Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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The Gloves That Are Revolutionising the Way We Communicate with the Hearing-Impaired
Two sophomore students at the University of Washington have been granted $10,000 as part of the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize. The two boys named Navid Azodi and Thomas Pryor, studying business administration and aeronautics and astronautics engineering, respectively, won the prize with ‘SignAloud’, the gloves that will monitor hand movements in sign language and translate it into verbal…
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Aldi’s advance
Supermarket chain Aldi is catching up to industry leaders Coles and Woolworths, according to research company Roy Morgan. The German supermarket chain is renowned for its cheap prices and odd brands but it’s also charming the hearts (and winning the wallets) of Australian consumers. Did a round up of my fave Aldi and Lidl brands.…
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Australia 2nd Most Likely to Suffer Debt Crisis
Forbes recently released a study into which top seven countries were the most vulnerable to a debt crisis in the next 1-3 years, and we in Australia were #2 – second only to China. Australian economist Steve Keen writes for Forbes that the same financial mishaps that were the cause of the Global Financial Crisis…
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Islamic State Hackers Target Small Australian Businesses
It appears Islamic State has reached our shores in a very strange, unexpected way – through the websites of some small Australian business. The group calls themselves the United Cyber Caliphate, and is an amalgamation of three former groups named Caliphate Cyber Army, Sons Caliphate Army and the Kalashnikov Team. For some reason yet to be determined,…
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Australia’s first medicinal cannabis farm
Local MP and acting PM Barnaby Joyce officially launched Australia’s first medicinal cannabis farm today called the DanEden farm. The 47-hectare farm located just near Tamworth has been named in honour of Dan Haslam who died from bowel cancer last year aged just 25-years-old. Dan was an advocate for legalising medical marijuana in Australia and…
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Female-friendly parking bays trialled in Perth
Perth is trialling a series of “pink” parking bays located close to the exits which have been designated as being “female friendly” due to the extra CCTV surveillance, lighting and assistance intercoms. Women-only parking bays already exist in many other countries including Germany, Austria and China. City of Perth chief executive Martin Mileham said, “Men won’t be fined…
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Sean Parker invests $250M into a new way of fighting cancer
Sean Parker is best known for co-founding Napster and is a former Facebook President, but the 36-year-old billionaire is now in the spotlight for his huge contribution to a new kind of cancer treatment. The entrepreneur has given $250 million to launch the Parker Institute that will help with research and development with a treatment called immunotherapy.…
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Rare video of Tony Abbott singing karaoke
The former Australian Prime Minister is currently completing a 1000km cycle race to raise funds for charity. At a stop in Cootamundra, a small town in NSW, he visited the town’s Family Hotel and caught up with radio announcer Wesley Heather. Clearly Abbott is no stranger to the microphone with numerous political speeches he has so kindly…
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Female ride-sharing service
Ride-sharing has become all the rage these days but it’s no surprise some women are hesitant to use this form of transportation after hearing about bad experiences female passengers have had with drivers. Therefore one company has created an Uber-style car service with just female drivers for women and children passengers only. Chariot For Women was…
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Aussie Dollar reaches nine month high
The Australian dollar today reached a nine month high of 77 US cents. This is mainly attributed to the strengthening global equity markets and commodity prices. Last night crude oil rose 3%, iron ore reached $US60 per tonne and gold realized its highest quarterly gain in three decades. Indeed, following a business survey, NAB said…
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