The New Zeland police have launched a wiki open at anyone wanting to edit and make suggestions to the Police Act as part of a wider revamp. New Zealand's current Police Act is nearly 50 years old. In March 2006 a review undertaken. Following this a new website wiki.policeact.govt.nz has been launched to allow people to suggest wording for the new Policing Act. It uses similar wiki technology to the popular user-generated site Wikipedia. The wiki version of the Policing Act will be viewed by New Zealand parliamentarians, before an official bill is introduced into Parliament.

Via BoingBoing!

New Zealand puts its law on a wiki for public editing

Okay, so a customer of mine HAD to install Outlook (in order to sync his stuff to his iPhone, which conveniently enough does not work with any other mail software, apparently). Anyway, Microsoft has a funky package design and we couldn't figure out how to open it without using enough force to break the disc inside (an x-ray machine and band-saw were unavailable at the time.) So, while we played with the Rubik's cube, we called Microsoft technical support just to screw with them (we did figure it out before they did) but they eventually sent us this Flickr page showing how to do it.

It feels good to know we weren't the only ones, but was also nice that they only transferred us twice and none of them really knew either. For that matter, they probably never handled the product.

Anyway, I wish they would stop trying to make cool packages like Apple, and just make programs that work right. We're two hours into the installation now...

How to open Microsoft Office 2007 Product Box

At CitiGroup's Technology Summit in New York this week, Google's Business Product Manager for Ads Quality Nicholas Fox said the company will be moving ahead with integration of video and image ads within sponsored search results. Does that mean you will soon be seeing TV commercials at the top of Google search results page?

Sigh... Okay, everyone meet at my place to work on the next search engine. Then we can sell out.

Nevermind that 'no evil' thing - Google gets video ads

The Associated Press is reporting that microchip implants have induced cancer in laboratory animals and dogs. A series of research articles spanning more than a decade found that mice and rats injected with glass-encapsulated RFID transponders developed malignant, fast-growing, lethal cancers in up to 1% to 10% of cases. The tumors originated in the tissue surrounding the microchips and often grew to completely surround the devices. To date, about 2,000 RFID devices have been implanted in humans worldwide, according to VeriChip Corp." We recently discussed the California ban on companies requiring such implants.

Via
Via SlashDot

Wow! Okay, I'm not a big fan of putting RFID in people to begin with, but my understanding is that they were designed to be as inert as possible. So, if such a tiny little thing causes cancer, what is going to happen with replacement knees, pacemakers, artificial hearts, and other medically necessary implants - not to mention my surgically implanted Internet connection of the future?

Implanted RFID Chips Linked To Cancer

An intrepid Wikipedian named Nikola Smolenski has calculated how much paper it would take to print out the English entries in Wikipedia and produced this handy chart showing the relative sizes of the pile of paper and an adult male. This doesn't include the History or Discuss pages...

Via Digg

How much paper would it take to print out Wikipedia?

Many of Leonardo’s inventions have been put to the test in recent times, indeed a number of them, such as his hang glider have been the subject of absorbing television documentaries. Because it appeared that no one had previously attempted to recreate the great mans lathe, to see if it was a viable and practical machine, the Worshipful company of Turners decided that such a project would be a fitting part of their quarto-centenary celebrations.

I was commissioned to recreate the lathe in time for the June exhibition, ‘Wizardry in Wood’, held at the Pewterers Hall, London. Although the concept is very simple, with the original being a collaboration between turner and blacksmith, the end result is a surprisingly powerful machine. The kinetic energy produced via foot treadle and flywheel is amazing. This is only one small step in historical science but we have proved that yet again Leonardo got there first, and yes it does work!

Leonardo Da Vinci's lathe