A poor woman from Newcastle had a stroke last year, when she awoke first she had a few problems with her voice but when she returned home the real extent of the problem became aparent.
She is suffering from Foreign Accent syndrome, first encountered in World War 2, which changes her accent from a Geordie twang into a fairly strong Jamacian/French Canadian. Its an extrodinary condition and while its humorous to begin with, after a while im sure it’ll be a nightmare.

[ BBC News | Video Interview ]

A council has apologised to a woman who was fined £60 after workmen painted a disabled bay around her car. After parking legally, the woman then went to the hairdressers for a cut and blow, only to return to her car with a fine and freshly painted lines around her car.
The fine has been revoked
[ BBC News ]

I’m sure many of the geeks out here know about this Net Neutrality thing thats going on right now, but for those who dont, heres the beef.
Some time last year the CEO of AT&T asked the world why the internet should be allowed to use their pipes ( Cables transmitting the data) for free, this sent shockwaves through the internet. Internet service providers would like to be able to charge Web sites for access to their customers, while web sites that could not pay the new fees would be accessible at a slower speed, or perhaps not be accessible at all.

This tiered system provides a number of threats as service providers could, for example, shut out Web sites whose politics

I dont know how many geeks around will have seen this, and ignoring bens continual rants about my posting lots of mini blogs about different things, heres a neat clip from a Windows 98 Conference, the guys talking about the wonderful new feature of Plug and Play avaliable to all the users of Windoze 98… Brilliant Simple, Opulent Beauty (or BSOD).

In other news, heres a funny clip set of G Bush bloopers

A fabulously sarcastic calculation on the losses the RIAA acheive after a single month of torrent users downloading music. The figures are taken from the $150,000 per infringment maximum allowed by the Copyright laws in the US, which incidentally are the same numbers the RIAA are using to sue XM Satellite Radio for each song their subscribers have recoreded to their Inno Player

Such sillyness always amuses, especially as this guy wrote a Java app to trawl Pirate Bay for the torrents of music in the month of Jan

“We have all heard how the RIAA is suing people over piracy, giving figures such as “300 million dollars a year” in

Mr Gates is set to build himself a dream factory, one that when running will produce 35m gallons of liquor annually.

The lucky folks of Boardman, on the Columbia river, will play host to Bill’s boozy dream factory when it opens its doors toward the end of this year.

Sadly, the factory will not be a kind of alcohol-themed Willy Wonka’s, complete with lumpy rivers of advocaat and private army of caterwauling drunken dwarves. But instead, will produce fuel-grade ethanol on an industrial scale. Gates owns a quarter stake in Pacific Ethanol, which is behind the plant. The firm aims at a land-grab in the burgeoning west coast market for renewables by fermenting sweetcorn. Makes me wonder what

Words cannot express my opinion of the US, however, this guy does a very good job of the whole thing, making “Hail to the Cheif”, a popular american style tune thing, into a series of Hand Farts The current government should listen to this and take it to heart.
You sir, are indeed the cheif.

BoingBoing reports that Scientology is opening a “Super Power” training center in Clearwater, Florida. The Center will teach cult members who pay out how to enhance their powers of perception by using training techniques supposedly invented by founder and mediocre sci-fi hack L Ron Hubbard.

“Super Power uses machines, apparatus and specially designed rooms to exercise and enhance a person’s so-called perceptics. Those machines include an antigravity simulator and a gyroscope-like apparatus that spins a person around while blindfolded to improve perception of compass direction, said the former Scientologists…

Scientologist Ron Pollack, who donated $5-million to the Super Power fund after making millions in hedge funds

On eBay this week is the most sensational gift of all, the tools to Riches beyond the dreams of meer men. Avaliable from this auction is the Key to a box holding the numbers to the lottery, ‘the 99p Car Boot Sale Sunglasses of Protection. You will need these when opening the Lotto Box, to protect your eyes from the glare from the make-up of has-been celebrities, who will frolic around you, smelling the gold.’.. and so forth
[ eBay Auction | Buyer Questions | The Register Article ]

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