GENEVA : THE $6.5 billion machine designed to recreate the conditions present at the beginning of time had to be switched off after a bird dropped a “bit of baguette” into it, causing it to overheat.
As a result, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland had to postpone their plans last week to emulate the universe’s Big Bang.
The European particle physics laboratory near Geneva launched the LHC in September last year. Physicists hoped to prove the existence of the Higgs boson, or God particle, which gives matter in the universe its mass.
But the LHC, which when running will collide protons travelling at 99.9 per cent of the speed of light, has been out of action since a helium leak caused it to be shut down nine days after its start-up.
The bird dropped bread on a compensating capacitor – where the mains electricity supply enters the collider – cutting power to the LHC during a test run.
The Cry Translator listens to a whining child and analyzes the pitch, volume, tone and inflection of his nerve-jangling noise. Ten seconds later, it provides you with one of five “translations”: hungry, sleepy, stressed, annoyed or bored.
The idea of this $30 iPhone application, apart from preying on the anxieties of new parents, is to help teach you the meanings of the distinctive sounds and to help out babysitters who might otherwise try to feed your three-month old (hunger) instead of just switching over to the Family Guy from American Idol (bored). The application even gives advice on what to do, depending on the translation.
According to the seller, Biloop Technologic, clinical tests have proven the app to be accurate 96% of the time, and it will “continue to translate crying regardless of the age of the child”.
Can’t be bothered trying to understand your baby? There’s an app for that. Seriously, I’d be interested to hear from anyone who’s tried it.
What gets me the most here, is not Coulter’s ham fisted attempt to link communists, liberals and murderers, its the little laugh they both have, as if it’s difficult to keep a straight face during this ridiculous fraud of a conversation. If this is typical of the political discourse happening in the US, there is no hope.
A portion of a speech delivered by Harry S. Truman on March 29, 1952:
“The real Republican campaign is not going to be fought on the issues. The Republicans are going to wage a campaign of phony propaganda. They are going to try what we might call the “white is black” and the “black is white” strategy.
The Republicans are all set to try this “white is black” technique. And this is the way it will work. First of all, they will try to make people believe that everything the Government has done for the country is socialism. They will go to the people and say: “Did you see that social security check you received the other day—you thought that was good for you, didn’t you? That’s just too bad! That’s nothing in the world but socialism. Did you see that new flood control dam the Government is building over there for the protection of your property? Sorry—that’s awful socialism! That new hospital that they are building is socialism. Price supports, more socialism for the farmers! Minimum wage laws? Socialism for labor! Socialism is bad for you, my friend. Everybody knows that. And here you are, with your new car, and your home, and better opportunities for the kids, and a television set—you are just surrounded by socialism!”
A number of analysts here are convinced that not all the photos being released of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, are really photos of Kim Jong-il.
Instead, they say, a look-alike has been standing in for him on some of the 122 trips he’s reportedly made this year to the countryside, factories, cultural events, military units, and all sorts of other venues.
Some observers say the North Korean leader is too ill to make all these appearances. One Japanese analyst claims President Clinton didn’t meet with Kim Jong-il in August – he met with a Mr. Kim double.
Shigemura suspects that a skilled actor delivered the lines to Mr. Clinton during their three-hour, 17-minute meeting, which ended with Mr. Clinton flying back to the US with two journalists who had been held for 140 days.
Shigemura is equally convinced that an actor played Kim in recent meetings with China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, and the head of Hyundai Asan, the South Korean company responsible for developing special economic and tourist complexes in North Korea.
Well Clinton is a phony emissary so I suppose its only fair.
Toyota has created two flower species that absorb nitrogen oxides and take heat out of the atmosphere.
The flowers, derivatives of the cherry sage plant and the gardenia, were specially developed for the grounds of Toyota’s Prius plant in Toyota City, Japan.
The sage derivative’s leaves have unique characteristics that absorb harmful gases, while the gardenia’s leaves create water vapour in the air, reducing the surface temperature of the factory surrounds and, therefore, reducing the energy needed for cooling, in turn producing less carbon dioxide (CO2).
The two new plants are part of a wide-ranging plan to reduce the impact of Prius manufacture on the environment. Since 1990, the plant has reduced CO2 emissions by 55 per cent.
Now I’ve heard everything. Surely this is a PR stunt.
Another disembodied foot has been found inside a running shoe on a beach in Richmond, B.C. the seventh foot found along the coast, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported Wednesday.Two men walking on the beach found the foot in a size 8 ½ running shoe. The Richmond RCMP, Forensic Identification Section and General Investigation Section seized the shoe and its contents, the RCMP said.
Brought to you by anti-first amendment and anti-freedom people whose next step will be crossing out anti- [the rest of this comment has been censored].
Workers at a Tennessee library said someone has been using blue ink to completely scratch out curse words from books in the collection.
Maury County Library director Elizabeth Potts said dozens of books have been discovered with blue ink marks where profanities used to be, including what she referred to as an “f-word” in the “9/11 Commission Report,” The Daily Herald, Columbia, Tenn., reported Tuesday.
[...]
“This person is evidently offended by these words,” she said. “I’m more offended by (the suspect).”
Potts said the library doesn’t have the money to replace the books, so patrons will “have to guess what the word was.” She said workers have also put up signs asking people not to cross out curse words in the library’s books.
Supermarket giant Coles will change the name of an in-house brand of biscuits amid claims it is racist.
Coles Spokesman Jim Cooper said the name of the “You’ll Love Coles” brand of chocolate and vanilla biscuits, called Creole Creams, will be changed as part of the company-wide rebranding of Coles products.
The name change comes on the back of claims of racism, with the word Creole used to describe a person of mixed European and African ancestry.
“The word Creole comes from a period when people’s humanity was measured by the amount of white blood they had in their bloodstream. This is the same kind of thought that underpinned horrific regimes like the Nazis,” Sam Watson, the deputy director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland, told brisbanetimes.com.au yesterday.
But Mr Cooper today disputed the racist claims and said the name Creole Creams referred to the “well-known Creole cuisine style that originated in the US.”
The word ‘creole’ is racist? It clearly refers to race, or more specifically skin colour, but as far as I’m aware its not derogatory. Is this biscuit thing just politically correct nonsense? If you are injured while eating one, would it constitute a race related incident?
I recently got a press release from the makers of Linger, an “internal feminine flavoring” that promises to keep your vagina in mint condition. Think of it as an Altoid for your lady parts or, as its website explains, “A small, naturally sweetened flavoring, free of artificial dyes, which was created to flavor the secretions of a woman when she is sexually aroused.” What…the…?!
So where did the idea for this curiously wrong mint come from? Linger’s website (a little NSFW) offers up a wondrous, romantic tale about the supposed discoverer of femimint hygiene, an unnamed woman who was seduced in India by a man with skin “the color of caramel.” He quelled her fears of tasting bad “down there” with a mysterious, Eastern mint. “When I returned to the States, I brought the tingly sweet tasting mint with me,” she writes. I’ve requested an interview with this mysterious entrepreneur, but have yet to speak with her. However, Linger’s PR guy did send me a sample—made in exotic New Jersey. But that was just my first taste of disappointment.
I wonder how well LifeSavers would work. Have to do research. Oh, sweetheart…
25% off eHarmony subscription with code EHTECH 12-percent discount forever with code TECH 10-percent discount and free month using TECH10 10-percent or 30 dollars off weekly car rental!
Get 10-percent discount on car rental!
Discounts on domain names!
“The real Republican campaign is not going to be fought on the issues. The Republicans are going to wage a campaign of phony propaganda. They are going to try what we might call the “white is black” and the “black is white” strategy.
The Toyota flower gets loose
