Your tattoo is ringing.
Nokia applies for vibrating skin patent
So, how much more connected to your mobile phone do you want to be? Phone giant Nokia might have the answer for those especially daring among you. It has described details of a patent that would allow users to have a tattoo, stamp or spray on their skin using a ‘ferromagnetic’ material which links to another device. Mobile, tablet, laptop, you name it.
When your phone rings, or you get a new calendar alert, your skin rings too. Or, more accurately, vibrates.
Different vibrations would mean different things such a low battery, a phone call or text message, a reminder of a meeting or birthday, or even who is calling.
So, sound like something you’d be into?
Firefighters in drag called on to put out car fire
Well this might brighten your day. These US firefighters were wearing women’s clothes as part of a fundraising parade (as you do) when there was an emergency call for a vehicle fire. Rather than wait, they grabbed the hose and dashed to the rescue in all their dressed up splendour.
Models in advertisements in Israel
Prove you’re not malnourished, Israel says to models
Israel has passed a law this week that requires models to be in the ‘healthier’ weight ranges before they can work.
The new law requires models to produce a medical report no older than three months at every shoot for the Israeli market, stating that they are not malnourished by World Health Organization standards.
The U.N. agency relies on the body mass index, calculated by factors of weight and height. WHO says a body mass index below 18.5 indicates malnutrition. According to that standard, a woman 1.72 meters tall (5-feet-8) should weigh no less than 119 pounds (54 kilograms). On top of this, any advertisement for the Israeli market must disclose if it digitally ‘thinned’ its models.
It is estimated half of Israel’s 300 models would need to gain weight to work again. Critics said the laws should have focused on health and not weight.
Opponents of Indigenous Intervention to rally in Canberra
Opposition to the extended measures of the Northern Territory Indigenous Intervention, slightly changed under the Labor Government and called ‘Stronger Futures’, will meet in Canberra today to deliver a petition of 33,000 signatures against the bills which passed the House of Reps and will soon be debated in the Senate.
Farifax reported:
The legislation includes measures to expand income management, extend alcohol restrictions and pornography bans, continue limits on courts considering cultural practice or customary law in bail and sentencing decisions, and allow for the continuation of a program under which parents of truant children can have their welfare payments suspended.
A Senate committee report tabled last week warned that proposed tougher penalties for alcohol offences could exacerbate already alarming rates of Aboriginal incarceration, and recommended minor offences be dealt with through infringement notices. Senators also expressed concern about proposals to allow state and territory authorities to refer people for income management, which means a portion of their income may only be spent on essentials such as food and clothing.
Aussie kids some of the the most chauffeured
An Australian Heart Foundation survey has shown Australian kids take dramatically less public transport and cycle or walk far less than they used to. Some 64 per cent of kids are driven, either by the family or a carpool, while some 56 per cent caught public transport, biked or walked. Respondents could choose more than one transport option.
”There’s been an increase in parents’ perceptions of the danger, including where a child is kidnapped in Portugal, the UK or the USA, suddenly everybody knows about it around the world. But you could argue the greatest risk is sitting at home eating chips because that will probably do them more harm in the long run,” said Deakin University’s Dr Jan Garrard.
Billionaire miner Clive Palmer thinks CIA out to get coal
While announcing his thoughts on the passage of the Australian Government’s mining tax (a 30 per cent tax on big miners once profits hit $75 million) Queensland mining magnate Clive Palmer let slip that he thought greens groups were on the payroll of America’s infamous Central Intelligence Agency.
Clive Palmer at his 'bizarre' press conference yesterday
Mr Palmer turned his attention to a report by Greenpeace and other anti-coal groups, titled Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom, which outlined an environmental campaign designed to disrupt and delay the expansion of the industry.
“This is funded by the CIA,” he said.
“You only have to go back and read … the report to the US Congress that sets up the Rockefeller Foundation as a conduit of CIA funding.
“You only have to look at the secret budget which was passed by Congress last year – bigger than our whole national economy – with the CIA to ensure that.
“You only have to read the reports to US Congress where the CIA reported to the president that their role was to ensure the US competitive advantage – that’s how you know it’s funded by the CIA.”
Mayor of ‘The Shire’ vows to stop Jersey Shore-like show
Sutherland Mayor Carol Provan says she and her council will use ‘any means possible’ to prevent producers filming in the notorious Sutherland region of Sydney (otherwise known as the Shire) for its new ‘dramality’ show in the same style as MTV’s Jersey Shore and Britain’s The Only Way is Essex.
Fairfax reported:
On March 19 the council reportedly put forward a motion at a council meeting saying they did “not approve the filming of The Shire and [would] not co-operate in any way with the production”.
“We saw a leaked clip of the show, all the councillors saw it and here’s this girl saying “I want to be a porn star”, there was a guy saying “I like false boobs”, another one saying “I’m going to shove her down the stairs” and of course the red lights went on,” Ms Provan said.
“It’s taken us a long time to heal from the Sylvania Waters reality show and then of course we had that drama (the Cronulla riots) five years ago, we’re only just getting over all that and we just don’t need this type of publicity. Our legal people are now trying to find ways to stop them.”
Comments
40 Comments so far
Wow Israel, love the good intentions but in practicality how effective will it be in bringing about real changes in how the models’ health & appearance are perceived? Not likely.
Because, um, people don’t get real medical certificates to cover for “fake” sick days so they can stay employed, do they, lol????
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‘Critics said the laws should have focused on health and not weight.’ How exactly would this be established? It’s a good start I reckon.
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LOL! At the firefighters! Well, I guess, when it’s an emergency…. and not like a burning building, where there’s more chance of having to go in, so needing the protective gear… wonder what the car owner / passers-by made of it! I guess at least one person thought to film it!
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I walked to school from year 1 on, I walked my little brother to school when he started too. I always thought my kids would walk to school too but we now live on a main road which is a long, steep hill and has no bus route. The schools we are looking at are both on the other side of an even busier road (3 lanes each way) so it’s looking like we’ll be driving to school especially as I’ll be back at work full time when my youngest starts so I’ll be driving to work and dropping them off on the way.
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People will always use the BMI in the wrong way, won’t they. It is intended to be a guide, a rough way to chart things such as how a population changes over time. A way to plot a persons height and weight on a chart and see where they are within the normal (normal!) distribution. Normal being it’s expected to have some people up the top and some down the bottom, most somewhere in between. To be used with other indicators such as % body fat, measurements etc!!
I had a friend in high school who was a stick. She ate like a horse. Her brother was the same. She was not unhealthy, she was herself.
I think Israel’s idea is good, to be applauded, they’ve just chosen an unfortunate yardstick which lets the whole thing down a bit.
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For an update: Palmer is rapidly backpedalling from his comments and now refers to Bob Brown as a patriot and that his political opponents are actually people who want the best for this country.
Now if only that was the new standard adopted by everyone in the political arena, that would be awesome.
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I saw someone tweet: “THE CIA GOT TO HIM. THEY GOT HIM.”
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While I think ti’s great that the Iraeli’s are trying to do something increase health in it’s modelling industry, BMI is not in anyway accurate and should only be used as a guide.
According to my BMI, as a 5’1, 61 kilo girl, I’m in the overweight range. I’m a size 8 – 10 and looking at me there is no way you would say that I’m overweight.
The phone thing, I don’t understand the over-reliance on technology. Yes i live in a digital world, but am I the only person who uses my phone to call and text, set my alarm and that’s about it? I guess I”m lucky that I don’t have to rely on technology to live my life but i think for someone to actually get this tattoo/spray/stamp it’s a little pathetic.
Most chauffered, I believe that it’s definitely becoming this way. The only times I was ever driven to school was if it was storming, or I had camp (even then I sometimes came home on my own) or a project that i couldn’t carry on public transport or whilst walking. I quite enjoyed this as it gave me time to hang with my sister or friends or just time on my own away from everybody
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The issue of whether to drive kids to school or not is a tricky one. On the one hand, I’m completely aware that we have an over-inflated sense of the dangers thanks to media blow-ups of stories like Daniel Morcombe.
On the other hand, even from my own childhood I can remember two instances of attempted abductions of people I knew walking home from school. I also remember one instance of playing on the beach with the young girls from next door when two random teenage boys came along and tried to hold one of the girls head under water (why? no idea) By sheer luck her father was watching us play from his front veranda and ran down. And I remember various weirdos hanging out around our school campus, including one flasher who accosted girls walking up the laneway to school.
These were not stories that would have made the papers or the news, or been beamed across the planet.
So, yes, the horrific murders are perhaps given more weight than they deserve, statistically – but for every murder there must be plenty of gropers and attempted abductions and flashers and so on.
Anyway. I’m actually pro-walking-to-school, I just think we should be careful with the argument that only one kid every couple of years comes to harm doing so, because dodgy types ARE around and always have been. My girl is a long way off school age but I’m not sure what I’ll do when the time comes.
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Argh, you are right about the lesser offences happening more often. I have been flashed 3 times! Once was when I was walking to school – i would have been in year 6, once was when I was about 15 out the front of the local shopping mall and once more recently when I was 25 at a park when my friends and I were having a picnic.
At uni I had the pleasure of seeing some disgusting man masturbating in public and when I was in primary school an old pervert called my house phone and asked me lewd questions. When I told my mum about it she hung a whistle next to the phone for future incidents!
It’s a pretty sad record, but on the bright side I guess these experiences taught me a lot about being careful and observant when walking around.
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That’s it. I would have to accept if/when my daughter walks to school, there will be very likely be at least a few times she’s encourntered with a situation where she’s uncomfortable, or scared for her safety. And that’s life, we can’t walk around wrapped in cotton wool.
I guess we just have to make judgement calls on when they’re old enough to handle it and when the risks are acceptable.
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I think the issue is less about parents driving their kids and more about the lack of public transport options. Particularly in many Melbourne suburbs (where I live) it can take up to two hours to reach public transport by foot (and bus, train services come in 10 years after everyone has moved in). We need more government spending to make public transport safe and reliable and then we’ll see less driving.
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Well done Israel! This reminds me of the debate about racism on Insight (SBS) last night… on the fact that Australian media still portrays a vast majority of caucasian images and thus don’t represent the Australian population accurately. An advertising professional mentioned that for the Advertising industry to change that, society would have to change first (i.e: our aspirations rather than the true reflection of society). I say the Industry should be brave enough to make the move and see the opportunities in doing so rather than the imagined shortcomings!
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I’m so glad my kids are independent and can navigate their way around on public transport from home to school and back. And if they miss their normal bus they can walk to a different stop and still find their way home. I dont think parents who drive their kids to and from school over the age of around 10 are doing them any favours long term. Kids need space and freedom away from their parent to grow and learn how to stand on their own feet. I do think some parents like to be in such control of their kids lives this is one thing they dont want to give up.
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I hope ‘The Shire’ does get made, I would watch the shit out of that show!!
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Where I live, parents even drive their kids to the bus stop! The concept of driving kids to school business seems like a fairly new thing as all my friends and I had to walk, ride bikes or catch the bus and I’m only in my 20s.
My brother and I walked the 2 kms to primary school. Our high school was really far away so we caught 2 buses. When I lived in the US they had a rule that if you lived more than 2 miles from school you were not allowed to walk (legal liability issue i suppose), so we caught the bus.
Wouldn’t it be a lot less stressful for parents trying to get out the door to just choose the public transport option? I am interested to know, why the trend towards driving? Unless you live in a warzone, its not like it is dangerous to walk on a footpath during the day.
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I know that non-Melbourne people might have been quite puzzled by the depth of feeling for Jim Stynes, & I think this article goes some way towards explaining it:
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/he-has-really-shaped-who-i-am-today-and-im-scared-of-what-life-is-going-to-be-like-without-jim-here-20120320-1vi37.html
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We’re working on a Jim tribute ourselves. He’s a special man.
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When my eldest daughter started Kindy, I assumed she’d walk or ride every day – the school is only 750m away – to say the school is at the end of our street isn’t much of an exaggeration.
But during the orientation days I was told that the school (or council) rules were that children aren’t allowed to walk or ride to school by themselves until year three. The school wouldn’t even let Kindy kids walk out of the classroom without a parent there to pick them up.
I was told that if I let my (now in year one, six turning seven year old) daughter ride or walk to school by herself, the school would contact either the police or child services. I’m even told that by the time my 3 year old starts kindy – in 2014 when my eldest will be in year three: eight turning NINE years old – that she isn’t an acceptable ‘pick up’ person for my second eldest.
At nine years of age.
Parents are forced to change their routines, and children develop their habits during those first couple of years.
The Heart Foundation is all well and good suggesting building new cycle roads near schools, but they won’t be used if the result is cops at your door. By the time children are legally allowed to dare to walk to school, it is too late. Plus if the kids have younger siblings, Mum or Dad has to make the trip anyway.
The missing part of the Heart Foundation’s investigation is school and local council laws and practices. Officially: walking and cycling are discouraged. Want proof? http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/police-threat-to-parents-on-children-walking-alone-20120208-1rezj.html
Australian children aren’t cosseted, they are handcuffed to their parents by law.
(Disclaimer: my daughter does walk to school most days, my wife is currently playing SAHM and piles the twins in a pram and walks down to the school twice a day with Miss 3 in tow. Heavy downpour days are driven)
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I find it hard to believe that it’s Council rules; do they even have any influence over that? It sounds more like school policy than Council regulations.
We live in the same situation; the school is around the same distance from our house and our boys walk to and from school each day. They’ve been doing it since the youngest was in Kindy.
I say discuss this with your school. Take this news report and any other related information you can to the school and see what can be done. Perhaps there was an incident in the past which caused the rule to be created? How about making suggestions like a walking bus (older kids lead a group of children to and from school)?
Just some thoughts…
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Yeah, I wasn’t sure if it was council or not, but the end result was made pretty clear when I had the discussion a year and a half ago – they’d report it to the cops, who seem happy enough to pop by and lecture parents.
Though, food for thought – I think I will bring it up at the P&C and write to the Principal.
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An OCcupational therapist friend recently told me kids don’t get the visual perceptual skills to safely be near traffic til around 11. Before then they can hear/see traffic but cant pinpoint exactly where. Hence crossing roads and even walking on side road is dangerous.
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So they can catch balls from the air, but can’t percieve where a car is ‘exactly’?
Let’s say it’s true (and hell, who am I to dispute it) isn’t that the point of ‘look left, right and left again’ rhymes and whatnot? To assist children with traffic?
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That’s exactly what I thought – you get taught from really young how to cross roads.
I think people underestimate a) what they teach their kids and b) what their kids are capable of.
When I was in Infants and Primary school, at the end of the day we got divvied up according to which gate we walked from, and a teacher saw us to the gate and made sure we were cool to go – met up with brothers and sisters in other years, etc. Then off we all went in a big group that got progressively smaller the further you went and kids diverted off to their own places. At school pick-up time at the school round the corner from here, the joint looks like Pitt St, but there’s no-one just waiting in a car or even outside chatting. It’s eerie.
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I think the point is a car is a lot different from a ball! And come on, my 9 year old doesn’t catch his ball everytime!
Road safety is serious. Visual perception is serious. Your kid can’t do both til 11 so help them stay safe til then!
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I think Anon has changed my mind about the study – Australian children ARE cosseted.
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“dramality” – I like it! Stolen!
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If the models need to put on weight to work, good. It’s not like being just under the healthy BMI, so how is that healthy long term?
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BMI is not the be all and end all. Health is so much more important than weight and you can deviate from the normal range on the BMI scale and still be healthy.
Doctors certificates saying they are healthy and getting the right nutrition I support, but you don’t need a doctor to work out your BMI. Your doctor works out the things BMI can’t.
As for the Shire…ugh. I thought reality TV couldn’t get worse, but I was wrong.
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Was about to say the same thing! Ive always been under my BMI cause I’m so tall and slender and I’m definetly not malnourished.
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Ditto, Kate O! Aside from the tall bit…I’m more average-short height. But still, underweight and “malnourished” by BMI standards; healthy, nourished and naturally thin by my doctor’s standards!
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The CIA? Funding Greenpeace? Even if the CIA supported an anti-coal political goal (and why would they?) there is no need to intervene: Greenpeace would push that barrel all by itself anyway! It makes no sense. Plus if it succeeded, it would backfire on the US – because Greenpeace opperates there as well.
That said: Why do I have the horrible feeling that soon this will be a geniune part of the political debate? That at some time in the future, there will be a comments debate on MM with exchanged googled links either “proving” or “disproving” CIA funding of Greenpeace?
Clive Palmer has Lindsay Lohan disease: no one ever disagrees with him, everyone around him is invested in supporting his world view, no matter how bizzare.
Clive Palmer just jumped the shark. At what point do we stop listening to a looney billionaire on the natioanl political stage?
And it has to be said, this is another example of the media failing us. Half the linked article is the media asking Greenpeace and the Greens if this is true! Why doesn’t the media take a stance and say “The facts are, Palmer’s claims are unfounded and not supported by any known facts”.
The more you read of the linked BT article, the more looney it is. Treason? Really?
At least we can look forward to comedy when we hear Tony Abbott’s carefully scripted non-disagreement later today.
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Yes. You said exactly what I was thinking while I sat and goggled in disbelief at that article. Loony billionaire is exactly right. And it will be no time at all before Sydney’s shock jocks will be pretending they think this is true. I really despair.
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Clive Palmer is a 24 carat nut-bag
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The Shire trying to stop filming? Oh please! They film what happens… It’s trashy in the shire!
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Oh really? The entire Sutherland Shire is trashy?
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yep. all of it.
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I love a bit a reality tv….can’t wait for the shire and I pray it’s like Geordie shore…my current fav.
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Happy Harmony Day !
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Right backatcha!
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