March 13, 2009

Vampires are still around?

Italian researchers believe they have found the remains of a female “vampire” in Venice, buried with a brick jammed between her jaws to prevent her feeding on victims of a plague which swept the city in the 16th century.

Matteo Borrini, an anthropologist from the University of Florence, said the discovery on the small island of Lazzaretto Nuovo in the Venice lagoon supported the medieval belief that vampires were behind the spread of plagues like the Black Death.

“This is the first time that archaeology has succeeded in reconstructing the ritual of exorcism of a vampire,” Mr Borrini said.

“This helps … authenticate how the myth of vampires was born.”

The skeleton was unearthed in a mass grave from the Venetian plague of 1576 – in which the artist Titian died – on Lazzaretto Nuovo, which lies around three kilometres north-east of Venice and was used as a sanatorium for plague sufferers.

vampire

History of the Vampire

Vampire myths and legends go back hundreds, and thousands of years. They occur in almost every culture. The different types are many, although the vampires we are familiar with today, are mainly based on Eastern European myths.

The modern concept of a vampire retains many of the original traits from the East European stories. Traits such as drinking blood, preying on humans, only coming our at night, rising from the dead. Other aspects of the Vampire, such as Goth type clothing, cloaks, turning in to bats etc are much newer innovations.

Other features of some of the old myths are now all but gone, such as sprinkling salt, or seeds over the Vampire in order to keep them counting all night, rather than preying on human blood.

Vampire beliefs in the world today

There are many places in the world where people still believe in Vampires to this day. Many of the modern day believers have been greatly influenced by the depiction of Vampires in film and fiction. The was a Vampire scare in London as recently as 1970 where Vampire hunters flocked to see what they could do. During 2002 and 2003 there were a number of alleged Vampire attacks carried out in Malawi. This created mass hysteria in the population and several people were killed while looking for the Vampire. In Romania in 2004 several people believed that one of there relatives had turned in to a vampire. They dug up his body, ripped out the heart, burned it, mixed it with water and drank it.

May 26, 2008

HTC Touch Diamond | better than 3G iPhone?

The HTC Touch Diamond.

It’s the first device from the manufacturer to use a new Qualcomm MSM7201A clocked at 528MHz. What’s more, it has 192MB of RAM, 64MB more than the norm, which means more memory to play around with when running multiple applications.  It’s compact with dimensions of 102 x 51 x 11.3mm and comes with a VGA display. It comes with a full suite of connectivity features including Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. It is HSDPA and capable of HSUPA. It has a decent camera with 3.2 megapixels. It’s not iPhone… thank God!

HTC has its own YouTube channel which showcases what the new TouchFLO 3D can do. Have a looksie!

htc touch diamond

January 19, 2007

Police say Australian Open sex assault isolated

Police say Australian Open sex assault isolated

Police investigating the sexual assault of a five-year-old boy at the Australian Open in Melbourne have defended their decision not to warn the public about the possible threat to children.

The young boy was allegedly assaulted in a men’s toilet late on Monday afternoon while his mother waited for him outside.

It is alleged a man followed him into the Melbourne Park cubicle and touched him inappropriately.

The attack was not made public until this morning, four days after the incident.

Victorian police have issued a statement saying detectives are investigating the assault, but describe it as an isolated incident.

It says there are enough police at the Australian Open to deal with any further problems and has emphasised the sporting event is safe.

Tennis Australia says police advised them against telling the public about the alleged assault.

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January 19, 2007

Deputy Mayor to face court in June

The Gold Coast deputy Mayor is to face court in the middle of the year over his alleged failure to submit an electoral return declaring donations for the 2004 council poll.

In Southport Magistrates Court yesterday, David Power’s solicitor asked that the matter be heard as soon as possible.

The Crown had sought an adjournment until the Supreme Court ruled on whether the matter was out of time.

It has been listed for hearing in June.

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January 19, 2007

100 Million IE7 Installations!

It looks like IE7 is beating Firefox already in usage. Amazing.

100 Million IE7 Installations!

I’m pleased to report that on January 8th, we had the 100 millionth IE7 installation. However, even more important than installations is usage. According to WebSideStory (the company we use to measure browser usage), as of this week, over 25% of all visitors to websites in the US were using IE7, making IE7 the second most used browser after IE6. We expect these numbers to continue to rise as we complete our final localized versions, scale up AU distribution, and with the consumer availability of Windows Vista on January 30, 2007..

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100 Million IE7 Installations!

January 17, 2007

Pair died in murder-suicide: police

Update to previous story.

Police have described the deaths of two people on Queensland’s northern Gold Coast as a murder-suicide. The bodies of the 64-year-old man and 62-year-old woman were found in their Coombabah home yesterday.

Detective Inspector John Hartwell says post-mortem examinations indicate no other people were involved in the deaths.

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January 17, 2007

Arthurs powers on

Australian Wayne Arthurs has advanced to the third round of the Australian Open with an emphatic four-set victory over American Zack Fleishman at Melbourne Park today.

After going down in a first set tiebreak, the 35-year-old veteran was all smiles when he completed his win 6-7 (5-7), 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 with a simple finish from the net.

The powerful left-hander, ranked 163rd in the world, overcame sweltering conditions against 170th-ranked Fleishman to qualify for the third round of the Australian Open for the first time since 2001.

Arthurs will meet either American Mardy Fish or Frenchman Nicolas Mahut in the next round.

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January 17, 2007

Armed robbers ambush tavern manager

I heard on the radio that over AUD$150,000 was taken.

Armed robbers ambush tavern manager

Police say the thieves who robbed a Gold Coast tavern on the weekend ambushed the manager.

Two armed men wearing balaclavas locked the manager of the Fisherman’s Wharf Tavern into a safe room of the building in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Detective Inspector John Hartwell says there was no warning.

“The manager’s gone out to secure the rear gate and was confronted by the offenders,” he said.

“A gun was produced and he was told to turn around and they have let themselves into the safe room.

“When asked for the keys to the ATMs in the tavern area, he said he didn’t have access. He was then hit with one of the firearms and he then produced the keys.”

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January 17, 2007

Pink backflip on boycott pleases wool industry

Pink backflip on boycott pleases wool industry

The wool industry has welcomed an admission by US singer Pink that she failed to properly research the practice of sheep mulesing before she made a video condemning the practice.

The singer caused a furore when she called for consumers to boycott Australian wool as part of a campaign by the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

Pink has given a television interview saying she was misinformed about the practice.

The president of WoolProducers, Robert Peach, says he is glad Pink has backed away from her earlier comments.

“She’s been totally caught out and we appreciate that she’s retracted it,” he said.

“But in the meantime, it has done the industry some damage.

“We as industry have really taken this whole issue of animal welfare very seriously over a long period of time.

“It’s just sad that people like Pink actually don’t do the research before they make the sort of statements they do.”

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January 17, 2007

Bali nine smugglers fight death sentences

Bali nine smugglers fight death sentences

Lawyers for convicted heroin smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran are appealing to Indonesia’s Constitutional Court to quash their death sentences.

The two Australians are on death row in Bali.

The judicial review application argues Indonesia’s constitution guarantees the right to life as a basic human right.

Four other Australians convicted in Bali with Chan and Sukumaran are also preparing appeals against their death penalties.

They are Scott Rush, Si Yi Chen, Tan Duch Thanh Nguyen and Matthew Norman.

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