So Long Sobel?

A rabbi who has overseen South America's largest Jewish congregation for more than three decades has temporarily resigned after being arrested on shoplifting charges, police and his congregation said Thursday.

Henry I. Sobel, who heads the S&atilda;o Paulo Jewish Congregation, was arrested Friday on three counts of theft for allegedly stealing ties valued at $680 from several stores in Palm Beach, Fla., according to a Palm Beach police statement.

Sobel gained a strong reputation as a defender of human rights during Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship and is also well-known in Brazil for attempting to forge strong relations among Jews, Christians and Muslims.

The police report said an employee at a Louis Vuitton store in Palm Beach called officers after she realized a man left the store and a tie was missing.

Sobel, 63, initially told officers he was not in the store, and then offered to buy the tie, but continued to deny he took it, the statement said.

He then admitted taking the tie and gave officers permission to get it from his car, police said. Officers found a bag with other ties that Sobel admitted to taking without paying from different luxury stores, the statement said.

More.

I don't think I've ever met him, but Sobel has a reputation as a very nice guy, although a little quirky. I'm also sure he makes enough money that he wouldn't need to steal any tie. Moreover, there are somewhat contradicting details on the various news articles... I don't know what's going on.

Conductive Plastic - Unbreakable Electronics, Roll-up Screens and More

Dutch researcher Paulette Prins has demonstrated that plastic does not have to be a poorer conductor than present-day semi-conductors. This opens up the way for a revolution in consumer electronics: mobile phones and MP3 players will soon survive being dropped.

Just imagine it. Consumer products that do not break if accidentally dropped, devices with flexible screens that can be rolled up, and products becoming a lot cheaper. Up until now it was a mere pipe dream. The limiting factor is the chips in such devices. These need to conduct electricity and plastic chips fail to make the grade. Plastic conducts at least 1000 times less well than the current generation of semi-conductors.

Prins showed that specially developed plastic can conduct just as well as existing semiconductors.

More.
See also ElectriPlast: Conductive Plastic.

Journalist Receives Dossier on Himself From Microsoft

Imagine being asked one day, "Would you like to see your FBI file?" You'd say "Yes," right? But then ask yourself a different question: "How will it make you feel to know all that information?"

I recently got about as close as one can get to this experience. While reporting a story on Microsoft's video blogging initiative – something called Channel 9 – the dossier that Microsoft and its outside public relations agency Waggener Edstrom keeps on me accidentally ended up in my email inbox.

As journalistic windfalls go this is about as good as it gets. There I was writing a story about how Microsoft is on the cutting edge of using the Internet to become more transparent, and there in front of me are the briefing documents they are using to manage the story. The timing was so fortuitous that I wondered whether it was intentional. When I told Microsoft about it, they convincingly told me it was not.

But after I was done reading all 5,500 words I no longer felt elated at the prospect of an interesting scoop. I felt downright peculiar. I've been a journalist for more than 20 years and always assumed that the people I interview do as much homework on me as I do on them. So the existence of a document like this didn't surprise me. But that still didn't make it any easier to read lines like, "It takes him a bit to get his point across so try to be patient." I know my long-windedness drives my wife nuts occasionally. I didn't know it had become an issue for Microsoft's pr machine too.

It also was strange to see just how many resources are aligned against me when I write a story about Microsoft. Microsoft set up interviews with the head of Channel 9 while I was in Redmond, it allowed me to follow him and an associate at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, and it allowed me to interview two other executives involved in the project on the telephone.

More.

Will Flash Solid State Replace Hard Drives?

Will your next laptop lack a hard drive?

Yes, if Samsung has anything to say about it. The electronics maker is looking to kick off an era of flash-based solid state drives (SDD) that approach usable capacities. That is, they can store enough for an OS and a healthy batch of applications, with some room left over for assorted files.

The company today announced a 1.8-inch, 64 gigabyte (GB) flash hard drive replacement that offers twice the capacity of the SSD Samsung debuted last year.

Samsung's drive is built using 8 Gb single-level-cell (SLC) NAND technology, which the company credits for the drive's improved performance, not only over traditional disk-based storage, but over its predecessor as well. Samsung's 64 GB SSD can achieve read speeds of 64 MB per second and write speeds of 45 MB per second while drawing half a watt of power during drive activity. The unit draws just 0.1 watts at idle, or 1/15th the power required for a conventional 80 GB hard drive.

Mass production of the Samsung 64 GB SSD is scheduled for 2Q 2007.

More.

$1,000 Pizza, Where Else? In NYC

(CBS) NEW YORK We've been dealing with the pocket-emptying effects of rising gas prices, new electric rates, and an increase in cab fare, but how would you feel about breaking the bank all for...a pizza? Now you can find out thanks to Manhattan restauranteur Nino Selimaj, who has apparently brought from the heavens a real "pie in the sky" with his new $1,000 pizza.

The pizza will be added to the menu at "Nino's Bellisima," one of Selimaj's six restaurants in the city. Forget traditional cheese and pizza sauce, the record-priced pie will be topped with creme fraiche, chives, eight ounces of four different kinds of Petrossian caviar, four ounces of thinly sliced Maine lobster tail, salmon roe, and a little bit of spice with wasabi.

"Let them say I'm crazy," Selimaj says. "But I believe in this product, and it's gonna sell!"

So who's gonna buy this pie? Selimaj is betting Wall Street business types.

The previous international record for pizza found on a menu was $193 at Gordon Ramsey's Maze restaurant in London.

More.

Even if it doesn't sell (I kind of hope it doesn't), it's a good PR strategy.

15% Human Chimera Sheep Created

Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.


The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.

Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and £5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep's foetus.

But the development is likely to revive criticisms about scientists playing God, with the possibility of silent viruses, which are harmless in animals, being introduced into the human race.

Dr Patrick Dixon, an international lecturer on biological trends, warned: "Many silent viruses could create a biological nightmare in humans. Mutant animal viruses are a real threat, as we have seen with HIV."

Animal rights activists fear that if the cells get mixed together, they could end up with cellular fusion, creating a hybrid which would have the features and characteristics of both man and sheep. But Prof Zanjani said: "Transplanting the cells into foetal sheep at this early stage does not result in fusion at all."

More.

Gotta Love Japan - Candid Camera

The Hole - video powered by Metacafe

Cat Stevens, aka Yusuf Islam, aka Fanatic Misogynist? Probably Not...

Reader Joanne said...

This story seems to be making the rounds, yet when I was in London earlier this month Mr. Islam had no problem shaking hands with and speaking to me and several other women - all of us non-veiled, non-Muslim, and non-family members. Methinks someone has taken what they perceived to be a slight and blown it out of proportion.

Here's the original post:

Muslim singer YUSUF ISLAM reportedly refused to speak with the female guides at a German event over the weekend (24-25MAR07) because they weren’t veiled - despite accepting an honour for building bridges between Eastern and Western cultures.

The star, formerly known as CAT STEVENS, received a special prize at the Echo Awards last night (25MAR07) in Berlin for his musical, social and political work and was praised as a bridge-builder between the West and the Islamic world.

However, when the FATHER AND SON singer, 58, rehearsed his appearance the day before the prize giving (24MAR07), he acted rather narrow minded, according to German publication B.Z.

When the hostesses approached Islam, who arrived with his management and his veiled wife FAEZIA, telling him that they were his guides, he simply ignored them and didn’t even take a look at the women.

Islam’s manager explains, “Mr Islam doesn’t speak with women except his wife. Least of all if they don’t wear a headscarf. Things like that only happen via an intermediary.”

More.
Thanks to Baba Gary.

P.S. An anonymous reader claims that this is innaccurate. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a report to second that claim (although I did find several reports of this incident, albeit not from big news sources). If anyone can point me to some other contradicting sources, that would be great. Thanks.

Einundonlynfurrealnencellphonenlederhosen

So if you look a little more closely at the lederhosen that are adorning that mannequin, you'll see some buttons that might look familiar. Yep, those are cell phone controls, and ja, they're sewn right in to the clothing. The lederhosen come with a place to embed your cell phone and use the exterior, leg-based controls to operate it. You won't get an LCD, of course, but then you wouldn't be able to read it anyway unless you contorted yourself painfully around. You will get a mouthpiece, though, that is included in the suspenders straps.

More.

Sales no More?

"If you own a mom & pop store and can't get rid of some of your inventory, you can always clear out some shelf space by holding a sale. If the Supreme Court sides with business interests in a case they heard today, however, such sales may no longer be possible. Since 1911, it has been illegal for manufacturers to force retailers into setting a price floor for products — individual retailers get to decide how much they sell their products for. But today the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case seeking to overturn this longstanding rule. Should the Court do so, it would drive up consumer prices across the board. This case is particularly salient in the era of internet shopping: consumers are now easily able to shop around to multiple retailers to find the best price. The Court could wipe out this advantage." From the article: "Should the Court abandon the... rule against minimum resale price maintenance... it would send a signal that the Roberts Court will continue to narrow the application of the antitrust laws and that the Court may disregard settled precedent and Congressional will in other areas of the law as well."

Via Slashdot.