Futuristic handcuffs would administer shocks, drugs -

Futuristic handcuffs would administer shocks, drugs - 



Sometimes an invention comes along that makes you excited about the future.
For a long time, it seems that handcuffs have been stuck in the movies of old. They restrain you, but, odd for our interactive world, that's all they seem to do.
Might I tempt you toward futuristic handcuffs that will offer you a small involuntary judder?
I am grateful to Gizmodo for discovering that Patent Bolt has lucked upon a patent that offers bound(less) excitement.
For these are handcuffs that offer surprises. Indeed, they might make the idea of being tased, bro, not quite so bad.
The patent is called "Apparatus and System For Augmented Detainee Restraint."
The augmentations it offers are truly quite something. You see, these handcuffs are "configured to administer electrical shocks when certain predetermined conditions occur."
These shocks might be "activated by internal control systems or by external controllers that transmit activation signals to the restraining device."
This progressive tool is the brainchild of Scottsdale Inventions.

Read more - 
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57558038-71/futuristic-handcuffs-would-administer-shocks-drugs/

Twitter has started rolling out the option to download all your tweets -

Twitter has started rolling out the option to download all your tweets -



Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has promised in recent months that an option for users to download an archive of all the tweets from their accounts would be available this year. At least for some, this long-awaited feature has arrived – and we’ve had a play with the archive browsing tool.

The first report of the new option that we saw in the wild was from user @Psilosophy, who indicates where the option supposedly can be found for those who have it enabled – at the bottom of your Settings page.

Go to Twitter settings. Scroll down to "Your Twitter Archive". Download ALL your tweets. Even your first. DO IT. DO EEEEEET NOW!
— Psanta(@Psilosophy) December 16, 2012

Twitter user Navjot Singh also has the option available on one of his accounts and he has briefly blogged about the process, explaining:

“Twitter informs that they will mail you the download link when the archive is ready. Yes, its just like how Facebook’s archive system works. Once you get the mail and download it you will get a zip file with archive in html form. Extracting it (sic) and you will see all your tweets sorted in calendar format.”

Read more -
http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/12/16/twitter-has-started-rolling-out-the-option-to-download-all-your-tweets/

CIA 'tortured and sodomised' wrongly detained German citizen -

CIA 'tortured and sodomised' wrongly detained German citizen - 


CIA agents tortured a German citizen, sodomising, shackling, and beating him, as Macedonian state police looked on, the European court of human rights said in a historic judgment released on Thursday.

In a unanimous ruling, it also found Macedonia guilty of torturing, abusing, and secretly imprisoning Khaled el-Masri, a German of Lebanese origin allegedly linked to terrorist organisations.

Masri was seized in Macedonia in December 2003 and handed over to a CIA "rendition team" at Skopje airport and secretly flown to Afghanistan.

It is the first time the court has described CIA treatment meted out to terror suspects as torture.

"The grand chamber of the European court of human rights unanimously found that Mr el-Masri was subjected to forced disappearance, unlawful detention, extraordinary rendition outside any judicial process, and inhuman and degrading treatment," said James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative.

He described the judgment as "an authoritative condemnation of some of the most objectionable tactics employed in the post-9/11 war on terror". It should be a wake-up call for the Obama administration and US courts, he told the Guardian. For them to continue to avoid serious scrutiny of CIA activities was "simply unacceptable", he said.

Jamil Dakwar, of the American Civil Liberties Union, described the ruling as "a huge victory for justice and the rule of law".

The use of CIA interrogation methods widely denounced as torture during the Bush administration's "war on terror" also came under scrutiny in Congress on Thursday. The US Senate's select committee on intelligence was expected to vote on whether to approve a mammoth review it has undertaken into the controversial practices that included waterboarding, stress positions, forced nudity, beatings and sleep and sensory deprivation.

The report, that runs to almost 6,000 pages based on a three-year review of more than 6m pieces of information, is believed to conclude that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" adopted by the CIA during the Bush years did not produce any major breakthroughs in intelligence, contrary to previous claims. The committee, which is dominated by the Democrats, is likely to vote to approve the report, though opposition from the Republican members may prevent the report ever seeing the light of day.

The Strasbourg court said it found Masri's account of what happened to him "to be established beyond reasonable doubt" and that Macedonia had been "responsible for his torture and ill-treatment both in the country itself and after his transfer to the US authorities in the context of an extra-judicial 'rendition'".

In January 2004, Macedonian police took him to a hotel in Skopje, where he was kept locked in a room for 23 days and questioned in English, despite his limited proficiency in that language, about his alleged ties with terrorist organisations, the court said in its judgment. His requests to contact the German embassy were refused. At one point, when he said he intended to leave, he was threatened with being shot.

"Masri's treatment at Skopje airport at the hands of the CIA rendition team – being severely beaten, sodomised, shackled and hooded, and subjected to total sensory deprivation – had been carried out in the presence of state officials of [Macedonia] and within its jurisdiction," the court ruled.

It added: "Its government was consequently responsible for those acts performed by foreign officials. It had failed to submit any arguments explaining or justifying the degree of force used or the necessity of the invasive and potentially debasing measures. Those measures had been used with premeditation, the aim being to cause Mr Masri severe pain or suffering in order to obtain information. In the court's view, such treatment had amounted to torture, in violation of Article 3 [of the European human rights convention]."

In Afghanistan, Masri was incarcerated for more than four months in a small, dirty, dark concrete cell in a brick factory near the capital, Kabul, where he was repeatedly interrogated and was beaten, kicked and threatened. His repeated requests to meet with a representative of the German government were ignored, said the court.

Masri was released in April 2004. He was taken, blindfolded and handcuffed, by plane to Albania and subsequently to Germany, after the CIA admited he was wrongly detained. The Macedonian government, which the court ordered must pay Masri €60,000 (£49,000) in compensation, has denied involvement in kidnapping.

UN special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, Ben Emmerson, described the ruling as "a key milestone in the long struggle to secure accountability of public officials implicated in human rights violations committed by the Bush administration CIA in its policy of secret detention, rendition and torture".

He said the US government must issue an apology for its "central role in a web of systematic crimes and human rights violations by the Bush-era CIA, and to pay voluntary compensation to Mr el-Masri".

Germany should ensure that the US officials involved in this case were now brought to trial.

Read more - 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/dec/13/cia-tortured-sodomised-terror-suspect

Anonymous targets Westboro Baptist Church for planning Newtown picket -

Anonymous targets Westboro Baptist Church for planning Newtown picket - 



The infamous hacker group Anonymous has struck again.

On Sunday, it posted the names and addresses of members of the extremist Westboro Baptist Church after the hate group announced plans to picket Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Conn., where 26 people were gunned down Friday.

Anonymous posted the following two messages on Twitter on the weekend: "Dear WBC Site Admin, you should really work on securing your personal infos. Er, too late..."

Earlier, it tweeted: "It's so nice of #WBC to provide the internet with a list of their twitter handles.."

The list of the church members, which also includes email addresses and work numbers, can be easily accessed on sites like armywtfmoments.com.

At the bottom of a story that appeared on now.msn.com, one reader posted: "Good for you Anonymous....These are not people....They are sub-human trash....For them to target ANY of these innocent victims and their families, is just further proof of that....There should be a petition passed around to have people like this ARRESTED and PROCECUTED for planning and/or disrupting ANY funerals, vigils, etc.....If there is a hell, everyone associated with this 'church' would have a first-class ticket to it."

Media reports say that hours after the tragedy, the group's Shirley Phelps-Roper tweeted: "Westboro will picket Sandy Hook Elementary School to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment."

On its website, GodHatesFags.com, the organization states its mission is to conduct peaceful demonstrations against "soul-damning, nation-destroying filth."

In the past, the vicious anti-gay group has picketed the funerals of U.S. soldiers and AIDS victims as well as the funerals of those who were killed in a shooting in Arizona.

Anonymous is also petitioning the U.S. government to recognize the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group.

"Their actions have been directed at many groups, including homosexuals, military, Jewish people and even other Christians. They pose a threat to the welfare and treatment of others and will not improve without some form of imposed regulation," the petition reads.

ABC, NY Times reporters go full-on vulture tweeting friends, family of Connecticut massacre targets -

ABC, NY Times reporters go full-on vulture tweeting friends, family of Connecticut massacre targets - 



An ABC News editorial producer earned the online equivalent of a hard slap to the face Friday, after she used Twitter to approach two people for interviews who were painfully close to the morning massacre of a Connecticut elementary school.

Nadine Shubailat tweeted interview requests to a man who said his “good friend” had a child in kindergarten at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and to a woman whose cousin was a first-grade teacher killed in the Friday morning gun rampage.

In the second case, Shubailat was not the only reporter to go after a victim’s relative. A second ABC producer, a New York Times reporter and a Los Angeles-based producer of a YouTube-only news program also approached the grieving woman for interviews just hours after her 22-year-old relative was shot to death.


Shubailat’s LinkedIn profile boasts that she books interview subjects for Diane Sawyer, George Stephanopoulos, Barbara Walters, Robin Roberts, Jake Tapper, Bob Woodruff and other ABC journalists. It also says she was previously a senior producer for “Larry King Live,” and the press secretary to Queen Noor of Jordan.

“[C]an we talk to your friend who lives in Sandy Hook and whose daughter goes to kindergarten?” Shubailat asked Twitter user @artayd2 at 1:52 p.m., according to archived Twitter records. “I’m w [with] ABC News.”

Her target had tweeted that his friend “lives < 10 minutes from Sandy Hook Elementary and has a daughter in kindergarten.”

@artayd2′s response was instantaneous and blunt, telling Shubailat to “eat a dick.”

A screen-capture of the exchange quickly made the rounds on the social media website Reddit before it was reported by Gawker.




He later tweeted that his “Friends [and] family from Newtown checked in. All O.K.”

At approximately 5:00 p.m., according to Twitter archives maintained at Topsy.com, Shubailat attempted to line up an interview with Kayla Pjatak, who had tweeted earlier in the day, “Burn in hell Ryan Lanza. You took my 22 year old cousins life.”

At the time, reports were swirling that the killer’s first name was Ryan because Adam Lanza, who was found dead at the scene and is presumed to be the shooter, carried his brother Ryan’s identification to the school.

“Kayla I am so sorry for your loss,” Shubailat tweeted in response. ”May I speak to you please? I’m with ABC News.” Shubailat also provided her email address.




Shubailat later deleted both of her tweets, but she had company.

About 75 minutes after Pjatak tweeted a link to a photograph of her unnamed, deceased cousin,  New York Times Metro reporter Sam Dolnick responded.

“Kayla, my deepest condolences. Such a terrible day,” Dolnick tweeted, including his email address. “I’m with the New York Times. Can I speak with you?”




Luiz Gomez, a producer for the “Newsbreaker with David Begnaud” YouTube show, approached Pjatak less than ten minutes lated. “I just stumbled upon this photo,” he wrote. “Very sorry for your loss. I’m w/ Newsbreaker. I’d like to learn more about her.”

An online profile of Gomez describes him as an online marketing manager for the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America and a “course advisor” for social media classes offered by Mediabistro.com.

Shubailat did not respond to an email request for comment. Reached late Friday via phone, she declined to comment and hung up on The Daily Caller.

Late Friday night, @artayd2 retweeted a message from a friend who asked, “Why do shooters get famous? Maybe because reporters are so desperate for ratings, they’ll interview freshly-traumatized children.”



Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/12/15/abc-ny-times-reporters-go-full-on-vulture-tweeting-friends-family-of-connecticut-massacre-targets/

Texas Police Officer Writes Ticket, Includes $100 Bill -

Texas Police Officer Writes Ticket, Includes $100 Bill - 

 

When Hayden Carlo was pulled over for an expired registration, he got a little more than he expected from the police officer.

Carlo, 25, was forced to tell a Plano, Texas police officer the truth about his outdated registration sticker, reported WIBV. He just didn't have the money to update the vehicle.

"I said it was either feed my kids, or get this registration done," Carlo told the news source.

That was when the Plano cop wrote Carlo a ticket.

In a heartwarming gesture, however, the anonymous officer also slipped something extra inside the folded citation.

"I opened it up and there's a 100 dollar bill. I broke down in my car -- what else could I do?," Carlo told WTVR.

Carlo's grandfather, Billy McIntire, was so moved by the kind gesture he wrote a letter to the police department.

"I get emotional when we talk about this type of thing," McIntire said to CBS. "You just don't find that many officers who would do this type of thing."

The police officer wants to remain anonymous, however, his co-workers plan to honor him anyway.

"As he told me, this man needed it more than him, and it was the right thing to do," fellow officer and department spokesperson David Tilley told CBS.


"He helped me out when I needed it and I appreciate that. I'll never forget that man," Carlo added. "It definitely restored my faith in God."

With the $100 gift, Carlo was able to update the registrations on his and his wife's car.

Read more -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/13/texas-police-officer-100-bill_n_2294580.html

Can Facebook Make You Fat and Poor? -

Can Facebook Make You Fat and Poor? - 



You may want to think twice after posting a new photo or update to your Facebook profile.  That’s because new research has found that social media use can lower some users' sense of self-control over their lives.
"Using online social networks can have a positive effect on self-esteem and well-being. However, these increased feelings of self-worth can have a detrimental effect on behavior," said researchers Keith Wilcox of Columbia University and Andrew Stephen of the University of Pittsburgh. "Because consumers care about the image they present to close friends, social network use enhances self-esteem in users who are focused on close friends while browsing their social network. This momentary increase in self-esteem leads them to display less self-control after browsing a social network."
In other words, social media users had more self-esteem after using networks like Facebook.  However, that momentary improvement in self-esteem lowered their self-control and led them to indulge in a number of negative behaviors.    
In particular, the researchers found that social media users were more likely to binge eat and have a higher body-mass index. Frequent Facebook users also were more likely to have certain financial problems, including a lower credit score and higher levels of debt.
The researchers tied these feelings to the observation that social media users are less likely to exhibit modesty on their profiles, since feedback is not immediate.
"These results are concerning given the increased time people spend using social networks, as well as the worldwide proliferation of access to social networks anywhere, anytime via smartphones and other gadgets," Wilcox and Stephen wrote. "Given that self-control is important for maintaining social order and personal well-being, this subtle effect could have widespread impact.
"This is particularly true for adolescents and young adults who are the heaviest users of social networks and have grown up using social networks as a normal part of their daily lives."


Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2012/12/13/can-facebook-make-fat-and-poor/?intcmp=fbfeatures

China's Chang'e 2 deep-space probe made an amazing flyby of the asteroid Toutatis this week -

China's Chang'e 2 deep-space probe made an amazing flyby of the asteroid Toutatis this week - 



China's official news agency is reporting that the country's Chang'e 2 deep-space probe made an amazing flyby of the asteroid Toutatis this week, snapping a series of pictures as it passed just 2 miles away. The achievement signals China's entry into yet another exclusive space club.
Only four of the world's space efforts have managed close encounters with asteroids: NASA (with NEAR Shoemaker and Dawn, for example), the European Space Agency (with Rosetta), Japan (with Hayabusa) — and now China with Toutatis.

The official Xinhua news agency quoted officials at the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, or SASTIND, as saying that Chang'e 2 buzzed past the 3-mile-long (5-kilometer-long) asteroid at a relative speed of 24,000 mph (10.73 kilometers per second).
Chang'e 2 was launched in 2010 primarily to serve as a lunar orbiter, but after a successful mission at the moon, the $132 million spacecraft was repurposed as a deep-space explorer. The encounter with Toutatis had been planned for months, but Chinese media kept mum about the results until Saturday.
Aficionados of planetary science hailed China's success.
"Oh my goodness, did they succeed. This is awesome," the Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla said in a blog post passing along the news. On the Unmanned Spaceflight discussion forum, Ted Stryk wrote, "Welcome to the interplanetary club, China."
Toutatis is a near-Earth object that's big enough to cause a mass extinction if it were to hit our planet — but fortunately, it isn't projected to come all that near in the foreseeable future. This week it passed by Earth at a minimum distance of 4.3 million miles (7 million kilometers). That provided scientists with an opportunity to study the peanut-shaped space mountain at a relatively close but totally safe distance.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory conducted a series of radar observations using the Goldstone radio antenna in California, and on Friday, JPL released a grainy time-lapse video showing Toutatis' rotation.



Read more - 
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/15/15919205-new-milestone-for-china-probe-snaps-close-ups-of-asteroid-toutatis?lite

NASA to smash its spacecraft INTO THE MOON - will hit a mountain located near the Goldschmidt crater on Monday -

NASA to smash its spacecraft INTO THE MOON - will hit a mountain located near the Goldschmidt crater on Monday - 


The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) ships, Ebb and Flow, will be intentionally crash-landed on the Moon now that their low orbit and fuel levels have ended their mission abilities.

The crash and burn, scheduled for 22.28 GMT on Monday, will hit a mountain located near the Goldschmidt crater, finishing a mission that start on 1 January this year.

"It is going to be difficult to say goodbye," said GRAIL principal investigator Maria Zuber of MIT. "Our little robotic twins have been exemplary members of the GRAIL family, and planetary science has advanced in a major way because of their contributions."

The two craft have generated the highest-resolution gravity field map of any celestial body, which will help boffins understand more about how Earth and other rocky planets in the Solar System formed and evolved.

Just before they impact on the Moon, Ebb and Flow will do one final experiment, firing their main engines until their propellant tanks are empty to show NASA scientists exactly how much fuel they have left. This will help engineers to improve predictions about how much fuel missions need.

"Our lunar twins may be in the twilight of their operational lives, but one thing is for sure, they are going down swinging," said GRAIL project manager David Lehman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "Even during the last half of their last orbit, we are going to do an engineering experiment that could help future missions operate more efficiently."

Both spacecraft will hit the surface at 3,760mph, with Ebb going down first, followed 20 seconds later by Flow. NASA won't be able to get images of the crash because the mountain will be in shadow at the time of impact.

"Such a unique end-of-mission scenario requires extensive and detailed mission planning and navigation," said Lehman.

Read more - 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/14/grail_craft_moon_crash/

Neglected dog honks for help after being left in truck with two cats, two other dogs

Neglected dog honks for help after being left in truck with two cats, two other dogs - 



A hero dog saved itself and two other dogs and two cats by honking on a truck’s horn to alert neighbours that they were trapped inside, police say.

They allegedly had been held for a week in a movers’ truck.

The muzzled dog was being held inside the cab of the truck in “deplorable conditions and without care,” police said in a news release.

It’s not yet known how the dog was able to honk the horn.

The animals apparently had been put there to escape detection after suspicions were aroused a week earlier at a London residence.

On Dec. 3, the London Human Society received a call raising concern about the welfare of three dogs living in unsanitary conditions at an undisclosed residence. It began an investigation.

However, during the night the owners vacated the home and took the dogs with them to escape officers, police say.

A week later, a concerned citizen notified police that a dog had been sitting inside a movers’ truck, with possibly more dogs in the cargo hold.

An investigation by the London Police Service found three dogs and two cats had been left in the vehicle in deplorable conditions without proper care.

Donna Hebert and Allan Folkins-Wyre have been charged with five counts of cruelty to animals: three for causing an animal to be in distress, one of failing to provide necessary care, and another for failing to provide adequate and appropriate sanitary conditions.

The dogs and cats were seized and are under the care of the London Humane Society.

Read more - 
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1302312--neglected-dog-honks-for-help-after-left-in-truck-with-two-cats-two-other-dogs