Things that matter

Oh you can see me?

A Dallas man went to visit his relatives in Hartford, Connecticut. While he was away, he received an alert from his iCam iPhone app letting him know that something had set off the motion detectors in his home. So he used the app to access his security cameras, called 911, and then watched two men break into his place.

It isn’t clear if the burglars took anything, but they remain at large.

So what’s the point of seeing your place being robbed anyway? I see no benefits coming out of the fact that you can helplessly watch how someone breaks into your house. Unless that’s one of your fetishes…

via dallasnews.com

The grace is a lie.

BBC is reporting that the Japan Sumo Association will be distributing iPads to all of Japan’s training stables in an effort to improve communications between sumo leaders. Why? Phones and computers aren’t working too well for them.

“When they try to send e-mail on mobile phones or PCs they often end up pressing two or three keys at once,” said the daily Nikkan Sports.

And while that’s completely understandable, if worldwide obesity rates keep going up it won’t be just sumo wrestlers needing iPads for their regular communication needs.

可愛い

And no, it’s not Godzilla’s fault.

A recent Los Angeles Times article reports that Japan’s anime industry is in peril because production houses are trying to cut costs by sending animation jobs to South Korea, India and Vietnam – it’s easier and cheaper. And that is in the context of Japanese animators being paid very poorly – veteran animators in Japan typically make less than $50,000 annually, which falls short of the average annual Japanese household by around $10,000.

Read the rest of this post »

Because an actual picture of a stoning would have been too gruesome.

Two young Afghan lovers were stoned to death by hundreds of men in a field at the edge of their village for running away together against the wishes of their families.

“It was an act of great cruelty,” said Mutasem Khan, an uncle of Abdul Qayuum, the 28-year-old man who was stoned to death this month in Kunduz province along with the village woman he had wooed, identified only as 19-year-old Siddiqa. Read the rest of this post »

Random plane crash picture.

TechNewsDaily writes that an internal report issued by Spanair has discovered malware (specifically a trojan) in the central computer system used to monitor technical problems in the aircraft. They say the infected computer failed to detect three technical problems with the aircraft, which if detected, may have prevented the plane from taking off.

Flight 5022 crashed just after takeoff from Madrid-Barajas International Airport in 2008, killing 154 and leaving only 18 survivors. Read the rest of this post »