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Sunday, November 1, 2009

Boulder Colorado Naked Pumpkin Run Falls Flat

The BBC reports on how the police successfully scared off competitors on the traditional Halloween naked pumpkin run in Boulder, Colorado. Threats of arrests for indecent exposure were enough to stop revelers, who normally run down the street in nothing but shoes and a pumpkin on their head. Although there were some competitors, the police say they were sufficiently covered to avoid arrest and a potential listing in the sex offenders register.

Fallout 3: Golden Joystick Game Of The Year

Congratulations to Bethesda for winning the Ultimate Game award. As far as I'm concerned it was well deserved. I've yet to play the downloadable content expansions, so maybe I'll buy the special edition that comes with the expansions. The BBC report that the awards are in their 27th year and this time 1.2m people voted!

Scientology Convicted Of Fraud

The French have convicted the church of Scientology of fraud and fined them 600K Euros. The BBC reports that the case came about after two women alleged they were manipulated into paying thousands of Euros to the church in th '90s. The church say they will appeal and are confident of winning since this has happened before in other countries. France, like Germany, consider the church a sect and not a religion.

Curry Kills Cancer

Once again the medical benefits of curry have been shown, thanks to work by the Cork Cancer Research Centre. This time curcumin is shown to be effective against throat cancer, killing cells within 24 hours of introduction and even triggering cancer cells to kill themselves, says the BBC. Now where's that madras?

Happy 40th Birthday Arpanet!

The first step towards the internet, DARPA's Arpanet, took place 40 years ago this week. The BBC reports on how a remote login was established between UCLA and Stanford networks, with the intention of better utilisation and sharing of computer resources. The test proved that it was possible to connect two networks with a telephone line. The test proved that packet switching (breaking large messages down into chunks and sorting them like a post office sorting office) was more efficient than having to wait for a complete message to arrive before forwarding it. This was the first step towards a "network of networks", the building blocks of todays internet.

Hold You Wii Costs $16m

The radio station promotion in January 2007 that cost a woman her life from water poisoning has been ordered to pay $16m compensation, said the BBC. The Hold Your Wee For A Wii contest involved participants drinking water without taking a leak, with the one holding out the longest winning a Wii console. Jennifer Strange lost the competition but also paid with her life not long afterwards.