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Japanese Gang Plays Santa to Little Kids

Posted by saintghost Friday, January 29, 2010 0 comments

Japanese children from Kobe came across a tattooed type of Santa recently when they received gifts from Japan’s largest Yakuza gang, Yamaguchi-gumi, in December last year. The event took place in the gang’s Kobe-based headquarters where members gave away toys, snacks and thousands of yen.

As part of the end-of-year celebrations, it is usually customary in Japan for children to receive money as presents, a tradition that is known as Otoshidama.

In this case, the gang handed over monetary gifts that came up to 30,000 yen ($330).

Local authorities believed that this strange act might be an attempt to highlight the gang’s leadership.

As it is, the cash gifts were packaged in envelopes that contained either the name of the main gang leader, Shinobu Tsukasa, or his immediate subordinate, Kiyoshi Takayama.

Some figures also believe these actions were actually a PR move where they were placating locals prior to the pending release of a gang member.

Whatever the case, a lot of Kobe residents viewed the gang favorably.

The 40,000 member gang first won over a number of folks when they distributed food and water to hard-hit victims in the aftermath of the 1995 Kobe earthquake.

In the words of one of the local journalists: “It’s probably difficult for people outside Kobe to understand, but locals say that Kobe is one of the safer cities in Japan because of the Yamaguchi-gumi.”

Labels: Naruto Shippuden

Naruto Shippuden Episode 145

Posted by saintghost Thursday, January 28, 2010 0 comments

Sucessor of the Forbidden Jutsu

Labels: Discovery

Apple CEO unveils the iPad

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By JESSICA MINTZ and RACHEL METZ,AP Technology Writers - Thursday, January 28

SAN FRANCISCO – Apple Inc. will sell the newly unveiled tablet-style iPad starting at $499, a price tag far below the $1,000 that some analysts were expecting.

The iPad, which is larger in size but similar in design to Apple's popular iPhone, was billed by CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday as "so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smart phone."

Jobs, 54, a pancreatic cancer survivor who got a liver transplant during a 5 1/2-month medical leave last year, looked thin as he introduced the highly anticipated gadget, though he seemed to have more energy than he did at Apple's last event in September.
The iPad has a 9.7-inch touch screen, is a half-inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds and comes with 16, 32 or 64 gigabytes of flash memory storage. It comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity built in. Jobs said the device has a battery that lasts 10 hours and can sit for a month on standby without needing a charge.

The basic iPad models will cost $499, $599 and $699, depending on the storage size, when it comes out worldwide in March.

Apple will also sell a version with data plans from AT&T Inc. in the U.S.: $14.99 per month for 250 megabytes of data, or $29.99 for unlimited usage. Neither will require a long-term service contract.

Those 3G iPad models will cost more _ $629, $729 and $829, depending on the amount of memory _ and will be out in April. International cellular data details have not yet been announced.

Apple had kept its "latest creation" tightly under wraps until Wednesday's unveiling, though many analysts had correctly speculated that it would be a one-piece tablet computer with a big touch screen, larger than an iPhone but smaller than a laptop.

Raven Zachary, a contributing analyst with mobile researchers The 451 Group, considered the iPad a laptop replacement, especially because Apple is also selling a dock with a built-in keyboard.

But Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey said he doesn't believe the iPad added enough for consumers to justify buying yet another gadget, or to call this a new category of devices. In an e-mail, he criticized its lack of social features such as ways to share photos and home video and recommend books.

Sitting on stage in a cozy leather chair, Jobs demonstrated how the iPad is used for surfing the Web with Apple's Safari browser. The CEO typed an e-mail using an on-screen keyboard and flipped through photo albums by flicking his finger across the screen. He also showed off a new electronic book store and a book-reading interface that emulates the look of a paper book, putting the iPad in competition with Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle and other e-book readers.

Like iPods and the iPhone, the iPad can sync with Apple's Macintosh and Microsoft's Windows computers. Jobs said the iPad will also be better for playing games and watching video than either a laptop or a smart phone. Software coming with the iPad includes a calendar, maps, a video player and iPod software for playing music. All seem to have been slightly redesigned to take advantage of the iPad's bigger screen.

Tablet computers have existed for a decade, with little success. Jobs acknowledged Apple will have to work to convince consumers who already have smart phones and laptops that they need this gadget.

"In order to really create a new category of devices, those devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks," Jobs said. "We think we've got the goods. We think we've done it."

Applications designed for the iPhone can run on the iPad. Apple is also releasing updated tools for software developers to help them build iPhone and iPad programs.

"We think it's going to be a whole 'nother gold rush for developers as they build applications for the iPad," said Scott Forstall, an iPhone software executive.

A new newspaper reader program from The New York Times and a game from Electronic Arts Inc. were also demonstrated during the event. The audience, which included many journalists and bloggers, clapped and even gave Jobs a standing ovation.

Shares in Apple rose $2.04, or 1 percent, to close Wednesday at $207.98. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company's shares have more than doubled over the past year, partly on anticipation of the tablet computer. Shares in Amazon rose $3.27, or 2.7 percent, to $122.75.

Labels: Discovery

Scientist: Alien life could already be on Earth

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By RAPHAEL G. SATTER,Associated Press Writer - Wednesday, January 27

LONDON – For the past 50 years, scientists have scoured the skies for radio signals from beyond our planet, hoping for some sign of extraterrestrial life. But one physicist says there's no reason alien life couldn't already be lurking among us _ or maybe even in us.

Paul Davies, an award-winning Arizona State University physicist known for his popular science writing said Tuesday that life may have developed on Earth not once but several times.

Davies said the variant life forms _ most likely tiny microbes _ could still be hanging around "right under our noses _ or even in our noses."

"How do we know all life on Earth descended from a single origin?" he told a conference at London's prestigious Royal Society, which serves as Britain's academy of sciences. "We've just scratched the surface of the microbial world."

The idea that alien micro-organisms could be hiding out here on Earth has been discussed for a while, according to Jill Tarter, the director of the U.S. SETI project, which listens for signals from civilizations based around distant stars.
She said several of the scientists involved in the project were interested in pursuing the notion, which Davies earlier laid out in a 2007 article published in Scientific American in which he asked: "Are aliens among us?"

So far, there's no answer. And ever finding one would be fraught with difficulties, as Davies himself acknowledged.

Unusual organisms abound _ including chemical-eating bacteria which hide out deep in the ocean and organisms that thrive in boiling-hot springs _ but that doesn't mean they're different life forms entirely.

"How weird do they have to be suggest a second genesis as opposed to just an obscure branch of the family tree?" he said. Davies suggested that the only way to prove an organism wasn't "life as we know it" was if it were built using exotic elements which no other form of life had.

Such organisms have yet to be found. Davies also noted that less than 1 percent of all the world's bacteria had been comprehensively studied _ leaving plenty of time to find unusual organisms.

"You cannot tell just by looking that a microbe has some radically different inner chemistry," he said.

Davies' call for alien-hunting scientists to look to their own backyards came as one of the pioneers of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence told the conference the job of finding proof of alien life in outer space may be more difficult than previously thought.

Frank Drake, who conducted the first organized search for alien radio signals in 1960, said that the Earth _ which used to pump out a loud mess of radio waves, television signals and other radiation _ has been steadily getting quieter as its communications technology improves.

Drake cited the switch from analogue to digital television _ which uses a far weaker signal _ and the fact that much more communications traffic is now relayed by satellites and fiber optic cables, limiting its leakage into outer space.

"Very soon we will become very undetectable," he said. If similar processes were taking place in other technologically advanced societies, then the search for them "will be much more difficult than we imagined."

But Drake said scientists at SETI were excited by the possibility of using lasers to send super-bright flashes of light into space for a tiny fraction of a second. The flashes could theoretically be seen up by an advanced civilization up to 1,000 light years away, and Tarter said infrared versions of the devices could possibly send beams even further.

But Drake noted that the interstellar equivalent to turning a flashlight on and off only works if a prospective alien civilization wants to get in touch to begin with.

"For this to work ... There has to be altruism in the universe," he said.

Labels: Naruto Shippuden

Naruto Shippuden Episode 144

Posted by saintghost Thursday, January 21, 2010 0 comments

Labels: Weird Things

Edible Candy G - String and Bra

Posted by saintghost Friday, January 15, 2010 0 comments

Indeed a true Valentine's night delight, the Edible Candy G-String and Bra ($19.95) is made of approximately 330 fruit-flavored candy pieces, and has just 60 calories so don't worry about it affecting the diet. he treats for dinner, you treat for dessert.

Labels: Naruto Shippuden

Naruto Shippuden Episode 143

Posted by saintghost Thursday, January 14, 2010 0 comments

EPISODE 143

Labels: Weird Asia

Child Born with Second Penis in the Middle of His Back

Posted by saintghost Saturday, January 9, 2010 0 comments

Fetus in Fetu (FIF) is a rare and very mysterious medical condition that is said to have occurred (or at least is recorded to have occurred) less than ninety times throughout medical history.

For the little boy born in Tianjin’s Children Hospital in China, the second penis in the middle of his tiny back is a medical first and even weirder than some other instances of this highly unusual phenomenon.

Labels: Weird Asia

Woman Delivers ‘Stone Baby’ After 60 Year Pregnancy

Posted by saintghost 0 comments

In a bizarre turn of events straight out of Mr. Ripley’s personal files, comes this true story of a 92-year-old woman who delivered a child (albeit not a live baby) she had been carrying for over half a century! (Long pregnancies are one thing, but THAT is ridiculous!)
Huang Yijun, aged 92, is from southern China and she recently made news after delivering a baby known as a lithopedion, aka ‘Stone Baby’.