When the cubicle becomes just too much

Most videos of people going postal in the office are usually set ups, viral adverts or just some guys having a laugh. But sometimes you watch them and wonder "What if someone lost it completely one day? How far would they go?"
Enter some eastern european man who obviously can't take the pressure any more of people bumping his desk, spilling his coffee and some fat bloke knocking papers onto the floor. Check out the two vids after the jump and make your own mind up as to its authenticity.






Craaaazy.



and heres some footage from a cellphone by a co-worker of the same scene.

Little Green Men, Call the Plumber Please.

What a week it’s been for NASA and space. We have the $325 million Phoenix Lander successfully making touchdown on the red planet and the Space Shuttle Discovery made it to orbit without any major issues. That means the hunt for little green men is now on and the Space Station will get its new crapper.



The Phoenix landed just as expected and in a nice flat area with very few rocks and boulders. During its rocket assisted descent the plumes of exhaust have blown away the dust to reveal flat, bright areas that we will hopefully find to be ice of some kind. After performing all the post landing tests it was confirmed that the lander was in good shape and ready to start science. Just yesterday the bucket scoop grabbed a sample of the regolith and took images of the rusty coloured material. I have to say that it looks a lot like mud and surprisingly there is a small patch of what looks like a white/silvery substance which NASA think could be ICE or some kind of salts.
NASA hopes to do some tests on this soil sometime over the next week and confirm what the makeup of it is. We may yet see traces of hydrogen which may mean water.

And coupled with that the Space Shuttle Discovery launched almost flawlessly on its way to the International Space Station to deliver the rest of the Japanese science module Kibo and repair the toilet that is not working. The toilet has 2 parts, one for poo and one for wee, it’s the wee part that is broken, so at least they are not up shit creek yet. In saying that the manual function of the toilet is working and the crew has been using the toilet in the Soyuz capsule which is docked for emergencies so it’s not all doom and gloom. If the toilet can not be fixed they may have to evacuate the station or use Apollo era crapper bags which could be messy.

The launch which was almost flawless did no apparent damage the orbiter but it sunbstantially wrecked part of the launch facility. Mortar and bricks were blown out from the blast chamber which channels the exhaust plumes during takeoff and scattered them over the road behind the pad. NASA have said that this should be repaired in time for the next scheduled launch at pad 39A on Oct 8th.

All in all a pretty good week for NASA as they try to complete the space station and prove that little green men do in fact live on Mars and War of the Worlds is a documentary.

Opt out you bastard, I said OPT OUT!

Premium SMS messaging services, credit cards, phone services, cable TV, gherkin in your McDonald's - you name the service, they will only remove it if you ask them too, even if you didnt ask for it in the first place. In this day and age, the dirty tactics marketing type or the sneaky bastard behind opt-out services, seems to be the calibre of person being hired by companies small and large to run their service administration. They will drum up cash by pushing their services onto unsuspecting people on mailing\phone lists or dimwitted individuals silly enough to sign up to services without reading the fine print.

How does it work? Simple - lets take scenario A. Jane is an average chick. She likes walks on the beach, romantic dinners and strangling ferrets. She purchases something online from a reputable online sales company called Nice Guys Inc. Working for Nice Guys Inc. is Jim Bastard. Jim trawls through the Nice Guys Inc. database collecting personal information of its customers and sells it on the side to a rep from Up Yours Inc. called Sneaky Bugger. Mr S. Bugger then uses the cell phone info to sign Jane up to a costly but innocuous Mobile Phone Quiz service that texts you questions and offers prizes for correct answers (prizes that don't exist, but that's another scam). Jane receives text messages, not understanding who they are from, and deletes them thinking she's being spammed. Jane receives her next cell phone bill, sees she is in the hock to the tune of $hitloads and promptly has a coronary. You see, what Jane didn't realise is that every time she received a text she was being billed for it. To cancel this, she would have to opt out, even though she never opted in personally in the first place.

Sound far fetched? Sound like I've run out of spam fodder for my blog and am making this shit up? Unfortunately no - this happens all the time and is on the rise around the world. Sneaky bastards are using our personal information and in some cases our gullibility against us yet again, and this include some major companies. In New Zealand we have Telecom, our largest telco provider, doing this very thing just recently with some of its services on mobile phones. Credit Card companies, for a long time, raise your credit limit without asking, and refuse to let you cancel your cards. American Express is a great example of this. A personal friend of mine has tried on multiple occasions to cancel his Amex and he gets transferred, put off, hung up on and abused to prevent him doing so. And they charge him a yearly service fee for having the card! WTF is up with that! An opt-out service you can't opt-out of!

And of course, there are always things advertised late at night on the telly for "sign-your-life-away-services" where you can have all manner of date\quiz\joke spam pour into your cell handset 24-7 if you are so inclined. These services, which cost the aforementioned $hitload, are aimed at the dimwitted and lonely individual who may just want to have someone text him\her once in a while. And while I feel sorry for them, they do write their own credit obituary by signing up.

"But" I hear you cry, "surely if this kind of thing was policed it wouldn't happen?". "Wouldn't the fuzz be cracking skulls if there was a law against it?" Sadly, no - there already IS laws against it, but unless you can prove who did it (in Janes case) or prove the company sent you the texts without your consent, theres not a lot anyone can do. The ombudsman in NZ already hears plenty of these cases every year and the number of cases is on the rise.

So what can we do? Well its like the other spam rants I've been on recently.

Awareness - be aware of scams doing the rounds, but dont believe everything you read. Check up on it if you are unsure if its spam alert about a scam or it came with an advert about Viagra. Check Snopes.com - they have a good encyclopaedia of spam emails and hoaxes. But also Googling will find most things

Protection - turn on junk filters, don't give out information to people you don't trust and don't do phone surveys - they are often people trawling for personal information so they can rip you off. If you recieve a text you don't understand, check with the phone company to make sure you are not getting billed for it.

Think-before-you-click - links in emails, pop-ups on websites, things asking you to "sign up". Don't do it unless its absolutely necessary, and don't give them any information you don't think is useful to complete whatever transaction you are trying to complete. Why do they want your phone number/address/bank account? If it wont let you through, lie - change a couple of numbers and if its ever a problem, say you mistyped.

Be careful out there!

Their day in the sun - Tribute 08

New Zealand had a modest involvement in the Vietnam war, which was in contrast to the major wars in the previous 40 years. We sent 3900 personnel between June 1964 and December 1972, and 37 of those young men did not come home. This Queens Birthday weekend was spent remembering those young men, and honouring the men who served in a war that many saw as wrong and has had massive repercussions on both the Vietnamese and Western forces for generations.

You may ask why we spent the last 5 days marching, speaking and remembering when this was all so long ago, and ANZAC day is our national day of remembrance for all our past armed servicemen and women. To answer that, go back to that time as the troops returned from fighting in a foreign country for what the government at the time deemed an important enough cause to lay down Kiwi lives. See here for an overview of the political and historical overview.
In 1972, if you were a returning serviceman there were no parades. There were no effusive speeches from the elected officials. There were no welcoming communities ready to buy you a pint at the pub as a small thank you for your part in a confusing and controversial conflict. There were plenty of protesters, plenty of officials who refused to recognise your involvement in serving for your country, and for many Vietnam War veterans all this contributed to serious mental health problems associated with fighting in an unpopular war. Add to this the physical and genetic effects of Agent Orange, widely thought to have been used in hand sprayers and dropped from aircraft to negate the cover of bush to the Vietnamese.
I was honoured this weekend to have been asked to take part in the Honour March through Wellington and be present for Whakanoa & Parliamentary Welcome. I walked with my Father in law who served two tours in Vietnam in Victor 5, and elsewhere in the crowd was my great Uncle who served in the SAS. It was a different atmosphere to how it must have been for the returning servicemen back in the 70's. There were people applauding, the officials spoke and apologised for previous wrongs, and promises were made.
So what did it all mean in the big scheme of things? To the millions of Vietnamese dead and the Kiwi's who died also, probably not a lot. But to the men and women who returned, it meant that there was acceptance that even though many did not agree with why they went, we applaud their efforts and they have our respect and pride for the job they did. Not just 12 month tour.

See here for more info on the NZ involvement in the Vietnam war.

And Here.

And here

Stay away from her you bitch!

One of the best fight scenes of all time is close to being a reality, with the 1st and 2nd generation mechanical exoskeletons becoming commercially available. Well, maybe half of the fight scene - we still haven't discovered face sucking aliens yet. Or have we?

Yes as we see in the Youtube vid below, you can now purchase these exoskeletons to help move heavy objects (200 pounds or 91kgs) from point a to point b by foot. I can foresee massive application of this device, especially with the current problems around the world like the storm in Myanmar or earthquake in China. There are many remote areas in China accessible only by foot now due to road damage. You could equip your entire force with these and rapidly deploy shitloads (a quantifiable amount I assure you) of water, food and essential supplies to the needy. Brilliant.

They also allude to the fact that in next generations, we may see applications for physically disabled people to regain mobility - how freaking cool is that? I reckon this invention, and further iterations will make a massive impact on our day to day lives. Especially for those in need. Check out the vid of it in action below. Its a bit hokey, and remind's me of cheesy adverts from bad sci-fi movies, but it still rocks.

Caminito del Rey

This is fucked up.

This is a path in Spain called the Caminito del Rey, it is a popular haunt of climbers, walkers and mountain bikers. The path is attached to the side of cliff faces and has 200 metre drop in places. Amazing video after the jump.

The walkway has fallen in to disrepair and is very treacherous, there are many holes in the concrete path that leave only a thing metal beam to walk along. Several people have been killed trying to get across this path and this has caused the local council to close the path to the public. That though does not stop countless people making the perilous crossing. The government has a budget to get it repaired at a cost of 7 million Euro’s, the sooner the better I say as there is no way I would go near this.

Spam - mad bad old school stylez

After having a whinge, er I mean, making my point in a thoughtful manner, about spam in my inbox and spam on my phone, it looks like the bastards have continued the war on a third front - my physical mailbox. Yes this evening while lighting the fire, I wandered out the front door to check the mail and found a letter addressed to the missus. Unmarked, no return address and a laser printed envelope. I thought it was a bill or maybe some junk mail from the local shoe shop.

But alas, it was yet another peice of annoying and unsolicited communication from some fruit in Auckland called Kevin Hay. It was a chain letter, admonishing, nay pleading that we drop everything, sprint to the bank and send him and 4 others a cheque for fuck loads of money. Now, I have no doubt Kevin is not his real name, so for the purposes of this discussion I shall call him Fucktard.

It appeared Fucktard had taken the time and effort to write up some piece of crap chain letter, generated a few names (the ones at the bottom who had supposedly "gotten lucky") and fired it off. Actually, the effort FT has made with this letter isn't that great. Its wonky on the page, there's obvious errors that have been scribbled out, and it has far TOO MUCH CAPITALISATION AND EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!!!!! The sure sign of a diseased mind in my opinion.

But even more amusing is when I decided to have a bleat, er discuss this on the blog, I did a quick Google on der Intertoobs to see if I could find it. And whadda ya know - searching for "chain letter examples", and the first result is the exact same letter. See here at Crimes-of-persuasion.com and the first example is the Five Report Chain Letter. That's it! Fucktard got on the internet, did a search for examples, and used the very first one he came to. What a turd. Couldn't even be very original and make it personal.

I suppose this kind of spam is easy to deal with, and the least annoying of all, and it actually has a practical use - tonight it helped start the fire. But this is getting silly - every day we are bombarded with advertising, spam and phone calls telling us to "shut up!" and now I'm getting physical spam? What can you do these days?

Well, I for one am getting even. As we speak, forensics departments are poring over the letter for DNA traces, fingerprints are being lifted and the manufacturer of the paper is being called in for expert opinion. Just picture a scene from CSI okay? Once we have isolated the suspect, my crack squad of attack ninja/green beret's will be helicoptered to the miscreants house, surrounding the house with more fire-power than the entire New Zealand army. That's right - they have TWO guns. All of this will take place with the soundtrack by DevilDriver - big guitars, screaming vocals, lots of drums.
Doors will be broken down, windows smashed and the elite squad will pour into the house with no regard for human life, like an invading American army going into an oil rich country. The cretin will be snapped in the midst of licking the back of another envelope, sending spam regarding boob enlargements, and defacing a picture of the Queen. He'll be dragged off to the waiting helicopter, never to be seen again, never to darken my letterbox with his spam and never to touch a keyboard ever again.

Okay okay - dreams are free.

Telemarketers - get a real job.

The fire was on, Monty Python was on the telly, the wife was out having a wine with the girls, and a cold beer was enjoying the view down the back of my gob. Then the phone rang, breaking my Pythonesque revere, and jolting me back to reality. Ah ha, I thought, twill be the missus, reminding me to wash the cat or feed the dishes. Alighting from my warmed seat, I moved purposefully towards the telephonic speaking device. I lifted the device from its cradle, and spoke into the receiver...

"Hello?"
silence for about 5 seconds
"Hello sir my name is and I am ringing you tonight to talk about your holidays which we would like to book for you 2 years..."
"No thanks I'm not interested"
"Shut up! You stupid English person!" - dial tone.

Yep - not content with ringing you up at dinner time, and trying to push their shitty insurance, stupid gotcha holiday deals, tedious seminars and crappy real estate hocum, they are now resorting to abuse. Well, thats gotta be the final straw. And on that particular night it was - because not 5 minutes later I got a call from Stone and Associates trying to sell me insurance. Unfortunately for the poor bloke, I gave him both barrels - the last part of the call being "and so you can just bugger off!".

Now, this job telemarketing. I am aware that there are plenty of people who use it to make a crust while between being a slacker student at school, and becoming a slacker student at Uni. And there's plenty of people who may have no skills (leet or otherwise) other than breathing, speaking English and the owners manual to a DIY Cold Calling device. But as far as I'm concerned they can all fuck off. I don't care what happens to the employment figures if all these people are out of work - I'm pretty sure as a nation we can hack it if there's a mass unemployment of wankers who ring at dinner time to talk about some of the dullest shit on earth.

If I want insurance, I'll look into it. If I want to go on holiday, I'll look into it. If I want pretty much anything, I will look into it when I want to. And at that point they can feel free to bombard me with Internet adverts, spam in my inbox, pamphlets and handouts out the wazoo. But not a second before. And not a minute after either.

New Zealand is lagging here - Australia and the US have all started Do Not Call registers, whereby if your details are on the book, and a telemarketer rings you, you can ping them to the tune of $11,000US or $2000AUS. Canada started to implement this as well, but stopped short, making it a subscriber funded service - which is stupid. You have to pay to stop people you don't know ringing you trying to sell you shit?

The UK and New Zealand have a Marketing Association led initiative which essentially says "give us all your contact details and we promise not to call". Yeah right. Why do I not believe that? We need to catch up here and stop this annoying marketing before someone cracks out the AK and goes postal at the nearest cold calling centre. Well, that probably wont happen as most of them are in Bangalore or Pakistan or wherever, and you just can't travel internationally with an automatic rifle any more.

So what can I do? My options are limited at this point really. Change and unlist my number (check), have a big whinge online about stupid telemarketers (check) and email my local MP to get this bill introduced....who's our MP again? Its pretty uncertain whether any such bill would ever be introduced here - we'd need some pretty strong support. But one thing I do know - the next prick who rings me up will not get a nice "No thanks, I'm not interested." From now on its all cold hangups, or "FUCK OFF!" The gloves, as they say, are off.

Phoenix takes its first pictures.

Here are three pictures from the Phoenix Lander which arrived on Mars today. These are raw images that have not been altered at all so they may not look too spectacular.

Phoenix Lands on Mars.

NASA has successfully landed the first controlled descent craft on Mars since the 1976 Viking landers more than 30 years ago. This is a huge relief to NASA because the last time they tried this method they lost the craft during its descent. That was the Mars Polar Lander. After that disappointment the Phoenix spacecraft emerged from the ashes of Polar Lander and this time everything is going to plan, so far.

NASA received a signal from Phoenix at 2353 GMT that suggests that the craft has successfully made the tricky entry through the Martian atmosphere. The next step for NASA is to open the solar arrays and then take some pictures of the craft itself to ensure that the arrays have deployed correctly.

The primary mission for Phoenix is to test the Martian soil for the signs of water. A tool on board the craft will dig a sample of dirt and do various test on the dirt. This is not to dissimilar to the actions that the Viking probes did in the 70’s, the big difference of course the technology. Now we are better equipped to detect and analyse results should they be found.

Images should be sent soon after all post landing checks are done, hopefully some of those will be released to the public. When they are they we will put some up.

Crystal Skull hits nearly all the marks.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opened yesterday to much hype and anticipation. I really wanted this film to be as good as Raiders and The Last Crusade, and for the most part it is. There are some spectacular set pieces throughout the film as is the same with the previous Indy instalments. There are some great character moments also, what bugs me slightly are that there are some really absurd elements to the film. I will get to those soon. I have to say that it was great to see Harrison Ford back in the role that would have been shit had Tom Selleck actually been Indiana. Ford takes the character to the next stage considering that he is now in his sixties.

Minor Spoiler alert.
So as I said Indy is back in full swing, bullwhipping his way from stunt to bad guy to supernatural McGuffin. I was unsure when I walked out of the theatre if this was as good as the other Indy films, not that I have had a few days to think about it I have to say, ‘yes it is’. It has all the hallmarks of what makes Indy, Indy. We have the Paramount mountain logo dissolve to a real representation of the logo, we have an adventure sequence to start with. We have an interesting bad guy and Cate Blanchette does a good job as Indy’s nemesis. She is complex, focused and like her predecessors a little bit insane. We have a big huge henchman that Indy has to go toe to toe with and boy does he ever. We have two fights that Indy has to endure. Finally we have an ending that is a bit fantastical, just like Raiders, Doom and Crusade. I have to keep telling myself that the other three movies all had supernatural artefacts as the main quest and this is no different.

The Good Stuff.
Harrison Ford is back as Indiana, this is great.

Harrison Ford is more than capable of handling the stresses of Indiana Jones.
Acknowledgement of Indy’s father and Marcus Brody were a welcome sight.
John Williams score was right in line with the themes of the other films and hit the mark everytime. Queues were right on, we heard Last Crusade Themes and Raiders Themes.
Getting to see the Ark Of the Covenant in the Warehouse was a welcome sight.
The whole first 25 minutes was great fun. Loved it.

The Bad Stuff
Mutt’s jungle escapades were a bit over the top. That includes the bit with the monkey’s and the sword fight. It was a bit to fantastical for my liking, not really real enough for Indiana Jones .
Ray Winstone’s character was a bit wasted, he’s a good actor but he wasn’t really given a lot to work with.
The bit with the snake was a bit silly, we all know that Indy does not like snakes but a snake rope.... come on.
The Crystal Skull looks like a plastic case with screwed up plastic inside. And it does not look very heavy either.
So as you can see the bad stuff is not ingrained throughout the film and does not make it a bad film experience, I was able to put it aside and enjoy the rest of the movie for what it was, a good solid Indiana Jones flick. When I left the movies I had it at a 6.5 out of 10, but now I am up to 7.5, maybe an 8.

More gas for your $$$$$ - say it IS so...please?

Spam. Who'd have thought 100 years ago when they invented the savoury potted meat, that the word would eventually become one of the more feared in the English lexicon. And not feared in a "arrgh arrgh, its got my leg" kind of way, but more of a "oh for fucks sake, its not what I think it is" eye rolling type of response. Is my wanger really that small? Do my boobs really need to be bigger than they already are? Is investing in in that pharmaceutical company really going to fulfil me as a person? Or is all this spam just needlessly thrashing the worlds networking devices?

And some spam isn't even trying to elicit money - its one of those ones that unless you look closely at what its saying, and think objectively, it may sneak past the radar and encourage you to forward it on to someone else. The dreaded S-SPAM (Sneaky-Superficial Pesky and Annoying Message) that you end up getting from a well meaning work mate, your sister-in-law or the guy you know at the coffee shop who just got online for the first time and has your email addy for some reason. A majority of these run the same gambit - pull heart strings, then bullshit or threaten the reader.

My snake/dog/penis was trapped/shot/fired from a cannon and only through extensive surgery/gods will/serious whacking will it ever be able to work/walk/rummage through my sock drawer.
Please send this on to 5 million people and you'll see a fire start spontaneously in your hard drive/a cool video of dancing voles/me coming through the front door with an axe.

It was exactly this kind of mail that I received a yesterday. A well meaning, but misguided work....dude (I cant say mate, I don't know the guy!) sent it to everyone in the building. 500 people had that eye rolling moment when you see someone on the internal mail list you've never heard of sending an email with multiple $$$ signs in the subject.

So, "get to the point" you say, and quite rightly as well. The subject was "More gas for your $$$$$" and as I went to delete it, I paused and thought "thats a new one". More gas? I've seen more inches, boobs, drugs, pr0n, shares, watches, Nigerian dollars and degrees, but gas? Was someone hoping to up my flatulence rate? Ok ok - I couldn't help it - everyone loves the fart jokes. Lets examine the contents. Of the email. Not the fart.

In this day and age, with petrol prices sky rocketing, we are more concious than ever about when we use the car and for how long. So this email played on that fear and I was sucked in. Here's a basic run down :

It was someone in Durban (SA) who worked in the petroleum industry. They spoke about the types of fuel the handled every day.

1) The first tip was to only fill up your car early in the morning because "all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the fuel, when it gets warmer petrol expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening" you get less bang for your buck.
2) Tip #2 was don't fill too fast because "the trigger has three stages: low, middle, and high. In slow mode you should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapours that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapour return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapour. Those vapours are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money.
3) Tip #3 was only fill when your tank is half full. This, it was reasoned was due to "the more fuel you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space" and "petrol evaporates faster than you can imagine".
4) And finally, tip #4 is don't fill straight after a truck has delivered the fuel to the station, as "the petrol/diesel is being stirred up as the fuel is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom."

The message was ended with a lovely "Hope this will help you get the most value for your money".

Now it may be that someone has decided to send helpful information around the world via forwarded email, but being the cynical bastard I am I seriously doubted it. I decided to spend 30 mins checking the veracity of this email because a) if it was right, I could save some pingers at the pump, and b) if it was wrong I could use it as blog fodder. Lets look at the claims :

1) Cold fuel is better than warm fuel.
It said in the email that a 1°C rise would make a big difference in what you pay at the pump. Nearly all petrol stations store their petrol underground. The ground temperature change over the course of a day is not big for something that deep - probably 1 or 2 °C during the course of a day (data from New Zealand meteorological stations in Wellington). But lets use the 1°C in the email. Assuming that a motorist typically bought 40 litres of petrol per week at $2.00 per litre, and assuming that by carefully choosing to fill up at a particular time of day said consumer could realize a 1% savings, the total savings to be gleaned over the course of a year is about $40. Would that reward really be worth the potential inconvenience of adhering to a rigid fill-up schedule week after week?
I checked a report done by the National Weights and Measures in 1999 and they state the following figures :

Hot fuel Temperature > 24°C Approx. 1% volume difference from 15°C
Warm fuel Temperature > 17°C Approx. 0.25% volume difference from 15°C
Cool fuel Temperature < 13°C Approx. 0.25% volume difference from 15°C
Cold fuel Temperature < 6°C Approx. 1% volume difference from 15°C

This means there would have to be a 9°C change to realise that 1% savings. That's way outside the 1 or 2 °C on an average New Zealand Day.

2)Pour your petrol slowly
Advocates maintain that pumping gas more slowly produces fewer vapours, and therefore consumers get more for their money by using slower settings on pumps (because less gasoline is lost to vaporization). Critics assert that the amount of vapour loss produced during the pumping process is so small as to be economically insignificant to the ordinary consumer. And one has to consider the time factor: Is the aggregate amount of time you're going to lose by using only the slowest delivery setting at every fill-up really worth whatever modest amount of money you might save?

3)Fill your tank when its half full
Some advanced gasoline filtration systems claim to recover about 2% of the fuel lost by evaporation from gas station storage tanks. Is that savings really worth essentially halving the storage capacity of your car's gas tank (thereby requiring you to stop for gasoline twice as often as before)? Assuming that our typical consumer bought gas once a week, and that the fill-up process averaged a modest 8 minutes (including the time to get to a gas station, to wait in line if the pumps are all busy, to pump the gas, to pay for the purchase, and to get back on the road), said consumer would be spending an extra 7 hours per year pumping gas to achieve these savings. Is that a good trade-off of time vs. money?
The report by NWM also states :

"With modern petrol engine burning about 98% of the fuel entering the cylinders and with catalytic converters burning about 75% of unburnt fuel leaving the engine, total emissions from the engine exhaust represent only about 0.5% of fuel usage. Vapour losses from ullage spaces are likely to be of the order of 0.15-0.2% at each of the stages listed above and the fuel supply chain emissions are therefore comparable with vehicle operating emissions"

0.15% - 0.2%, which if we use the example from point 1 (40l x $2 x 52 weeks = $4160/year) we would see a return of $6 to $8 per annum. Not very much return on the wasted time.

4)Sediment in the tank
Most sources agree that deliveries from tanker trucks do stir up particles of dirt and sludge in gasoline storage tanks, but that this isn't really much of an issue for the ordinary motorist. Service stations are required to have filters that trap dirt and sludge, and modern cars also have fuel filters, so a bit of stirred-up dirt doesn't really pose much of a potential to adversely affect your car. And again, one has to consider the trade-off. On the (probably infrequent) occasions when you arrive at a gas station at the very same time a tanker is filling the station's tanks, is it really worth the time and expense to leave without filling up and drive off to a different service station just to avoid something that likely isn't much of a concern in the first place?

If you've skipped all of this and are looking for the punch line, here it is - don't believe everything you receive in the inbox, but don't be overly sceptical either. Check your facts, look for evidence supporting and contradicting both sides (check the veracity of the sources too) and make up you own mind.

For the best info on making your car go further, I suggest you read the following sites which have the best info for motorists and its basic stuff backed up by simple science. It by far and away beats anything listed above in terms of fuel saved and it can be as simple as modifying your driving habits. Check it out.

New Zealand Government website FuelSaver

Consumer.org - Consumer Protection Non-profit Organisation

BTW - this email is listed on Snopes.com and they say this :

This collection of purported money-saving tips for buying gasoline is another item difficult to classify as strictly true or false. It's not completely false in that one or more of the tips might actually result in some savings (however modest), but it can't fairly be classified as true either, as the practical utility of all of these tips is disputed, and the economic gains to be had from following them is highly questionable.

3, 2, 1 Blast off! No - I mean, blast on, er down - goddamit!

The Phoenix Mars lander is due to stop, drop and roll dick roll onto the Martian surface this week. May 25, 4.46 PDT (Pacific Daylight Time - UTC -7 hrs) is the time for our attack, er I mean, landing and investigation. The mission, Jim, is to drop this sucka onto the pole and find out where all the women, I mean, water is at. More info and a cool vid after the jump.











So once our tank, I mean, scientific vehicle lands on the Pole, it will be sniffing around to try and find signs of water in either frozen or liquid form, and also if life could have ever been sustained ere
Heres the offical line :

The complement of the Phoenix spacecraft and its scientific instruments are ideally suited to uncover clues to the geologic history and biological potential of the Martian arctic. Phoenix will be the first mission to return data from either polar region providing an important contribution to the overall Mars science strategy "Follow the Water" and will be instrumental in achieving the four science goals of NASA's long-term Mars Exploration Program.

They forgot to mention the machine guns and high explosives, but thats ok. We dont want the Martians finding out anyway.

Heres a vid explaining what has to happen to get the Phoenix onto the martian surface without doing an impression of the Dambusters bouncing bomb.

Joss Whedon Gets Something Right

Thanks to Gizmodo for this one. It is the trailer to the new Joss (Alien wrecker) Whedon's TV show called 'Dollhouse'. The premise is that a bunch of people are 'Actives' that are essentially empty bodies with no memories that can be programmed to behave in certain ways and do certain things, like be assassins, spys and opoeratives.

The assumption being that when they finish a mission they can be wiped so that they have no memory of the job and can be programmed for next weeks show where they will do something different. No doubt there will be some over arching plot line that means you will have to watch them all to know what is going on. It does sound interesting I have to admit, even if it does sound kind of like Dark Angel/Matrix/McGyver.
The reason old Joss has got this right may have something to do with casting. He has got Arnies Daughter from True Lies to be the lead. That would be Eliza Dushku, who also stared in Bring It On and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Check out the vid to see what I am getting at.

World Wide Telescope Goes Live

Microsoft have finally gone live with their version of Google Sky. Its called the World Wide Telescope and is now available from Microsoft at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org. I heard about this project a while ago when it was announced at TED and was excited from the get go. More info after the jump.

Currently Microsoft have about 20 terabytes of data that make up the visual experience, which will be updated on a regular basis. This equates to about 1.2 million books.
One of the features that Microsoft has been keen on is the ability for anyone from professional astronomers to amateur viewers to be able to use the software. This should enable the tool as a teaching aid to school children and other novices.
This is what Dr Roy Gould of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics had to say about the new software tool.

"Galileo's telescope started to give us views of the universe that no one else
had seen before and we started asking what was out there and why. And I think
the WorldWide Telescope is going to do the same thing for the rest of us, In terms of pushing the envelope, this really pushes the envelope."

I cant wait to get this going and see if it is as good as its supposed to be.

R2D2 is Cool as Ice.

Here is the new R2D2 ice box. This will go nicely along side the R2D2 projection unit, the R2D2 rubbish bin and the R2D2 remote control toy.
Not only do you get the funky ice box but you also get the Han Solo ice cube tray to make your very own carbonite ice sculptures. Jump for the pics.

Not only do you get the funky ice box but you also get the Han Solo ice cube tray to make your very own carbonite ice sculptures.

Surprise surprise - video games dont do shit

In a new book Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do by Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson, a husband-and-wife team at Harvard Medical School, they detail their views on the effects of video games on kids. The results? Hardly surprising really. No direct causal link between computer gaming and violent behaviour. "What I hope people realize is that there is no data to support the simple-minded concerns that video games cause violence," Kutner said.

The only thing that the research did show was an increase in aggressive behaviour for kids playing M-rated games. The researchers found that 51 per cent of boys who played M-rated games – the US industry's equivalent of an R-rated movie, meaning suitable for ages 17 and up – had been in a fight in the past year, compared to 28 per cent of non-M-rated gamers. The pattern was even stronger among girls, with 40 per cent of those who played M-rated games having been in a fight in the past year, compared to just 14 per cent for non-M players.

Some people may say "Aha!" at this point - "see! Play violent games, increased violent behaviour!". Not so kemosabe - it shows correlation, not causation. You cant draw a link like that when you don't take into account other factors like home life, personality type or other such influences. What if kids who are naturally predisposed to aggressive behaviour seek out aggressive natured games?

"It's still a minority of kids who play violent video games a lot and get into fights. If you want a good description of 13-year-old kids who play violent video games, it's your local soccer team," Olson said.

They also are trying to place the new wave of computer gaming (new meaning the last 12 years or so since Quake came out) in context with other such media influences such as TV, Movies and comics. Whenever a new medium is released, there is always a tendency for people to jump up and down and blame human activity on the influence of a new media. Look at Video Nasties in Britain, Heavy Metal music in the 80's and Rock'n Roll music in the 50's - every time someone has pointed at these things as a single cause of all that is bad in society today. I'm afraid life just isn't that simple - its always going to be a combination of factors.

There have been several studies recently which show differing levels of response from young people when exposed to "violent" video games. Some say they calm people down and allow them to release tension. The one thing they all say is that further study is needed because the results are unclear.

Playing games that simulate violence against fictional characters is not the same as actually mutilating someone. Comparing something that is in reality violent (assaulting someone) against something that has no real world consequence (playing GTA4) is not the same. A majority of people can differentiate between real world violence and fictitious or simulated violence. It is true that people become desensitised to certain violent symbols after long periods of gameplay (such as images of guns and war) but this does not affect they way the react to emotionally disturbing images such as sick children.

"One thing I like about their approach is that they've tried to historicize the whole concept of a media controversy and that we've seen this before," said Ian Bogost, a professor at Georgia Tech known for his studies on video games.

The book urges a common-sense approach that takes stock of the entire range of a child's behaviour. Frequent fighting, bad grades, and obsessive gaming can be signs for trouble.

"If you have, for example, a girl who plays 15 hours a week of exclusively violent video games, I'd be very concerned because it's very unusual," Kutner said.

"But for boys (the danger sign) is not playing video games at all, because it looks like for this generation, video games are a measure of social competence for boys."

I totally agree - any young kid who can't whoop an oldie's ass at Unreal Tournament deserves to be sent back to PC Gaming kindergarten until he can frag with the best of them.

Volcano spews plasma : run away! run away!

Check out the awesome pic's taken by some nut who stuck around as the long dormant Chaitén volcano on the coast of Chile erupted this week. They say that the mingling of lightning and ash seen in these pic's may be a "dirty thunderstorm." The little-understood storms may be sparked when rock fragments, ash, and ice particles in the plume collide to produce static charges—just as ice particles collide to create charge in regular thunderstorms.

Check out more pic's after the jump. (Thanks National Geographic!)

Click on image to enlarge.

Alien rides the tube - needs pee break

Some guy in London has made his own Alien costume and likes to attend charity events wearing it. Check out the vid after the jump from the BBC of him wearing it on the London underground. Mind the Gap.


Sorry folks - can't embed the player. Check it out here :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7376635.stm

Plastic Syringe Inventor Passes Away.

Not many people know the name of Colin Murdoch, the inventor of the plastic syringe and the tranquilliser gun. Mr Murdoch passed away yesterday after battling cancer since 1991. There is no doubt that the man from New Zealands South Island made his mark on history. His simple invention replaced the permanent glass and metal syringe with the modern day plastic disposable one we see today.

Not only is this used all over the world in hospitals and schools but it is safe to say that the disposable syringe has saved countless lives by not reusing the old fashioned ones. disposable syringes means no cleaning and no sharing. If this had not come about then there is no doubt that the cases of cross contamination would be considerably higher. Not to mention the use of syringes by drug addicts.
Not only did he come up with the disposable syringe but he also developed the way of administering doses of tranquiliser via modified world war 2 weapons. While studying imported goat and antelope he developed the tranquiliser gun so that the animals could be subdued from a distance. Again this development has helped with the study of animals around the world and his company Paxarms Ltd helped to develop many of the technologies. Another Great New Zealander who's name should be up along side Sir Edmund Hilary and Lord Ernest Rutherford.