Quick Links: January 14, 2008

Nuclear Reactor in Garage
A 22-year-old man was boasting on an amateur science blog that he had built a mini-nuclear reactor in his garage. His boasts earned him a visit from federal authorities who determined that he didn't actually have a nuclear reactor. But he did have some kind of strange experiment going on that, had it continued, "would have been a cleanup issue." (Thanks, Joe)

Dead Man Cashing Check Scam
"Two men were arrested on Tuesday after pushing a corpse, seated in an office chair, along the sidewalk to a check-cashing store to cash the dead man’s Social Security check." (Thanks, Gary)

Facebook President Hoax
A Facebook application allowed people to pretend to run for "Facebook Worldwide president." A Frency guy got all his friends to vote for him, and when he won told the French media that he was the new president of Facebook. Many members of the French media apparently believed him.

Romance writer accused of plagiarism
Nora Roberts is claiming that fellow romance novelist Cassie Edwards is guilty of plagiarism. It seems that Edwards was lifting passages from old reference works in order to flesh out her historical romances. This actually seems to me like a fairly minor misdemeanor compared to some of the stuff that goes on nowadays. (Thanks, Joe)

Death Literature/Language

Posted on Tue Jan 15, 2008



Comments

The garage reactor story reminds me of a book I saw "the radioactive boy scout", about an american kid who built a small reactor in his back garden. He didn't reach criticality, but he didn't expect to either. He did manage transmutation though, as well as pretty high radiation counts.
Posted by cthelmax  on  Tue Jan 15, 2008  at  11:13 AM
The plagiarism charge seems odd, because Nora Roberts is implicitly claiming that this is not a usual and accepted practice in Romance-novel writing, or even (shockingly) that there is something original in at least some Romance novels.
Posted by Big Gary  on  Wed Jan 16, 2008  at  01:26 PM
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