Meet Jerry Jalava: The man with the 2 GB USB finger

Jerry Jalava of Finland is a motorcycle enthusiast and computer hacker. He lost a finger in a riding accident last spring and when the doctor working on rebuilding his hand heard about Jerry's love of technology, he suggested a USB "finger" drive to replace the lost digit. So now Jerry Jalava's right near-pinky finger is also a 2 gigabyte USB drive that carries a Linux distribution and the movie Freddy Got Fingered.

You can check out plenty more pics of his bionic finger on his Flickr photostream.

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Bev Perdue's lottery looting costs county 4 schools

That "North Carolina Education Lottery" that we've had for going on three years now? The one that was supposed to do nothing but supplement, you know, education in North Carolina?

Well, our newly-minted governor Bev Perdue has raided the lottery's reserve fund of $50 million. And then she took another $38 million that was marked for new schools construction, and applied it to the state's budget shortfall.

And now because of her fiscal shenanigans, Rockingham County won't be getting those four new schools that it direly needs.

I have spoken to quite a few people in this county over the past few days who are, to put it mildly, extremely honked-off that this has happened.

The members of the Board of Education aren't taking this quietly either. According to the above-linked article Tim Scales has remarked "You don't want to know what I've got to say about it." Reida Drum and Steve Smith have likewise expressed frustration...

Upset about Perdue keeping lottery funds, board member Reida Drum said she could not believe the governor actually ran on the platform of supporting education.

"If I saw her surrounded by teachers one time in her campaign ads, I saw it 600 times," Drum said. "I think we should send word to her that we thought she was supposed to be an education governor."

Board member Steve Smith agreed.

"If we don't do something, we're just saying it's OK," Smith said.

The board voted 7-4 to send a letter to Perdue, state legislators and the North Carolina School Board Association expressing their disagreement with the decision to keep funds intended for the benefit of the state's school systems.

I sincerely regret having to say this, but I fear the months and years to come will bear it out to be accurate: there stands to be no foreseeable significant improvement of North Carolina's educational infrastructure. Partly it's because of the economic mess this state is in right now along with the rest of the country. And partly it's because North Carolina has followed the same track as most other states that began their lotteries on the good faith that the money would be applied to education. I can think of only one state off the top of my head - that being Georgia - which has for the most part wisely administered its lottery proceeds. All of the rest have ultimately used money from the lottery for other purposes than improving education.

We might as well have never had the lottery to begin with. And I say that as one who has gone on the record numerous times over the years as being in support of the lottery.

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Man wants DNA testing to prove he's Al Capone's grandson

A guy in Boston named Christopher Knight (so far as I can tell there's no relation :-) believes that he is the grandson of infamous mob boss Al Capone and he has so much confidence about it that that he has legally changed his name to "Christopher Capone".

And now Chris Capone is seeking DNA samples from known male descendants of the gang so that a scientific determination can be made. If none are willing to provide him with genetic material, Chris Capone wants to exhume the remains of "Scarface Al" and get the DNA from that.

Maybe the exhumation can be turned into a live televised special. It could be like a chance for redemption for Geraldo Rivera :-P

Thanks to Tony Hummel for passing along the story!

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New battery recharges in 10 seconds

Those wonderful engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have conjured up a new type of battery for mobile devices that recharges in just ten seconds. The battery is composed of currently existing materials and is said to be cheap to manufacture on a mass scale. Along with the extremely fast recharge rate, the new design doesn't degrade with repeated recharges as do currently existing batteries.

In addition to the uses this thing will have for gadgets like cellphones and iPods, it's thought that larger versions of these batteries can be used in electric cars: perhaps recharging for five minutes at a "fillin' station" before heading off again for long distance driving.

Sounds like an amazing breakthrough. Along with some really cool stuff I'm hearing from the data storage side of things, there looks to be a lot of neat gizmos heading our way soon :-)

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Star Wars fan does 110 MPH trying to race toward eBay bid

From the Seattle, Washington side of the galaxy: a 46-year old man was stopped for speeding on I-90 by State Patrol troopers. He was doing an astonishing 110 miles per hour and once he had finally been pulled over, officers found his car loaded with Star Wars memorabilia.

The man's reason for going so fast? He was trying to rush home to bid for another Star Wars item on eBay.

Click on the link above for some hilarious reader comments!

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United States poised for Zimbabwe-style economic collapse, sez governor

If the United States keeps "spending a bunch of money we don't have", it faces a collapse of its economy much like what has happened in Zimbabwe, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford predicts.

In case you haven't heard, the financial hyper-inflation which has rocked Zimbabwe has led that country to issue a one trillion dollar bill as part of its currency. For one of those legal tender notes, you can currently buy a hamburger or two.

Sanford gets what's really going on. Too bad there doesn't seem to be many other elected officials who are likewise calling for fiscal sobriety right now.

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Artificial life possible "within five years"

Many scientists are predicting that synthetic life is going to be a reality within the next five to ten years. Geneticists have already created an artificial ribosome (a cell structure responsible for protein manufacturing) and the consensus is that a full-blown cell is just around the corner.

Color me "meh". I'd love to read the journals on what's going into this effort. It's one thing to replicate structure and function. But real life is much more than that. I wanna see how much "genuine" life is being used as the raw material in this thing, before judging that a real breakthrough is happening.

And while we're on the subject: I know the scientists involved are proud of their work, and their belief that they could create life. But does anyone else wonder if they should be doing it? All kinds of crazy scenarios come to mind. Maybe even something like I Am Legend (the book not the "movie").

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Today's proof that fashion is dead

I have been thinking for awhile now that the traditional sense of fashion is dying before our very eyes. Mostly it's the fault of the Internet, that Great Leveler of Culture and Identity. Control of journalism and the entertainment industry is now becoming a thing in the hands of the average person... and it was only a matter of time before clothing style also became dictated by You and Me, instead of designers in New York and Paris.

But that doesn't mean that those who have been trying to tell us what is "in" are going down without a fight. Witness these... outfits... from a show in Paris yesterday:

The lady on the left is hopeless on a dinner date because of the chainmail covering her mouth. While the one on the right looks too much like a botanical reproductive organ.

I have to ask aloud: Who the hell actually WEARS stuff like this?!

See more wacky Parisian "fashion" here.

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The world's greatest superhero is a giant bulldog

Sometimes you come across something on the Internet that is so overwhelmingly kewl just on the basis of the obvious amount of passion and intelligence poured into it, that you can't wait to praise the effort and share it with others.

That's what I felt after finding Lockjaw, The World's Greatest Superhero. It's a very detailed site that, with great affection and eloquence, argues why Lockjaw of the Inhumans from the Marvel Universe is the best comic book character around. In terms of innocence, nobility, and utter power, this Terrigen Mist-altered bulldog lives a life of romp, play, and the occasional rescuing of the universe on his own terms. Not even Galactus comes close to matching Lockjaw's unrestrained abilities, the author insists.

Gotta give the props to whoever made this site. And hopefully Lockjaw will be a playable character in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, instead of just getting to scratch his ears :-P

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Congress burning through $1 BILLION an hour (even while asleep)

According to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, since Barack Obama has been sworn in as President the United States Congress has voted to spend $1.2 trillion... which breaks down to an expenditure rate of $1 Billion per hour. That's during a 24 hour day, not just when Congress is in session (unfortunately).

Anyone else wondering where the heck this money is coming from to begin with?

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The mysterious stones of Gobekli Tepe

In 1994 a Kurdish shepherd in eastern Turkey discovered something while tending his flock: the tops of a series of buried stones. News of his find reached museum curators several miles away and ultimately made the site at Gobekli Tepe (pronounced "Go-beckly Tepp-ay") the subject of a full-blown archaeological survey.

Now, almost fifteen years later, Gobekli Tepe is being hailed as one of the greatest historical finds of the past half century, with some even calling it the "most important archaeological site in the world". The stones unearthed thus far are intricately decorated with carvings of humans and animals. Evidence indicates that many more stones are waiting to be uncovered. And then there is the age of the buried structures: calculated to be around 12,000 years old. That's approximately ten thousand years older than Stonehenge in Britain or the pyramids of Egypt. Little wonder then that more than a few are likening Gobekli Tepe to the biblical Garden of Eden.

Mash down here for an in-depth article from The Daily Mail, with a lot more photos of those curious stones at Gobekli Tepe.

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Nazi concentration camp guard charged 29,000 times

German prosecutors have thrown not just the book, but several hefty volumes of 'em, at John Demjanjuk. For his time as a prison guard at the Nazi concentration camp at Sobibor in Poland during World War II, Demjanjuk has been charged with 29,000 counts of accessory to murder.

Demjanjuk is currently 88 and lives in Cleveland. The courts in Germany are trying to have the United States extradite him for trial. If that happens, it could very well be the end of an era. I can't see any further war crimes trials of former Nazis taking place.

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Just one kiss

This was among the e-mails awaiting my perusal this morning. I should comment that the same issue has been raised considerably on various forums in recent weeks and months...

"Johnny Robertson and James Oldfield can't be the real church of Christ because they aren't obedient to Romans 16:16."

The writer is of course referring to local cultist Johnny Robertson and his lackey/second cousin James Oldfield, the leaders of what they proclaim is the "Church of Christ" (no relation to the real Churches of Christ). The two men who have been harassing the legitimate churches in this area, and even committing slander against some (like when Johnny Robertson accused one church in Kernersville, without evidence, of child pornography).

And in case you're wondering what Paul instructs in Romans 16:16, here it is from the King James version...

Salute one another with an holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you.

You know, for all their demanding of "obedience" to the Bible, and their insistence that their own obedience makes them out to be the "one true church", I have never heard of Robertson and Oldfield saluting anyone with a "holy kiss". And they've been on television together plenty enough times: why haven't they kissed each other yet, as the Word of God clearly commands?

Maybe it's time for Robertson and Oldfield to give each other that holy kiss on live television, for everyone to witness, so that we can all see without a shred of uncertainty that they really do "practice what they preach" and that they honestly believe that they truly are in "the church that you read about in the Bible". The commandment to greet brethren with a "holy kiss" appears four times in the King James Bible... which is far more times than any scripture dictating that those who are not water baptized will go to Hell (which is none at all).

Hey, that's not necessarily my own opinion. I'm just the reporter here folks. I'm only sharing what a lot of other people have also been wondering.

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Phillip Arthur has watched the WATCHMEN and writes a darned awesome review of it!

Good friend, artist extraordinaire and fellow geek Phillip Arthur has turned in an EXCELLENT review of Watchmen. How excellent is it? I'm not ashamed to say that his is perhaps better written than my own. I went into Watchmen as one who has probably read the book way too many times, and that does affect a reviewer's mind. Phillip casts a considerably more objective eye on the movie... and still gives it some praise:

Did I love Watchmen? No, but it is growing on me, and I most definitely want to see it again (in IMAX, if possible). There are moments during which the film was pure magic to me, and had I felt that sense of wonder the whole time this film would have garnered a higher rating. My friend Matthew commented that if the movie does nothing more than bring new readers to the graphic novel it has served its purpose in being made; I have spoken with several people who are doing exactly that after seeing the film, a fact that pleases me greatly. There is a reason Watchmen made Time Magazine's list of Top 100 English-language novels from 1923 to 2005: it is that damned good. I think about how comic books inspired me to explore mythology, history, and literature, paving the way for the devoted reader and student that I am today, and all I can think is how can I fault someone for attempting to do the impossible? So kudos, Zack Snyder. Better to have tried and have fallen just short of perfection than having not tried at all. I'm giving Watchmen a strong and pleasantly surprising 3.75 out of 5.

Read more of his thoughts here.

I'm beginning to see that Watchmen is going to be one of the most discussed movies of recent years, like Fight Club or The Passion of the Christ. Like Rorschach's ever-shifting inkblot mask, people are seeing very different things in this movie and feeling compelled to talk about it. And that's not a bad thing at all. I think it indicates that Watchmen is a film that is going to be resonating with us for a long time still to come.

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BIOSHOCK 2: Behold the Big Sister!

This blog was already becoming non-stop Watchmen for the past several weeks. Now it's wall-to-wall BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams coverage that threatens to dominate for the next several months. I was working on some more serious stuff when a few e-mails came in screaming about the cover of GameInformer's April issue.

Take a gander at the Big Sister:

According to one report, the Big Sisters are "amazonian version(s) of the Big Daddy, wearing similar, though svelter, gear" and that they will be "faster and sleeker" than Big Daddies.

So if you're a fan of the BioShock mythos, you're probably wondering as much as I am right now: where do Big Sisters come from? We already know the story of the Big Daddies and the original Little Sisters. Nowhere in the original BioShock was it ever hinted that there might be a female version of the Big Daddy.

I wonder if there's a Big Momma somewhere in Rapture...

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2K Games launches tantalizing teaser site for BIOSHOCK 2: SEA OF DREAMS

It is 1967. Seven years after Andrew Ryan's sub-Atlantic utopian metropolis of Rapture collapsed into ruin.

And in coastal communities across western Europe, little girls have begun to mysteriously disappear. The only clues connected to the vanishings being mysterious red lights glimpsed by eyewitnesses, and unusual boot prints on the beaches.

The people at 2K Games are certainly being subtle in giving us any idea about what's in store with BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams, the upcoming sequel to 2007's BioShock: considered by many to be the greatest video game of the modern era. A few days ago the teaser site SomethingInTheSea.com emerged from the depths. On it you can find numerous newspaper clippings and photographs related to the disappearances of the children. Among the most intriguing: a handmade doll that those who played BioShock will instantly recognize as being a plush version of the Big Daddy.

No release date has been announced, but there's no doubt that 2K won't have to ask us kindly to buy it when it comes out :-)

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