News of the Weird (May 10, 2015)
News of the Weird
Weirdnuz.M422, May 10, 2015
Copyright 2015 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
Already, healthy people can donate blood, sperm, and eggs, but now the nonprofit OpenBiome offers donors $40 for bowel movements--to supply “fecal transplants” for patients with nasty C.difficile bacteria infections. (“Healthy” contents are transplanted into the infected gut via endoscope or frozen swallowed capsules so that the good bacteria drive out the antibiotic-resistant bad.) Over 2,000 transplant units have been shipped to 185 hospitals so far, and OpenBiome allows daily “donations” so that, with bonuses, a donor could earn $13,000 a year. However, extensive medical questioning and stool-testing is required, and only about 4 percent of potential donors have exquisite-enough feces to qualify. [Washington Post, 1-29-2015]
The Job of the Researcher
California State University Los Angeles researcher Marc Kubasak spent about 2,500 hours (sometimes 12 hours a day) training 40 brain-damaged rats to walk on a treadmill, after sewing little vests to tether the critters, suspended, to a robotic arm. His work paid off, though, according to February Popular Science magazine, as doctors in Poland and University College London used his procedures to help a man with a damaged spine. (In the middle of the project, Kubasak developed a rodent allergy and was forced to wear a body suit every day with a respirator.) [Popular Science, February 2015]
Ironies
UK’s Bedfordshire Police were searching in April for the thief who ran off without paying for his Jesus arm tattoo at the RedINC Luton studio (to go with his “Only God Can Judge Me” inking on the other arm). In fact, the shopkeeper also believes the man swiped the equivalent of $1,548 from a cash drawer when he was momentarily alone in the studio. [Luton Today, 4-1-2015]
Former Virginia state Delegate Joseph Morrissey, already scheduled for trial for submitting false documents in one case, was foiled in March qualifying for a state Senate primary because 750 of the 972 voter signatures he submitted were found to be bogus. (Morrissey was sworn in as Delegate in January while wearing an ankle monitor as part of his sentence for having sex with an underage girl, but resigned to run for the Senate.) [Richmond Times-Dispatch, 3-31-2015] [Associated Press via Virginian-Pilot (Hampton Roads), 1-15-2015]
Remembrance Technology
In March, the U.S. patent office approved Google’s application covering robot software that mimics human personalities (voice, mannerisms) with a variety of moods (happiness, fear, surprise) with a notable use that family members might employ it to continue to “interact” with a loved one after he has passed. One disquieting possibility might allow a deceased person to be directed to act in ways that the person never acted while alive. [Discover Magazine, 4-26-2015]
Entrepreneurship: (1) A curious woman, inspired by her own mother’s attachment to her unlaundered pillowcases following the death of her dad, has partnered with France’s Universite du Havre to produce a person’s bottled scent by processing old clothing. A September rollout is planned, with the probable retail price of about $600. (2) Artist Mark Sturkenboom has described plans for an even more remarkable remembrance device (if the deceased is male): a dildo that holds 21 grams of cremated ashes (accessoried, perhaps for non-sexual “cover,” by a necklace and music player). “After passing,” Sturkenboom explained, “the missing of initmacy” is “one aspect of the pain and grief.” [Popular Science, 4-24-2015] [Metro News (London), 4-26-2015]
Democracy in Action
Just west of Ferguson, Mo., is Kinloch (pop. 299), where newly-elected mayor Betty McCray was unable to start work on April 23rd because the losing-incumbent administration merely locked her out of City Hall (“impeaching” her for “voter fraud” in the April 7th election, despite St. Louis County election officials having already certified her victory). Of McCray’s two predecessors, one was once also locked out of office by police, and the other had to go to court to get his mayoral job back after admitting that he had missed child-support payments. [KTVI-TV (St. Louis), 4-23-2015] [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1-29-2014]
Suspicions Confirmed
The controversial ex-Greenpeace campaigner who years later turned against the environmental group’s program walked out of an interview in March for a French documentary in which he assured viewers that Monsanto’s Roundup weed-killer was safe for humans. “You can drink a whole quart of it, and it won’t hurt you,” Patrick Moore told the interviewer for Canal Plus. The interviewer then offered Moore a swig of Roundup he had on hand. “I’d be happy to, actually,” Moore reportedly said on camera, but then quickly changed his mind. “No, I’m not an idiot.” At that point, Moore declared, the interview was “finished.” [Time, 3-27-2015]
Is This a Great Country or What?
The owner of a New York City condominium apartment that sold for $100.5 million recently received a property tax reduction of $360,000 last year--and is likely to keep receiving reductions over as many as 25 years, based on “Section 421-a” benefits the state enacted to encourage “affordable” housing in the most desirable parts of New York City. The tax abatements are available to developers that promise to create “affordable” units in the same zones (“affordable” to families making under about $40,000 annually), but in recent years, the new “millionaire” units (with tax breaks) have outnumbered the new affordable units by about 11 to 1, according to a February New York Times report, costing the city over $1 billion a year in revenue. [New York Times, 2-2-2015] [Gothamist.com, 3-18-2015]
Bright Ideas
Prison breaks in Latin American countries are often staged with cooperative, corrupt guards. However, the escape by 28 inmates in February from the Nova Mutum prison near Cuiaba, Brazil, was engineered by three make-believe “dominatrixes” (in police costumes), who playfully handcuffed the guards, then “Cosbyed” them with sedatives, and unlocked the cells. (The guards were found the next day, still handcuffed and naked.) [Daily Mirror (London), 2-8-2015]
Wall Street Miracle: Two March instances of gleaning insight and using it to buy stock “options” were executed so quickly (1 to 3 seconds each) that experts consulted for a Slate.com analysis said they couldn’t possibly have been made by human securities traders. Their conclusion: A robot so intelligent exists that it can “read” a news wire report, “analyze” it for hints whether to place bets on a company’s future price, and execute the order--before human traders even finish reading the news report. Profits on the seconds-long trades: $2.4 million on one and “between $1 million and $2 million” on the other. [Slate.com, 4-26-2015]
News of Interest to Immature Readers Only
(1) England’s Tavistock Town Council hastily changed the wording in March of its help-wanted ad seeking a general maintenance person (a “hand,” in local jargon); thus, it is no longer wording the offering as a “general hand job.” (2) Alaska’s Juneau Empire newspaper announced on February 26th a rededication ceremony for the local homeless facility, long known as the Glory Hole Shelter. (3) In April, the Tisdale, Saskatchewan, town council finally decided, after 60 years, to alter the widely-used and inspiring town slogan (honoring the canola oil’s parent, the rapeseed)--“Land of Rape and Honey.” (4) A Brazilian student-athlete enrolled at Medicine Hat (Alberta) College announced he would play the basketball season under his real Brazilian-German name, Guilherme Fuck (which he insists is pronounced foo-kay). [Plymouth Herald, 3-4-2015] [Juneau Empire, 2-26-2015] [Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News, 4-21-2015] [Medicine Hat News, 3-20-2015]
A News of the Weird Classic (February 2011) .
David Morice, of Iowa City, Ia., a teacher at Kirkwood Community College, was best known for a series of "Poetry Comics" until he decided [in 2010] to write 100-page poems (not prose--poems!) every day for 100 days, until he had a book totaling 10,000 pages (actually, 10,119). The University of Iowa Libraries published the finished book online, but for some reason, also in a two-foot-high hardcopy stack. (Strangely, in a 480-word article describing Morice's feat, the Iowa City Press-Citizen included not even a hint about any of the poems' subject matter.) [Iowa City Press-Citizen, 1-27-2011]
Thanks This Week to Rita Johnson, Joe Harman, Gerald Davidson, and Don Schwartz, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Weirdnuz.M422, May 10, 2015
Copyright 2015 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Lead Story
Already, healthy people can donate blood, sperm, and eggs, but now the nonprofit OpenBiome offers donors $40 for bowel movements--to supply “fecal transplants” for patients with nasty C.difficile bacteria infections. (“Healthy” contents are transplanted into the infected gut via endoscope or frozen swallowed capsules so that the good bacteria drive out the antibiotic-resistant bad.) Over 2,000 transplant units have been shipped to 185 hospitals so far, and OpenBiome allows daily “donations” so that, with bonuses, a donor could earn $13,000 a year. However, extensive medical questioning and stool-testing is required, and only about 4 percent of potential donors have exquisite-enough feces to qualify. [Washington Post, 1-29-2015]
The Job of the Researcher
California State University Los Angeles researcher Marc Kubasak spent about 2,500 hours (sometimes 12 hours a day) training 40 brain-damaged rats to walk on a treadmill, after sewing little vests to tether the critters, suspended, to a robotic arm. His work paid off, though, according to February Popular Science magazine, as doctors in Poland and University College London used his procedures to help a man with a damaged spine. (In the middle of the project, Kubasak developed a rodent allergy and was forced to wear a body suit every day with a respirator.) [Popular Science, February 2015]
Ironies
UK’s Bedfordshire Police were searching in April for the thief who ran off without paying for his Jesus arm tattoo at the RedINC Luton studio (to go with his “Only God Can Judge Me” inking on the other arm). In fact, the shopkeeper also believes the man swiped the equivalent of $1,548 from a cash drawer when he was momentarily alone in the studio. [Luton Today, 4-1-2015]
Former Virginia state Delegate Joseph Morrissey, already scheduled for trial for submitting false documents in one case, was foiled in March qualifying for a state Senate primary because 750 of the 972 voter signatures he submitted were found to be bogus. (Morrissey was sworn in as Delegate in January while wearing an ankle monitor as part of his sentence for having sex with an underage girl, but resigned to run for the Senate.) [Richmond Times-Dispatch, 3-31-2015] [Associated Press via Virginian-Pilot (Hampton Roads), 1-15-2015]
Remembrance Technology
In March, the U.S. patent office approved Google’s application covering robot software that mimics human personalities (voice, mannerisms) with a variety of moods (happiness, fear, surprise) with a notable use that family members might employ it to continue to “interact” with a loved one after he has passed. One disquieting possibility might allow a deceased person to be directed to act in ways that the person never acted while alive. [Discover Magazine, 4-26-2015]
Entrepreneurship: (1) A curious woman, inspired by her own mother’s attachment to her unlaundered pillowcases following the death of her dad, has partnered with France’s Universite du Havre to produce a person’s bottled scent by processing old clothing. A September rollout is planned, with the probable retail price of about $600. (2) Artist Mark Sturkenboom has described plans for an even more remarkable remembrance device (if the deceased is male): a dildo that holds 21 grams of cremated ashes (accessoried, perhaps for non-sexual “cover,” by a necklace and music player). “After passing,” Sturkenboom explained, “the missing of initmacy” is “one aspect of the pain and grief.” [Popular Science, 4-24-2015] [Metro News (London), 4-26-2015]
Democracy in Action
Just west of Ferguson, Mo., is Kinloch (pop. 299), where newly-elected mayor Betty McCray was unable to start work on April 23rd because the losing-incumbent administration merely locked her out of City Hall (“impeaching” her for “voter fraud” in the April 7th election, despite St. Louis County election officials having already certified her victory). Of McCray’s two predecessors, one was once also locked out of office by police, and the other had to go to court to get his mayoral job back after admitting that he had missed child-support payments. [KTVI-TV (St. Louis), 4-23-2015] [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1-29-2014]
Suspicions Confirmed
The controversial ex-Greenpeace campaigner who years later turned against the environmental group’s program walked out of an interview in March for a French documentary in which he assured viewers that Monsanto’s Roundup weed-killer was safe for humans. “You can drink a whole quart of it, and it won’t hurt you,” Patrick Moore told the interviewer for Canal Plus. The interviewer then offered Moore a swig of Roundup he had on hand. “I’d be happy to, actually,” Moore reportedly said on camera, but then quickly changed his mind. “No, I’m not an idiot.” At that point, Moore declared, the interview was “finished.” [Time, 3-27-2015]
Is This a Great Country or What?
The owner of a New York City condominium apartment that sold for $100.5 million recently received a property tax reduction of $360,000 last year--and is likely to keep receiving reductions over as many as 25 years, based on “Section 421-a” benefits the state enacted to encourage “affordable” housing in the most desirable parts of New York City. The tax abatements are available to developers that promise to create “affordable” units in the same zones (“affordable” to families making under about $40,000 annually), but in recent years, the new “millionaire” units (with tax breaks) have outnumbered the new affordable units by about 11 to 1, according to a February New York Times report, costing the city over $1 billion a year in revenue. [New York Times, 2-2-2015] [Gothamist.com, 3-18-2015]
Bright Ideas
Prison breaks in Latin American countries are often staged with cooperative, corrupt guards. However, the escape by 28 inmates in February from the Nova Mutum prison near Cuiaba, Brazil, was engineered by three make-believe “dominatrixes” (in police costumes), who playfully handcuffed the guards, then “Cosbyed” them with sedatives, and unlocked the cells. (The guards were found the next day, still handcuffed and naked.) [Daily Mirror (London), 2-8-2015]
Wall Street Miracle: Two March instances of gleaning insight and using it to buy stock “options” were executed so quickly (1 to 3 seconds each) that experts consulted for a Slate.com analysis said they couldn’t possibly have been made by human securities traders. Their conclusion: A robot so intelligent exists that it can “read” a news wire report, “analyze” it for hints whether to place bets on a company’s future price, and execute the order--before human traders even finish reading the news report. Profits on the seconds-long trades: $2.4 million on one and “between $1 million and $2 million” on the other. [Slate.com, 4-26-2015]
News of Interest to Immature Readers Only
(1) England’s Tavistock Town Council hastily changed the wording in March of its help-wanted ad seeking a general maintenance person (a “hand,” in local jargon); thus, it is no longer wording the offering as a “general hand job.” (2) Alaska’s Juneau Empire newspaper announced on February 26th a rededication ceremony for the local homeless facility, long known as the Glory Hole Shelter. (3) In April, the Tisdale, Saskatchewan, town council finally decided, after 60 years, to alter the widely-used and inspiring town slogan (honoring the canola oil’s parent, the rapeseed)--“Land of Rape and Honey.” (4) A Brazilian student-athlete enrolled at Medicine Hat (Alberta) College announced he would play the basketball season under his real Brazilian-German name, Guilherme Fuck (which he insists is pronounced foo-kay). [Plymouth Herald, 3-4-2015] [Juneau Empire, 2-26-2015] [Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News, 4-21-2015] [Medicine Hat News, 3-20-2015]
A News of the Weird Classic (February 2011) .
David Morice, of Iowa City, Ia., a teacher at Kirkwood Community College, was best known for a series of "Poetry Comics" until he decided [in 2010] to write 100-page poems (not prose--poems!) every day for 100 days, until he had a book totaling 10,000 pages (actually, 10,119). The University of Iowa Libraries published the finished book online, but for some reason, also in a two-foot-high hardcopy stack. (Strangely, in a 480-word article describing Morice's feat, the Iowa City Press-Citizen included not even a hint about any of the poems' subject matter.) [Iowa City Press-Citizen, 1-27-2011]
Thanks This Week to Rita Johnson, Joe Harman, Gerald Davidson, and Don Schwartz, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
Comments
Tattoo thief: Well, at least identifying the perp will be a lot simpler that it might otherwise have been!
Kinloch, MO: Why in the world id there a town with a population of 299? For what specifically local services could the populace possibly justify the increase in taxes that an extra layer of government would entail?
Last name: That's actually a real German surname, pronounced "fook", with a short oo, like book. When my wife was an interpreter at the airport, a German with that surname came in, and nearly got thrown out of the country because the Immigration officer thought it was someone's idea of a joke. It's a variation of Fuchs, which means Fox.
Kinloch, MO: Why in the world id there a town with a population of 299? For what specifically local services could the populace possibly justify the increase in taxes that an extra layer of government would entail?
Last name: That's actually a real German surname, pronounced "fook", with a short oo, like book. When my wife was an interpreter at the airport, a German with that surname came in, and nearly got thrown out of the country because the Immigration officer thought it was someone's idea of a joke. It's a variation of Fuchs, which means Fox.
Posted by TheCannyScot in Atlanta, GA on 05/11/15 at 10:40 AM
The punch line of an old joke.. The French ace in a BBC interview.
Non non, the fokker was flying a Messerschmitt.
Non non, the fokker was flying a Messerschmitt.
Posted by BMN on 05/11/15 at 05:11 PM
Joseph Morrissey It's way, way too late to save the patient.... Let's start over.
Eau de' corpse & ewwww de' corpse Necrophilia seems to be profitable these days.
Eau de' corpse & ewwww de' corpse Necrophilia seems to be profitable these days.
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 05/12/15 at 10:38 AM
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