So you’ve looked up sexy spy Anna Chapman’s Facebook photos and you’ve cried along with Lindsay Lohan as she was sent to the slammer, but what about Peterporn, Sinta and Jovita? Ever heard of them? If you’re one of those people who lets computer algorithms set your news agenda you might have come across them in Twitter, where they dominated the chatter on the popular microblogging site for several days last month. But you probably didn’t have a clue why so many of your fellow netizens were tracking them. So if you’re out of the loop, here’s an update. Peterporn is a pun
The coastal region of Fukui has Japan’s biggest share of dual-income households, the highest ratio of working women and the lowest unemployment rate. What it doesn’t have is enough babies. The provincial government this month is starting the Fukui Marriage-Hunting Cafe, a Web site for singles, to help stem the falling birthrate as it begins to damage the economy. As an added incentive, couples who agree to marry will get cash or gifts, said Akemi Iwakabe, deputy director of Fukui’s Children and Families division. “Many of our single residents were telling us that they wanted to get married, but couldn’t because they
Brute, a German shepherd, lay anesthetized on an operating table, his hairy chest under a plastic cover and his powerful paws taped immobile. “Here comes the wire up the artery,” said veterinarian Chick Weisse, who infused the dog’s cancerous liver with chemotherapy via a catheter at the century-old Animal Medical Center (AMC) in Manhattan in an effort to “buy him some time.” Brute was home in days, the cancer at bay a while longer — perhaps eight months. The cost: US$2,000. Around the US, veterinarians are practicing ever more advanced medicine on the US’ 77 million dogs, 90 million cats and a
Gaza’s ubiquitous donkey carts are facing stiff competition after an influx of South Asia’s iconic tuk-tuks, powered by ultra-cheap smuggled fuel, have hit the roads of the besieged coastal strip. The auto-rickshaws, in which the front half of a motorcycle is welded onto a two-wheel trailer, are well-adapted to the four-year blockade that has transformed the local economy and daily life in the Palestinian territory. And the phenomenon highlights one of the stranger side effects of the Israeli border closures — that gasoline in Gaza is now cheaper than water. Ahed al-Idrisi, a 29-year-old accountant who has made a living by buying and
The advertising catalog promised a new residential development, with a creche, tennis court and a mini golf course, minutes from the bustling center of the Irish town of Longford. But as the leaking sewerage, pot-holed roads, lack of street lights and abandoned half-built houses around his home testify, the Silver Birches estate is far from what karate teacher John Killane had hoped for his family. Wiring and abandoned building materials are scattered across the site making the grounds a dangerous playground for his children. Some of his neighbors also complain of rats coming to a nearby pool. He and his wife say that
On the outside, they all look the same: White armor, white helmets, black blaster rifles. Imperial soldiers from a galaxy far, far away, they’re loyal only to the Empire and recognizable everywhere as Star Wars storm troopers. Inside, though, are different stories. Those armored clones are lovingly occupied by moms, dads, doctors, cops, lawyers, exterminators, artists and other passionate Star Wars fans who devote thousands of dollars and countless hours to building screen-accurate costumes and wearing them all over the world to support the beloved franchise as well as dozens of children’s charities. They are the 501st Legion, an international, all-volunteer costuming
In October 2008, at the height of the financial crisis when job markets were freezing up globally, Akane Natori easily found a position she liked. “Things went so smoothly after applying online, and before I knew it, I had the job,” said Natori, who was then a 26-year-old sales assistant at an import-export company in Tokyo. There was just one catch: Natori’s new job — working in a call center answering queries from customers in Japan — was in Bangkok. The trend is one that speaks volumes about the Japanese economy and the challenges younger Japanese face in a country where college
You don’t want to be the guy who crashes someone else’s US$550,000 supercar. That’s obvious, but never more so than when you watch a half-million-dollar car getting towed from the racetrack into a garage where the frowning owners stand. I wasn’t that guy, thank heaven. It was the dude right after me who lost control of the bright-orange Gumpert Apollo, helicoptering off the track and into a tire wall, cratering the nose. I drove about six laps in the violently powerful, German-made supercar, treating it like a pit viper with irritable bowel syndrome. Very, very delicately. As mechanics pulled off the mangled front fascia,
Tokyo’s Ginza district is usually abuzz with shoppers and office workers, but high above its skyscrapers nature-lovers have created a home for real busy bees — the ones that make honey. It’s part of a project to bring a slice of natural life back to the center of the world’s largest urban sprawl, a cityscape home to more than 30 million people that stretches far beyond the horizon. Eleven stories above the heart of the Tokyo concrete jungle — with its beehive office partitions and swarms of suit-clad worker-bees — enthusiasts have stacked up beehives dripping with golden honey. “Let’s enjoy the harvest,
To milk a camel, you need warm hands, a gentle touch and quick timing — camels give milk only in 90-second bursts. Gil and Nancy Riegler, owners of the nation’s largest camel dairy near San Diego, say the extra work pays off with milk that is therapeutic, nutritious and delicious. It’s also illegal to sell in the US. That hasn’t stopped the Rieglers’ enthusiasm for their unusual dairy, selling other products such as camel milk soap, giving tours and taking their 22-camel herd on the road to educate others. In a few years, they hope, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) might establish
A report last month in the Economist tells us that “blogging is dying” as more and more bloggers abandon the form for its cousins: The tweet, the Facebook Wall, the Digg. Do a search-and-replace on “blog” and you could rewrite the coverage as evidence of the death of television, novels, short stories, poetry, live theater, musicals, or any of the hundreds of the other media that went from breathless ascendancy to merely another tile in the mosaic. Of course, none of those media is dead and neither is blogging. Instead, what’s happened is that they’ve been succeeded by new forms that share
While Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez struggles to revive the battered bolivar, in a hillside slum overlooking his palace, die hard supporters are talking about getting rid of the Venezuelan currency altogether. Welcome to the 23 de Enero barrio, home to about 100,000 people and something of a laboratory for Chavez’s nationwide socialist experiment. Here you find dogs named “Comrade Mao,” and even a “revolutionary car wash.” “We are creating a popular bank and are going to issue a communal currency: little pieces of cardboard,” says Salvador Rooselt, a soft-spoken 24-year-old law student and community leader who often quotes Lenin and Marx. Some 20
Haute couture is all about dressing up — dressing way, way, up, in fact, in made-to-measure garments that cost as much as a new car. But Jean Paul Gaultier reversed the equation on Wednesday, sending out burlesque star Dita Von Teese, who peeled off layer after wildly expensive layer till she was stripped literally to the bone. The campy strip show — which ended with Von Teese in a buff-colored bustier with sequin-covered applique bones mapping out her skeleton — was a fit finale to a fall-winter 2010-2011 collection largely about transparency and anatomy, with a dash of morbidness thrown in
Forgot to de-friend your wife on Facebook while posting vacation shots of your mistress? Her divorce lawyer will be thrilled. Over-sharing on social networks has led to an overabundance of evidence in divorce cases. The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers says 81 percent of its members have used or faced evidence plucked from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social networking sites, including YouTube and LinkedIn, over the last five years. “Oh, I’ve had some fun ones,” said Linda Lea Viken, president-elect of the 1,600-member group. “It’s very, very common in my new cases,” she said. Facebook is the unrivaled leader for turning virtual reality
If cars had wings, they could fly — and that just might happen, beginning next year. The company Terrafugia says it plans to deliver its car-plane, the Transition, to customers by the end of next year. It recently cleared a major hurdle when the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted a special weight limit exemption to the Transition. “It’s the next ‘wow’ vehicle,” said Terrafugia vice president Richard Gersh. “Anybody can buy a Ferrari but, as we say, Ferraris don’t fly.” The Transition is a long way from cartoon strip cartoons with flying cars zooming above traffic, or even the magical Chitty
IT titan Estonia is exporting its e-government technology and expertise across the globe, currently preparing new projects for the Palestinian territories, Afghanistan and Haiti. The Baltic state of 1.3 million people has already helped fellow ex-communist democracies Armenia, Georgia and Moldova, plus a total of 40 states, to implement Internet-based government and services common in Estonia for years, but still not widely available elsewhere. “It’s common to use all kind of Internet-based solutions here in Estonia, everywhere on the level of central government, the level of municipalities and of course business,” Estonia’s Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said recently, as he showed off
Everyone at Gerrard Dennis’ online swimwear business — run out of a business park in Kent, southwest England, with his wife, Jo — is enthusiastic about Apple. The marketing department use Apple computers, senior staff have iPhones. So it came as a shock when Dennis received an e-mail from Apple earlier this year informing him the iPhone app he had spent several thousand dollars developing, advertising his Simply Beach range, had been banned due to sexual connotations. “We replied saying, ‘Are you sure? Have you had a complaint?’” he said. “But in true Apple style, absolutely nothing back. I felt a
Lithium is not much to look at. It’s a soft and light, silver-white metal known for its use in mood stabilizing drugs. But the 25th most abundant element on earth could, one day, help cure the world of its addiction to oil — as a key ingredient in batteries. US geologists last week released the results of a survey showing around a trillion US dollars worth of minerals in Afghanistan, which could make the war-ravaged state “the Saudi Arabia of lithium”, according to a Pentagon memo. But mining and technology firms have long been looking at lithium through eyes lit with dollar
When Philip Mould began as a professional art dealer 22 years ago, the buying and selling of high-end artwork was confined to a small group of well-versed art historians who scoured the globe in search of masterpieces. But the timeless world of art has changed in the age of the Internet and technology. Once limited to examining 15 to 20 works per day, Mould and his staff can now judge the value of between 50 and 100 works of art per day. “There are more possibilities, more discoveries, but there is also more competition. There is a new generation that likes the
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