Lorcan Coyle's Home on Tinterweb

For those of us who grew up playing with the Commodore 64 before shifting to big PC boxes it felt like a step backward from a aesthetics perspective to move from a PC encased in a keyboard to a (not-much-smaller) keyboard attached to a big ugly box that sat under the desk. KC has been talking for years about the inevitability of a shift backward to flatter computers in keyboards and for a while it looked like everyone was simply content to down-shift to a laptop. I have to say, Asus have revealed something that should satisfy everyone. It's a fabulously flat keyboard that has everything you'd need to connect to a larger screen. Oh, and it also has a 5 inch touch screen on it too, just in case you're on the road (or if you don't need the larger screen space)! Engadget has a story here with sexy photos, well worth a look. Needless to say, I want!
(Thanks Richie)

I just had to share this:

(From yogan's archive of lulz. Thank you Yogan!)
I've been watching VP candidate Palin on youtube, have you? Did you know she reads all the news?

And did you see the Saturday Night Live clip that totally misrepresented her?

There have been some bizarre cases of animals being taken to court in historical times but recently a court in Bitola in Macedonia has found a bear guilty of theft. Zoran Kiseloski took a case against the bear after it stole honey from him. The man initially dealt with the bear himself by buying a generator and setting up lights and pumping turbo-folk music (by Ceca, a popular Serbian musician) to drive away the discerning bear. However, the criminal mastermind bid his time and lay in wait for the generator to run out whereupon he pounced and committed the crime. Apparently the trial has taken a year to finish but justice was served and the criminal fined 140,000 denar (about $3,500). The government paid the fine to Kiseloski, because, unfortunately, the bear proved smarter than the authorities, and is still at large. I'll bet neither Kiseloski nor Ceca will get a proper night's sleep till the criminal is locked up...

This story got a lot of press, the best of it was on the Times online.

Oscar Pistorious is a South African sprinter hoping to compete in the Beijing Olympics. His nickname is the "Blade Runner" because of the shape of his legs. Actually, he has no feet at all and has been dubbed "the fasted thing on no legs". Pistorious' legs were amputated below the knees as a baby (he was born without fibula bones in his legs) and he wears artificial limbs. He calls these his cheetah blades, made by Össur, who are supporting him in his bid. He has broken the 100m, 200m, and 400m records repeatedly in Paralympic grades and his eyes are now set on competing with the fastest able-bodied athletes in the world in Beijing in the summer. However, there's a snag. The International Association of Athletics Federations have ruled that his cheetah blades give him an unfair advantage against able-bodied athletes and in January banned him from competing in the Olympics. He has a chance to appeal this decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport at the end of April. If his appeal is successful I wouldn't bet on him winning medals in Beijing (his best 400m time is still more than three seconds off the world record, and almost a second behind Olympic qualifying time) but that's not what the Olympics are about. Even so, he's only been running competitively since 2004, and he's improving at a phenomenal rate, constantly breaking his own world records. I'd expect him to break more personal records in Beijing but the more interesting question might be what could happen between now and the London Olympics in 2012.

It's not what you think... On Halloween last year, south of San Francisco, two drunken lads out to impress their lady friends decided to visit an ostrich ranch. They climbed into a paddock and woke Gaylord - a 130kg male ostrich - who was not impressed with their antics. He attacked the pair, breaking ribs, and giving the ladies something to be impressed with. The pair beat a hasty retreat and returned with guns to settle the score, as you do when you haven't grown up watching Sesame Street. The story ended earlier this month with jail sentences for the two. I'd hate to be either of those lads on the bus to prison and be asked what I was doing time for... (thanks graeme.)

With the rugby world cup final on tonight, here's a movie of one of the tournament's stars - Bryan "Cheetah Chaser" Habana:

This would explain the nickname ;-) Expect him to run riot with the English tonight...

On May 20th the VNN Vanguard Nazi/KKK tried to hold a rally in Knoxville, Tennessee. However, they didn't count on facing down the 100th Anti Racist Action Clown Block. The clowns found it difficult to understand the racists and a breakdown in communication led the leader of the racist group to lunge at them in a fit of rage and get himself arrested. Asheville Indymedia ran a great story on the event... well worth a read. Nedless to say the stoopid noses went home with their tails between their legs and the clowns triumphed... well done clowns!

So doomsday came and went and nothing happened. You know, Stoern's Orbo technology, it was going to change everything. Well, unfortunately for all, and unsurprisingly for some, there were some problems and Stoern had to postpone their much anticipated demo. The machinist is running a wonderful piece of schadenfreude on Stoern's problems. I mean over-heating... it's as if there is more energy coming out than is being put in. That's just impossible, right?

Customs officers at Cairo's airport stopped a man, Yahia Rahim Tulba, from boarding a plane for Saudi Arabia. He was found to be carrying 700 live snakes in a carry on bag. I'm not sure where Samuel L. Jackson was at the time, but if those snakes had gotten on board, I'm sure he'd have had something to say about the situation (thanks steve):

So Bertie finally announced an election date for the next Dáil - May 24th. Graeme ran a piece two weeks ago on Political Compasses showing his score and a comparison of UK political party scores, and said that he could find no suitable UK party to match his score.