An elderly Illinois couple, saying they are unable to pay as much as $1,000 each month for prescriptions, plans to venture into the war over drug imports today by filing a lawsuit against the government, arguing it is unconstitutional to prevent them from purchasing life-saving drugs at a lower price in Canada
Disney and Microsoft are joining an industry group in Japan to help decide which next-generation DVD format should be used in the home video market. DVD Forum, said that Disney and Microsoft would join 18 other members on its steering committee. Membership, now dominated by Sony and other companies that support the Blu-ray Disc format, gives the companies a vote on how data should be stored on the new discs, thus enabling them to set a standard for the industry
Oral sex can lead to oral cancers. Researchers have shown that the human papilloma virus, an extremely common sexually transmitted infection long been known to cause cervical cancers, can also cause mouth cancers. Fortunately, the risk of developing oral cancer is tiny. Only around 1 in 10,000 people develop tumours each year, and most cases are probably caused by smoking and drinking. The findings could help improve treatments of oral cancers, and vaccines that protect against HPV are already being developed
ShittyRail is a spoof site on CityRail and it’s pretty funny as the home page indicates:
The ShittyRail network helps you arrive fashionably late at your destination…
Modern-day slavery is alive and well in Florida, the Centre for the Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University said as it released a report on people forced to work as prostitutes, farm workers and maids across the state
The Australian consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, has issued Telstra with an advisory notice over concerns that the communications giant has breached competition laws by dropping broadband retail prices below their wholesale charges
An Anti-Felon Identification system is used so criminal use of the Advanced Taser can be traced from evidence dispersed by the device itself to provide the exact identification of the Air Cartridge purchaser. No other self-protection device in the world — guns, chemical and pepper sprays, touch-stun devices or batons — can be traced from evidence at the scene of the crime directly to the registration of the user
Lucky me, I missed the LiveJournal comment spamming campaign to promote Mel Gibson’s dodgy vanity pic. The poorly thought out spamming campaign pissed off a lot of LiveJournal users, including reddragdiva, who has posted a googlebomb countermeasure using the same wording as the original spam:
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/"> The Passion of The Christ </a>. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/"> Trailers </a>. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/"> Good Website </a>. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/"> Protesting Gibson's Passion Lacks Moral Legitimacy </a>.
The Passion of The Christ. Trailers. Good Website. Protesting Gibson’s Passion Lacks Moral Legitimacy.
Enjoy — via Pagan Prattle
A new game category has been added to the blog, so I thought it very fitting to post a link to this Strong Bad email, complete with some flash games at the end featuring everyone’s favourite sexy mexican wrestling mask clad guy — Strong Bad.
If you don’t who Strong Bad is, than your are seriously missing out and I pity you in tremendous amounts. You also need a recent flash player and to check out the rest of homestarrunner.com. There are also other games worthy of playing in the games section, such as Trogdor the Burninator!, awxome cross and population: tire.
Found a pair of wacky Harry Potter flash animations. Bothering Snape and Trouble At Hogwarts. Most amusing.
There’s a LiveJournal Community for updates to the series and info on the t-shirts.
Two polar bears at the Singapore zoo — Sheba and her 13-year-old son, Inuka — have started turning green. The green colouring is apparently the work of a harmless algae, the result of Singapore’s warm and humid climate, which has found a new home in the bears’ translucent hair shafts. Got to love rainbow polar bears, Pelusa from Argentina turned purple last year
NEC is working on a concept PC, called P-ISM, that uses five different pens to make a computer. One pen is a CPU, another a camera, one creates a virtual keyboard, another projects the visual output and thus the display and another a communicator or phone. All five pens can rest in a holding block which recharges the batteries and holds the mass storage. Each pen communicates wirelessly with the others
Aspects of the controversial Total Information Awareness DARPA program, officially shut down by the US Congress in September 2003 after a public outcry, seem to have survived. Some projects from Poindexter’s TIA effort were transferred to US intelligence offices, congressional, federal and research officials. In addition, Congress left undisturbed a separate but similar $64 million research program run by a little-known office called the Advanced Research and Development Activity, or ARDA, that has used some of the same researchers as Poindexter’s program
Chemical companies Bayer and Monsanto are prepared to risk farmers’ GM-free contracts overseas to ensure a stockpile of GM canola seed is ready for sale after the next growing season
Ever wanted a cuddly plush black death or ebola microbe to sit with you in your sick bed? Check out Giant Microbes!
At the same time The Unstrung Harp was being published, Gorey was embarking on another project, one which turned out to be part and parcel of a major change occurring in the paperback book industry: designing the covers for the new Anchor Books.
Looky-looky! Online postings of covers by Edward Gorey. Check out Those Gorey Covers!
Two women in the poor farming village of Aji Bai Nazar have emerged as heroines after they witnessed the horror of two small boys being killed as they played with little cluster bombs from an American jet. The two cleared dozens of the bombs with their bare hands and detonated them, protecting the village
The Enigma-E is a kit that enables you to build your own electronic variant of the famous Enigma coding machine that was used by the German army during WWII. It works just like a real Enigma and is compatible with an M3 and M4 Enigma as well as the standard Service Machines. A message encrypted on, say, a real Enigma M4 can be read on the Enigma-E and vice versa
In a ruling released Friday, Judge Susan Illston granted Hollywood studios’ request for an injunction against 321 Studios, saying the small software company has seven days to stop distributing its DVD-copying products on the grounds that they are illegal
My job contract has come to an end, but due to the way our enterprise agreement is structured, it can’t be rolled over to another year as before. Instead, I’m on six weeks holidays as of Friday while they write a position description and advertise a permanent version of my contracting job. It should be sorted out by the beginning of May (my birthday!), and as the incumbent I’ll have a very good shot at getting it, but in the meantime I am bewildered and at a loose end. So it’ll proabably turn out to be a good thing, but the timing sucks. My student fees are due soon and the landlord is trying to put my rent up. Bleh.
On the upside I’ll finally be able to read Homer’s Odyssey like I’ve been meaning to, and my RSI will have some time to heal.
RSS – Posts