Lap Dance research officer required

It was reported on The Telegraph Friday that Leeds University's School of Sociology and Social Policy, is looking for a “Research Officer - The rise and regulation of lap dancing and the place of sexual labour and consumption in the night time economy”.

The successful applicant would work on a research project to examine the “rise, tolerance and integration of sexual consumption and sexual labour displayed through the erotic dance industry”, and the commercialisation of female sexuality and the female body. It's purpose is to determine where dancers are recruited from and what their working conditions are like, as well as examining how erotic dancing has become a “mainstream” entertainment, available on the high street of most British cities.

The advertisement further stipulates that “prior experience of conducting research in the female sex industry” is essential. I wonder if actually going down to strip joint with the boys counts?

Read Job reference: 316199 for yourself.

Tokyo man marries game character

Sometimes a link comes across my desk that I find so bizarre I just have to share it with folk!

Apparently a man in Tokyo who calls himself SAL9000 [I have no explanation for that, so don't ask, it may be an in-game handle] has married his virtual girlfriend from the game Love Plus. The man is reported to have fallen in love with one Nene Anegasaki [if that's not her on the left, then it's one of the other two girls in the game, but you get the idea] one of the games characters whom he then took to Guam for a legal ceremony and honeymoon - or rather he took his Nintendo DS with him as it's on that device on which his "bride" exists.

Love Plus, requires players to take out the virtual girl on dates, buy her gifts and make them happy. The player can increase their abilities by studying, working out and solving the problems of their virtual girlfriend, but if they fail to make their girlfriend happy, the game restarts after 100 days.

SAL9000 livecast the vacation on Japanese video-sharing site Nico Nico Douga and he intends to also livecast the public wedding reception back in Tokyo.

The story broke on Boing Boing.

I'm waiting for some really obvious comments below :)

Source: Grunt / Fox News / Boing Boing

Ireland devastated by severe flooding

Ireland is tonight bracing itself for more heavy rains which brought devastation to parts of the country earlier. Environment Minister John Gormley said it would not be possible to gauge the full scale of the damage in Cork, Galway and Clare until the middle of the week. “I think it’s fair to say what we are experiencing at the moment is unprecedented,” he said.

Much of Cork City was seriously flooded in the early hours of Friday morning causing an estimated €100m in damage. Damage to the main city pumping station at the Lee Fields means that most of the Northside of the Cork will be without water until next weekend. Several main roads and streets in Galway, Cork, Limerick and Clonmel, Co Tipperary, remained impassable at sections during the day.

Flooding in Cork City.

Hundreds of people evacuated from their homes in Ballinasloe, Co Galway and Ennis, Co Clare, have not been allowed to return to their homes. Iarnrod Eireann said services were disrupted on the Galway, Sligo, Rosslare and Limerick to Ennis lines. Eircom said it has restored service to more than 20,000 customers over the weekend but 4,700 more remain without a connection because of flood and storm damage. The Defence Forces have been deployed to some of the worst hit areas to help local emergency services, and remain on high alert should conditions deteriorate.

Speaking after a meeting of the government’s Emergency Response Co-Ordination Committee, An Taoiseach Brian Cowen warned that high tides and further heavy rainfall were being forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday.

Colonel "Whopper" Creedon himself is reported to be without a running water supply, but as UNETIDA's Special Operations Bunker 14 is equipped with days of emergency supplies in the event of Extraterrestrials compromising the planetary defence grid or the Zompocalypse; it is not as disastrously affected as others.

It's great to be right, but the price was too high :(

Regular readers will all know how much I "love" the french. However, I regularly come under fire for this love. People claim I'm "over-reacting" and have an "unnecessary degree" of loathing for the french. Today however that changed; it was as if overnight my family, friends, colleagues and the media all began to agree with me in unison. Today people understood what I had been trying to make them understand for years. Today they understood that the french are just a pack of cunts.

Last evening in the Stade De france during extra time after a tied score during a 2010 World Cup qualifier soccer match between Ireland and france; one Thierry "Le Cunt" Henry [as he's now known from this Wikipedia page]...
...did hand the ball to his Froggie teammate who scored the winning goal - automatically eliminating Ireland from qualifying for the World Cup tournament.

The outpouring of anger towards the man today was staggering. The entire country was in a frenzied grip of National hatred directed at france and Henry [pronounced Hon-REE - you know in that stupid french way?] in particular. National broadcasters gave their opinion on the travesty. There were dozens of hilariously photoshopped E-Mail images created and sent to and fro from every corner of the country; one of our prominent comedians Dara O'Briain said he will no longer accept french Fries in McDonalds - now demanding "Saoirse Fries" [a nod to the yanks attempt to rename "Freedom Fries" etc.]; there was a cover of A-Ha's "Take On Me" song played on our airwaves which substituted the lyrics "We Hate Henry." It was such a wonderful day and it filled my heart with pure joy. I'll admit, I was almost moved to tears.

It's interesting to note that I did not encounter any such problems with Sweeden. You see the obviously blind referee and his equally inept assistants were Sweedish. I did see that that the Sweedish tabloid press tore strips off them for their performance [or lack thereof]. A leading Sweedish newspaper also issued a formal apology to the Irish people. However I still don't understand why there was practically no backlash against the Swee... oh wait - now I remember:

Earth calling Mars!

The fine fellows at Letters of Note recently uncovered a document from 1924 which highlights just how far back the possibility of alien life has been taken seriously by governments and the military. Some 70 years before the fomation of UNETIDA, SECDEF Curtis Dwight Wilbur sent a telegram instructing all Naval stations to monitor the airwaves for any unusual transmissions due to anticipated contact from Martians.

The reason for this was that on August 22nd of that year, the closest Mars opposition since 1804 [a mere 55.7 million km], and as such provided desirable conditions in which to receive radio signals from the Red Planet.

And just in case you think it stops there? I could tell you about some crazy shit SECDEF John Lehman had me looking for during the Regan era - sheesh!

RIP: Edward Albert Arthur Woodward OBE

The passing of the great actor Edward Woodward [79] from pneumonia today has not gone unnoticed. Woodward played many notable characters on the silver screen, he was Sgt. Howie in The Wicker Man [1973], Commander Powell in Who Dares Wins [1982] and more recently had supporting role as Tom Weaver in the Whopper Award-Winning Hot Fuzz [2007].

Woodward continued acting up to his illness earlier in the year completing work on A Congregation Of Ghosts currently in post production for director Mark Collicot in which he plays the lead role of an eccentric vicar who is said to have alienated his congregation and preached to cardboard cut-outs.

Woodward was arguably more successful on the small screen and made appearences in both Eastenders and The Bill in the past 2 years. He played the title role in the 1960's spy series Callan and Harry Malone in the short lived CI5: The New Professionals in 1999. He will of course be best known for playing Robert McCall in all 87 episodes of the 1980's show The Equalizer.

May he rest in peace.

Next Phase of Skynet's plan proceeds

According to Fox News; Armies of robotic drones just like Skynet's may be just around the corner. The U.S. Navy is developing unmanned fighting vehicles that network together and operate in "swarms." These drones have proven one of the most effective — and yet most controversial — weapons in the arsenal. Officials credit the use of Predator drones with guided missiles, with eliminating a senior terrorist leaders beyond the reach of ground forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Until now, a UAV had been controlled remotely by a human over satellite link, but they were unable to communicate with each other until in a demonstration last week, NAVAIR linked unmanned drones, including air and ground vehicles, into unmanned squadrons with a single person operating all six vehicles.

"It's an initiative to coordinate air vehicles with ground vehicles or each other," says Ward Carroll, editor of Military.com. "Instead of six guys controlling six UAVs, you've got one guy controlling six. This optimizes use of available resources in any battlespace."

Patrick Esposito, president of Augusta Systems who created the intelligent network device that made this possible; said swarming algorithms "are driven by digital pheromone-based maps of the area in which the swarms are operating. This is similar to the reasoning used by insects, which was the inspiration for the swarming concept."

Carroll thinks linked groups of vehicles are the future of combat drones. "UAVs are cool but we're not utilizing them effectively," he points out. The USAF has 7,000 UAVs and they need "to start thinking about midair collisions, interaction, saving intel, and so on.

Read the full story here.

Source: Fox News / Eamo

Veterans Day 2009

Today is either Veteran's Day, Remembrance Day or Armistice Day depending on your part of the world. I request only that, if you see a veteran today that you thank them for their service. It will mean a lot.

Happy 234th Birthday USMC

And once again we have a Birthday message from The Commandant, General James T. Conway. Semper Fi.

What's on TV? Part 1: New Shows

Fall TV as it's known in the states, debuted about 6/7 weeks ago and it's time to examine what's working or what should't be on at all if necessary.

V [ABC]

I'm going to start with something that has just appeared right now on screens accross the globe - [well it was on ABC in the US on Tuesday and was on TV3 here last night] - I speak of the remake of the classic 1983 TV series V. A post 9/11 ultra-paranoid world in the grip of an economic crisis is the perfect time for the Vs to visit us again spreading messages of peace and change and offering universal healthcare [I'm not joking, they actually say it]. It borrows from its progenator in that it's not a special effects laden extravaganza but a fightening warning against misplaced devotion and I'll certainly be paying visits to it's subsequent 3 episodes before it goes to full series.

Starring: Elizabeth Mitchell, Morris Chestnut, Joel Gretsch, Scott Wolf and Morena Baccarin as Anna.

US ABC - Tuesday @ 20:00; EIRE TV3 - Thursday @ 22:00; UK SyFy Jan 2010

****1/2


Flashforward [ABC]

An order for a full 25 episodes means ABC feels good enough about Brannon Star Trek: Voyager Braga and David S. Blade Goyer's unique vision of a world in the aftermath of the greatest disaster in history and has also witnessed it's own future; specifically 137 seconds of what they will be doing on April 29th 2010. In the past few weeks FBI agent Mark Benford has set about uncovering evidence of the cause of the disaster, evidence he knows he will find because he's already seen it in the future, and may even be killed for it.

Starring: Joseph Fiennes, John Cho, Sonya Walger, Jack Davenport and Courtney B. Vance as FBI Assistant Director Stanford Wedeck

US ABC - Thursday's @ 20:00; UK/EIRE Channel 5 - Monday @ 21:00

****1/2

NCIS: Los Angeles [CBS]

Airing right after the stalwart NCIS is its new spin off NCIS: Los Angeles. The series centers on the NCIS OSP - Office of Special Projects who assume false identities and utilise the most advanced technology to go deep undercover to apprehend dangerous criminals that pose a threat to national security. Special Agent: G. Callen is the undercover expert who together with Navy S.E.A.L. Iraq vet Special Agent Sam Hanna and their team put their lives on the line in the field to bring down their targets.

starring: Chris O'Donnell, LL Cool J, Peter Cambor, Daniela Ruah and Linda Hunt as Operations Manager Henrietta "Hetty" Lange.

***1/2

US CBS Tuesday @ 21:00; US UK/EIRE Sky One, Wednesday @ 21:00


SGU: Stargate Universe [Syfy]

The 3rd series in one of the most enduring science fiction franchises ever. SGU is radically different from previous shows in that it's more like the premise of Star Trek: Voyager with the grittiness, darkness and reality of Battlestar Galactica but it's the Stargate setting that makes this work - as unlike Trek or BSG - no one here knows what the fuck is going on or how they're going to get home. 4 weeks in and they've only met one alien, they've not even found a single planet that looks like British Columbia! Brilliant! Big hiatus until Spring 2010 after episode 10 but that's a common thing now with Syfy's shows.

Starring: Robert Carlyle, Louis Ferreira, Brian J. Smith, David Blue, Alaina Huffman and guest starring Lou Diamond Philips as Colonel David Telford.

US SyFy, Friday 21:00; UK/EIRE Sky One, Tuesday @ 20:00


****


The Vampire Dairies [The CW]

Angsty diary-obsessed high school girl falls in love with brooding diary-obsessed vampire. This is everything Twilight seems to be, just on TV and everything True Blood isn't. This is what I was thinking of when I said "shouldn't be on TV at all" above. Avoid.

Starring: Who cares

*

And the winner of the Hallowe'en Baby Costume is...

The Alien Chestburster Baby

Source: scifiwire.com

Could astronauts fly TIE Fighters to Mars?

A joint NASA/Canadian venture - a new ion engine, raises the revolutionary possibility that a manned trip to Mars could take less than 90 days instead of two years.

Ion propulsion, previously theorised only in the realm of science fiction since the '60's Star Trek series and well known propultion system of the imperial TIE [Twin Ion Engine] Fighter from Star Wars. But now mankind itself is close to the point where it could be tested on a flight to the moon, according to a veteran Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.

“This engine is ... going to be tested on the ISS, launched about 2013,” Hadfield said. “It turns electrical power into thrust so that we can use solar energy to power a spaceship."

Theoretically a craft powered by this engine would take 40 days to reach Mars, compared to six months by conventional rocket power. As Mars and Earth only pass close together every two years, scientists assume a crew could travel one way, wait a year, then fly back the next time the planets were close together. The engine would accelerate a spaceship until it's halfway to Mars, producing a tiny stream of argon gas that it fires out the rear of the spacecraft. Then it turns the engine around and decelerates until reaching Mars.

Read all about it here.

Source: Canada.com / Astrarocket.com / Eamo