Month: September 2006

Fed Gov’t to run tax money tracking site

If you’ve ever thought your tax money was just going to waste, our government has plans to open a web site that should show you how right or wrong you are.

The House on Wednesday passed by voice vote and sent to President Bush legislation to create a Web site that will give people ready access to information on the $300 billion in grants issued to some 30,000 organizations annually, and the roughly 1 million contracts exceeding a $25,000 threshold.

“It’s a great, bipartisan plan to make sure tax dollars are spent wisely,” said House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

Bush, in a statement, welcomed the bill, saying it showed the commitment of Congress ‘to giving the American people access to timely and accurate information about how their tax dollars are spent.’

And that’s a good thing. Of course, it will cost more to track all this money properly AND get the information on a web site. But this should make it easier for the average citizen who cares about government spending to have some idea of where it is going. On the other hand, the average citizen doesn’t pay attention to this stuff in the first place…

[tags]Government spending web site, Your tax dollars at work[/tags]

The ever impressive brilliance of criminals

A co-worker of mine often comments that in general, criminals are not very bright. This story from Madrid gives one sample of the not-so-bright portion of the criminal population.

A Basque separatist prisoner on trial for threatening to kill a judge on Thursday told the presiding judge that he would shoot him and “skin him alive,” risking yet another jail sentence.

Ignacio Javier Bilbao Goikoetxea, a convicted murderer and member of armed separatist group ETA, kicked the dock’s bullet-proof screen and launched a torrent of abuse at judge Alfonso Guevara and Baltasar Garzon, the judge he had threatened at a previous trial who was appearing as a witness.

“If you’re a man, come here … I’m going to skin you alive. Come here if you’ve got the balls… I look forward to shooting you seven times when I get my hands on you,” the shaven-headed Bilbao Goikoetxea told Guevara in the Madrid courtroom.

You would almost feel sorry for someone who is that stupid, if it weren’t for your realization that their stupidity is what helps keep you safe.

[tags]Dumb crook news, The lower realms of criminal brilliance[/tags]

Hogwarts made from matchsticks

(via Neatorama)

This is just incredible. I’m always amazed at the work done by folks with the skill, determination, patience, and vision to do things like this. I’d get bored or frustrated way before you could identify any actual buildings. Someone, though, has the determination needed to reconstruct Hogwarts (based on what is seen in the Harry Potter movies) out of matchsticks.

matchstick-hogwarts01.jpgMatchstick Marvels will be taking you on an enchanted trip to J. K. Rowling’s world of Harry Potter this year. Acton will be displaying his matchstick version of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the Matchstick Marvels museum in Gladbrook, IA. The model is based on Hollywood’s version of Hogwarts seen in the Harry Potter blockbuster movies. When finished in December of this year, it will contain over a half-million matchsticks held together with 15 gallons of carpenter’s wood glue.

Check back at the site periodically for updates on the building. All construction is expected to be finished by December 2006.

[tags]Hogwarts rebuilt with matchsticks[/tags]

Gitmo inmate “art” in Disneyland

(via the whole damn web – Neatorama is one resource)

An artist out in California managed to sneak into Disneyland this past holiday one night and set up a Guantanamo Bay inmate inside the Rocky Mountain Railroad ride. The inflatable doll was dressed in prisoner orange with shackles on his arms and legs. I’m sure Disney executives didn’t find this funny, but I see the humor in it.

Families visiting Disneyland on their holiday this week saw a life-size Guantanamo bay inmate standing inside the Rocky Mountain Railroad ride at Disneyland in Anaheim California.

disney-guantanamo-bay-inmate-statue.jpg

The sculpture, consisting of an inflatable doll dressed in an orange jumpsuit with its hands and feet manacled remained in place for one and a half hours before Disneyland’s security staff shut down the ride and removed it amid fears over public safety.

[tags]Disneyland Guantanamo Bay prisoner art[/tags]

Gas!

No, no – not the kind of gas that guy who sits a couple of cubicles away from me has.  This is about deadly chemical use during war – specifically the risk of chemical attack against Americans during World War II.  The Modern Mechanix blog has all the gory details, as revealed in the April 1946 issue of Modern Mechanix magazine.  This is a long article, but it has lots of interesting information in it.

America was ready to give and take if the Axis had turned loose with the most inhumane of all modern weapons!

LOOK carefully at the pictures on these pages—if you’ve been wondering what we would have done in case the Axis powers had introduced deadly chemicals in the recent war.

It seems fantastic, weird and remote, now that the shooting is over. But here are the brutal facts, revealed for the first time by the Army’s Chemical Warfare Service. It was alert and ready to retaliate in heaping measure had our enemies used gas. Although the U. S. is not a party to any treaty or other agreement not to use gas, we have long been committed to the policy that we would not resort to this horrible weapon unless it was first employed by our foes. The fact that our troops were fully prepared for offensive and defensive gas warfare undoubtedly stopped the Axis from challenging us on this score.

Continue reading “Gas!”

Flight Simulator X demo

flightsimxlogo.gifIn case you haven’t already heard, the demo for Microsoft’s newest incarnation of Flight Simulator, called Flight Simulator X, is now available for download.

Flight Simulator X Trial Version

The Flight Simulator X trial version includes two airports, three missions, and three different aircraft. All of the missions take place at St. Maarten in the Caribbean.

Missions:

Getting Started (Novice)
flightsimx-img13.jpgPlane: de Havilland Beaver DHC2
Details: Geared towards first time flyers, this step-by-step tutorial mission shows you how to get off the ground and up in the air so you can explore the ocean and island of St. Maarten. Of special note is the fact that the Beaver is a float plane so you won’t have any runways to worry about. You’ll be taking off and landing in the ocean.

Flour Power
Plane: AirCreation Trike Ultralight
Details: This mission has you behind the controls of an ultralight, a very easy to fly glider. The object of the mission is to drop sacks of flour attached to your ultralight onto various objects and targets scattered throughout the area surrounding St. Maarten. You’ll be scored on both speed and accuracy. Try not to drop any flour on spectators or dolphins, as you’ll be assessed a time penalty.

Caribbean Landing
Plane: Bombardier CRJ700
Details: The most challenging of the three included in the trial version, this mission will essentially be a take-off and landing of a Bombardier CRJ700 in a technically challenging airport. You’ll need to manage air traffic chatter and surrounding AI planes efficiently to succeed.

My flight abilities are nil.  Yet I still love flight simulators.  I have the past 3 versions, and will likely pick this one up, too.  I also have the last 3 versions of XPlane.  If you want to try your hand at flying, I can easily recommend either of these simulators, but be prepared to spend time really learning your stuff if you want to do anything that feels even remotely not “OMFG I suck at this” when using either sim.

[tags]Flight Simulator X, Flight Sim news[/tags]

Posting via email

I have set up email posting for the site. This means that I can more
easily put articles up when I’m at work (where I can no longer access
the site). Hopefully I’ll be more regular in posting with this feature
enabled.

The end of food allergies?

(via Blue’s News)
This article at the BBC indicates that scientists believe we could well eliminate food allergies in the next 10 years.

Experts at the BA Festival of Science, in Norwich, heard that vaccines could be created against the molecules which trigger allergies.

The scientist leading the research – Dr Ronald van Ree, from Amsterdam University – said a vaccine with no side effects was in sight.

. . .

Speaking about the research, Dr van Ree told festival delegates: “Taken together, these new developments provide good opportunities to develop strategies for the treatment of food allergies, both preventive and curative.”

He said it was now possible to produce altered versions of food allergy molecules in the laboratory.

“Importantly, this allows scientists to develop hypo-allergenic variants of these molecules for application in safer immunotherapy that will induce little or no side effects,” the scientist told the meeting at the University of East Anglia.

“Effective treatment will end the fear that food-allergic patients have for unwanted exposure to food allergens.”

Some of you already know me as a bit of a skeptic.  I’ll continue that tradition here.  In 5-6 years, we’ll get an update on this that we’ve moved slower than initially expected, and that now (i.e., the year 2011 or so), we really are just 10 years away from eliminating food allergies.  And this time, we really mean it.  At least, until 5-6 years later when scientists confirm that things are progressing slower than anticipated, but really, it will only be 10 more years, at most, before food allergies are wiped out.

I hope I’m wrong – I’d love to see food allergies eliminated.  But the body is damn tricky in how it works.  And as Jurassic Park taught us, any time you try to alter nature, nature finds a way around your changes (or something like that).

[tags]End of food allergies, Sciencists predict 10 years to end food allergies[/tags]