Praise the Lord and crank the bass: Betty Jones busted for loud worship

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15 June 2012
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A Tennessee woman says she was just praising the Lord, although at high volume, when she received a citation accusing her of violating the city’s noise ordinance. She later was arrested by police on a disorderly conduct charge.

Fifty-four-year-old Betty Jones tells WCYB-TV that her routine every Sunday includes five hours of praising and dancing, while she listens to music by Johnny Cash, Randy Travis, Alan Jackson and The Judds.

But neighbours in Bristol complained about loud music, so police showed up on 27 May, a Sunday. A police report says officers helped her lower her stereo’s bass and warned her. But officers say they came back less than two hours later being called again.

This, time they cited her under the city’s noise ordinance, and Jones tells the station she gave the officers a message too — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Alzheimer’s gene ‘diabetes link’

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15 June 2012
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In Health, Science
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Scientists say they have identified a possible genetic link between diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.

It has been known for some time that people with diabetes have a much higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s, but not why this is so.

Now US researchers writing in Genetics say a study of worms has indicated a known Alzheimer’s gene also plays a role in the way insulin is processed.

Dementia experts said more work in humans was now needed — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Concepto to push parts as Swatch Group alternative

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15 June 2012
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In Business, Design
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The Concepto Watch Factory, a Swiss manufactory that develops and manufacturers top level watch movements and complex mechanisms in-house, has set up a new company called Optimo Assortments which hopes to become a serious alternative to Swatch Group-manufactured parts.  As Reuters recently reported, Swatch Group is the industry’s parts supermarket, with its ETA unit providing as much as 80 percent of Swiss movements and its Nivarox arm dominating the market for escapement and oscillating parts, which make up the heart of a watch’s mechanism.  However for many years Swatch Group has been in the process of reducing its watch supply to rival watchmakers, setting off a scramble in the industry to source alternative parts — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Kogan to tax shoppers for using IE7

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15 June 2012
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In Business, Technology
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Australian consumer electronics upstart Kogan Technologies has deployed a special tax on its popular website which will charge online shoppers an extra 6.8 percent on top of their purchases if they persist in using what the company described as Microsoft’s antique Internet Explorer web browser.

The way we’ve been able to keep our prices so low is by using technology to make our business efficient and streamlined, Kogan wrote on its company blog yesterday. One of the things stopping that is our web team having to spend a lot of time making our new website look normal on IE7. This is an extremely old browser, so from today, anyone buying from the site who uses IE7 will be lumped with a 6.8% surcharge — that’s 0.1% for each month IE7 has been on the market.

It’s not only costing us a huge amount, it’s affecting any business with an online presence, and costing the Internet economy millions, the company claimed. Customers who enter our site using Internet Explorer 7 can avoid the impost by simply downloading an up-to-date browser such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera or even a more recent version of Internet Explorer. Kogan wrote that all Internet citizens had a responsibility to make the Internet a better place.

By taking these measures, we are doing our bit, the company added. This will help us increase our efficiency, help keep prices for all smart shoppers down, and hopefully help eradicate the world of the pain in the rear that is IE7! So, what are you waiting for? Time to upgrade your browser! — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Facebook, Twitter, Google, AOL join new alliance to fight ‘bad ads’

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15 June 2012
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Facebook, Google, Twitter, and AOL have joined an alliance that has been set up to counter bad ads, including those that deliver malware, direct users to scams, or try to sell counterfeit goods, said StopBadware, the promoters of the alliance.

The Ads Integrity Alliance was launched Thursday and has Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in New York also as a charter member.

No individual business or law enforcement agency can single-handedly eliminate these bad actors from the entire web, Eric Davis, Google’s global public policy manager said in a blog post on Thursday — via redwolf.newsvine.com

San Francisco tries to curb panhandling with puppies, stipends

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15 June 2012
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In Politics, Wildlife
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When it comes to tackling San Francisco’s entrenched panhandling problem, City Hall has tried just about everything: laws banning aggressive panhandling and sitting on sidewalks, teams of service providers who attempt to get beggars off the streets, and an employment program to get them hired at nearby businesses.

But it’s never tried puppies — until now.

Starting 1 August, the city — in a program believed to be the first of its kind in the country — will attempt to lure panhandlers to give up their cardboard signs and metal cups in exchange for a small stipend to foster problematic puppies at the city’s Animal Care and Control, making them ready for adoption — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Lawsuits Should Not Be a Free-For All

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15 June 2012
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In Rights
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The cornerstone of fair government and ordered liberty is due process of law: the state must define legal obligations in advance and apply them even-handedly. That principle is under assault today from an unusual source: the federal courts. An obscure change to a procedural rule in 1938 delegated to any private person the absolute right to commandeer the power of the state to issue an official court order (a “summons”) to any other person to stop whatever they are doing and report to court to spend time and money defending against any charges, no matter how bogus, regardless of whether they have any basis in either law or fact.

Today anyone may sue anyone over anything: the fleeing felon who breaks in, takes hostages, and then sues his victims for allegedly violating their oral contract to hide him from the police; the convict who sues the makers of baking soda for failing to warn it is illegal to use their product to make crack cocaine; the D.C. administrative law judge who sues his dry cleaners for $54 million for losing his pants (and thereby imposes over $100,000 in legal expenses on the store’s Korean-born owners).

Some examples may be amusing, but the problem is not. Millions of dollars a year are spent defending against lawsuits that never should have been brought. For example, when several states enacted a requirement that a doctor has to sign a paper saying that someone is actually sick, asbestos lawsuits dropped by an average of 90 percent — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Triumph Thruxton Custom / Maria Motorcycles

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14 June 2012
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This is one of the first creations from Maria Motorcycles of Lisbon, Portugal, and it’s a great start. Maria’s philosophy is to get to the essence of a bike and keep it simple, and that’s what they’ve done with this super-clean custom based on a 2010 Triumph Thruxton. The owner was tired of the crouched riding position, and wanted a bike with a more open cockpit — via Bike EXIF

Top bosses admit: Tweets, Facebook Likes influence decisions

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14 June 2012
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In Business, Technology
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Nine out of 10 execs think Big Data — the hoarding of information from server logs to social networking posts — is the fourth most important input to a business. The execs questioned in a survey published yesterday described data sets as the fourth factor of production after land, labour and capital.

The research by the Economist Intelligence Unit and funded by Capgemini examines the role of Big Data in influencing management decisions. Of the 600+ senior execs questioned, 65 per cent of them asserted that more and more management decisions are based on hard analytic information, as opposed to just having a hunch — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Orvillecopter, the stuffed helicopter cat, sparks global outrage

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14 June 2012
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In Technology, Weird, Wildlife
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Dutch artist Bart Jansen is under attack after images of his flying helicopter cat went viral on the Internet this week.

Jansen created the bizarre cat helicopter after his pet Orville was killed by a car.

According to media reports, Jansen kept Orville’s body in a freezer for about six months, before taking him to a taxidermist and attaching a plastic propeller to each of his four paws. Then he put a remote control engine inside the stomach of the cat, and after a few false starts, the Orvillecopter achieved lift-off — via LA Times

Embroidery 101 / Jenny Hart

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14 June 2012
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Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching has a new short series of how-to embroidery videos through Kin Community on YouTube. You can watch Embroidery 101, Five Basic Embroidery Stitches and Three Ways to Transfer Embroidery Patterns. The videos are really lovely and nicely done, and it’s a great quick look at embroidery basics. Stay tuned, because Jenny says there are five more video tutorials on their way — via CRAFT

Triumph Bonneville T100 Custom / Mule Motorcycles

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13 June 2012
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In Design
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Richard Pollock is having good problems. Demand for his Mule street-trackers is running ahead of supply, so much so that customers are now buying his personal motorcycles out from underneath him. Actually, even Pollock’s own bikes are work-related. This 2007 Triumph Bonneville T100 that he was keeping for himself also served as testbed for products being developed by Streetmaster, the small Southern California speed house Pollock does work for — via Bike EXIF

Poison pill the latest weapon against toads

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13 June 2012
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The pesky cane toad, which has played havoc with native species, could soon be facing death by its own poison.

Native tadpoles are repelled by the cane toads’ poison, but cane toads themselves are attracted to it.

Now, the University of Sydney’s Professor Rick Shine says work is underway to manufacture a poison pill to target the rogue tadpoles.

We’re hoping that we can come up with a relatively non-toxic pure form of the chemical that’ll last for a long time, Professor Shine said.

It’ll be safe to use [and] it’ll make it a lot easier to go and catch those cane toad tadpoles from that pond down the road — via redwolf.newsvine.com

The Psychology Of The Honour System At The Farm Stand

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13 June 2012
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In Business
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In a state full of tasty surprises, count the Swanton Berry Farm, along the coast highway just north of Santa Cruz, California, among the most charming. At this pick-your-own, certified-organic berry field and farm stand cafe on the planted bluffs above a tumbling surf, you can pick or picnic with ocean views –— and, if you’re lucky, catch a glimpse of a grey whale and her calf migrating north from Baja. Locals bring out-of-town guests to Swanton’s to swoon over the juicy organic strawberries or blackberries on buttery shortcake, or the scones slathered with tartly sweet, small-batch strawberry-citrus jam.

But what customers seem to love at least as much as the expansive views and good food is Swanton’s old-style method of payment: Step up to the unmanned counter whenever you’re ready, figure out what you owe (scratch paper provided), and stuff the cash through a slot in the honour box. Swanton founder Jim Cochran says his stand has thrived for years on the honour payment system, a style of business he first admired as a college student at his favourite bakery in Santa Cruz decades ago — via redwolf.newsvine.com

4G ‘far superior’ to the NBN, claims Joe Hockey

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13 June 2012
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Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey has inaccurately claimed that 4G mobile broadband has the potential to be far superior to the fibre technology which Labor’s National Broadband Network policy features, in a controversial interview in which he also claimed that it could cost Australians up to $1,000 to connect to the NBN.

The claims were made in a radio interview which Hockey gave with the ABC’s Statewide Mornings show on ABC 936 in a visit to Tasmania last week. The host, Leon Compton, asked Hockey a number of questions about the Coalition’s own approach to the NBN. In one segment of the interview, Hockey spoke extensively about the potential of wireless technologies to serve the nation’s future broadband needs — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Plague of dodgy prescriptions puts illicit drugs in the shade

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13 June 2012
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In Health
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Despite a lively public debate about illicit drugs, the dominant drugs of addiction overtaking Western societies are those prescribed legally by trusted doctors. Prescription drugs, initially given to modulate chronic pain, reduce disabling anxiety or lift fledgling moods, are most likely to become chemicals of abuse and addiction.

The numbers are staggering.

The National Drug Strategy household survey results in 2009 reported more than 1.2 million Australians had used a pharmaceutical drug for a non-medical purpose.

Several experts, such as Professor Nick Lintzeris of Sydney University, believe as many as 100,000 Australians may have a problem with prescription painkillers. Prescribed opioids are fast replacing heroin, cocaine and ice as the drug of choice in the illicit markets — via redwolf.newsvine.com

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