PHILADELPHIA , Nov. 28 (UPI) -- The U.S. divorce rate has been dropping and some couples have much better odds than the often-quoted 50-50 chance of wedded bliss, researchers say.
Betsey Stevenson of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School said the divorce rate has been falling in the United States since 1979. And, she said, the rate can vary widely according to demographics.
"For many of these folks, their divorce rates so far have fallen substantially compared with previous generations," Stevenson said in a statement without providing any new divorce rate figures. "Different types of people face different divorce rates historically."
Your chances of divorce lessen the more education you have and increase the younger you marry, Stevenson explained.
Stevenson -- in partnership with divorce360.com -- developed The Marriage Calculator that lets people see how the incidence of divorce evolves throughout the life of a marriage.
The calculator uses data from the U.S. Census bureau to allow users to compare themselves to others who married about the same time period, have a similar education and have been married as long as you. With the marriage calculator, you can find out how many people with similar backgrounds have divorced. In addition, it estimates how many people like you are likely to get divorced in the next five years.
The calulator is at http://www.divorce360.com/content/divorcecalculator.aspx
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Teacher sues city after being fired for affair with runway model student
Her boy toy may have been a stud, but he was no student.
A Queens teacher fired for bedding a 17-year-old male model is suing to win her job back, saying she had no idea her lover boy was enrolled in high school during their affair.
Gina Salamino, 37, contends her job as a tenured second-grade teacher at Public School 121 should have been spared because Joshua Walter was so busy catwalking he never attended a single class during the 2006-07 school year.
"They have no case," Salamino angrily told the Daily News. "There is no improper relationship."
Salamino maintains in Manhattan Supreme Court documents that it's "complete fiction" and "ludicrous" for the Department of Education to insist the globetrotting runway star was a "student" when he hooked up with the teacher, who was then 34.
"In support of this, she cites the dictionary definition of ‘student' as ‘one who attends a school,'" court records say.
The affair was hardly short-lived - they live together in Queens and have a child.
A hearing officer in June ordered Salamino to be dismissed after finding her guilty of sexual misconduct - a decision her lawyers want overturned.
"It was irrational and not based on adequate or substantial evidence in the record," Salamino's suit says.
A lawyer for Salamino, through a spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers, declined to comment.
Walter, now 19, met Salamino in 2002, when he was 12. He saw her again, records show, at an August 2006 party. That flirty encounter led to dates at the movies, hundreds of phone calls, nights at her Howard Beach apartment and sex.
"I thought it was her nephew or something," a former neighbor said. "He was young, and he looked like a kid."
By then, Walter had launched a modeling career that has taken him around the world, landed him gigs with Hugo Boss and H&M - and kept him far from Bryant High School in Long Island City, where he was enrolled while romancing Salamino.
"[Salamino] claims that the...allegation that she engaged in sexual misconduct, merely because Joshua's name happened to remain on a school roster ‘is ludicrous,'" the hearing officer's report says.
The lean, mop-haired teen, a star of the Hugo Boss 2008 spring campaign, has modeled in Milan, Paris, at New York's Fashion Week and been featured in glossy magazines around the world.
In a video posted on YouTube, Walter describes himself as a "regular guy" who wants to "live in today."
"I like to eat, I like to watch sports, play sports, know what I mean?" he says. "Chill with my girlfriend, know what I mean?"
Schools investigators began looking into the affair in November 2006, records show, after receiving a tip that Salamino had been seen kissing and hugging a much younger male.
More calls followed, including one from an unidentified person who confronted Walter in disgust over the affair, says a school investigator's report obtained under the state's Freedom of Information Law.
"'I'm tapping that a-- and there's nothing you can do about it,'" the teen responded, says the report from Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon.
In a written statement to investigators, Walter said he considered Salamino to be "my shorty."
Walter's mom was as defiant as her son when she insisted to school investigators that he was not "romantically involved" with the teacher.
"What difference would it make?" she told probers, the report says. "[Student A] is [redacted] years of age and no longer in school, so it would not be illegal."
New York State law requires students to remain in school through the school year in which they turn 17.
So Walter had to wait until the end of the 2006-07 school year, when he attended no classes, to be formally discharged as a student, even though he attended only 15 days of school the previous year.
A Queens teacher fired for bedding a 17-year-old male model is suing to win her job back, saying she had no idea her lover boy was enrolled in high school during their affair.
Gina Salamino, 37, contends her job as a tenured second-grade teacher at Public School 121 should have been spared because Joshua Walter was so busy catwalking he never attended a single class during the 2006-07 school year.
"They have no case," Salamino angrily told the Daily News. "There is no improper relationship."
Salamino maintains in Manhattan Supreme Court documents that it's "complete fiction" and "ludicrous" for the Department of Education to insist the globetrotting runway star was a "student" when he hooked up with the teacher, who was then 34.
"In support of this, she cites the dictionary definition of ‘student' as ‘one who attends a school,'" court records say.
The affair was hardly short-lived - they live together in Queens and have a child.
A hearing officer in June ordered Salamino to be dismissed after finding her guilty of sexual misconduct - a decision her lawyers want overturned.
"It was irrational and not based on adequate or substantial evidence in the record," Salamino's suit says.
A lawyer for Salamino, through a spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers, declined to comment.
Walter, now 19, met Salamino in 2002, when he was 12. He saw her again, records show, at an August 2006 party. That flirty encounter led to dates at the movies, hundreds of phone calls, nights at her Howard Beach apartment and sex.
"I thought it was her nephew or something," a former neighbor said. "He was young, and he looked like a kid."
By then, Walter had launched a modeling career that has taken him around the world, landed him gigs with Hugo Boss and H&M - and kept him far from Bryant High School in Long Island City, where he was enrolled while romancing Salamino.
"[Salamino] claims that the...allegation that she engaged in sexual misconduct, merely because Joshua's name happened to remain on a school roster ‘is ludicrous,'" the hearing officer's report says.
The lean, mop-haired teen, a star of the Hugo Boss 2008 spring campaign, has modeled in Milan, Paris, at New York's Fashion Week and been featured in glossy magazines around the world.
In a video posted on YouTube, Walter describes himself as a "regular guy" who wants to "live in today."
"I like to eat, I like to watch sports, play sports, know what I mean?" he says. "Chill with my girlfriend, know what I mean?"
Schools investigators began looking into the affair in November 2006, records show, after receiving a tip that Salamino had been seen kissing and hugging a much younger male.
More calls followed, including one from an unidentified person who confronted Walter in disgust over the affair, says a school investigator's report obtained under the state's Freedom of Information Law.
"'I'm tapping that a-- and there's nothing you can do about it,'" the teen responded, says the report from Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon.
In a written statement to investigators, Walter said he considered Salamino to be "my shorty."
Walter's mom was as defiant as her son when she insisted to school investigators that he was not "romantically involved" with the teacher.
"What difference would it make?" she told probers, the report says. "[Student A] is [redacted] years of age and no longer in school, so it would not be illegal."
New York State law requires students to remain in school through the school year in which they turn 17.
So Walter had to wait until the end of the 2006-07 school year, when he attended no classes, to be formally discharged as a student, even though he attended only 15 days of school the previous year.
Dad raped daughters for 27 years
A British man was jailed Tuesday for raping two of his daughters and fathering nine children over 27 years, a case with echoes of Austria's Josef Fritzl.
The two daughters were made pregnant 19 times; there were nine births, five miscarriages and five terminations. Seven of the children are alive but suffer genetic deformities.
The father, who cannot be named for legal reasons banning the identification of his victims and the surviving children, pleaded guilty Tuesday at Sheffield Crown Court, northern England, and was sentenced to serve 25 life sentences to run concurrently.
The judge said the minimum term the 56-year-old rapist should serve in jail should be 19½ years.
South Yorkshire Police Chief Superintendent Simon Torr said, "The victims of these terrible crimes have asked me to state the following: 'His detention in prison brings us only the knowledge that he cannot physically touch us again. The suffering he has caused will continue for many years, and we must now concentrate our thoughts on finding the strength to rebuild our lives.' "
Speaking for the police, Torr added, "The main concern ... is for those who have been so badly affected: the victims who have suffered a terrible ordeal. We will continue to offer them our full support to try and help them get on with their lives.
"As far as the sentence goes, we are satisfied that this offender has received the strongest possible punishment for his heinous crimes. Now we need to ensure continuing support for those who have suffered as a result of his actions."
The daughters first told police about their ordeal in June, but the abuse dated to 1981.
It emerged that in 1998 one daughter rang Childline, a charity to help abused kids, and asked for assurances about being able to keep her children if she came forward. When Childline could not make that guarantee, the daughter did nothing more to raise her plight.
The UK's Press Association reported that the rapes began in 1981 with daily attacks and that for long periods, they would be raped up to three times a week, and the assaults would continue through pregnancies. Their only reprieve came after they had just given birth or when they were ill because of the abuse.
If either daughter tried to refuse their father's attacks, they would be punched, kicked and or held to the flames of a gas fire, burning their eyes and arms, PA reported.
Despite visiting hospitals and meeting with social workers over the 27 years of abuse, no investigation was launched into the family.
The case comes in the wake of the death of a baby, known only as Baby P, which has dominated headlines in Britain. The baby endured horrendous torture and died despite being on the local authority's child protection register.
In Austria this year, Josef Fritzl was arrested, accused of keeping his daughter in a basement dungeon and fathering seven children through the rapes
The two daughters were made pregnant 19 times; there were nine births, five miscarriages and five terminations. Seven of the children are alive but suffer genetic deformities.
The father, who cannot be named for legal reasons banning the identification of his victims and the surviving children, pleaded guilty Tuesday at Sheffield Crown Court, northern England, and was sentenced to serve 25 life sentences to run concurrently.
The judge said the minimum term the 56-year-old rapist should serve in jail should be 19½ years.
South Yorkshire Police Chief Superintendent Simon Torr said, "The victims of these terrible crimes have asked me to state the following: 'His detention in prison brings us only the knowledge that he cannot physically touch us again. The suffering he has caused will continue for many years, and we must now concentrate our thoughts on finding the strength to rebuild our lives.' "
Speaking for the police, Torr added, "The main concern ... is for those who have been so badly affected: the victims who have suffered a terrible ordeal. We will continue to offer them our full support to try and help them get on with their lives.
"As far as the sentence goes, we are satisfied that this offender has received the strongest possible punishment for his heinous crimes. Now we need to ensure continuing support for those who have suffered as a result of his actions."
The daughters first told police about their ordeal in June, but the abuse dated to 1981.
It emerged that in 1998 one daughter rang Childline, a charity to help abused kids, and asked for assurances about being able to keep her children if she came forward. When Childline could not make that guarantee, the daughter did nothing more to raise her plight.
The UK's Press Association reported that the rapes began in 1981 with daily attacks and that for long periods, they would be raped up to three times a week, and the assaults would continue through pregnancies. Their only reprieve came after they had just given birth or when they were ill because of the abuse.
If either daughter tried to refuse their father's attacks, they would be punched, kicked and or held to the flames of a gas fire, burning their eyes and arms, PA reported.
Despite visiting hospitals and meeting with social workers over the 27 years of abuse, no investigation was launched into the family.
The case comes in the wake of the death of a baby, known only as Baby P, which has dominated headlines in Britain. The baby endured horrendous torture and died despite being on the local authority's child protection register.
In Austria this year, Josef Fritzl was arrested, accused of keeping his daughter in a basement dungeon and fathering seven children through the rapes
Cal Scientist: Jupiter Core 2X as Big as Thought
Jupiter has a rocky core that is more than twice as large as previously thought, according to computer calculations by UC Berkeley and University of Arizona scientists.
Burkhard Militzer, an assistant professor of astronomy and earth and planetary science at Cal, simulated conditions inside the planet on the scale of individual hydrogen and helium atoms.
The simulation predicted the properties of hydrogen and helium for temperature, density and pressure at the surface, all the way to the planet's center. The technique is often used to study semi-conductors, according to a UC Berkeley statement on the discovery.
Militzer's partner, William B. Hubbard, from the University of Arizona, used the data to build the new model for Jupiter's interior.
A comparison of the model with the planet's current known mass, radius, surface temperature, gravity and equatorial bulge implies that Jupiter's core is an Earth-like rock 14 to 18 times the mass of Earth, or about one-twentieth of Jupiter's total mass, Militzer said.
Previous models predicted a much smaller core of only 7 Earth masses, or no core at all.
Jupiter, like many planets its size already discovered throughout the galaxy, is believed to be a failed star. Most of the planet's mass is made up of gas.
The results were published Nov. 20 in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The simulation suggests that the core is made of layers of metals, rocks and ices of methane, ammonia and water, while above it is an atmosphere of mostly hydrogen and helium.
At the center of the rocky core is probably a metallic ball of iron and nickel, just like Earth's core, scientists said.
"Our simulations show there is a big rocky object in the center surrounded by an ice layer and hardly any ice elsewhere in the planet," Militzer said. "This is a very different result for the interior structure of Jupiter than other recent models, which predict a relatively small or hardly any core and a mixture of ices throughout the atmosphere."
"Basically, Jupiter's interior resembles that of Saturn, with a Neptune or Uranus at the center," he said.
Neptune and Uranus have been called "ice giants" because they also appear to have a rocky core surrounded by icy hydrogen and helium, but without the gas envelope of Jupiter and Saturn.
"This new calculation by Burkhard removes a lot of the old uncertainties of the 19-year-old model we have had until now," Hubbard said. "The new thermodynamic model is a more precise physical description of what's going on inside Jupiter."
Scientists said the large, rocky core implies that as Jupiter and other giant gas planets formed 4.5 billion years ago, they grew through the collision of small rocks. The rocks formed cores that captured a huge atmosphere of hydrogen and helium.
"According to the core accretion model, as the original planetary nebula cooled, planetesimals collided and stuck together in a runaway effect that formed planet cores," Militzer said. "If true, this implies that the planets have large cores, which is what the simulation predicts. It is more difficult to make a planet with a small core."
In order to match the observed gravity of Jupiter, Militzer's simulation also predicts that different parts of Jupiter's interior rotate at different rates.
Jupiter can be thought of as a series of concentric cylinders rotating around the planet's spin axis, with the outer cylinders - the equatorial regions - rotating faster than the inner cylinders. This is identical to the sun's rotation, Militzer said.
How They Did It …
Militzer modeled Jupiter's interior as a collection of 110 hydrogen and nine helium atoms in a tiny cube that is replicated throughout the planet, a common approximation in "density functional theory."
The ratio of hydrogen to helium atoms approximates the ratio measured on the surface of Jupiter.
Each simulation took from one to seven days on parallel computing clusters.
Based on this simulation, under the high pressure and temperature deep within the planet, hydrogen changes from a molecular to a metallic state, which provides good electrical conductivity and gives rise to Jupiter's magnetic field.
This transition happens gradually, contrary to earlier models that predict a sharp transition.
The new model of Jupiter predicts that most of the ices are concentrated in the outer layer of the core, while only a small amount is mixed in the hydrogen-helium gas envelope that contains 95 percent of the planet's mass.
The "planetary ices" in the envelope amount to about four Earth masses, or 1 percent of Jupiter's mass, Militzer said.
"The simulation was in pretty good agreement with what the Galileo probe measured" when the NASA spacecraft descended through Jupiter's atmosphere in 1995, Hubbard said.
Militzer plans to use the new model to simulate other planets' interiors, and to investigate the implications for the formation of planets outside our solar system.
Future data from NASA's Juno mission, to be launched in 2011, orbit Jupiter by 2016 and measure the planet's magnetic field and gravity, will provide a check on Militzer's predictions. Hubbard is one of the mission's co-investigators.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation supported the research.
Burkhard Militzer, an assistant professor of astronomy and earth and planetary science at Cal, simulated conditions inside the planet on the scale of individual hydrogen and helium atoms.
The simulation predicted the properties of hydrogen and helium for temperature, density and pressure at the surface, all the way to the planet's center. The technique is often used to study semi-conductors, according to a UC Berkeley statement on the discovery.
Militzer's partner, William B. Hubbard, from the University of Arizona, used the data to build the new model for Jupiter's interior.
A comparison of the model with the planet's current known mass, radius, surface temperature, gravity and equatorial bulge implies that Jupiter's core is an Earth-like rock 14 to 18 times the mass of Earth, or about one-twentieth of Jupiter's total mass, Militzer said.
Previous models predicted a much smaller core of only 7 Earth masses, or no core at all.
Jupiter, like many planets its size already discovered throughout the galaxy, is believed to be a failed star. Most of the planet's mass is made up of gas.
The results were published Nov. 20 in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The simulation suggests that the core is made of layers of metals, rocks and ices of methane, ammonia and water, while above it is an atmosphere of mostly hydrogen and helium.
At the center of the rocky core is probably a metallic ball of iron and nickel, just like Earth's core, scientists said.
"Our simulations show there is a big rocky object in the center surrounded by an ice layer and hardly any ice elsewhere in the planet," Militzer said. "This is a very different result for the interior structure of Jupiter than other recent models, which predict a relatively small or hardly any core and a mixture of ices throughout the atmosphere."
"Basically, Jupiter's interior resembles that of Saturn, with a Neptune or Uranus at the center," he said.
Neptune and Uranus have been called "ice giants" because they also appear to have a rocky core surrounded by icy hydrogen and helium, but without the gas envelope of Jupiter and Saturn.
"This new calculation by Burkhard removes a lot of the old uncertainties of the 19-year-old model we have had until now," Hubbard said. "The new thermodynamic model is a more precise physical description of what's going on inside Jupiter."
Scientists said the large, rocky core implies that as Jupiter and other giant gas planets formed 4.5 billion years ago, they grew through the collision of small rocks. The rocks formed cores that captured a huge atmosphere of hydrogen and helium.
"According to the core accretion model, as the original planetary nebula cooled, planetesimals collided and stuck together in a runaway effect that formed planet cores," Militzer said. "If true, this implies that the planets have large cores, which is what the simulation predicts. It is more difficult to make a planet with a small core."
In order to match the observed gravity of Jupiter, Militzer's simulation also predicts that different parts of Jupiter's interior rotate at different rates.
Jupiter can be thought of as a series of concentric cylinders rotating around the planet's spin axis, with the outer cylinders - the equatorial regions - rotating faster than the inner cylinders. This is identical to the sun's rotation, Militzer said.
How They Did It …
Militzer modeled Jupiter's interior as a collection of 110 hydrogen and nine helium atoms in a tiny cube that is replicated throughout the planet, a common approximation in "density functional theory."
The ratio of hydrogen to helium atoms approximates the ratio measured on the surface of Jupiter.
Each simulation took from one to seven days on parallel computing clusters.
Based on this simulation, under the high pressure and temperature deep within the planet, hydrogen changes from a molecular to a metallic state, which provides good electrical conductivity and gives rise to Jupiter's magnetic field.
This transition happens gradually, contrary to earlier models that predict a sharp transition.
The new model of Jupiter predicts that most of the ices are concentrated in the outer layer of the core, while only a small amount is mixed in the hydrogen-helium gas envelope that contains 95 percent of the planet's mass.
The "planetary ices" in the envelope amount to about four Earth masses, or 1 percent of Jupiter's mass, Militzer said.
"The simulation was in pretty good agreement with what the Galileo probe measured" when the NASA spacecraft descended through Jupiter's atmosphere in 1995, Hubbard said.
Militzer plans to use the new model to simulate other planets' interiors, and to investigate the implications for the formation of planets outside our solar system.
Future data from NASA's Juno mission, to be launched in 2011, orbit Jupiter by 2016 and measure the planet's magnetic field and gravity, will provide a check on Militzer's predictions. Hubbard is one of the mission's co-investigators.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation supported the research.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Barack Obama reveals two-year plan to create 2.5m jobs
Barack Obama has outlined his plan to create 2.5m jobs in his first two years in office with an ambitious spending programme on roads, schools and and renewable energy.
In his weekly internet address the United States president-elect warned that the US was "facing an economic crisis of historic proportions".
But he suggested he was keen to launch a major two-year spending programme, to "jumpstart job-creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy". He pledged the programme would create 2.5 million jobs by January 2011.
That goal has led to speculation that Obama will try to launch a spending package larger than the $175bn (£118bn) plan he outlined in his election campaign.
Obama said details of the programme were being worked out by his transition team.
"We will put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernising schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels and fuel efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil," he said.
Both Republican and Democrat support would be needed to get the programme approved, he said, but "what is not negotiable is the need for immediate action".
Noting the turmoil on Wall Street, a drop in house sales, rising unemployment and the threat of deflation, he said: "There are no quick or easy fixes to this crisis, which has been many years in the making, and it's likely to get worse before it gets better."
But Obama said his inauguration day on January 20 "is our chance to begin anew".
"We must do more to put people back to work, and get our economy moving again.
"There are Americans showing up to work in the morning only to have cleared out their desks by the afternoon. These Americans need help and they need it now."
Wall Street ended a volatile week with renewed confidence last night, after reports that Obama had chosen Timothy Geithner, the head of the New York Federal Reserve, as his treasury secretary.
The Dow Jones industrial average recorded a 494-point gain on the day as stocks surged by 6.5% to close above the psychologically important 8,000 level at 8046.42. It was still 5% down for the week, however, as worries persisted about the global economic slowdown.
Geithner, 47, has always been a favourite to take the top job and his appointment was expected to be announced by the Obama camp this weekend.
Five Reasons You Should Consider Generating Your Own Green Energy
Over the past six months, oil prices have plunged more than 50 percent, renewable energy company asset values have taken an even bigger dive, and financial institutions have collapsed completely, leading to a worldwide credit crunch.
Is this really the best time for your company to be thinking about generating renewable energy onsite?
Before answering, consider these forecasts by the International Energy Administration (IEA) in its recent World Energy Outlook 2008:
-- Energy is going to get more expensive, with oil reaching $200 per barrel by 2030.
-- Carbon-intensive energy, which comprises well over half of the energy in the United States, is going to get much more expensive-in part due to a cap on carbon that could reach $180 per ton.
-- The price and supply of fossil fuels will continue to be volatile.
In that context, it's clear: Companies can't afford not to think about investing in renewable energy, especially those with high energy-to-raw-material cost ratios, such as firms in agriculture, food processing, metal refining, paper manufacturing, and chemicals.
What follows are five key reasons why you should consider generating renewable energy onsite to power up your business.
Renewable Energy is Beating the Grid
In some regions, the cost of generating onsite renewable energy is already beating electricity bought from the grid. This "grid parity" is currently happening in places like California, Hawaii and Japan, where electricity costs are high and renewable resources are abundant. By 2012, Australia and Italy will likely achieve grid parity, and by 2015 much more of the United States will as well.
Threatened Supply and Hungry Demand Build the Case for Self-Production
Oil production is expanding to regions with increasingly unstable governments and crippling poverty, such as Iran, Russia, and Qatar, which together hold 56 percent of known new oil reserves.
On the demand side, the world is hungrier than ever: Even with the extremely high per-capita oil needs of OECD countries, fully 80 percent of projected new demand is coming from China, India, and the Middle East, while 1.6 billion people around the world still go without any electricity. As for logistics, the bulk of oil moves through international waters where there is growing banditry, such as the $100 million oil tanker heist by Somali pirates that is still unresolved. The result: The fossil fuel supply chain poses tremendous uncertainty on both price and physical delivery.
Carbon Legislation is Pushing Up Costs
Carbon cap-and-trade regulations, in some form or another, are descending on economies around the world. Already underway for several years, the European Union Emission Trading Scheme charges European heavy emitters $21.39 for every ton of carbon above their cap. In October, the U.S. inaugurated its first cap-and-trade program, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which regulates utilities in the Northeast with a cost of $3.07 per ton. Regulation is just around the corner for other parts of the U.S., as well as for China and Canada. The IEA, an energy policy advisor to 28 member countries, predicts that by 2030, the average carbon prices will climb to $90 or even $180 per ton.
In addition to cap-and-trade regulations, low-carbon product standards and border tax adjustments also will put pressure on supply chains and buyer demand. All this means that carbon-intensive energy is a growing liability, whether at your own operations, upstream with suppliers, or downstream with the use of the products you sell.
Incentives for Onsite Renewables Production are Rising
"Feed-in tariffs," which require utilities to connect small, onsite renewable projects to the grid and pay their generators for surplus energy generated, are gaining traction. Countries such as Germany and Spain have adopted such policies successfully, and others like the U.S. (in California) and China are in the midst of implementing and scaling them up.
Creative Finance Options Abound
There are numerous ways to gather the resources to make onsite projects happen. Thanks to the grid, energy service companies can provide some or all of the financing needed. The grid also enables creative partnerships. For example, in partnership with Xcel Energy, Colorado's Aspen Skiing Company recently financed $1.1 million for a 147-kilowatt solar energy array. Of the energy produced, a third goes to a local school, and two-thirds is sold back to the grid, with profits given to Aspen Skiing Company.
There is a good chance you will find financing for onsite renewable energy projects by exploring partnerships with foundations or exploring funding available in carbon markets for carbon-offsets projects.
With the energy crisis likely to outlast the current economic crisis, investing in onsite renewable energy generation can insulate your company from the shocks, scarcity, and rising prices of energy. And with recent political discussions about a "New Green Deal" and a climate change "Manhattan Project," it's even possible that governments will add to or reconfigure the $300 billion in energy subsidies around the world.
So, in response to the question we started with: Is this really the best time for your company to be thinking about generating renewable energy onsite?
Yes, now more than ever.
Is this really the best time for your company to be thinking about generating renewable energy onsite?
Before answering, consider these forecasts by the International Energy Administration (IEA) in its recent World Energy Outlook 2008:
-- Energy is going to get more expensive, with oil reaching $200 per barrel by 2030.
-- Carbon-intensive energy, which comprises well over half of the energy in the United States, is going to get much more expensive-in part due to a cap on carbon that could reach $180 per ton.
-- The price and supply of fossil fuels will continue to be volatile.
In that context, it's clear: Companies can't afford not to think about investing in renewable energy, especially those with high energy-to-raw-material cost ratios, such as firms in agriculture, food processing, metal refining, paper manufacturing, and chemicals.
What follows are five key reasons why you should consider generating renewable energy onsite to power up your business.
Renewable Energy is Beating the Grid
In some regions, the cost of generating onsite renewable energy is already beating electricity bought from the grid. This "grid parity" is currently happening in places like California, Hawaii and Japan, where electricity costs are high and renewable resources are abundant. By 2012, Australia and Italy will likely achieve grid parity, and by 2015 much more of the United States will as well.
Threatened Supply and Hungry Demand Build the Case for Self-Production
Oil production is expanding to regions with increasingly unstable governments and crippling poverty, such as Iran, Russia, and Qatar, which together hold 56 percent of known new oil reserves.
On the demand side, the world is hungrier than ever: Even with the extremely high per-capita oil needs of OECD countries, fully 80 percent of projected new demand is coming from China, India, and the Middle East, while 1.6 billion people around the world still go without any electricity. As for logistics, the bulk of oil moves through international waters where there is growing banditry, such as the $100 million oil tanker heist by Somali pirates that is still unresolved. The result: The fossil fuel supply chain poses tremendous uncertainty on both price and physical delivery.
Carbon Legislation is Pushing Up Costs
Carbon cap-and-trade regulations, in some form or another, are descending on economies around the world. Already underway for several years, the European Union Emission Trading Scheme charges European heavy emitters $21.39 for every ton of carbon above their cap. In October, the U.S. inaugurated its first cap-and-trade program, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which regulates utilities in the Northeast with a cost of $3.07 per ton. Regulation is just around the corner for other parts of the U.S., as well as for China and Canada. The IEA, an energy policy advisor to 28 member countries, predicts that by 2030, the average carbon prices will climb to $90 or even $180 per ton.
In addition to cap-and-trade regulations, low-carbon product standards and border tax adjustments also will put pressure on supply chains and buyer demand. All this means that carbon-intensive energy is a growing liability, whether at your own operations, upstream with suppliers, or downstream with the use of the products you sell.
Incentives for Onsite Renewables Production are Rising
"Feed-in tariffs," which require utilities to connect small, onsite renewable projects to the grid and pay their generators for surplus energy generated, are gaining traction. Countries such as Germany and Spain have adopted such policies successfully, and others like the U.S. (in California) and China are in the midst of implementing and scaling them up.
Creative Finance Options Abound
There are numerous ways to gather the resources to make onsite projects happen. Thanks to the grid, energy service companies can provide some or all of the financing needed. The grid also enables creative partnerships. For example, in partnership with Xcel Energy, Colorado's Aspen Skiing Company recently financed $1.1 million for a 147-kilowatt solar energy array. Of the energy produced, a third goes to a local school, and two-thirds is sold back to the grid, with profits given to Aspen Skiing Company.
There is a good chance you will find financing for onsite renewable energy projects by exploring partnerships with foundations or exploring funding available in carbon markets for carbon-offsets projects.
With the energy crisis likely to outlast the current economic crisis, investing in onsite renewable energy generation can insulate your company from the shocks, scarcity, and rising prices of energy. And with recent political discussions about a "New Green Deal" and a climate change "Manhattan Project," it's even possible that governments will add to or reconfigure the $300 billion in energy subsidies around the world.
So, in response to the question we started with: Is this really the best time for your company to be thinking about generating renewable energy onsite?
Yes, now more than ever.
Global warming will help Russian economy – US intelligence
Global climate change is supposed to contribute to Russian economy, according to Michael McConnell, director of US national intelligence. The US National Security Council has published a 100-page report titled ‘Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World’ that takes a long-term view of the future.
It is said in the document that by 2025 Russia’s profit from the rising temperatures on the Earth will be the largest of all the countries. One of the reasons is the expected lengthening of the sowing term, but the key factor would be an easier access to oil and gas fields in Siberia and in the North, including the Arctic shelf. This will be a great success for the Russian economy, according to the NSC report, and the Arctic waterway would also open huge prospects for Russia.
However, the authors of the study warn of the possible threats: the infrastructure of Russia’s Arctic territories may be destroyed, and also new technologies may be needed to exploit fuel fields in the area.
The report also noted that by 2025 China was likely to have the world's second largest economy, emerge as a major military power, be the largest importer of natural resources and the largest contributor to world pollution. India will have either the third or second largest economy and will press to become "one of the significant poles of this new world". As for Russia, it would also be part of that group, but only if it expanded and diversified its economy and then integrated into the world global economy, said McConnell.
It is said in the document that by 2025 Russia’s profit from the rising temperatures on the Earth will be the largest of all the countries. One of the reasons is the expected lengthening of the sowing term, but the key factor would be an easier access to oil and gas fields in Siberia and in the North, including the Arctic shelf. This will be a great success for the Russian economy, according to the NSC report, and the Arctic waterway would also open huge prospects for Russia.
However, the authors of the study warn of the possible threats: the infrastructure of Russia’s Arctic territories may be destroyed, and also new technologies may be needed to exploit fuel fields in the area.
The report also noted that by 2025 China was likely to have the world's second largest economy, emerge as a major military power, be the largest importer of natural resources and the largest contributor to world pollution. India will have either the third or second largest economy and will press to become "one of the significant poles of this new world". As for Russia, it would also be part of that group, but only if it expanded and diversified its economy and then integrated into the world global economy, said McConnell.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Patrik Stefan Missing an Open Net
Not only does he miss an open net to win the game, everyone is so surprised by his miss that the other team easily scores with 4 seconds left in regulation. On the embarrassing scale, that ranks right up there with "Not being able to get it up for a prostitute who's actually an undercover NBC reporter taping a special."
e=mc2: 103 years later, Einstein's proven right
PARIS (AFP) – It's taken more than a century, but Einstein's celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.
A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.
According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons.
The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?
The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons.
In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.
The e=mc2 formula shows that mass can be converted into energy, and energy can be converted into mass.
By showing how much energy would be released if a certain amount of mass were to be converted into energy, the equation has been used many times, most famously as the inspirational basis for building atomic weapons.
But resolving e=mc2 at the scale of sub-atomic particles -- in equations called quantum chromodynamics -- has been fiendishly difficult.
"Until now, this has been a hypothesis," France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said proudly in a press release.
"It has now been corroborated for the first time."
For those keen to know more: the computations involve "envisioning space and time as part of a four-dimensional crystal lattice, with discrete points spaced along columns and rows."
A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.
According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons.
The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?
The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons.
In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.
The e=mc2 formula shows that mass can be converted into energy, and energy can be converted into mass.
By showing how much energy would be released if a certain amount of mass were to be converted into energy, the equation has been used many times, most famously as the inspirational basis for building atomic weapons.
But resolving e=mc2 at the scale of sub-atomic particles -- in equations called quantum chromodynamics -- has been fiendishly difficult.
"Until now, this has been a hypothesis," France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said proudly in a press release.
"It has now been corroborated for the first time."
For those keen to know more: the computations involve "envisioning space and time as part of a four-dimensional crystal lattice, with discrete points spaced along columns and rows."
Thursday, November 20, 2008
US teen lives 118 days without heart
MIAMI, Nov 19 (Reuters) - An American teen-ager survived for nearly four months without a heart, kept alive by a custom-built artificial blood-pumping device, until she was able to have a heart transplant, doctors in Miami said on Wednesday.
The doctors said they knew of another case in which an adult had been kept alive in Germany for nine months without a heart but said they believed this was the first time a child had survived in this manner for so long.
The patient, D'Zhana Simmons of South Carolina, said the experience of living for so long with a machine pumping her blood was "scary."
"You never knew when it would malfunction," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, at a news conference at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center.
"It was like I was a fake person, like I didn't really exist. I was just here," she said of living without a heart.
Simmons, 14, suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the patient's heart becomes weakened and enlarged and does not pump blood efficiently.
She had a heart transplant on July 2 at Miami's Holtz Children's Hospital but the new heart failed to function properly and was quickly removed.
Two heart pumps made by Thoratec Corp (THOR.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) of Pleasanton, California, were implanted to keep her blood flowing while she fought a host of ailments and recovered her strength. Doctors implanted another heart on Oct. 29.
"She essentially lived for 118 days without a heart, with her circulation supported only by the two blood pumps," said Dr. Marco Ricci, the hospital's director of pediatric cardiac surgery. During that time, Simmons was mobile but remained hospitalized.
When an artificial heart is used to sustain a patient, the patient's own heart is usually left in the body, doctors said.
In some cases, adult patients have been kept alive that way for more than a year, they said.
"This, we believe, is the first pediatric patient who has received such a device in this configuration without the heart, and possibly one of the youngest that has ... been bridged to transplantation without her native heart," Ricci said.
Simmons also suffered renal failure and had a kidney transplant the day after the second heart transplant.
Ricci said her prognosis was good. But doctors said there is a 50 percent chance that a heart transplant patient will need a new heart 12 or 13 years after the first surgery.
The doctors said they knew of another case in which an adult had been kept alive in Germany for nine months without a heart but said they believed this was the first time a child had survived in this manner for so long.
The patient, D'Zhana Simmons of South Carolina, said the experience of living for so long with a machine pumping her blood was "scary."
"You never knew when it would malfunction," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, at a news conference at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center.
"It was like I was a fake person, like I didn't really exist. I was just here," she said of living without a heart.
Simmons, 14, suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the patient's heart becomes weakened and enlarged and does not pump blood efficiently.
She had a heart transplant on July 2 at Miami's Holtz Children's Hospital but the new heart failed to function properly and was quickly removed.
Two heart pumps made by Thoratec Corp (THOR.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) of Pleasanton, California, were implanted to keep her blood flowing while she fought a host of ailments and recovered her strength. Doctors implanted another heart on Oct. 29.
"She essentially lived for 118 days without a heart, with her circulation supported only by the two blood pumps," said Dr. Marco Ricci, the hospital's director of pediatric cardiac surgery. During that time, Simmons was mobile but remained hospitalized.
When an artificial heart is used to sustain a patient, the patient's own heart is usually left in the body, doctors said.
In some cases, adult patients have been kept alive that way for more than a year, they said.
"This, we believe, is the first pediatric patient who has received such a device in this configuration without the heart, and possibly one of the youngest that has ... been bridged to transplantation without her native heart," Ricci said.
Simmons also suffered renal failure and had a kidney transplant the day after the second heart transplant.
Ricci said her prognosis was good. But doctors said there is a 50 percent chance that a heart transplant patient will need a new heart 12 or 13 years after the first surgery.
Australian Sex Party launches on Thursday
SEX sells, and the newly formed Australian Sex Party knows it.
That's why, even with what seem to be sensible policies rooted in a desire to make sexuality and discussions about it less touchy subjects, the party has chosen a name that stands out from the traditional ballot paper line-up.
The party, with the slogan "we're serious about sex", launches at Melbourne Sexpo on November 20th and party convenor Fiona Patten is confident it will gain the 500 members required to register and contest state Upper House and Senate seats.
Ms Patten, who is also the chief executive of the Eros Association - representing the adult retail and entertainment industry, said she and others were concerned about the Government's proposed internet filter, which is being tested over summer on about 10,000 sites to block "unwanted content".
"This really came out of 20 years of lobbying on sex and censorship and then... the latest being the compulsory internet filter, which will ... prohibit and blacklist adult material that is currently legal in magazines, books and film," she said.
"When we started talking about the Australian Sex Party, we realised that sex is a lot broader than just censorship and a lot of the policies are a lot broader."
Also on the party's list of policies, to be announced at the launch, is a national sex education school curriculum.
"With the internet and the fear that children are being sexualised at an early age, the first key action on that will be sex education," Ms Patten said.
"Other countries such as the UK are introducing a national curriculum and we think we should follow that."
The party would also look to overturn rules under which overseas aid was not given to health clinics that were pro-choice, she said.
The party's provocative and potentially alienating name was a decision the group wrestled with, Ms Patten said.
"We felt that - sex in a crowded room - now we've got your attention. It's half the problem with politicians, because they still giggle when they say the word sex, and that's why we have such idiotic policies at state and federal levels," she said.
"Let's try and own that word on most government forms."
Ms Patten said there had already been a lot of interest from potential members.
"We'll probably have our 500 members by the time we launch on Thursday. But there's four million customers of adult shops in Australia."
She also hoped the 1000 or so adult shops around the country would become Sex Party branches.
"Hopefully we'll get their attention with the word but then we may be able to help influence some reasonably sensible policies."
That's why, even with what seem to be sensible policies rooted in a desire to make sexuality and discussions about it less touchy subjects, the party has chosen a name that stands out from the traditional ballot paper line-up.
The party, with the slogan "we're serious about sex", launches at Melbourne Sexpo on November 20th and party convenor Fiona Patten is confident it will gain the 500 members required to register and contest state Upper House and Senate seats.
Ms Patten, who is also the chief executive of the Eros Association - representing the adult retail and entertainment industry, said she and others were concerned about the Government's proposed internet filter, which is being tested over summer on about 10,000 sites to block "unwanted content".
"This really came out of 20 years of lobbying on sex and censorship and then... the latest being the compulsory internet filter, which will ... prohibit and blacklist adult material that is currently legal in magazines, books and film," she said.
"When we started talking about the Australian Sex Party, we realised that sex is a lot broader than just censorship and a lot of the policies are a lot broader."
Also on the party's list of policies, to be announced at the launch, is a national sex education school curriculum.
"With the internet and the fear that children are being sexualised at an early age, the first key action on that will be sex education," Ms Patten said.
"Other countries such as the UK are introducing a national curriculum and we think we should follow that."
The party would also look to overturn rules under which overseas aid was not given to health clinics that were pro-choice, she said.
The party's provocative and potentially alienating name was a decision the group wrestled with, Ms Patten said.
"We felt that - sex in a crowded room - now we've got your attention. It's half the problem with politicians, because they still giggle when they say the word sex, and that's why we have such idiotic policies at state and federal levels," she said.
"Let's try and own that word on most government forms."
Ms Patten said there had already been a lot of interest from potential members.
"We'll probably have our 500 members by the time we launch on Thursday. But there's four million customers of adult shops in Australia."
She also hoped the 1000 or so adult shops around the country would become Sex Party branches.
"Hopefully we'll get their attention with the word but then we may be able to help influence some reasonably sensible policies."
Monday, November 17, 2008
As Finland Builds Another Nuclear Plant, a Remote City Flourishes
RAUMA, Finland — The cafe where Paivi Alanko-Rehelma serves coffee and smoked fish stands practically in the shadow of a sprawling building site on the island of Olkiluoto where Finland is erecting a nuclear power plant, the island’s third, and Finland’s fifth in the last 30 years.
Like many of her neighbors who have grown accustomed to nuclear energy, Ms. Alanko-Rehelma picks no bones with the new reactor. “It’s now safe, it saves nature, it’s cheaper,” she said, pouring a visitor a steaming cup of coffee.
No one is certain when the plant, which has been plagued by construction delays, will be finished. But whenever it does go into operation, the reactor will be a new cog in the works of Finland’s national energy policy, which seeks to diversify the country’s sources of energy and reduce its historical reliance on Russia for cheap electricity.
The plant is also part of a global trend, as nuclear power’s prospects rise amid concerns about the warming effect of carbon dioxide emissions to generate electricity.
The Finns are going first class, building what is called a European Pressurized Reactor, the world’s latest model, which is billed as the safest and most powerful nuclear reactor ever designed. It is the product of a consortium of French and German engineering companies.
It is not as if anyone around this wooded region a three-hour drive northwest of Helsinki is marching in protest, spraying antinuclear graffiti or hampering construction work. To the contrary, the construction of the power plant is producing a modest economic boom.
Take this port city of pastel-colored wooden homes about 10 miles south of Olkiluoto. The nearly 4,000 migrant laborers from more than 30 countries, including Poland and Estonia, working at the new power plant have lifted business in stores in downtown Rauma and made possible the opening last year of two new shopping malls on the edge of town.
Local building contractors have been buoyed by orders to carry out some of the reactor work. Moreover, taxes paid by the migrant workers and French and German engineers who have come to the city bring in more than $2.5 million a year.
“A journalist called recently from Helsinki to ask how much longer we can delay completion of the reactor,” Jaakko Hirvonsalo, managing director of the local chamber of commerce, said with a laugh. “Locally, we’re doing well.”
The delays, however, were no joke; parts of the huge reactor shield, now about 90 feet high, had to be dismantled and rebuilt because of faulty welding and poor cement work. The Finns blame the delays on the French reactor builder, Areva, which subcontracted work to Polish companies to cut costs.
The French and their German partners blame the Finns for the delays, pointing to the glacial pace of construction reviews by the Finnish nuclear safety authority. Wherever the blame truly lies, the reactor’s start-up date has been pushed back by at least two years, to 2011, and the estimated cost increased to nearly $6 billion from an original $3.8 billion.
Now, the French are seeking the help of a Swedish arbitrator to settle their differences with the Finns. As for the delay, “It’s not a race,” said Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier, a spokesman for Areva in Paris. “Don’t forget, it will operate for 60 years.”
Yet he acknowledged that, in some ways, Olkiluoto was a test, since it was the first attempt to build a pressurized water reactor. “It’s the first of its kind,” he said. “You cannot go into a hangar and make a model to test. And yet you have to have a test.”
Beneath the surface, people in Rauma are weighing the costs and benefits. And not all are happy with the result.
“As long as everything is O.K., it’s O.K., but there are problems and risks,” said Janne Koski, director of the city’s art museum, which sponsors regular exhibitions of art from the Baltic region. Asked whether people ignored the risks because of the benefits, he replied: “That is not exactly so. Of course, many people are working there, at the reactor site. It’s about economy and finance.”
Not that Rauma is in dire need of economic stimulus. The city has a thriving shipbuilding industry and paper mills, and several large wood processing companies, a Finnish specialty, have factories here. Large foreign investments have been attracted in recent years from South Korea and Australia.
Rauma has never had an accident like that at Chernobyl, almost 900 miles to the southeast in Northern Ukraine, but even people who are most comfortable with nuclear reactors acknowledge that they affect the environment.
Ms. Alanko-Rehelma, whose husband operates two fishing boats in the waters around the reactors, said that their cooling systems warm the water near Olkiluoto island.
“That is not good for some kinds of fish,” she said. “But good for others, like trout.”
The only large-scale resistance to nuclear energy in Finland comes from Greenpeace, which cites the hazard of radioactivity and the siphoning of money from investment in alternative carbon-free energy sources, like wind, sun and tides.
“It’s far too risky and hazardous,” Lauri Myllyvirta, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said by phone from Helsinki.
The United Nations lists Rauma as a World Heritage site because of its large stock of charming 17th- and 18th-century wooden homes. The World Heritage designation is meant to help preserve historic sites, though income from tourism remains meager, Mr. Miettinen said.
“It’s mostly Finns, and some from Germany and Italy,” he said. But he did not think it was the cluster of nuclear power plants that was keeping people away. “A great many people think nuclear energy is good for Rauma and its industry,” he said.
The first nuclear reactors at Olkiluoto are now about 30 years old, said Pasi Katajamaki, editor of the local newspaper, Lansi Suomi. “We’re very used to it,” he said. ‘’When you have something near you, you simply grow accustomed to it.”
Like many of her neighbors who have grown accustomed to nuclear energy, Ms. Alanko-Rehelma picks no bones with the new reactor. “It’s now safe, it saves nature, it’s cheaper,” she said, pouring a visitor a steaming cup of coffee.
No one is certain when the plant, which has been plagued by construction delays, will be finished. But whenever it does go into operation, the reactor will be a new cog in the works of Finland’s national energy policy, which seeks to diversify the country’s sources of energy and reduce its historical reliance on Russia for cheap electricity.
The plant is also part of a global trend, as nuclear power’s prospects rise amid concerns about the warming effect of carbon dioxide emissions to generate electricity.
The Finns are going first class, building what is called a European Pressurized Reactor, the world’s latest model, which is billed as the safest and most powerful nuclear reactor ever designed. It is the product of a consortium of French and German engineering companies.
It is not as if anyone around this wooded region a three-hour drive northwest of Helsinki is marching in protest, spraying antinuclear graffiti or hampering construction work. To the contrary, the construction of the power plant is producing a modest economic boom.
Take this port city of pastel-colored wooden homes about 10 miles south of Olkiluoto. The nearly 4,000 migrant laborers from more than 30 countries, including Poland and Estonia, working at the new power plant have lifted business in stores in downtown Rauma and made possible the opening last year of two new shopping malls on the edge of town.
Local building contractors have been buoyed by orders to carry out some of the reactor work. Moreover, taxes paid by the migrant workers and French and German engineers who have come to the city bring in more than $2.5 million a year.
“A journalist called recently from Helsinki to ask how much longer we can delay completion of the reactor,” Jaakko Hirvonsalo, managing director of the local chamber of commerce, said with a laugh. “Locally, we’re doing well.”
The delays, however, were no joke; parts of the huge reactor shield, now about 90 feet high, had to be dismantled and rebuilt because of faulty welding and poor cement work. The Finns blame the delays on the French reactor builder, Areva, which subcontracted work to Polish companies to cut costs.
The French and their German partners blame the Finns for the delays, pointing to the glacial pace of construction reviews by the Finnish nuclear safety authority. Wherever the blame truly lies, the reactor’s start-up date has been pushed back by at least two years, to 2011, and the estimated cost increased to nearly $6 billion from an original $3.8 billion.
Now, the French are seeking the help of a Swedish arbitrator to settle their differences with the Finns. As for the delay, “It’s not a race,” said Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier, a spokesman for Areva in Paris. “Don’t forget, it will operate for 60 years.”
Yet he acknowledged that, in some ways, Olkiluoto was a test, since it was the first attempt to build a pressurized water reactor. “It’s the first of its kind,” he said. “You cannot go into a hangar and make a model to test. And yet you have to have a test.”
Beneath the surface, people in Rauma are weighing the costs and benefits. And not all are happy with the result.
“As long as everything is O.K., it’s O.K., but there are problems and risks,” said Janne Koski, director of the city’s art museum, which sponsors regular exhibitions of art from the Baltic region. Asked whether people ignored the risks because of the benefits, he replied: “That is not exactly so. Of course, many people are working there, at the reactor site. It’s about economy and finance.”
Not that Rauma is in dire need of economic stimulus. The city has a thriving shipbuilding industry and paper mills, and several large wood processing companies, a Finnish specialty, have factories here. Large foreign investments have been attracted in recent years from South Korea and Australia.
Rauma has never had an accident like that at Chernobyl, almost 900 miles to the southeast in Northern Ukraine, but even people who are most comfortable with nuclear reactors acknowledge that they affect the environment.
Ms. Alanko-Rehelma, whose husband operates two fishing boats in the waters around the reactors, said that their cooling systems warm the water near Olkiluoto island.
“That is not good for some kinds of fish,” she said. “But good for others, like trout.”
The only large-scale resistance to nuclear energy in Finland comes from Greenpeace, which cites the hazard of radioactivity and the siphoning of money from investment in alternative carbon-free energy sources, like wind, sun and tides.
“It’s far too risky and hazardous,” Lauri Myllyvirta, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said by phone from Helsinki.
The United Nations lists Rauma as a World Heritage site because of its large stock of charming 17th- and 18th-century wooden homes. The World Heritage designation is meant to help preserve historic sites, though income from tourism remains meager, Mr. Miettinen said.
“It’s mostly Finns, and some from Germany and Italy,” he said. But he did not think it was the cluster of nuclear power plants that was keeping people away. “A great many people think nuclear energy is good for Rauma and its industry,” he said.
The first nuclear reactors at Olkiluoto are now about 30 years old, said Pasi Katajamaki, editor of the local newspaper, Lansi Suomi. “We’re very used to it,” he said. ‘’When you have something near you, you simply grow accustomed to it.”
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Astronauts drink there own urine ?
So astronauts on the International Space Station have to recapture every possible drop. That includes water evaporated from showers, shaving, tooth brushing and hand washing, plus perspiration and water vapor that collects within the astronauts' space suits. They even transfer water from the fuel cells that provide electric power to the space shuttle.
Until now, however, NASA has not attempted to tap one major potential source of water: urine. That will soon change with the deployment of the new Water Recovery System. It departs Friday, Nov. 14, from the Kennedy Space Center on the Space Shuttle Endeavor.
The Water Recovery System, made possible in part by researchers at Michigan Technological University, can transform ordinary pee into water so pure it rivals the cleanest on Earth.
David Hand was the lead researcher on the project, which ran from 1993 to 1997 at Tech. It was a memorable time. "We received jars of sweat from NASA," he said. "Then we did experiments on the system, measured it at every step, evaluated it and made recommendations."
Under the new system, urine undergoes an initial distillation process and then joins the rest of the recovered fluids in the water processor. The processor filters out solids such as hair and lint and then sends the wastewater through a series of multifiltration beds, in which contaminants are removed through adsorption and ion exchange.
"What's left over in the water are a few non adsorbing organics and solvents, like nail polish remover, and they go into a reactor that breaks them all down to carbon dioxide, water and a few ions," said Hand, a professor of civil and environmental engineering.
After a final check for microbes, the water is again clean and ready to drink.
NASA's Layne Carter, the Water Recovery System lead engineer at Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Ala., credits Hand and the rest of the Tech research team with making the system as good as it is. "Without a doubt, if it hadn't been for their modeling effort, we never would have been able to redesign the multifiltration beds and achieve that level of efficiency," Carter said. "They did a fantastic job."
Using mathematical models, the Tech researchers helped improve the overall design of the multifiltration beds, The redesigned beds have 30 percent more capacity, which means that NASA doesn't have to send about 60 pounds of additional supplies up to the space station annually. "That may seem trivial, but it saves NASA about $600,000 each year"
NASA's saving money.. he he
Until now, however, NASA has not attempted to tap one major potential source of water: urine. That will soon change with the deployment of the new Water Recovery System. It departs Friday, Nov. 14, from the Kennedy Space Center on the Space Shuttle Endeavor.
The Water Recovery System, made possible in part by researchers at Michigan Technological University, can transform ordinary pee into water so pure it rivals the cleanest on Earth.
David Hand was the lead researcher on the project, which ran from 1993 to 1997 at Tech. It was a memorable time. "We received jars of sweat from NASA," he said. "Then we did experiments on the system, measured it at every step, evaluated it and made recommendations."
Under the new system, urine undergoes an initial distillation process and then joins the rest of the recovered fluids in the water processor. The processor filters out solids such as hair and lint and then sends the wastewater through a series of multifiltration beds, in which contaminants are removed through adsorption and ion exchange.
"What's left over in the water are a few non adsorbing organics and solvents, like nail polish remover, and they go into a reactor that breaks them all down to carbon dioxide, water and a few ions," said Hand, a professor of civil and environmental engineering.
After a final check for microbes, the water is again clean and ready to drink.
NASA's Layne Carter, the Water Recovery System lead engineer at Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Ala., credits Hand and the rest of the Tech research team with making the system as good as it is. "Without a doubt, if it hadn't been for their modeling effort, we never would have been able to redesign the multifiltration beds and achieve that level of efficiency," Carter said. "They did a fantastic job."
Using mathematical models, the Tech researchers helped improve the overall design of the multifiltration beds, The redesigned beds have 30 percent more capacity, which means that NASA doesn't have to send about 60 pounds of additional supplies up to the space station annually. "That may seem trivial, but it saves NASA about $600,000 each year"
NASA's saving money.. he he
Gag order issued in double homicide case against 8-year-old
ST. JOHNS - With last weeks double homicide capturing headlines across the nation, Apache County Superior Court Judge Michael Roca brought most of it to an end Monday by issuing a gag order in the criminal proceedings against an 8-year-old boy accused of killing his father and another man.
The gag order was processed and issued Monday morning while several hundred mourners filled St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, inside and out, to pay their final respects to Vincent Romero, 29, who died last Wednesday from gunshot wounds allegedly inflicted by his son.
The gag order directs all those involved in prosecuting or defending the case, law enforcement, child protective services, probation and detention agencies, and the attorney general's office, "... cease immediately from disseminating any information, views, predictions or commentary regarding this case." Roca said he believed the gag order was necessary because he is also hearing a custody matter concerning the boy and he doesn't want the case contaminated with inaccurate rumor and speculation.
Roca allowed two attorneys who represent news organizations in the Phoenix area to participate telephonically in a Monday afternoon status hearing. Attorneys Daniel Barr with Phoenix law firm Perkins Coie Brown & Bain, and David Bodney with Steptoe & Johnson, asked the judge on behalf of their media clients to reconsider and modify the gag order believing the order "swept too broadly."
"One of my concerns has to do with the potential contamination of the dependency proceedings by essentially loose cannon pronouncements by various individuals quoted at length and in detail and with a substantial lack of accuracy as far as what is happening and what is going to happen and their effect on those dependency proceedings," said Roca. "I was surprised this morning to find that the proceedings in this court were being described inaccurately on National Public Radio, if you can believe it, by way of quoting The Today Show."
St. Johns Police Chief Roy Melnick appeared on The Today Show in a live interview Monday morning with show host Meredith Vieira.
After listening to the attorneys present their opinions on why the judge should reconsider the gag order, Roca told them the order will stay in place as written. He said if they want to further pursue the matter, they can submit their motions in writing for his future consideration.
The court's attention then turned to other matters concerning the 8-year-old. Roca clarified his earlier order for a psychological evaluation, "...a comprehensive evaluation, both competency and mental state at the time of the events in question."
The 8-year-old was in the courtroom throughout the proceedings, seated between attorney Benjamin Brewer and mother Eryn Thomas. Thomas and Romero were divorced; Romero had full custody of his son. Thomas lives in Mississippi and flew in the day after the homicides to be near her son.
Romero and his co-worker and border Tim Romans were found dead at the family home last Wednesday afternoon.
Twenty-four hours later, police believed they had solved the case and arrested the 8-year-old. He has since been charged with two counts of premeditated murder in the county's juvenile division.
In news reports, Brewer has said police overstepped their boundaries in interviewing the third-grader, not allowing him legal representation or a parent to be present when they interviewed him last Thursday morning. During a Friday detention hearing, police said they originally thought the boy was a victim - that he had returned home after school and found his father and Romans dead. They said it wasn't until over 90 percent of the interview was finished that they realized they didn't have a victim, but instead they had a suspect. Police said during the interview, the boy admitted to having fired the gun that killed the two men.
"He had no record of any kind, not even a disciplinary record at school," Carlyon said of the boy in a Friday press release. "He has never been in trouble before."
In the Friday detention hearing, Roca ruled that probable cause existed to believe the boy committed the crimes he is charged with. He also ruled that the boy remain in the detention facility pending further proceedings.
Boy, 8, accused of killing two
- Posted 11/11/2008, 6:00 a.m.
ST. JOHNS - Rocked by a double murder in their small close-knit community last Wednesday afternoon, the residents of St. Johns have only one question on their minds. Why would an eight-year-old boy allegedly kill two men, one of whom was his father?
The 8-year-old was charged on Friday with two counts of first degree murder. The charges allege the boy acted with premeditation to kill his father, Vincent Romero, 29, of St. Johns, and his friend and boarder, Tim Romans, 39, of San Carlos.
Dressed in a jail-issued orange jumpsuit, shackle chains dragging on the floor, the youngster was led into the courtroom by detention officials for the 3 p.m. Friday hearing where a judge was to decide if the 8-year-old should remain in custody or be released to family members. Sitting next to his attorney at the table reserved for defendants, in a chair normally occupied by an adult, the youngster's feet didn't touch the floor.
After working through some procedural issues with the attorneys, superior court Judge Michael Rocca read the youngster his Miranda rights, putting the very specific legal verbiage into words the 8-year-old could understand. "The charges against you, as I've indicated, are very serious," Rocca told the boy. "There is a request that you be detained in the juvenile detention facility, down on Main Street, during the remainder of these proceedings. The hearing today is to determine whether or not it is reasonable to believe you did what you are charged with - not sufficient proof to hold you responsible, but reason to believe and be concerned that you have done what you are charged with." When Rocca asked the young defendant if he understood what he had just heard, the boy indicated he did.
With that, the judge called on Prosecutor Brad Carlyon to call his witnesses. He first called St. Johns Detective Debbie Neckel to the stand. She said she and St. Johns Sgt. Lucas Rodriquez were first to arrive at the Romero residence that afternoon, having been dispatched to investigate a report of a body. She said upon arrival at the two-story home, she saw what appeared to be a man's body lying on the front porch. While Neckel stayed outside with a couple neighbors and the 8-year-old boy she later learned lived in the house, Rodriguez entered the home to clear it of any additional subjects. She said Rodriquez located a second deceased male on the stairs inside the home.
In response to questions from Carlyon, Neckel said she and Apache County Sheriff's Cmdr. Matrese Avila interviewed the youngster the following morning. She said the boy initially told them he got off the school bus and walked around the neighborhood before going home. As he approached the home, he told the officers he saw a body on the front porch and then went inside and called for his dad before seeing his dad's body lying on the stairs. "He said he stayed there for 30 minutes and then he left the residence and went to a neighbor's house where there is another young man. He spoke to him and told him his father was dead and his father's friend was dead," said Neckel.
She said the boy's story changed with every question the officers asked. She said they discussed gun shot residue in words the youngster could understand, and they asked him if he would have any on his clothing - the boy acknowledged that he may have some on his clothing. "He said when he entered the house there was a lot of smoke in the house. He also told us that he did pick up the gun, and that the smoke would have caused (residue) to be on his clothing. We asked if he would have a little or a lot, he said a lot." She said he then admitted that he may have fired the gun.
"Did you ask him if he might have been mad at his dad," asked Carlyon. Neckel said the boy admitted he was mad at his dad. "He said that the evening before, he didn't bring some papers home from school and his dad was very angry and had (the boy's) stepmother spank him five swats."
Defense attorney Ben Brewer further questioned the officer about the crime scene - much of his questioning concerned what individuals were at the crime scene, what were they doing there, and how the crime scene evidence was collected. Neckel named the officers who she was aware entered the home. She told Brewer that all of the evidence from the crime scene was collected by Arizona Department of Public Safety crime lab technicians.
Neckel said neither she nor Avila, a certified forensic interviewer, read the boy his Miranda rights. "We felt he was a victim. I would say that in 90 percent of that interview I felt he was a victim." She said it was just in the last few minutes of their conversation with the boy that she and Avila began to believe the boy was not a victim, but something different.
Carlyon next called Sgt. Rodriquez to the stand. He told the court he observed the body on the front porch and believed the person (Romans) was dead. He said he entered the home, quickly searched it for any additional subjects and found a second dead body (Romero) laying face down on the stairs. Carlyon handed the witness several crime scene photographs from which he asked a series of questions concerning the exact location of the bodies, shell casings and other evidence the officer noticed at the scene. Rodriquez said from the shell casings he found near the bodies, he believed the murder weapon was a 22-caliber weapon. Police later located a 22-caliber rifle a couple feet inside the front door - he described the rifle as a single-shot bolt-action rifle. In talking to the boy's grandmother, he said he learned she had originally purchased the gun for her son, and he in turn gave it to his son. "She said (her grandson) knew how to use it." Rodriquez said he learned the Romero family members were hunters and had many guns in the home, mostly stored in the master bedroom.
As to who may have called 911, Rodriquez said he understood the 8-year-old went to his friend's home nearby and told the friend his dad and his dad's friend were dead. Rodriquez believes the friend told the story to a teenage sibling who in turn called their father at work. The father returned home within minutes, saw what appeared to be a body on the front porch of the Romero home and called 911.
Rodriquez admitted it was difficult to talk about some of the things he saw that afternoon at the Romero home.
The final officer to take the stand was Apache County Sheriff's Sgt. Web Hogle. He said his involvement occurred the following day when he relieved another deputy who had retained the chain of custody of the bodies throughout the night at a nearby funeral home. He testified that although the bodies were still fully clothed, he was able to observe what appeared to be 22-caliber pin-point size holes in several locations on their clothing.
Hogle said several members of the Romans family arrived at the funeral home while he was there. He pulled a couple family members aside in an attempt to calm them down, and it was during that time that Romans' wife said her husband called her right after he got home from work. While discussing work and other topics with her husband, she told the officer she could hear the 8-year-old boy in the background yelling at her husband, "Tim, I need you to come in here, something's wrong with dad. Tim, come in the house, something's wrong." Hogel said Ms. Romans insisted the officers talk to the youngster - "He knows something; he was there when something bad happened to my husband. Make sure that they talk to him about this." Ms. Romans said the last thing her husband said to her was that the Romero youngster said something was wrong and he needed to go look into it.
After 4-1/2 hours of testimony, Rocca said he found probable cause that the boy was involved in the crimes he is charged with and ordered that he be detained in the Apache County juvenile detention center for the time being. He ordered a psychiatric evaluation be initiated and requested that child protective services begin an investigation with an eye to future dependency hearings.
The gag order was processed and issued Monday morning while several hundred mourners filled St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, inside and out, to pay their final respects to Vincent Romero, 29, who died last Wednesday from gunshot wounds allegedly inflicted by his son.
The gag order directs all those involved in prosecuting or defending the case, law enforcement, child protective services, probation and detention agencies, and the attorney general's office, "... cease immediately from disseminating any information, views, predictions or commentary regarding this case." Roca said he believed the gag order was necessary because he is also hearing a custody matter concerning the boy and he doesn't want the case contaminated with inaccurate rumor and speculation.
Roca allowed two attorneys who represent news organizations in the Phoenix area to participate telephonically in a Monday afternoon status hearing. Attorneys Daniel Barr with Phoenix law firm Perkins Coie Brown & Bain, and David Bodney with Steptoe & Johnson, asked the judge on behalf of their media clients to reconsider and modify the gag order believing the order "swept too broadly."
"One of my concerns has to do with the potential contamination of the dependency proceedings by essentially loose cannon pronouncements by various individuals quoted at length and in detail and with a substantial lack of accuracy as far as what is happening and what is going to happen and their effect on those dependency proceedings," said Roca. "I was surprised this morning to find that the proceedings in this court were being described inaccurately on National Public Radio, if you can believe it, by way of quoting The Today Show."
St. Johns Police Chief Roy Melnick appeared on The Today Show in a live interview Monday morning with show host Meredith Vieira.
After listening to the attorneys present their opinions on why the judge should reconsider the gag order, Roca told them the order will stay in place as written. He said if they want to further pursue the matter, they can submit their motions in writing for his future consideration.
The court's attention then turned to other matters concerning the 8-year-old. Roca clarified his earlier order for a psychological evaluation, "...a comprehensive evaluation, both competency and mental state at the time of the events in question."
The 8-year-old was in the courtroom throughout the proceedings, seated between attorney Benjamin Brewer and mother Eryn Thomas. Thomas and Romero were divorced; Romero had full custody of his son. Thomas lives in Mississippi and flew in the day after the homicides to be near her son.
Romero and his co-worker and border Tim Romans were found dead at the family home last Wednesday afternoon.
Twenty-four hours later, police believed they had solved the case and arrested the 8-year-old. He has since been charged with two counts of premeditated murder in the county's juvenile division.
In news reports, Brewer has said police overstepped their boundaries in interviewing the third-grader, not allowing him legal representation or a parent to be present when they interviewed him last Thursday morning. During a Friday detention hearing, police said they originally thought the boy was a victim - that he had returned home after school and found his father and Romans dead. They said it wasn't until over 90 percent of the interview was finished that they realized they didn't have a victim, but instead they had a suspect. Police said during the interview, the boy admitted to having fired the gun that killed the two men.
"He had no record of any kind, not even a disciplinary record at school," Carlyon said of the boy in a Friday press release. "He has never been in trouble before."
In the Friday detention hearing, Roca ruled that probable cause existed to believe the boy committed the crimes he is charged with. He also ruled that the boy remain in the detention facility pending further proceedings.
Boy, 8, accused of killing two
- Posted 11/11/2008, 6:00 a.m.
ST. JOHNS - Rocked by a double murder in their small close-knit community last Wednesday afternoon, the residents of St. Johns have only one question on their minds. Why would an eight-year-old boy allegedly kill two men, one of whom was his father?
The 8-year-old was charged on Friday with two counts of first degree murder. The charges allege the boy acted with premeditation to kill his father, Vincent Romero, 29, of St. Johns, and his friend and boarder, Tim Romans, 39, of San Carlos.
Dressed in a jail-issued orange jumpsuit, shackle chains dragging on the floor, the youngster was led into the courtroom by detention officials for the 3 p.m. Friday hearing where a judge was to decide if the 8-year-old should remain in custody or be released to family members. Sitting next to his attorney at the table reserved for defendants, in a chair normally occupied by an adult, the youngster's feet didn't touch the floor.
After working through some procedural issues with the attorneys, superior court Judge Michael Rocca read the youngster his Miranda rights, putting the very specific legal verbiage into words the 8-year-old could understand. "The charges against you, as I've indicated, are very serious," Rocca told the boy. "There is a request that you be detained in the juvenile detention facility, down on Main Street, during the remainder of these proceedings. The hearing today is to determine whether or not it is reasonable to believe you did what you are charged with - not sufficient proof to hold you responsible, but reason to believe and be concerned that you have done what you are charged with." When Rocca asked the young defendant if he understood what he had just heard, the boy indicated he did.
With that, the judge called on Prosecutor Brad Carlyon to call his witnesses. He first called St. Johns Detective Debbie Neckel to the stand. She said she and St. Johns Sgt. Lucas Rodriquez were first to arrive at the Romero residence that afternoon, having been dispatched to investigate a report of a body. She said upon arrival at the two-story home, she saw what appeared to be a man's body lying on the front porch. While Neckel stayed outside with a couple neighbors and the 8-year-old boy she later learned lived in the house, Rodriguez entered the home to clear it of any additional subjects. She said Rodriquez located a second deceased male on the stairs inside the home.
In response to questions from Carlyon, Neckel said she and Apache County Sheriff's Cmdr. Matrese Avila interviewed the youngster the following morning. She said the boy initially told them he got off the school bus and walked around the neighborhood before going home. As he approached the home, he told the officers he saw a body on the front porch and then went inside and called for his dad before seeing his dad's body lying on the stairs. "He said he stayed there for 30 minutes and then he left the residence and went to a neighbor's house where there is another young man. He spoke to him and told him his father was dead and his father's friend was dead," said Neckel.
She said the boy's story changed with every question the officers asked. She said they discussed gun shot residue in words the youngster could understand, and they asked him if he would have any on his clothing - the boy acknowledged that he may have some on his clothing. "He said when he entered the house there was a lot of smoke in the house. He also told us that he did pick up the gun, and that the smoke would have caused (residue) to be on his clothing. We asked if he would have a little or a lot, he said a lot." She said he then admitted that he may have fired the gun.
"Did you ask him if he might have been mad at his dad," asked Carlyon. Neckel said the boy admitted he was mad at his dad. "He said that the evening before, he didn't bring some papers home from school and his dad was very angry and had (the boy's) stepmother spank him five swats."
Defense attorney Ben Brewer further questioned the officer about the crime scene - much of his questioning concerned what individuals were at the crime scene, what were they doing there, and how the crime scene evidence was collected. Neckel named the officers who she was aware entered the home. She told Brewer that all of the evidence from the crime scene was collected by Arizona Department of Public Safety crime lab technicians.
Neckel said neither she nor Avila, a certified forensic interviewer, read the boy his Miranda rights. "We felt he was a victim. I would say that in 90 percent of that interview I felt he was a victim." She said it was just in the last few minutes of their conversation with the boy that she and Avila began to believe the boy was not a victim, but something different.
Carlyon next called Sgt. Rodriquez to the stand. He told the court he observed the body on the front porch and believed the person (Romans) was dead. He said he entered the home, quickly searched it for any additional subjects and found a second dead body (Romero) laying face down on the stairs. Carlyon handed the witness several crime scene photographs from which he asked a series of questions concerning the exact location of the bodies, shell casings and other evidence the officer noticed at the scene. Rodriquez said from the shell casings he found near the bodies, he believed the murder weapon was a 22-caliber weapon. Police later located a 22-caliber rifle a couple feet inside the front door - he described the rifle as a single-shot bolt-action rifle. In talking to the boy's grandmother, he said he learned she had originally purchased the gun for her son, and he in turn gave it to his son. "She said (her grandson) knew how to use it." Rodriquez said he learned the Romero family members were hunters and had many guns in the home, mostly stored in the master bedroom.
As to who may have called 911, Rodriquez said he understood the 8-year-old went to his friend's home nearby and told the friend his dad and his dad's friend were dead. Rodriquez believes the friend told the story to a teenage sibling who in turn called their father at work. The father returned home within minutes, saw what appeared to be a body on the front porch of the Romero home and called 911.
Rodriquez admitted it was difficult to talk about some of the things he saw that afternoon at the Romero home.
The final officer to take the stand was Apache County Sheriff's Sgt. Web Hogle. He said his involvement occurred the following day when he relieved another deputy who had retained the chain of custody of the bodies throughout the night at a nearby funeral home. He testified that although the bodies were still fully clothed, he was able to observe what appeared to be 22-caliber pin-point size holes in several locations on their clothing.
Hogle said several members of the Romans family arrived at the funeral home while he was there. He pulled a couple family members aside in an attempt to calm them down, and it was during that time that Romans' wife said her husband called her right after he got home from work. While discussing work and other topics with her husband, she told the officer she could hear the 8-year-old boy in the background yelling at her husband, "Tim, I need you to come in here, something's wrong with dad. Tim, come in the house, something's wrong." Hogel said Ms. Romans insisted the officers talk to the youngster - "He knows something; he was there when something bad happened to my husband. Make sure that they talk to him about this." Ms. Romans said the last thing her husband said to her was that the Romero youngster said something was wrong and he needed to go look into it.
After 4-1/2 hours of testimony, Rocca said he found probable cause that the boy was involved in the crimes he is charged with and ordered that he be detained in the Apache County juvenile detention center for the time being. He ordered a psychiatric evaluation be initiated and requested that child protective services begin an investigation with an eye to future dependency hearings.
Sacred geometry
Anthony North: Sacred geometry is an ancient system of design and building based upon the harmonic relationship between man, nature and the universe. Virtually ignored by modern architects and designers, it was central to most ancient societies. The practice concerns a worldview of pattern recognition, producing religious patterns and structures involving space, time and form. By working with such forms, insight can come regarding the nature of all. It often involves mathematics.: Pythagoras realized the importance of this, and also showed how such harmonies work also with music. Hence, sacred geometry is a holistic practice. Even in ancient cave art, it is now known that pictures were drawn at ideal places for sound amplification. These principles seem to have been instinctual in ancient times, but science is also discovering such harmonies. Indeed, it has led some to wonder at the incredible coincidences of exact balance that led to the universe in the first place. Sacred design is therefore a reflection of the universe.: In this sense, perfection is vital to the process. Originally found in man's expression of his relationship with Mother Earth, we find the earth mound. Later, math led to greater perfection in the pyramid, or other construction that aligned with the solstice dawn. However, an understanding of this harmonic relationship can often cause too much complication in just what sacred geometry is about. I say this because ancient man seemed to realize such relationships, and design accordingly, through instinct. The urge to perfection was just as great.
: But such perfection was more about symbolism than mathematical design. It seemed to be more a physical representation of the spiritual, as is seen even today in the 'form' of a church. Shaped as a cross, when you walk into a church, you actually walk into the body of Christ. Bearing this in mind, could it be that there is a far more important psycho-sociological understanding to be had from sacred geometry? I think there is -and an understanding that can tell us a great deal about ourselves, even today.
Full Article
: But such perfection was more about symbolism than mathematical design. It seemed to be more a physical representation of the spiritual, as is seen even today in the 'form' of a church. Shaped as a cross, when you walk into a church, you actually walk into the body of Christ. Bearing this in mind, could it be that there is a far more important psycho-sociological understanding to be had from sacred geometry? I think there is -and an understanding that can tell us a great deal about ourselves, even today.
Full Article
Israel to display the Dead Sea Scrolls on-line,
In a crowded laboratory painted in gray and cooled like a cave, half a dozen specialists embarked this week on a historic undertaking: digitally photographing every one of the thousands of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of making the entire file — among the most sought-after and examined documents on earth — available to all on the Internet. Equipped with high-powered cameras with resolution and clarity many times greater than those of conventional models, and with lights that emit neither heat nor ultraviolet rays, the scientists and technicians are uncovering previously illegible sections and letters of the scrolls, discoveries that could have significant scholarly impact.The 2,000-year-old scrolls, found in the late 1940s in caves near the Dead Sea east of Jerusalem, contain the earliest known copies of every book of the Hebrew Bible (missing only the Book of Esther), as well as apocryphal texts and descriptions of rituals of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus. The texts, most of them on parchment but some on papyrus, date from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D.Only a handful of the scrolls exist in large pieces, with several on permanent exhibit at the Israel Museum here in its dimly lighted Shrine of the Book.
Most of what was found is separated into 15,000 fragments that make up about 900 documents, fueling a longstanding debate on how to order the fragments as well as the origin and meaning of what is written on them. The scrolls' contemporary history has been something of a tortured one because they are among the most important sources of information on Jewish and early Christian life.
Full Article
Most of what was found is separated into 15,000 fragments that make up about 900 documents, fueling a longstanding debate on how to order the fragments as well as the origin and meaning of what is written on them. The scrolls' contemporary history has been something of a tortured one because they are among the most important sources of information on Jewish and early Christian life.
Full Article
FLYING CARS!
http://www.moller.com/
Passengers:
4
Top speed @ 13,200 ft:
375 mph
Cruise speed @ 20,000 ft:
275 mph
Maximum rate of climb:
6,000 fpm
Maximum range:
750 miles
Payload excluding fuel:
750 lbs
Operational ceiling:
36,000 ft
Gross weight:
2,400 lbs
Engine power (2 min. rating):
1,200 hp
Fuel consumption:
approx. 20 mpg
Fuel:
Ethanol
Dimensions (LxWxH):
19.5' x 8.5' x 7.5'
Takeoff and landing area:
35 ft dia
Noise level at 500 ft (Goal):
65 dba
Vertical takeoff and landing:
yes
Emergency parachutes:
yes
Passengers:
4
Top speed @ 13,200 ft:
375 mph
Cruise speed @ 20,000 ft:
275 mph
Maximum rate of climb:
6,000 fpm
Maximum range:
750 miles
Payload excluding fuel:
750 lbs
Operational ceiling:
36,000 ft
Gross weight:
2,400 lbs
Engine power (2 min. rating):
1,200 hp
Fuel consumption:
approx. 20 mpg
Fuel:
Ethanol
Dimensions (LxWxH):
19.5' x 8.5' x 7.5'
Takeoff and landing area:
35 ft dia
Noise level at 500 ft (Goal):
65 dba
Vertical takeoff and landing:
yes
Emergency parachutes:
yes
The Most Alien-Looking Place on Earth
Socotra Island: you have to see it to believe it
We covered some otherwordly places before (see, for example, Bolivian Salt Lake, or The Richat Structure), but this island simply blows away any notion about what is considered "normal" for a landscape on Earth.
look here:
The Most Alien-Looking Place on Earth
We covered some otherwordly places before (see, for example, Bolivian Salt Lake, or The Richat Structure), but this island simply blows away any notion about what is considered "normal" for a landscape on Earth.
look here:
The Most Alien-Looking Place on Earth
God Hates Religion
A survey of the Scriptures reveals that there is one category that God hates above all others. God hates religion! Many will be confused, if not offended by such a statement, for they have identified God with religion. Religion, therefore, needs to be defined and differentiated from the Christian gospel.
The English word "religion" is etymologically derived from the Latin word religo, meaning to "bind up." Religion binds people up in rules and regulations or in ritualistic patterns of devotion.
Christianity, on the other hand, was never meant to be a religion. Christianity is the dynamic spiritual life of the risen Lord Jesus indwelling the spirit of man so as to create functional behavior to the glory of God. Granted, men have attempted to force Christianity into the molds and forms of religion. That is evident by all the steeples and sanctuaries and ecclesiastical programs that dot the landscape of our society.
It is the propensity of man to formulate religion to take that which is of the invisible God and attempt to make it visible, tangible and controllable. Man-made religion! The apostle Paul refers to it as "self-made religion" (Colossians 2:23), and goes on to indicate that it is of no value against fleshly indulgence. In essence, Paul is saying that "religion is of no value against man's sinfulness." In fact, religion is a co-dependent enabler of the sins of mankind. It is itself an addiction.
Religion is essentially idolatry. Men worship their man-made formations and structures their ideological idols formed in the concrete of inflexible minds. When the apostle Paul came to Athens (Acts 17:22), he observed their idols and exclaimed, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects." The Greek word that Paul used for "religious" literally means "to have great respect for demons."
To document that God hates religion, note the following passages of Scripture:
"...every abominable act which the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods." (Deuteronomy 12:31)
"I have had enough of burnt offerings...Bring your worthless offerings no longer...I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts; they have become a burden to Me... So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you... I will not listen..." (Isaiah 1:10-15)
"I hate, I reject your festivals; nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies...take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps." (Amos 5:21-24)
These passages bear out the fact that God hates religion, and all of its procedures and programs; rituals and regulations.
Religion is inevitably the result of man taking that which is of God and forming it, formulating it, in such a way that men end up "playing God." Men can form idols out of wood or stone in an attempt to represent God, or they can formulate ideological idols (belief-systems, doctrinal definitions, theological theses). The men who thus form and formulate become the "chief priests" of the new religion because they are regarded as knowing the most about what God is like, and well they should for they formed "it."
There are three features which seem to be basic to all forms of man-made religion. Religion involves absolutism, authoritarianism and activism. Now there is nothing wrong with absolutes, authority or activity. God is absolute, authoritative and active. But when any man or group of men attempts to establish themselves as the arbiters or regulators of God's absoluteness, authority or activity, they then begin to "play god," and religion is the result as they impose their perspective of absolute, authority and activity on others.
Absolutism
God is absolute. All other absolutes are derived from His absolute character. But when any man, or grouping of men, think that they have determined the absolutes of God absolutely and set about to impose them absolutely on others, then you have the absolutism of religion.
It is the natural propensity of man to want to get everything figured out. We have a "lust for certainty." We want everything to be "cut and dried," black and white, right and wrong, with no loose ends. We do not like paradox, antinomy or dialectic.
Most men cannot accept that the Infinite God is bigger than their finite ability to understand. So we set about to reduce God to fit within our rationalistic and intellectual reasonings. We reduce God to fit within our mental "box," then we nail it shut, construct our creed, and absolutely affirm that we have God figured out. We have reduced God to no bigger than our cranial cavity.
Religion advocates the absolutism of a particular belief-system. We formulate our doctrine, our theology, and demand that others affirm it absolutely as we do no variation; no freedom of thought or opinion; no doubt (for doubt would indicate that one does not believe it absolutely.)
Such absolutism is the basis of "fundamentalism." Fundamentalism is a religious idolatry that tends to worship a particular formulation of fixed fundamentals of faith. These fundamentals usually include both the detailed doctrines of a belief-system, as well as the meticulously prescribed behavior patterns of an ethical-system.
Religion employs the absolutism of a particular and prescribed moral law, a closed-system of ethics. These behavioral laws (judicial, theological or sociological) are comprised of dos and don'ts, "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots," rules and regulations, and codes of conduct. They are legalistically applied with rigid inflexibility and with perfectionistic expectations of absolute obedience.
Such absolutism in belief and behavior leads to the absolutism of exclusivism: "We are absolutely the only ones who have found truth; Ours is absolutely the only way." Thus religion begins to employ the rejective "tests of fellowship" which demand acceptance of their belief-system and conformity to their behavior patterns or else they will disallow you to be a part of their socialistic group identity. They disallow individualism and freedom of thought. Identity is found in the whole. Any deviations are met with condemnatory judgmentalism and guilt manipulation unto conformity. Severe forms of corrective social "discipline" are employed to keep people "in line," subscribing to the absolutism. Threats of excommunication from the authorities in charge are used to create absolute conformity and absolute obedience.
Authoritarianism
God, because He is absolute, is authoritative. But when any man, or group of men, claim to be the designated instruments of God's authority and attempt to express such authoritatively, especially in an autocratic or totalitarian way, you then have the authoritarianism of religion.
The bulk of mankind are followers, who will follow a leader like sheep. There always have been and always will be some men, therefore, who set themselves up as leaders and authorities claiming to represent God and to speak authoritatively for God. They often claim to have a special "in" with God, a "hot-line" with God, or they claim to have a special vision, a special "calling," a special understanding, or a superior spirituality. Some people inevitably follow such people and regard them as religious authorities – gurus.
The well-known proverb states, "Power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The selfish propensities within men cause them to abuse power and use people to their own ends as they lead. Such results in authoritarianism. It may be but a subtle emphasis on "pastoral authority" or the spiritual authority of an elder or a "shepherd," or it may be a special esteem granted for those in exalted positions of so-called "clergy" or priests, ministers, preachers, presbyters, etc. These are then developed into an hierarchical order of ecclesiastical positioning and politicizing.
These self-designated religious authorities often foster a dependency attitude of the people upon themselves. Directly or indirectly they encourage loyalty and commitment to the organization they lead, or to themselves. As incentive for such they often convey the idea that they hold the eternal fate or spiritual destiny of others in their hands, in their power.
The sense of personal equality before God is lost. People are expected to learn their "place" and told not to "get out of order." "Do not ask questions; do as you are told." "We will do the thinking and the feeling for you." "We will do the Bible study and the praying – the relating to God." "We speak for God, and we will tell you what is true." What is this but mind-control propaganda, advocating blind, unquestioning submission and obedience. It is an undemocratic system of non-equality wherein the religious authorities have no accountability to the people they serve.
Such religious authoritarianism creates a "fantasy-bond" of the people toward their so-called "priests." There is a projected idealization of the authorities as being especially close to God -- almost "gods" themselves. The religious authorities then exploit the people, utilizing superstition and fear to control people's thinking and behavior by shame, guilt and threatened loss of identity or eternal destiny.
Religious authorities must create a sense of direction and momentum for the people; a sense of doing something and going somewhere. There must be a program of activity that will keep people "involved," feeling that they are meaningfully expending their lives and energy for God's "cause." This is also fueled by the self-serving purpose of financing and perpetuating the religious system.
Activism
God is an active God, and He wants to act in us by the expression of His character and ministry. But when any man, or group of men, claim that they are the directors of God's activity and that they have discerned what God wants to do in you, how God wants you to act, beware of religious activism.
Religion is perpetuated by the activism of the people. People want a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, a sense of identity, a reason to be. These are God-given desires. Religion offers a false-fulfillment of these desires. Religion repeatedly encourages people to become more involved, more active. Involvement, commitment, dedication, consecration -- these are the hallmarks and the "passwords" of religion. Religion fosters a fixation, a compulsion, an obsession, an addiction to religious activities, explaining the absolute necessity to be thus engaged in the activities in order to please God, and for the good of the whole -- never admitting that it is primarily for the good of the religious authorities!
Activism seems to become an end in itself within religion: the activism of financial giving, the activism of keeping all the rules, the activism of church attendance, the activism of participating in all the ordinances and rituals, the activism of recruiting others to the "cause." Such activism is a not-so-subtle form of "works" salvation, which leads to physical fatigue and exhaustion and other forms of addiction.
Religious activism sometimes takes the form of social protest. People are enjoined to stand up for God's absolutes in political activism. Sometimes they go so far as to engage in criminal and terrorist activity even wars. In the midst of such they usually develop a persecution-complex: "It is 'us', the good guys of God's army, against 'them', the army of humanism or satan; and only by our ardent activism will God win!"
So often religion defines spirituality by the amount and intensity of one's activism. "If you are really going to be 'spiritual' and close to God, you must be doing what God wants you to do," i.e. our proscribed form of activism.
Much of religious activism is perpetuated by people simply as an escape from reality, an escapism from the day-to-day functionality of life. It is much more difficult to stay right where you are and be the father or mother, husband or wife, employer or employee that God intends you to be, than to carry a sign and chant choruses or to busy oneself in the program of a religious organization.
Religion results in dysfunctional socialization. It will never produce the functional loving community of mankind that God desires. Religion is unloving and self-serving. What religion offers is a pseudo-love, an addiction to the sense of belonging, an addiction to the sense of being cared for and sought after, an addiction to the sense of meaningful existence and purpose and identity.
This expose of religion is in no way designed or intended to impinge upon the reality of Christianity. Careful distinction between religion and Christianity must be made. As stated in the beginning of this article, Christianity is the dynamic spiritual life of the risen Lord Jesus indwelling the spirit of man so as to create functional behavior unto the glory of God. Religion is the man-made aberration that attempts to impose absolutism, authoritarianism and activism upon other men.
The English word "religion" is etymologically derived from the Latin word religo, meaning to "bind up." Religion binds people up in rules and regulations or in ritualistic patterns of devotion.
Christianity, on the other hand, was never meant to be a religion. Christianity is the dynamic spiritual life of the risen Lord Jesus indwelling the spirit of man so as to create functional behavior to the glory of God. Granted, men have attempted to force Christianity into the molds and forms of religion. That is evident by all the steeples and sanctuaries and ecclesiastical programs that dot the landscape of our society.
It is the propensity of man to formulate religion to take that which is of the invisible God and attempt to make it visible, tangible and controllable. Man-made religion! The apostle Paul refers to it as "self-made religion" (Colossians 2:23), and goes on to indicate that it is of no value against fleshly indulgence. In essence, Paul is saying that "religion is of no value against man's sinfulness." In fact, religion is a co-dependent enabler of the sins of mankind. It is itself an addiction.
Religion is essentially idolatry. Men worship their man-made formations and structures their ideological idols formed in the concrete of inflexible minds. When the apostle Paul came to Athens (Acts 17:22), he observed their idols and exclaimed, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects." The Greek word that Paul used for "religious" literally means "to have great respect for demons."
To document that God hates religion, note the following passages of Scripture:
"...every abominable act which the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods." (Deuteronomy 12:31)
"I have had enough of burnt offerings...Bring your worthless offerings no longer...I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts; they have become a burden to Me... So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you... I will not listen..." (Isaiah 1:10-15)
"I hate, I reject your festivals; nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies...take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps." (Amos 5:21-24)
These passages bear out the fact that God hates religion, and all of its procedures and programs; rituals and regulations.
Religion is inevitably the result of man taking that which is of God and forming it, formulating it, in such a way that men end up "playing God." Men can form idols out of wood or stone in an attempt to represent God, or they can formulate ideological idols (belief-systems, doctrinal definitions, theological theses). The men who thus form and formulate become the "chief priests" of the new religion because they are regarded as knowing the most about what God is like, and well they should for they formed "it."
There are three features which seem to be basic to all forms of man-made religion. Religion involves absolutism, authoritarianism and activism. Now there is nothing wrong with absolutes, authority or activity. God is absolute, authoritative and active. But when any man or group of men attempts to establish themselves as the arbiters or regulators of God's absoluteness, authority or activity, they then begin to "play god," and religion is the result as they impose their perspective of absolute, authority and activity on others.
Absolutism
God is absolute. All other absolutes are derived from His absolute character. But when any man, or grouping of men, think that they have determined the absolutes of God absolutely and set about to impose them absolutely on others, then you have the absolutism of religion.
It is the natural propensity of man to want to get everything figured out. We have a "lust for certainty." We want everything to be "cut and dried," black and white, right and wrong, with no loose ends. We do not like paradox, antinomy or dialectic.
Most men cannot accept that the Infinite God is bigger than their finite ability to understand. So we set about to reduce God to fit within our rationalistic and intellectual reasonings. We reduce God to fit within our mental "box," then we nail it shut, construct our creed, and absolutely affirm that we have God figured out. We have reduced God to no bigger than our cranial cavity.
Religion advocates the absolutism of a particular belief-system. We formulate our doctrine, our theology, and demand that others affirm it absolutely as we do no variation; no freedom of thought or opinion; no doubt (for doubt would indicate that one does not believe it absolutely.)
Such absolutism is the basis of "fundamentalism." Fundamentalism is a religious idolatry that tends to worship a particular formulation of fixed fundamentals of faith. These fundamentals usually include both the detailed doctrines of a belief-system, as well as the meticulously prescribed behavior patterns of an ethical-system.
Religion employs the absolutism of a particular and prescribed moral law, a closed-system of ethics. These behavioral laws (judicial, theological or sociological) are comprised of dos and don'ts, "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots," rules and regulations, and codes of conduct. They are legalistically applied with rigid inflexibility and with perfectionistic expectations of absolute obedience.
Such absolutism in belief and behavior leads to the absolutism of exclusivism: "We are absolutely the only ones who have found truth; Ours is absolutely the only way." Thus religion begins to employ the rejective "tests of fellowship" which demand acceptance of their belief-system and conformity to their behavior patterns or else they will disallow you to be a part of their socialistic group identity. They disallow individualism and freedom of thought. Identity is found in the whole. Any deviations are met with condemnatory judgmentalism and guilt manipulation unto conformity. Severe forms of corrective social "discipline" are employed to keep people "in line," subscribing to the absolutism. Threats of excommunication from the authorities in charge are used to create absolute conformity and absolute obedience.
Authoritarianism
God, because He is absolute, is authoritative. But when any man, or group of men, claim to be the designated instruments of God's authority and attempt to express such authoritatively, especially in an autocratic or totalitarian way, you then have the authoritarianism of religion.
The bulk of mankind are followers, who will follow a leader like sheep. There always have been and always will be some men, therefore, who set themselves up as leaders and authorities claiming to represent God and to speak authoritatively for God. They often claim to have a special "in" with God, a "hot-line" with God, or they claim to have a special vision, a special "calling," a special understanding, or a superior spirituality. Some people inevitably follow such people and regard them as religious authorities – gurus.
The well-known proverb states, "Power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The selfish propensities within men cause them to abuse power and use people to their own ends as they lead. Such results in authoritarianism. It may be but a subtle emphasis on "pastoral authority" or the spiritual authority of an elder or a "shepherd," or it may be a special esteem granted for those in exalted positions of so-called "clergy" or priests, ministers, preachers, presbyters, etc. These are then developed into an hierarchical order of ecclesiastical positioning and politicizing.
These self-designated religious authorities often foster a dependency attitude of the people upon themselves. Directly or indirectly they encourage loyalty and commitment to the organization they lead, or to themselves. As incentive for such they often convey the idea that they hold the eternal fate or spiritual destiny of others in their hands, in their power.
The sense of personal equality before God is lost. People are expected to learn their "place" and told not to "get out of order." "Do not ask questions; do as you are told." "We will do the thinking and the feeling for you." "We will do the Bible study and the praying – the relating to God." "We speak for God, and we will tell you what is true." What is this but mind-control propaganda, advocating blind, unquestioning submission and obedience. It is an undemocratic system of non-equality wherein the religious authorities have no accountability to the people they serve.
Such religious authoritarianism creates a "fantasy-bond" of the people toward their so-called "priests." There is a projected idealization of the authorities as being especially close to God -- almost "gods" themselves. The religious authorities then exploit the people, utilizing superstition and fear to control people's thinking and behavior by shame, guilt and threatened loss of identity or eternal destiny.
Religious authorities must create a sense of direction and momentum for the people; a sense of doing something and going somewhere. There must be a program of activity that will keep people "involved," feeling that they are meaningfully expending their lives and energy for God's "cause." This is also fueled by the self-serving purpose of financing and perpetuating the religious system.
Activism
God is an active God, and He wants to act in us by the expression of His character and ministry. But when any man, or group of men, claim that they are the directors of God's activity and that they have discerned what God wants to do in you, how God wants you to act, beware of religious activism.
Religion is perpetuated by the activism of the people. People want a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, a sense of identity, a reason to be. These are God-given desires. Religion offers a false-fulfillment of these desires. Religion repeatedly encourages people to become more involved, more active. Involvement, commitment, dedication, consecration -- these are the hallmarks and the "passwords" of religion. Religion fosters a fixation, a compulsion, an obsession, an addiction to religious activities, explaining the absolute necessity to be thus engaged in the activities in order to please God, and for the good of the whole -- never admitting that it is primarily for the good of the religious authorities!
Activism seems to become an end in itself within religion: the activism of financial giving, the activism of keeping all the rules, the activism of church attendance, the activism of participating in all the ordinances and rituals, the activism of recruiting others to the "cause." Such activism is a not-so-subtle form of "works" salvation, which leads to physical fatigue and exhaustion and other forms of addiction.
Religious activism sometimes takes the form of social protest. People are enjoined to stand up for God's absolutes in political activism. Sometimes they go so far as to engage in criminal and terrorist activity even wars. In the midst of such they usually develop a persecution-complex: "It is 'us', the good guys of God's army, against 'them', the army of humanism or satan; and only by our ardent activism will God win!"
So often religion defines spirituality by the amount and intensity of one's activism. "If you are really going to be 'spiritual' and close to God, you must be doing what God wants you to do," i.e. our proscribed form of activism.
Much of religious activism is perpetuated by people simply as an escape from reality, an escapism from the day-to-day functionality of life. It is much more difficult to stay right where you are and be the father or mother, husband or wife, employer or employee that God intends you to be, than to carry a sign and chant choruses or to busy oneself in the program of a religious organization.
Religion results in dysfunctional socialization. It will never produce the functional loving community of mankind that God desires. Religion is unloving and self-serving. What religion offers is a pseudo-love, an addiction to the sense of belonging, an addiction to the sense of being cared for and sought after, an addiction to the sense of meaningful existence and purpose and identity.
This expose of religion is in no way designed or intended to impinge upon the reality of Christianity. Careful distinction between religion and Christianity must be made. As stated in the beginning of this article, Christianity is the dynamic spiritual life of the risen Lord Jesus indwelling the spirit of man so as to create functional behavior unto the glory of God. Religion is the man-made aberration that attempts to impose absolutism, authoritarianism and activism upon other men.
Facial scars can help win a woman's heart
Faced with picture of men with and without different scars, women rated the scarred faces as better looking, but scars did not enhance women's attractiveness to men.
"This is the first study to demonstrate that under certain circumstances post-traumatic scarring may increase a person's perceived social worth,'' say the researchers from the universities of Liverpool and Stirling.
"Our results suggest that under certain circumstances scars may advertise valued information about their bearers, and that the idea that scarring universally devalues social perceptions can no longer be assumed to be true."
In the study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, around 220 people were asked to look at pictures of men and women, some of which had been manipulated to have different scars.
Results show that scarring enhances women's ratings of men's attractiveness for short-term, but not for long-term, relationships. Men's ratings of female attractiveness were unaffected by scarring.
Exactly why women favour scars is not clear, but one theory is that they provide visible evidence of past trauma and may also communicate information about the man's history and personality, as well as affect their attractiveness.
It has also been suggested that scarring associated with violence may signal to a woman that the man has a risk-taking personality or above average masculinity, both of which might appeal to women for short term relationships. Because of that, scars may indirectly be a sign of good genes or a strong immune system that also appeal to women for short-term relationships.
The scars that are rated attractive are those that appear to be associated with post traumatic events or violence of some kind.
"Scars that indicate past illness like chickenpox, acne, or surgery scars, and which therefore suggest a weaker immune system, may be viewed more negatively than other types of scarring," says the report.
"This is the first study to demonstrate that under certain circumstances post-traumatic scarring may increase a person's perceived social worth,'' say the researchers from the universities of Liverpool and Stirling.
"Our results suggest that under certain circumstances scars may advertise valued information about their bearers, and that the idea that scarring universally devalues social perceptions can no longer be assumed to be true."
In the study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, around 220 people were asked to look at pictures of men and women, some of which had been manipulated to have different scars.
Results show that scarring enhances women's ratings of men's attractiveness for short-term, but not for long-term, relationships. Men's ratings of female attractiveness were unaffected by scarring.
Exactly why women favour scars is not clear, but one theory is that they provide visible evidence of past trauma and may also communicate information about the man's history and personality, as well as affect their attractiveness.
It has also been suggested that scarring associated with violence may signal to a woman that the man has a risk-taking personality or above average masculinity, both of which might appeal to women for short term relationships. Because of that, scars may indirectly be a sign of good genes or a strong immune system that also appeal to women for short-term relationships.
The scars that are rated attractive are those that appear to be associated with post traumatic events or violence of some kind.
"Scars that indicate past illness like chickenpox, acne, or surgery scars, and which therefore suggest a weaker immune system, may be viewed more negatively than other types of scarring," says the report.
101 game facts that will rock your world
41. The Original Devil May Cry was originally intended to be the next chapter in the Resident Evil series. The gun juggle move was a glitch, but became part of Dante's move set.
42. Alien Hominid, a hardcore PS2 shooter, was originally a popular Flash internet game. It was downloaded more than 6 million times before being brought to the PlayStation 2.
43. In the NES era, Nintendo had strict licensing rules in an effort to maintain quality control (hence the gold Nintendo seal of quality badges on the cartridges). They only allowed third-party publishers to release 5 games a year for their systems.
44. Final Fantasy VII was originally designed for the Nintendo 64, but Square cancelled the project and moved to the PSone because of the lack of space in the console's game cartridges. FFVII would've filled 13 cartridges.
45. To create the gruesome Necromorph monsters in their game Dead Space, the devs at EA Redwood Shores studied photos of car wreck victims. They also watched hundreds of horror movies to get ideas for in-game scares.
46. Final Fantasy got its name from the fact that it was supposed to be Square's last ever game. They were struggling to become popular with dodgy games like Rad Racer and World Runner 3D, and were going to bow out of the industry gracefully.
47. Sixty percent of all Americans age six and older, or about 145 million people, play computer and video games. The average age of a gamer is 28 years old.
48. Captain Commando was a sci-fi superhero who served as Capcom's mascot in its early days, but was replaced by Mega Man after the Captain proved unpopular with gamers.Capcom's original name was Capsule Computing.
49.The name Kratos - as in, God Of War's angry hero - is taken from the Greek word 'cratos', which means power.
50. The first game to feature multiple endings depending on how you played the game was Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest on the NES.
51. If you bought Shenmue 2 on Xbox, you'll remember the Shenmue Movie DVD that came with it, containing all the major cut-scenes from the first game. Well, in Japan, this was actually shown in some cinemas, such was the popularity of Yu Suzuki's epic series.
52. Midnight Club: Los Angeles is the first game to feature branded trophies/achievements. One's shamelessly sponsored by T-Mobile.
53. Sonic The Hedgehog has appeared in four TV series; Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic Underground, The Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog and Sonic X. He's also appeared in a comic book series. None of them are as good as the games.
54. F-Zero X has an unlimited amount of courses. If you take part in the X Cup, the game will randomly generate tracks. They're mostly awful, but sometimes you'll get a good one.
55. The Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972, contained 40 transistors and no microprocessor. The newest Pentium 4 microprocessor contains 42 million transistors on the chip itself.
56. The Nintendo N64 marked the first time that computer graphics workstation manufacturer Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) developed game hardware technology.
57. The Nintendo GameCube's proprietary disc can hold 1.5 gigabytes of data - 190 times more than what an N64 game cartridge can hold.
58. In the 1980s, a service called Gameline allowed users to download games to the Atari 2600 over regular phone lines. It was a commercial failure, but eventually formed part of the foundation for America Online, the world's largest Internet service provider.
59. Silent Hill 4 wasn't originally a Silent Hill game, but rather a separate franchise being developed by Konami simply titled The Room. When SH producer/composer Akira Yamaoka came across it, he decided to make it part of the official series.
60. In its heyday, the Dragon Quest series was only ever released on weekends in Japan, because mid-week launches would see thousands of people pulling sickies to go and play it.
61. The Atari Jaguar proudly boasted that it was the first 64-bit console, but in reality it was two 32-bit chips stuck together - so not truly 64-bit. Those liars.
62. It's only humanly possible to press a button on a controller 16 times per second. This record was set by Toshuyuki Takahashi, a Japanese gamer.
63. A game called Malice starring singer Gwen Stefani as the titular lead character was supposed to be a big-budget system-seller for Xbox. After years of delays it was finally released at a budget price on the console, and on PS2. Gwen Stefani's recorded dialogue was never used, nor was the planned 'No Doubt' soundtrack.
64. There's a full book you can read in Deus Ex. It's called The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton and shares some plot similarities with the game. The chapters were spread throughout the game in datacubes.
65. If you cheated while playing the Sega 32x version of Doom, after the game ends you're taken to a fake DOS prompt. You can't quit out of it, and the only way to escape the screen is to reset the console. If you didn't cheat, you get an extra cutscene.
66. In the French localisation of Final Fantasy IX, Zidane was renamed Djidane because of the similarity to the country's most famous footballer, Zinedine Zidane.
67. Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pokemon, got the idea for the worldwide Game Boy phenomenon after collecting caterpillars as a child and watching them change into butterflies.
68. The voice of Shodan, the insane AI in the System Shock series, was performed by the wife of the audio director at Looking Glass. Cheaper than an actor, eh?
69. Duke Nukem 3D was one of the first games to employ a real-time audio effect to its sounds. If you went underwater, a calculated reverb was applied to sounds being played to make gunfire sound muffled and gurgly.
70. In the underground facility in Resident Evil 2 there's a locked room containing a dead Nemesis. Resident Evil 2 takes place after 3, which suggests Umbrella released more than one into Raccoon City.
71. In World Of Warcraft there's a dungeon called Uldaman where you can find and recruit three 'lost dwarves', who look very similar to characters from The Lost Vikings on SNES.
72. The first Fable was originally going to have a multiplayer mode. Four players (one hero and three sidekicks) would be able to work together to complete unique quests. This feature was cancelled in March 2004 due to time constraints.
73. Super Mario World for the SNES took 29,000 hours to program. Luckily, it went on to sell 17 million copies and was the best-selling game of its generation.
74. In the loading screen for the original Ridge Racer on PSone you could play a Galaxians-style minigame. If you destroyed all the enemies you'd unlock 8 additional vehicles.
75. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 was one of the first ever games to have a simultaneous, worldwide release date. This was known amongst gamers as 'Sonic2sday', as it appeared in shops on a Tuesday. November 24, 1992 to be exact.
76. Ico was originally meant to be released for the PlayStation, but the development was halted and then continued for the PlayStation 2. In the early version, Yorda had horns on her head, not Ico. You can find early concept footage of this on YouTube.
77. The first Broken Sword game's theme tune was composed by Barrington Pheloung, also known for writing the theme to grannies' favourite Inspector Morse.
78. Fans of Master System classic Alex Kidd In Miracle World will remember the former Sega mascot munching a hamburger at the end of each level. Originally, this was a Japanese rice ball, or onigari. It was changed because rice balls aren't as recognisable outside of Japan.
79. Violent, pedestrian-squishing racer Carmageddon was only allowed to be released in the UK with zombies instead of people roaming the streets. In the Indian version, the cows were removed, and it was banned altogether in Germany.
80. The music for the first Jak & Daxter game was composed by Mark Mothersbaugh, a member of cult '80s band Devo, and composer of all of director Wes Anderson's films including The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic.
81. If, for some strange reason, you still have a Madden NFL 06 save game on your memory card, a special Madden van will be unlocked when you start up Burnout Revenge on PS2.
82. The Metroid series doesn’t take place in any kind of order, so the plot can be confusing. Chrologically, Samus’ adventures take places as so: Metroid (NES), Metroid Prime (GC), Metroid 2: Return Of Samus (Game Boy), Super Metroid (SNES) and Metroid Fusion (GBA). Make sense now?
83. In the first Max Payne, Max’s face was digitised from series writer Sam Lake, but in the second game they used an actor called Timothy Gibbs, who starred in ladies’ favourite Sex And The City.
84. At the end of a game of Civilization IV, players are rated based on their performance by a comparison to one of 10 world leaders. The lowest rating compares the player to former US Vice-President Dan Quayle, who is legendary for such wisdom as "If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure".
85. PC hit Grim Fandango was originally titled ‘Deeds Of The Dead’, but was changed because LucasArts didn’t want a reference to death in the title. In a game primarily about death, the afterlife and the grim reaper. Yes.
86. The Secret Of Monkey Island came with a code-wheel copy protection system, in which you had to mix and match pirate faces and assemble their names. It was taken out of future releases as it proved too annoying.
87. In Japan, insanely difficult shoot-‘em-up Ikaruga came with a DVD of the country’s top players completing levels with unbroken chain combos and beating the bosses in record times.
88. In Germany, copies of Medal Of Honor: Frontline had to be reprinted because there was a swastika on the back cover. The developers also had to go back into the game and take out all the Nazi flags and other paraphernalia.
89. In the first Fallout, if you create your own character with less than 4 intelligence you can't converse with anyone; your only dialogue options are various grunts or other guttural noises. This makes the game insanely difficult to finish.
90. The secret boss Kurt Zisa in the first Kingdom Hearts was named via a contest held by Squaresoft in the US to promote the game.
91. Brutal PC FPS Kingpin featured a boss called The Jesus, named after the character from The Big Lebowski. He even repeated some of the lines from that film, including the immortal “Nobody f**** with the Jesus!”
92. A commercial for horror game Siren was pulled in Japan after complaints from parents. The advert featured a girl knocking on a window from the outside, begging her parents to let her in. The view then switches to the inside and shows the terrified parents, in fear of their daughter, who is revealed to be a bloody zombie. Sony said that the fear factor made people uncomfortable.
93. There’s a difference between the Japanese and US versions of Resident Evil 4. It occurs whenever Leon is killed by Mr Chainsaw. In the US version, his head is chopped off by the ‘saw. However, in the Japanese version, it cuts off part of Leon's face, exposing half of the front of Leon's skull and a single eyeball.
94. The first game to go online with Sony’s terrible PS2 network adapter was SOCOM: Navy Seals.
95. One of the player forms you can unlock in Rez for the Beyond’ levels is simply Morolian. This is the name of the alien invaders from UGA's previous game, Space Channel 5.
96. Thanks largely - we hope - to being bundled with a Wii-mote, Wii Play has sold around twice as much as Halo 3, shifting some 16 million copies.
97. Many of the in-game sounds and even the main font in Streets Of Rage for the Mega Drive were lifted directly from Revenge of Shinobi, and the special attack police car was ripped directly from E-SWAT: Cyber Police. How lazy.
98. More German censorship, this time Command And Conquer: Red Alert. Hitler (who is key to the plot) was removed from the intro cutscene, and all the soldiers were replaced with cyborgs.
99. Starcraft is the first computer game to have ever physically made it into space. It was sent aboard Shuttle mission STS-96 on May 27, 1999 by Mission Specialist Daniel T. Barry , who is also a Starcraft fan.
100. If you select a sheep four times in Warcraft 2: Tides Of Darkness (keep clicking it with the left mouse button), the sheep will say “bo-ram-u”. This is the sheeps’ password from the 1995 movie Babe.
101. In the original Japanese version of River City Ransom, the characters wore schoolboy jackets and belonged to high schools instead of gangs. This was changed in the American version because the jackets could be mistaken for bath robes and beating up evil gang members seemed like a more worthy cause.
42. Alien Hominid, a hardcore PS2 shooter, was originally a popular Flash internet game. It was downloaded more than 6 million times before being brought to the PlayStation 2.
43. In the NES era, Nintendo had strict licensing rules in an effort to maintain quality control (hence the gold Nintendo seal of quality badges on the cartridges). They only allowed third-party publishers to release 5 games a year for their systems.
44. Final Fantasy VII was originally designed for the Nintendo 64, but Square cancelled the project and moved to the PSone because of the lack of space in the console's game cartridges. FFVII would've filled 13 cartridges.
45. To create the gruesome Necromorph monsters in their game Dead Space, the devs at EA Redwood Shores studied photos of car wreck victims. They also watched hundreds of horror movies to get ideas for in-game scares.
46. Final Fantasy got its name from the fact that it was supposed to be Square's last ever game. They were struggling to become popular with dodgy games like Rad Racer and World Runner 3D, and were going to bow out of the industry gracefully.
47. Sixty percent of all Americans age six and older, or about 145 million people, play computer and video games. The average age of a gamer is 28 years old.
48. Captain Commando was a sci-fi superhero who served as Capcom's mascot in its early days, but was replaced by Mega Man after the Captain proved unpopular with gamers.Capcom's original name was Capsule Computing.
49.The name Kratos - as in, God Of War's angry hero - is taken from the Greek word 'cratos', which means power.
50. The first game to feature multiple endings depending on how you played the game was Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest on the NES.
51. If you bought Shenmue 2 on Xbox, you'll remember the Shenmue Movie DVD that came with it, containing all the major cut-scenes from the first game. Well, in Japan, this was actually shown in some cinemas, such was the popularity of Yu Suzuki's epic series.
52. Midnight Club: Los Angeles is the first game to feature branded trophies/achievements. One's shamelessly sponsored by T-Mobile.
53. Sonic The Hedgehog has appeared in four TV series; Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic Underground, The Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog and Sonic X. He's also appeared in a comic book series. None of them are as good as the games.
54. F-Zero X has an unlimited amount of courses. If you take part in the X Cup, the game will randomly generate tracks. They're mostly awful, but sometimes you'll get a good one.
55. The Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972, contained 40 transistors and no microprocessor. The newest Pentium 4 microprocessor contains 42 million transistors on the chip itself.
56. The Nintendo N64 marked the first time that computer graphics workstation manufacturer Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) developed game hardware technology.
57. The Nintendo GameCube's proprietary disc can hold 1.5 gigabytes of data - 190 times more than what an N64 game cartridge can hold.
58. In the 1980s, a service called Gameline allowed users to download games to the Atari 2600 over regular phone lines. It was a commercial failure, but eventually formed part of the foundation for America Online, the world's largest Internet service provider.
59. Silent Hill 4 wasn't originally a Silent Hill game, but rather a separate franchise being developed by Konami simply titled The Room. When SH producer/composer Akira Yamaoka came across it, he decided to make it part of the official series.
60. In its heyday, the Dragon Quest series was only ever released on weekends in Japan, because mid-week launches would see thousands of people pulling sickies to go and play it.
61. The Atari Jaguar proudly boasted that it was the first 64-bit console, but in reality it was two 32-bit chips stuck together - so not truly 64-bit. Those liars.
62. It's only humanly possible to press a button on a controller 16 times per second. This record was set by Toshuyuki Takahashi, a Japanese gamer.
63. A game called Malice starring singer Gwen Stefani as the titular lead character was supposed to be a big-budget system-seller for Xbox. After years of delays it was finally released at a budget price on the console, and on PS2. Gwen Stefani's recorded dialogue was never used, nor was the planned 'No Doubt' soundtrack.
64. There's a full book you can read in Deus Ex. It's called The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton and shares some plot similarities with the game. The chapters were spread throughout the game in datacubes.
65. If you cheated while playing the Sega 32x version of Doom, after the game ends you're taken to a fake DOS prompt. You can't quit out of it, and the only way to escape the screen is to reset the console. If you didn't cheat, you get an extra cutscene.
66. In the French localisation of Final Fantasy IX, Zidane was renamed Djidane because of the similarity to the country's most famous footballer, Zinedine Zidane.
67. Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pokemon, got the idea for the worldwide Game Boy phenomenon after collecting caterpillars as a child and watching them change into butterflies.
68. The voice of Shodan, the insane AI in the System Shock series, was performed by the wife of the audio director at Looking Glass. Cheaper than an actor, eh?
69. Duke Nukem 3D was one of the first games to employ a real-time audio effect to its sounds. If you went underwater, a calculated reverb was applied to sounds being played to make gunfire sound muffled and gurgly.
70. In the underground facility in Resident Evil 2 there's a locked room containing a dead Nemesis. Resident Evil 2 takes place after 3, which suggests Umbrella released more than one into Raccoon City.
71. In World Of Warcraft there's a dungeon called Uldaman where you can find and recruit three 'lost dwarves', who look very similar to characters from The Lost Vikings on SNES.
72. The first Fable was originally going to have a multiplayer mode. Four players (one hero and three sidekicks) would be able to work together to complete unique quests. This feature was cancelled in March 2004 due to time constraints.
73. Super Mario World for the SNES took 29,000 hours to program. Luckily, it went on to sell 17 million copies and was the best-selling game of its generation.
74. In the loading screen for the original Ridge Racer on PSone you could play a Galaxians-style minigame. If you destroyed all the enemies you'd unlock 8 additional vehicles.
75. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 was one of the first ever games to have a simultaneous, worldwide release date. This was known amongst gamers as 'Sonic2sday', as it appeared in shops on a Tuesday. November 24, 1992 to be exact.
76. Ico was originally meant to be released for the PlayStation, but the development was halted and then continued for the PlayStation 2. In the early version, Yorda had horns on her head, not Ico. You can find early concept footage of this on YouTube.
77. The first Broken Sword game's theme tune was composed by Barrington Pheloung, also known for writing the theme to grannies' favourite Inspector Morse.
78. Fans of Master System classic Alex Kidd In Miracle World will remember the former Sega mascot munching a hamburger at the end of each level. Originally, this was a Japanese rice ball, or onigari. It was changed because rice balls aren't as recognisable outside of Japan.
79. Violent, pedestrian-squishing racer Carmageddon was only allowed to be released in the UK with zombies instead of people roaming the streets. In the Indian version, the cows were removed, and it was banned altogether in Germany.
80. The music for the first Jak & Daxter game was composed by Mark Mothersbaugh, a member of cult '80s band Devo, and composer of all of director Wes Anderson's films including The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic.
81. If, for some strange reason, you still have a Madden NFL 06 save game on your memory card, a special Madden van will be unlocked when you start up Burnout Revenge on PS2.
82. The Metroid series doesn’t take place in any kind of order, so the plot can be confusing. Chrologically, Samus’ adventures take places as so: Metroid (NES), Metroid Prime (GC), Metroid 2: Return Of Samus (Game Boy), Super Metroid (SNES) and Metroid Fusion (GBA). Make sense now?
83. In the first Max Payne, Max’s face was digitised from series writer Sam Lake, but in the second game they used an actor called Timothy Gibbs, who starred in ladies’ favourite Sex And The City.
84. At the end of a game of Civilization IV, players are rated based on their performance by a comparison to one of 10 world leaders. The lowest rating compares the player to former US Vice-President Dan Quayle, who is legendary for such wisdom as "If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure".
85. PC hit Grim Fandango was originally titled ‘Deeds Of The Dead’, but was changed because LucasArts didn’t want a reference to death in the title. In a game primarily about death, the afterlife and the grim reaper. Yes.
86. The Secret Of Monkey Island came with a code-wheel copy protection system, in which you had to mix and match pirate faces and assemble their names. It was taken out of future releases as it proved too annoying.
87. In Japan, insanely difficult shoot-‘em-up Ikaruga came with a DVD of the country’s top players completing levels with unbroken chain combos and beating the bosses in record times.
88. In Germany, copies of Medal Of Honor: Frontline had to be reprinted because there was a swastika on the back cover. The developers also had to go back into the game and take out all the Nazi flags and other paraphernalia.
89. In the first Fallout, if you create your own character with less than 4 intelligence you can't converse with anyone; your only dialogue options are various grunts or other guttural noises. This makes the game insanely difficult to finish.
90. The secret boss Kurt Zisa in the first Kingdom Hearts was named via a contest held by Squaresoft in the US to promote the game.
91. Brutal PC FPS Kingpin featured a boss called The Jesus, named after the character from The Big Lebowski. He even repeated some of the lines from that film, including the immortal “Nobody f**** with the Jesus!”
92. A commercial for horror game Siren was pulled in Japan after complaints from parents. The advert featured a girl knocking on a window from the outside, begging her parents to let her in. The view then switches to the inside and shows the terrified parents, in fear of their daughter, who is revealed to be a bloody zombie. Sony said that the fear factor made people uncomfortable.
93. There’s a difference between the Japanese and US versions of Resident Evil 4. It occurs whenever Leon is killed by Mr Chainsaw. In the US version, his head is chopped off by the ‘saw. However, in the Japanese version, it cuts off part of Leon's face, exposing half of the front of Leon's skull and a single eyeball.
94. The first game to go online with Sony’s terrible PS2 network adapter was SOCOM: Navy Seals.
95. One of the player forms you can unlock in Rez for the Beyond’ levels is simply Morolian. This is the name of the alien invaders from UGA's previous game, Space Channel 5.
96. Thanks largely - we hope - to being bundled with a Wii-mote, Wii Play has sold around twice as much as Halo 3, shifting some 16 million copies.
97. Many of the in-game sounds and even the main font in Streets Of Rage for the Mega Drive were lifted directly from Revenge of Shinobi, and the special attack police car was ripped directly from E-SWAT: Cyber Police. How lazy.
98. More German censorship, this time Command And Conquer: Red Alert. Hitler (who is key to the plot) was removed from the intro cutscene, and all the soldiers were replaced with cyborgs.
99. Starcraft is the first computer game to have ever physically made it into space. It was sent aboard Shuttle mission STS-96 on May 27, 1999 by Mission Specialist Daniel T. Barry , who is also a Starcraft fan.
100. If you select a sheep four times in Warcraft 2: Tides Of Darkness (keep clicking it with the left mouse button), the sheep will say “bo-ram-u”. This is the sheeps’ password from the 1995 movie Babe.
101. In the original Japanese version of River City Ransom, the characters wore schoolboy jackets and belonged to high schools instead of gangs. This was changed in the American version because the jackets could be mistaken for bath robes and beating up evil gang members seemed like a more worthy cause.
101 game facts that will rock your world
Fact: We love facts. And the world of gaming is absolutely littered with astonishing/pointless/obscure trivia to cram into your brain. So, not-so-hot on the trail of last year's tepidly received 101 things you didn't know about games, we bring you another staggering list of game-related info detritus for your consuming pleasure. Memorize both gargantuan lists and become the ultimate know-it-all gamer.
01. Sonic The Hedgehog isn't only the name of Sega's speedy mascot, but also a gene on chromosome 7 of the human genome. Well, it was until recently when the science community decided to ditch all of its 'comedy' names for genes. Party poopers.
02. Matt Damon refused to appear in the recent Bourne Conspiracy game because he thought it was too violent. Not fussed by the violence in the films then, eh, Matt?
03. Ever wondered what happens to Leon's cool leather jacket in Resident Evil 4? It inexplicably disappears after the scene in the village. Well, on the PS2 version, go through Ada's side-quest and one of the Ganado villagers will be wearing it.
04. In the early stages of its development, Half-Life 2 featured a friendly alien that would follow Gordon Freeman around, feasting on the bodies of his fallen enemies. It was taken out when Valve discovered that the AI would be too difficult to convincingly program.
05. In 1986, Nintendo released a special Disk System peripheral for the NES in Japan. Among its features was a microphone in the controller, which certain games used, including an updated version of the original Zelda. You could only destroy a certain enemy by shouting into the mic.
06. The famously awful E.T. game for the Atari 2600 actually sold more than its most famous game, Space Invaders. E.T. sold 1.5 million, while Invaders only shifted a million.
07. A boss character called Binbag was removed from Rockstar's Manhunt early in its development. He was a psychopath wrapped in black refuse sacks. Lovely.
08. Rockstar also removed a character from Grand Theft Auto 3, although this time it was said to be because of the terrorist attacks on September 11th. He was called Darkel, a homeless guy who'd get you to rig buildings with explosives.
09. In the video game sequel to John Carpenter's seminal sci-fi horror film The Thing, the legendary director made a cameo appearance as a character called Doctor Faraday. He also oversaw the production of the game to make sure it was faithful to his original vision.
10. In Pilotwings 64, the character Lark is actually the mascot for famous American games magazine Nintendo Power, Nester. His name was changed at the last minute, probably because PAL gamers wouldn't know who he was.
11. Oscar-winning actor Marlon Brando recorded dialogue for EA's Godfather game shortly before he died, but it was deemed unusable due to the bloated thesp's ageing, mumbly voice. Instead, they hired in a sound-alike. What a waste of money, eh?
12. Vivendi's underrated Scarface game also featured a sound-alike, but this one was personally chosen by Al Pacino himself, hence the spot-on likeness. His name is Andre Sogliuzzo and he's a veteran video game voice actor.
13. DJ Atomica, the (some would say) annoying announcer in Burnout Paradise, is the same guy who provided the commentary for SSX 3. In Paradise, he makes reference to SSX several times, suggesting it's supposed to be the same character.
14. The Little Sisters from BioShock didn't start their life as little girls at all, but rather tiny mole-like creatures who scuttled around Rapture collecting Adam. Early concept art also shows them as retro '50s-style robots, too. We think they made the right choice.
15. UK Radio One DJ, Chris Moyles, was an enemy in the game spin-off of hit TV show 24. He played an Eastern European terrorist, who Jack Bauer found himself fighting at the end of an early level. It was only his face however; the voice was provided by another actor.
16. Another unlikely celebrity cameo is UK chat show host Jonathan Ross, who 'starred' in Halo 3. He supplies the voice of one of the marines who helps Master Chief, although it's very rare that one of his lines comes up -it's a totally random, and rare, occurrence.
17. In The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening, the advisor from the SNES version of Sim City, Dr Wright, appears in a house. He's named after Will Wright, the creator of the Sim series.
18. In Fallout 2, there's a hidden room in Junktown, in the Cafe Of Broken Dreams, where you can find Dogmeat, the Vault Dweller from the first game's faithful hound.
19. In the original Super Smash Brothers Melee, the Princess Daisy trophy had a mysterious third eye on the back of its head. Unfortunate glitch? Or something more sinister?
20. Sony's beautiful monster-toppling adventure game Shadow Of The Colossus was originally going to feature groups of characters on horseback working to take down the colossi cooperatively. This proved too taxing for the PS2's hardware, sadly.
21. There are currently over 100 million Game Boys in the world; both the original and the colour variant. 32 million of them are in Japan, and there are 44 million in America.
22. Before they settled on its unique, painted look, the developers of Okami, Clover, originally intended the game to look realistic. You can unlock a concept video of this by finishing the game. It was changed because the PS2's hardware wasn't sophisticated enough.
23. Online gaming isn't as recent a development as you may think; in the '90s, a modem peripheral called the Satellaview was released for the Super Nintendo. It let gamers download gaming news and specially-designed games. They were mostly remakes of retro classics.
24. Early iterations of Nintendo's failed Virtual Boy console included a gun you'd set vertical on a flat surface that would project a 3D image into the air.
25. GoldenEye's famously brilliant multiplayer mode originally contained three Bond actors as playable characters; Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton. Their data was left on the cartridge, but you couldn't select them without using a cheat device.
26. Namco developed a special PSone controller to be used with Ridge Racer Type 4. It was called the Jogcon and had a wheel in place of the analogue sticks.
27. In critically panned crime caper Driv3r, there was a Hawaiian shirt-wearing character called Timmy Vermicelli - a clear parody of the star of GTA: Vice City, Tommy Vercetti. The character wore swimming bands, poking fun at the GTA hero's inability to swim.
28. In Grand Theft Auto 3, one mission saw you chasing a "badly animated" (in the words of Asuka) character called Tanner, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Driver lead character of the same name.
29. The PSone was originally planned as a Nintendo console, with Sony set to design its electronic components. When Nintendo ditched the project, Sony decided to make a console anyway.
30. The death screams of the bad guys in the original Golden Axe are digitized from screams used in the films First Blood and Conan The Barbarian.
31. Star Fox Adventures originally started life as Dinosaur Planet, a game developed entirely by Rare. It starred a blue fox called Krystal, who later became part of the Star Fox crew.
32. The damsel-in-distress that Mario rescues in the original Donkey Kong is called Pauline. In the Japanese version she was known simply as 'Lady'.
33. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith wasn't the wrinkly rockers' first videogame appearance. In 1994 they starred in an on-rails shooter called Revolution X where you had to rescue the band from kidnappers in a dystopian future. No, really.
34. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty, a scene was removed from the final game where Snake is chased through the sinking tanker by a rush of water. Kojima said it looked good, but wasn't fun to play. Footage still exists of this in early trailers.
35. The first western-developed Xbox 360 game to break into the top 10 of the Japanese game chart was Gears of War. It made its debut at number seven after selling 33,000 copies. It charted in January 2006, over two years after the Japanese launch of the console.
36. Attacking the fat, black pig on Outset Island in The Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker will eventually cause it to attack.It's 100% invincible, though, so watch out.
37. Mega Man is known as Rock Man in Japan. This was changed in America because 'rock' is well-known slang for crack cocaine, and the name stuck.
38. The name Atari comes from the Chinese game Go. 'Atari' refers to a situation where a stone or a group of stones is in imminent danger of being taken by another player; a state Atari ironically found themselves in when the brand was bought by French company Infogrames.
39. The Xbox was originally named DirectXbox, as it was initially designed to show how Microsoft's Direct X graphics technology could benefit the console market.
40. The Texas TI-83 calculator has more graphics processing power than the Commodore 64. Amazingly, some basic C64 games can even be programmed into it.
01. Sonic The Hedgehog isn't only the name of Sega's speedy mascot, but also a gene on chromosome 7 of the human genome. Well, it was until recently when the science community decided to ditch all of its 'comedy' names for genes. Party poopers.
02. Matt Damon refused to appear in the recent Bourne Conspiracy game because he thought it was too violent. Not fussed by the violence in the films then, eh, Matt?
03. Ever wondered what happens to Leon's cool leather jacket in Resident Evil 4? It inexplicably disappears after the scene in the village. Well, on the PS2 version, go through Ada's side-quest and one of the Ganado villagers will be wearing it.
04. In the early stages of its development, Half-Life 2 featured a friendly alien that would follow Gordon Freeman around, feasting on the bodies of his fallen enemies. It was taken out when Valve discovered that the AI would be too difficult to convincingly program.
05. In 1986, Nintendo released a special Disk System peripheral for the NES in Japan. Among its features was a microphone in the controller, which certain games used, including an updated version of the original Zelda. You could only destroy a certain enemy by shouting into the mic.
06. The famously awful E.T. game for the Atari 2600 actually sold more than its most famous game, Space Invaders. E.T. sold 1.5 million, while Invaders only shifted a million.
07. A boss character called Binbag was removed from Rockstar's Manhunt early in its development. He was a psychopath wrapped in black refuse sacks. Lovely.
08. Rockstar also removed a character from Grand Theft Auto 3, although this time it was said to be because of the terrorist attacks on September 11th. He was called Darkel, a homeless guy who'd get you to rig buildings with explosives.
09. In the video game sequel to John Carpenter's seminal sci-fi horror film The Thing, the legendary director made a cameo appearance as a character called Doctor Faraday. He also oversaw the production of the game to make sure it was faithful to his original vision.
10. In Pilotwings 64, the character Lark is actually the mascot for famous American games magazine Nintendo Power, Nester. His name was changed at the last minute, probably because PAL gamers wouldn't know who he was.
11. Oscar-winning actor Marlon Brando recorded dialogue for EA's Godfather game shortly before he died, but it was deemed unusable due to the bloated thesp's ageing, mumbly voice. Instead, they hired in a sound-alike. What a waste of money, eh?
12. Vivendi's underrated Scarface game also featured a sound-alike, but this one was personally chosen by Al Pacino himself, hence the spot-on likeness. His name is Andre Sogliuzzo and he's a veteran video game voice actor.
13. DJ Atomica, the (some would say) annoying announcer in Burnout Paradise, is the same guy who provided the commentary for SSX 3. In Paradise, he makes reference to SSX several times, suggesting it's supposed to be the same character.
14. The Little Sisters from BioShock didn't start their life as little girls at all, but rather tiny mole-like creatures who scuttled around Rapture collecting Adam. Early concept art also shows them as retro '50s-style robots, too. We think they made the right choice.
15. UK Radio One DJ, Chris Moyles, was an enemy in the game spin-off of hit TV show 24. He played an Eastern European terrorist, who Jack Bauer found himself fighting at the end of an early level. It was only his face however; the voice was provided by another actor.
16. Another unlikely celebrity cameo is UK chat show host Jonathan Ross, who 'starred' in Halo 3. He supplies the voice of one of the marines who helps Master Chief, although it's very rare that one of his lines comes up -it's a totally random, and rare, occurrence.
17. In The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening, the advisor from the SNES version of Sim City, Dr Wright, appears in a house. He's named after Will Wright, the creator of the Sim series.
18. In Fallout 2, there's a hidden room in Junktown, in the Cafe Of Broken Dreams, where you can find Dogmeat, the Vault Dweller from the first game's faithful hound.
19. In the original Super Smash Brothers Melee, the Princess Daisy trophy had a mysterious third eye on the back of its head. Unfortunate glitch? Or something more sinister?
20. Sony's beautiful monster-toppling adventure game Shadow Of The Colossus was originally going to feature groups of characters on horseback working to take down the colossi cooperatively. This proved too taxing for the PS2's hardware, sadly.
21. There are currently over 100 million Game Boys in the world; both the original and the colour variant. 32 million of them are in Japan, and there are 44 million in America.
22. Before they settled on its unique, painted look, the developers of Okami, Clover, originally intended the game to look realistic. You can unlock a concept video of this by finishing the game. It was changed because the PS2's hardware wasn't sophisticated enough.
23. Online gaming isn't as recent a development as you may think; in the '90s, a modem peripheral called the Satellaview was released for the Super Nintendo. It let gamers download gaming news and specially-designed games. They were mostly remakes of retro classics.
24. Early iterations of Nintendo's failed Virtual Boy console included a gun you'd set vertical on a flat surface that would project a 3D image into the air.
25. GoldenEye's famously brilliant multiplayer mode originally contained three Bond actors as playable characters; Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton. Their data was left on the cartridge, but you couldn't select them without using a cheat device.
26. Namco developed a special PSone controller to be used with Ridge Racer Type 4. It was called the Jogcon and had a wheel in place of the analogue sticks.
27. In critically panned crime caper Driv3r, there was a Hawaiian shirt-wearing character called Timmy Vermicelli - a clear parody of the star of GTA: Vice City, Tommy Vercetti. The character wore swimming bands, poking fun at the GTA hero's inability to swim.
28. In Grand Theft Auto 3, one mission saw you chasing a "badly animated" (in the words of Asuka) character called Tanner, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Driver lead character of the same name.
29. The PSone was originally planned as a Nintendo console, with Sony set to design its electronic components. When Nintendo ditched the project, Sony decided to make a console anyway.
30. The death screams of the bad guys in the original Golden Axe are digitized from screams used in the films First Blood and Conan The Barbarian.
31. Star Fox Adventures originally started life as Dinosaur Planet, a game developed entirely by Rare. It starred a blue fox called Krystal, who later became part of the Star Fox crew.
32. The damsel-in-distress that Mario rescues in the original Donkey Kong is called Pauline. In the Japanese version she was known simply as 'Lady'.
33. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith wasn't the wrinkly rockers' first videogame appearance. In 1994 they starred in an on-rails shooter called Revolution X where you had to rescue the band from kidnappers in a dystopian future. No, really.
34. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty, a scene was removed from the final game where Snake is chased through the sinking tanker by a rush of water. Kojima said it looked good, but wasn't fun to play. Footage still exists of this in early trailers.
35. The first western-developed Xbox 360 game to break into the top 10 of the Japanese game chart was Gears of War. It made its debut at number seven after selling 33,000 copies. It charted in January 2006, over two years after the Japanese launch of the console.
36. Attacking the fat, black pig on Outset Island in The Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker will eventually cause it to attack.It's 100% invincible, though, so watch out.
37. Mega Man is known as Rock Man in Japan. This was changed in America because 'rock' is well-known slang for crack cocaine, and the name stuck.
38. The name Atari comes from the Chinese game Go. 'Atari' refers to a situation where a stone or a group of stones is in imminent danger of being taken by another player; a state Atari ironically found themselves in when the brand was bought by French company Infogrames.
39. The Xbox was originally named DirectXbox, as it was initially designed to show how Microsoft's Direct X graphics technology could benefit the console market.
40. The Texas TI-83 calculator has more graphics processing power than the Commodore 64. Amazingly, some basic C64 games can even be programmed into it.
The Dark Knight Probably Not Going To Win All The Oscars Now
The Dark Knight is a sensation - the second-biggest movie of all time and easily the best film about a gimp punching a clown ever.
So, come Oscar night, you’d expect that The Dark Knight would wipe the floor with the competition - especially since the competition seems to be a million underperforming films about gloomy people from 35 years ago - but you’re wrong.
It’s just been announced that The Dark Knight can’t win the Oscar for Best Score because it was composed by too many people. That’ll be disappointing for the crew of The Dark Knight, but they’ll get over it - not least because the 2009 Oscars will introduce categories for Best Irredeemably Bleak Summer Movie and Silliest And Most Indecipherable Voice Employed By A Lead Actor, which The Dark Knight is already a dead cert for.
Even before it was released, there was a heavy Oscar buzz surrounding The Dark Knight, and it was all down to Heath Ledger. By a) giving possibly the performance of his life as The Joker and b) dying young, Heath Ledger was guaranteed at least a nomination for Best Supporting Actor from the get-go.
But then The Dark Knight was released, and it seemed like Best Supporting Actor would be the tip of the iceberg. The script was dark and thematically complex, the cinematography was brave and experimental, the box office numbers were galactic, the costumes were pretty and - most importantly for Oscar voters - the film went on for about an hour longer than it should have done and featured endless scenes of a frowning man gazing into the middle distance.
To the casual observer, it looked as though The Dark Knight would win every single Oscar that it put itself in for, but already that’s not the case. The bleak, creepy score for The Dark Knight has been ruled ineligible for the Oscars, and it’s all thanks to the number of people who worked on it.
Apparently, Academy rules state that only the primary composer of a film’s score should be included on the cue sheet, but for The Dark Knight the names of everyone who added pieces of music to the score were added, and now it’s been disqualified. MTV reports:
Although the five people listed as composers on “The Dark Knight” — including Zimmer, [James Newton] Howard, music editor Alex Gibson, ambient music designer Mel Wesson and composer Lorne Balfe — signed an affidavit stating that Zimmer and Howard were the primary composers, the majority of the Academy sided against the duo’s eligibility.
Now, being disqualified from the Oscars for a minor technicality like that is bound to sting, but it’s not the end of the world for The Dark Knight. Here’s why:
1 - By adding Gibson, Balfe and Wesson to the cue sheet for The Dark Knight, Hans Zimmer has ensured that they’ll all receive royalties from the score’s use, so at least he gets the moral high ground.
2 - The Dark Knight is still pushing hard in the Best Picture category - the only Oscar that people actually care about - and at this point it’s hard to see how it could lose.
3 - Does anyone go and see a movie for the score? No they don’t. A win in this category isn’t exactly going to boost DVD sales, is it?
4 - This is the main reason. If The Dark Knight has been disqualified for entering its score into the Oscars, then it means none of it can be performed in one of those interminable musical interludes that bloat the Oscars ceremony out. And you know what that means? More avant garde performances featuring Latvian women dressed as little Dutch girls singing in a made-up language and hitting bicycles for percussion. Yay for that!
So, come Oscar night, you’d expect that The Dark Knight would wipe the floor with the competition - especially since the competition seems to be a million underperforming films about gloomy people from 35 years ago - but you’re wrong.
It’s just been announced that The Dark Knight can’t win the Oscar for Best Score because it was composed by too many people. That’ll be disappointing for the crew of The Dark Knight, but they’ll get over it - not least because the 2009 Oscars will introduce categories for Best Irredeemably Bleak Summer Movie and Silliest And Most Indecipherable Voice Employed By A Lead Actor, which The Dark Knight is already a dead cert for.
Even before it was released, there was a heavy Oscar buzz surrounding The Dark Knight, and it was all down to Heath Ledger. By a) giving possibly the performance of his life as The Joker and b) dying young, Heath Ledger was guaranteed at least a nomination for Best Supporting Actor from the get-go.
But then The Dark Knight was released, and it seemed like Best Supporting Actor would be the tip of the iceberg. The script was dark and thematically complex, the cinematography was brave and experimental, the box office numbers were galactic, the costumes were pretty and - most importantly for Oscar voters - the film went on for about an hour longer than it should have done and featured endless scenes of a frowning man gazing into the middle distance.
To the casual observer, it looked as though The Dark Knight would win every single Oscar that it put itself in for, but already that’s not the case. The bleak, creepy score for The Dark Knight has been ruled ineligible for the Oscars, and it’s all thanks to the number of people who worked on it.
Apparently, Academy rules state that only the primary composer of a film’s score should be included on the cue sheet, but for The Dark Knight the names of everyone who added pieces of music to the score were added, and now it’s been disqualified. MTV reports:
Although the five people listed as composers on “The Dark Knight” — including Zimmer, [James Newton] Howard, music editor Alex Gibson, ambient music designer Mel Wesson and composer Lorne Balfe — signed an affidavit stating that Zimmer and Howard were the primary composers, the majority of the Academy sided against the duo’s eligibility.
Now, being disqualified from the Oscars for a minor technicality like that is bound to sting, but it’s not the end of the world for The Dark Knight. Here’s why:
1 - By adding Gibson, Balfe and Wesson to the cue sheet for The Dark Knight, Hans Zimmer has ensured that they’ll all receive royalties from the score’s use, so at least he gets the moral high ground.
2 - The Dark Knight is still pushing hard in the Best Picture category - the only Oscar that people actually care about - and at this point it’s hard to see how it could lose.
3 - Does anyone go and see a movie for the score? No they don’t. A win in this category isn’t exactly going to boost DVD sales, is it?
4 - This is the main reason. If The Dark Knight has been disqualified for entering its score into the Oscars, then it means none of it can be performed in one of those interminable musical interludes that bloat the Oscars ceremony out. And you know what that means? More avant garde performances featuring Latvian women dressed as little Dutch girls singing in a made-up language and hitting bicycles for percussion. Yay for that!
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