Are you familiar with the popular Diamond Journey Pendants which seem to be in every newspaper ad? Well here’s my take on it, Octopus Style!! This graduating Octopus suction cup pendant had been hand made and Cast in Sterling Silver from a REAL octopus. The Journey stands for love relationships changing and growing — via Etsy
A Toronto man who was arrested on his way to church has settled a financial claim against the police.
Jason Wall, 25, was walking along Yonge Street by himself on the morning of 27 June 2010, when he was swarmed by as many as 20 Toronto police officers and taken into custody.
The police were part of the detail that was providing security for the G20 summit taking place that weekend in the city.
Wall says he was arrested because he was wearing a bandana around his neck.
According to statement from his lawyer Wall spent approximately 28 hours in custody … He was forced to wear handcuffs for more than 20 hours, slept on the floor, and had to submit to a degrading strip search after which he was released without charge.
The Toronto man filed a complaint with the Ontario Independent Police Review Director.
The OIPRD investigation discovered that Wall has been unlawfully arrested — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The British Library and its commercial partner brightsolid opened up a pay-per-view online archive of newspapers today, after a crack team scanned 4 million searchable pages that mainly date from out-of-copyright papers published in the 19th century.
It was confirmed in May 2010 that the British Library and brightsolid — which is a division of FriendsReunited and Beano owner DC Thomson – would eventually digitise 40 million pages of old newspapers.
The library holds 52,000 national and international titles covering 300 years. Up until now, around 30,000 researchers a year have to go to Colindale in north London to scan through microfilm or hard copies — via redwolf.newsvine.com
so — according to a poll conducted by the kind folks over at
goshyesthemiddleman, there seems to be some demand for middleman crossover fanfic……and while i have publicly stated that i am more or less done writing stories for the middleman and wendy… well… what the hey, it’s christmas, and i suppose that technically, this isn’t so much a middleman story as it is a fanfic for another character…
MadPax does a line of cool kids’ backpacks covered in soft spikes, available in vibrant colours as well as textured, lizardlike fabrics — via Boing Boing
The last two captains left on a tiny fishing island take the only boat and set out to hunt the Squiddlepus — via CiaranDuffy illustration
Police across the US have been criticised for their actions in clashes with Occupy Wall Street protesters. The man who led the police response to the Battle in Seattle protests at the 1999 WTO meeting blames the post-9/11 militarisation of American policing.
“Law enforcement across the country is pursuing the same tactics that failed so miserably in Seattle,” Norm Stamper tells BBC World Service’s Witness programme.
“There’s a lack of patience, there’s a lack of imagination and there are clear over-reactions to the challenges the police perceive. It is all so disheartening.”
In November 1999, Chief Stamper was one of the main officials charged with managing the huge numbers of demonstrators who brought the city to a standstill in protests against the launch of a new round of global trade talks.
An estimated 50,000 activists from around the world flooded Seattle and occupied strategic crossroads, blocking delegates’ access to the convention centre where the talks were to be held.
The demonstrations seriously disrupted the trade talks. The opening ceremony had to be cancelled because most delegates were unable to get to the meetings, and even US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was stuck in her hotel room unable to give the speech she had prepared.
The police responded by spraying the crowd with tear gas, That, says Chief Stamper, set the tone for the next three days — via redwolf.newsvine.com
ANU researchers have discovered a new type of cell that boosts the human body’s ability to fight infection and disease.
The cell, named the natural killer T follicular helper, is able to recognise infectious bacteria such as pneumonia and meningitis before triggering an antibody response to fight off the infection — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Three orphaned cougar cubs with baby-blue eyes, fuzzy spotted coats, and much-too-big feet have briefly taken up residence behind the scenes at the Oregon Zoo until they can be moved to permanent homes in Nashville and Houston next week — via ZooBorns
Scientists using the latest in modern boffinry to peel back the layers of time report that they have made important new discoveries at Stonehenge, hinting that the site was already a very ancient centre of ritual when the stones were erected more than 5,000 years ago.
In particular, archaeologists are excited by the discovery of two pits on the ancient Cursus
pathway near Stonehenge. When viewed from the mysterious Heel Stone
— which stands alone just outside the entrance to the henge proper — these pits are aligned with the positions of sunrise and sunset at the midsummer solstice, arguing that they played a role in celestially-based rituals. It’s thought that the pits may have held large standing stones, wooden poles or totems, or perhaps been used for ceremonial fires — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The arrival of 7 and half tons of tear gas to Egypt’s Suez port created conflict after the responsible officials at the port refused to sign and accept it for fear it would be used to crackdown on Egyptian protesters.
The shipment has been moved by the ministry of interior to its Cairo storage facility, amidst strict and secretive security measures. Local reports say the staff, initially under investigation, have been spared investigation after having a discussion over the matter with their superiors.
Local news sites published documents regarding the shipment shows that the cargo that arrived in 479 barrels from the United States was scheduled to be delivered to the ministry of interior.
The reports also mentioned in the documents that a second shipment of 14 tons of tear gas was expected, making the total 21 tons, in one week.
The importing of tear gas comes after thousands of tear gas canisters were fired at Egyptian protesters last week as clashes raged in downtown Cairo, just off from the iconic Tahrir Square, where thousands of protesters had gathered
As one of Japan’s last remaining swordsmiths, Korehira Watanabe has honed his craft for 40 years while attempting to recreate the mythical Koto sword — via Etsy
A new law protecting people from being married against their will has come into effect in Scotland.
The legislation gives courts the power to issue protection orders to those at risk, which if breached could carry a two-year prison sentence.
Greater help will also be made available for victims of forced marriages, and existing powers to annul such unions have been strengthened — via redwolf.newsvine.com
So you’re out of vanilla for your annual Thanksgiving upside-down cake. Try peach schnapps. Out of eggs for baking? Give it a shot with some olive oil. Or corn starch. Or a mashed banana. A team of researchers mined recipe sites to find out what can be swapped for what. Turns out that almost any ingredient is replaceable — via io9
Internode has launched a new service allowing customers to utilise the company’s Naked ADSL2+ plans while keeping their traditional home phone number for use with Internet calls.
The service — which up until now Internode says has not been technologically feasible — will allow customers to switch from traditional landline plans to naked (or home phone-less services) where no home phone is provided, but retain their home phone number.
Normally by switching to a naked plan, customers lose their home phone number because no landline service is used. Instead they’re forced to rely on a new number provided by a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider such as Internode, or not use a home phone at all.
However in what Internode says is a big breakthrough for its customers, it says it has found a solution to the number loss issue that will allow customers to switch to its NodePhone VoIP platform while retaining their home phone number — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Do you think that you’ll never be able to afford a robot of your own that isn’t a toy? Well, if you can get Swiss robot-maker K-Team Corporation to sell you one, chances are you can easily afford a Kilobot — perhaps even a whole bunch of them. Designed and first built by Harvard University’s Self-Organizing Systems Research Group, the three-legged robots aren’t much larger than the 3.4-volt button cell batteries that power them, and move by vibrating across smooth, flat surfaces. They were created to study robotic swarming behaviour, with the intention that tens, hundreds or even thousands of them could be used simultaneously in one experiment. Harvard has just announced that it has licensed the Kilobot technology to K-Team, which will commercially manufacture the robots so that other groups and institutions can purchase them for their own research.
Along with its lithium-ion battery and rigid legs, each Kilobot incorporates an LED bulb, two motors (which vibrate the legs), a wide-angle infrared transceiver, and a microcontroller. An unlimited number of the little guys can be programmed via a computer-linked overhead infrared controller in under 40 seconds, and each have the ability to act autonomously, based on the parameters of that programming — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The body of an alleged mafia boss, who US authorities said once led New York’s notorious Bonanno crime family, has been fished out from a river north of Montreal.
Reports identified the body as Salvatore Montagna, although police would not immediately confirm or deny the identity.
The FBI once called him the acting boss of the Bonanno crime family, prompting one of New York’s tabloids to call him the “bambino boss” because of his rise to power in his mid-30s. Nicknamed “Sal the Iron Worker”, he owned and operated a successful steel business in the US.
Montagna’s death is the latest in a series of mafia-related killings and disappearances over the last two years. He was considered a contender to take over the Rizzuto family — via redwolf.newsvine.com
EBR Systems, a start-up out of Sunnyvale California, and Cambridge Consultants, the technology design and development firm, have developed a leadless pacemaker system for patients with advanced heart failure. The Wireless Cardiac Stimulation System (WiCS) comprises two units, an implantable electrode and an external control unit. The electrode incorporates an ultrasonic, wireless receiver and delivers an electrical stimulus to the heart based on triggering signals from the external control unit.
In its current iteration the WiCS system is designed to work with conventional pacemakers/defibrillators pacing the right ventricle of patients requiring biventricular pacing. The WiCS external control unit senses the pacing stimulus delivered to the right ventricle and initiates a burst of stimulus from the electrode implanted in the left ventricle. According to the company, the wireless left ventricular pacing approach removes the need for complex surgery and the complications often associated with the coronary sinus leads used to pace the left ventricle — via redwolf.newsvine.com
It is said that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. In the case of the copyright industry, they have learned that they can get new monopoly benefits and rent-seeker’s benefits every time there is a new technology, if they just complain loudly enough to the legislators.
The past 100 years have seen a vast array of technical advances in broadcasting, multiplication and transmissions of culture, but equally much misguided legislators who sought to preserve the old at expense of the new, just because the old was complaining. First, let’s take a look at what the copyright industry tried to ban and outlaw, or at least receive taxpayer money in compensation for its existence:
It started around 1905, when the self-playing piano was becoming popular. Sellers of note sheet music proclaimed that this would be the end of artistry if they couldn’t make a living off of middlemen between composers and the public, so they called for a ban on the player piano. A famous letter in 1906 claims that both the gramophone and the self-playing piano will be the end of artistry, and indeed, the end of a vivid, songful humanity — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Advent Sunday means it is time for the inauguration of the famous 13 metre tall Christmas goat (Gävlebocken) in the main square of Gävle, on the east coast of Sweden.
To the uninitiated, the annual saga of whether or not the goat survives intact until Christmas Day, has become a tradition of Yuletide in Sweden.
The giant straw goat, which has been erected in the town’s main square, Slottstorget, every year since 1966, undergoes a battle against the elements and local arsonists every year, which splits loyalties in the town — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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