickdrums… museumoftechno.org
Anyone hoping to make lots of money charging consumers directly for WiFi internet access is in for very empty pockets. But making your money back on your shiny new WiFi hotspot by selling coffee or offering a room for the night is a more realistic approach
Sarah Matteson, a Medical College of Georgia student, and Michelle Goree, a veterinary medicine student at Auburn University, have received a federal innovation award for having dogs and their owners undergo health screenings at the same time
FireWire isn’t just for connecting iPods and DVD burners any more. A software package from Apple lets you use plain old — and fancy new — FireWire cables to connect Macs in a network. Apple’s IP-over-FireWire software turns a FireWire bus into something akin to an Ethernet port
If eyewitness memories are missing, the brain makes them up, and scanning technology has a hard time telling real from fake. And yet, dodgy repressed memory experts are still seen as credible
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