Slashdot Mirror

The Telegraph has put together a good list of the 30 greatest conspiracy theories of all time. All the old hits are there: the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Roswell, The Philadelphia Experiment, and the death of Elvis Presley. It also includes some relative newcomers such as claims that Diana, Princess of Wales, was murdered, Chemtrails, and "the AIDS virus was created in a laboratory." Put on your tinfoil hat and read them quickly before they take it down.

The Telegraph has put together a good list of the 30 greatest conspiracy theories of all time. All the old hits are there: the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Roswell, The Philadelphia Experiment, and the death of Elvis Presley. It also includes some relative newcomers such as claims that Diana, Princess of Wales, was murdered, Chemtrails, and "the AIDS virus was created in a laboratory." Put on your tinfoil hat and read them quickly before they take it down.

A woman calling herself Susan042764 posted a question on the Apple support forums asking if a "technical glitch" could be responsible for nude photos of her husband she found attached to an email. She wrote,"Please help! I took my husband's iPhone and found a raunchy picture of him attached to an email to a woman in his sent email file. When I approached him about this, he admitted that he took the picture, but says that he never sent it to anyone. He claims that he went to the Genius Bar at the local Apple store and they told him it is an iPhone glitch — that photos sometimes automatically attach themselves to an email address and appear in the sent folder, even though no email was ever sent. Has anyone ever heard of this happening?" Assuming this is true, it has to be one of the lamest excuses ever.

laejoh writes "Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' — which featured John Cleese — is some 1,600 years old. A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece. A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave. It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service. His companion replies: 'When he was with me, he never did any such thing!' The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD. Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969."

The Church of Christ's Resurrection, in the village of Komarovo, was built in 1809. But sometime in October it was taken away brick by brick, says Father Vitaly, a spokesman for the local Russian Orthodox Church. The church was in a very isolated area that was not visited very often, so the theft took place without anyone noticing. A survey of the large, two-story church a few months ago found that it was structurally sound, but now all that remains are the foundations and sections of walls. "This is not an isolated case," said Father Vitaly. "In many villages in central Russia sites of historical interest are being dismantled and people suffer by being deprived of their cultural heritage." I wonder how many years bad luck a person gets for stealing a church?

RobotsDinner writes "In what sounds like a dystopian sci-fi plot, the Home Office has made public plans to outfit the country's Internet with upstream data recorders to log pretty much everything that passes through. 'Under Government plans to monitor internet traffic, raw data would be collected and stored by the black boxes before being transferred to a giant central database. The vision was outlined at a meeting between officials from the Home Office and Internet Service Providers earlier this week.'"

Almost a million gravestones have been removed or "secured" by health and safety officers in the UK. Officials are shoring up memorials with plastic binding, or stakes, or removing them entirely, to prevent them from falling over and causing injuries and compensation claims. The Health and Safety Executive has recorded 21 incidents of injuries caused by falling headstones over the past seven years and the government says gravestone accidents have caused eight deaths in the past 20 years. It's official: the UK has run out of problems to solve.

A UK bookmaker has lowered the odds on proving that god exists to just 4-1 to coincide with the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider. The chance that physicists might discover the elusive sub-atomic object called the "God particle" has forced the odds lower. Initially the odds that proof would be found of God's existence were 20-1, and they lengthened to 33-1 when the multi-billion pound atom smasher was shut down temporarily because of a magnetic failure. A spokesman for Paddy Power said, "The atheists' planned advertising campaign seems to have renewed the debate in pubs and around office water-coolers as to whether there is a God and we've seen some of that being transferred into bets. However we advise anyone still not sure of God's existence to maybe hedge their bets for now, just in case." He added that confirmation of God's existence would have to be verified by scientists and given by an independent authority before any payouts were made. Everyone getting a payout is encouraged to tithe at least ten percent.

Envirowise, a British government sponsored environmental consultant company, is urging businesses to appoint tea monitors to make sure people do not waste water. They say the conservation of water used to make tea will reduce greenhouse gases and save companies money. In a statement it tells businesses, "Appoint a tea task force or tea monitor to make sure all your office hot drink-making facilities are as efficient as they could be. Only boil the water you use - this will avoid water and energy being wasted." I'd like to offer my services as office soap steward and Lord of the toilet paper.

A teenager from Glastonbury has changed his name to, Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined. It is thought to be the world's longest name by people who think about such things and is most assuredly among the stupidest. Captain Fantastic said, "I wanted to be unique. I decided upon a theme of superheroes." He added that he thinks his new name is "crazy" and that his grandmother is no longer talking to him.

George Bates criticized an "unhelpful" worker at an Indian call center and gave him a low rating in a post-call customer satisfaction survey. After the survey Mr. Bates alleges the clerk froze his account and changed his identity to that of a Ugandan divorcee, In retaliation. Mr Bates alleges that the operator had "obviously seen that I have given him bad feedback and has decided to change all my details in revenge. When I heard my details had been changed to Ugandan I was terrified that my account had been emptied by somebody else and I would never get my money back." A bank spokesman said, "An error occurred on Mr Bates's overdraft. We have since returned his account to the correct position and refunded any charges relating to this error. In relation to Mr Bates's other claims, we can confirm that we have fully investigated these complaints but we do not comment on individual employees."

Under a new proposal anyone with a chest under 28 inches will be banned from driving a motorbike in Vietnam. "The new proposals are very funny, but many Vietnamese people could become the victim of this joke," said Le Quang Minh, 31, a Hanoi stockbroker. "Many Vietnamese women have small chests. I have many friends who won't meet these criteria." Anyone who is too short, too thin or too sickly will also be banned from motorbikes. It won't be long before dealerships will offer customers padded bra or shoe lift packages.

What is 10' tall, has six hydraulic legs, and is powered by the wind and solar panels? The prototype pod house built by art collective N55 in Copenhagen, Denmark. With the help of MIT, N55 built the pod over a two-year period at a cost of £30,000. Designers say it provides a solution to the problem of rising water levels as the house can simply walk away from floods. One of the designers says, "This house is not just for travellers but also for anyone interested in a more general way of nomadic living." It won't be long now until the Japanese make Howl's Moving Castle.

When it comes to sleeping in odd places nobody can beat the Chinese, or so says Bernd Hagemann. Bernd moved to the Far East in 2002 and has spent his time taking photographs of Chinese people sleeping in any position and situation. He divides his subjects into three categories: hardsleepers, softsleepers and groupsleepers, and he has more than 600 photographs at his website. Hagemann says,"Whenever I linger through the boomtown Shanghai, I carry my snap shot camera with me. Because at every corner you can discover people that either are napping in the strangest positions and situations, or are even snoring, while sunk in a deep sleep. Noteworthy are the missing mattresses and pillows!" Lets hope Bernd keeps it on the street and doesn't start breaking into houses at night to feed his sleep picture fetish.

isBandGeek() writes "With shocking disregard to their personal privacy, at least 10 people volunteered to release their entire medical records and DNA sequences in order to get their DNA decoded and analyzed. 'They include Steven Pinker, the prominent Harvard University psychologist and author, Esther Dyson, a trainee astronaut and Misha Angrist, an assistant professor at Duke University. They have each donated a piece of skin to the project at Harvard University and agreed to have the results posted on the internet. The three are among the first 10 volunteers in the Personal Genome Project, a study at Harvard University Medical School aimed at challenging the conventional wisdom that the secrets of our genes are best kept to ourselves. The goal of the project is to speed medical research by dispensing with the elaborate precautions traditionally taken to protect the privacy of human subjects."

Creativity is least likely to strike in the afternoon, according to a survey that suggests office workers have little chance of solving problems after lunch. A poll of 1,426 people showed that a quarter of us stay up late when seeking inspiration. Taking a shower or just sitting in the bathroom proved to be a popular way of getting the creative juices flowing. The survey found that 10:04pm was the most creative time, while 4:33pm was the least. I'll think of something funny to write here later.

Ant writes "The Telegraph reports that people over 55 who were brought up watching a monochrome TV set are more likely to dream in black and white, even years later. New research suggests that the type of television you watched as a child has a profound effect on the color of your dreams. While almost all under-25s dream in color, many over-55s, all of whom were brought up with B&W sets, often still dream in monochrome. The study, out ot Dundee University, used a small number of subjects under 25 or over 55 and the results suggest that '... there could be a critical period in our childhood when watching films has a big impact on the way dreams are formed ... [B]efore the advent of black and white television all the evidence suggests we were dreaming in color.'"

Two Costa Rican engineering students have solved the biggest problem facing astronauts today. How do you brew a good cup of coffee in space?

According to NASA scientists, space smells a lot like my uncle's workshop. One can detect hints of fried steak, hot metal, and the welding of a motorbike. They have hired Steven Pearce, a chemist and managing director of fragrance manufacturing company Omega Ingredients, to recreate the smell in a laboratory. NASA will use his research to help train potential astronauts. Steven said, "I did some work for an art exhibition in July, which was based entirely on smell, and one of the things I created was the smell of the inside of the Mir space station. NASA heard about it and contacted me to see if I could help them recreate the smell of space to help their astronauts."

Charity adventurer JR Hildebrandt plans on paddling 150 miles down the Wisconsin river in a 760-pound pumpkin. There is enough room in the giant pumpkin boat for a chair, small propane heater and JR. A board was added to the bottom of the gourd boat to provide some stability. The eight-day trip will raise money for a charity that provides dream trips for special needs kids. "We've sent children to Disney Land, or Disney World. We've sent them to NASCAR races, we've even sent one little girl to Jamaica on a cruise and I wanted to take it a step further," Mr. Hildebrandt said. I know a young lady with a glass slipper fetish who would love to meet this guy.

A couple in Cambodia who had "finally had enough" of each other have separated and cut their house in half. The wife will remain in the upright half of the house while her husband has dragged his half away to the other side of the village. Vorng Morn, the headman of Cheach village, said, "We tried to persuade them to think clearly before they did this because they had been married for nearly 40 years. But they did not listen." Don't these people know that you are supposed to draw a line down the middle of the house first? You can't skip to the cutting-things-in-half part right away.

It appears bad plumbing was the cause of wine flowing through taps in dozens of homes during an Italian grape festival, and not divine intervention. As part of the Marino Grape Festival, free wine flows from the main fountain in the town square. Due to a plumbing error, the pipes from the local vineyard which supply the marble fountain were switched to the domestic supply feeding homes. When local residents turned on their taps, out poured wine. I have a recurring dream that is very similar to this, but in this case the town was not subsequently attacked by a 50-foot Selma Hayek.

More than 1,000 people attended this year's Ig Nobel awards, a light-hearted alternative to the Nobel Prizes. Scientists who unlocked the inner secrets of dog fleas, crisps and tangled string swept the show. Handing out awards was William Lipscomb, the 1976 Nobel laureate for chemistry, also doubling Thursday, at the age of 89, as the hero in the "Win-a-Date-With-a-Nobel-Laureate Contest." The prize itself is a plaque that reads, "This Ig Nobel Prize is awarded in the year 2008 to an Ig Nobel Prize Winner, in recognition of the Ig Nobel Prize Winners' Ig Nobel Prize winning achievement." At last I can submit my paper, "Everything is Really Wet, Even Dry Stuff." for peer review.

Inventor Casey Jones says his creation uses ultrasound technology to recreate the effects of decades of aging by colliding alcohol molecules inside the bottle. Mr. Jones said, "This machine can take your run-of-the-mill £3.99 bottle of plonk and turn it into a finest bottle of vintage tasting like it costs hundreds. It works on any alcohol that tastes better aged, even a bottle of paintstripper whisky can taste like an 8-year-aged single malt." The Ultrasonic Wine Ager, which looks like a Dr. Who ice bucket, takes 30 minutes to work and has already been given the thumbs up by an English winemaker. I know a certain special lady who is about to have the best bottle of Boone's Farm in the world.

Prop, a Japanese company, has come up with a novel way of protecting the elderly from sudden slips and falls: airbags. The airbags inflate with 15 litres of compressed air in 0.1 seconds if an electric sensor detects a sudden movement towards the ground. However, the airbags only work if you fall backwards, so pushing grandma down the stairs for the inheritance should still work.

90-year-old Alec Alder has survived car crashes, being hit by a tank, and bombings. A fighter jet once crashed into his house and his whole squadron was killed at Dunkirk. All in all, Mr. Alder has cheated death 14 times, easily besting the luckiest alley cat. Alec worked as a minister when he returned from the war and says he believes God saved his life all those times. If he doesn't win the next season of "Who Wants to Be a Superhero?", the show is rigged.

JP Aerospace is offering customers a chance to launch anything into space, from coffee beans to their favorite toy. I'm not sure why anyone would choose coffee or toys, instead of bills or the neighbor's dog that won't stop barking, but enough people must ask, because the company includes them on the list. They will also launch advertising billboards and take pictures of them high above the earth, which seems like a more viable business model. John Powell, President of JP Aerospace, said, "Companies are looking for ways to get above the over crowded field of advertisements. There are a lot of race cars and basketball stars out there, but, not too many spaceships, they get noticed. The field is wide open."

Sheikh Muhammad Munajid claims that Mickey Mouse is "one of Satan's soldiers" and makes everything he touches impure. The sheikh said that under Sharia, both household mice and their cartoon counterparts must be killed. The cleric has held off on condemning other Disney characters until he can figure out, "What the hell is Goofy?"

The owner of the Storchen restaurant, Hans Locher, plans on improving his menu with local specialties such as meat stew and various soups and sauces containing at least 75% breast milk. Mr Locher posted ads this week looking for women donors, who will receive just over three pounds for 14 ounces of their milk. Hans says, "We have all been raised on it. Why should we not include it into our diet? One can cook really delicious things with it. However, it always needs to be mixed with a bit of whipped cream, in order to keep the consistency." The grand unveiling of the new menu is sure to be a noisy occasion with every stray baby in the neighborhood crying and banging on the backdoor.

Chris_Keene writes in to let us know that the Prof. Michael Reiss, who recently caused a storm with comments about teaching creationism in schools, has resigned from his post as director of education at the Royal Society in the UK. This news coincides with word out of the Anglican church that it is ready to apologize to Charles Darwin, 150 years after it poured scorn on his theory of evolution by natural selection. "The Church of England will concede in a statement that it was over-defensive and over-emotional in dismissing Darwin's ideas. It will call 'anti-evolutionary fervor' an 'indictment' on the Church."

British airline XL went out of business so abruptly that it left hundreds stranded, including over 260 who were on a runway. "(Airport officials) told us we should go and sleep on the street with our children because we are not their responsibility. I've come here on a packaged holiday and I've paid to go home," an angry passenger said. Eventually some flights were chartered to help the stranded passengers, one of which was flown by Iron Maiden frontman, Bruce Dickinson, because the story wasn't odd enough already. XL customers are lucky that the company didn't go out of business while their planes were in flight.

Doomsayers Delight writes "The Telegraph reports that Greek hackers were able to gain momentary access to a CERN computer system of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) while the first particles were zipping around the particle accelerator on September 10th. 'Scientists working at CERN, the organization that runs the vast smasher, were worried about what the hackers could do because they were "one step away" from the computer control system of one of the huge detectors of the machine, a vast magnet that weighs 12,500 tons, measuring around 21 meters in length and 15 meters wide/high. If they had hacked into a second computer network, they could have turned off parts of the vast detector and, said the insider, "it is hard enough to make these things work if no one is messing with it."'"

Starting in November, Queen's University Belfast will offer a course that will use the psychology of the Star Wars Jedi Knights to teach students communication skills and personal development. The university's publicity material reads 'the course "Feel the Force: How to Train in the Jedi Way" teaches the "real-life psychological techniques behind Jedi mind tricks"' and promises to explore 'wider issues behind the Star Wars universe, like balance, destiny, dualism, fatherhood and fascism.' The course is very affordable but the droid fees are outrageous.

For the first time in France and probably the world, a dog has appeared as a witness in criminal proceeding. The dog, nicknamed Scooby, is believed to have been with his owner when she was found hanging from the ceiling of her apartment. The police believed it was a suicide but the woman's family disagreed and demanded a murder investigation. During a preliminary hearing Scooby was led into the witness box by a vet to see how he reacted to a suspect. The dog "barked furiously" at the suspect and it is now up to a judge to determine if there is sufficient evidence to launch a full murder inquiry. The dog seemed reluctant to testify at first but was convinced with the help of some kids in a van and three scooby snacks.

BTJunkie writes "The Large Hadron Collider, the worlds most expensive science experiment, is set to be turned on tomorrow. We've discussed this multiple times already. A small group of people believe our world will be sucked into extinction (some have even sent death threats). The majority of us, however, won't be losing any sleep tonight." Reader WillRobinson notes that CERN researchers declared the final synchronization test a success and says, "The first attempt to circulate a beam in the LHC will be made this Wednesday, Sept. 10 at the injection energy of 450 GeV (0.45 TeV). The start up time will be between (9:00 to 18:00 Zurich Time) (2:00 to 10:00 CDT) with live webcasts provided at webcast.cern.ch."

Dr Sabine Begall and colleagues from the University of Duisburg-Essen have discovered that cows tend to point north. The researchers studied deer in the Czech Republic and looked at thousands of images of cattle on Google Earth. The animals tended to face north when eating or resting. "We conclude that the magnetic field is the only common and most likely factor responsible for the observed alignment," the scientists wrote in an article. I guess cows will become the must-have item for long-distance hikers now. Having an edible compass would come in handy if you get lost.

SpaceAdmiral writes "Scientists have discovered a virus that can infect another virus. The fact that viruses can essentially get sick may change the debate over whether they are alive or not. Check out Nature for a slightly more technical article about the 'virophage.'"

In an effort to save perfectly round, firm, heaving boobs from any undue harm, German police women will soon be issued bullet-proof bras. The bras were created to act as a second barrier of defense when it was found that normal bras would cause injuries to breasts by pushing plastic and metal parts into the majestic globes after being shot. The new bras are emblazoned with the word "police" and made from cotton, polyester, elastic and some other synthetic materials, thickly padded and with no metal or plastic studs or fasteners to cause irritation to the delicate flesh. It is theorized that the bras could actually protect the women attached to the breasts as well.

In an effort to get rid of surly taxi drivers, you will have to be able to pass a 15-minute conversation test to get a Taxi License in the UK. Topics of conversation will include things such as their favorite places and would be mixed up so the drivers can't simply answer in a "parrot fashion." Sajid Hussain, 35, manager of Walsall Radio Cars said, "A lot of taxi drivers can do their job properly but they may not be particularly well spoken. Obviously it is important they are polite and can talk to customers and keep them happy but many don't communicate well, although I have never had a complaint about drivers being rude." I don't care what the demeanor of my cabbie is, as long as he doesn't drive like he's playing Crazy Taxi.

18-year-old James Harris has been obsessed with buses since he was little. This obsession has landed him in some trouble recently, as police are accusing him of stealing buses from Miami-Dade depots on at least three occasions. What sets James apart from an ordinary thief is that he drove the buses along their correct routes, picking up and dropping off passengers as usual and then returning to the depot at the end of his "shift" without stealing the fares he collected. James would wear a uniform to avoid detection and take the bus for between four and six hours at a time. I have a feeling that most of Mr. Harris's school trips were on the short bus.

Ubuntukitten writes "The Telegraph is running an excerpt from Arthur C. Clarke's last work, called 'The Last Theorem.' Fellow writer Frederik Pohl helped out. It's a reassuring chunk of old-fashioned sci-fi, describing an Olympics that's set on the moon. Typically for Clarkian sci-fi, is very much about the practicalities of mounting a Lunar Olympics, rather than any wild fantasy." The excerpt's centerpiece is a trip to the moon that begins with a space elevator ride. The book will be published on Aug. 1.

Ubuntukitten writes "When some walls in Bocchignano near Roma started to erode, the perfect solution was found in Lego bricks (although some look suspiciously like Duplo bricks to me). FTA: 'At first I thought it would be a complicated procedure to fit the pieces, But as it turned out, the bigger plastic pieces were compatible with the smaller ones, and the Lego held itself in place without any glue whatsoever.' I like the effect. It's like the scene has been created on the holodeck but a few holoemitters are broken ..."

If you're like me, your favorite part of the bar is the layer of cigarette stench that coats the walls, seats, air and eventually your clothing. It seems the Dutch agree. Rain Showtechniek, a Dutch company that specializes in stage effects, has created a machine that reproduces that wonderful bar smell we all love. "There is a need for a scent to mask the sweat and other unpleasant smells like stale beer. People find that smells such as Mocha coffee, Havana cigars or cigarettes can be about good moods and different ideas of living well" said Erwin van den Bergh, a spokesman for the company. The machines come in various sizes and prices, ranging from the giant £3500 model for exhibition halls to the smaller cafés machines, priced at £440.

An anonymous reader writes "It has been a number of years since the fantasy that hackers will be offered a job by those who they hacked was even a potential reality, but this might still be the case in New Zealand. An 18-year-old hacker responsible for writing a number of applications used by an online group called 'the A-Team' that allowed the creation of a million-plus machine botnet and a range of credit card fraud activities to take place, has walked free from court sans conviction despite pleading guilty. And to top it all off, the NZ police force were interested in talking to the hacker about working for them, and 'several computer programming companies' were also chasing him for his skills."

You can call Shiv Charan simple, foolish, or just plain stupid if you want. The one thing you can't call him is a quitter. Starting in 1969, Shiv has devoted his life to passing India's year 10 exam. Since then he has taken the test every year except two (to study, I guess), and has failed every time. He has vowed not to marry until he can pass the test and is still single, which is now his main motivation. "As long as I am alive I will go on giving examinations in order to get a wife. For me, success is not merely about clearing the examinations. It will also throw open the doors of marriage," he said. By now Shiv must have the most impressive collection of prom wear in all of Asia. It seems like he'd pass just so he wouldn't have to dance to Alphaville's Forever young again.

Robyn Eades, a Tasmanian grandmother, has taken the crazy cat lady thing to a whole new level. She runs a business that makes hats, purses, rugs and lots of other stuff out of cat skins. Most of her creations come from the skins of feral cats, however the trapper that provides her with most of her skins admits that his catch does include a few unlucky pets. "I feel like I am saving them from their fate. They are going to live forever in my creations," said Ms. Eades. She added, "They were just so soft and easy to skin. Wallabies were getting a bit hard as my hands are getting arthritic." Thanks to Robyn, you will be able to remember "Mittens" by having him turned into mittens.

The National Children's Bureau, a government sponsored agency in the UK, has issued guidelines to people who work with young children advising them to be alert for racist incidents among kids in their care. This includes youngsters who say, 'yuck' when fed an unfamiliar foreign food. Not even babies are exempt from scrutiny according to the 366-page guide as they can 'recognize different people in their lives.' I wonder if they think it's good or bad to like Aunt Jemima pancakes?

Greg Locke, a machine designer and bass player, has created a self-playing rock band that is becoming an Internet sensation. "The Trons" took six months to build, and Locke lists The Velvet Underground and washing machines as their biggest influences. The band consists of Wiggy, the lead guitarist, Ham, on rhythm guitar, Swamp the drummer, and keyboard player Fifi. Along with their success on YouTube, The Trons have performed five live gigs in their hometown of Hamilton in New Zealand. I wonder what their groupies are like.

An anonymous reader writes "British biologists have received government approval to create the world's first human stem cells from hybrid embryos, part pig, part human. The Warwick Medical School team, led by Justin St. John of the Clinical Sciences Research Institute, was granted the country's third animal-human embryo license from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which goes into effect today (July 1)." The above link requires (free) registration; the Telegraph's coverage does not.

zyzko writes "Nokia has placed an offer on Symbian stock — it currently owns a 48% share and intends to buy the other shareholders out, 91% of the stockholders have already agreed. The press has already labeled this as an countermeasure to fight Android. Nokia has also created Symbian foundation — it might mean more open Symbian." Symbian is "currently the world's dominant smartphone operating system (206 million phones shipped, 18.5 million in Q1 2008)," writes reader thaig, who points out coverage in the Economic Times. If this deal goes through as expected, the Foundation says that selected components of the Symbian operating system would be made available as open source at launch under the Eclipse Public License (EPL) 1.0 , with the rest of the platform following over the next two years.