(no subject)

It's not often I laugh out loud at the stuff that gets stopped in my company's spam filter, but today there was a 419 email claiming to be from the 'Economic & Financial Crimes Commission' in Lagos, Nigeria. Their message began with what claimed to be their street address, including the lines (BE CAREFUL OF THE HOODLUMS / SCAMMERS) and 'Motto: No Body Is Above the LAW'. And just in case you missed it, after the 'Attn:' line they repeated themselves:

BE CAREFUL OF THE HUDLOOM


.... I'm sorry, I've been giggling for the last five minutes over this. BE CAREFUL OF THE HUDLOOM.



(The rest of the message is pretty standard, although it's also funny that the email claiming to be from Nigerian law enforcement gives a return email address in .pl. Seriously, people, BE CAREFUL OF THE HUDLOOM.)

(.... which, um, sounds like a Doctor Who villain.)

Huh.

Inspired by the ideas of author J.K. Rowling, Australian scientists have created a rapid new blood test that spells out a patient’s blood type on bioactive paper.

Professor Shen said the research was inspired by the film adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s novel Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

“In the film Harry Potter interrogates Tom Riddles’ diary by writing on a page of paper in the Diary “Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?”; and the paper responded with a “Yes” in writing,” Professor Shen said.

“The artist’s vision showed us that non-conventional mechanisms for reporting results using paper-based sensors should be explored.

“And now we have been able to create that same unambiguous response with a blood test.”

Nice work.