tessaiga writes "The Boston Globe reports that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is trying to sneak a provision to criminalize online gambling. The bill, if passed, would make online gambling punishable by up to 2 years in prison and $25k in fines. Ironically, the provision is buried deep within a bill to allow the construction of three new casinos in Massachusetts to bring more gambling revenue into the state. 'If you were cynical about it, you'd think that they're trying to set up a monopoly for the casinos,' said David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Democratic House representative Barney Frank, who earlier this year introduced federal legislation to legalize regulated online gambling, also criticized the move as 'giving opponents an argument against him.' Indeed, groups such as the Poker Player's Alliance, who were previously supportive of Patrick's plans to open the new casinos, have already announced opposition to the bill because of the online gambling clause."

mkosmo writes "News.com.au is reporting that Steve Irwin was killed in a freak accident while filming one of his well known documentaries. Surprisingly it wasn't a crocodile, it was a sting-ray."

Yesterday Nintendo released the official name for their next console. Formerly the Revolution, and now simply called Wii, reaction has been strong among gaming fans. A Brian Crecente article in the Rocky Mountain News looks at why Wii is bad, from a marketing perspective. Chris Kohler, over at Game|Life, looks at why Wii is good because of its iconoclastic nature. And, always happy to help with the irreverent, Games.net examines why Wii is weird. From that article: "We don't think Nintendo Wii is a truly terrible console name, but it's an uncharacteristically risky choice, even for Nintendo. We admire its simplicity and its playfulness (the two i's represent multiplayer action, you see). But on the flip side, parents will have a hard time pronouncing it ("Nintendo...why?") and hardcore gamers will slam it ..."

A few months back we went and redesigned Slashdot with fancy new CSS templates. The idea was that with a new clean CSS framework under the skin, we could more easily redesign the look & feel of the site. At that time I mentioned that we wanted to have a contest to redesign Slashdot. Well that time has come. Read on for the rules, instructions, and timeline. Oh, and did I mention that the top prize is a new laptop?