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Technology Spontaneously Combusts In Sicily
Zacronos writes "According to MSNBC, ever since mid-January, various electronic devices have been spontaneously combusting in the now evacuated town of Canneto di Caronia, Sicily; at this point, the fires are almost daily. The town has been disconnected from the larger electrical grid and was hooked to a generator, but that, too, caught fire. Even unplugged items have succumbed. Nothing seems to have burst into flame except where there is someone present to witness it, but the police no longer suspect a prankster -- after witnessing wires catch fire without cause. Scientists have yet to explain the phenomenon (although unproven theories abound), leading many people to look to supernatural causes."
I'm thinking, can any kind of EMP cause this?
Many many people will soon flock to Sicily to see the virgin Mary.
Sadly, in the news, a number of faithful Catholics have suddenly burst into flames today.
UID 1000000 is just around the corner.
Could it be that this article was first posted one week ago, on Thursday?
I knew Windows Longhorne wasn't ready to be released
It looks to me like the whole thing was just invented. I'll bet if I visited, I could find the problem in two minutes... tops.
Can any Sicilian slashdotter confirm this seemingly unlikely story?
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Electrical devices burst into flames... I guess then slashdotting them is akin to putting out the fire with gasoline.
Never pet a burning dog.
Obviously, if they were running Linux this wouldn't be happening now would it?
"Shredded cabbage and mayo go good together." Cole's Law
From the article: "We're working in the dark. We don't have a single lead so far," said Pedro Spinnato, mayor of the trio of Caronia towns.
...a lesser-known sign of the apocalypse?
I mean, another has already come true -- We've got the little-known 5th Horseman roaming the earth, and has its own variety show.
What? You didn't know she was the Horsman of Stupidity?
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
"Jesus!"
I feel sorry for any IT professionals walking around with a pager, NEXtel, and a PDA in their pockets/belts. Ouch!
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
In unrelated news, media reports that many websites carrying "news for nerds, stuff that matters" spontaneously combust, especially when lots of people are witnessing it. Apparently, a Sicilian hosting company has been hit particularly hard.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Looks like siciliy finally got the boot!
*badum ching!*
Web servers burst into flame all the time when they are linked from SlashDot.
It was posted today! The fact that this news piece appears backdated in other websites proves there is something supernatural involved!!
*Jumps into Holy Water pool*
---- Take the Space Quiz!
...Colored markings on the street indicate the presence of volcano experts...
Sweet jumpin' Jesus! The volcano 'experts' must have burned up and left little *poof* marks where they stood.
Scientists have yet to explain the phenomenon ... leading many people to look to supernatural causes
It really makes me sad when, if people don't understand something they assume it's magic. Why is it that so many people refuse to take 'we don't know yet' as an acceptable answer?
Science: 0
Magic: 1
:/
-Colin
You only have to look at all the loony beliefs in the world to know that people will leap to the most ridiculous conclusions at the drop of a hat.
"We can identify that flying object so therefore it must be an advanced alien scout ship!" etc.
It's sad really. No doubt when the mundane reason for this story becomes clear (e.g. hoax, sensational reporting or whatever), there will be another bunch of loons accusing the Italian government of a 'coverup'.
The answer is obvious: Sark is testing out the Rambaldi device. DUH!
Do there happen to be any radar installations nearby?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
This was forecast 2000 years ago.
Who is to say that they aren't?
:)
I mean, aliens don't have to be our size, they could be tiny little critters that can't be seen with the naked eye.
This could just be a series of tiny little BBQ's gone wrong?
If I was an alien, Sicily would seem like a nice place to go
This is the sig that says NI (again)
if the RIAA and Microsoft get all of their DRM technology in order.
Wow, the new Janet Jackson single... gimmee gimmee gimmee playing WOOOOOOOOOF! FLAMES!
who you gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS! heh, i had to do it.
I find this a good example of those phenomena that science can't yet explain. I'm often amused by science types that say something is impossible because it doesn't fit any current theory.
Seems to me any true scientist should always be watching for observations that don't fit the known theory, as they are indicators of a nedd for further refinement.
Sadly, scientists, like most people, are more interested in being right, and tend to look for confirming evidence, sometimes to the detriment of their conclusions.
Before you flame me as an anti-science zealot, let me confess that I'm a science guy as much as your average geek, and I think science is responsible for most of the good changes of the last few centuries. I just think that when we hold too tight to our theories, we leave the realm of skeptical science and enter the world of blind faith.
BTW, I have no plausible explanation for the spontaneous fires. But I am confident that someone will come up wih one that doesn't invole a tinfoil hat.
for april fools day... MSNBC - The Time Stops here!
Here is an interesting and recent article that has some further details on the subject.
Phoenix
Featured over on El Reg almost 2 months ago.. Maybe it's something atmospheric reacting with a common componenet in wiring or something.
- they're testing the new FireWire protocol?
I bet they just upgraded to prescots.
And strangely fitting:
" "....My God! Is that your kitchen on fire?"
"Err, no. It's Aurora Borealus."
"An Aurora Borealus?"
"Yes."
"At this time of the day, at this time of year, in this part of the country, localized entirely in your kitchen?!"
".....Yes."
"....Can I see it?"
".....No."
Or sometimes things just.... catch fire..... we wouldn't want that now would we?
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
"Someone wrote to us saying the solution was to sacrifice a black goat and collect its blood. At some point, that's going to start looking like a good idea."
Wohoo! They took my advice!
Believe or not, similar incidents have occurred before.
o 1945 - A village a short distance from Almera in Spain (New York Time 5th July 1945).
o 1983 - A small coal town in West Virginia, Wharncliffe (Housten Post 16th June 1983 and Columbus Dispatch 24th July 1983)
o 1990 - San Gottardo in the Berici Hills of Italy
(UK Sunday Express 11th March 1990 and The Guardian 22nd March 1990)
I've given you references so you can check them out for yourself.
(posted anonymously to avoid Slashdotters you refuse to think about things which don't fit inside their predefined universe).
So that's how Mussolini made the trains run on time, he just clustered the country's electronic services. Some new guy on the job probably just hooked up the cluster to the wrong outlet and blew the thing. ;)
"It is better to keep your mouth closed and have people think you a fool than to open it and prove them right." M. Twain
Sun and Microsoft burying the hatchet, Lindoze having to concede to the one world power, I'm dating seriously now, this is like 50th on the list... the end is near!
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
One cannot discount Easter weekend coming up. The time between Palm Sunday and Good Friday have been called the passion. (Hince the movie name, The Passion of the Christ) Just remember one verse: "Every knee shall bow"
Prophecy may be starting to come true.
To that isolated poor village, I mean. I wonder if I can persuade any of the locals to show me the location of some of these events and tell me a story about them in return for some sort of donation.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
No, an EMP just disrupts electronics, doesn't blow them up. Though I suppose blowing them up would be one hell of a way to DDoS an ISP.
"It is better to keep your mouth closed and have people think you a fool than to open it and prove them right." M. Twain
This is possibly the funniest exchange ever between Principal Skinner and Superintendant Chalmers.
re-Verse, you steam a fine ham.
Ah... the days of great C64 games.
I think its SCO and Microsoft testing a new product.
2. America is one of the few nations in the world where the power going out or setting firest makes the news, in most of the world it happens daily.
3. About a decade ago Italy ruled their version of the FCC incompetent and disbanded them. Though there are EU rules to deal with, it is a wild west of wireless where you can send photon-torpedo strength EMI around with no-one to slap you until the mobs find you.
"You don a wanna yo microwava to a burna downa yo housa, you paya mia $100 a montha."
Most suspicious.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
i was studiying this things for a longer time, and they are real , no matter what happened in this case. that are enough well documented cases. that can destroy any doubt. i think its still embarrassing that people think that such things are only x-file bogus. all these "mystery stuff". i tell you brother before you open your mouth. stay skeptic but dig into the facts use your intuition, and shit on FUD. my $ent = 2;
It's the result of scientists ignoring Zero Point Energy for so long. Now it is rearing it's ugly head.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Has anyone out there read Charles Fort?
He drove Logical Positivists into a raging fury!
He would have loved a story such as this.
The town is located in a Valley Called "Val Demons." Honestly, I can't think of any natural reason why electronis would spontaneously combust. Shit, even things that are unplugged are blowing up. Yah, that's "natural."
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
It's CANNETO DI CARONIA, Sicily a small town of only 39 residents.
I suspect that most didn't receive an education beyond what we consider 6th grade.
We all know how most 6th graders would react to something like this. It's a Ghost!
I also suspect that their religious "training" far exceeds their 6th grade formal education.
Given the Religious bias towards education, the Ghosts now become Devils.
Propz to Saddam.
Yay, Hitler.
(Don't be so shocked. It's the same damn thing.)
Or some evil, sinister military/CIA project. Do a quick Google seach on HAARP and/or weather control and you'll see.
The owls are not what they seem
even a stopped clock gives the right time twice aday...
High earth current can happen during times of earthquakes too or during times when there are stresses in certain type of ground.
Alternatively could be that the warranties have all expired - it happens.
Bollocks. What Saddam did to his own people was an internal matter. His chickenshit military endeavors in Iran and Kuwait cannot be compared to the threat posed by the Third Reich's well-oiled military machine.
Witness the vengance of the Amish for their many years of ridicule at our hands!
My electronics burning up may as well be the apocalypse...
A few years ago, CBC radio had a series of programs on 'supernatural' phenomena. It was quite serious.
One of the things it pointed out was that ghost sightings were quite common in certain mountanous areas. The theory was that rocks were being squeezed in such a way that they produced a large piezoelectric effect. The resulting electric field would cause people to see ghosts. (Dr. Michael Pursinger sp? has demonstrated the effect in the lab. He exposes people to fields and they see ghosts.)
So, there is evidence that there are large naturally occuring fields. Possibly these could be causing the problem.
Every now and then, there is a news story about someone who zaps everything electronic that they come anywhere near. I wonder if it's related.
But I spent all my mod points. Of course, it could easily have a natural cause instead of a military one - stranger things have happened, and we have such a complex system here that even staggeringly high amounts of sporadic interference can almost disappear in the noise.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
There should be no aversion to the word "supernatural." It simply describes something we don't yet understand. We get hungry which implies there is something called "food" to satisfy it. We crave sex which means there are women to satisfy it. We call something "natural" because we understand it and have dissected it in a lab and comprehend its parts and pieces. We call something "supernatural" because we desire to make it "natural" -- to understand it too. If there is something known as "natural" then that itself implies there must be a "supernatural" -- or stuff we don't yet comprehend. Dare we admit that we still don't understand most of what's really going on in the universe?
Sometimes, quacks are just philosopher-types and theologian-types standing on top of the mountain of ignorance, telling the scientists who have scaled the rocky face to "understand" each part of it "see, we told you so...."
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Has Peter "James" Bond ever been in Spain? Maybe he had something to do with it.
- Bill
They don't. They usually assume it's god. Especially in Italy, I guarantee you the first "expert" called in was the local priest, not the local college professor. I guarantee you people have spent more time praying to god than going about finding a scientific explanation or identifying what's unique. Furthermore, the assumption of "no foul play because it happened right in front of us" is absurd- there are numerous chemicals, for example, that can be applied wet, and when they dry and crystalize, become super-sensitive to contact. Of course, they're a bitch to handle, so it's a little far-fetched...
Religion has always given the weak-minded something to pacify their consciences. Why do you think some of the most religious people are often absolute morons, and many intelligent, well-educated people often aren't highly religious? Idiots need an explanation for everything, intelligent people seek answers and do not believe in what they cannot prove to themselves.
Religion:
I think religion is probably the greatest scam ever invented.
Please help metamoderate.
Anyone else find it suspicious that Slashdot picks this up from MSNBC on the 8th of April, who ran this from Reuters on Monday the 5th. Reuters Italy then must have had it sometime around Friday the 2nd, which would put the first printing of the story on... Which day is that again?
The ______ Agenda
Oh wait, they did.
There problem should be over soon.
i'm from italy and i can confirm that a dumbhead from vatican after going there said 'it was work of the devil'.
;)
however we got something else to worry about: our bald and short prime minister.
Wasn't funny the first four times. Isn't funny now. Was never funny. And it's NO CARRIER. If you're gonna be lame and never get laid, at least get the text right. Loser.
Anybody noticed what passing trains do to old CRT monitors? I bet that's the reason for these mysterious fires!
Why attack Berlusconi for being bald and short (which he can't help) when you can attack him for being power mad and trying to take over all the Italian media (which he can help)?
all the servers are located which posters put links to on /. stories. It's just the /. effect burning up their routers, servers, wires, everything. A bit unusual that they'd all be located in one geographic area, but maybe that's some kind of plot.
One of our outsourced engineers seems to have made a typo in
the code for the new microwave power satellite.
We'll be uploading the new latitude/longitude as soon as things stop
smoking here.
Uncle Gates points out it's a good time to download the lastest Windows update.
I'm not Sicilian, but I live in ITaly nonetheless. The media covered this issue for quite some time, although at the end, they seemed to blame natural electrical discharges given the zone is a very active sismic area in Sicily, but also it could have been due to the high-powere train lines which run only a few meters from the houses affected by the problems. There is also who blames the widespread illegal electrical connections setup by the local crooks...
// mirr0red
Best wishes
Paul
My web domain.
Dear Zeus, I apologize for sleeping with one of your many women. I'd appreciate it if you would stop with the lightning bolts, and just get on with turning me into some sort of half-turtle, half-game show host monstrosity to teach me the error of my ways. Cheers.
I realize that many wish to pump MS sites and their content partners, but could the editors filter out these and stick with less dangerous secondary sources?
Ignore it and it will go away. Reuters, AP , UPI, BBC, etc. usually provide the content reported anyway. Other sources, e.g. The Reg., often do their own reporting as well.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
A high-power military radar installation does put out enough power to kill an unfortunate bird (or incompetent engineer) at short distance, but still wouldn't do much more than disrupt electronic equipment at greater distances.
However, it is not unthinkable that a relatively small disruption in an eletronic device can lead to a bigger problem later on - a disrupted control circuit causing an overload that leads to a fire is well possible. This scenario is not very feasible after main power is cut though.
There is little need to invoke God or strange physics. A more likely explanation is at hand.
The common thread to all of these are power sources, wires and people. The missing, unmentioned ingredient is the pocket knife or screwdriver concealed in the hand of the disturbed fellow who is causing the shorts.
John Vreeland
"Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!" -- Ivanhoe
The first question should be whether we know this is actually happening. Only then can we speculate about how or why.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
My objection is first off mainly because while the word may not have a bad meaning in itself it is typically used in conjunction with ghosts, aliens etc. That's not really a problem with the word per se though.
The biggest gripe is that supernatural is often used as an "explaination" when it is none of the sort. If you classify something as supernatural then you have not really accomplished anything. When you can define that supernatural and explain it then you have somthing we can use. However, media and crackpots like to say "it's supernatural, end of story" as if that gave us any new information. If it was proved that the devil could possess my mobile phone than that would be a scientific breakthrough. However the evidence seem to have been quite lacking for quite a few thousands of years by now.
And I think you'll find that "scientists" (scientist is really a bad term, it's about as informative as "white male" in these situations) are typically the first to admit we don't know everything about the world. Contrast that with religions which typically claim to have all the answers.
[Server Admin #1] Help me god! I'm being slashdoted!
[God] (Points to town) YOU SHALL NOT SLASHDOT!
* Electronics set fire
[Sicilian Town] Ahhhhh.... help us slashdot!
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
They're taking the term firewire literally.
A military guy I know watched an entire building's communication system go up in smoke when some incompetent radar operator switched on an Aegis Combat System radar array while the ship was docked.
That must have been pretty funny/spooky.
-ted
I aimed my death ray at the wrong place. ok, were is osama hidding today? Maybe a little to the rite and down a touch.
This has been reported on since February at which time, Father Gabriel Amorth, the Vatican's chief expert on exorcism said demonic forces cannot be ruled out. Now, of course, he has a vested interest in maintaining job security, so his opinion needs to be taken with a half-a-grain of salt.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Sorry , but its true and its especially true in small european mountain villages, believe me!
"it's supernatural, end of story"
Anyone who would say that is an idiot.
Contrast that with religions which typically claim to have all the answers.
Anyone who would claim to have all the answers is, likewise, an idiot....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Supernatural does not mean "things we don't yet understand", there is a term for those, and it is "things we don't yet understand". Any scientist worth anything will readily admit there is plenty of things we don't understand.
To describe something as supernatural instantly carries very strong connotations of magic, miracle, or some paranormal force that is not just unknown science, but something other than it and beyond it
As for quacks, they are just that. By sheer chance a few will be end up being partially right about something becuase so many people have so many crazy ideas. Thing is, you can't tell the ones who are right by chance from the rest without working through it. It is as important to know why you are right as being right, those scientists "scaling the rocky face" are doing the important work.
...but I can personally attest to the value of meditation as a healthy practice that brings clarity of mind and an unshakable sense of connectedness and well-being. Shikan-Taza in particular is incredibly focusing, and if one avoids disadvantageous behaviors - the kind that stir up negativity - it works even better. Too bad people are so hung up on worship and sin and the cult of personality, because the core thing is the beneficial practice. If Jesus came back tomorrow he'd tell all his worshipers to fuck off and get a clue.
-- thinkyhead software and media
First of all, this is pretty old news in Italy.
Here is CICAP entry on this phenomenon (in Italian sorry).
CICAP is a group of scientists who routinely investigate (and debunk) any so-called supernatural phenomenon in Italy (they cover anything: ESP, religious miracles, even omeopathy). Sort of a James Randi fan club.
I suppose most of Slashdot's reader cannot read Italian: the gist of it is that they suspect a prank. According to similar phenomena they investigated in the past, the first accidents are caused by natural causes (short-circuits, overload).
But then people start talking, and making hypotesis, and someone starts causing this as a prank or a way to get attention, media coverage etc. Then CICAP arrives, and start looking aroud, and everything goes back to normal.
CICAP sums this as follows: 100% of phenomena happen when controls are at 0% 0% of phenomena happen when controls are at 100%
Where's Mulder when you need him?
Notice supernatural does not mean very natural?
It doesn't seem natural.
Actually, I'd say that in practical terms science is about coming up with a theory to describe an incompletely understood phenomenon - then making sure your theory doesn't miss anything that renders it invalid, then DEFENDING it against the harsh criticism of your peers, who work like the Devil himself to prove you wrong.
Sometimes, peers trying to prove you wrong love your theory so much, they unwittingly do a poor job of checking your theory and allow something incomplete or downright wrong to make its way into the general body of scientific knowledge... at least until someone notices the problem and the cycle starts again.
THAT is science. It's at least as much about finding support for a theory as it is to refute it.
The fires have even consumed unplugged lamps and an entire apartment. Black scorch marks still scar the apartment walls.
Did this community do a lot of eBay shopping?
Despite the fact that many famous scientists and engineers connected with the development of electricity and radio originated from Italy, public provision of the stuff still causes problems. I was recently in a hotel in Rome where there was a power socket on the wall of the shower cubicle. For a few mad moments I actually thought, "How cool, I can save time by plugging in my shaver and have a shower at the same time!". Suffice to say that I completed the shower very carefully.
"Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." - Terry Pratchett
Hey Guissepe'- GREEN is ground..
"...and the rivers will turn to blood, the sky shall become black as night, and your PDA's will burst into flames during conference meetings in Sicily..."
Oh yea... believe it...
where the king killed all his advisors who couldn't tell him what his dream meant.
The biblical lesson was to illustrate how Joseph received special insight into the dream from God, of course.
But, if you look at the story in another light, Joseph went on to become a very powerful advisor to the Pharoah.
Being able to give advice to a tyrant that is likely to kill people who give him advice that displeases him requires enormous mental dexterity under pressure. Which probably also accounts some for Joseph's later success.
I'm reminded of this by seeing an old movie starring the late Peter Ustinov as Nero and some other actor who portrayed Nero's advisor. Whoever wrote the screenplay did a wonderful job showing just how much acumen is required of an advisor to a tyrant.
Some portrayal of daily life with the former tyrant of Iraquagmire is here.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
To describe something as supernatural instantly carries very strong connotations of magic, miracle, or some paranormal force that is not just unknown science, but something other than it and beyond it
Ancient peoples called things they didn't understand, "magic." They did not say this of things they did understand. They were not lunatics calling the crops they raised, "magic." To do so would have made them nuts to their ancient brethren.
those scientists "scaling the rocky face" are doing the important work.
Of course they are doing important work. And so is the child psychologist and the policeman and every other profession not a scientist, but, of course, you didn't say a policeman isn't doing important work, yet, see, look how these things go.
We love to dis those who may be religious -- who think there's more to life than what appears to be or than what is contained in a science book, yet everyone here loves the xfiles....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
1.) Things are sparking and arking
2.) The power is shut off
3.) It only happens when people are around
It may seem far fetched but couldn't this be some sort of directed energy weapon perhaps in the form of microwaves. Devices like this are known to exist and could probably be mounted in a satellite in orbit. Of course if this theory was correct then only about 5 nations in the world would be capable of such a thing...Why would they pick some little village in Italy?? Oh well next theory...
I did it!
Don't have a cow man!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
"5. act of God 2 (God's pissed - it is Easter, afterall)...God promised after Noah's flood he wouldn't do this sort of thing again so we can rule out #5."
Not so fast, my friend...
While in Genesis 9, God indeed say He'd never again wipe the world out with water, Isaiah prophesied that He'd eventually come to destroy it with.....you guessed it, fire.
From Isaiah 66, verses 15 and 16:
"15
Lo, the LORD shall come in fire, his chariots like the whirlwind, To wreak his wrath with burning heat and his punishment with fiery flames.
16
For the LORD shall judge all mankind by fire and sword. and many shall be slain by the LORD. "
Many doesn't equal all, so God would be keeping His covenant from Genesis not to make mankind extinct, but He never said that He'd never PUNISH man again, now did He?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Well, it is in a bad area (Score:2)
by mrshowtime (562809) on Thursday April 08, @08:11AM (#8802085)
The town is located in a Valley Called "Val Demons." Honestly, I can't think of any natural reason why electronis would spontaneously combust. Shit, even things that are unplugged are blowing up. Yah, that's "natural."
That all the electronics are built by Fiat?? I think its a witch -
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
Oh c'mon, random fires appearing from nowhere, that's nothing special. Watch me pulling this trick off, right now:
:-)
Hey Linux lovers, you suck! I hate Einstein. All nerds have pimple issues. Fancy-dress freebooters! Ectoplasmic Byproducts! Carpet-sellers! Kleptomaniacs! Tramps! Vegetarians! Pickled herrings! Megalomaniacs!
Ask any serious scientist to explain some facts like mind reading, alien abduction or other of this kind. Most likely he will refuse to give any scientific explaination. Telling that all those facts are false could not be called scientific... however it could be true. Nevertheless, there are topics that are closed for any serious discussion. That's right, 90% of them is nonsence... But 80% of everything is nonsence. Those topics are closed not because they are 'unscientific' themselves, but because of the tradition. And because too many idiots are talking stuff about those topics.
One day the Paris Academy told the world that rocks can not fall from the sky, because there are no rocks in the sky. How many rocks in the sky do we have today ?
All of the devices were running Windows CE
Drinking habits can be dangerous. You can choke on the cloth and the nuns will wonder where their clothes are.
This was in the news about more than a month ago already. And last thing I heard was that the problem disapeared as soon as the village got flooded by journalists.
There are some possibilities that these fires could be deliberately caused by a hoaxer:
1) a really big magnet to induce mucho current. ( hard to hide )
2) A microwave beam. It would be hard to avoid frying the witnesse's eyes with reflected energy though. A carefully aimed beam that took into account ricochets might do the trick.
3) An non microwave beam. An infrared laser would make the fire look spontaneous.
Eat at Joe's.
They need to call Scooby-Doo and the gang.
I can see it now...
Old man Aldo was setting the fires whilst dressed in a demon costume.
On the lighter side, marshmallow sales in the small village went up.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Nothing seems to have burst into flame except where there is someone present to witness it, but the police no longer suspect a prankster -- after witnessing wires catch fire without cause.
Humans are the problem. Get rid of them.
Seriously though. That is odd. You'd expect that it would happen with or without people there. Evacuating the town then did nothing. If people were the cause, the town would still be there. It is. If it wasn't the people, then the fires would have eventually set the town ablase, and with no one there to put it out, it would have decimated the town.
An intersting test would to be let animals of similar body mass roam the town to see if there is a biological factor involved.
Or people could be evoling psi abilities. A la "Firestarter" the movie. It would only take one person to report a fictitious event to get people's subconscience to think about it, then cause it. I'm not much for attributing unexplanied phenonmena on things we don't understand (unless we know we don't understand it yet, like much physics. (i.e. quantum entanglement)) but this seams the most likely cause.
If the fires started few and far between, then grew in number, then it could correlate with public awareness.
I'd say let people through the town that know nothing of what is going on, if the large animals don't provide more info.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
One of the types of scientists that is not there is a microbiologist.
They say that things only blow up when people are around. I wonder if things blow in the presence of people in air-tight suits, so their breath isn't reaching the combusting device. What if humans unknowingly provide a critical catalyst to the process? They should look for deposits of a microbe on the insulation.
We already know that microbes exist that eat plastic....
To a politician, one email equals one voter.
CNN Reports that the earths magnetic field might be reversing. Hmmmm....
Whenever these sorts of phenomena occur, it almost always transpires that an adolescent--for some reason, usually a girl--just happened to present nearby whenever they occurred. The people involved tend not to mention this to authorities, because there are always good reasons why the adolescent (who is usually a model of good behavior) couldn't possibly have had anything to do with it.
The scientists are wasting their time if they're using instruments and looking for an electrical or atmospheric explanation. They need to be looking for a human explanation.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
= mystery solved.
No, you mean Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World." "The Daemon-Haunted World" is Sagan's book about how your computer may be infested with programs that don't run until they're invoked by another application.
Forget aliens, God, whatever. These spontaneous combustions are caused by the Wee Wigglums!
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Charles Fort is amused.
They are displaying just a small fraction of their power. Drop the fines or Microsoft will burn all you EU nation's technology to the ground!
Advertising with the name "firewire," this seems to give a whole new meaning to that.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Just don't take a beeper into a cathedral, because you WILL die.
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
that 'Colored markings on the street' would have indicated the presence of neighborhood children with sidewalk chalk..
--- What
have you looked at the rest of the site? A bunch of fruitcake theories.
It's probably caused by Dihydrogen Monoxide.
http://www.dhmo.org
This stuff is nasty, and should be banned.
Is it possible that Sicily got hooked up to India's power grid somehow? I hear that's pretty rough on electrical equipement. So use Indian applicances. If they can handle being on India's grid, then they can handle anything.
What else?
...can't RTFA, slashdotted, but which is simpler explanation:
1. magic (short sentence, complicated explanation)
2. bunch of humans seeing what they want to see
?
They invent everything. It's just another protection scheme.
There is a reason my grandparents left Sicily, it was a corrupt shithole.
That being said I'm proud to be Italian (and English).
A simple search on everyone's favorite search engine would have lead them to this CNN article dated April First. Of course, one need merely think about it really really hard to realize that spontaneous combustion and April Fools go together like baseball and apple pie. That would be cricket and guiness for our UK friends.
Especially when the story mentions the head exorcist of the Catholic Church definitively calling this the work of the devil, when the local priest decided to sit this one out and let science have a go at it first. These people obviously aren't *that* removed from the outside world, even if they are filthy, filthy Italians.
--- What
Nobody fuck with the Jesus!
You know, if I lived in some rural village and my government was willing to pay my rent to live in a 3-star hotel on a hillside, I think my appliances just might magically catch fire also.
Here am I sitting in a tin can, far above the world. Planet earth is blue & there's nothing I can do.
Based on the volcanic nature of the area, I'd look for near surface lava flows with a high iron content. This could potentially generate strong magnetic flux that would induce current and/or heat in wires, metal pipes, etc.
What Saddam did to his own people was an internal matter.
The people of Iran, Kuwait, and Israel would disagree with you on that subject. Just because he wasn't as successful as Hitler doesn't mean he wasn't also evil.
Besides, the notion of the "internal matter" is obsolete. It died with the discovery of mass graves of millions of Jews in Germany and Poland. Atrocity is atrocity no matter which side of a border it's perpetrated on.
If you want to glorify a murderous tyrant, go for it. Just be honest about it. Evil is evil.
So what is Weak Minded? It's this:
1. The inability to accept that other people have valid motivations, ideals or valuable knowledge that that are different from your own.
2. The inability to differentiate between what one person or one group do in the name of a cause, and the core purpose of that cause.
There are a lot of people who wrap themselves in religion who are weak minded. There are a lot more that are not. There are a lot of people who wrap themselves in science who are weak minded. There are a lot more who are not. There are a lot of people who live in many different countries, societies, cultures who are weak minded. There are a lot more who are not. And out of all of these, many among the weak minded also tend to be the most vocal, so that is a lot of what you hear from them.
Different people accept religion for different reasons. And different people abuse the name of religion for different reasons. David Koresh claimed to be Jesus. Few Christians believe or supported him. Osama claims to work in the name of Islam. Few Muslims believe or support him. Some Catholic priests have sexually assaulted children. Few Catholics support them. There have certainly been bad things done in the name of religion, but that does not mean the religion was the cause. Most often the cause was dangerious people doing bad things, and claiming religion as their cover.
As for why people believe what religion teaches them rather than "modern science". That is probably because modern science is not taught as widely as you would like. It takes money, knowledge, political support, lots of people power, and strong social support to spread new knowledge. Churches have been around for centuries. They already have the structures in place to teach their docterine. Church schools exist in almost every town and country around the world teaching religion. Modern educational institutes in remote places are few and far between. This is not the fault of the people who live there. They learn what is available to them. And for many centuries, that was from the local church.
Knowledge is relative. With all your great scientific knowledge, If you were dropped naked into the middle of the Amazon rain forest, you'd probably die of poison or starvation inside a week. All the while those stupid savages who worship their sun gods have been surviving there for generations just fine.
We all learn and accept what our society and parents teach us. If your parents and society teach you science, great for you. If you are too ignorant or weak minded to accept that other people have different educational backgrounds, different social and physical needs, or different ideas about the unknown, AND THAT THESE DIFFERENCES ARE NOT EVIL, STUPID OR WRONG, then that's too bad for you.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
The ph33r3d 4$$4$$1N80X
Richard: We've been coming here for years -- suddenly, everybody has an exploding laptop... what gives?
Ricardo: It's a hot spot.
Richard: A hot spot?
Ricardo: A hot spot, broadband, wireless, a tipping point. One hot spot... a blip. Ten... a novelty. Then shit starts exploding... billions of dollars fly through the air and spontaneously combusting.
Richard: Billions?
Ricardo: Billions. (faces Richard) Watch your head.
Sean: (asking Richard) How's our securAAAAAAARGH MY CELL PHONE JUST EXPLODED IN MY FRONT POCKET!!!!!!
Title: IBM SECURITY FOR THE ON DEMAND, SPONTANEOUSLY-COMBUSTING WORLD
... it might be related to the theory outlined in this recent article on earths magnetic fields and polarity changes.
Seems as good a reason as anything else for these "spontaneous" fires I've read so far. Perhaps gross random piezo electric effects might be pre cursors/indicators of building intensity?
Also, we don't know yet if similar phenomenon are ocurring any place else around the planet. Given what is happening in the village, with it's very low population insuring that ANY strange occurrence was well noted by everyone there, similar random appearing events that might be occurring elsewhere in largepopulation areas might be being dismissed as sabotage or vandalism or normal arson, etc, and the stories are just lost in the noise of normal reporting. And if it's ocurring in even more remote areas, well then it wouldn't be reported at all obviously. I don't know, might be though. We DO know that we are seeing other strange magnetic effects around the world, a lot of altered and strange weather, seismic disturbances, etc. Perhaps a unique feature of this villages geology structure beneath might have something to do with the effects being more intense there. I do think we should be paying attention to a variety of indicators relating to the planet's modalities, as there does exist most credible evidence of past.. well.. cataclsyms.
but I'm reminded of the Daily Show that replayed footage of an Iraqi engineering student (technology witch-doctor trainee?) who surmised that the US soldiers had a top secret cooling system built into their underwear.
Truth is frequently stranger than anything people could invent.
Hmm. even unplugged devices blowing up?
I would say that our shadow military is testing EMP and they're our secret victims.
MUAHAAHAAHAA!
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
Hrm maybe I'll watch the core again a few times.
I did have a unusual amount of birds crap on my car yesterday.
The wires and electronics obviously exist in both the stable and the ignited states simultaneously. Then, when observers enter the area, the waveform collapses to just one of the aforementioned states.
I'd like my Nobel Physics prize now.
Actually I would say that it's a good example of media presenting it as something science can't explain.
It's a news story, not refereed article. (You can tell because no subscription was required to read it.) What do you expect, a "fair and balanced" reporter's statement that no scientists have presented replicatable explanations -- but they could if they really wanted to?
If you read the article you may note that they have no citations from any of the billion of scientist who are apparently there.
"Citations"? When was the last time you read a scientific article by reputable scientists saying, effectively, "Here's something a lot of people have witnessed and it beats the shit out of us what's happening"?
Certainly, the news that 1/6 of the world's population have become scientists and are visiting this tiny village should be covered in something like Demographics Journal. But even if that article were accepted for publication, the delays mean we won't be able to read about it for another year or two. Thank Sagan we can read authoritative, unrefereed Web sites to get the real story that the news media are afraid to print!
What these people do is a good way to sell more papers.
What more scientific way of refuting data than by impuning the methods of the reporters? I mean, aside from the Sokal and Lomborg affairs, we all know that scientists publish for the purist of motives, right?
Demon-haunted science bigots is more like it. Feh!
Tyler
it never ceases to amaze me how technically inclined mostly caucasians are all ass-hats that jump to conclusions at the first wiff of a trend.
How about you put your mad skillz where your keyboard is, and come up with a real random sample based study. Afraid you'll find out something revolutionary like, "Humans make snap judgements which fit into broad trends and correct as availability of better information and necessity dictate."
Or you could just get off your high hobby horse. Mr. Oats probably needs to have his springs rotated. And look moderators agree with you, that makes you extra evil, and them sheep doesn't it.
The following statement leads me to believe that its a hoax:
Demon fire ate my computer
The Committee for the Control of Paranormal Claims has ruled out demons or poltergeists.
"The fact that the phenomenon occurs only when there are people present makes it hard to believe that it is a natural, or even supernatural phenomenon," it said in a statement.
For example: There were some heretics about in 8th century AD. So the priest then thought of a solution to the problem. Two birds with one stone. Kill the heretic. Take his/her heart and perform a "miracle".
A slight of hand is all that is needed. It's not even that difficult to do. Illusionists can do extraordinary things even if you stand right next to them (My favorite kind of illusionism).
I for one prefer the explanation I just gave and not the one usually given.
Strange things happen. Yes. Is God(TM) behind them? No.
I for one believe that humanity is in the middle of a transition from a superstitious state (gods/spirits/magic) to a scientific state (knowledge/theories/fact). It will still take about a thousand years or so. But eventually all religions will be abandoned or transformed to a insignificant minority. Just think of the change that has happened in the last hundred years.
A lot still needs to change before religion can truly start to disappear though. Religions still provide a control method for a large part of the population that simply does not exist otherwise. Ethics should be a compulsory subject in all elementary schools.
Sounds like one place you DON'T want to wear yout tin-foil hat.
That? That was a pigeon.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
this is new footage taken of a compaq presario spontaneously combusting. courtesy of flamingboard:m ation1.avi
http://elwood.longlines.com/~soucada/fireball/Ani
Personally, I _do_ think it's funny. As to the other five times, well, they appeared on the page after I posted mine. I consider the -1 Redundant mods inappropriate, but heck, it was just a joke so I'm not making a big deal out of it.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
5 weeks of events, where's the video, or does it always happen when there are no video cameras present? Maybe that is the solution, I have found video cameras prevent all kinds of paranormal activity, ufo's, ghost's, mysterious fires, ...
> "I've seen things like this before," he told the
>daily Il Messaggero. "Demons occupy a house and
>appear in electrical goods."
I have seen this too. It is usually manifested in the form of a great deal of pr0n downloaded onto my harddisk. I have no idea how it gets there.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
A simple search on everyone's favorite search engine would have lead them to this CNN article dated April First. Of course, one need merely think about it really really hard to realize that spontaneous combustion and April Fools go together like baseball and apple pie. That would be cricket and guiness for our UK friends.
I feel sorry for any IT professionals walking around with a pager, NEXtel, and a PDA in their pockets/belts. Ouch!
It blowed up right there on her butt!
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
'I've seen things like this before. Demons occupy a house and appear in electrical goods.'- -- Gabriele Amorth Exorcist
Generally you don't see that kind of behavior in a major appliance. - "Ghostbusters"
"Capital punishment makes the state into a murderer. Imprisonment makes the state into a gay dungeon-master"
you want video?! here's your stinkin video. http://elwood.longlines.com/~soucada/fireball/comp aqmod.mpg
m ation1.avi
http://elwood.longlines.com/~soucada/fireball/Ani
Good call. The first thing I though about was HAARP. Something along those lines could easily do this but if that were the case, we would never know about it.
Now my question is this: Would tinfoil hats be exposed?!
http://elwood.longlines.com/~soucada/fireball/Anim ation1.avi
Tesla experiments involving tapping energy from the ionosphere does not require a tinfoil hat. AND they are EXTREMELY dangerous if not conducted the right way.
Still... it couldn't possibly be worse than Godfather 3...
The chains are broken
Loki is free
Ragnarok is at hand...
Duh! The video cameras burst into flame!
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
A Mysterious Unbalanced power factor?
Most likely one of the following:
1.) Old fabric-insulated wire systems and new power hungry appliances
2.) Old aluminium based wire (the Ausies had fun with that technology)
3.) Temperature coefficients of conductor increased resistance under load causing thermo run-away by overloading power systems.
4.) Step-down transformer has become unbalanced
5.) Transient suppression condensers are not inline between the town's sub-stations
6.) Magic-8-Ball says the "air conditioners" did it, surly a power plot.
Or backwoods people being abducted by aliens.
"Martha dem dadburn Marcians dun stole my priize winin cow Bessie once mo' gan."
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
It is interesting how, if one were to use any other demographic than, Christian, it would not be "PC", nor considered funny, nor acceptable.
...is an asshat.
Natural atmospheric conditions in the sky can cause lightning, could an unusual atmospheric charge cause something tesla-like naturally at ground level?
How about underground, if there were enough minerals capable of transporting electrical impulses?
The NO CARRIER joke is, quite possibly, the least funny ongoing joke on Slashdot. In fact, I would rate it worse than the In Soveit Russia jokes. Please, for the love of humanity, just let this joke die.
It is official; Netcraft now confirms: The NO CARRIER joke is dying.
Interesting, I saw this history on TV here in Spain, a pair of months ago, but the location was some little town in Galicia, similar to that on Sicily I think.
Friend Of A Friend Tales are getting to the TV or are the electrofairys attacking? Maybe Tesla is back from the dead with superpowers, argh!
DrPollo
My only belief is simple: Tolerance. Nothing more, nothing less. Have it for me and I'll have it for you. Try to tramble my rights and you won't like the consequences. :) BTW, I'm an Atheist too.
Or, it's just being caused by kallikanzaros, knowing their time is coming again. Word of warning- watch out for Bortan! A+ certified and potty-trained; equally proud of both.
you must agree...
because it's magic
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
If you have ever owned an old Fiat, the concept of Italian electronics spontaneously combusting is not that far fetched. ;)
Maybe it's a "hotspot" of coming angel activity, as envisioned in Ted Chiang's Hell is an Absence of God (excerpt). Angels show up but in the process wreak all kind of physical havoc due to their immense power of the Divine Spirit. Cool story.
And let's not ignore the Babylon5 mythos, where angels are actually Vorlons (i.e., alien race).
I thought the object of wardriving was to receive, rather than emit certain RF's. (But then again, it turns out that the priests have been emitting a bit more than we thought.)
Thank you, I'll be here to Thursday.
--
Only from Italy would a story come proclaiming supernature as a cause of such a phenomenon. But tourism is their primary source of foreign currency, and the sheep are asking for a new miracle - maybe this is Sodom II.
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
A fair number of people have pointed out that the article lacks any quotes from the scientists who have been there and investigated, choosing only to quote locals who believe the cause is supernatural.
.
Interestingly enough, this follows close on the heels of the Slashdot story reporting "Coffee is a 'Health Drink'" which was based off another Italian's... opinions? conjectures? Link
So what is it with these Italians? They don't like to cite scientists in publications? I mean, not that I care; since I started drinking espresso regularly my attention span has shrunk to the point at which I can only concentrate on the headlines anyway.
Ah, I'm not really serious, so don't be offended.
it was a horn, not a sub.
Quick George! Invade!
Obligatory Monty Python reference (too lazy to reformat):
... sir! ... you've got a nice army base here, colonel. ... seven thousand infantry, six hundred artillery, and er, two divisions of paratroops.
Knock at the door, sergeant enters, and salutes.
Sergeant Two civilian gentlemen to see you
Colonel Show them in please, sergeant.
Sergeant Mr Dino Vercotti and Mr Luigi Vercotti.
The Vercotti brothers enter. They wear Mafia suits and dark glasses.
Dino Good morning, colonel.
Colonel Good morning gentlemen. Now what can I do for you.
Luigi (looking round office casually)You've
Colonel Yes.
Luigi We wouldn't want anything to happen to it.
Colonel What?
Dino No, what my brother means is it would be a shame if... (he knocks something off mantel)
Colonel Oh.
Dino Oh sorry, colonel.
Colonel Well don't worry about that. But please do sit down.
Luigi No, we prefer to stand, thank you, colonel.
Colonel All right. All right. But what do you want?
Dino What do we want, ha ha ha.
Luigi Ha ha ha, very good, colonel.
Dino The colonel's a joker, Luigi.
Luigi Explain it to the colonel, Dino.
Dino How many tanks you got, colonel?
Colonel About five hundred altogether.
Luigi Five hundred! Hey!
Dino You ought to be careful, colonel.
Colonel We are careful, extremely careful.
Dino 'Cos things break, don't they?
Colonel Break?
Luigi Well everything breaks, don't it colonel. (he breaks something on desk) Oh dear.
Dino Oh see my brother's clumsy colonel, and when he gets unhappy he breaks things. Like say, he don't feel the army's playing fair by him, he may start breaking things, colonel.
Colonel What is all this about?
Luigi How many men you got here, colonel?
Colonel Oh, er
Luigi Paratroops, Dino.
Dino Be a shame if someone was to set fire to them.
Colonel Set fire to them?
Luigi Fires happen, colonel.
Dino Things burn.
Colonel Look, what is all this about?
Dino My brother and I have got a little proposition for you colonel.
Luigi Could save you a lot of bother.
Dino I mean you're doing all right here aren't you, colonel.
Luigi Well suppose some of your tanks was to get broken and troops started getting lost, er, fights started breaking out during general inspection, like.
Dino It wouldn't be good for business would it, colonel?
Colonel Are you threatening me?
Dino Oh, no, no, no.
Luigi Whatever made you think that, colonel?
Dino The colonel doesn't think we're nice people, Luigi.
Luigi We're your buddies, colonel.
Dino We want to look after you.
Colonel Look after me?
Luigi We can guarantee you that not a single armoured division will get done over for fifteen bob a week.
This message has been scanned for memes and dangerous content by MindScanner, and is believed to be unclean.
...Cerebro failed to nail this new one
Install some technology in a Faraday cage (with a sign on it that says "come on ghosts or evil spirits if you thik your hard enough" :-) ) . If it survives then some sort of EM or electrical interference is to blame.
If it doesn't then we maybe have a more interesting phenomena.
If the main power grid has been turned off, people will be attempting to run their own generators. Some of them will neglect to disconnect their electrical system from the main supply before starting their generator, causing circuits elsewhere to become unexpectedly live.
Signed,
the electric AC
where is special agent fox molder when you need him?
God is belated punishing the Italians for having the nerve to suggest that our flat earth is not the center of the Universe.
Overheard recently in a showing of The Passion: "OMG, they killed Jesus!", Voice #1. Voice #2, "You bastards!"Sorry no mod points today. He has links and quotes this should be part of the discussion.
Weather balloons have been following me all over the place, zapping me, probing my anus in the dead of night, making spirograph circles on my lawn, painting Elvis on my shower curtain, playing Yoko Ono in reverse, etc. Make them stop, please. I can't take it anymore!
Table-ized A.I.
If you read This reference under "Combustibility", it says:
Now when you consider that dunking a wire and plastic in liquid oxygen is also likely to cause lots of heat-stress fractures in both the now-brittle plastic and the metal...Whoosh!
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
...don't pay your SCO license.
Table-ized A.I.
I don't know if anyone posted this but could there be a relationship to Piezo Eletrical activity.
I wonder if they have done any kind of surveying or tests for minerals (assaying). Is there any sign of tectonic movement? I have no idea what I am talking about.
Remake of Hardware Wars.
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
I call bullshit.
This is a loaded question, by asking said scientist to explain these "facts" as you put it, you are asking them to pre-suppose that these things exist.
Science is not in the buisness of putting forth ideas which involve the supernatural. If a scientist is to put forth a theory that theory must have some criteria by which it can be disproven.
If someone postulates that mind reading involves the detection of tiny fluctuations in the electromagnetic emissions of the brain and he can read minds normaly, but can't when his head is in a faraday cage then perhaps you have a crediable study. As is, you need to have someone who can consistantly read minds before you can do anything else.
Science is experimentation to disprove. An idea that can not be disproved through experimentation becomes an accepted truth if and only if that idea had some method by which it could be disproved.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
And the second would have serious problems starting fires inside houses. And I think you're underestimating the size of the laser required, especially in a town without any power!
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
This gives new meaning to the term "FireWire."
I thought this was familiar. There was a previous article I remember reading on /. that had similar events.
Keyless Entries Fail In Las Vegas On Friday
and
Valley has keyless encounters of the weird kind
Which then leads me to a couple questions. Do you think that Bush's push for continued exploration and work in space ( and Mars ) is completely altruistic?
BS
IMHO this is a cover for additional monies for the current and continued work of the $8.5 billion budgeted for US military space programs.
And considering that much of the civilized world as well as the US has its back up against the wall considering terrorism it only makes sense that EMP type stuff has been "happening".
...measuring and analyzing electronic devices that are bursting into flames isntantaneously with more electronic devices is probably not a good idea...
After a brief visit to Canneto di Caronia, the head of the Committee for the Control of Paranormal Claims has ruled out demons or poltergeists -- at least for the time being.
Well, duh!
They guy's whole job appears to be to debunk claims of supernatual activity, right? What, was he going to show up and pronounce "Holy mamma! This has _got_ to be the work of the devil!!!"
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
This has been on the radio talk show "Coast to Coast AM" with George Nory and Art Bell for the longest time. I can't believe it's just getting to the mainstream news just now, we've been talking about it for a Loooong time now!
"The small village of Canneto di Caronia in Sicily has become the front line in the war of annihilation between humanity and Terminator-style roboappliances."
It is interesting how a prank can take on a life of its own. When I worked for a summer camp for kids, I made up a story about a boy getting killed at camp and him returning to haunt it. I presented it as fact. (I'm a bastard, I know.)
Over the following few days I elaborated on the story as it took on a life of its own. Soon frightened teens came to me because a vending machine stalked then attacked them. Even adults were decieved. A group of three men insisted that one night the dead boy tried to climb into their canoe and tipped it over. Probably much more happened that I don't even know about since I heard people saying all sorts of strange things to eachother. They didn't say it to me, because I'd been forgotten as the originator of the story.
Anyway, I can see how a simple short circuit and some story telling could cause people to burn a city...or a city to burn people (Salem). I bet I could even start a new religion and have a million followers before I died, if I were that type. I'm sure I'm not the only one who knows this, probably explains a lot about religion and government.
It is interesting to note that some even became leaders in bringing my story to life, much like preachers...
I confessed to my lies when I deemed the situation out of control. Some thought it was funny. One guy hit me, hard. Some decided I was lying about it being a lie. These were all ordinary people--no nuts.
http://www.marxist.com/
Always applying religion when there is a simple more rational solution.
Jobe obviously wasn't killed by the mangetic core reactor as we thought he was... *looks around*
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
Uh, Parent is NOT off-topic.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
I think what people overlook is why they ever start believing in particular God(s). It is clearly a regional trend since you are told to believe a certain way. The assult begins even before you have the capacity to understand what they are telling you. Trust us. This is true. You must conform. Most finally succumb because of the peer pressure and fear of what they say will happen if you don't.
Would you have come up with the Christian faith if left to your own imagination? There are many examples of isolated races that didn't. How can it be truth then? It always takes men to spread the "word" for any religion. Clearly if God is there then he/she/it isn't talking.
--Scott 8-}
is compassion. Which is why atheists are so pissed off: they see religions as organizations that capitalize on the last great treasure of the human spirit. It's also why many religious folks are repulsed by atheists: they think that because atheists are denouncing religion, they are also denouncing compassion (ingrained association).
Let's be fair, though.
To all atheists: it's hard to be spiritual in this day and age. Let's respect those who would dedicate their lifes to something higher than beer, sex, weed, power and money. That's already better than most can do.
To all religious folks: it's hard to be compassionate and find the true human spirit without the support of religion or the rest of society (the rest of society only rewards sex, power, money, etc), so let's respect atheists.
We are not Atheists nor Christians, nor any other labels. We are all people, first foremost and always.
I'm a scientist myself, and I'm taking devil's advocate here, but don't take that to mean that I'm not being sincere in what I say.
First of all, extraordinary claims DO NOT demand extraordinary proof, and it annoys me every time I read that. Extraordinary claims demand ordinary proof, just like everything else. Many claims which we now consider proven (leaving aside the epistemological claim that nothing can ever be proven) were once considered extraordinary. According to the scientific method of empirical research, after enough tests come out positive, a hypothesis becomes a working theory. Period. It doesn't matter how extraordinary the claim is, there is no scientific "raising of the bar" for one claim versus another claim. If there was, we probably couldn't get any science done because we would have to examine every hypothesis for its "extraordinaryness" and set the bar accordingly.
Secondly, science tends to be dismissive of "faith" in favor of "science", but sometimes the things which are believed in "science" are uncomfortably close to "faith". For instance, let's take Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.
The GTOR works remarkably well on the scale of the solar system, so well, in fact, that we can predict the position of a planet 100 years from now within spitting distance of where it will actually be.
However, it's long been (what I would characterize as) an article of *faith* among physicists that the GTOR applied equally well throughout the universe, and indeed for a long time it was believed despite evidence to the contrary. Nowadays, we know that there's not near enough visible matter in the universe to make Einstein's equations work in our own galaxy, much less the universe. So what's the answer? Dark matter baby!
Well, to make matters (no pun intended) worse, we now know that the galaxies are moving away from each other at an *accelerating* rate. Now this cannot be accounted for at all, even with dark matter! Even if we're right about dark matter, the galaxies should not accelerate away from each other. So what is the answer? Dark energy baby!
Now, to an outside observer such as myself (I am not a physicist), it might seem that scientists were clinging to their old beliefs and trying to shape the universe to fit them, rather than admitting that they're wrong. In other words, they're taking the GTOR on faith, in spite of evidence to the contrary.
A physicist can say that the GTOR is evidence for "dark matter", and "dark energy", despite having absolutely no direct evidence for either one, only the indirect evidence that GTOR won't work without it. In the same way, someone who believes in God can do so because, well, we exist, and we had to come from somewhere. Science doesn't even attempt to answer the question of how the universe came about (if you reply with the big bang, please explain where the infinitely dense infinitely small point came from), so really, it's comical when a scientist ridicules a believer in God.
Do you see what I'm saying? Most scientists would admit that the question of the origin of the universe is one that science could never answer. Why then do they try so hard to discredit the belief in God? Science has no business even getting into the argument, at least until they come up with a reasonable explanation themselves.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
Perhaps an immortal was killed on holy ground? Seems much less severe than the last time this happened, though (Pompeii).
;-p
TV teaches me so much. I'm glad I gave up that bad habit.
Casualty figures are difficult to figure, but somewhere between 500,000 and one million people lost their lives during it. There were at least an addition 2 million or so non-lethal casualties.
source
source
deserve's got nothing to do with it...
You all laughed at The Core , but now the effects of the government expierements are rising to the surface. Stock up now on unobtanium now, the market will go through the roof soon. Forget your foil hats (they attract electrical discharges anyway) crack out the asbestos underpants and the SPF 1000. And don't forget to send those Apocolypse Day Cards.
SD
IMDB link for the clueless.
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
Lister: Oh god, aliens? Your explanation for anything slightly peculiar is aliens, isn't it? You lose your keys, it's aliens. A picture falls off the wall, it's aliens. That time we used up a whole bog roll in a day, you thought that was aliens as well.
Rimmer: Well we didn't use it all, Lister. Who did?
Lister: Rimmer, aliens used our bog roll?
Rimmer: Just 'cause they're aliens doesn't mean to say they don't have to visit the little boys' room. Only they probably do something weird and alienesque, like it comes out of the top of their heads or something.
Lister: Well I wouldn't like to be stuck behind one in a cinema.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Europe and setting up some form of geo dynamic electrical field.
As to why Sicily? Its at the bottom and subject to the most force.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
There are only two types of people whom I hate. Those who are not tolerant of other cultures and Italians.
7. Secret Prescott testing facility. :)
Apparently, furniture is combusting too! http://www.ebicom.net/~rsf1/canneto.htm
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
I can't believe nobody else has made this connection yet.
And if you don't check out the following article, don't just laugh it off.
As reported again just yesterday in this article at Space.com, the earth's magnetic poles MAY be in the 7,000 year process of swapping ends. What is known for sure is that the strength of the earth's magnetic field has decreased 20% in the last 150 years. And whether we are in the process of swapping poles, or this is just a temporary anomaly, the appearance of LOCALIZED fluctuations in the orientation and strength of the magnetic field of earth IS PREDICTED. And besides the obvious inducement of current in locally stronger magnetic fields, it may also allow a small local window for the 'solar wind' to penetrate, both of which would cause EXACTLY the kinds of phenomenon being reported.
This could be happening in your or my backyard next year!!!
when he eats pigeons. Is that what you mean?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I have family that lived where Tesla tested his ground batter/antenna thingie. It apparently made the biggest explosion they had ever heard and it scared everyone in town enough that they told Tesla to leave :)
I think that all this can be explained with the following file (you'll have to remove the space Slashcode introduces) :-) :
3 f1 f6ee967b560e8115|/
ed2k://|file|answer.avi|368971776|f63e02ede2f27
May we never see th
I don't want to draw away from the point that you made, but I do take exception to one of your comments:
I won't defend Scientology out of lack of knowledge, but I will defend my faith. People have a general misunderstanding and distrust of the LDS faith (aka mormons). Things do make sense in a cohesive way. Many just have a hard time grasping that, because they have to think outside of the framework they are used to. For example, most denominations believe in a "closed cannon"*, whereas we do not. So many religions take it for granted, that it simply doesn't make sense to them. A serious study of the LDS faith would show that there are some unanswered questions, but that is not unique. I don't know of any religion that has ALL the answers. Science doesn't even claim that it ever will.
Add to this the amount of FUD spread by people who know better, and by those who don't. I'm not surprised that you chose us as an example, but it really hurt to see.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
I grew up Catholic, but now I'm pretty much an agnostic: God may exist, but I don't think I can make such a determination, and I'm not sure what God is like if he does exist. I suspect that if there is a God, it's more of an "energy of the Universe" thing than a conscious being. (I just read up on Pantheism on Wikipedia from a link in this thread.) I definitely don't think God is going to change the laws of physics to help me win a baseball game.
But as an amateur physicist, I believe in Determinism. Time-space is a single entity. The Universe encompasses all space, so it must encompass all space-time as well. If we anthropomorphize the Universe (or suppose that there is any omniscient being) we can imagine Him sitting at the end of time (as we view it). He can look back from the end of time to our current time and know what we will do next.
However, I also believe in Free Will. I guess that makes it Soft Determinism. (Found on Wikipedia that it's also called Compatibilism.) While my actions may be pre-determined from the perspective of all time-space, my conscious mind does not exist in that reality. From my perspective, I am free to choose. Think of a book you're reading for the second time -- you know what's going to happen at any point in time, but you can't change it. But when you read it the first time (when you were a part of the moment) you didn't know what was going to happen.
It's an interesting characteristic of the human mind that it can simultaneously hold seemingly opposing ideas.
I'd also like to point out that Science doesn't prove things to be true either. It can prove things to be false, and provide strong evidence that theories are correct. But it can never provide the truth. So we're basically putting our faith in Science, just as many put their faith in religion.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
favorite quote: "Demons occupy a house and appear in electrical goods."
I knew it was a demon that shocked the crap out of me last week when I was soldering a live wire!!!
It gave us this long weekend. : )
It's gonna fry alot of electronics. Wonder if we'll develop plastic photonic chips without high conductivity. Completely organic cpus made from sea urchines. :-)
""Why doesn't the Psychic Hotline lady call me?""
becasue you don't have a 900 number?
Just becasue you know the future, doesn't mean you should give it away for free.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Be nice.
A major volcanic / seismological event is imminent.
Anyone want to make me any bets?
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Any technology sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic!
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
Buddism and Tao are philosophies. Buddha teaches things such as:
where old-testement bible gives us such insight as:
If you can't discern the difference, you are likely still a bit brain washed. Give it a few years, it wears off (12 years of catholic school training here).
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
I did a report on non-ionizing radiation for school one time and talked about it's effects (via sensors embedded in the street) on vehicles, (it interfered with the brakes of old model fords and such.)
I remember my professor was interested to hear it. She'd taken her truck into the shop 3 times and they were starting to think she was crazy
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
How about somebody standing on a nearby mountain aiming a herf gun here and there? Satellite-mounted herf gun?
I'm inclined to suspect pixies however. Seriously.
someone say 'Supernatural', they mean either god or spirits.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Hmmmm... the problem with that is, there aren't any historical records of Jesus' persecution by the Romans. And the Bible is a far-from-reliable source.
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Damn fools they must not have been running nosmoke.exe
I very much like your post, because it highlights an important point: fundamentally, the Bible (representative of Judeo-Christian beliefs) is not an analysis of physical processes (science) -- it is a history of a people and their social interaction with each other and with their God.
To look to the Bible for an explanation of gravity is obviously ridiculous because it does not even mention it. You might as well look to the law for scientific explanations. But to look to the Bible for how one should generally live their life can be instructive. Of course, any teaching can be perverted, even scientific ones -- though those may be more easily disproved than moral ones.
At its core, the Bible is a history with a context; not even always intended as instruction to future generations, but simply as a record of events. Sometimes it's even symbolic (e.g. the Garden of Eden story). To the extent that the Bible does describe the "supernatural," it is beyond which science will likely be able to prove or disprove in my lifetime.
However, I for one do believe that if God does exist and engages Himself in our reality, then we will find evidence of Him through our scientific pursuits, which is perhaps why stories like "Technology Spontaneously Combusts In Sicily" spark hope in people who have faith.
I cannot comment on those "religious leaders" who assign everything to a direct act of God, disallowing any more pertinent explanation, except to say that they are not everyone's religious leaders and do not represent everyone's religious beliefs.
Like other positive religions, Christianity not only provides a paragon of virtues (which forms the basis of much modern law), but can also provide peace and hope for the future beyond this life. Ultimately, however, if one does not believe that the precepts of a religion are useful for their daily lives, then there really is little point in believing.
If ESPN hires Ron Jeremy to host a golf turnament, but he spends all of his on-air time insulting the "players", would he get fired for "Masters baiting" under the new FCC rules?
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
And all this time I thought is_computer_on_fire() was just a joke. :)
What an ignorant point of view. I'm irrelegious myself, but face it. We all believe in far more things we can't prove ourselves than we those we can. Even things most nerds can give decent explanations for ... say, the wave/particle duality of light ... we couldn't repeat the friggin' experiments if our lives depended on it.
... not to sound preachy, those of us who point our fingers at people of faith and call for tolerance, better be willing to tolerate a little ignorance, and narrowmindedness ourselves. It ain't goin' anywhere.
I can't begin to tell you how I know the mass of a charm quark, but I still believe it's somewhere between 1 and 1.4 GeV. Why? Because I, like all of us, take the word of specialists and experts who know better than me. It's not very different from religious faith - e.g., trusting the authors of the Bible weren't lying to everyone. Think about it. Believing the earth rotates around the sun and believing that Zeus controls the lightning are differences in degree, not in kind.
How do you know that George Washington ever crossed the Delaware? Prove it. The point is, all of our knowledge, all of our truth, is based in some degree of faith.
It's not foolish to believe in God. Some people, but hardly all, who believe in God are idiots. But even so
Nice post, but...
I believe the word you are looking for is more commonly spelled canon, not cannon.
And, if so, does anyone know how to fix it? I fell asleep about 20 minutes into that bomb... I sure hope they key to our salvation wasn't in there somewhere.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
That's an excellent brief summary of Chaos Theory. It is certainly a useful model type in many cases, but I wonder if it is truly defining of our reality.
:)
As you imply, the illusion of non-determinism can exist in a deterministic system, which makes me curious as to whether non-determinism actually exists in our Universe?
If it does exist, then the grandparent could be right and non-determinism could exist throughout all of reality, which, when analyzing, we could simply write off as variations in measurement.
On a grander scale, many people are content to believe that a kernel of non-determinism lies at the heart of human "free will". Modern society does not blame fate for human actions, but rather the humans themselves. In keeping with this ideology, the paradox of "free will" versus a deterministic universe arises.
It seems that non-determinism vs determinism is a dilemma which cannot be objectively solved because absolute prediction about the future is impossible since we cannot effectively gather sufficient information (Heisenberg).
Some may say that this paradox is irrelevant since there is effectively no objective difference between non-determinism and uncertainty, but belief in non-determinism ("free will") has certainly influenced our society, and very arguably for the better... though, obviously, such an argument is recursive since it assumes the "free will" to choose.
Maybe I'm missing something. Any insight for me? In any case, thanks for prompting my muse.
It might be interesting to check for graphite fibers - such as those released by burning graphite reenforced plastic car parts. Such fibers are invisibly small and produce conductive paths between exposed wires on which they fall.
Unlike EM fields it wouldn't explain the claims of fires in unplugged devices or in line-powered devices after the power was cut. But a low level of such fibers could explain fires from overloaded wiring (even the lamp cords, if a couple fibers got into the fixture).
Graphite fibers shorting electric systems is the basis of one of the "soft weapons" used in Afghanistan to disable the power grid without destroying it. A high density of such fibers on the insulators of a power line load it down and cause the breakers to go. A lower density of fibers might cause fire-starting overloads without blowing breakers, as might a high density in an older power grid with inadequate automatic cutouts.
(This was discovered by accident, when the burning of carbon-fiber reenforced auto body parts in a dump upwind of an electrical substation took down a local power grid. Before that event it was assumed such open-air burning was safe because the fibers would burn up with the plastic, rather than being released relatively intact in the smoke to wreak havoc downwind, and that the spark would vaporize them if they fell across a high-line insulator.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
we ship over the 'can you hear me now' guy and his cell phone over to help with the investigation.
Thanks for the sig.
(Tried to link back to give credit but the char limit wouldn't let me)
Writers imply. Readers infer.
No argument there. Well, not from me at any rate.
your all fudged up...it's big foot. He's inviible, like the invisible man.
Actually has anybody even pondered on the idea that it could be biological. Perhaps some form of bacteria that causes some kind of biological chemical combustion system that causes the wires to get really hot and burst info flames?
or it could be big foot.
7 days late...
Oh well, what the hell...
They just keep irresponsibly banishing shit back and forth it's no wonder the two worlds start to integrate as the story develops.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
It's such a tired meme, but I can't think of a better way to express my thoughts on this mystery. Seems to be the most likely thing I can imagine now, anyway.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff300/fv00255.htm
Enjoy!
He's to blame for all evil, isn't he?
Yes. Sicily is going to become the East Pole after the magnetic field change
This bursting into flames business is just the hardware equivalent of what I see happening to software everyday. They should learn from us software guys that sacrificing goats doesn't really work, despite what they may have heard.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
I perceive belief in God as being similar to a child's belief in True Love, Father Christmas or the Easter Bunny.
y an .html
People who believe in these ideas can't prove they exist, but they often benefit from their belief because their quality of life improves due to a sense of being looked after by benevolent forces. This is an intangible but real benefit.
There's a story referenced in the 'God and computing' series of lectures by Donald Knuth that addresses this issue. I believe it's called 'Planet without laugther' it's definitely worth reading if you are interested in this topic.
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/smull
Psst. Don't tell anyone but Nikolai Tesla was secretly buried with a device that was set to activate in 2004. If I told you any more someone will probably kill you.
The so-called "many worlds" view gets around the whole question in another way: every possibility happens. The observer is in a state composed of a probability distribution of possibilites too, with each possible configuration of the observer entangled with the corresponding possibility of the "system". In every possible state, the observer observes a single, definite outcome. The observer is just not "in" any one of those states but is in all of them at once (with a probability distribution of course). If you are the observer, you notice nothing different from your everyday experience: every observation appears to have a definite outcome despite what I have described. (The arguments behind this approach are complicated and I cannot do them justice here.) Note that this particular description of the "many worlds" approach is not commonly used but is equivalent to the more common descriptions.
Is it just me or did anyone else go to netcraft and see that MSNBC is the only major news organization running IIS 6 on Windows Server 2003. They were hacked people, they were hacked.
But I've been aiming for Redmond!
""Why doesn't the Psychic Hotline lady call me?""
becasue you don't have a 900 number?
Just becasue you know the future, doesn't mean you should give it away for free.
Which leads us to our next (slightly off topic) question... What would happen if one were to call a 900-number collect?
And yes, I realize the phone system most likely doesn't allow this, though I've never tried it.
studies not nature, but facts that are
repeatable by nature, and
were not apriori declared as 'supernatural' by someone.
This still leaves a lot of possibilities for study, but completely throws away, for example, astronomy. Astronomy is not a science by your definition, because many things that it studies are not repeatable. Before asking for someone who "can consistantly read minds before you", try to repeat the "Big Bang".
Astronomy IS science, so your point is incorrect, and we can make a conclusion : science studies things that were declared as 'scientific' and does not study 'unscientific' things.
>An idea that can not be disproved through experimentation becomes an accepted truth if and only if that idea had some method by which it could be disproved
This is true, but not about experimentation. It's about theory. Experiment can not be 'disproved'.
It could possibly be falsified, but this is not the case we are talking about.
That's a pretty old story here in Italy.
There's nothing strange in it.
Cops said that every fire has started in "human reachable" points, and noone has ever filmed a spontaneous fire start.
Such things are normal here in Italy. That town is now getting money for the govermnet for their "emergency situation".
One should be Italian to fully understand how a weird situation like this one could happen: everyone knows its all bullshit, but noone wants to admit it.
fucking greaseball.
Here it is; April 9, as I read all the responses to this article, and no one, but *NO ONE* Has made any
Jokes about firewall protection!
(Qaz, wotta woild you made, an' filled it wid such people!) };->
The U.S. really needs an English to Wisdom dictionary.
The Big Bang is a theory. No one can replicate the Big Bang, but to test the theory one does not need to do so. One needs only utilize the models to determine what sorts of radiation etc should remain in the universe if the event did occur. If one can then find that radiation the theory is upheld. If not it is falsified.
Since one can test for this radiation many times the experiment is replicable, and falsifiable. Thus your point about the Big Bang and astronomy as a psudo-science under my definition fails.
Secondly, "supernatural" in this context refers to those things that are not of the physical, verifiable, testable world. I.E. they are above the nautral world.
Saying "God created the heavens and the earth" is a supernatural answer to the question "where did the universe come from." It is supernatural because there is no way to show the theory to be false. If you said "God created the heavens and the earth and then carved his name in 40 foot high flaming letters in Mt. Everest" we could go to Mt. Everst, find that no one's name is carved in 40 foot high flaming letters, and fail to uphold the theory.
That is the difference between what is science and what is faith. It is the difference between what can be tested and what can not.
Science is what can be tested. Faith is something you belive in despite a total lack of real evidence.
Mind reading, alien abductions, big foot, and (to a certain extent) string theory are at this point matters of faith.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Maybe the Justice League or "Shadow" should re-aim their microwave power satellite. How else do you think they support those vast wall sized computers and displays that use so much power they send 10 foot sparks of molton metal when they short out. Why they have their own power generation. (Keeps down the cost of vigillance) Obviously the orbit of one of them is compromised. Look for nearby dairy farms with too many silos or cliff sides that planes can fly through safely.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
the word you're not looking out for is
...
"observe".
you're right that this algorithm will explain
everything someday in the future when our senses
have degraded enough while implementing this
algorithm
</sarcasm> I hope? Just checking.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing