Thursday, March 25, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Crowdsourcing #fail: "Could parachute-wearing bears sniff out Osama bin Laden?"
ARLINGTON, Va. — Could parachute-wearing bears sniff out Osama bin Laden?
That’s one suggestion the Pentagon has received from someone who noted, quite correctly, that a bear’s sense of smell is much more powerful than a bloodhound’s.
“Overnight, Parachute some bears into areas [bin Laden] might be,” the innovator wrote. “Attempt to train bears to take off parachutes after landing, or use parachutes that self-destruct after landing.”
The bears-in-the-air idea, and scores of others, came from people who clicked on the “contact us” button on the Defense Department’s Web site, which allows the general public to ask questions or make suggestions.
Not that the Pentagon needs any particular help in the idea department. Not long ago, for example, the agency spent $2 million to find out whether honey bees could be relied upon to sniff out roadside bombs.
via stripes.com
Monday, March 15, 2010
Moorhead church gets whopping rebate from utility (after being double-billed for 14 years)
Moorhead church gets whopping rebate from utility
March 14, 2010
Moorhead, Minn. (AP) — A Catholic Church in Moorhead is $150,000 richer after discovering a local utility had been doubling its electric bill for the last 14 years.
St. Joseph's administrator Mike Heinzen tells the Forum of Fargo that it wasn't Moorhead Public Service's fault. He says the contractor who added an addition to the church in 1996 failed to remove old electrical meters, which continued to be read along with new meters.
Moorhead Public Service general manager Mike Schwandt says the utility noticed a jump in the church's power consumption at the time, but figured it was because of the addition.
The over-billing wasn't caught until an electrician working at the church questioned why it had two electircal meters.
Heinzen says the money went into the church's building fund.
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Information from: The Fargo Forum
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)