Our Times December 2002

time saver
Big Blue has launched a laundry service for university students in the US. The system, called eSuds, links washers and dryers to the Internet. Students can keep tabs on the progress of their washing. When a load finishes, an email or paged message is sent to the student. There are around 9000 smart washers slated for installation on 40 campuses.

a picky fence
South African carjackers returned a stolen car to a woman because it was the wrong colour. The woman and her daughters had just arrived home when three men forced her into the back of her white Volvo before driving her to meet another man. He was unhappy with their poor taste in colour, so the carjackers gave the woman her car along with directions on how to get back to her home.

hangover
In New Zealand the cost of harm relating to alcohol is estimated at up to $NZ16 billion per annum. This includes health, judicial, policing and social welfare costs—all borne by taxpayers.

peculiar art
Wouter Jansen, a Dutch artist, used his 82-year-old mother as part of an artwork. Mrs Jansen, who suffers severe dementia, must sit in his cabin on the island of Texel as part of his exhibit. Jansen explained that his mother always liked the beach, and he was merely trying to get back the old emotions and feelings they had when they used to visit it when he was a child. Seventeen artists had been asked to redecorate 17 beach cabins on the island for a special exhibition.

a warming warning
Changes in climate may be contributing to the disappearance of Antarctic seabirds. The melting of sea ice, caused by global warming, appears linked to falling populations of the Emperor penguin, Adelie penguin and snow petrel, the British Antarctic Survey reports. Assessing the biological impact of the climatic changes of recent years is difficult because of the complex nature of the eco-system. However, the birds rely on sea ice to some extent, which has been decreasing.

snakes alive!
The pemiere of a new Hollywood movie in India has been threatened due to a Hindu nationalist group threat to release venomous snakes in the cinema. Shiv Sena members say the film Kaante has been financed by Indian underworld groups. The group believes that the underworld figures behind the film are the same as those who triggered a 1993 bomb in Bombay, which killed 260 people. Having tried peaceful protests, which haven’t been successful, they’ve upped the ante.

engraved in stone
Graves in the Waverley Cemetery in Sydney could become advertising spaces. In plans being put together by the local council and the cemetery’s owners, firms could pay for the upkeep of the graves of well-known Aussies. In return, there would be a bronze plaque on the grave acknowledging their contributions. One grave, that of pioneer aviator Lawrence Hargrave, already has a sponsor—the Royal Aeronautical Society.

digitally safe
Digital mobile phones can be used safely in hospitals and only cause interference on small, relatively unsophisticated pieces of medical equipment, and within a 50 cm radius. Don’t take your analogue phone (remember them?) or emergency-service radio to hospital.

moggie
Curious young Buddhist monks in an ancient monastery in Yangon, capital of Myanmar, keep an eye on their not-so-shy pet cat. Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is a beautiful land of harsh contradictions, where grinding poverty abounds despite the modern face of urban Myanmar. Though not immune to Western cultural and business influences, Myanmar’s ruling military junta keeps a stranglehold on the country’s politics, economic development and religious life.—AFP/AAP

100 Years ago in Signs

The following appeared in the Signs 100 years ago.
(Signs was then known as the Bible Echo and Signs of the Times.)
The Salisbury Government has adopted the “Habitual Drunkard’s Bill,” which provides for the prohibition of liquor to habitual drunkards; the establishement of a “black list” of those twice convicted of offences under the Inebriate’s Act, to whom the sale of liquor shall henceforth be forbidden, and making it a punishable offence to be drunk while in charge of a child in a public place.

Extract from Signs of the Times, December 2002.

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