The hottest gadget yet: A flashlight that sets fires

From the “Talking Tech” blog over at the St Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch, an article from Dave Sheets concerning a new gadget...

Just what Talking Tech has always wanted: a flashlight that could burn down our house.

The Torch (link http://www.wickedlasers.com/lasers/wicked_lights-74-0.htm) is a flashlight that looks like a typical flashlight, but this $299 wonder is billed as the world's brightest and most powerful of its kind -- so powerful, in fact, that it can melt plastic, burn a pile of paper, even fry an egg.

We're not sure how many Energizer bunnies it takes for that to happen.

There are more disadvantages than advantages to having one of these things, however. Thanks to all that power, the aerospace-grade aluminum casing warms up around the lens rather fast, so don't set it down right away on one of your mother's good linen tablecloths.

Another down side -- a really big one, in fact -- is that the battery lasts only 15 minutes at full power.

But practicality isn't The Torch's main selling point. The company that developed it, Wicked Lasers (now there's a clue) reportedly has submitted it for review by the Guinness Book of World Records.

Maybe next year, Wicked Lasers will come out with a working lightsaber.

I stand in awe...

Photo Caption: JANUARY 28 2008 - Kurt Knickmeyer moves his forklift into place at the City Museum to unload the world's largest pencil Monday morning. (Robert Cohen/P-D)

The City Museum's new No. 2 pencil is No. 1

By Diane Toroian Keaggy

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

01/29/2008

The 250-pound eraser is real rubber. The lead is 4,000 pounds of Pennsylvania graphite. The exterior matches the yellow hue of a classic No. 2.

Guinness World Record maker and breaker Ashrita Furman considered every detail when he built the world's largest pencil — except, perhaps, how to sharpen it.

"We thought about making the world's largest pencil sharpener, but we ran out of money," Furman said.

Furman escorted his 22,000-pound, 76-foot-long pencil to its new home at the City Museum in St. Louis on Monday. Furman cut the pencil in two for the trip from Queens, New York; City Museum artisans will reattach the sections soon.

City Museum founder Bob Cassilly isn't sure when or where the pencil will go on display. Maybe he will suspend it among the airplanes and fire trucks that are part of the museum's outdoor jungle gym, Monstrocity. Or perhaps it will join another museum superlative: the world's largest pair of underpants.

"It's hard to leave it, but it will bring a lot of joy to the people here," Furman said. "This place seems like the perfect fit."

Furman, a 53-year-old health food store manager, and some 50 friends built the $20,000 pencil in August as a birthday gift to their now deceased meditation instructor Sri Chinmoy. Take that pencil manufacturer Faber-Castell; it boasts a 65-foot pencil outside of its Malaysia headquarters.

"They said it took them 7,000 man hours to build their pencil, but we were able to get ours done in about three weeks," Furman said.

This was not the first time Chinmoy's followers celebrated his birthday with a world record. Once they served him a cake studded with 27,000 candles (Chinmoy was only 74). Another year, they sculpted a 20-foot birthday cake from popcorn and corn syrup. (No one took a slice.)

"Meditation has given me the inner strength to do these improbable things," Furman said. "True, a lot of what I do is crazy, but it gives me a chance to spread the message of meditation."

Furman claims he has set 177 Guinness Records in his lifetime and currently holds 72 records, one of which is setting the world record for world records. He has juggled underwater for 48 minutes, caught 77 grapes in his mouth in one minute and completed 434 games of hopscotch in 24 hours. Many of his challenges involve the pogo stick — longest continuous distance (23 miles), fastest mile (12 minutes, 16 seconds), longest underwater pogo stick jumping (1,680 feet) and fastest time up Toronto's CN Tower (1,899 steps in 57 minutes, 51 seconds). Curiously, Furman does not hold the world record for knee replacements. (Yet.)

"I love jumping," Furman said. "I have set records for jumping jacks, hopping, hopscotch. My teacher taught me to be childlike and joyful and that is what jumping is to me. I'm just a big kid."

I love hearing stories like this...people honest to a fault like myself are rare...

Photo clues lead to camera's owner

By BRIAN BERGSTEIN,

AP Technology Writer

Fri Jan 25, 5:46 PM ET

NEW YORK, NY (AP) - At dusk on New Year's Eve, Erika Gunderson got into a taxi in New York City and entered a digital-age mystery.

Sitting on the back seat was a nice Canon digital camera. Gunderson asked the driver which previous passenger might have left it, but the cabbie didn't seem to care. So Gunderson brought it home and showed it to her fiance, Brian Ascher. They decided that the only right thing to do was to find the owner.

But how? The only clues were the pictures on the camera: typical tourist snapshots, complete with a visit to the Statue of Liberty. How could they find a stranger among the huddled masses?

Gunderson is busy in finance for Bear Stearns Cos., so the detective quest fell to Ascher, a 26-year-old law student at New York University. He was on winter break and eager to put off writing a paper about climate change treaties.

He checked whether anyone had reported a matching missing camera to the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission. No dice. He placed ads in lost-and-found sections of Craigslist but got just one response — from a couple in Brazil who had lost a camera in a cab on Oct. 12, not Dec. 31.

"I guess they thought their camera had been riding around in a taxi for two months," Ascher recalls now, chuckling at the notion that such a thing would be possible in New York.

The 350 pictures and two videos on the camera showed several adults, an older woman and three children. Half put them at New York sites like the Empire State Building. The other half had the group enjoying warm weather and frolicking at kid-friendly theme parks.

Ascher easily pinpointed Florida. The group had stood in front of a sign indicating Clearwater, Fla., and posed at Bob Heilman's Beachcomber Restaurant there.

They also took a pirate-themed boat ride where the kids got mustaches painted on their faces. Ascher zoomed in on the group to see name tags on their shirts. He spotted an Alan, an Eileen, a male Noel and a female Noelle, plus a Ciarnan. Under their names was written "IRE."

When Ascher checked the videos, he saw nothing telling, just the children dancing and swimming. But in the background, he heard Irish accents.

OK, Ascher figured, the camera's owner is from Ireland.

Ascher called Canon's Ireland division to see if anyone had registered the $500 camera's serial number. No such luck. He posted ads on Irish Web sites. Nothing.

He checked the date stamp on the photos from Bob Heilman's and called to inquire whether anyone remembered serving a big Irish group that day. Without the diners' last names, there was no way to check. It's a nice thing you're trying, the manager told Ascher, but you probably just found yourself a new camera.

Enter some fresh eyes. Ascher's mother, Nancy, and sister, Emily Rann, scoured the pictures for clues he might have missed. Nancy was particularly confident, having reunited people with their lost belongings before. She once found a California woman's wallet in a cab in Florence, Italy, and spent all day on her trail before making a handover at an American Express office.

"I thought, with all this data in the camera, there's no way we're not going to get it back to them," Nancy Ascher says now. "I was hoping it wasn't going to take a trip to Ireland, flashing their pictures everywhere."

Ascher's mother and his sister noticed that one of the pictures showed a doorman helping someone into a New York taxi. Zooming tight on the doorman's uniform, they made out the logo of the Radisson Hotel.

After several phone calls and a visit to the hotel to show the pictures around, Nancy Ascher persuaded an employee to search the Radisson's guest records by first name and country of residence. Indeed, a Noel from Ireland had stayed there on the date stamped on the photo. Nancy Ascher charmed the hotel employee into sharing the guest's e-mail address.

Wonderful.

Except that when Noel responded to Brian Ascher, he said he hadn't lost a camera.

By now, school was resuming, and Ascher was prepared to give the camera to his mom so she could take over. She had figured out the name of the Florida pirate-boat cruise and was trying to reach its operator.

But first Ascher took a final look at the photographs.

He pored over some from Dec. 30 that didn't include the children. The photos showed signs for bars in Manhattan's East Village: The Thirsty Scholar, Telephone Bar, Burp Castle. There also were multiple interior shots of a tavern, but they didn't seem to fit with what Ascher knew of those other three bars.

Then he stopped on another picture, showing two people outside an apartment building. Seemingly accidentally included in the picture was something Ascher had missed the first time: an awning in the background that read "Standings." Aha! Standings is a bar next to Burp Castle. Ascher checked its Web site, and the interior matched the pictures on the camera.

Ascher found Standings' owner, who reached the bartender who had worked Dec. 30. Yes, he recalled an Irish group. Especially because one of the women was a big tipper and said she worked at another New York City bar, Playwrights. The Standings bartender called Playwrights to ask which employees had been in his bar.

Ascher soon got an e-mail from a woman named Sarah Casey, whose sister Jeanette works at Playwrights. Suddenly everything Ascher had seen on the camera came to life.

The Caseys recently had hosted relatives and friends from Ireland. The group included their friend Alan Murphy, who had journeyed to Florida with family before heading to New York, where the clan stayed at the Radisson. (Their Noel was not the Noel whom Ascher e-mailed.) Murphy ended the trip kicking himself for leaving his camera in a cab in the twilight on New Year's Eve.

Sarah Casey agreed to send it to him. It didn't go to Ireland but to Sydney, Australia, where Murphy lives now.

Murphy, an insurance underwriter, had been devastated to lose the pictures from a trip he had planned for years. It was Jan. 10 — his 34th birthday — when he heard he would be getting the photos back. "I was over the moon," he says now. "Best present ever."

"I owe you one," he wrote to Ascher. "It's good to know there are some honest people left in the world."

from the home office in Wahoo, Nebraska - Top Ten Barack Obama Campaign Promises (presented by Senator Barack Obama)

Top Ten Barack Obama Campaign Promises (presented by Senator Barack Obama)

From the CBS television program “The Late Show with David Letterman”

© Worldwide Pants, Inc.

10.) To keep the budget balanced, I'll rent the Situation Room for sweet sixteens

9.) I will double your tax money at the craps table

8.) Appoint Mitt Romney Secretary of Lookin' Good

7.) If you bring a gator to the White House, I'll wrassle it

6.) I'll put Regis on the nickel

5.) I'll rename the tenth month of the year 'Barack-tober'

4.) I won't let Apple release the new and improved iPod the day after you bought the previous model

3.) I'll find money in the budget to buy Letterman a decent hairpiece

2.) Pronounce the word nuclear, nuclear

1.) Three words: Vice President Oprah

I'm gonna live forever...just kidding...this is interesting though...

Spouses Who Fight Live Longer

by the LiveScience.com Staff

Wed Jan 23, 11:45 AM ET

A good argument with your spouse could be just what the doctor ordered.

Preliminary results from a survey of married couples suggest that disputing husbands and wives who hold in their anger die earlier than expressive couples.

"When couples get together, one of their main jobs is reconciliation about conflict," said researcher Ernest Harburg, professor emeritus with the University of Michigan School of Public Health and Psychology Department. "Usually nobody is trained to do this. If they have good parents, they can imitate, that's fine, but usually the couple is ignorant about the process of resolving conflict."

So while conflict is inevitable, the critical matter is how couples resolve it.

"The key matter is, when the conflict happens, how do you resolve it?" Harburg said. "When you don't, if you bury your anger, and you brood on it and you resent the other person or the attacker, and you don't try to resolve the problem, then you're in trouble."

The findings add to past research showing that the release of anger can be healthy. For instance, one study revealed when people are angry they tend to make better decisions, perhaps because this emotion triggers the brain to ignore irrelevant cues and focus on the meat of the matter. Individuals who express anger might also have a sense of control and optimism over a situation, according to another past study.

Bottled anger adds to stress, which tends to shorten lives, many studies show.

In the current study, the authors suggest a combination of factors to explain the higher mortality for couples who don't express their anger. These include "mutual anger suppression, poor communication (of feelings and issues) and poor problem-solving with medical consequences," they write in the January issue of the Journal of Family Communication.

Over a 17-year period, Harburg and his colleagues studied 192 married couples in which spouses ranged in age from 35 to 69, focusing on aggressive behavior considered unfair or undeserved by the person being "attacked." Harburg said that if an attack is viewed as fair, the victim doesn't tend to get angry.

Based on the participants' anger-coping responses to hypothetical situations, Harburg placed couples into one of four categories: both partners express their anger; the wife expresses anger; the husband communicates anger while the other suppresses; and both the husband and wife brood and suppress their anger.

The researchers found that 26 couples, meaning 52 individuals, were suppressors in which both partners held in their anger. Twenty-five percent of the suppressors died during the study period compared with about 12 percent for the other remaining couples.

In 27 percent of the suppressor couples, one member of the couple died during the study period, and in 23 percent of those couples, both died during the study period. That's compared to only 6 percent of couples where both spouses died in the remaining three groups combined. Only 19 percent in the remaining three groups combined saw one partner die during the study period.

The results held even when other health factors were accounted for, including age, smoking, weight, blood pressure, bronchial problems, breathing and cardiovascular risk.

Harburg said the results are preliminary, and his team is now collecting 30-year follow-up data. He expects the follow-up to show almost double the death rate compared with the preliminary findings.

would this be considered like human-sacrifice-dogs-and-cats-living-together mass hysteria?

Registered Democrat leaves GOP race

Mon Jan 7, 5:58 PM ET

HARPERS FERRY, W.Va. (AP) - A GOP candidate for West Virginia's 16th District Senate race is withdrawing from the election because he mistakenly registered as a Democrat.

Ronald Jean Moltere, 64, of Harpers Ferry recently discovered the mistake he made 10 years ago. He said he never knew he had checked Democrat instead of Republican because he voted only in general elections, not the primaries.

"It was devastating," Moltere said. "I felt like I was shot through the heart."

Moltere submitted his pre-candidacy registration as a Republican in the race to replace state Sen. John Yoder. He cannot run for office if he switches parties within 60 days before the official filing period, which begins Monday and ends Jan. 26.

Moltere said he thought about running for the Senate anyway as a Democrat but said he couldn't do that if he were "to be honest with myself and my convictions."

Three other candidates have announced plans to run for the Senate seat: former state Sen. Herb Snyder, a Democrat from Shenandoah Junction; and Republicans Bob Adams of Charles Town and Archibald Magill Smith Morgan of Rippon.

___

Information from: The (Hagerstown, Md.) Herald-Mail, http://www.herald-mail.com

nothing suprises me in GOP-biblethumper-dominated St Chuckycheese...

Bill would ban swearing in bars

Tue Jan 8, 10:56 AM ET

ST. CHARLES, Mo. (AP) - What the ...? A St. Louis-area town is considering a bill that would ban swearing in bars, along with table-dancing, drinking contests and profane music.

City officials contend the bill is needed to keep rowdy crowds under control because the historic downtown area gets a little too lively on some nights.

City Councilman Richard Veit said he was prompted to propose the bill after complaints about bad bar behavior. He says it will give police some rules to enforce when things get too rowdy.

But some bar owners worry the bill is too vague and restrictive, saying it may be a violation of their civil rights.

Marc Rousseau, who owns bar R.T. Weilers, said he thinks the bill needs revision.

"We're dealing with adults here once again and I don't think it's the city's job or the government's job to determine what we can and cannot play in our restaurant," Rousseau said.

The proposal would ban indecent, profane or obscene language, songs, entertainment and literature at bars.

A meeting to discuss the proposal is set for Jan. 14.

Hey, they can't deny he has any now...

Rapper's name change quite an experience

Mon Jan 7, 9:58 PM ET

AKRON, Ohio (AP) - You can refer to him officially now as Mr. Experience. Daniel Michael Miller II is history. The former Dan Miller, 24, has legally changed his name to "The" Dan Miller Experience. His first name is "The" Dan, with the quotation marks. His middle name is Miller and his last name is Experience.

About 300 people petitioned the Summit County Probate Court last year to change a name, and Experience was one of the few who was called in to explain why he wanted an unusual name. The Akron musician and rapper did so, and last month the change became official.

"My first reaction was that this guy was going to have some problems with Homeland Security," said Magistrate Larry Poulos, who approved the name change.

"But (Experience) is in the entertainment business, and he seems like a nice kid," Poulos said.

Said Experience: "I like to do little things in my life that amuse me. This amuses me."

So far, Experience said, he has not had any problems with the switch, other than a few laughs when he renewed his driver's license.

Cat blamed for Idaho blackout

Tue Jan 8, 10:51 AM ET

NAMPA, Idaho (AP) - A cat picked the wrong place to come in from the cold, and caused a power outage that blacked out more than 12,000 homes and businesses.

The cat entered an electrical substation, snuggled up to a warm transformer and contacted a live circuit, causing a short that blew out nine feeder lines Monday afternoon, Idaho Power officials said.

Service was restored in less than three hours to most customers, including City Hall where the lights came on in time for a City Council meeting, utility spokesman Dennis Lopez said.

The outage also disabled traffic lights in the city of about 77,000 people. Temporary stop signs were set up at affected intersections and about 15 police officers were assigned to direct and monitor traffic. Police Lt. Eric Skoglund said he didn't know of any accidents that could be blamed on the outage.

The short circuit killed the cat.