Thief Attempts TV Heist by Switching Barcode

A Kirksville man faces a felony indictment after trying to purchase a LCD television for less than $3 by allegedly replacing its UPC code with that of a water bottle.

Reginald Newman, 44, was indicted Monday by the Adair County Grand Jury and has been charged with attempted stealing by deceit.

According to documents filed in Adair County Circuit Court, Newman allegedly tried to purchase a 26-inch Viore LCD television from Wal-Mart, claiming the UPC code valued at $3.16 was the proper code the television, which normally sells for more than $517.

If convicted, he faces up to seven years in prison, a fine of up to $5,000 or any combination of the two. He is in custody at the Adair County Detention Center on a $10,000 cash-only bond.

The grand jury also indicted a Novinger, Mo., man on two counts of felony forgery. David Novinger, 45, was arrested Wednesday for writing checks on two accounts that were not his own. He is also in custody at the Detention Center on a $25,000 cash-only bond.

Uno: Unicycle-Motorbike-Segway Hybrid

Are you kidding me...like a motorcycle isn't dangerous enough, plus the way people drive today. Now, getting around the hospital for work would be interestingly fun, but anything else is just plain silly. Enjoy the retarded looking invention.

Here is an excerpt from an article on this thing:

Built by Ben J. Poss Gulak, it's an electric vehicle that uses a similar sort of microgyro-motor system as the Segway, but with two gyros: one for forward and back, and one for turning. Its got just one control —a power switch— and everything else is done by leaning, which must make for one hell of an adrenaline-packed ride. It's the culmination of a number of vehicle projects by Ben, and uses electric propulsion for eco-friendliness, since Ben visited China where he found that "the smog was so thick, we never saw the sun."

Ben designed the 120-lb vehicle himself, using Google SketchUp to help with the plans as he couldn't afford professional software. How does it perform? We don't know, but we suspect it's a lot of fun. And though Ben got some advice from expert motorbike modders, and a robotics expert for the gyro programming, he deserves a round of applause— he's only 18 years old. And that's just amazing.

Bringing Life Outside

An unborn elephant, perfectly formed in every way. A dolphin swimming in the womb, just as it will have to swim in the ocean the moment it is born. An unborn dog asleep as if by its master's side. Using new technology, these images, published in UK's Daily Mail, reveal what until now has been a secret - exactly how animals develop in the womb. They were created by the same team who in 2004 showed how human embryos "walk in the womb".

Using a combination of three-dimensional ultrasound scans, computer graphics and tiny cameras, the team were able to show the entire process from conception to birth. "These kind of images from inside animals have never been seen before," Jeremy Dear of Pioneer Productions, who made the film, told The Daily Mail.

"We worked with dozens of zoos and animal sanctuaries across the world. There were a lot of different challenges - recording a dolphin is very different from an elephant, for instance. "Animals were trained to sit still near the scanners and we also inserted cameras into the womb via the elephant's rectum-But it has been worth it. It one sequence we follow an elephant developing. When it is finally born, there is not a dry eye in the house.

"The images in the film are a testament to the ingenuity and patience of the production team led by Yavar Abbas and Dr David Barlow, who worked with some of the world's leading vets to obtain these pictures." The images were created for the program Animals In The Womb, a two-hour show to be broadcast on the National Geographic Channel.

Researchers used scans to track elephant calves developing for almost two years in the womb - the longest gestation period of all mammals. It shows at 16 weeks the elephant fetus starting to look more like an elephant as the trunk develops. At almost a year, the trunk is longer than the legs, and by 14 months, the characteristic elephant ears are visible. They will eventually grow to almost two feet across to help regulate the body temperature of the fully mature-elephant. At birth, he will weigh nearly 260lb and be able to take his first steps in minutes.

Animals closer to home were also studied. A golden retriever fetus is shown exhibiting some of the same behavior as family pets, panting with its tongue out, while still in the womb. Program makers also reveal the moment at eight weeks when a baby dolphin learns to swim while in the womb. During the next few weeks, it develops flippers, a tail and a blow-hole before being born after a year, and must be able to quickly swim to the surface to take its first breath of air.

Experts also found that at 24 days, the dolphin embryo develops tiny leg-like buds, which then disappear over the next two weeks. After 11 weeks, the dolphin embryo's fins display bone structures resembling human hands, which experts believe may show that dolphin ancestors were land dwellers. The footage also shows how many animal embryos are like human ones.

"The incredible thing about the early images is how we all look very similar - it is obviously we humans share a common mammalian ancestry very early in life," Mr Dear told The Daily Mail.

Snorts-Я-Us

Explain this to me...cause I am quite confused. Maybe there is certain protocol to walking up & arrest a guy for possession drugs.

Really though, I get back from a relaxing evening movie to my place & catch up on a couple episodes of House. After I was about to turn in for a little sleep-fest. As I am opening all the windows for a nice cool night's sleep, I notice a car had just pulled up in front of my place...now I live in a complex so that part was surprising. Afterwards a female gets out and heads to her place while the man stays behind...

I watched to see why he was staying outside for so long. Then, I notice what he is doing...snorting something. The way he was looking around every minute screamed it wasn't too legal. After 15 straight minutes of filling his face with his stash I decided to give him some company by calling the cops on this tool. He went into his house before the "reliable" boys in blue arrived. I spoke with cop & told him where he lived and that he was currently back in his car doing his thing.

Now, what does the cop decide to do? Well, he drives over past the car, gets out, and starts talking to someone. After that, he leaves without even checking out why some guy is laying half in his car and in the parking lot with a straw up his nose. Make sense to you? Me neither...after the cop was gone, this guy added 30 minutes of yummy snorting of his good stuff.

"Butterhead" gets knife through head & lives

In the history of weaponry, the dull-edged butter knife hasn’t ranked high on the list of weapons of choice. But don’t tell that to Tyler Hemmert. The 11-year-old Vancouver boy needed doctors to remove a butter knife from his head on Sunday. He says he and friend Nate Leach were sitting on a park bench when another boy became angry with them and hurled the knife.

Nate ducked. Tyler didn’t.

“I freaked out when I could actually see the handle,” Tyler told TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira on Wednesday. “But I just tried to tell myself to stay calm and stuff.” Four inches of the blade was lodged between Tyler’s scalp and skull, above his right ear. When Leach ran to tell Hemmert's father, he reportedly bolted from his house without even putting on his shoes. Understandably, Tyler's family had a sharp reaction.

“It’s kind of a freaky thing to see a knife handle sticking out of your son’s head,” Brian Hemmert said.

Upon reaching his son, Brian Hemmert's first reaction was somewhat automatic. “The first thing I wanted to do was just pull it out of his head and give him a big hug,” he said. “But I was afraid to even touch him. I knew better. I’ve seen a couple of these [medical] shows, so ... leave it alone and let the pros deal with it.” Tyler was rushed to Southwest Washington Medical Center, where doctors found that the knife miraculously had only grazed his skull.

This x-ray shows how the blade of the butter knife grazed Tyler Hemmert's skull.
“The CAT scan showed that indeed it was just under his scalp,” Dr. Andy Reed told NBC News reporter John Larson. “There were no fractures obvious to the skull.” Tyler, who equated the pain to a bee sting, left the hospital with just five stitches. “I’m feeling fine right now,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt right now at all.”

With the scar has also come some notoriety for Tyler. Some friends, he says, have even called him “Butterhead.” “Pretty much everybody’s talking about it and stuff,” he told Vieira. “They’re like, ‘Oh, my God, it actually happened to you. I can’t believe it.’”

Police interviewed the boy who threw the knife, and local juvenile authorities will reportedly decide whether charges will be pursued. In September 2005, an Omaha, Nebraska, first-grader was suspended from school for merely carrying a butter knife in his book bag.

Brian Hemmert said he hopes there will be some major discipline for the boy who assaulted his son. “I don’t really want to see the kid jailed or hung from the yardarms or anything,” he said. “But he definitely needs something, some consequences, some sort of anger management classes. Something. I don’t want to see him punished, per se. But I do want something taken care of on this.”

Tyler, a sixth-grader at Discovery Middle School, said he has not spoken with the boy who threw the knife since the altercation. “I’ve heard that he’s wanted to come over my house to apologize and stuff,” he said. “But I haven’t seen him since.”

What is inside a cigarette?

Automated Restaurant...no more tipping!

Here is BBC News reporting on the German invention that will take all those waiters & waitresses out of the picture when it comes to having a meal in this restaurant. Yes, the food is still prepared by an actual human, but do you trust a robot to take on that task yet?

Running-Powered Bike, Pure Retardation

The point of this compared to a normal bike is...? You let me know

A Perspective on Quantity: One Trillion

To start...

A million seconds is 13 days.
A billion seconds is 31 years.
A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.

A million minutes ago was – 1 year, 329 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes ago.
A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ.

A million hours ago was in 1885.
A billion hours ago man had not yet walked on earth.

A million dollars ago was five seconds ago at the U.S. Treasury.
A billion dollars ago was late yesterday afternoon at the U.S. Treasury.

A trillion dollars is so large a number that only politicians
can use the term in conversation… probably because they
seldom think about what they are really saying. I’ve read that
mathematicians do not even use the term trillion!

Here is some perspective on TRILLION:
Trillion = 1,000,000,000,000.
The country has not existed for a trillion seconds.
Western civilization has not been around a trillion seconds.

Million: 1,000,000
Billion: 1,000,000,000
Trillion: 1,000,000,000,000
Quintillion: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000

To help out the perspective on one trillion, let the MegaPenny Project use a different approach. It uses a nice visual method to help us understand the sheer size of different numbers of pennies...from one to a trillion and all the way up to one quintillion. Even more...ever wonder how far up the numbers are named past the small trillion & quintillion? Find out here. Enjoy!