 | You scored as Moya (Farscape). You are surrounded by muppets. But that is okay because they are your friends and have shown many times that they can be trusted. Now if only you could stop being bothered about wormholes.
Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com |
Untalented singers who fail spectacularly in the early auditions are so bad they make for good television. Forcing talented finalists to perform such forgettable tunes as "Do I Make You Proud"? That's just plain awful.
To remedy this flaw in Fox's hit TV show, which begins its sixth season Tuesday and Wednesday, a song-writing competition to be decided by viewers is in the works.
"At the end of it, the country will not only have the singer they want, they'll have the song they want," said Ken Warwick, a series executive producer.
[...]
"We are very close to putting it (the song contest) in place," Martha Brass, executive vice president for series producer 19 Entertainment, said from London.
"It's just a question of not wanting to get it out there too soon so that we lose enthusiasm and momentum," Brass said. "Given there are five months left, we want to make sure that we introduce it at the right time." (continued at Yahoo!)
Speaking of single, NotCarrie emailed me to let me know that her site is doing a date bidding auction to raise money for V-Day, “a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexual slavery.” I am very happily married, so I won't be bidding on a boy, but if you'd like to bid on one then please go to The Not Girls' Charity Auction. Thank you, and good night.PITTSBURG, California (AP) -- A senior editor for PC World Magazine was fatally shot in his home in what authorities said Wednesday was a drug-related attack.
Rex Farrance, 59, the San Francisco, California-based magazine's senior technical editor, was shot in the chest after four masked men broke into his home Tuesday evening, Pittsburg police said.
The assailants also pistol-whipped Farrance's wife, Lenore Vantosh-Farrance, 56, a registered nurse. She called 911, but the attackers fled before officers arrived. No one has been arrested, officials said.
"We have substantial reason to believe that the victim and his wife were involved in the possession and, potentially, the distribution of illegal narcotics," said Pittsburg police Inspector John Conaty, who declined to specify what type of drugs were involved.
The couple's son, Sterling Farrance, 19, blasted the police assertion that they were involved with illegal drugs, saying he grew and stored medical marijuana at the home with his parents' permission.
"I have a prescription. I'm a patient. It was medical," Sterling Farrance told the San Francisco Chronicle. "This one officer I remember at the house, he had this predisposition to think it was all illegal."
Colleagues at PC World described Farrance as a fitness buff, rock-music fan and a dedicated husband and father who excelled at his job.
"We're all in shock here," said Denny Arar, a PC World senior editor. "Rex loved his work. He really cared about covering technology in a way that was useful for readers. He cared a lot about people, period, including his co-workers." (CNN)
How spicy foods can kill cancers
Scientists have discovered the key to the ability of spicy foods to kill cancer cells.
They found capsaicin, an ingredient of jalapeno peppers, triggers cancer cell death by attacking mitochondria - the cells' energy-generating boiler rooms.
[...]
The study showed that the family of molecules to which capsaicin belongs, the vanilloids, bind to proteins in the cancer cell mitochondria to trigger apoptosis, or cell death, without harming surrounding healthy cells.
Capsaicin was tested on cultures of human lung cancer cells and on pancreatic cancers.
Lead researcher Dr Timothy Bates said: "As these compounds attack the very heart of the tumour cells, we believe that we have in effect discovered a fundamental 'Achilles heel' for all cancers.
"The biochemistry of the mitochondria in cancer cells is very different from that in normal cells.
"This is an innate selective vulnerability of cancer cells."
He said a dose of capsaicin that could cause a cancer cell to enter apoptosis, would not have the same effect on a normal cell. (continued)
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Hit man to Pittsburgh professionals: Pay up or die
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Dentists, doctors, lawyers and other professionals in the Pittsburgh area have been targeted by a "hit man" e-mail scheme, receiving messages that tell them to pay up to spare their lives, the FBI said.
The e-mail, which was sent to most recipients around Christmas, tells the reader that there is a contract out on his life, generally for $50,000.
It says that if the recipient sends the "hit man" more money than that -- generally ranging from $80,000 to $150,000 -- the hit man will leave him alone.
No one has reportedly lost money or been harmed in the scam, but some recipients were unnerved by the messages, said Special Agent Bill Shore, who supervises the computer crime squad in the Pittsburgh FBI office.
"You think, 'What did I get into? What do I gotta do to get out of this?' " Shore said.
The FBI became aware of the scam when people in Atlanta, Georgia, and New Orleans, Louisiana, received similar e-mails in early December, Shore said.
The scheme seems to have originated in Russia.
A new type of search engine using facial recognition technology could soon be able to pinpoint images of a person among the billions of photos posted online—even if their name does not appear.
A Swedish company named Polar Rose plans to launch its service for facial searches tied to the photo-sharing site Flickr within a couple weeks.
In the next few months the firm hopes to expand the service to search images across the entire Web.
The technology promises enhanced photo finding that would make it easier to find people on the Internet.
But privacy advocates are concerned that Polar Rose and similar facial-mapping search engines will violate people's rights and potentially aid criminals.
Lee Tien is an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet watchdog group that focuses on privacy and civil liberties.
"Photos [posted online] are effectively anonymous now," Tien said, unless they are labeled with some sort if identifying text. "But if Polar Rose works the way they say it will, that's all going to change."
Tien said that this kind of technology could aid stalkers in tracking down their victims, or it could allow employers, insurance companies, and the government to pry into people's lives more than some of us would like. (continued)
Way to go! You know not to trust the MS Grammar Check and you know "no" from "know." Now, go forth and spread the good word (or at least, the proper use of apostrophes).
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| What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta. | |
| The Midland | |
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My blog is two today! It can speak and walk now, it's almost fully potty-trained, but it throws trantrums in public and bites its blogmates. I thought I was a great parent, but I guess all blogs go through this stage... The gorgeous America Ferrera graces the cover of the newest CosmoGIRL! |  “Hot mami!” |
Based on the popular Colombian telenovela "Yo soy Betty, la fea" (1999) (I'm Betty, the Ugly), which has been dubbed and broad casted in countries such as Brasil, China or the Philippines and has been adapted in some other countries. Local versions like "Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin" (2003) (There's No One Like Jassi) in India or "Verliebt in Berlin" (2005) (Smitten in Berlin) also have been immensely successful.
 | My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Baroness Poppy the Bovine of Similar Ealand Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title |
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+ cute = Darren.Maggie May's returnMaggie May is back as you know , and I said I'd let you know some more details . I didnt want to go into to much detail but the rumours and allegations have started so here goes .
Last night we recieved a call from a man in the Leytonstone area . He said he had Maggie and had bought her as a present for his sister , he didnt really want to give her back but was persuaded by the reward . Some friends went to meet him a couple of hours later to see if it was Maggie . Luckily it was , so they left to get the money in order to get her back . They came back and were asked to follow the man and his two friends in a car for a few minutes away from the main road , they did this , handed over the money and got Maggie back . Once Maggie had been handed over the young men and woman offered to sell more puppies to my friends , which made us realise that these people were obviously in the business of moving dogs .
Now I feel guilty for having given these people money and contributing to their cruel business but I love that dog and felt I had no choice .
People have been speculating that because maggie was thin and had fleas she must have run away , MAGGGIE was tied up and in her cage in the back of a van and could not have escaped , she was stolen . The fact that she was very thin , makes me think she was mistreated ( ie not fed ) and the fact she was infested with fleas implies she was kept with other ( maybe stolen ) animals .
Im not going into anymore detail as this is now a matter for the RSPCA and the police . Thank you again to everyone who has helped me retrieve maggie . This has been an awful experience and people who are accusing me of neglecting my dog in some way , are distressing and hurtful , I hope this clears up the issue .
Lily
Please don't feel guilty that you gave them money. Maggie May's safe return is the most important, and your exposure of the story behind her disappearance will lead to more good in the end. If you hadn't paid them, who knows what they would have done with her?! Give her lots of puppy kisses for us all.
Did anyone watch Courteney Cox's new show, dirt? We don't know exactly why, but Hay and I weren't impressed. 
“Hi, I'm worth your while, even though I'm a lotta bit crazy..”
I had no idea who Lucie Blackman was so I went to lucieblackmantrust.org to find out more info, but ... it's not very well organized in terms of finding out what the trust is for, so I used wikipedia instead which explains that:Lucie Blackman (d. 2000) was an English woman working illegally as a hostess in Roppongi, Tokyo, who disappeared mysteriously in July 2000. Her dismembered body was found a year later, buried in a shallow grave at a beach in Miura, Kanagawa in June 2001. She was 21 years old at the time of her death.
Property developer Joji Obara was charged for drugging, raping and killing Blackman, as well as the rapes of six other women and the murder of another hostess.
A hostess bar is a bar or pub that employs primarily female staff and caters to adult males seeking drink and conversation. A similar and more recent establishment (specific to Japan) is a host bar.
Hostess bars can be found in many countries and take many forms. While some bars are tied to the sex trade, with hostesses being little more than prostitutes who serve drinks, at most establishments the sex is generally implied, not performed.
Reality check: 95 percent of Americans had premarital sex
NEW YORK (AP) -- More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past.
"This is reality-check research," said the study's author, Lawrence Finer. "Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades."
Finer is a research director at the Guttmacher Institute, a private New York-based think tank that studies sexual and reproductive issues and which disagrees with government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings. The study, released Tuesday, appears in the new issue of Public Health Reports.
The study, examining how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time, was based on interviews conducted with more than 38,000 people -- about 33,000 of them women -- in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 for the federal National Survey of Family Growth. According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage. (CNN)
