Bridge To Nowhere

I’m endlessly fascinated when odd things that you’d think would be impossible to steal get stolen. Things like rollercoasters, beaches or in the most recent case a 4 tonne railway bridge.

The article is hilarious too, written pretty much exactly how I would have written it.

The company which was responsible for looking after the bridge raised the alarm when, ever alert, they noticed that the bridge wasn’t there any more.

Martina Hruskova, a spokeswoman for the Czech police, commented to AFP: ‘We are not sure if it was taken for personal use or for its scrap value.’ Exactly what that ‘personal use’ might be was left unsaid.

I’m also a big fan of the term “light-fingered bridge enthusiast.”

And yes, as has been the case every single goddamn time I see one of these stories, there are no suspects and there have been no arrests.

Playing With Your Head

I never noticed them saying in this article that along with the brain-reading headset, there is a backup controler that uses the old-fashioned hands, because I think you’d need it.

There is no way some game developer has managed to master the reading of thoughts when we can’t seem to create devices to do this for people who can’t move their arms and legs. There just isn’t. psychology and nurology have been trying to pin down what neurons cause what movement and what ones are in control of thoughts for years! How did this developer figure all of this out so fast?

And what sensors are reading thoughts? Last time I checked, we needed to have electrodes at least stuck to a person’s head to measure brain activity. Does the player actually have to stick electrodes to his head like he’s having an EEG to play?

If it really does work, I cannot even begin to imagine the frustration level a player would have. I think too many things at once, not all of which are about the game I’m playing. I don’t think I’m single-minded enough to be able to direct all my thoughts at the game. Would I think about food and my character would try to eat the wall? Would I wonder idly what was on TV, think about swimming I saw the other day, and my character would jump in the water?

And what’s with it sensing if you’re angry or tense. If you’re too angry, does the game shut down?

I really have a hard time believing that this thing even works. If it does, how about we put it to use helping people who can’t move their extremities for one reason or another? Let’s help them move before we start making Pacman run across a screen.

Murder Me Elmo

I know talking dolls have gone awry before, but when they say your kid’s name while doing it, that raises the creepy level just a touch, don’t ya think?

Please, please, watch the video! You actually get to hear it saying “Kill? James?”

Something tells me this kid won’t be so obsessed with Elmo anymore. Then again, he’s climbing over stuff to get the Elmo doll, so maybe he’ll love elmo even more, if that’s possible. Elmo slippers? Elmo dolls everywhere? I think it’s time for James to diversify his toy collection!

Define Anyone, Please

I saw a story all about this woman who keeps getting declared dead by government computers when she’s not, and a statement jumped out at me.

after someone dies, Social Security releases that person’s personal information on computer discs. He said the information is sold to anyone who wants it, like the Web site Ancestry.com.

Ok, I understand ancestry.com, but anyone who wants it? So could anyone randomly walk in off the street and ask for a box of dead people data and buy it? That sounds freaky, especially with all the identity thieving that goes on these days.

The Drivers On The Bus Go Bla Bla Bla

Yesterday, I saw something freaky. I saw a bus driver who was so into his cellphone conversation that he didn’t notice people calling out for him to stop the bus at a given place. He was so oblivious that when that person calling out for him to stop did manage to get other people to pull the bell, he didn’t even notice the person get up and walk towards him yelling “Sir! Sir! Sir!”. He finally looked over, and nonchalantly asked if the person wanted the stairs lowered, after the person called out to him three times. That person had a dog! How do you not notice a dog? Well, I guess when you’re riveted to your conversation, it’s possible. If you haven’t guessed it, that person with the dog was me.

It wasn’t even a necessary conversation, because as I approached the door, I listened and heard something like “So I said to him…” That does not sound like someone calling 911 to help someone or alerting another driver to a major problem en route. And, he was having this conversation for at least 2 minutes before I got off the bus.

When I finally got his attention, I told him he needed to give greater focus to the task at hand, because I couldn’t get him to notice me and had to rely on someone else to pull the bell for me. He didn’t say a goddamn word back to me. Not an apology, not an acknowledgement. He was just waiting for me to clam up and get off the bus. I don’t think the people who pulled the bell actually expected me to confront him, even though I told them I would.

I’m phoning the city about this guy. Listen, drivers on cellphones. We’ve covered this before, and I still feel the same about it. You’re driving a public bus. Our safety is in your hands. You do not need to be having a long conversation on the cellphone. I don’t care how good a driver you think you are. Unexpected situations come up where you have to be paying attention to your surroundings, and believe it or not, when you’re on the cellphone, you are severely distracted, as you proved to me yesterday by not hearing me ask 3 times for you to stop at a given stop that we were approaching and failing to notice a passenger coming up behind you yelling “sir! Sir! Sir!” and extending a hand towards you. Had you not stopped, you could have stranded me somewhere in the cold, where pedestrians don’t often walk, so you could have endangered me. But this is bigger than me. If you don’t notice something going on inside your bus, who knows what you could miss outside the bus? Who knows who you could fail to see slipping in front of your wheels at a corner? Who knows what car you could fail to observe driving in front of you, until it was too late. Get off the goddamn phone!

Birthday Or Death Day?

Damn! That’s pretty cool. On the same page that Steve linked to when he found out how likely he was to bite into some friendly flesh, I saw a link where you can find out who died the day you were born. For me,the only person of note who bit the big one that day was Josef Mengele. Sweet! I think I can live with that. It’s too bad that 137680 other people, who potentially could have been good people, headed off to that big party in the sky the day I came to this earth.

Tax Dollars Well Spent

Federal minister apologizes for joke he’s not sure he told

Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn has apologized for a joke he’s not sure he made, responding to a complaint from a politician who didn’t hear it.

Joan Burke, Newfoundland and Labrador’s education minister, demanded Hearn apologize Wednesday for telling what she called a sexist joke at a weekend Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador convention.

However, Burke did not attend Hearn’s speech in Gander, and would not repeat what Hearn supposedly had said.

Nonetheless, Hearn said Wednesday he is sorry if anyone took offence during his speech, which he said contained about 15 jokes.

Hearn said no one seemed offended at the event, and he can’t think which of the jokes might have offended anyone.

“I have never, ever in my life intentionally said anything that would offend anybody, and if I did on the weekend, I sincerely apologize because it’s not what I do, or how I do it,” Hearn said.

I note this not only because the situation is beyond ridiculous and belongs here by default, but also because now and then it’s nice to be reminded of what exactly our elected officials *are* getting paid for and how out of whack it is with what they’re *supposed* to be getting paid for.

Would You Eat Your Buddies In A Blizzard?

There’s a 35% chance that I would,
which I’m sure by internet logic makes me some sort of fag. But to be fair, it’s kind of hard to answer honestly when you’re sitting in the comfort of your own home with a fridge full of food a short distance away. My humanity loving, vagina sporting self might just turn into a killing machine once the stomach starts growling, you never know.

I’m Drunk?

Here’s another episode of “look at how Carin and Steve spend their free time.” For some odd reason we couldn’t sleep, so we found an old rerun of Cops. Ooo! More crackheads getting halled off to jail! Fun! But in this case, they caught someone who was driving drunk. They started to do the field sobriety test, and were doing the part where they make the person stand on one foot and count to 30. I thought to myself, “Can I do that?” Apparently, I can’t. Steve and I both tried it, and although Steve did much, much better than me, there was a lot of arm-extending and hopping.

Because I’m a big loser, I looked up the parts of a field sobriety test. Here was the part we were having trouble with.

In the One-Leg Stand test, the suspect is instructed to stand with one foot approximately six inches off the ground and count aloud by thousands (One thousand-one, one thousand-two, etc.) until told to put the foot down. The officer times the subject for 30 seconds. The officer looks for four indicators of impairment, including swaying while balancing, using arms to balance, hopping to maintain balance, and putting the foot down. NHTSA research indicates that 83 percent of individuals who exhibit two or more such indicators in the performance of the test will have a BAC of 0.08 or greater (Stuster and Burns, 1998).

Uh-oh. We’re drunk and didn’t even have any booze! No fair! I think Trixie must have thought we were pretty weird, swaying, counting, hopping, putting our foot up and down, up and down.

All I can say is it’s a good thing there’s something else other than apparent drunkenness standing in the way of me driving a car.