Friday, June 30, 2006

An Australian has been shot in the abdomen in Thailand. The 22-year-old man from Wagga Wagga, Lee Burkinshaw, was shot in the Chantaburi province during a drive by shooting. He was evacuated to Bangkok hospital after receiving some treatment at a local hospital. An operation is needed to remove the bullet from his abdomen. He is expected to make a full recovery.

His spleen was removed but no vital organs have been damaged.

His father received a call at 2 a.m. AEST.

Lee went to Thailand to study the gem cutting.

“It is the gem capital of the world, and a lot of the rough cut gemstones come into there to be cut and styled,” Mr. Burkingsaw said.

He is undeterred from revisiting Thailand.

“This is purely a one-off incident … Thailand is a wonderful country, it’s just an unfortunate incident,” said Lee.

This is the second incident in recent weeks in which an Australian had been shot in Thailand. Last week a nurse was killed when she was shot in the neck near a bar.

Sunday, February 13, 2005Cordon-bleu chef Homaru Cantu has announced a technique which allows him to create dishes made of edible, inkjet printed paper. Cantu, a head chef at the Moto restaurant in Chicago, has modified an ink-jet printer with the help of computer specialists from local firm Deep Labs and loaded it with cartridges containing concoctions of fruit and vegetables. Using this modified printer Cantu then prints onto edible sheets of soybean and potato starch tasty images downloaded from the web.

“You can make an ink-jet printer do just about anything,” says Cantu. Once the items have been printed they are dipped into a powder made of soy sauce, sugar and vegetables before then being further processed by frying, freezing, or baking them.

Cantu has applied the technique to the printing of menus so that diners can further flavor their soups by ripping up the menu and adding it to the dish.

He hopes that his idea may find its way into popular media. “Just imagine going through a magazine and looking at an ad for pizza. You wonder what it tastes like, so you rip a page out and eat it,” says the chef who is working at perfecting the flavors and has applied for a patent on the technique.

Cantu also has plans for further culinary innovations. He plans to cook steak using a handheld laser that will sear the inside of the steak well done whilst leaving the outside medium rare. He also plans to use the laser to produce bread baked from the inside out thus producing a crust on the inside.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

JetBlue Flight 292, en route to New York’s JFK Airport from Burbank, California, encountered nose gear malfunctions shortly after takeoff. It safely landed three hours later at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) with no apparent injuries.

The pilots first realized something was wrong when the landing gear failed to retract; television footage showed that the plane’s front wheels were pointing sideways, perpendicular to the plane’s body. The plane was diverted to Long Beach Airport, where it tried and failed to land, and then on to LAX, which has better emergency facilities. The aircraft circled near the airport for several hours to burn fuel; the Airbus A320 aircraft is not designed to dump fuel.

Commentators predicted that the nose gear would either snap off, immediately twist to parallel upon touch down, or withstand the friction from the landing while remaining at a 90 degree angle.

At approximately 6:19PM local time, almost three hours after takeoff, the aircraft successfully managed to touch down. The pilot landed the plane first on its two rear wheels, keeping its nose in the air as long as possible until it slowed enough that the nose could be safely lowered. The front tires remained at a 90 degree angle and were incinerated through the friction. A cloud of white smoke and sparks burst out from behind the nose gear as the plane traveled down the runway. As the airplane finally stopped, the pilot had managed to keep the plane no more than 6 inches from the runway’s centerline. Officials were prepared with a brigade of fire engines as well as fire retardant foam in case the front wheel ignited. The plane was evacuated a few minutes later.

Reports indicate that the pilots acted in a “calm and professional manner.”

JetBlue flight 292 was in a unique situation as each seat in the plane was equipped with live TV through DirecTV. Several of the stations carried on the LiveTV system had cameras trained on the plane and were monitoring the situation. It has been established that the televisions were operating as the plane circled the airfield, though there are conflicting reports on whether or not the televisions were in operation during the landing. For a time, passengers on board were able to watch their own airplane circle the airfield in a precarious situation.

139 passengers and 6 crew were on board Flight 292.