An American designer and manufacturer of cutting-edge wheelchairs, ColoursWheelChair.com, recently came up with the wheelchair pictured here as one of their 'hot' new products - the headline announcement on their website and associated advertising features a blond female model dressed in black PVC accompanied by the words "you know you want it" ..oh, and a picture of the wheelchair too.

Sure, the wheelchair looks pretty groovy as far as wheelchairs go - I'm a long long way from being an expert in the field - however their marketing department made a slight faux pas in the naming of this particular model. Actually that's an understatement. They farked it up big time. Guess what they called it? Go on, guess.

This particular little gem is called ..wait for it ..'The Spazz' ..I kid you not.

Colours 'N Motion "Spazz" offers you the style, versatility and adjustability you need in your first wheelchair. With its simple design and clean lines not only will you look good in your "Spazz" but your maneuverability will be unsurpassed.

I honestly didn't know whether to laugh or just feel bad for them when I read this. For those of you who for some reason don't know wtf I'm talking about, the word 'spazz' or 'spaz' is a derogatory term originally derived from the word 'spastic', and is used as a somewhat dated insult in many countries, including England, Australia and New Zealand, and I would think at least in parts of America. The urban dictionary defines the word spaz as meaning; "a person who acts insane or mentally retarded", and even uses the word in a sentence for clarification: "Dave ran around screaming with his tongue hanging out like a spaz." Obviously spasticity (in the medical sense) does not equate to mental retardation, but that's another issue altogether.

Now hell, if I saw some dude shoot pass me on his wheelchair with the word 'Spazz' splashed across the back in big bold lettering, I'd probably be a little surprised at first, but most likely I'd end up laughing - not at him, but with him at what I'd presume to be his humorous way of dealing with his disability. Just imagine now that the same guy in the wheelchair is totally oblivious of that derogatory use of the word spaz ..he's going to be harboring some pretty major resentment when he finally realizes what's going on and why people keep laughing at him.

There's a moral there somewhere. All I can say is, somebody from that marketing department must be looking for a new job right about now, that's for sure.

It's probably not news to anyone that the oceans are being overfished in mankind's usual parasitic overuse of earth's resources, but just how much of an impact we are making often goes unrealized. As part of a 10-year census of marine life, a group of oceanography students reviewed thousands of food menus and fishing logs dating back to the 1850s to help scientists determine what the oceans were like more than a century ago. What the results show is not only an issue with abundance of supply, but just how deeply we have effected the world marine ecology overall.

The menu project found, for example, that there was nothing special about catching a 20 or 30 pound lobster off Nova Scotia or Maine 100 years ago - lobsters eaten today are typically about one to two pounds. Likewise, it was not uncommon for fishermen to catch 300-pound halibut at the turn of the century as well, whereas today it is commercially extinct. By understanding what the oceans were like long ago, researchers hope to understand what needs to be done to restore fish habitats or replenish fish stocks. The census shows not all of the oceanic problems can be blamed just on overfishing however - humanity's effects on marine habitats are also part of the problem, which kind of figures - if it's not the overfishing, it's something else humanity has done to rape the planet.

Paul Holm, a Danish environmental researcher who leads the project on the history of marine animals said, "Even if we have a moratorium on fishing in many parts of the world, the fish stocks will not be able to replenish, simply because we have destroyed the breeding grounds."

Hope is not entirely lost however - the United Nations has promised to restore some marine ecosystems and their fisheries to their former levels by 2020, and this project will help achieve that goal. I'm somewhat sceptical though - it will take a lot more than a few marine reserves to turn the tide on the destruction of the marine ecology, and 20 to 30 pound lobsters dont suddenly become abundant in just 15 years - it takes much longer than that for a lobster to even grow to that size - estimates say a lifespan of 100 to 125 years for east coast lobsters are possible. How does the UN hope to achieve that in just 15 years I wonder?

With the world population continuing to grow exponentially, there simply wont be enough resources on this planet to support everyone, no matter what we do. Perhaps issues like global warming and marine ecology aren't acted upon as much as they should be because, unless drastic changes are made in the way we live, it's unlikely humanity will survive far enough into the future that it will matter. What those changes are, I don't know. We certainly need to stop reproducing like rabbits, or should I say parasites, if we are to have a chance of long-term survival on earth.

Acknowledgements: research news from CBC Health & Science News, fish image from TVNZ.

Hurricane Wilma is still looking nasty and currently wreaking havoc in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. The center of the powerful Category Four storm is currently hovering just off the northeastern Yucatan Peninsula over the island of Cozumel. It is in the process of producing massive damage along this small section of the Mexican Coast, including the resorts of Cozumel and Cancun, as the eye brushes the northeast Yucatan coast. Wilma is creeping to the northwest at 5 mph with sustained winds of 140 mph at present - any temporary stalling will only prolong the destruction.

The coastal storm surge north of the eye will be in the 7-to-11-foot range above the regular tide levels for the northeast Yucatan from Cozumel northward, with heavy surf hammering the coastline with waves of 15 to 35 feet. Swells from Wilma are emanating northward toward the U.S. Gulf Coast from the Mississippi-Alabama border to the Suwanee River, producing high surf in those areas as well.

Over the weekend, Wilma is expected to come under the influence of stronger westerly winds aloft blowing across the Gulf, shifting the hurricane toward southern Florida by Monday. The interaction with land as the hurricane brushes past the Yucatan Peninsula plus the increasing influence of westerly shear and even some mid-level dry air intrusion could weaken Wilma considerably before it directly affects Florida and then heads up the east coast.

Yet another shocking transgression by the US government has recently become apparent, as detailed by TechNews Daily. The government have succeeded in persuading some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each printed page with identifying information. That means that without your knowledge or consent, an act you assume is private could become public. A research team led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently broke the code behind tiny tracking dots that some color laser printers secretly hide in every document they print. The U.S. Secret Service admitted that the tracking information is part of a 'deal' struck with selected color laser printer manufacturers, ostensibly to identify counterfeiters. However, the nature of the private information encoded in each document was not previously known.

"We've found that the dots from at least one line of printers encode the date and time your document was printed, as well as the serial number of the printer," said EFF Staff Technologist Seth David Schoen.

The dots are yellow, less than one millimeter in diameter, and are typically repeated over each page of a document. In order to see the pattern, you need a blue light, a magnifying glass, or a microscope (for instructions on how to see the dots, click here). Xerox previously admitted that it provided these tracking dots to the government, but indicated that only the Secret Service had the ability to read the code. The Secret Service maintains that it only uses the information for criminal counterfeit investigations. However, there are no laws to prevent the government from abusing this information, and based on past history, they certainly would.

"Underground democracy movements that produce political or religious pamphlets and flyers, like the Russian samizdat of the 1980s, will always need the anonymity of simple paper documents, but this technology makes it easier for governments to find dissenters," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien. "Even worse, it shows how the government and private industry make backroom deals to weaken our privacy by compromising everyday equipment like printers. The logical next question is: what other deals have been or are being made to ensure that our technology rats on us?"

Damn good question, and I suspect there are plenty.

EFF is still working on cracking the codes from other printers. For a list of the printers investigated so far, click here. You can decode your own Xerox DocuColor prints using EFF's automated program here. I'm sure some of the owners of these printers will be demanding a full refund since this information should have been made available at the time of purchase. I wouldn't be surprised to see some businesses taking legal action against the manufacturers concerned because of the deception. Not good.

Hurricane Wilma, which rapidly developed into a dangerous Category 5 storm last night, is the strongest hurricane ever recorded, according to the US National Hurricane Center. The storm's barometric pressure (a measure of its strength) became the most intense hurricane on record in the Atlantic Basin when its pressure plunged to 882millibars (26.05"). The pressure has since risen slightly, but only to 892mb (26.34"), which is still lower than Rita and Katrina ever got.

The eye of Hurricane Wilma continues to follow a wobbling WNW track through the western Caribbean with a turn toward the NW expected during the next 24 hours. Its winds of near 175mph (280km/h) and heavy rains are currently threatening Cuba, Mexico and the Cayman Islands, and forecasters say the hurricane presents a 'significant threat' to Florida, which it is expected to hit this weekend. Fluctuations in intensity are likely, but Wilma is forecast to remain an extremely dangerous Category 5 hurricane through Thursday. The projected track of the storm takes it through the Yucatan Channel into the extreme southern Gulf of Mexico Friday. After that, Wilma is expected to come under the influence of westerly winds aloft blowing across the Gulf. That should shift the hurricane toward the Florida Peninsula, probably the southern part of the peninsula, this weekend. Wilma is expected to be weakening by then, but weakening is a relative term and Wilma may still be a major hurricane (winds over 110 mph) when it makes landfall.

The storm is the record-tying 12th hurricane of this season, the same number reached in 1969, which is the most hurricanes for one season since record-keeping began in 1851. The official hurricane season runs from June 1st through to November 30th.

A major 7.6 magnitude earthquake hit Pakistan at 3:50am GMT (just before midnight EST, or 8:50am local time) destroying property and taking many lives. According to CNN, the death toll has passed 740, at least 550 of those in Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, but officials warned the death toll from the quake could total in the thousands in Pakistan, India, the Pakistani- and Indian-administered areas of Kashmir, and in Afghanistan.

"This was the strongest earthquake in the area during the last hundred years," Qamar Uz Zaman, director-general of the Pakistani Meteorological Department, told CNN.

A series of aftershocks, including one of 6.3 magnitude and four more at 5.4 or above, rattled the region, creating new panic among residents. In Indian-controlled Kashmir, many people refused to return indoors out of fear of a new quake.

The main quake was 95 km (60 miles) NNE of Islamabad, Pakistan, at a relatively shallow depth of 10 km, according to the USGS website. More technical details from USGS as follows:

Earthquakes and active faults in northern Pakistan and adjacent parts of India and Afghanistan are the direct result of the Indian subcontinent moving northward at a rate of about 40 mm/yr (1.6 inches/yr) and colliding with the Eurasian continent. This collision is causing uplift that produces the highest mountain peaks in the world including the Himalayan, the Karakoram, the Pamir and the Hindu Kush ranges. As the Indian plate moves northward, it is being subducted or pushed beneath the Eurasian plate. Much of the compressional motion between these two colliding plates has been and continues to be accommodated by slip on a suite of major thrust faults that are at the Earth's surface in the foothills of the mountains and dip northward beneath the ranges. These include the Main Frontal thrust, the Main Central thrust, the Main boundary thrust, and the Main Mantle thrust. These thrust faults have a sinuous trace as they arc across the foothills in northern India and into northern Pakistan. In detail, the modern active faults are actually a system of faults comprised of a number of individual fault traces. In the rugged mountainous terrain, it is difficult to identify and map all of the individual thrust faults, but the overall tectonic style of the modern deformation is clear in the area of the earthquake; north- and northeast-directed compression is producing thrust faulting. Near the town of Muzaffarabad, about 10 km southwest of the earthquake epicenter, active thrust faults that strike northwest-southeast have deformed and warped Pleistocene alluvial-fan surfaces into anticlinal ridges. The strike and dip direction of these thrust faults is compatible with the style of faulting indicated by the focal mechanism from the nearby M 7.6 earthquake.

News appears be spreading of an imminent terrorist action on the NYC subway system. Initial reports are coming out at the moment on ABC, MSNBC, NY1, Newsday and others, stating that law enforcement officials are increasing security on New York City's subway system after receiving word of a "credible but unsubstantiated" terror threat.

Allegations surround a possible threat against the city's subway system, but few details are known at this time. According to the Associated Press, Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said, "Obviously, this is a significant threat."

According to NY1.com, published reports say the threat came from sources in the Middle East, that the information concerns an attack similar to those in London and Madrid.

Common in the news reports presently is that apparently 19 operatives have been deployed to New York to place bombs in the subway. From ABC:

According to sources in intelligence, emergency services and police headquarters, when three Iraqi insurgents were arrested several days ago during a raid by a joint FBI-CIA team, one of those caught disclosed the threat. Because it slipped out during the arrest, the plot was deemed credible. After several days of work, sources said, the NYPD is increasingly concerned because it has been unable to discredit the initial source and additional information from the source. The 19 operatives were to place improvised explosive devices in the subways using briefcases, according to two sources. The police are deploying additional officers, dogs and heavy weapons teams in subways and commuter rail terminals, sources said. Department of Homeland Security sources told ABC News they are very doubtful the threat information is credible, though NYPD sources said the information continues to come in and is disturbing.

Although the source of the threat doesn't appear to be all that reliable, it's obviously enough to get the authorities concerned. Nonetheless, because the source gave a specific time for the planned attacks -- the second week in October -- New York police had decided to make some of this information public and ask riders to be vigilant.

additional links:
GOP and the City (note recent 'hoax' email that may not have been a hoax after all)
MichelleMalkin.com
counterterrorism blog
terrorism unveiled

There are no plans to raise the terror threat level.

Shocking but true. Maybe two years ago I purchased a set of two versions of the PC game VietCong - Fist Alpha and Purple Haze. I'm not knocking the game itself - the graphics and gameplay were excellent, but the problem for me was that I'd start feeling a little nauseous after an hour of play at most, and I'd have to stop playing for a few hours before I'd come right. After playing VietCong several times with the same result, I eventually uninstalled it and haven't played it since.

Yesterday we received a package with some RAM upgrade cards we ordered for both computers, and with the order came a free copy of the game FarCry, which by all accounts is supposed to be a pretty kewl game. After putting the new memory in, I installed the FarCry game. My first impression - wow! Like VietCong, the game is played using FPS graphics engine (first person shooter), and the results with movement and realism etc was excellent. Unfortunately after only about 20 minutes of play I wanted to hurl badly. Not only did I feel nauseous, but I was dripping with sweat, and when I went to the bathroom to splash cool water on my face, I noticed I had also turned very pale.

When I went to sleep hours later, I was still feeling a little like hurling, but not as bad - more like the morning after a big night out, but you've already had the benefit of a large McDonalds chocolate thickshake to calm your stomach down, if you know what I mean. Anyway the cold sweats had passed and the colour had come back to my face, so I was certainly recovering.

As it turns out, this effect is not all that unusual with some of the more realistic FPS graphic engine powered games. If you have a relatively high-end graphics card and system, some of these games have such a high degree of realism with gun sway and head-bob etc, that your mind is basically 'tricked' into believing it is real, but when the movement your mind experiences from the display does not correspond to the movement your body feels sitting in a chair, the result is a form of motion sickness. Apparently.

Of course conspiracy theorists would suggest that there is something far more arcane going on here - perhaps some dark clandestine government intelligence operation aimed at subliminally creating a generation of brainwashed psychopathic cybersoldiers, but whatever, all it did was make me feel like hurling. The game has now been uninstalled, which is a shame since the actual gameplay seemed so (relatively) realistic.. perhaps the problem is that it's too good?

..a few hours later..

Ok it's called Sim-Sickness (simulator sickness) apparently.. there's a fair bit of info available via Google here and here, but is there a cure? Not really. There's lots of theories about changing the POV angle (point of view), turning off gun-sway and head-bob etc, changing resolution, decreasing graphic rendering quality, turning off or on lights in the room and all sorts of other theories, many of which completely contradict each other. Whatever the case, the best cure it seems is to just not play, unfortunately. I wonder if motion-sickness pills like dramamine would help? Then again, I really don't want to have to take some drug just to play a game. Any suggestions or experiences appreciated.

Check this out for a stunning setup - personal computer peripherals hand made from solid wood (not just veneer - that's solid wood). Wouldn't you just love something like this sitting on your desk? This really is quite amazing - functional beauty and technology meet in a truly aesthetic blend. Damn, I'm drooling.

The company responsible for this (imho) functional art is woodcontour.com, and they also create a similar line using stone. They have a large variety of woods and stone available sourced from around the world, and also do custom work (logos etc added). They're pretty pricey, which is hardly a suprise, although not nearly as high-priced as one might expect. Certainly a luxury item, but a damn stylish one. Very nice.

Yup, this weblog has been running for four years now - the first entry was dated a little under a month after I arrived in NYC. I had a weblog at blogger.com for maybe a year or two prior to this one, along with numerous websites going back even further into the mid to late 1990's (like the popular surfing NZ site), but they kinda died once I moved to NYC, particularly when surf.co.nz and nzXsports.com joined forces. I can't think how many times I've changed the layout on this site - heh, long-term identity crisis I tell ya! Whatever, a bit of a milestone reached. Groovy.