NY Police arrested a man on suspicion of stealing a GPS receiver, after the device apparently gave him away.

A 33-year-old man was arrested on Dec. 30 when police spotted him trying to ride a bicycle while carrying several items, including a car GPS unit.

Police say the cyclist gave evasive answers to questions, and when the officer pressed the home button on the GPS, the unit displayed a nearby address.

The resident of that home claimed that the device was his. (metro)

Israeli scientists have inscribed the entire Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible onto a space less than half the size of grain of sugar!

The nanotechnology experts at the Technion institute in Haifa say the text measures less than 0.5 square millimeter (0.01 square inch) surface.

“It took us about an hour to etch the 300,000 words of the Bible onto a tiny silicon surface,” Ohad Zohar, the university’s scientific adviser for educational programs, told the Associated Press.

The Technion’s microscopic bible was created by blasting tiny particles called gallium ions at an object that then rebounded, causing an etching affect.

“When a particle beam is directed toward a point on the surface, the gold atoms bounce off and expose the silicon layer underneath just like a hammer and chisel,” Zohar said. Zohar said the technology will in the future be used as a way to store vast amounts of data on bio-molecules and DNA.

The tiny Bible appears to be the world’s smallest.

The previous smallest known copy of the Bible measured 2.8 x 3.4 x 1 centimeters (1.1 x 1.3 x 0.4 inches), weighing 11.75 grams (0.4 ounces) and containing 1,514 pages, according to Guinness World Records spokeswoman Amarilis Espinoza. The tiny text, obtained by an Indian professor in November 2001, is believed to have originated in Australia.

Well, how do you read it?

The next step for Technion researchers is photographing the Bible and displaying it on a giant wall within the Faculty of Physics.

“In this picture, which will be 7m by 7m (23ft by 23ft), it will be possible to read the entire Bible with the naked eye (the height of each letter will be some 3mm – 0.1in),” Mr Zohar said.

“Near this picture, the original – the nano-Bible itself, which is the size a grain of sugar – will be displayed.”

(metro, photo – Ariel Schalit, Associated Press)

In the previous post a Chinese student won a lottery money to quit school, but these two college students were not that lucky so they have chosen armed robberies to raise tuition money. However, the court doesn’t think they should be sent to school!

A Hamilton County common pleas judge sentenced Andrew Butler and Christopher Avery to 20-year prison terms and told them dire financial straits don’t justify breaking the law.

“If you get to that point, robbing people isn’t the answer. It never has been and it never will be,” Judge Steven Martin said.

Butler, 20, and Avery, 22, apologized to their families and their victims before Martin imposed the sentence. The men pleaded guilty to two charges of aggravated robbery and six charges of kidnapping.

Butler, who attended the University of Toledo, told Martin in an earlier hearing that tuition increases outpaced his scholarships and financial aid. Avery, a student at the University of Cincinnati, said he couldn’t pay for summer classes after an internship fell through. Avery was a student at UC in mechanical engineering and was about to start his summer employment with an engineering firm.

Prosecutors said the two had guns and were wearing masks when they made off with $130,000 from a crowded bank in suburban Reading on July 17. A day earlier, they unsuccessfully tried to rob a check-cashing business, prosecutors said.

It is told that they were caught while switching cars after the bank robbery. (CBS)

A college student withdrew from school after winning the 5 million yuan ($683,000) jackpot in a lottery in China’ eastern city of Nanjing, local media reported on Thursday.

The second-year student at the Jiangsu Maritime Institute, identified by the nickname Yong to protect his identity, was the sole first-prize winner in the “Double Colour Ball” issued by the China Welfare Lottery on Tuesday, the Beijing News said.

“After winning the lottery, Yong told his roommates that he would share 2,000 yuan with each of them,” it added.

Yong informed school authorities of his winnings, and had returned home.

“We are not sure if he will return to school, but we hope he will eventually finish his education,” the paper quoted Yong’s teacher as saying.

The Communist Party abolished lotteries in China after taking power in 1949, denouncing them as a practice of decadent capitalists. But the country launched state-run lotteries in 1987 amid market-oriented reforms.

Lotteries have become increasingly popular both among the poor and the newly rich in China, where many forms of gambling are banned. Per capita income in China’s urban areas is roughly $1,900 a year and about $600 a year in rural areas.

Lottery-related crimes have been on the rise as well, and underground lottery schemes have become rampant across the country in recent years, bankrupting many families.

Last month, China set up its first help centre for lottery addicts, offering counseling and legal assistance. (from Reuters)

The Britain’s Got Talent fame sweet little girl Connie Talbot has released a sweet little music album. It would be a nice gift to your little ones as it is easy to sing along with. You would surely love the sweet, untouched, untainted, talent in it’s purest form.

Connie Talbots “Over The Rainbow” cd is so touching and she sings like an angel. I believe someday she will become a loved star and bring happiness to others with her beautiful voice, smile and personality. Her cd can be for everyday listening as well as for the holidays. Any little 6 year old girl who can “WOW” Simon Cowell has to be pretty impressive. I posted the videos and pictures of hers in my previous posts. You can go back to the post to listen her singing in :

Connie Talbot stunned the Final and Semi-final of Britain’s Got Talent

and Britain’s Got Talent – 6 year-old Connie Sings Great

I wish the amazon price were a bit low.

The world’s tallest snowman — 113 feet, 7 inches — was built in this western Maine town back in 1999. In the photo below the tallest snowman, “Angus, King of the Mountain”, stands tall over a crowd of people gathered to attend a ceremony in Bethel, Maine, in February, 19 1999.

Now the Bethel Area Chamber of Commerce will attempt to build the world’s tallest snowman (snowwoman) again. It is told that the work will start on Jan. 22 and take up to 20 days to complete, said Executive Director Robin Zinchuk.

“We definitely learned a lot the first time around and that’s helping us know what we need to do. We really didn’t know what we were doing last time,” Zinchuk said. The giant snowman was named “Angus, King of the Mountain” in honor of former Gov. Angus King.

Angus was so big that his nose was 8 feet long, his hat was 20 feet in diameter and the scarf around his neck was 120 feet long. His eyes were 4-foot wreaths, and his smile was made from automobile tires.

There was also a raffle as to when Angus would melt, which with our Maine weather, was anyone’s guess. The official melt date was June 10, 1999. The raffle was divided by 22 winners. Fashion ideas being tossed around for a giant snowwoman include making a skirt out of snow, adding a pink scarf and painting tires lipstick red for her mouth.

Jim Sysko, the chief architect and engineer nine years ago, will again lead the construction team. He’ll be assisted by an engineer and a longtime snowmaker from the nearby Sunday River ski resort, which has a new snowmaking gun that could help ease the effort.

For a name, the chamber is considering holding a naming contest. The giant snowman was named by a radio station disc jockey. “I haven’t heard from Angus (King) yet, but I’m sure he will be thrilled that we’re doing it again. He’s all about doing fun things,” Zinchuk said.

Detail of the to-be-dethroned tallest snowman are:

• Height 113 ft. & 7 inches tall
• 9,000,000 lbs
• 200,000 cubic feet of snow
• 4 ft. wreathes as eyes
• 6 ft. of chicken wire & muslin for the carrot nose
• 6 automobile tires as the mouth
• 20 ft. fleece hat
• 120 ft. fleece scarf
• 3 skidder tires for the buttons
• 2 – 10 ft. trees for arms

The snowman’s hat was made by seventh graders at Telstar Middle School. His six-foot nose was made by local elementary school students and as a special touch, has the imprints of the student’s hands.

Maine’s governor, Angus King, whom “Angus, King of the Mountain” was named after, came to participate in the ceremony to honor the citizens of Bethel who achieved their goal and “made it” into the Guiness World Book of Records for the World’s Largest Snowman. He stated he felt honored to have had the snowman named after him, but wondered if “Willie Melt” might not have been a more appropriate name! (source )

The snowman is listed in Guinness Book of Records 2002, page123.

Some Norwegians were charged between $37,000 and $148,000 for parking in a municipal spots in the central Norwegian city of Trondheim last week.

At least 26 motorists were left baffled and broke when they used their bank debit cards to pay for the street parking.

Well, that was not the usual rate of parking though. It was all because of a computer glitch. The machine dispensing windshield parking permits multiplied the amount of time they bought by 10,000, and automatically deducted it from their bank accounts. (abc)

They should be pretty rich people to keep that much of money in their banks and that too accessible to debit cards!

Internet has changed how we live in today’s world. We do almost everything online and today I came accross a news story that gives one more reason to be grateful to the development of internet.

Two South Florida sisters are catching up with their Russian cousin after 70 years apart. Ossie Rasher, 81, and Sophia Altfeld, 78, last saw their cousin Rosalie Berkovich, 80, in 1937 when the sisters fled to the United States with their parents.

The families lost track of each other until decades later, when Berkovich’s relatives tracked down the two sisters using a family tree posted on geneology.com.

Berkovich flew from her home in Acton, Mass., for a reunion Friday night at Altfeld’s home in Coconut Creek. They are also planning for a larger family reunion. (CBS)

I talked about strange names and disputes in naming a child decently.

In another recent news an Italian court has ruled that a couple could not name their son “Friday” and ordered that he instead be called Gregory after the saint whose feast day he was born on.

Well, I don’t think Friday is such a bad name. Or at least it is much better than “4real” or “@”. The child’s mother was quoted as saying: “My son was born Friday, baptised Friday, will call himself Friday, we will call him Friday but when he gets older he will have to sign his name Gregory”. (Read more)

A postcard took a 93 year journey to reach northwest Kansas to the receiptant’s relative. The Christmas card was dated Dec. 23, 1914, and mailed to Ethel Martin of Oberlin, apparently from her cousins in Alma, Neb.

The card features a color drawing of Santa Claus and a young girl. Ethel Martin is deceased, but Oberlin Postmaster Steve Schultz said the post office wanted to get the card to a relative.

That’s how the 93-year-old relic ended up with Bernice Martin, Ethel’s sister-in-law. She said she believed the card had been found somewhere in Illinois.

“That’s all we know,” she said. “But it is kind of curious. We’d like to know how it got down there.”

The card was placed inside another envelope with modern postage for the trip to Oberlin — the one-cent postage of the early 20th century wouldn’t have covered it, Martin said.

“We don’t know much about it,” she said. “But wherever they kept it, it was in perfect shape.” (Yahoo)