Pathology Doc's Morgue

Fanfic recs, anyone?

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:53:03 GMT

Does anyone out there know where one can find half-decent fanfic in Jack Vance's Cadwal Chronicles (Araminta Station et. seq.) or Demon Princes universes? Straight, slash, dark, fluff, even PWP. I'll read anything once.

Bonus points if it's on LJ, DW or JF.

Merry Christmas to all...

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 01:56:14 GMT

...and to all, a good night. :)

(Yes, I know what my timestamp says - but where I actually am, it's still Christmas Day.)

40 Years since humans first walked on the moon, but have we advanced?

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:21:04 GMT

The landing of human beings on the moon, with their safe return, is humanity's greatest triumph.

They last did so in my lifetime (the last mission was in December 1972).

It is the greatest disgrace of the United States that the nation which put men on the moon has not since been back there. If Barack Obama cannot twist NASA's arm to do so in LESS time than it took from Kennedy's commitment until Armstrong's first step, then he is utterly lacking in vision, drive, or ambition.

The US military should never have been locked out of the space race, as it was back in the 60s. If the military had been conducting spaceflights, it would have insisted on the ability to launch reliably at short notice, at any time of day, in most kinds of weather and to be able to turn a ship around (refuel, rearm where applicable, and perform essential maintenance) in a very short time (say, 24 hours). The most recent Space Shuttle launch was plagued by five launch cancellations, and I'm pretty sure that if they tried to launch again in 24 hours, all sorts of corners would have to be cut - probably too many.

The military needs to be allowed back into the Space Race - or at the very least, new ships with 21st century technology (as opposed to the "Apollo 11 on steroids" currently favoured) should meet military standards of reliability, toughness, durability and serviceability.

(It goes without saying that Moon Hoax believers who post here will be banned and their stupidity frozen in the comments for all to see. If you're going to say nothing good, say nothing.)

We hope that Boeing or Airbus are not truly this stupid.

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:53:52 GMT

Ryanair on board with stool-seating

Tuesday, July 07, 2009 » 09:50am

Irish carrier Ryanair said it was in talks with US planemaker Boeing about adapting its aircraft so that some passengers could be placed in 'vertical seating'.

The low-cost carrier, which in recent months has suggested heavy passengers pay a 'fat tax' and travellers pay to use its on-board toilets, said it wants to get more people onto its aircraft by ripping out traditional seating.

Ryanair is in discussions with Boeing 'in relation to adapt the aircraft to allow people to travel in vertical seating', Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said on Monday.

Passengers 'wouldn't be fully standing, they would have something like a stool to lean on or to sit on', he added.

McNamara said Ryanair was looking into removing four rows, or 12 seats, of traditional seating on its planes to accommodate the standing room.

Chinese carrier Spring Airlines was in discussions with European planemaker Airbus about a similar plan, he noted.

Like I said in the header, I hope that the airline companies aren't this stupid. Air-safety experts would argue that the current seating standards are not strong enough - in their perfect world, we'd be travelling backwards (as soldiers do on some long-distance military transports), and/or wearing four-point restraints, to protect us in event of a survivable crash. We fine people for not wearing seat belts in cars, for heaven's sake! Now these idiots are proposing that passengers be allowed to stand, or at least rest their backsides on a stool, for the duration of a flight when every airline I have ever been on insists that passengers sit down with their belts on for even the slightest turbulence.

This is a nonsense idea. The bottom line is money, here; making the maximum amount of profit by squeezing the most passengers onto an existing airplane. It's a great way to wind up with horribly mutilated passengers. If these aircraft are built, and one crashes, the family of every standing passenger will be entitled to sue and it will be an open-and-shut case. The airline (at least Ryanair; I don't like the chances of success for a class action in the PRC) will go under for negligence in offering this seating, and the aircraft manufacturer will go under for being so negligent as to build the aircraft.

My fear is that the bean counters, the dollar symbols whizzing behind their eyes as they contemplate orders and profits, will insist on this and the engineers will be so cowardly as not to stand up to them.

If this happens, I would suggest the best course of action is for would-be passengers with these airlines to refuse to fly unless the airline can guarantee that the seating plan is conventional (all-sitting), and to be willing to walk off the aircraft if one discovers otherwise.

If the executives of the airline companies are reading this, I would implore them to reject all talks with airlines for such seating at once.

If any Boeing or Airbus engineers are reading this, I would implore them to have the courage to stand up to the executive if necessary and to refuse to design the "seating" plan these airlines demand.

News of the World.

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:48:00 GMT

1. Proof, as if any were needed, that the burqa is a bad idea: GUWEI'IYYA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - The legs are long, the eyes are big, the bodies curvaceous. Contestants in this Saudi-style beauty pageant have all the features you might expect anywhere else in the world, but with one crucial difference -- the competitors are camels. Clearly, this is what happens when you don't see enough of your women.

2. Police foil radio control zeppelin jailbreak. Yes, you read that right. MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police said on Friday they had foiled an Italian drug trafficker's plan to break out of jail in the Canary Islands using climbing equipment and a four-meter-long zeppelin. "The plan consisted of using a remotely controlled zeppelin to bring him night-vision goggles and climbing equipment with which to escape," a National Police statement said. Anyone from Livejournal's steamfashion watching? No doubt the band Abney Park could find some inspiration here - Airship Pirates indeed!

3. From Turkey - the game show where you gain your soul: ISTANBUL (Reuters) - What happens when you put a Muslim imam, a Christian priest, a rabbi and a Buddhist monk in a room with 10 atheists? Turkish television station Kanal T hopes the answer is a ratings success as it prepares to launch a gameshow where spiritual guides from the four faiths will seek to convert a group of non-believers. The prize for converts will be a pilgrimage to a holy site of their chosen religion -- Mecca for Muslims, the Vatican for Christians, Jerusalem for Jews and Tibet for Buddhists. A team of theologians is on hand to make sure that the atheists are genuine when they start and the winner is genuine when he or she finishes. Much like Queen Victoria, Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate is not amused. I have to admit, I agree with them on this one. Game shows are tacky enough as it is, and this IMO is in pretty bad taste. Plus... what do they do if the winner says they want to be a Hindu?

4. And from Latvia - the bank loan that might see you lose it! 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."

This (AFAIK) is Viktor Mirosiichenko. Would you entrust him with your immortal soul?

News of the World - Mixed Messages?

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:39:16 GMT

1. The Naked Passenger: A US Airways plane was forced to divert from its path after a naked passenger began running around inside. New Yorker Keith Wright, 50, stripped down in front of 148 passengers and refused to put his clothes back on. Rather distracting, wouldn't you say? The naked maniac was eventually brought to heel, of course...

Passengers helped to hold him down while Wright's ankles and wrists were handcuffed to a row of seats.

...but was it just what he wanted all along?

2. The Naked Crew: Thousands of Air New Zealand passengers will from this week get their flight safety instructions from staff wearing nothing but body paint. The airline has decided to expand its use of body painted staff from advertisements to the in-flight safety video used on 737 domestic flights. Sounds enticing, until you realize that given Air NZ's cultural context, what you're possibly going to get is a 6ft, 250lb muscle-rippling specimen of maleness in Maori war paint, quite possibly armed. Read the safety card or else!

3. Michelin-starred British chef and television personality Gordon Ramsay's restaurants in Britain have suffered a 90 per cent drop in profits as the recession began to bite, it has been revealed. Viewers in Australia at least will know that Gordon Ramsay is as famous for spicy language as culinary talent, so I think it's less about the f****ng c*** of a recession we're going through and more about the f*** language he f*** well uses.

Brilliance

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:28:59 GMT

This piece of brilliance has to have been made with Twilight in mind, yes?

Book Review: "Who Killed the Avro Arrow?", by Chris Gainor.

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:34:02 GMT

"I, said the Sparrow. With my bow and... oh wait."

This is one of those books that sends aviation enthusiasts into fits of razor blade-wielding depression, and details a scandal which, for Canadians, is the equivalent of the TSR-2 misery that afflicted the British aircaft industry a few years afterwards.

The Arrow was a supersonic (Mach 2+) fighter designed to a specific requirement of the Royal Canadian Air Force, that was successfully developed to prototype stage and flown in the last 1950s... and then abruptly cancelled. Vindictively so, too, depending on your viewpoint - all the prototypes and their construction jigs were destroyed, and only the front fuselage of Arrow Six remains.

The major justification at the time was that ICBMs had just become a technical probability (Sputnik I was launched on the day of the Arrow's rollout), and that with the obsolescence of the manned bomber, the manned fighter also seemed not-all-that-necessary. Gainor contends that regardless of how beautiful an aerodynamic achievement it was, the Arrow was a long way from being a complete weapon system (integrated airframe, radar, attack computers and missiles), and there was still a lot of money to be spent on the thing before it was a viable combat aircraft.

This may or may not have been true. Things can't have been helped by vacillation over the weapon system: Avro Canada were offered the Hughes Falcon missile and an associated radar/air combat computer as a package, but although Gainor mentions the RCAF's refusal of the missile, he doesn't go into the reasons why. The RCAF chose the much more advanced Astra combat computer (which was discontinued as its development costs soared) and Sparrow II active-homing missile (an even more difficult technological ask - the British had dumped their much larger Red Dean as an unreachable goal not long before, although it was briefly considered for the Arrow's armament), which added hugely to the projected cost of the aircraft. (So in one sense the Sparrow did kill the Arrow, by making the whole project unachievably expensive, but nobody can fault the RCAF for wanting the best possible weapons for their new baby - and the RCAF was not alone in wanting such a missile.)

Gainor may have a point here. It's easy to judge in hindsight, without standing in 1950s shoes and trying to look forward, and he certainly tries to do this and offer a balanced case for its cancellation. He also seeks to exculpate the United States for its alleged role in getting the aircraft cancelled so that it could sell its alternative to the RCAF. Unfortunately, I don't think his point holds completely. When you consider what the RCAF ended up with (American BOMARC surface-to-air missiles with a shorter range than the Arrow, but which could not intercept ICBMs, and American F-101 fighters armed with the Falcon missile and its associated Hughes attack computers), the charge that the Arrow and its armament were insufficient for future requirements rings rather hollow.

Gainor's claim that the Arrow was unsuitable for the task the RCAF was assigned in Europe (low-level strike with conventional and/or nuclear weapons) also seems hollow - it's amazing what a good airplane can be modified to do when the designers put their minds to it (witness the F-15E, a magnificent strike aircraft which has evolved out of a pure air-combat fighter which was never intended to lift so much as a single bomb, but which in its current form carries more than a dozen).

In exchange for almost entirely local spending (the missile and fire control were offered to Avro virtually for nothing) and an indigenously-developed interceptor, the Canadians got an almost entirely foreign purchase of less aerodynamic and strategic-tactical capability, and all of Avro Canada's aeronautical and systems expertise was dispersed to the US and the UK.

I may not agree with Gainor's conclusion, but I think he does present a valid case for not automatically screaming OMFG DIEFENBAKER U HOR, U KILLED OUR GLORIOUS AIRPLANE. My call is that the decision to kill the Arrow project was clearly wrong, but this book does offer a very useful springboard for discussing the reasons why. It is available for sale from the North Atlantic Aviation Museum, Gander, Newfoundland and probably also on the Web.

Enthusiasts have since built full-scale models of the Arrow, and an airworthy version is being spoken of. The Arrow may yet live on!

News of the World.

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:16:40 GMT

1. Mystery man unveiled: Formula One legend Michael Schumacher was on Sunday unveiled as "the Stig", the mystery man who test drives cars on British cult motoring show Top Gear. He wasn't the only man to play the role, but he is surely the most appropriate.

2. Slimy creature admits crime, avoids realistic penalty: R&B singer Chris Brown has pleaded guilty to assaulting former girlfriend Rihanna and will be sentenced to 180 days of community service for the attack, lawyers said. He's also on probation for five years with a "stay away" order, but that's not good enough for me. He should go to jail for those five years (at least), and all the profits from his extant works should be appropriated for battered women's shelters.

3. They'll make a film about anything these days: Oscar-nominated film-maker David Fincher is in talks to direct a Hollywood movie based on the rise of social networking website Facebook, reports say. Fincher, who earned an Oscar nod for his period romance The Curious Case of Benjamin Button earlier this year, is in advanced negotiations with Columbia Pictures over the possible movie, Daily Variety reported. A musical will surely follow.

Lead singer: She friended me!
Chorus: She friended him, she friended him, she frieeeeeeeeeeeeeended him!

4. So that's what causes crop circles! Things are really hopping in Tasmania where wallabies are getting stoned on the state's opium poppy crops and creating crop circles. The wallabies are breaking into the poppy fields and making the circles while they're high. The poppy crop is for medical morphine - no need to panic there - but stoned marsupials? My beloved carlanime always did say Australia was weird; I'm starting to agree with her!

5. As my wedding approaches, the rain is pouring down. In India, they have it the other way round, but it's no ordinary wedding: Two frogs have been married in a ceremony in the western Indian state of Maharashtra to usher in the delayed monsoon rains, a report says. Future mother-in-law asks the obvious (QWP) question: how do you make it stop?

In which the United States of America finally grows a pair - or does it?

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:42:32 GMT

NASA launches probes to the moon

My commentary in bold

NASA blasted two probes into space on a landmark lunar exploration mission to scout water sources and landing sites in anticipation of sending mankind back to the moon in 2020.

IIRC, Kennedy set the goal in 1961 of a manned return trip which was attained eight years later. That was forty-eight years ago; is NASA really saying that with today's technology and the wealth of previous experience, it can't be done in less than eleven years?

The launch marked 'America's first step in a lasting return to the moon,' a NASA official said moments after a rocket carrying the probes launched at 5:32 pm (2132 GMT), on Thursday, a day after the US space agency scrubbed the shuttle Endeavour launch for the second time in a week because of a nagging hydrogen fuel leak.

The shuttle technology is thirty-plus years old. In all that time, and with two shuttles destroyed in accidents, it beggars the imagination that NASA hasn't expanded the spaceplane fleet - either with additional shuttles to the same design, or with a more advanced concept.

The liftoff of the dual LRO and LCROSS missions atop an Atlas V rocket from Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida occured one month shy of the 40th anniversary of NASA's historic first landings on Earth's natural satellite in 1969.

Granted, the Shuttle is not the ideal launch platform for everything, but the Atlas itself is based on an ICBM first mooted in 1954. Have there been no advances in launch-platform technology in the interim? I hope this Atlas is a very different beast to its originator!

Americans have been the only people to walk on the moon -- with the last such outing in 1972 -- and the new mission is the first step on the long journey to launch manned missions further into our solar system, to the planet Mars and beyond, from lunar colonies.

US President Barack Obama has said the program, dubbed the Constellation project, needs to be reviewed, but so far has not cast doubt on its goals.

One hopes that "needs to be reviewed" does not mean "can be sacrificed on the altar of economic expediency". This sentence alone is worrying.

'The robotic mission will give us information we need to make informed decisions about any future human presence on the moon,' program manager Todd May told reporters earlier this week.

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) in particular looks set to be one of NASA's most spectacular bids at discovery for years.

To seek out water ice on the moon -- a critical component for any planning for manned lunar colonies -- the probe will analyse data from ejected lunar material after the separated portion of the rocket, named Centaur, crashes into a permanently shadowed crater, on the dark side of the moon that never sees sunshine.

This is either bad phrasing or utter crap, the latter of which makes me despair at the standard of science reporting today. At best it posits that the impact point is so shielded by the lip of the crater that it never sees sunlight, which might be accurate. To state that the 'dark side of the moon' - i.e. the (very inaccurate name for the) one we cannot see from Earth - never sees sunlight is utter bullshit.

After examining the moon matter, the explorer will follow the rocket's lead by also hurling itself into the moon at approximately 2.5 kilometres per second -- some 9,000 km/h.

Thus proving what? I assume the LRO mentioned below - or Earth-based probes - will examine the results of this second impact, but it's very badly put. And it seems a waste. I can see why impact probes are useful - they're cheap, because they don't have to be much more than a minimally guided bullet, and more sophisticated instruments in orbit can analyse the matter thrown up - but why not put a rover down on the surface which can drill or dig, and refresh your knowledge of soft-landing procedures?

In total, NASA said, the two impacts will excavate some 500 metric tons of lunar material and begin the search for a long-frozen water source. The project will also examine the moon's mineral makeup.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, hopes to learn more about the moon through a one-year stay at an orbit of about 50 kilometres -- the closest continual lunar orbit of any spacecraft.

LRO's $US500 million ($A630.91 million) mission is designed to provide NASA with maps of unprecedented accuracy, which will be crucial for scoping out possible landing sites.

Both missions, May said, will help NASA model the nuances of lunar lighting and temperature range, and provide future moon travelers with information on the cosmic radiation the moon is exposed to due to its lack of atmosphere.

The probes' four-day, 384,000-kilometre return to the moon 40 years after humans first set foot on its surface is expected to illuminate our closest extra-terrestrial neighbour like never before.

'Earth is subject to erosion processes from air and water,' noted May. 'The moon itself doesn't have this process.... LRO will send back pictures daily on things we have barely seen before.'

These things together cost about a hundredth of what our government (Australia) has recently assigned on "stimulus packages". It annoys me that Australia - with its own long history of rocketry research (shared with the British at Woomera) - can't do something like this. It's good that NASA's doing it, but it should have been doing a lot more. And we should start doing it as well.

Paedo Fail

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:11:51 GMT

Whoever came up with this idea for a shipborne children's-charity gala dinner really wasn't thinking, were they?

Source here.

Victor Frankenstein might approve, but could he afford it?

Thu, 21 May 2009 13:44:07 GMT

"...since the rump of the company's organization still possesses a small number of men of ideas and brilliance, we have seen fit in the last few weeks to place with the company two small study contracts to a value of about £10,000 each as an inexpensive way of making use of their brains."

Source: John Forbat's brilliant and entertaining The Secret World of Vickers Guided Weapons.

Your Mileage May Vary

Tue, 12 May 2009 11:09:17 GMT

Cat's pee taste helps define New Zealand's sauvignon blanc

Source here.

CAT'S pee and sweaty passionfruit are hardly flavours to make your mouth water but it seems Kiwis can't get enough of them.

These are the core aromas of New Zealand's world-leading sauvignon blanc, according to a six-year study by a team of lucky wine scientists.

The team spent more than $12 million defining the flavours of the country's most popular grape variety, which has a unique flavour and character that has captured the world's interest.

They concluded it was a winning combination of sweet, sweaty passionfruit, asparagus, and cat's pee.

The tests were carried out by an expert sensory panel trained to distinguish between sixteen flavours, including canned and fresh asparagus, stone fruit, apple and snowpeas.

A wine region called Wairarapa, near the capital of Wellington, was found to be the top spot for cat's pee influences in the white wine.

Sauvignon blanc in the celebrated South Island wine region of Marlborough had an intense "sweet, sweaty passionfruit" and asparagus flavour, a flavour a panel of ordinary wine drinkers ranked their favourite.

Plant & Food science research leader Dr Roger Harker said wine connoisseurs routinely describe wine using the terms such as cat's pee and capsicum and now the market place was also catching on.

One winery, Cooper's Creek, had already caught on, calling its sauvignon blanc Cat's Pee on a Gooseberry Bush.

Sue Blackmore, a wine science lecturer at New Zealand's Lincoln University, said the flavours were only found in moderation.

"We're talking about parts per billion, very tiny amounts to make the wine more complexing and interesting," Blackmore said.

"If you had a whole lot of the compounds that give you cat's pee it obviously wouldn't be great but it's amazing what a little can do."

One wine retailer said New Zealanders would not be fazed by the unsavoury associations in their favourite wine.

"Most wouldn't stop to think about it," he said.

"Most people drink purely for enjoyment - they don't stop to analyse the wine."

I don't know about you, but my philosophy dovetails neatly with that last sentence - it's good if I want another sip, very good if I want the rest of the glass, outstanding if I want the rest of the bottle.

I simply can't believe the professionals actually got pretentious enough to compare good wine to cat piss and do so with a straight face. And yet they did.

And... how the hell do they know what cat piss tastes like, anyway? And do I really want that question answered?

Why Prescription Pharmaceuticals Should Not Be Advertised Directly To The Public

Fri, 08 May 2009 21:03:28 GMT

From a post on Orac's blog:

It's no wonder physicians are losing their patience with with patients (yes, I did mean to write that) who come in insisting on getting the medicine they saw on TV.

One of my coworkers has a 6 year old son who told his pediatrician, "TV said I should ask you if Cialis is right for me."

(Hyperlink within quotes is mine.)

HAHAHAHA!

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

News of the World

Fri, 08 May 2009 10:13:25 GMT

News of the World.

1. Oprah Tries to Feed the Five Thousand - and then some!

Oprah Winfrey has learned there is no such thing as a free lunch after an online promotion went wrong. The Oprah Winfrey Show website was offering viewers a free KFC lunch, but so many people logged on that the website crashed.

It was so popular many KFC restaurants closed their doors as they were inundated with coupon waving customers looking for their free meal.

LOL, seriously what the hell did she think would happen?

2. It's the bubbles of nothing that make it really something*.

Pop singer Britney Spears has reportedly spent $30,000 on air. The American celebrity is said to have purchased a private oxygen chamber, after fears she'd been damaging her voice. Spears is currently on the North American leg of her 'Circus' tour.

Circus indeed.

3. Go, Skippy!

Police in New York state are on the alert for a missing kangaroo which has been on the run for the past month.

According to the online newspaper The Oneida Daily, the one-metre tall roo escaped his cage in the town of Chittenango, some 400km west of Manhattan, and has been on the loose ever since.

Of course you know what happens next, don't you?‡

4. Doggy Style.

21-year-old Chanel has reached a milestone in doggy years. Chanel is now the world's oldest living dog with 21 human years equating to 147 dog years.
Chanel celebrated in style with a birthday party in New York.

Just don't expect any new tricks.

* This used to be the sales pitch for the Cadbury Aero bar.
‡ Link is worksafe and VERY definitely childsafe.

Omnomnomnomnom

Fri, 08 May 2009 09:37:19 GMT

Take:

1. Turkey steaks - amount to suit
2. Lemongrass, lime and ginger spice powder (liberally shaken)
3. Lime juice (a few squirts, judge by eye)
4. Lemon juice (likewise)
5. Soy sauce to cover the meat
6. 2 cups fried rice (thank God for rice cookers!)
7. 1 can of assorted Asian vegetables

Chop #1 up into bite sized bits and marinade as desired in a mix of #2 through #5.
Drain and retain marinade.
Stir fry the meat, add the can of vegies, warm it all nicely and then stir through the rice and add marinade.

Serve hot.

See title of post.

Happy Easter to all.

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:34:30 GMT

Too awesome not to post.

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:53:49 GMT

Octopus Samurai.

For all the Star Wars fans out there (spoilers for prequels).

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 09:52:33 GMT

Compare:

Execute Order 66.

Execute Order 66.

Hot news!

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 23:26:09 GMT

Daily Telegraph journalist-blogger Tim Blair gives homage to an old but familiar meme.

Here is the news article on which he bases his brief post.

Uranium found during police raids

Peter Gregory
April 1, 2009 - 9:51PM

Uranium, cash and chemicals have been seized in a series of raids connected with the leaking of confidential police documents.

Police said three men had been arrested as a result of the raids, carried out by Petra Taskforce investigators in Melbourne and country Victoria today. Members of the police ethical standards department and Office of Police Integrity (OPI) were also involved.

The uranium, and a substantial amount of chemicals and glassware, were allegedly found in a storage facility at Harcourt, near Castlemaine. Police did not say how much uranium was found or how it was stored.

The OPI said today that the arrests arose from a joint investigation into the unauthorised release of highly confidential police intelligence.

It said the investigation had revealed links between police members and criminal elements, however, it was not alleging police were implicated in the activity that led to today's arrests.

Police said a 42-year-old Preston man was arrested after the raid allegedly uncovered a large clandestine laboratory.

They also reported finding about eight litres of a suspected drug of dependence and a large amount of cash at a house in Penola Street, Preston.

Police also searched an address in High Street, Kangaroo Flat, a suburb of Bendigo, where they allegedly discovered about $120,000 in cash, a handgun and chemicals they believe would be used to make amphetamines.

As part of the raids, investigators also allegedly located an amount of uranium and a substantial amount of chemicals and glassware, in a storage facility at Harcourt.

And a hydroponic cannabis plantation of about 50 plants was allegedly found at Bulla Road, Bulla. Glassware and chemicals allegedly intended for use in amphetamine manufacture were also located.

George Dracoulis, head of the department of nuclear physics at Australian National University, said uranium oxide that was mined and then transported in labelled steel drums, was almost completely benign.

"It's a natural mineral, it's very slightly radioactive, but any sort of simple container controls the radioactivity,'' he said.

"If you ate it, ingested it, you might have some issues,'' he said.

Professor Dracoulis said he would be concerned if "people have somehow got hold of radioactive waste".

"In Australia that would mainly be through medical areas or industrial areas where they use radioactive sources,'' he said.

Police said tonight that Garry McMillan, 42, from Preston had been charged with trafficking a drug of dependence, possessing proceeds of crime and possesing articles for the manufacture of amphetamine.

He has been remanded in custody and is due to appear at Melbourne Magistrates Court at a later date.

Kangaroo Flat man, Andrew McNaughton, 46, was charged with trafficking a drug of dependence and remanded to appear at Bendigo Magistrates Court tomorrow.

A 49-year-old Bulla man has been charged with trafficking, cultivating and possessing cannabis and has been bailed to appear at Broadmeadows Magistrates Court on June 29.

National unity?

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 10:31:17 GMT

Now here's something interesting.

A Sri Lankan-born man who came to Britain 17 years ago is reportedly refusing to serve customers in his post office unless they speak English.

Deva Sumarasiri, 40, whose shop is in a racially mixed inner-city area, believes he has to stand up for the English language because otherwise the social fabric of the country will disintegrate.

Asians, eastern Europeans and others coming to his post office in Nottingham, central England, to claim state benefits or post letters must speak English or they will not be served, he said.

'If you don't want to be British, go home,' he told the Daily Mail newspaper. 'The fabric of the nation begins to unravel if we don't all speak the same language.'

What do people think?

Just a little question...

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:19:16 GMT

Here is a link to an article in The Australian, the national daily, in which the author of the article quotes US Vice President Joe Biden. Biden allegedly said, of a woman struggling to keep her business afloat:

it may very well be that she’s in a circumstance where she is not able, her customers aren’t able to get to her, there’s no transit capability, the bridge going across the creek to get to her business needs repair, may very well be that she’s in a position where she is unable to access the - her energy costs are so high by providing smart meters, by being able to bring down the cost of her workforce

I don't know for sure whether it's Biden or not. All that I know is that he sounds completely incoherent.

Can anyone out there:

a) confirm that Biden said this, and

b) explain what the fucking hell he's actually saying? Because if that really is the Vice-President of the United States talking, God help America if something happens to the President.

Hey, wait... haven't we heard that warning before?

Pathology Update, Day 2.

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:42:33 GMT

Yes, I know it's been a few days down the track, but only my being as sick as a dog has given me time to write this update!

First up in the morning was Dr Lester Thompson again, talking about "What is a Small Round Blue Cell Tumour anyway?" The small round blue cell tumours (SRBCTs) are a cluster of relatively unrelated malignancies that have a distinct habit of resembling each other in clever ways, but which - thanks to the miracle of modern science - are now easily told apart for dealing with in appropriate fashions.

The SRBCTs can be tricky in Dr Thompson's area of expertise (head and neck pathology - yes, there really is a need for such a subspecialty!) because most of the tumours he commonly deals with are NOT amenable to the fancy tricks. Fortunately there is a handy mnemonic to help us remember which are by far the most common ones: MR SLEEP.

Melanoma
Rhabdomyosarcoma
Sinonasal undifferentiated carcinoma
Lymphoma
Esthesioneuroblastoma
Ewing's Tumour
Peripheral neuroectodermal tumour

...and he followed this up with diagnostic tests that would tell them all apart. Very helpful and practical.

Next was the symposium on lymphomas. As I suspected, one would have to be not only a high-functioning Aspie, but a full-on autistic savant to be able to stay awake for all of it. The beginning and the end were not so bad - as the entire talk centred around what's new in the World Health Organization classification of lymphomas, and as the presenters were mostly Dr Who nuts, a few fanvids were thrown in, and jokes about "the new WHO" were made. The middle was truly sleep-inducing, apart from one lymphoma type whose acronym (not yet official, and I hope it never is) was such a mishmash of letters that I caught myself saying "This is what Who fans type when they see bad fanfic."

The exhibitors' stalls were being pulled down at that point, so I sprinted over to the medical bookshop stall and bought "Potter's Pathology of the Foetus, Infant and Child" and "Biopsy Pathology of the Upper Aerodigestive Tract and Ear". And then had to lug them around everywhere. *grizzles at heavy textbooks*

After lunch was the liver tumours talk. I couldn't face this, as I have heard similar talks and they are insomniac, so I ambled over to the Forensics session instead. Dr Jo Duflou talked on "Ultralight aircraft accidents", highlighting the terrible lack of regulation and oversight of this fun, but very much living-on-the-edge industry, and the likelihood that a lot of pilots who die in ultralight accidents do so as a result of medical disasters (e.g. heart attacks or hypoglycaemic attacks) which in turn cause the crash. This was punctuated by vids of crashing ultralights, including the disastrous irony which befell a pilot who fitted a parachute to his aircraft so that if there was a disastrous structural failure and a wing came off, the rest could float safely to the ground. Only problem was, the chute was faulty: it deployed on takeoff and killed all his lift and thrust, and he was not quite so high that it would work as intended, nor so low that the smackdown Mother Earth gave him was survivable.

Dr Chris Lawrence followed, with all the things that can go wrong in SCUBA diving, and what one needs to look for when one autopsies the diver. The presentation bore the fateful words "Shark attacks [in Australian waters] in recent years have been few and far between", true up until very, very recently! To his credit, he corrected it verbally.

Both of these talks were entertaining, and made me wonder why the anatomical pathologists can't be as lively. Perhaps it's because working constantly with all the most violent forms of death makes one just a little too eccentric to be boring?

Last was really quite depressing. Professor Lorna Martin, talking about rape and murder in South Africa, the dreadful tendency for the two crimes to be juxtaposed, and the need to check for the first when autopsying for the second. To the tune of one victim every six hours on average, mostly at the hands of boyfriends and husbands. The vast majority of these are within racial groups and appear to reflect relative population numbers.

And then it was time for the long drive home! So tired was I that I'd already taken one of my books out of my bag (a chess book I'd found when buying carlanime's presents) and became absolutely frantic when it wasn't in the bag, nor in the car... was just about to ring the convention centre up to ask them to look for it when my eyes lit upon it!

And then there were two busy days, and then I woke up feeling like crap this morning! Therefore - a day home in bed was compulsory.

Think I will have a little lie-down soon, and concentrate on something other than the internet!

Everything old is new again... sort of.

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 10:53:21 GMT

So anyway, last year my old laptop - venerable survivor of horrific abuse since late 2005 - decided it had finally had enough and was going to go on strike. Already ominous things were happening to the screen (vertical discoloured lines permanently on view), and from the way it was crawling piteously through every task, it looked like everything else was giving way too.

Not long after I bought its replacement, it stopped working altogether for more than a few minutes at a time, and I tought "Well, thank God I replaced that heap of crap!"

EXCEPT... that heap of crap has now had its memory scrubbed, and everything is gradually getting reinstalled. If not for the vertical lines, and the fact that it lacks a webcam, I would almost not have bought this new one. (Useful webcam is useful!)

AND... as the new one has now developed ominous clickings in the hard drive bearings, with effects that include the utter corruption of Outlook, I have decided it might be best if it went in for repair. While I'm about it, I might get a better hard drive put in and even some more memory (another gig, for what it's worth). But it will be nice to actually have a laptop while the New Beast is being repaired.

News of the World

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 11:06:14 GMT

1. US Library To Restrict Books on Sex! screams the headline, and I bet you're thinking "Oh shit, those fucking abstinence-only morons are at it again." You'd be wrong, though. A library member was charged Jan. 22 and jailed for not returning the book that she borrowed last April. So the only restriction is to the not-for-loan section - so that everybody else gets a turn! As Austin Powers would say: Yeah, baby; yeah!

2. In Harry Potter, Molly Weasley asked the kids to de-gnome the garden; but how do you de-gnome an entire city, when you don't even know who's putting them in there? Shadowy forces are clearly at work...

3. I've always thought it was dangerous to provide entertainment that references current events, on the basis that the verdict of history could leave your interpretation looking rather stupid. However, I'm seriously tempted to give a pass to this one: An internet entertainment company has launched an online videogame called Trillion Dollar Bailout which allows players to 'slap' or reward chief executives. Methinks that 'slap' function will be getting quite a few uses, especially among the recently unemployed who have more time to play it...

4. It takes quite a lot to win an acting Oscar after you're dead, it seems: so much so, in fact, that the only two people ever to manage the feat are Australians. The late Australian actor Heath Ledger has won the Oscar for best supporting actor. Ledger, nominated in the best supporting actor category for his performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight, was favourite to win.

Ledger died 13 months ago from an accidental prescription drug overdose aged 28. He is only the second actor to win an Oscar posthumously. Peter Finch, also an Australian, was the first when he was named winner of the best actor for Network in 1977, just three months after dying from a heart attack.

And finally, an amusing excerpt from the chess book I was reading this evening as my virus and spyware killers drove their eager tendrils through my laptop. The book is Winning Chess Strategies by Syrian-born American Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan. Seirawan is discussing the concept of 'hole squares', those from which pieces cannot be driven by the far less valuable pawns. He uses metaphors including "devouring" and "snacking upon" these squares almost as one would capture a piece, and then unleashes the crowning glory:

Why not make use of this tasty hole?

Why not indeed, given that the winning player in his example is well on his way to a successful... er... mating attack.