I heard from so many people over the weekend who got a kick out of this game I had to post it again: It's is a cool game with a nice little Halloween surprise. Try it out!
http://www.coorslight.com/iceswipe/

Try This Game Out

Nice little thrill attached to this one. Perfect for a Friday. Try it out and let everyone know what you think.

http://www.coorslight.com/iceswipe/

Cyborgs Disturbingly Closer to Becoming Reality

By YURI KAGEYAMA

ATSUGI, Japan - We wield remote controls to turn things on and off, make them advance, make them halt. Ground-bound pilots use remotes to fly drone airplanes, soldiers to maneuver battlefield robots.

But manipulating humans?

Prepare to be remotely controlled. I was.

Just imagine being rendered the rough equivalent of a radio-controlled toy car.

Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., Japan's top telephone company, says it is developing the technology to perhaps make video games more realistic. But more sinister applications also come to mind.

I can envision it being added to militaries' arsenals of so-called "non-lethal" weapons.
A special headset was placed on my cranium by my hosts during a recent demonstration at an NTT research center. It sent a very low voltage electric current from the back of my ears through my head — either from left to right or right to left, depending on which way the joystick on a remote-control was moved.

I found the experience unnerving and exhausting: I sought to step straight ahead but kept careening from side to side. Those alternating currents literally threw me off.
The technology is called galvanic vestibular stimulation — essentially, electricity messes with the delicate nerves inside the ear that help maintain balance.

I felt a mysterious, irresistible urge to start walking to the right whenever the researcher turned the switch to the right. I was convinced — mistakenly — that this was the only way to maintain my balance.

The phenomenon is painless but dramatic. Your feet start to move before you know it. I could even remote-control myself by taking the switch into my own hands.

There's no proven-beyond-a-doubt explanation yet as to why people start veering when electricity hits their ear. But NTT researchers say they were able to make a person walk along a route in the shape of a giant pretzel using this technique.

It's a mesmerizing sensation similar to being drunk or melting into sleep under the influence of anesthesia. But it's more definitive, as though an invisible hand were reaching inside your brain.
NTT says the feature may be used in video games and amusement park rides, although there are no plans so far for a commercial product.

Some people really enjoy the experience, researchers said while acknowledging that others feel uncomfortable.

I watched a simple racing-car game demonstration on a large screen while wearing a device programmed to synchronize the curves with galvanic vestibular stimulation. It accentuated the swaying as an imaginary racing car zipped through a virtual course, making me wobbly.
Another program had the electric current timed to music. My head was pulsating against my will, getting jerked around on my neck. I became so dizzy I could barely stand. I had to turn it off.

NTT researchers suggested this may be a reflection of my lack of musical abilities. People in tune with freely expressing themselves love the sensation, they said.
"We call this a virtual dance experience although some people have mentioned it's more like a virtual drug experience," said Taro Maeda, senior research scientist at NTT. "I'm really hopeful Apple Computer will be interested in this technology to offer it in their iPod."

Research on using electricity to affect human balance has been going on around the world for some time.

James Collins, professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, has studied using the technology to prevent the elderly from falling and to help people with an impaired sense of balance. But he also believes the effect is suited for games and other entertainment.
"I suspect they'll probably get a kick out of the illusions that can be created to give them a more total immersion experience as part of virtual reality," Collins said.

The very low level of electricity required for the effect is unlikely to cause any health damage, Collins said. Still, NTT required me to sign a consent form, saying I was trying the device at my own risk.

And risk definitely comes to mind when playing around with this technology.
Timothy Hullar, assistant professor at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., believes finding the right way to deliver an electromagnetic field to the ear at a distance could turn the technology into a weapon for situations where "killing isn't the best solution."

"This would be the most logical situation for a nonlethal weapon that presumably would make your opponent dizzy," he said via e-mail. "If you find just the right frequency, energy, duration of application, you would hope to find something that doesn't permanently injure someone but would allow you to make someone temporarily off-balance."

Indeed, a small defense contractor in Texas, Invocon Inc., is exploring whether precisely tuned electromagnetic pulses could be safely fired into people's ears to temporarily subdue them.
NTT has friendlier uses in mind.

If the sensation of movement can be captured for playback, then people can better understand what a ballet dancer or an Olympian gymnast is doing, and that could come handy in teaching such skills.

And it may also help people dodge oncoming cars or direct a rescue worker in a dark tunnel, NTT researchers say. They maintain that the point is not to control people against their will.
If you're determined to fight the suggestive orders from the electric currents by clinging to a fence or just lying on your back, you simply won't move.

But from my experience, if the currents persist, you'd probably be persuaded to follow their orders. And I didn't like that sensation. At all.

Source: AP

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Rosa Parks Passes Away at 92

When a white man demanded she give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus, the then 42-year-old seamstress said "no". That small decision set off a chain of monumental and historic reforms on the path to harmonious race relations in America. All minorities and white people alike have benefited from her courage.

Get Inside, Already!

Have you seen the reporters in the middle of the hurricane? Sure they want to cover it. But where is the logic for physically placing yourself on a beach as a hurricane hits? What are they thinking? "Hey maybe no one's done this before." It's the same exact backdrop every time. If it weren't for the graphics, you could take any hurricane footage from the last 20 years and you wouldn't be able to tell which hurricane it was from. Is it more believable to see a guy squinting through the rain holding a microphone getting his raincoat blown away for you to actually say, "Yep, it's real." I don't know about you, but if some weather person sitting in a comfy studio showed me a satellite map of a giant gray spiral covering Florida, that's all the evidence I need. Yes, I believe you already. There IS a hurricane out there!

Read the novels by Chetan Davé click here

I'm Innocent! ....And Partial!

Word comes to us from Santa Barbara that eternally "innocent" Michael Jackson has been summoned for jury duty. That is so clutch. I can't wait to, in the middle of a lawyer questioning someone on the stand, have Mikey pop up and yell in that bewildered voice of his "He's innocent! He's innocent!". And instead of his lawyer's Suburban, he may get up on top of the jurors bench and hold an impromptu dance performance to one of his songs being blared on the intercom system. I'm sure defendants everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief knowing they'll have Peter Pan on the jury to bail them out.

But we may not get to see Michael in court as his lawyers claim he is now a resident of Bahrain. Let's just put it this way, if he gets caught doing in Bahrain what he was alleged to have done in Neverland, he won't be wearing any gloves, silver or otherwise, anymore because they'll probably relieve him of his fingers and hand the old fashioned way with an Aladdin style sword, which he'll want to puchase for his collections afterwards, of course.

Local Jury Commissioner Gary Blair said Jackson would most likely be excused from serving saying that "All he has to do is show he has legal residency somewhere else and he'll be exempted".

Rats! Shhhh Gary Gary, keep that stuff on the DL, don't deprive the American public of such a great oppotunity for entertainment!

When reached for comment, Jackson was reportedly heard to have said, "Can Tito take my place?"

Read the Novels by Chetan Davé click here

Who Ya Gonna Trust?

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The author of a new state law that allows felony charges against owners of dangerous dogs was hospitalized over the weekend after his own dog attacked him.

Bob Schwartz, who also is Gov. Bill Richardson's crime adviser, was hospitalized at University of New Mexico Hospital on Sunday night with bites on both his arms, said Pahl Shipley, a spokesman for the governor.

A hospital spokeswoman declined to release Schwartz's condition, but Shipley said Schwartz is "going to be fine."

Schwartz has three dogs registered with the city: a boxer and two English bulldogs, said Denise Wilcox, who oversees Albuquerque's animal care centers.

Schwartz was instrumental in getting a law passed during this year's regular legislative session that would allow felony charges to be filed against owners of dogs deemed dangerous or potentially dangerous and that seriously injure or kill another animal or person.
The law was designed to make dog owners accountable, said Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort, who worked with Schwartz to pass the bill.

"But I guess when it happens in your own family, that's another story," she said. "That's tragic."
Wilcox said Sunday her office had not received a bite report from University hospital, which is required when a dog bite leads to medical attention.

Source: AP

Read the novels by Chetan Davé at UltimateWriter.com

50 Years Wrongly In Mental Asylum

By Biswajyoti Das

SILCHANG, India (Reuters) - More than half-a-century ago, Machal Lalung was thought to be insane and sent to a mental asylum in India's remote northeast.

A few months ago, he was set free after the National Human Rights Commission found that healthcare authorities had made a mistake and Lalung suffered only from epilepsy.

Lalung's confinement for 54 years has shocked rights activists and mental health experts in a country where it is not uncommon for people to be branded insane and locked up in homes or asylums for months, if not a few years.

"Machal Lalung's case was not in our knowledge but once it was brought to our notice, we immediately completed all legal formalities to secure his release," Assam's Home Minister Rokybul Hussain told Reuters.

"I am really sorry for him," he said.

That comes as small consolation for the 77-year-old frail tribal man, who was 23 when he was sent to the state-run mental hospital in the Assamese city of Tezpur.

Fifty-four years with psychiatric patients has dulled his senses, made him forget his family, his tribal dialect and even the taste of the food he liked.

His life before entering the asylum is nothing but a blip in his memory. So is the story of how and who brought him to the mental home. Doctors who treated Lalung have retired and records about him are missing.

Today Lalung said he awaits peace in death.

"I feel sad at what happened to my life but there is no use grumbling now. I am just waiting for death," he told Reuters at his nephew's home in Silchang village, about 55 miles east of Assam's main city of Guwahati.

"Initially, I used to miss my family and always begged my wardens to send me home. But they never listened to me," he said with tears in his eyes.

Lalung's only family members -- his father and elder sister -- are dead. He lives with his sister's son who grew up listening to stories about his uncle's disappearance.

It was in fact the nephew who managed to trace Lalung after a man from their village had gone to the same mental hospital for treatment and saw Lalung.

"It was very difficult to stay with insane people in the same room but gradually I got used to it," Lalung said.

Today, despite his poor health, Lalung likes to work in a small vegetable garden outside the house, carrying a spade and a pouch containing a tobacco and betel nut snack to chew.

Although there were many women in the hospital, Lalung never tried to make friends with them or consider marriage.

"Who would want to marry an insane woman?" he asks.

SOURCE: Reuters

READ THE NOVELS by Chetan Davé at UltimateWriter.com

All Bonds On Deck

Sony Pictures has called a Friday press conference to announce who will be the next actor to play James Bond in the upcoming 007 flick "Casino Royale". The rumor mill has churned out Daniel Craig as the successor to Pierce Brosnan. We here at UW had some suggestions for other British actors which Sony may or may not consider (see below):

Austin Powers - "I've already got secret agent on me resume baby!"

Keith Richards - OK so there won't be any long, coherent conversations between Bond and the villain.

Benny Hill - We know, we know.....but it's amazing what they can do with CGI these days.

Bob Hoskins - We tried to call him but apparently he still hasn't found Roger Rabbit.

Johnny Depp - Alls you need is a British accent right?

Wilford Brimley - He's not British but he's now got an 800 number as he searches for work, at least give the man an audition, please!

Read the novel BRONX CHEER by Chetan Davé

Bass Ackward

I would be laughing too if I heard one of my country's doctors tell me "I'm being paid too much." That's exactly what Mark Joplin wrote in an article appearing in the New Statesman political weekly. In a world where people are struggling to make a buck, here comes this guy out of left field ready to take a salary cut. Must be nice to be in that position huh? This doc by the way is 24 years old and making $65K annually over in England. Maybe we need to introduce him to the California market so he can see how "cheap" things really are.

Read the novel BRONX CHEER by Chetan Davé

Shed a Tear for Those Poor Hollywood Kids

I feel sorry for those poor Hollywood kids (a la those who call Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise, etc. their "sugar" daddies) who, by the time they are 30, will have a laundry list of mothers and fathers that exceeds the invite list to most Tinseltown award shows. Sure, they'll have enough money, homes, fast cars, and vacations to last them all their lives, but anyone whose been around long enough knows that there is just no replacing that conventional Mom & Dad nuclear family atmosphere. These poor kids will have a rolodex of memories with parents they will recall by saying "Yeah, the good old fiscal years." Ahhh...that's a shame.

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Pirates in Their Own Land

LONDON (Reuters) - Britons are the most prolific shoplifters in Europe, a survey published Wednesday showed.

They stole 3.58 billion pounds of goods from their nation's shops last year, the equivalent of 1.59 percent of British retail turnover.

Razor blades were the most stolen item followed by alcohol and toiletries, according to the British-based Center for Retail Research.

Finland had the second worst shoplifting problem followed by Portugal and Greece while the Swiss were the most disciplined shoppers, the survey showed. Theft accounted for 0.89 percent of Swiss retail turnover.

In all, Europeans stole 30.8 billion euros worth of goods from their stores last year -- 71.5 euros per person.

Customers were blamed for 48 percent of the thefts, staff for 29 percent and suppliers for 7 percent.

The survey covered 423 retailers in 24 countries, accounting for 20 percent of European retail turnover.

SOURCE: Reuters

U2 Taking Over Conan

Should be a fun Thursday view as Conan O'Brien has agreed to turn his entire show over to U2. That's a nice opportunity for fans like me who were not able to get tickets for their current tour. One hour is better than zero hours of live U2.