Comment Ob. (Score 1) 437
"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
GOG.com Not Really Gone 276
gspr writes "On Sunday, Slashdot and many others reported that DRM-free games site GOG.com was shutting down. Now the site is back, revealing that it was all a hoax. According to the site: 'Now it's time we put an end to all the speculations once and for all. It's true that we decided that we couldn't keep GOG.com the way it was so we won't. As you probably know by now, GOG.com is entering its new era with an end of the two-years beta stage and we're launching a brand new GOG.com with new, huge releases.' So it was all an advertising stunt."
UK Teen Banned From US Over Obscene Obama Email 555
British teenager Luke Angel has been banned from the US for sending an email to the White House calling President Obama an obscenity. The 17-year-old says he was drunk when he sent the mail and doesn't understand what the big deal is. "I don't remember exactly what I wrote as I was drunk. But I think I called Barack Obama a p***k. It was silly -- the sort of thing you do when you're a teenager and have had a few," he said. The FBI contacted local police who in turn confronted Luke and let him know that the US Department of Homeland Security didn't think his email was funny. "The police came and took my picture and told me I was banned from America forever. I don't really care but my parents aren't very happy," Angel said.
Frustrated Reporter Quits After Slow News Day 178
Norwegian radio journalist Pia Beathe Pedersen quit on the air complaining that her bosses were making her read news on a day when "nothing important has happened." Pedersen claimed that broadcaster NRK put too much pressure on the staff and that she "wanted to be able to eat properly again and be able to breathe," during her nearly two-minute on-air resignation.
Anti-Product Placement For Negative Branding 130
An anonymous reader writes "Product placement to promote your brand just isn't enough any more. These days, apparently, some companies are resorting to anti-product placement in order to get competitors' products in the hands of 'anti-stars.' The key example being Snooki from Jersey Shore, who supposedly is being sent handbags by companies... but the bags being sent are of competitors' handbags as a way to avoid Snooki carrying their own handbag, and thus potentially damaging their brand."
Researchers Discover Irresistible Dance Moves 215
sciencehabit writes "To find out if certain dance moves are more attractive to women than others, researchers recruited a bunch of college guys and used motion-capture to create avatars of them dancing. When women watched the avatars (2 videos included in story), the men they found most attractive were those who kept their heads and torsos moving without flailing their arms and legs. The researchers say dancing is thus an honest signal to women of the man's strength and health, just as it is in crabs and hummingbirds, who also move in special ways to attract mates."
Girl Seeks Help On Facebook During Assault 417
A 12-year-old girl who was being assaulted by her mother's ex-boyfriend used some quick thinking by sending a message on her iPod to a friend's Facebook account for help. The friend was able to contact the girl's mother who then contacted the police. 42-year-old Raymond Ernest Cesmat was arrested and charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. He is being held at the Dakota County Jail on $175,000 bail.
Comment Re:Quantum Suidice (Score 1) 691
I dunno, the more I keep seeing the LHC fail and fail is that we may be experiencing quantum suicide. In each reality that the LHC properly starts up and smashs atoms, the world ends as we know it.
Unless such destruction can work its way backwards as well as forwards, I fail to see how there being no observers tomorrow precludes the possibility of there being observers today, right before the kaboom.
Comment Re:And ST is being picked on.... (Score 1) 809
90% of ST's problems are solved by "reversing the polarity".
In other words, they put the batteries in backwards.
Comment Re:Transistors Per IC and Planck Time (Score 0, Offtopic) 418
Don't you worry.
By then the dollar will have inflated and shrunk the national debt to less then the price of an once of gold.
The real suckers are the ones buying T-bills.
Comment Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score 1) 809
More likely he'll be electrocuted in his basement shower while trying to transport to your IP address and kill you with his... Uhm.. whatever those double ended ridiculous knife things are called. (Sorry Klingon lovers, I'm sure it's the all time superior weapon, like a Katana with cruise control or something)
Comment Re:Scalzi on Stross on ST (Score 1) 809
Ha, yes, I do remember that. That was probably the first of a one two punch that made me never watch star trek again. I don't even want to think of the explanation as to how warp 11 caused them to evolve faster. But I do remember them losing vestigial organs like their toungues, ears and hair. Because "that's what happens in evolution" or something like that. I also remember the doctor fixed them in the last 2 minutes.
Terrible show.
Comment Re:Probabilitistic grammer (Score 1) 243
"It can only be the thought of verdure to come, which prompts us in the autumn to buy these dormant white lumps of vegetable matter covered by a brown papery skin, and lovingly to plant them and care for them. It is a marvel to me that under this cover they are labouring unseen at such a rate within to give us the sudden awesome beauty of spring flowering bulbs. While winter reigns the earth reposes but these colourless green ideas sleep furiously."
Comment Re:What about that "Phone Call" (Score 1) 635
If you do get arrested, just call your lawyer. Hopefully, they have a landline (or something that looks like a landline to the phone doing the collect calling...)
Comment Twitter: good vs. bad (Score 1) 383
The "no context" is not an inescapable consequence of the infamous 140-character medium -- the web has a useful, low-character, way to spread context: links. With bit.ly and similar services, embedding links to longer reports is easy.
