xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on a high-tech device with seemingly a multitude of uses in lessening our crushing overload of banality: a boredom detector. A talker, via a wearable camera and software that measures facial expressions and movements, could know whether he has lost touch with a listener (via signals from eyebrows, lips, nose, etc.). The device was designed for the autistic (who are typically oblivious of other people’s reactions), but would be useful to anyone underskilled at being interesting. So far, the software is said to be accurate 64 percent of the time, according to a March report in New Scientist.
Among men’s colognes recently launched: the Elizabeth Arden-NASCAR “Daytona 500” fragrance and the Ecuadorean Football Federation’s set of three soccer-motif scents, ranging from a “sporting” aroma to “an intense smell ideal for after work.”
Butte, Mont., has long been unhappy with the presence of the Berkeley Pit, a huge, putrid, toxic lake filled by runoff from arsenic, copper, cadmium, cobalt, iron and zinc mines. Last year, however, the town began to figure out that tourists would actually pay to see the 500-acre, 900-foot-deep, foul, wretched mess. Attendance was so good that the admission price was recently increased.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD
