Home made Helicopter built by Nigerian

A 24-year-old undergraduate from Nigeria is building helicopters out of old car and bike parts. Mubarak Muhammed Abdullahi, a physics student, spent eight months building the yellow model seen here, using the money he makes from repairing cellphones and computers. While some of the parts have been sourced from a crashed 747, the chopper contains all sorts of surprises.

The 12-meter-long aircraft, which has never flown above a height of seven feet, is powered by a secondhand 133 horsepower engine from a Honda Civic. In the basic cockpit there are two Toyota car seats, with a couple more in the cabin behind. Controls are simple, with an ignition button, an accelerator lever to control vertical thrust and a joystick that provides balance and bearing. A camera beneath the chopper connected to a small screen on the dash gives the pilot ground vision, and he communicates via a small transmitter.

Mubarak says he learned the basics of helicopter flying through the internet after he decided it would be easier to build a chopper than a car. Flying his creation is easy, he claims. "You start it, allow it to run for a minute or two and you then shift the accelerator forward and the propeller on top begins to spin," he explains. "The further you shift the accelerator the faster it goes and once you reach 300 rpm you press the joystick and it takes off."

Undeterred that his home-made transporter, which lives in a hangar on campus, lacks the gear to measure atmospheric pressure, altitude and humidity, Mubarak is working on a new machine which "will be a radical improvement on the first one in terms of sophistication and aesthetics."

A two-seater with the ability to fly at 15 feet for three hours at a time, Mubarak's new creation will be powered by a brand-new motor straight from Taiwan, normally found in motorbikes.

Amazing Funny Office Pranks (must see)

Plan Your Sweet Revenge!

Here are some awesome and ingeneous Office Pranks. Enjoy!

Bloon Pranks

Puppies Use As Drug Courier

NEW YORK (AP) - Colombian drug dealers turned puppies into couriers by surgically implanting them with packets of heroin, federal authorities said Wednesday.

Investigators believe the ring used the dogs, as well as human drug swallowers, to conceal millions of dollars in liquid heroin on commercial flights into New York City for distribution on the East Coast.

Ten puppies, including Labrador retrievers, were rescued during a 2005 raid on a farm in Colombia, the Drug Enforcement Administration said, while announcing more than 30 arrests.

Besides the pups and human swallowers, authorities said the ring based in Medellin also concealed drugs in body creams, aerosol cans, and the linings of purses and luggage.

Ooops - Bush was Unaware The microphone was still on

CAMBRIDGE, Md. - The eavesdropping tables were turned on
President Bush on Friday. The president apparently believed he was speaking privately when he talked about listening in without a warrant on domestic communications with suspected al-Qaida terrorists overseas. But reporters were the ones doing the listening in this time.

The incident happened at a House Republican retreat. After six minutes of public remarks by the president, reporters were ushered out. “I support the free press, let’s just get them out of the room,” Bush said, intending to speak behind closed doors with fellow Republicans and take lawmakers’ questions.

When reporters left, Bush spoke about the National Security Agency program that he authorized four years ago and which has drawn criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike.

However, the microphones stayed on for a few minutes. That allowed journalists back at the White House to eavesdrop on Bush’s defense of the eavesdropping. His private statements were basically no different from what he’s said in public.

“I want to share some thoughts with you before I answer your questions,” Bush began. “First of all, I expect this conversation we’re about to have to stay in the room. I know that’s impossible in Washington.”

He was right.

The Top 5 April fools Day Hoaxes of all time

#1: The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
In 1957 the respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in, and many called up wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. To this question, the BBC diplomatically replied that they should “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”

#2: Sidd Finch
In its April 1985 edition, Sports Illustrated published a story about a new rookie pitcher who planned to play for the Mets. His name was Sidd Finch and he could reportedly throw a baseball with startling, pinpoint accuracy at 168 mph (65 mph faster than anyone else has ever been able to throw a ball). Surprisingly, Sidd Finch had never even played the game before. Instead, he had mastered the “art of the pitch” in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the “great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa.” Mets fans everywhere celebrated at their teams’s amazing luck at having found such a gifted player, and Sports Illustrated was flooded with requests for more information. But in reality this legendary player only existed in the imagination of the writer of the article, George Plimpton.

#3: Instant Color TV
In 1962 there was only one tv channel in Sweden, and it broadcast in black and white. The station’s technical expert, Kjell Stensson, appeared on the news to announce that thanks to a newly developed technology, all viewers could now quickly and easily convert their existing sets to display color reception. All they had to do was pull a nylon stocking over their tv screen, and they would begin to see their favorite shows in color. Stensson then proceeded to demonstrate the process. Reportedly, hundreds of thousands of people, out of the population of seven million, were taken in. Actual color tv transmission only commenced in Sweden on April 1, 1970.

#4: The Taco Liberty Bell
In 1996 the Taco Bell Corporation announced that it had bought the Liberty Bell from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called up the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell is housed to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed that it was all a practical joke a few hours later. The best line inspired by the affair came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale, and he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold, though to a different corporation, and would now be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

#5: San Serriffe
In 1977 the British newspaper The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement in honor of the tenth anniversary of San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands. A series of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure nation. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica. The Guardian’s phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. Few noticed that everything about the island was named after printer’s terminology. The success of this hoax is widely credited with launching the enthusiasm for April Foolery that then gripped the British tabloids in the following decades.

$218 Trillion Phone Bill

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - A Malaysian man said he nearly fainted when he recieved a $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported Monday.Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father’s phone line in January after he died and settled the 84 ringgit ($23) bill, the New Straits Times reported.

But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a 806,400,000,000,000.01 ringgit ($218 trillion) bill for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported.

It wasn’t clear whether the bill was a mistake, or if Yahaya’s father’s phone line was used illegally after after his death.

“If the company wants to seek legal action as mentioned in the letter, I’m ready to face it,” the paper quoted Yahaya as saying. “In fact, I can’t wait to face it,” he said.

Yahaya, from northern Kedah state, received a notice from the company’s debt-collection agency in early April, the paper said. Yahaya said he nearly fainted when he saw the new bill.

Government-linked Telekom Malaysia Bhd. is the country’s largest telecommunications company.

A company official, who declined to be identified as she was not authorized to speak to the media, said Telekom Malaysia was aware of Yahaya’s case and would address it. She did not provide further details.

Hotel charging fat fee

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German hotel owner who charges guests according to their weight defended himself Thursday against accusations he was discriminating against fat people.

Juergen Heckrodt said the 50 cents ($0.64 cent) per kg rate he charges for his Hotel Ostfriesland is competitive for local three-star hotels and added there is a 74-euro ($94) limit for a double room for those who refuse to get on the scale.

“It’s not discrimination at all,” Heckrodt told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. “First of all, there’s the upper limit. And besides that I don’t force anyone onto the scale. Nevertheless, no one has yet to say ‘no, forget that’.”

He said that some guests strip down to try to save money. The single-room maximum fee is 39 euros — or 78 kg (172 pounds). Heckrodt got letters complaining he was discriminating against fat people from people who read about his hotel in German newspapers.

“Sometimes men strip down when checking but women usually don’t go that far,” Heckrodt said. “One man stripped all the way down to his underwear to try to push the price down.”

Heckrodt, 49, got the idea to charge by the kg from one guest who had gained weight every year. He told her jokingly he would soon start charging her an extra fee for being so heavy. A year later, she had lost 35 kg (77 pounds) and asked for a discount.

“It seemed like a reasonable demand,” he said.