Believe it or not, George Lindell was just in a car accident:
Category: Human Behavior
Japanese Bagelheads – a new trend in body modification
A recent trend in body modification in Japan is implanting objects, such as magnets, in the skin. Now, instead of an actual object being placed in the skin, a saline solution drip is used to cause inflammation and swelling in various parts of the body. For many, the result is a large, bagel-shaped “implant” on the forehead. It’s a temporary modification, lasting only around 24 hours or so before wearing off. Other individuals are placing the saline in the arms, leading to bizarre, disfigured “muscles.”
http://artsyspot.com/bagelheads-new-body-modification-trend-from-japan/
New York City Greenwich Village McDonald’s Cashier Beats Down Customers
The cashier, 31 year old Rayon Macintosh has previously served over 10 years in prison for shooting and killing a high school classmate in 2000.
Herbert Chavez Undergoes Surgery to Look Like Superman
Herbert Chavez, a 35-year old Filipino pageant trainer, has since 1995 undergone a whole host of surgeries to make him more closely resemble the Man of Steel, including a nose job, chin augmentation — for that iconic cleft, silicone lip injections and, of course, thigh implants.
His home is a shrine to the hero, with everything from bedding to wall decorations to actual, larger than life statues of the hero taking up an entire room.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8356959/obsessed-fan-has-surgery-to-look-like-superman
Real-Life Weekend At Bernies
In a real life “Weekend at Bernies,” two Denver men who found their friend dead, allegedly took his body — and his credit card — out for a night of diners, bar hopping, burritos and a strip club.
Not only did the two suspects drag around their deceased friend Jeffrey Jarrett, 43, they made him pay for everything, a police report stated. They allegedly used his bank card at an ATM to withdraw money to finance the night on the town, according to the report.
Robert Jeffrey Young, 43, and Mark Rubinson, 25, are charged with identity theft, criminal impersonation and abuse of a corpse, according to the Denver County Court.
On Aug. 27, Young allegedly arrived at Jarrett’s house and found him unconscious. Instead of calling the police or an ambulance, he went to the restaurant where Rubinson was working to tell him that “something is wrong with Jarrett,” according to the police report.
The pair allegedly returned to Jarrett’s house, found him ”unresponsive,” put the body in the car and went to a bar.
“Rubinson and Young go into the restaurant and drink. Jarrett is in the back seat of the car,” Denver Police Officer Ranjan Ford wrote in the police statement. “Rubinson said he and Young use Jarrett’s credit card to pay for the drinks they consumed.”
They also made a stop at a diner before taking the body back to the house and putting it on a bed. They kept the bank card with them and used it to withdraw $400, according to police. The report said the two men ended their night around 4 a.m. after a few more stops, including a burrito restaurant and a strip club.
After the strip club closed, the duo allegedly flagged down a police officer and told him their friend might be dead at his house. When police officers arrived at the house, they “located Jarrett obviously deceased.”
“This is a bizarre and unfortunate crime,” Denver Police Department spokesman Sonny Jackson told the Denver Post. “This isn’t anything you want to have happen to a loved one. You want them treated with respect in death.”
Both of the men are free on bond and neither has been charged in Jarretts’s death. They could not be reached for comment. The cause of death is still unknown. Young is expected in court on Sept. 27 and Rubinson will be in court Oct. 4.
The Wealthiest People in America
Despite the stalled economy, the nation’s wealthiest are worth a combined $1.53 trillion, nearly equivalent to the GDP of Canada. Their total wealth is up 12% in the year through August 26, meaning they did slightly better than the markets; the S&P 500, for instance, was up 10% in that time.
Bill Gates was the richest person for the 18th straight year, worth $59 billion; the last time he didn’t rank no. 1 was in 1993 when his good friend Warren Buffett was on top. Buffett, who’s been spending a lot of time talking about raising taxes on the rich, is still no. 2 but the gap is widening. His fortune tumbled $6 billion in the past year, making him the biggest loser in terms of total dollars. He gave away $3.27 billion since last year’s rankings but was also pinched by a 10% drop in Berkshire Hathaway’s stock.
Rounding out the top 10 on The Forbes 400: Oracle founder Larry Ellison ($33 billion), industrialists Charles and David Koch ($25 billion apiece), Wal-Mart heirs Christy Walton ($24.5 billion), Jim C. Walton ($21.1 billion) and Alice Walton ($20.9 billion), hedge fund investor George Soros ($22 billion), and casino king Sheldon Adelson ($21.5 billion).
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg added $10.6 billion to his fortune, making him the year’s biggest gainer and pushing him into the top 20 for the first time — he ranks no. 14 with a net worth of $17.5 billion. That puts him ahead of Google rivals Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who added $1.7 billion apiece to their fortunes but slipped five spots in the rankings and are tied at no. 15
The hoodie-clad 27-year-old Zuckerberg is one of 6 club members to get rich from Facebook. Others include newcomers Sean Parker and Jim Breyer, Facebook’s venture capitalist, as well as Zuckerberg’s former roommate Dustin Moskovitz, whose birthday is eight days after the Facebook chief’s, making him America’s youngest billionaire. Three other social media mavens made their debut including LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, Groupon’s Eric Lefkofsky and Zynga’s Mark Pincus.
Other notable entrepreneurs among the 18 newcomers include Green Mountain Coffee’s Bob Stiller, Go Daddy’s Bob Parsons, and energy tycoons Farris and Dan Wilks. Six people, including Starbucks’ Howard Schultz and Quicken’s Dan Gilbert, returned to the list after a year or more absence.
Three members of last year’s list have died: John Anderson, William Cook and Jess Jackson. Twenty-one missed the cut, including at least a dozen billionaires, like University of Phoenix’s John Sperling, whose net worths were just shy of $1.05 billion, the price of admission in 2011.
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/54/biz_06rich400_all_slide.html?thisSpeed=10000
On-Line Gamers Solve Decade-Long Unsolvable Structure of Enzyme in 3 Weeks
Foldit, an online game put together by the University of Washington’s computer science and biochemistry departments, was launched in 2008 as an attempt to leverage the ingenuity and spatial reasoning skills of gamers to help solve scientific problems. Recently, players of the game have helped discover the structure of an enzyme which could prove a significant step forward in the treatment and cure of retroviral diseases and even AIDS.
“We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed,” said Firas Khatib of the University of Washington’s biochemistry lab. “The ingenuity of game players is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems.”
“People have spational reasoning skills, something computers are not yet good at,” added co-creator of Foldit Seth Cooper. “Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans. The results show that gaming, science and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before.”
The structure of the enzyme in question had stumped scientists for over a decade, but Foldit players managed to model it together in just three weeks. The discovery will greatly assist in the research and development of drugs to treat retroviral conditions such as HIV, which leads to the onset of AIDS — a condition for which there is still no cure.
“The critical role of Foldit players in the solution of [this problem] shows the power of online games to channel human intuition and three-dimensional pattern-matching skills to solve challenging scientific problems,” wrote representatives of the University of Washington in a full report on the discovery. “Although much attention has recently been given to the potential of crowdsourcing and game playing, this is the first instance that we are aware of in which online gamers solved a longstanding scientific problem. These results indicate the potential for integrating video games into the real-world scientific process.”
The Foldit team also says there are two other discoveries which players of the game have contributed to, and are preparing to release these in the near future.
http://news.yahoo.com/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-puzzle-175427367.html
Toe-Sucking Assailant on the Loose in Arkansas
Police in Conway, Arkansas have received two complaints in the past week about a man who seems desperate to suck women’s toes — whether they want him to or not.
“This is on the police department’s radar, and they are concerned,” said LaTresha Woodruff, police spokeswoman in Conway, about 30 miles from Little Rock. “They are taking information and trying to figure out who is doing it … we want him off the streets.”
Last Saturday, Ruth Harris, an 83-year-old Conway woman, told police that she was sitting in a chair in front of her apartment.
A man approached her and said he liked her feet. According to a police report, the man took off one of her shoes and began sucking on her toe.
“The man then asked if he could kiss her and she had told him no and told him he was crazy,” the report stated.
The man left quickly after people walked into the apartment complex’s courtyard.
On Tuesday, police received another call from a woman who said that on Saturday she was shopping at a local department store when she noticed a man staring at her.
He approached her and “told her he loved her toes, and they were so long and beautiful,” the report said.
The man then told the woman that he had a foot fetish and that “her toes are so long and succulent” and he wanted to suck them. When the woman’s cell phone rang, the man retreated.
He then returned and chatted with her for a brief moment. She told police that the man was wearing flip flops, a T-shirt, and blue jeans.
She said the man had “messed up toes.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/16/us-toe-sucking-idUSTRE78F42P20110916
Woman Vows One Year Without Mirrors
Kjerstin Gruys, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at UCLA, took a vow to go one full calendar year without looking in a mirror, including during her upcoming wedding.
and here is her blog website: http://www.ayearwithoutmirrors.com/
$12 Million a Day Wasted in Our Wars
A nonpartisan panel reporting to Congress says the United States is wasting $12 million a day among contracts issued in support of American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Commission on Wartime Contracting spent the past three years documenting whether American funding went where it was supposed to. The findings show misdirected money has totaled between $31 billion and $60 billion, and that both the government and the contractors are to blame for fraud and waste.
Commissioner Katherine Schinasi told reporters at a news conference Wednesday that the numbers don’t seem to have an impact on people concerned about spending.
To make it easier to grasp the magnitude of the problem, Schinasi said, “we’ve broken it down to $12 million a day.”
http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/08/31/wartime.contracting/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
It's Interesting 