Lazy employee fired

A Verizon risk team, looking for data breaches on a client's computers, discovered that one company software developer was basically idle for many months, yet remained productive - because he had outsourced his projects to a Chinese software developer who would do all the work and send it back. The employee earned several hundred thousand dollars a year, according to a January Los Angeles Times report, but paid the Chinese worker only about $50,000. The risk team eventually learned that sensitive company information was flowing to and from Chinese terminals, leading the company to suspect hackers, but that traffic was merely the U.S. employee (obviously, "ex-employee" now) sending and receiving his workload. The U.S. man showed up for work every day, but spent his time leisurely web-surfing.

In January, the Japanese marketing firm Wit Inc. began hiring "popular" young women (judged by the extent of their "social network" contacts), at the equivalent of $121 a day, to walk around with advertising stickers on their thighs. (The stickers would be placed on the erotic "zettai ryouiki" - the Japanese mystical area between the hem of a short skirt and the top of long socks.) The women must be prepared to endure men hovering closely to read the ads.

According to news reports in November, New York City physician Jack Berdy was doing a brisk business administering Botox injections (at up to $800) to poker players who were hoping to prevent facial expressions that might tip their hands.

London's The Independent reported in January that Dean Kamen (who famously invented the Segway, a standing, battery-powered scooter) had developed, along with a Pennsylvania medical team, what appears to work as a "reverse feeding tube" that will vacuum out up to 30 percent of any food in the stomach before it is digested and converted into calories. After installation of the stomach "port," the diner could operate the device without daily medical help.

The Polish cosmetics company Inglot announced in January a nail polish ideal for Muslim women, in that it can withstand the five-times-daily hand-washing required for prayers.