Weird News Compilation

[fresh_42]

The "deadliest in the world" seems skewed toward N. America animals.
No African snakes, hippos, blue ring octopi, ...

"deadliest" was the title of the show, "North America" the title of the episode

 

[Hornbein]

I imagine deer are the deadliest. Collisions with automobiles.

 

[fresh_42]

I imagine deer are the deadliest. Collisions with automobiles.

If you count car accidents and crimes, then humans are the most dangerous animals - on every populated continent.

The moose is listed, as probably the most dangerous of the deer family.

 

[Tom.G]

Shouldn't bacteria and/or virus be on the list?

 

[fresh_42]

Shouldn't bacteria and/or virus be on the list?

A virus isn't an animal, and how many people die from Escherichia coli in North America? Apart from that, this wasn't exactly a scientific documentary.

And before someone finds out that scorpions are a family too, well, I had been too lazy to find out the English name for the Arizona Rindenskorpion (Centruroides vittatus, striped bark scorpion).

 

[nsaspook]

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68364690

Google to fix AI picture bot after 'woke' criticism​

Technically correct while being effectively wrong.

 

[nsaspook]

https://www.wave3.com/2024/02/22/in...dly-trying-buy-porsche-with-78-million-check/

Indiana man arrested after reportedly trying to buy Porsche with $78 million check​

Through their investigation, St. Matthews police said they found that he had attempted a similar thing the day before at a Land Rover dealership. Litka allegedly tried to buy a Land Rover there with a $12 million check.

 

[fresh_42]

https://www.wave3.com/2024/02/22/in...dly-trying-buy-porsche-with-78-million-check/

Indiana man arrested after reportedly trying to buy Porsche with $78 million check​

The inflation in Indiana must have been horrible!

 

[fresh_42]

On the second anniversary of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, activists from the pro-Ukrainian initiative Euromaidan dumped two tons of manure in front of the Russian ambassador's villa in Warsaw.

 

[Hornbein]

The inflation in Indiana must have been horrible!

The nerve of that guy, trying to buy a 2.3 billion dollar auto with a 78 million check.

 

[nsaspook]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...eattle-park-stolen-excavator-built-cabin.html

Homeless man who illegally dug up Seattle park with excavator has built cabin there and now says he's constructing GOLD MINE underneath it​

 

[berkeman]

I understand that online newspaper websites are limited in the length of their headlines that they put on their stories, but there should be some care not to start a city-wide panic...

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/

 

[fresh_42]

I understand that online newspaper websites are limited in the length of their headlines that they put on their stories, but there should be some care not to start a city-wide panic...

View attachment 340851
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/

I don't think that "rate" is actually better. I'd prefer the rat.

 

[nsaspook]

"Speedbump freakin' roadways"


Best comment: "Our educational programs are seriously failing to teach fundamental engineering"

 

[Borg]

When your active life gets in the way of scamming an insurance company...

Mom loses $820,000 injuries claim after she was pictured tossing a Christmas tree

 

[nsaspook]

When your active life gets in the way of scamming an insurance company...

Mom loses $820,000 injuries claim after she was pictured tossing a Christmas tree

View attachment 340887

Kids today can't even handle a simple insurance scam. Just ask any soccer player what to do.

 

[Borg]

Kids today can't even handle a simple insurance scam. Just ask any soccer player what to do.
View attachment 340910

They get a lot more practice at it.

 

[nsaspook]

They get a lot more practice at it.

I hate the real scammers. Those with actual disabilities due to age, accident, disease, etc ... need to go through extra hoops, delays and layers of bureaucratic nonsense because of the scammers.

 

[berkeman]

Just ask any soccer player what to do.

I work medical standby shifts at several adult soccer matches a year, and it can be pretty frustrating. Most of the times when players go down like that I'll move to the edge of the pitch and watch for the referee to signal me on if needed (rarely), but a few times there have been obvious serious injuries from flying header collisions that get me walking out onto the pitch waving at the referee that I'm asking to come on. Lordy.

 

[fresh_42]

Runaway train speeds 43 miles down tracks in India without a driver​

New Delhi — Social media channels lit up Monday as gobsmacked Indians shared a video showing a driverless train zooming past several stations at high speed. It was no cutting-edge robotic public transport innovation, however — but a fully loaded freight train that was apparently left unattended, on a slope, by an engineer who forgot to pull the emergency brake. ...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/india-runaway-train-speeds-43-miles-down-tracks-without-driver/

German sources reported that it had been about 100 km/h (62 mph) fast.

 

[Astronuc]

In a striking incident on the Gold Coast, a luxury Lamborghini met its unfortunate end at a local car wash in Bundall, leaving the exclusive vehicle, valued at approximately $800,000, in ruins.

https://news.yahoo.com/autos/aussie-man-crashes-800k-lambo-143000927.html

The driver, a 40-year-old man, reportedly lost control of the vehicle after mistakenly pressing the accelerator instead of the brake, propelling the car across a garden bed and directly into a power pole. The collision was so severe that it snapped the pole in half, resulting in significant damage to the car and surrounding property.

Some people should not operate high performance vehicles.

Meanwhile, in Switzeralnd - Swiss Police Seize $7 Million Pagani Huayra Codalunga in Traffic Stop
https://news.yahoo.com/swiss-police-seize-7-million-143000942.html

During an incident on a Swiss mountain road, police officers seized a Pagani Huayra Codalunga, valued at an eye-watering $7.4 million. The Huayra Codalunga, known for its 'Long tail' design reminiscent of 1960s Le Mans racers, was stopped alongside a Ferrari Testarossa, hinting at a high-profile excursion potentially aimed at a skiing destination.

The Huayra Codalunga looks a bit like a Porsche 917. It has similar characteristics to the 917: "Powered by an AMG-sourced 6.0-liter V12 engine, the Codalunga boasts 840 horsepower, enabling a blistering 0 to 60 mph acceleration in just 2.8 seconds and a top speed of 230 mph." I believe the 917 got to 235 mph (378 km/hr).

 

[nsaspook]

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...y-pumps-across-new-zealand-for-over-10-hours/

Today is Leap Day, meaning that for the first time in four years, it's February 29. That's normally a quirky, astronomical factoid (or a very special birthday for some). But that unique calendar date broke gas station payment systems across New Zealand for much of the day.

As reported by numerous international outlets, self-serve pumps in New Zealand were unable to accept card payments due to a problem with the gas pumps' payment processing software. The New Zealand Herald reported that the outage lasted "more than 10 hours." This effectively shuttered some gas stations, while others had to rely on in-store payments. The outage affected suppliers, including Allied Petroleum, BP, Gull, Waitomo, and Z Energy, and has reportedly been fixed.

Falsehoods programmers believe about time​

 

[nsaspook]

 

[nsaspook]

 

[Hornbein]

I've been to western China. Empty buildings everywhere. I'm told it's because the people trust real estate above banks. I said to myself, I bet those most of those buildings are jerrybuilt.

 

[Astronuc]

A weightlifter ate 39 coins, 37 magnets because he thought ‘zinc helps in bodybuilding’: report
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/weightlifter-ate-39-coins-37-235706637.html

Doctors at a New Delhi hospital removed 39 coins and 37 magnets from a man’s intestine after he swallowed the metals under the assumption that ”zinc helps in bodybuilding.”

X-rays taken before the surgery inside Sir Ganga Ram Hospital show massive metal clots forming in the 26-year-old’s intestines after he spent several weeks ingesting the coins while undergoing treatment for an undisclosed psychiatric condition, the ANI news wire reports.

 

[collinsmark]

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...y-pumps-across-new-zealand-for-over-10-hours/

Falsehoods programmers believe about time​

Source: https://xkcd.com/1883/

Source: https://xkcd.com/2867/

 

[sbrothy]

Yeah, they are really making en ecological statement there. I'm just not quite sure what it is. Since Google and Facefook etc. started building temporary airports for their private jets, moved into their luxury turn-key REVs and had "fresh" lobster flewn in from Maine it's as if the original idea kinda crashed and burned.

EDIT: Heh. "Burned".

 

[jack action]

it's as if the original idea kinda crashed and burned.

I don't know what you think the original idea was, but it had nothing to do with ecology:

Burning Man began as a bonfire ritual on the summer solstice. Sculptor Mary Grauberger, a friend of Larry Harvey's girlfriend, Janet Lohr, held solstice bonfire gatherings on Baker Beach for several years before 1986, some of which Harvey attended. When Grauberger stopped organizing it, Harvey "picked up the torch", with Grauberger's permission, and ran with it. He and Jerry James built the first wooden effigy on June 21, 1986, cobbled together using scrap wood, to be torched that evening. On June 22, Harvey, James, and a few friends met on Baker Beach in San Francisco and burned an 8-foot-tall (2.4 m) wooden man and a smaller wooden dog. Harvey later described his inspiration for burning these effigies as a spontaneous act of "radical self-expression". In 1987, the Man grew to 15 feet (5 m) tall, and by 1988, it had grown to 30 feet (9 m).

By 1988, Harvey formally named the summer solstice ritual "Burning Man" by titling flyers for the happening as such.

Even today:

Principles

Because of the variety of goals fostered by participatory attendees, known as "Burners," Burning Man does not have a single focus. Features of the event are subject to the participants and include community, artwork, absurdity, decommodification and revelry. Participation is encouraged.

The Burning Man event and its affiliated communities are guided by 10 principles meant to evoke the cultural ethos that has emerged from the event. They were originally written by Larry Harvey in 2004 as guidelines for regional organizing, then later became universal criteria of the general culture of the multifaceted movement. The 10 Principles are:

• radical inclusion
• gifting
• decommodification
• radical self-reliance
• radical self-expression
• communal effort
• civic responsibility
• leaving no trace
• participation
• immediacy

 

[Hornbein]

This young women found out she was the subject of hundreds of Chinese and Russian propaganda deep fakes, many of which were quite popular.

 

[nsaspook]

Dude, where's my Wiener, Wagon?

 

[berkeman]

I had the local radio news station on today while I was driving (KCBS in the San Francisco Bay Area), and after the 11:30AM news they transitioned to a feature piece where they discuss a different science topic each day of general interest. Today the topic was the serious loss and potential extinction of deep-sea sharks due to overfishing (for their livers and other body parts that are popular in various regions of the world) and potentially due to some global warming effects (scientists are just now trying to figure this decline in the population out).

One of the first things the scientist said was that we basically know more about the moon's surface than we do about the surface of the deep oceans on Earth, and that was contributing to our limited knowledge of the shark populations in the deep oceans and what was happening to their numbers.

Interviewer: Before we get farther into the issues of the declining shark population in the deep oceans, I'd like to understand more about your comment that we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the surface of the deep oceans.

Scientist: Sure.

Interviewer: So is it an issue with pressure? Is the pressure in the deep ocean different from the pressure in space?

Scientist: <silence>...

 

[nsaspook]

 

[Astronuc]

Scientist: Sure.

Interviewer: So is it an issue with pressure? Is the pressure in the deep ocean different from the pressure in space?

I could see Michael Palin as the interviewer and John Cleese as the scientist.

 

[Astronuc]

Eight Friends Built a Secret Apartment in a Mall and Hid There Undetected for Years; A New SXSW Documentary Explains How and Why​

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/eight-friends-built-secret-apartment-170407835.html