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Curious Times No. 194
May 29, 2003BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, LISTENING TO YOU, TRACKING YOUR EVERY MOVE...
Wired magazine reports the latest freaky plan being hatched up at America's Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) which will, if successful, be able to gather every conceivable bit of information about any person's life, index that information, and make it searchable so that any scrap of any person's life could be analyzed. The program is called LIfelog, and DARPA is currently asking businesses and universities for research proposals in order to bring their dastardly deeds into reality. Lifelog's ultimate objective will include collecting every e-mail sent or received, every picture taken, every web page surfed, every phone call made, every TV show watched and every magazine read during a person's lifetime. And if that's not quite invasive enough, Lifelog also hopes to use GPS transmitters to keep track of a person's location, audio-visual sensors to capture what he or she sees and says, and biomedical monitors to keep track of a person's vital signs. A briefing from DARPA claims that access to this information would be used to "trace the 'threads' of an individual's life," for purposes which we can only assume are entirely wrong in every way. (Wired)THIS FOOD IS TERRIBLE, AND SUCH SMALL PORTIONS
More high strangeness out of Africa, where warring government armies, rebels, and tribal fighters have been accused of hunting Pygmy tribes for sport and eating their flesh for magic fighting power. Pygmy activists from Congo are currently before the United Nations Committee on Human Rights, trying to have the governing body stop the massacre and pass a resolution which would recognize cannibalism as a crime against humanity and an act of genocide. According to the activists, members of various fighting groups have been pursuing Congolese Pygmies in the forests, killing them and eating their flesh. "In living memory, we have seen cruelty, massacres, genocide, but we have never seen human beings hunted and eaten literally as though they were game animals, as has recently happened," said Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of the Mbuti Pygmies in Congo. (CNN)RAIN RAIN GO AWAY, OR WE'LL BOMB YOU WITH CHEMICALS
Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered his air force to stand by and be ready to take out any incoming rain clouds which may spoil the party during St. Petersburg's 300th birthday celebration. Russia's Defense Ministry confirmed that a fleet of ten planes will be ready to spray huge amounts of an unspecified chemical in order to make sure that any clouds near St. Petersburg are emptied outside of the city. Apparently, the Russians have had great success with averting rain for public celebrations since the 1930's, when Stalin first gave the orders to research weather control. (Times Online)DON'T DRINK THE WATER
The water works company in Manila, Phlippines has been forced to dump huge doses of chlorine in the water supply of millions of residents after a young man picking fruit fell into an aqueduct and got lodged in a major supply pipe. So far, authorities haven't been able to retreive the body, but they insist that the water is safe to drink. (Reuters)GO AHEAD, YOU CAN BURN FOOD CAN'T YA?
If you're still searching for your calling in life, why not start contributing to the Burnt Food Museum in Arlington, Massachusetts. Currently, the actual museum is closed due to fire damage, but you can check out masterpieces such as the "Thrice-Baked Potato" and "Before and After Toast" at the online shrine of all things waaay overcooked, at www.burntfoodmuseum.com/.HOW ARE THEY GONNA GET THEIR LITTLE PAWS TO WORK THE CLICKER?
Last year I reported on plans from the Meow Mix cat food company to create a half-hour television show for cats. Unfortunately, that story was true. The first season of "Meow TV" is now in the can and will begin airing on May 31 on the Oxygen cable channel, a network aimed mainly at woman (and their cats, I guess). The show includes segments such as "Squirrel Alert," where squirrels run up and down trees, "Cat Critic" where housecats watch and analyze films of lions and cheetahs in the wild, "Cat Haikus" and plenty of cat antics all around. The first episode features a cat that eats with chopsticks and a cat which surfs in the ocean. (CNN)TOXIC PEE
An independent scientist doing research in Afghanistan has accused the U.S. of secretly using new forms of radioactive weapons in its war on that country. Despite denials from the U.S. Department of Defense, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, of Canada's Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC), states that "independent monitoring of the weapon types and delivery systems indicate that radioactive, toxic uranium alloys and hard-target uranium warheads were being used by the coalition forces." This conclusion was reached after urine samples from Afghan civilians suffering from illnesses and conditions similar to Gulf War Syndrome found astonishing levels of uranium in their urine. ""The results were astounding," the UMRC reported, " the donors presented concentrations of toxic and radioactive uranium isotopes between 100 and 400 times greater than in the Gulf veterans tested in 1999." (BBC)HANDS OFF, CREEP
The newest invention designed to help woman ward off psychos is a jacket which can give an 80,000 volt electric shock to stop an attacker. The No-Contact Jacket is similar to any ordinary coat, but has an inner lining of conductive fiber which, when activated by the wearer, can give a "nasty but non-lethal shock" to anyone who touches it. "It's kind of like sticking your finger in a wall socket," said one of the jacket's designers. Three prototypes of the "exo-electric armor" are currently being tested, and the designers hope to produce the first batch later this year for about $1,000 each, with plans to eventually mass produce the coat at a much lower price. (Wired)
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