Two Chinese men were arrested as they attempting to board a plane to Beijing, China with nearly a dozen sensitive infrared cameras in their luggage.
The men had been in the United States for about a week.
Ten of the cameras, which measure about 2 inches square and cost about $5,000 each, were found in the men's checked luggage. It appeared they split the shipment up between them.
The cameras have both commercial and military uses but they are very expensive, highly sensitive. They're not something you could buy off the shelf.
Apr 10, 2008
Ford Fab 1 from the film Thunderbirds revisited
The DVD movie by Universal Pictures called Thunderbirds is based on the Thunderbirds TV series. I didn’t see any of the TV series episodes and I have not seen the DVD movie. However, after looking at the awesome methods of transportation on various web sites, it should be worth the cost of the DVD just to see the travel action.
One of the stars of the
movie Thunderbirds
What intrigued me most was the pink car with two sets of front wheels. Ford helped by providing design and technical support in the design of the car called FAB 1. It is more than a car. It can act as a boat on water and can also fly. Short wings “sprout” from the lower sides and the trunk lid slides back to reveal a jet engine.
More photos of FAB 1
The movie is set in the year 2010 hence the futuristic designs and capabilities of the transportation vehicles. FAB 1, the car/boat/aircraft, is surely one of the stars of the movie. This awesome pink vehicle is the personal transportation of London Agent, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward played by Sophia Myles. The car will probably upstage the people using it in the movie.
Click here for more information.
One of the stars of the
movie Thunderbirds
What intrigued me most was the pink car with two sets of front wheels. Ford helped by providing design and technical support in the design of the car called FAB 1. It is more than a car. It can act as a boat on water and can also fly. Short wings “sprout” from the lower sides and the trunk lid slides back to reveal a jet engine.
More photos of FAB 1
The movie is set in the year 2010 hence the futuristic designs and capabilities of the transportation vehicles. FAB 1, the car/boat/aircraft, is surely one of the stars of the movie. This awesome pink vehicle is the personal transportation of London Agent, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward played by Sophia Myles. The car will probably upstage the people using it in the movie.
Click here for more information.
Apr 9, 2008
No honor in their Honor Code
Students at the University of Texas at San Antonio wanted an honor code that discouraged cheating and plagiarizing.
Only one problem -- the wording in their honor code draft appears to exactly match another school's code — without proper attribution.
Only one problem -- the wording in their honor code draft appears to exactly match another school's code — without proper attribution.
The student currently in charge of the honor code project said it was an oversight, but cheating experts say it illustrates a sloppiness among Internet-era students who don't know how to cite sources properly and think of their computers as cut-and-paste machines.
More of the story here.
Home made half size panzer tank shoots paintballs
A Kettering University student built a half-sized panzer tank powered by a diesel engine.
(click on picture to see video)
The tank is outfitted with a functional air cannon that shoots painballs.
Link
Apr 6, 2008
This spy device is a digital “fly on the wall”
A digital intruder spy camera (upper picture) by Swann Communications has a Digital Private Eye™ video camera and time-lapse recorder with motion trigger.The manufacturer says:
Position the camera at your front door or hallway, then simply plug in your SD Memory Card, power cable or 9V battery then watch the camera go to work! You can use up to a 1GB on your SD Memory Card, which takes up to 30,000 images.
Maxwell Smart, agent 86 (lower picture), would have given up his shoe-phone for this device in a heart-beat.
Link
Little diversity in the university classroom
Students lack true diversity as public universities limit students' exposure to conservative ideas. The article at the link below refers to universities in Missouri. However, it also mirrors the situation found in many other universities in many other parts of the country.
Missouri universities, especially Missouri State and Drury, lack true diversity. Students are not exposed to diverse viewpoints because of a huge liberal bias.
Students are far more likely to be taught by liberal professors, read textbooks written by liberal authors and attend liberal guest lectures. Exposure to conservative views is limited to a handful of conservative professors, guest speakers and outside readings.
Link.
Apr 4, 2008
Boy in trouble for his point-and-shoot camera
A 14-year-old student in Connecticut has been accused of rigging a camera so that it could deliver an electrical shock.
Police say the boy modified the camera using instructions from the Internet. He brought the device to school but a teacher intervened before he could use it.
School Resource Officer Kyle Strunjo says the makeshift device is potentially capable of giving someone a 600-volt shock.
The boy has been charged with possession of a dangerous weapon on school grounds, attempted assault and breach of peace.
The on-again off-again cell phone scare is back on
Mobile phone radiation warnings have come and gone over the last several years. As soon as a cell phone warning is reported, another expert will tell us cell phones are safe after all.
The latest scare is more dire than most. An article from the UK warns that the use of mobile phones can be more dangerous than smoking.
Complacency on the part of cell phone users is the natural result of on-again off-again warnings. Medical professionals have cried wolf too many times to be taken seriously.
Link
The latest scare is more dire than most. An article from the UK warns that the use of mobile phones can be more dangerous than smoking.Complacency on the part of cell phone users is the natural result of on-again off-again warnings. Medical professionals have cried wolf too many times to be taken seriously.
Link
Apr 1, 2008
Anything to eat in your refrigerator?
Even though we usually know what’s in our refrigerators (after all, we bought the stuff didn’t we?) we always seem to open the door and stare inside for long minutes searching for something good to eat.Most of us bend to our thrifty side and dutifully put every leftover scrap in the fridge for later use knowing full well that much of it will just get tossed later.
Do you put leftovers in opaque containers? We did it that way for several years - until we realized that opaque refrigerator containers almost guarantee that the contents will never be used. How often do people open every container to check what’s inside?
At our house we make more efficient use of leftovers since we started using glass containers even though we still occasionally find something that looks like a high school science project gone bad.And how about the outside of your fridge? Does it look like a bulletin board at a community center? Most do.
Show me the fridge without magnets and notes plastered on the door and I’ll show you the eighth wonder of the world!
The link here has comments from people all around the world saying what they have in their refrigerators.
…note: the photos above were not taken in our kitchen…
Mar 31, 2008
Strong words about the Amnesty Bill
Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner has voiced his strong opinion against the Amnesty Bill working its way through congress.
Click on the picture below to hear CNN’s Lou Dobbs explain just what will happen if the bill passes in its present form.
(click on Lou Dobbs picture to see video)
Pretty scary stuff, but this is what most Democrats in Washington have been trying to pass.
This bill is liberalism at its worst!
Click on the picture below to hear CNN’s Lou Dobbs explain just what will happen if the bill passes in its present form.
Pretty scary stuff, but this is what most Democrats in Washington have been trying to pass.
This bill is liberalism at its worst!
Mar 30, 2008
Truckers threaten to strike
The cost of diesel fuel is taking its toll as truckers threaten to strike.
With diesel at almost four dollars a gallon, it costs the average owner-operator $1,200 to fill up every one thousand miles.
Owner-operator truckers are planning to stop driving in hopes of driving fuel prices down.
They have been talking about striking April 15 - shutting down for 48 hours.
Two days doesn’t sound like much but it will be long enough to empty many grocery store shelves and create other temporary shortages that will call attention to the owner-operator drivers plight caused by high fuel prices.
Link
With diesel at almost four dollars a gallon, it costs the average owner-operator $1,200 to fill up every one thousand miles.Owner-operator truckers are planning to stop driving in hopes of driving fuel prices down.
They have been talking about striking April 15 - shutting down for 48 hours.
Two days doesn’t sound like much but it will be long enough to empty many grocery store shelves and create other temporary shortages that will call attention to the owner-operator drivers plight caused by high fuel prices.
Link
Mar 27, 2008
Message in bottle drifts 1,735 miles since 1986
A plastic bottle was found by a beachcomber along the Bearing Sea in western Alaska.
There was a note inside from an elementary school student in a suburb of Seattle.
The note was placed in the bottle and set afloat in 1986 and had traveled 1,735 miles before it was found
The bottle was part of a fourth-grade school project. The notes were typed and the students only added their names and signed them. A friend carried the bottles on his boat and dropped them in the ocean in 1986.
Link
There was a note inside from an elementary school student in a suburb of Seattle.
The note was placed in the bottle and set afloat in 1986 and had traveled 1,735 miles before it was found
The bottle was part of a fourth-grade school project. The notes were typed and the students only added their names and signed them. A friend carried the bottles on his boat and dropped them in the ocean in 1986.
Link
Mar 25, 2008
You’ve got mail
In an attempt to block “junk mail” in Vermont, a state legislator created a firestorm he didn’t expect.
Chris Pearson, a state legislator in Vermont, had a sense that the people were with him when he proposed a bill last November to allow residents to block junk mail.
He got media attention, radio interview requests and e-mails from constituents eager to stop the credit card offers, furniture catalogues and store fliers that increasingly clog their mailboxes.
Then came the pushback from the postmasters, who told Pearson and other lawmakers that "standard" mail, the post office's name for junk mail, has become the lifeblood of the U.S. Postal Service and that jobs depend on it.
Sure junk mail is a nuisance but if banned, many people would be out of work including a lot of postal service workers.
If the postal service didn’t have the revenue generated by junk mail, our first class postage rates would go through the roof.
Banning junk mail would end many advertising agency jobs. It would also put many printers out of work.
The next time we are tempted to grumble about the junk mail in our mail boxes, we should think of all the jobs that would be lost by banning junk mail as the nearsighted Vermont congressman proposed.
Link
Satellite data: Beijing pollution capital of world
The pictures here were taken in Beijing China which has become the unofficial pollution capitol of the world.
As it gears up to host the 2008 Olympic Games Beijing has been awarded an unwelcome new accolade: the air pollution capital of the world.
Satellite data has revealed that the city is one of the worst environmental victims of China's spectacular economic growth, which has brought with it air pollution levels that are blamed for more than 400,000 premature deaths a year.
According to the European Space Agency, Beijing and its neighboring northeast Chinese provinces have the planet's worst levels of nitrogen dioxide, which can cause fatal damage to the lungs.
China is the world's second-largest producer of greenhouse gases, and the World Bank has warned it is home to 16 of the planet's 20 most air-polluted cities.
Mar 24, 2008
Female teachers arrested for fistfight in front of students
Richland County (South Carolina) deputies arrested two middle school teachers (pictured) who got into a fist-fight in front of students over a personal matter.
Investigators say the original incident happened in the hallway of St. Andrews Middle School between two female eighth-grade teachers on Thursday, March 14.
Sheriff Leon Lott said 30-year-old Tawana Horton of Columbia and 28-year-old Cambrella Pickney of Columbia got into a physical altercation in the hallway, after the teachers "bumped into each other."
The resource officer says "an ongoing personal dispute" can be blamed for the reason the teachers were fighting, but he didn't elaborate on what the dispute regarded.
Mar 22, 2008
Mar 20, 2008
Ernie Haase and Signature Sound quartet
Ernie Haase and Signature Sound quartet along with the Gaither vocal band sing “He Touched Me”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A bit of Southern Gospel Music history:
Ernie Haase sang tenor for the Cathedrals from 1990 until the group retired in 1999. Ernie then formed his Signature Sound Quartet.
Glen Payne (on left) was lead singer for the Cathedrals from 1963 to 1999. George Younce (on right) was the Cathedrals bass singer from 1963 to 1999.
Liver cancer claimed the life of Glen Payne in October, 1999.
George Younce suffered from heart trouble as well as kidney failure, and was on dialysis during the last years of his life. He passed away in April 2005.
George Younce was Ernie Haase’s father-in-law.
Mar 16, 2008
High-tech 4-in-one Murphy computer bed
Short on space? This may be for you.
Think of it as a computer desk, dining room table, couch and bed all in one compact piece of furniture that takes up very little floor space.
Think of it as a computer desk, dining room table, couch and bed all in one compact piece of furniture that takes up very little floor space.
This high-tech Murphy bed et all is offered by FlyingBeds of Denver, Colorado. They also offer a TwirlyBed.
Link
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