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iPhoney

November 20th 2008 13:25
iPhone

A man discovered by his wife to be taking pictures of his genitals with his iPhone and then sending the pictures to another woman, has denied responsibility. It was all due, he said, to an "iPhone glitch".

The iPhone is Apple's glitzy entry into mobile telephony. The man, whom we shall call Gerald, was rumbled by his wife, whom we shall call Susan, after Susan decided to inspect Gerald's sleek new iPhone, and found the unexpected pictures in the sent folder.


Susan confronted her husband, who admitted he had taken the pictures but denied sending them to anyone. The glitch, he said, was a known iPhone issue. He had been told this, he said, by the people at the local Apple store. No photos had actually been sent - pictures "sometimes automatically attach themselves to an e-mail address and appear in the sent folder, even though no e-mail was ever sent", said Gerald.

Susan, unconvinced, decided to seek expert opinion. Where else, she reasoned, but the online Apple support forums. There she went and told the whole story and asked for guidance. Her marriage, she wrote, depended on it.

Susan's post attracted a variety of comments and advice.

"It's a glitch, but only happens if the pic is sufficiently raunchy," wrote one reader.

"I think your marriage has a glitch" wrote another.

In time, Susan also learned that the glitch issue had never previously been reported on Apple's support forums, and none of the users who replied to her post had ever heard of it.


Susan has written one final comment on the Apple forum, announcing that she has instigated divorce proceedings and thanking everyone for their input.
news.com.au


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Cleaning is a man's job

October 30th 2008 03:44
karl walker teenager vacuum cleaner sacked
Karl Walker: too young to use that thing

A cleaning company in Wiltshire, England, has sacked a 16-year-old worker on the grounds that he is not old enough to operate a vacuum cleaner. Apollo Cleaning also claimed he was too young to use washing-up liquid or hot water.

Karl Walker, who is in his final year of secondary school and plans to become a computer programmmer, had been working for Apollo Cleaning for several weeks. He worked two hours a day, five days a week, and earned £6 an hour.

That came to an end when Apollo management, citing "government guidelines", declared that workers had to be 18 years old before they could operate vacuum cleaners and use hot water and other dangerous cleaning stuff.

Karl's mum called the decision "ridiculous". Her son, she said, had been helping clean the family home for years without accident.

Karl is left to ponder the ways of a world which says he is old enough to enlist in the army and get married, but not old enough to use a vacuum cleaner.

"I just want to be allowed to earn an honest living to support my studies - is that asking too much?" he said.

Apparently so.
dailymail.co.uk


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Water bears conquer space

October 24th 2008 17:23
tardigrade water bear

There are creatures indigenous to this planet called tardigrades and they are in the news because it has just been discovered that they can live in space. Outer space. Vacuum territory. The place where, it has previously been believed, the only things that can survive are some of the hardier forms of cosmic dust.

Tardigrades are more commonly known as water bears. They are, on average, about the size which requires a microscope to see. But this is not recommended for the squeamish or weak of heart because tardigrades are seriously scary looking critters. Seen under a microscope, they look like a cross between a louse and an angry armadillo with acne.

Their bodies are short and plump and contain four pairs of limbs. Each limb terminates in four to eight claws or discs. They wander about in a slow bear-like gait over sand grains or pieces of plant material.

Water bears already had minor celebrity status because they have shown they can live in some of Earth's most inhospitable places: at the bottom of the ocean, at the top of mountains, and in temperatures ranging from minus 272C to plus 51C. They are resistant to radiation and, bizarrely, to drying out - they can be brought back to life after years of dryness.

But space was a new frontier even for the hardy tardigrades.

They were taken into space aboard the FOTON-M3, a European Space Agency craft launched in September, by scientists who exposed dried-up water bears to open space conditions - vacuum, ultra-violet radiation from the sun and cosmic radiation. Back home, with a drop of water, most of them revived.

Some survived exposure to solar ultra-violet radiation more than 1,000 times higher than ultra-violet radiation on the Earth's surface. Some, scientists said, were able to reproduce after their space trip.

The scientists reported on the venture in this month's edition of the US journal Current Biology.

"How these animals were capable of reviving their body after receiving a dose of UV radiation ... under space vacuum conditions remains a mystery," the report said. "It is conceivable that the same cellular adaptations that let them survive drying out might also account for their overall hardiness."

There are about 600 species of tardigrades on Earth. They were first described by Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773, and he gave them the name "little water bear". The name Tardigrada, which means "slow walker", was coined in 1777.

They have been found in the Himalayas above 6,000 metres, in the ocean below 4,000 metres, from the polar regions to the equator, on beaches, in soil and in marine or freshwater sediment. Mostly, though, they like to hang out on the nearest cosy lichen or moss.

Or in space.
theregister.co.uk, www.ieu.edu, wikipedia.org. Image: www.core-orsten-research.de


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Potty of gold

October 22nd 2008 23:58
dawn herb toilet
Dawn Herb: all you need to make US$19,000 is a toilet, a bathroom window and a colourful lexicon

The American legal system has its detractors, but Dawn Herb is not one of them. Ms Herb, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, isn't about to complain about a system which pays her US$19,000 for swearing at her toilet.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Miracle shark pregnancy, again

October 11th 2008 06:07
shark baby

Scientists have used DNA testing to confirm that a female Atlantic shark named Tidbit has become pregnant without any contact with a male shark.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Bidets: a public concern

October 9th 2008 03:00
bidet beer
An Australian bidet

I feel I should start this post with a clarification: I am not fascinated by toilets. I realise that I could stand accused of this, having so far posted items about the Chinese man who stored more than US$3 million in a leaking toilet, the Japanese man who invented a soundless toilet and the sweeping southern Indian public toilet construction program, but that doesn't mean I am obsessed with toilets. No way. Absolutely not.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Lourdes and the frog

August 29th 2008 08:15
crucified frog

The Pope has been in the news twice this week in less than totally favourable light.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Money down the drain

August 3rd 2008 08:08
According to the Cambridge History of China, an anti-corruption campaign was begun, by imperial decree, on April 7, 1651. It is probably not the same war on corruption that the current decision-makers in Beijing are waging, but they are fighting the fight with the same ruthlessness. When it comes to cracking down hard and fast without the inconvenience of public accountability, emperors and leaders of totalitarian regimes have it good.

Cracking down hard on corruption in today's China means punishments up to and including the death penalty. The official news agency Xinhua has reported a steady flow of executions for corruption over the past few years, and has just reported another


[ Click here to read more ]
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Pay up doc, we didn't want twins

July 24th 2008 07:18
An Australian couple will have to pay the costs of raising both their twin daughters after a court today ruled against their claim that their obstetrician should pay the costs of raising one of them.

The lesbian couple, whose names have been suppressed, sued Canberra obstetrician Sydney Robert Armellin for almost $400,000 for implanting two embryos instead of the requested one. The ACT Supreme Court today ruled in favour of Dr Armellin, and ordered the couple pay his legal costs, even after the doctor admitted from the outset that a mistake had been made


[ Click here to read more ]
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One for the ages

July 23rd 2008 02:34
old age

When it comes to information about the world's oldest people, the Khaleej Times may not be the place to start your search. The on-line version of the UAE-based newspaper has just reported that "the identity card of Nasir Al Hazry, a resident of Al Ain in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, shows his age as 135", although his exact date of birth has "not been revealed".

[ Click here to read more ]
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Bumble's guide to US law

July 19th 2008 08:15
Mr Bumble
Dickens' Mr Bumble, the first to claim that the law can be an ass

Is it naïve to suggest that America is the land where litigation is the domain of the inventive? If you dream it, they will sue it.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Men who think with their nozzles

July 9th 2008 11:14
prostitute
She hasn't been told about the petrol voucher promotion
Picture: glossynews.com

American men, it appears, think with their nozzles.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Hush flush

July 5th 2008 05:27
toilet paper hat
A fine example of the Japanese art of chindogu

The big news from Japan this week is yet another major invention. From the land which brought us seedless watermelons, cockroach swatting slippers and the hands-free umbrella, comes the soundless toilet.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Aisle be ringing you

June 26th 2008 07:21
motorised shopping trolley
The motorised shopping trolley which is causing all the fuss
Picture: Manawatu Standard

Nineteen-year-old Duncan Evenson, of Manawatu, New Zealand, was supposed to be working at his motor mechanic duties today, but non-stop phone calls kept interrupting him.
[ Click here to read more ]
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