Latest example of electronic convergence merges digital camera, ‘net, and refrigerator. Electrolux is designing a system that automatically takes a picture of the contents every time you close your refrigerator door, and uploads it to a web server. If you’re at the store and don’t remember whether you’re out of, say, cheese, use your mobile phone or PDA to wirelessly browse to the latest photo and scan what you’ve got in the fridge at home. I think it is overkill, of course; my own digital approach to shopping is to make a shopping list on my Palm device before I leave the house, scanning the innards of the refrigerator in real time. You might say it is so passé to use a text-based method when I could have a GUI at my fingertips for the task, but hey, what can I say?

If it were to become widespread, what was beginning to worry me about this Electrolux system (although I feel a whole lot better having heard that John Poindexter was axed from DARPA) was the possibility that the authorities would obtain an archive of the old photos from my fridge — likely that Electrolux would leave them a back door into the web server — and be able to derive a running catalogue of my family’s food consumption patterns. They might even find some — gasp! — Middle Eastern food in there from time to time, not to mention Korean cuisine. From how quickly it disappeared, the feds could surmise the relish with which we ate it, from which they could naturally draw the most damaging conclusions about our political leanings. But one potential advantage of the system far outweighs even the most egregious potential privacy violations. It will settle once and for all the burning controversy about whether the light inside the fridge stays on when you close the door. There really is no other way. electricnews.net

And while we’re on the topic of useless gadgetry, here’s a company that sells mice with built-in fans to keep your hand from getting hot and sweaty during your websurfing. I could make a facetious comment about how, depending on the content of your surfing, your hand might get most hot and sweaty when it leaves your mouse for locations further south… but I won’t.

On the other hand (sorry), when the price comes down somewhat, I want one of these.

Top Five Most Commonly Diagnosed Cancers in the U.S. by Ethnic Group, 1995-1999 North American Association of Central Cancer Registries

Refusing help, woman gives birth aboard T (which is Bostonese for streetcar or subway):

“A 42-year-old Braintree woman gave birth to a baby boy while standing on an inbound Red Line train yesterday morning, refusing help from stunned passengers who heard her moan and seconds later looked down to find her baby on the floor…

” ‘Thanks for your concern, we’re OK,’ ” she said, according to Chris Chin of Duxbury. Standing 4 feet away from Judge, Chin said, he saw her tie the umbilical cord in a knot and wrap the baby in a silk scarf. ”She cradled the baby in one arm and grabbed the handrail with the other and continued to ride the T and stare out the window.”

…At one point, Judge took some nearby newspapers and placed them on the floor to soak up the blood. Some witnesses heard Judge apologize for the mess.

After leaving the train and heading for the stairs up to the station’s main lobby, witnesses said, the placenta fell to the platform. Judge turned around, grabbed the afterbirth, put it in her shoulder bag, and headed upstairs. ” Boston Globe

Authorities, witnesses, and press are puzzled by the woman’s refusal of help (what could anyone do, it strikes me?) and she is currently undergoing a psychiatric evaluation. The baby appeas to be doing fine.

Stereo Images — or one might call it simulated stereo — by having the left and right images rapidly alternate in an animated .gif. Sort of as if you’re looking at the scene while an earthquake passes through, but it does create the 3D effect. [via Random Walks]

“Harsher sentences do not deter people from committing crimes, says a new report by University of Toronto criminologists.

One of the objectives of sentencing under the Canadian Criminal Code is to attempt to deter people from committing crimes, says U of T professor Anthony Doob, who authored the report, Sentence Severity and Crime: Accepting the Null Hypothesis. ‘The implication of the law is that harsher sentences will make us safe but our research findings suggest this isn’t true.’

Doob and post-doctoral fellow Cheryl Webster examined literature and studies on the deterrent impact of sentences in the U.S., Canada, England and Australia over the past 30 years. They found that the majority of studies suggest harsher sentences do not reduce crime. ‘It’s not the penalty that causes people to pause before they commit a crime; it’s the likelihood of being apprehended,’ says Doob.

Instead of using harsher crimes to discourage people from breaking the law, he says more resources are needed for social and educational programs for children and youth at various stages in their lives. ‘Programs that help kids to thrive in school are good educational investments but they’re also good crime prevention investments.'” EurekAlert!

“John Poindexter, the retired Navy admiral who spearheaded two sharply criticized Pentagon projects, intends to resign from his Defense Department post within weeks, a senior U.S. defense official said on Thursday.

‘It’s my understanding that he … expects to, within a few weeks, offer his resignation,’ the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters.

Poindexter was involved with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s abandoned futures-trading market for predicting assassinations, terrorism and other events in the Middle East, and earlier with the so-called Total Information Awareness program that drew fire from civil rights groups.” Reuters As little as I will shed a tear for the departure of this repugnant and arrogant man, it should be realized that this is only another in a series of straw men who are taking the fall for BushCo’s impaired judgment.

Jewish Groups Against Pipes’ Nomination: “A broad coalition of Jewish peace groups today called upon President Bush to withdraw his controversial nomination of Daniel Pipes to the Board of Directors of the United States Institute of Peace.

The Jewish peace groups also lauded the decision of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee last week to table a scheduled vote on Pipes’ nomination to the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum, a rightwing think tank based in Philadelphia, and a prolific author of articles depicting Islam as a danger to Western civilization and to Jews in particular. Pipes has referred to

Muslim immigrants as ‘brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene.’ In another article, he wrote that ‘all immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most.'” CommonDreams [via walker]

“When Vice President Dick Cheney comes out of seclusion to brand critics ‘irresponsible,’ you know the administration is running scared… With the administration taking the heat on 9/11, the vice president is once again making wildly unsubstantiated claims about Iraqi WMD.” AlterNet