Sat, Feb. 05, 2005 | Police hit pay dirt on a Redland farm when a drug bust led them to $180,000 in buried nickels. They were headed for the Federal Reserve but gone since December. Police searching for marijuana in South Miami-Dade County discovered an entirely different stash buried four feet underground Friday -- millions of nickels that vanished last year en route to the Federal Reserve in New Orleans. Talk about pay dirt.

''They're still in the Federal Reserve bags,'' said Miami-Dade police spokesman Joey Giordano. ``We think we got them all.'' If so, that would be 3.6 million nickels. Forty-five thousand pounds of nickels. Nine hundred bags of nickels, many bags still neatly clasped with red clips. Exactly $180,000 worth of nickels.

Officers looking for marijuana plants on a five-acre farm at 14800 SW 184th St. in the Redland first discovered an ice cooler filled with nickels, then remembered that a tractor-trailer loaded with coins went missing just before Christmas, police said. They questioned a man who rents two acres of the farm, a place bustling with chickens, goats and geese. ''He gave the impression that there may be a lot more nickels there,'' said Randy Rossman, another Miami-Dade police spokesman. Officers began digging, and hit the jackpot.

Many questions remained unanswered Friday, including who buried the treasure and the whereabouts of the truck driver, Angel Ricardo Mendoza, now believed to be out of the country. Police called him a suspect. Said Giordano, the police spokesman: ``If only I had a nickel for every question about this case.'' (More...)

Feb 2, 2005 11:18 PM | Man nabbed after sleeping in meth lab car parked in front of the county jail By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) - A man has been arrested after police found him asleep in his car with a meth lab in it while the car was parked in front of the county jail. Kirk Alan Marvel, 42, whose address wasn't available, was charged with manufacturing methamphetamine and possession of marijuana. Black Hawk County sheriff's deputies noticed Marvel's car stopped at an intersection near the jail about 4 a.m. Tuesday. Deputies approached the car after it hadn't moved during two green-lights. Marvel was found asleep behind the wheel, officals with the sheriff's office said. Inside the car was found crushed pseudoephedrine pills, lithium batteries, a can of starter fluid and a plastic bucket filled with sludge, court records said. Marvel was being held in Black Hawk County jail on Wednesday under $150,000 bond.

FEBRUARY 4--Meet Sarah Slicker. A Florida jury this week found the 23-year-old woman guilty of lewd conduct for stripping off her clothes at the request of a four-year-old boy she was babysitting. The nanny, who testified that she disrobed last January to satisfy the tyke's curiosity, was discovered naked on a couch when the child's mother returned home unexpectedly. Slicker, who now must register as a sex offender, was jailed in advance of her February 25 sentencing, at which she could receive up to 15 years in prison. Slicker, pictured below in a St. Petersburg Police Department mug shot, told cops that the incident was not sexual in nature, that she "just wanted him to know for when he was older," according to the incident report.

Published on: 01/27/2005 | By NED NEWMAN | A rest home has been forced to close and the owners are expecting to get their brains sued out after 18 nurses, aides, assistants and orderlies got pregnant following a "Viagra party" for the facility's elderly patients!

"It was supposed to be a morale booster -- and now we're out of business," says Mary Stinson, a receptionist who lost her job when the owners of Merry Rest Retirement Home, in Los Angeles, announced they were shutting down under pressure from the State of California. "I told them they were crazy to give those old goats all those pills, but did they listen to me? No!"

The party that was held in mid-August lasted as long as the erection drug held out, which, according to sources, was about four hours. Although there were plenty of elderly women the old guys could have lured into the sack, they went instead for curvy young nurses and aides, many of whom, it is reported, were drunk. A spokesman for Merry Rest confirmed in a prepared statement that 18 employees are now pregnant and that DNA testing to match them with the fathers is now under way.

Published on: 01/27/2005

Mirror that reflects your future self | New Scientist | In Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, the eponymous subject keeps his youthful looks while the vagaries of age are visited upon his portrait in the attic. Now a digital version of Wilde's idea is being developed to show you what you will look like in five years' time if you take no exercise, eat too much junk food and drink too much alcohol. At Accenture Technology's lab in Sophia Antipolis, near Nice in France, a flat-screen LCD TV linked to a set of cameras and a powerful image-processing computer replaces the portrait described in Wilde's novel.

Initially the system acts just like a sophisticated "mirror" in which an image captured by a wireless camera is displayed in front of you. But that is just the start. Its main purpose is to conjure up a computer-modified image of the effects of overindulgence at the press of a button, says Accenture lab director Martin Illsey. To do this the computer builds up a profile of your lifestyle, using a network of high-resolution cameras dotted around the house. These webcams will feed images of your everyday activities to a computer running software that is able to recognise different patterns of behaviour. It will be able to identify, for instance, when you have spent most of the day sitting on the couch instead of on the exercise bike, and will spot visits to the fridge for snacks and drinks. Verbal or text prompts from the computer will ask you to identify what you are eating and drinking. Of course, how honest you are is up to you.
Adding pounds Once the computer has built up this profile, a different software package will extrapolate how this behaviour is likely to affect your weight in the long term. If the computer feels you are eating too much, it will calculate how many pounds to add to the image of the person standing in front of the mirror.

Another package will work on your face. Too much alcohol? Expect early wrinkles and blotchy skin. "Technology can be quite persuasive," Illsey says. "There will be several options for the visual feedback the user gets, ranging from weight gain to modifying skin tone to increasing the shadows under the eyes." Illsey hopes to have a prototype mirror completed by the middle of this year, providing the behaviour recognition and image processing software can be finished in time. The Accenture team wants the system to work in real time, to give the user a genuine sense of looking into a mirror and seeing the ghosts of today's excesses being projected into the future. Some experts predict it could have a high impact on users. "It sounds like it could be very effective," says Alex Pentland, who works on smart environments at the MIT Media Lab in Massachusetts.

"Helping people visualise the long-term outcomes of their behaviour is an effective way to motivate change," says B. J. Fogg at Stanford University in California, whose team has developed sunglasses that show the effect of too much sunshine on the skin. Others, however, believe people will shy away from such an unflattering, nannying device. "I don't think any system which presents a negative image of the user will be taken up by many people," predicts Cliff Randell, an expert in ubiquitous computing at the University of Bristol in the UK.

Winning bid: £422.00 (Reserve met)
Ended: 31-Jan-05 14:07:35 GMT
Start time: 21-Jan-05 14:07:35 GMT
History: 39 bids (£30.00 starting bid)
Winning bidder: golden_palace_casino

Hi there. Like myself, and many others across the world, you've probably noticed a man on eBay is renting his forehead for 30 days, so you can put your logo on it. Well, now, you can do so in the UK. No longer restricted to USA based advertising, you can now rent my CLEAVAGE for a period of 15 days, during which I will display your company logo, slogan or web-site address in the form of a temporary tattoo you will supply to me. I should probably give you some information on the whereabouts of this living billboard. I currently live in the town of Greenock in west of Scotland. I'm often to be found in Glasgow or Edinburgh as well. I'm a 27 year old auburn-haired lass. I'm an ample size 42GG, and I usually wear low-cut tops. I am renting the top part of my cleavage (the part which is legal to display) for you to put your company's logo upon. During the 15 days, I can have photos taken of me, with your logo, in front of any of the popular landmarks in Glasgow, or our nation's capital. The other auction, based in the US, has generated massive media interest around the world, and this auction will likely also generate such attention from UK media. Imagine the possibilities of getting your company logo displayed, FOR FREE on national media. All I ask in return is that you supply the temporary tattoo, and that your logo be no larger than 9 inches wide, and 5 inches tall. Also, I cannot advertise any sectarian, or racial logos, slogans or URL's which point to such sites. Also, if the content is of an 'adult' nature, it must be censored to ensure that it is legal to display in a public area. Logo content is at our discretion. At the end of the 15 days, prints of the photos, (which can be e-mailed to you during the period) will be posted to you as a permanent souvenir. Don't miss out on this massive novel media opportunity. If there are any questions or comment's, please feel free to e-mail me at "wizard_drongo@yahoo.co.uk". Also, please note, serious bidders only, those without feedback or negative feedback will me removed from the auction unless I am e-mailed by them outlining payment plans. All bids are legally binding. Thank you for reading, and Happy Bidding!

January 26, 2005 | TAOS, New Mexico (AP) -- Lynn Anderson, who won a Grammy for "Rose Garden" in 1970, is accused of shoplifting a Harry Potter DVD from a supermarket and then punching a police officer as she was being put into a patrol car. Anderson, 57, was arrested Monday night at Smith's Food & Drug Center, said Police Chief Neil Curran. She was taken to police headquarters, where she refused the option of a written citation, he said. A Taos County magistrate released Anderson on her own recognizance. An arraignment was scheduled for later this week.Telephone calls to a listing for Anderson went unanswered Tuesday.

In December, Anderson was charged with drunken driving after police found her passed out in her car on the shoulder of a highway near Denton, Texas. Anderson, who lives in Taos, was the Country Music Association's female vocalist of the year in 1971. She released an album last year called "The Bluegrass Sessions."

Thursday, 27 January, 2005, 13:12 GMT | Sex movie mix-up shocks couple| The couple were hoping to watch Doris Day in The Pajama Game

A devout Baptist couple who bought a Doris Day DVD from a supermarket were shocked to find a sex film instead. Alan and Anne Leigh-Browne, from Wellington, Somerset, had been expecting to enjoy The Pajama Game. Instead they were confronted by Italian sex film - Tettone che Passione, which translates Breasts, What a Passion.

"Some topless young women appeared and started talking in Italian... it's not what you expect from a Doris Day film," Mr Leigh-Browne said. Retired doctor Mr Leigh-Brown, 67, said he picked up the film, which was sealed in plastic wrapping, for £2.99 from the bargain bin of a Safeway supermarket in Taunton. The couple, regular attendees at their local Baptist church, settled down with a cup of tea to watch the 1957 musical which has a U (universal) certificate.

"It was a pretty raunchy, explicit film, it certainly pulled no punches," Mr Leigh-Browne said. "My wife and I were very shocked but we watched it until the end because we couldn't believe what we were seeing. "The film became progressively more graphic, there was no plot to it, it was just sex."

Alan and his wife Anne, 60, a retired teacher, complained to Safeway the next day and all copies of The Pajama Game were removed from the store.

Pictures Show Classmate Being Stabbed, Hung | 6:50 am EST January 27, 2005 | OCALA, Fla. -- Two boys, ages 9 and 10, were charged with felonies and taken away from school in handcuffs, accused of making violent drawings of stick figures. The boys were arrested Monday on charges of making a written threat to kill or harm another person, a second-degree felony. The special education students used pencil and red crayon to draw primitive stick figure scenes on scrap paper that showed a 10-year-old classmate being stabbed and hung, police said. VIDEO: Students Charged With Felonies.

"The officer found they were drawing these pictures for the sole purpose of intimidating and scaring the victim," said Ocala Police Sgt. Russ Kern. The boy depicted in the drawings told his teacher, who took the sketches and contacted the school dean, Marty Clifford. Clifford called police, who arrested the boys after consulting with the State Attorney's Office. They were also suspended from school.

One drawing showed the two boys standing on either side of the other boy and "holding knives pointed through" his body, according to a police report. The figures were identified by written names or initials. Another drawing showed a stick figure hanging, tears falling from his eyes, with two other stick figures standing below him. Other pieces of scrap paper listed misspelled profanities and the initials of the boy who was allegedly threatened. Parents of both of the arrested boys said they thought the boys should be punished by the school and families, not the legal system.

Ocala police said they stand behind the decision to arrest the children. "When an adult or even myself look at the picture looked at it at first I was thinking there is really not much to the picture or I would not be that scared by the picture those children drew," Ocala police spokesman Russ Kearn said. "However, we have to put ourselves in his mind and that's the bottom line here. It is his well-being and the way he perceived that picture to be. It actually put him in extreme fear and he was in fear for his life."

Pictured is an illustration from the book that appears to be somehow related to the Sun. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available. The ancient text has no known title, no known author, and is written in no known language: what does it say and why does it have many astronomy illustrations?

The mysterious book was once bought by an emperor, forgotten on a library shelf, sold for thousands of dollars, and later donated to Yale. Possibly written in the 15th century, the over 200-page volume is known most recently as the Voynich Manuscript, after its (re-)discoverer in 1912. The book labels some patches of the sky with unfamiliar constellations.

The inability of modern historians of astronomy to understand the origins of these constellations is perhaps dwarfed by the inability of modern code-breakers to understand the book's text.

Can the eclectic brain trust of APOD readers make any progress? If you think you can provide any insight, instead of sending us email please participate in an online discussion.
The book itself remains in Yale's rare book collection under catalog number "MS 408."