In america, when you get angry at the slow commute you curse and bang
on the steering wheel, maybe run over the curb, and possibly send a
nasty email to city hall.
In South Africa you burn down the mass transit system:
Angry SA passengers burn trains

South African commuter trains typically carry about 1,000 passengers
Rail passengers angry at service delays torched at least 26 train
carriages near Johannesburg on Wednesday evening.
Carriages were burnt at three different locations south of the city,
causing 200m rand ($30m) worth of damage. The arson followed service
delays reportedly caused by technical faults. A shortage of trains
has now caused services on one route to be suspended.
http://tinyurl.com/cvl9w
Those of you who have not seen this will eventually.... I have sent
back 5 machines in the last 4 months at work because of this:
PCs plagued by bad capacitors
Capacitors are an inexpensive little component on a PC motherboard,
but they can be a costly headache for manufacturers when a whole
bunch of them go bad.Last week, Dell announced it was going to take a
$300 million financial charge on its earnings to cover costs
associated with the replacement of motherboards with faulty
capacitors in some of its Optiplex workstations. The Dell system
boards in question were manufactured from April 2003 to March 2004,
according to several contract computer repair firms that are starting
to replace the systems.
http://tinyurl.com/ab839
Amazon has come up with an interesting way to deal with those pesky
issues that are more easily dealt with by humans than by machines,
but happen too randomly or in some other way that makes hiring people
for it impractical.
Borrowing from the sleight of hand of an 18th century Hungarian
nobleman, Amazon.com has unveiled a new service that aims to leverage
the power of human intelligence as a way to tackle high volumes of
repeatable tasks.The service, known as Amazon Mechanical Turk, is a
marketplace where developers can post small manual tasks that are
part of larger software processes. Individuals who complete the tasks
are paid a small fee.
http://tinyurl.com/7kl9g
Politics mess with religion again:
Conversions in India stopped after flap
Earlier this year, Israel's Sephardi chief rabbi recognized Bnei
Menashe as one of 10 lost tribes of Israel, ruling they followed
Jewish traditions. Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar ordered formal conversions
to Orthodox Judaism Israeli rabbis in northeastern India have
stopped converting about 6,000 people who believe they are members of
an ancient tribe of Israel, after the Indian government complained
about the religious activity, an official said. Instead of converting
the Bnei Menashe in their home region, the rabbis will now wait to
convert them until Israel brings them to the Jewish state, Foreign
Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.
http://tinyurl.com/78bno
Speaking of cool robots (aren't we always speaking of cool robots?)
this asks a good question, once you get there..... then what? From
engadget:
Amoeba bot is first to arrive on the scene, and last to do anything
productive
Posted Nov 10, 2005, 5:00 AM ET by Paul Miller
Related entries: Robots, Transportation

Brought to you by the mechanical engineers at Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University, those same roboteers that brought us
the IMPASS “wheg” bot last week, we have the amoeba bot that
roughly models its form of movement after that of everyone’s
favorite single cell organism. The robot is covered in a flexible
skin, shaped like a hollow sausage, and crawls along by progressively
turning itself inside out, either through contracting and expanding
the skin, or through the movement of internal ring-shaped devices.
The upshot of all this is that the amoeba bot can fit through an
opening half of its diameter, perfect for the navigating the rubble
of the ubiquitous rescue mission. The question we’re asking is, what
on earth is this thing going to do once it arrives on the scene?
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20051107/amoebabot_tec.html
http://tinyurl.com/asqgp
State Department once again developing software that will look into
your computer, copy down info, and leave without you knowing/noticing/
agreeing to it..... sounds like a virus or maybe something SONY would
think up:
(from slashdot)
osted by samzenpus on Thursday November 10, @12:33AM
from the like-a-thief-in-the-night dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. State Department, known for its
recent RFID passport embarassment, seems to have developed a key tool
in the Department of Homeland Security's cyber toolkit for federal
agencies. There's not much out there on it other than mention of a
tool called SandStorm in a recent press release from State's Bureau
of Diplomatic Security. According to the site, "SandStorm
simultaneously collects, correlates, and analyzes data on multiple
computer systems and departs, leaving no trace of its activities. The
White House is championing this cyber tool and the Department of
Homeland Security has selected it as a cornerstone application for a
cyber toolkit being made available to all Federal agencies." Sounds
scary to me, but may be a step in the right direction."
http://tinyurl.com/cauh4
Doni beat me to the google risk thingy, very cool.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_(board_game)
http://www.ashotoforangejuice.com/gmrisk.html
From slashdot again: for "Tamper-Resistant Code"
Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 09, @07:49PM
from the can't-touch-this dept.
freaktheclown writes "The US Patent and Trademark Office has revealed
that Apple has filed patent no. 20050246554 for a "system and method
for creating tamper-resistant code." The system is presumably for use
in Apple's Intel version of its Tiger operating system."
http://tinyurl.com/by9yj
They copied us for years, its time to return the favor:
U.S. Papers Adding Japanese-Style Comics American Newspapers Adding
Japanese-Style 'Manga' Comics to Attract Young Readers By YURI
KAGEYAMA The Associated Press
TOKYO - "Doonesbury" and "Peanuts," make way for "manga." Come
January, the Sunday funnies of several major North American
newspapers will have doe-eyed women in frilly outfits, effeminate
long-haired heroes and other trademark images of the Japanese comic
style. The reason? Newspaper editors want to attract more young
readers. A study released earlier this year by the Carnegie
Corporation put the age of newspaper readers at 53 and climbing
hardly a recipe for circulation growth. "We thought if teens and
young kids are reading manga, then why don't we get something in the
paper that teens want to read?" said John Glynn, vice president at
Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes comics and columns
globally to newspapers. "Newspapers are being seen as their parents'
medium." The U.S. newspaper debut is a bit of a landmark for manga a
product of Japanese pop culture that has never been quite mainstream
in the United States, although it's long been a hit with the younger
generation that grew up on Pokemon, Hello Kitty and Japanese
animation movies or "anime" for short. "This could be something that
really explodes," Glynn said in a telephone interview from Kansas
City, Missouri. "This is a great way to take a chance and change the
landscape and readership of your paper." Several newspapers that
have signed on to carry the two English-language manga strips on
Sundays include the Los Angeles Times, Denver Post, Vancouver Sun and
Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
http://tinyurl.com/9wd3g
Very cool 'what is it' situation. Guy bought something at navy
surplus and has no clue what it does but it seems to be in working
condition, is from 1963, and has soemthing to do with
radiation........ who knows:
http://tinyurl.com/8nevt
Britain is facing a shortfall in energy supply in the near future,
according to a major report.
Within a decade, the country may be generating only about 80% of the
electricity it needs.
http://tinyurl.com/8or3b
I HAVE A BRILLIANT IDEA. Lets take big bulky wind turbines (event he
smallest is pretty big) and use them to power those neat little
wireless devices we all carry....
Mini Wind Turbines Could Power Wireless Devices
November 9, 2005 03:41 PM - Michael G. Richard, Ottawa
http://tinyurl.com/btpbt
Truth of the matter is that its probably is a good idea for things
like remote sensors and cameras and the like, just not for your cell
phone.
That about wraps up my morning news run.... you got anything to add?
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