truesee's Blog

Daily Telegraph UK

Published: 7:00AM BST 06 Jul 2009

The "Mumbo Jumbo" coaster at the Flamingo Land Park, near Malton, North Yorks, plunges passengers down 112 degrees and puts them through similar forces to those experienced by jet pilots.

The £4 million ride, which lasts for 38 seconds, has been confirmed as the world's steepest by Guinness World of Records.

As well as the drop, the ride boasts another 30-foot plunge and the ability to throw riders round thrilling corners.

Gordon Gibb, Chief Executive of the park, said: "This is a fantastic achievement for Flamingo Land. We are extremely proud of our new ride. It's a world beater, and it definitely puts us in the theme park premier league.

"There's nothing like it anywhere in the UK or Europe. In fact, you'd have to travel to Indiana Beach in the USA to come anywhere close and even then, our 'coaster is steeper by one degree.

"It is exciting for a relatively small family business like Flamingo Land to be punching well above its weight. Mumbo Jumbo looks set to become a National icon, we are all very excited.

Mr Gibb's family have owned the park, which attracts nearly 1.5 million visitors a year, for 32 years, with the 33-year-old taking the reins as a teenager.

"The name is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek description of the way other theme parks boast about their new rides and attractions. We're not talking mumbo jumbo - our new rollercoaster is definitely the real deal."

Carl Saville from Guinness World of Records said: "Now it has successfully completed ten rides it has definitely claimed the world record.

"We have confirmed that the angle of descent in a particular part of the ride is 112 degrees which constitutes a new world record."

85,000 pounds of debris removed from Mastic Beach property

BY PATRICK WHITTLE

Newsday

1:03 PM EDT, July 6, 2009

A Mastic Beach father and son face nearly $20,000 in fines after officials had to use 10 garbage trucks to remove 42 tons of tires, car parts, hoses and other trash from their home. (Handout / July 6, 2009)

 

PHOTOS OF GARBAGE:

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ny-garbage-pg,0,6078689.photogallery

 The Daily Telegraph

Published: 6:48PM BST 06 Jul 2009

Cornel and Carla from Lowestoft, Norfolk with their three children Tanisha 4, Jermaine 6 and Jayden 2 Photo: MASONS NEWS SERVICE

White mum Carla Nurse, 27, and her black husband Cornel, 31, were not surprised when their first child Jermaine was born with a mixed race complexion.

But they were amazed when daughter Tanisha arrived with an Afro-Caribbean appearance -and their second son Jayden was born with white skin and blonde hair.

"Where I live it is a predominantly white town and I admit it looks pretty strange when I walk around with my brood of rainbow children," said Mrs Nurse.

"I am at a complete loss to explain why they are all different colours - I can only think that it is some type of freaky genetic thing.

"After Jayden was born and he looked Aryan my friends nicknamed us the United Nations."

Mrs Nurse , a part-time model from Lowestoft, Suffolk, said her only concern is that many people assume the children have different fathers.

She said: "I remember giving birth to each one of them at the hospital and all the doctors were looking at me thinking I had all these children to different men.

"When people think I've cheated it makes me so angry. "I would never stray from Cornel and never have - I'm totally devoted to him and always will be."

Mr Nurse ,whose Afro-Caribbean father came from Barbados and white mother came from London, grew up in the Suffolk village of Halesworth just 30 miles away.

Their eldest son Jermaine, now six, has brown eyes with golden brown skin while daughter Tanisha, four, takes after her father with Afro-Caribbean skin, dark eyes and tight black curls.

Youngest son Jayden, now two, has white skin, blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

All three siblings have their mother's nose and big eyes while Tanisha has full lips similar to Mr Nurse.

Mr Nurse said: "They are definitely all mine and the whole thing is just a freak of nature. Tanisha was dark from the start but as the boys got older one has gone darker and one has got whiter.

"All of the kids were planned - Jermaine was conceived on holiday in Florida and Tanisha and Jayden were conceived at home.

"They all have our facial features it's just the colour of their skin which is different - it's hard to believe."

Dr Jess Buxton, of the British Society for Human Genetics, said it was rare for three children with totally different skin colour to be born to the same parents.

She said: "I have never heard of this before and I'm sure it can't happen often. But several different genes control skin colour in a similar way to eye and hair colour.

"This is a random process, so it is certainly possible for the same parents to have children with different skin colours, although because we don't know all of the genes involved it isn't possible to predict when this will happen."

Tiny New Battery Is Printable

LiveScience

02 July 2009 01:00 pm ET

Updated 6:05 p.m. ET 

A new battery, small and thin, weighs almost nothing and can be printed in a process similar to silk-screening shirts.

The printable battery is expected to be cheap and easy to mass produce and could be used in disposable receipts or cards, engineers in Germany announced today.

"Our goal is to be able to mass produce the batteries at a price of single digit cent range each," said Andreas Willert, of the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Electronic Nano Systems ENAS, where Reinhard Baumann led the battery's development.

The battery weighs less than 1 gram and is less than 1 millimeter thick. It runs at 1.5 volts. Placing several in a row can produce up to 6 volts.

A standard AAA battery weighs about 11.5 grams and also runs at 1.5 volts.

The newly developed battery has a life span more limited than traditional batteries, however. Here are the technical details:

The battery is composed of different layers: a zinc anode and a manganese cathode, among others. Zinc and manganese react with one another and produce electricity. However, the anode and the cathode layer dissipate gradually during this chemical process. Therefore, the battery is suitable for applications which have a limited life span or a limited power requirement.

The battery new contains no mercury and so is said to be more environmentally friendly than some.

Actual products with the battery could be ready by the end of the year, the engineers said.

The small, thin battery comes out of the printer and can be applied to flexible substrates. Credit: Fraunhofer ENAS

The Strange Ingredients in Fireworks

By LiveScience Staff

posted: 02 July 2009 04:41 pm ET

Fireworks for the 4th of July are all about light, color and sound. But inside, there are some bizarre ingredients, from aluminum to Vaseline and even the stuff of rat poison.

An ancient mix of black powder, essentially gunpowder little changed from its invention in China a millennia ago, gets each rocket in the air by creating pressure in gas trapped in a tube, or mortar.

Two fuses are lit at once: one to ignite the black powder, and another that burns slower, creating a well-timed explosion high in the sky.

The shells of commercial fireworks contain a powdery concoction of chemicals that produce the bangs and the whistles, as well as the pretty effects. Tubes, hollow spheres, and paper wrappings work as barriers to compartmentalize the effects. More complicated shells are divided into even more sections to control the timing of secondary explosions.

Big booms and whistles come from flash powder. Once used for flashes in photography, it is a combination of fuel-like metal and a chemical that feeds oxygen to fire up the fuel.

Different combinations of metals and oxides produce a whole array of sounds.

While ancient Greeks and Romans used bismuth in their beauty care products and coins, chemists add bismuth trioxide to the flash powder to get that crackling sound, dubbed "dragon eggs." Ear-splitting whistles take four ingredients, including a food preservative and Vaseline.

The variety of color in a fireworks show depends on the mix of metals.

• Copper produces blue sparks.
• A mix of strontium salts, lithium salts and other stuff makes red.
• Aluminum and titanium put the white stars in an aerial flag.
• Barium, also used in rat poison and glass making, makes green.
• Calcium burns orange and sodium, yellow.

In recent years, chemists have worked to develop more environmentally friendly fireworks, in part because one ingredient, perchlorate, was found in higher than normal concentrations in a lake where fireworks were shot off, and the chemical is known to cause thyroid problems in humans.

Meanwhile, to light up a red, white, and blue flag, chemists can lay out the emblem's design on wax paper. The pattern you see up in the air, whether it's a smiley face or a bow tie, mirrors the arrangement of the metals in the shell.

Because the flag, or any other pattern, shoots out from the shell as a two-dimensional image, people watching the show from different angles can't always tell what they're looking at. To make sure everyone has a good view, pyrotechnists tend to send duplicates into the sky at the same time.

You can see fireworks before you hear them because light travels faster than sound.

Saturday, 04 July 2009

The Peel P50, a single door, three wheel microcar went on display at New York's Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum on Monday. The Peel Engineering Company manufactured 50 to 100 of the one-seater vehicles which weighed 130 lb (59 kg), and are 52.8 in (134 cm) in length, 47 in (120 cm) in height and 39 in (99 cm) in width. The little car can travel as fast as 38 mph (61 kph), and comes equipped with a handle on the car so the driver can pull the car to back up. Only twenty of the vehicles have survived since 1963, and the original price of £199 has soared to approximately £40,000 (US$ 65,000) today. Information from: Wikinews, http://www.wikinews.org Image: Philip (flip) Kromer. Link to Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGd8OTxVtt8

Altoona officer forced to quit over MySpace photos

C Kauffman

Des Moines Register

July 5, 2009

An Altoona reserve police officer who allegedly posted suggestive photos of herself on a social networking site was forced to resign earlier this year.

Abigail L. Keller, 27, is the latest in a string of Iowans who have been fired over questionable material on Internet message boards, Facebook pages or MySpace profiles.

Keller, of Pleasant Hill, resigned in February after a local businessman gave a city police officer print-outs of pages from Keller's MySpace page.

Keller was in her fifth month of service as a full-time reserve officer for the department. She had previously spent three years as a volunteer reserve officer.

Police Chief John Gray, at a recent state hearing that dealt with Keller's request for unemployment benefits, said photographs on Keller's Web site "depicted Officer Keller in a bar surrounded by male and female patrons. ... In one photograph, she is displaying her naked buttocks or mooning the person who is taking the picture. In another, she is performing simulated sex acts on both males and females."

Keller testified that one photograph showed her "making kissy faces" with a friend, and in another she and a few female friends faced each other in a circle with their tongues out.

She said she did not post a photo to her site in which she exposed her buttocks. Gray disputed that, and said he had the photo in question.

"You're pulling your pants down," he testified. "Your naked buttocks are showing."

Administrative Law Judge Debra L. Wise asked Keller whether she had posted such a photo to her site.

"No, I didn't, "Keller replied. "I took that down way before I was hired with Altoona."

Keller said she posted the bar photos in 2005, months before she was appointed as a volunteer reserve officer, and forgot about them. She said she believed access to the site was restricted.

Gray testified that he was particularly concerned about the site because it included a photo of Keller in her police uniform.

"What I found to be inappropriate was that she was associating her conduct with the police department," he testified.

Wise ruled that although Keller might have been justifiably fired, she did not intentionally disregard the police department's interests and was entitled to unemployment benefits.

"In this technology age, she used poor judgment when she posted these pictures in albums on her social-network pages and naively believed no one but close personal friends could access these pictures," Wise wrote in her ruling.

Police: Man Robs Bank He Patronized

MIAMI (CBS)

 

 CBS News

In real estate, the first rule is always location, location, location. For one alleged South Florida bank robber, he might want to remember that old axiom.

Fort Lauderdale police say David Lotridge faces felony charges for allegedly robbing a local Citibank.

According to police, Lotridge walked into a Citibank at 899 Cypress Creek Rd. in Fort Lauderdale on Friday. He showed a teller a note implying he had a weapon and walked out with an undisclosed amount of cash, according to CBS station WFOR-TV news partner the Miami Herald.

Bank employees were shown a photo lineup by police and quickly recognized Lotridge as the alleged robber. Employees said Lotridge was a previous customer of the same bank that was robbed.

11 arrested in theft of blue jeans

A tipster alerted Atlanta Police; suspects were removing clothes’ tags.

By Mike Morris

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Contest Offers $1 Million In Prizes To Fastest Keyboard Typists

July 3, 2009 2:16 p.m. EST

Windsor Genova - AHN News Writer

Mountain View, CA (AHN) - A company that supplies color-coded keyboards has launched a nationwide speed typing contest offering $1 million worth of prizes to the fastest typists in the U.S.

KeyRight USA said its America's Fastest Typist contest aims to improve the nation's keyboard literacy by offering cash prizes and educational scholarships to participating individuals, students, school teams and corporate teams.

"It (contest) will have local, regional, state and national 'on-line' qualifying heats culminating in national fame for individuals and school and corporate teams in a televised final to be staged in Las Vegas in June, next year," Keyright said in a press release.

Aside from fame and prizes, contestants will have an opportunity to improve their keyboard typing skills through the use of Keyright's Look & Learn Keyboard. The keyboard's colored keys guide users on learning touch typing.

Jerome Whitcroft, inventor of the Look & Learn keyboard, said over 130 million PC users in the U.S., including scores of millions of children, can't type properly or have no basic typing skill.

"Over 85% of all PC users have deficient keyboard skills, resulting in learning difficulties, reduced productivity and keyboard-related injuries," Whitcroft said.

The problem can be solved through the use of the Look & Learn Keyboard, which is gaining wide acceptance from school teachers, individuals and business owners and corporations right across America, he said

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7015685506#ixzz0KL2SBQGk&D

Woman, 85, lay dead in her flat for FIVE YEARS before anyone noticed

Steven Henry
Last updated at 6:05 PM on 03rd July 2009

Forgotten: Isabella Purves' body lay undiscovered for five years

The badly decomposed remains of an 89-year-old woman were discovered in her flat five years after she died, police revealed today.

Isabella Purves' body was only found after a downstairs neighbour noticed water dripping through the ceiling of her tenement flat and reported it to the local council.

Officers forced their way into her flat, fighting through the piles of unopened mail which had gathered behind her front door, before making the gruesome discovery.

It is thought nobody noticed Miss Purves was missing as her pension was paid directly into a bank account and bills were paid by direct debit.

Today, as detectives tried to trace the elderly woman's relatives, neighbours, pensioners' charities and politicians spoke of their horror over the tragic case, which one described as a glaring example of the country's fractured society.

Tragedy: Isabella Purves is believed to have lain dead in her flat - the top bay window - in Edinburgh since 2004

The last reminder was sent out in 2004. His wife, Dorothy, who co-owns the business, said the discovery was 'an indictment' of society.

She said: 'Nobody cares any more, that's pretty sad. It's down to basic neighbourly behaviour. I would hope people would be looking out for others.'

Giovanni Cilia, who owns the Fioritalia florist below Miss Purves's traditional tenement flat, said he was shocked at how long it took to find her. He said: 'How did no one notice the smell, or wonder where she was?

'I heard there was a big pile of letters and bills behind the door. I used to see her walk past the shop maybe four times a week. She would often go across the street and pick up litter to clean the place up.'

Mr Cilia, who has run the shop for 20 years, added: 'It's shocked everyone here. When I saw her she looked quite fit and healthy for her age. 'She used to wear boots and would often carry a rucksack like she enjoyed going for walks.'

Isabella's neighbour Lucy Balloch, 28, added: 'It's very saddening and a real shock. There are a lot of people moving in and out all the time in here and it's not easy to get to know the neighbours that well.

'That's maybe why nobody suspected anyone was in there.'

 

Tragic: Isabella Purves' name is still on the doorbell to her flat

Little is known about Miss Purves, although it is thought she never married.

The windows of her top-floor flat were left open today in the tenement building, which occupies a block on the busy junction with Broughton Road, above a pub and row of shops.

Douglas McLellan, of Age Concern and Help the Aged in Scotland, said it was a 'tragic case'.

He said: 'If she was not receiving care treatment from anyone and not receiving social care, then the likelihood of being found quickly is minimal.

'The question is not just about public services finding people and neighbours checking up, it's about how elderly people themselves are living their lives. If they're leading private lives, then how are people going to find them?'

Mr McLellan urged people to take more notice of their neighbours and 'knock on doors' if there is any concern.

'Society has fractured. We're not in the same units as we used to be. People might not phone their own gran more than once a month,' he added.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Iain Gray, MSP, said he was 'shocked and troubled' by the case. 'These sad circumstances are a reminder to us all to make an effort to speak to our neighbours whenever we get the chance, especially those who are elderly and on their own,' he added. 

Malcolm Chisholm, Labour MSP for Ms Purves' constituency of Edinburgh North and Leith, said: 'It is deeply disturbing that the body of an elderly person can lie undiscovered for five years.

'In the city of Edinburgh there is a great sense of community but with such a bustling sometimes transient population it is worthwhile and really important that young and old reach out and build those bridges.'

Edinburgh City Council confirmed it was contacted about a leak from the tenement but said Miss Purves was not a council tenant.

A spokesman for Lothian and Borders Police said: 'Police were called to an address in Rodney Street in Edinburgh on June 30, after concerns were raised over an elderly resident.

'On entering the premises, officers discovered the body of a 90-year-old woman. There are no suspicious circumstances surrounding her death, and a report has been sent to the procurator fiscal.'

SUFFOLK, Va. — Suffolk police say they now have a suspect to go with an image of a person who snapped a photo of himself with a cell phone belonging to the owner of the home he burglarized. 

Police say a 17-year-old Suffolk resident faces charges of burglary and larceny. They're not identifying him because he's underage.

The burglary happened in early June. Detectives think the person unsuccessfully tried to make a phone call using the phone, then used the camera function to photograph himself. People who saw the photo in news stories helped detectives identify the suspect.

ORIGINAL STORY

Suffolk

Burglary suspect leaves photo of himself on homeowner's cell phone

The man suspected of the early-June burglary of a Suffolk home left this photo on the victim's cell phone. (Courtesy of Suffolk police / June 4, 2009)

11:40 AM EDT, June 29, 2009

SUFFOLK — Police investigators are seeking the public's help in identifying a suspect in an early June home burglary after getting a little help from the suspect himself.

In the first week of June, police were called to the burglary of a house in the 200 block of Holbrook Arch in Suffolk. During the burglary, the suspect tried to use the homeowner's cell phone but was unable to make a call, city spokeswoman Debbie George said in a statement Sunday evening.

What the suspect was able to do was snap a genial-looking photo of himself with the phone's built-in camera while committing the crime. He then left the phone and ran off, George said.

Would you pledge your soul as loan collateral?

Reuters – Viktor Mirosiichenko,

the public face of Kontora loan c

ompany, shows a contract with a

borrower at his …

 

Fri Jul 3, 11:53 am ET

RIGA (Reuters) – Ready to give your soul for a loan in these difficult economic times? In Latvia, where the crisis has raged more than in the rest of the European Union, you can.

Such a deal is being offered by the Kontora loan company, whose public face is Viktor Mirosiichenko, 34.

Clients have to sign a contract, with the words "Agreement" in bold letters at the top. The client agrees to the collateral, "that is, my immortal soul."

Mirosiichenko said his company would not employ debt collectors to get its money back if people refused to repay, and promised no physical violence. Signatories only have to give their first name and do not show any documents.

"If they don't give it back, what can you do? They won't have a soul, that's all," he told Reuters in a basement office, with one desk, a computer and three chairs.

Wearing sunglasses, a black suit and a white shirt with the words "Kontora" (office) emblazoned on it, he reaches into his pocket and lays out a sheaf of notes on the table to show that the business is serious and not a joke.

Latvia has been the EU nation worst hit by economic crisis.

Unemployment is soaring and banks have sharply reduced their lending, meaning that small companies offering easy loans in small amounts have become more popular.

Mirosiichenko said his company was basically trusting people to repay the small amounts they borrowed, which has so far been up to 250 lats ($500) for between 1 and 90 days at a hefty interest rate.

He said about 200 people had taken out loans over the two months the business was in operation.

(Reporting by Patrick Lannin; Editing by Steve Addison

  I was blind, bite now I can see...

Miracle ... tooth op gives Martin sight

July 3, 2009

BLIND Martin Jones has seen his wife for the first time after surgeons restored his sight using one of his TEETH.

Martin, 42, was blinded when a tub of molten aluminium exploded in his face while he was working in a scrapyard 12 years ago.

He married care worker Gill, 50, eight years later so he has never seen her - until surgeons performed the incredible op.

Overjoyed Martin said: "I met my wife when I was blind and when I found out there was a chance I would get my sight back the first person I wanted to see was her.

"The doctors took the bandages off and it was like looking through water and then I saw this figure and it was her. It was unbelievable.

"She looked so beautiful. If felt fantastic getting my sight back. I can't describe it, it is beyond words."

Martin suffered 37 per cent burns when he was covered in the 600C liquid. He had to wear a body stocking for 23 hours a day as doctors treated his horrific burns.

His left eye was so badly damaged it had to be removed.

Revolutionary

His right was saved but he couldn't see out of it.

Martin thought he would be blind for ever - until it was decided he was suitable for the revolutionary surgery.

One of his canine teeth was removed and a tiny hole was drilled into it to hold a special optical lens.

The tooth was then inserted into Martin's cheek for three months to enable it to grow new tissue and blood vessels.

The lens was then fitted into the hole and the tooth was inserted into his right eyeball.

Within two weeks stunned Martin could see for the first time in 12 years.

The implant works by the lens allowing light into the eye which restores his vision.

Martin said: "When I first heard about the technique I couldn't believe it. I don't think many people can.

"My friends just don't believe me. They think I'm pulling their leg or have just made it up.

"But when I take my glasses off they say 'oh my God' because my eye looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. They're just amazed at it.

"I was blind for 12 years and when my sight came back everything changed.

"The first car I saw when my sight was restored was a Smart car and I couldn't stop laughing. I thought someone had chopped the car in half.

"Getting my sight back has changed my life. I used to walk with a white stick but now I find pleasure in being able to see what is going on in the world."

The operation was done by Brighton surgeon Christopher Lui, the only person in the UK who carries out the procedure.

Game show looks to convert atheists