Apr. 21st, 2005

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A new online fantasy RPG:

"Each player takes on the role of a scholar, from before scholarly pursuits became professionalized. You are cranky, opinionated, prejudiced, and eccentric. You are also collaborating with a number of your peers -- the other players -- on the construction of an encyclopedia about Ghyll. "

The catch: "Despite the fact that your peers are self-important, narrow-minded dunderheads, they are honest scholars. No matter how strained their interpretations are, their facts are accurate as historical research can make them."

So, yeah. Everything you write is true. So is everything everyone else writes. Fun, no?
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GAS games: Like Tetris, but they give you all of the pieces at once and you've got a time limit.
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After Carrie Rethlefsen attended a performance of the play "The Vagina Monologues" last month, she and Emily Nixon wore buttons to school that read: "I [heart] My Vagina."

School leaders said that the pin is inappropriate and that the discomfort it causes trumps the girls' right to free speech. The girls disagree. And despite repeated threats of suspension and expulsion, Rethlefsen has continued to -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seems at least remotely reasonable, on both sides, right?

Then you start reading about *why* the school doesn't like the button:
"The principal said that by wearing the pin, I was giving people wrong ideas," Rethlefsen said. "That I was giving an open invitation [to guys]."
All high-school administrators are clueless assholes. It's a prerequisite to get the position.
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Professor Jasper Rine lectures at UC Berkeley. Recently his laptop was stolen by a thief who was after exam data. Unfortunately for the thief, Professor Rine had some important stuff on that laptop.

Various forms of audio and a transcript are available of the Professor's speech to his class about the theft.
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A "robotic" dentist's drill is to be tested on humans in Europe and the US, and could represent the first step towards more automated dental procedures.


The drill, developed by Tactile Technologies, based in Rehovot, Israel, is designed to take the complexity out of dental implant work. It could make operations cheaper, quicker and less painful for patients, its developers claim.

A dental implant is a small metal pin fixed into the jaw to mimic a tooth's root. It is used to anchor replacement teeth and bridges and installing one normally involves complicated and lengthy surgery.

Firstly, a frame is clamped onto a patient's jaw and very thin needles penetrate the gum to determine the location of the bone. This data is wirelessly transmitted to a PC, which combines it with CT scan data to configure a set of drill guides. The guides are then attached to the frame and finally the dentist presses a button to start the drilling in the precise location required.

Once activated the drill is self-guiding but Opher Kinrot, who designed the system, stresses that the practitioner can still alter the drilling process at any time. "The system causes less trauma and brings dental implants to the general practitioner," says Kinrot, who designed the system. "Today it is only done by experts."

And he says this could be just the first step towards more automated dentistry. "In the future maybe something will actually drill for the dentist too," he told New Scientist.
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A Bangladeshi woman desperate for money after she was abandoned by her husband has offered to sell one of her eyes.

"I desperately looked for a job to live with my two-and-half-year-old daughter, Meem," the woman, 26-year-old Shefali Begum, told Reuters on Thursday at her slum dwelling in Dhaka. "But I could not find any ... and decided to sell one of my eyes. What do I do with both eyes while my daughter will die for want of milk and food?"

Bangladeshi men have been known to advertise their kidneys for sale to generate cash, but Shefali is the first woman in the country known to advertise an eye. She did not set a price in a newspaper advertisement she placed, but said she hoped to get enough to set up business as a street vendor or toy seller.

Shefali last saw her husband 18 months ago.

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