An anonymous reader writes "The Droid X forums have posted a procedure to root the new Motorola Droid X, putting to rest Andoid fans' fears that they would never gain access to the device's secrets due to a reported eFuse that would brick the phone if certain boot files were tampered with. Rooting the phone is the first step in gaining complete control over the device."

ehrichweiss writes "The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics is warning parents and teachers of a new threat to our children: sounds. Apparently kids are now discovering binaural beats and using them to get 'physiological effects.' The report goes on with everyone suggesting that such aural experiences will act as a gateway to drug usage and even has one student claiming there are 'demons' involved. Anyone who has used one of those light/sound machines knows all about the effects that these sounds will give and to state that they will lead kids to do drugs is nonsense at best. It seems the trend in scaring the citizens with a made-up problem has gone to the next level."

krou writes "In an experiment conducted by a Princeton University team, 'Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.' Long-term consumption also 'led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides.' Psychology professor Bart Hoebel commented that 'When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese — every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight.'"

To save money, more than 20 Michigan counties have decided to turn deteriorating paved roads back to gravel. Montcalm County estimates that repaving a road costs more than $100,000 a mile. Grinding the same mile of road up and turning it into gravel costs $10,000. At least 50 miles of road have been reverted to gravel in Michigan the past three years. I can't wait until we revert back to whale oil lighting and can finally be rid of this electricity fad.

subcomdtaco writes with this snippet from a story in the NYTimes: "Dr. [Robert] Gaskell, with software he developed over a quarter-century of trial and error, can process hundreds of images in a few hours, slap them atop one another electronically like coats of paint and produce a topographical map so detailed that you often need a pair of 3-D glasses to appreciate what he has done. At 63, Dr. Gaskell has become the Captain Cook of space. Dr. Gaskell calls what he does 'stereophotoclinometry.' [PDF] Ideally he needs at least three images of the target landscape, usually taken by an orbiting spacecraft or a probe on a flyby to another destination. Only in rare cases can telescope images provide enough detail. The sun angle must be different for each exposure so each image shows different shadows. By comparing the shadows, the software calculates slopes, which yield the altitudes of target features. The computer solves the equation in three dimensions, producing a patchlike topographical maplet."

Tom Farber, a calculus teacher at Rancho Bernardo high school in San Diego, has come up with a unique way of covering district cuts to his supplies budget. He sells ads on his tests. "Tough times call for tough actions," Tom says. The price of an ad on a Mr. Farber Calc test is as follows: $10 for a quiz, $20 for a chapter test, and $30 for a semester final. Most of the ads are messages from parents but about a third of them come from local businesses. Principal Paul Robinson says reaction has been "mixed," but adds, "It's not like, 'This test is brought to you by McDonald's or Nike.'" I see his point. Being a local business whore is much better than being a multinational conglomerate whore.

Trask writes "LivingDice has documents indicating that Gen Con LLC is up for sale. Additionally, there is an offer pending which could close by the end of the year. This may finally put an end to the uncertainty caused by Gen Con's chapter 11 filing and the recently dismissed Lucasfilm lawsuit."

Smartcowboy writes "Chances are that you have seen a lightsaber at one time or another, whether on the evening news or down at the local cantina. Therefore you know that a lightsaber is an amazing and versatile device that is able to cut through nearly anything in a matter of milliseconds. Have you ever wondered how these remarkable weapons work? Where does the energy come from, and how are they able to contain that energy in a rod-like column of glowing power? In this article, you will have a chance to look inside a lightsaber and discover the source of its incredible characteristics." I was sure the blade was made from the focused hate and disappointment of the last three movies.

Hugh Pickens writes "A BBC investigation has found that in 1968 the US abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland after a nuclear-armed B52 crashed on the ice a few miles from Thule Air Base. The Stratofortress disintegrated on impact with the sea ice and parts of it began to melt through to the fjord below. The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons on board detonated without setting off the nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew. The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been 'destroyed' and while technically true, investigators piecing together fragments from the crash could only account for three of the weapons. Investigators found that 'something melted through ice such as burning primary or secondary.' A subsequent search by a US submarine was beset by technical problems and, as winter encroached and the ice began to freeze over, the search was abandoned. 'There was disappointment in what you might call a failure to return all of the components,' said a former nuclear weapons designer at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. 'It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them.'"

holy_calamity writes "While introducing the new World Wide Web Foundation Tim Berners-Lee made also asked for a system of ratings to help people distinguish truth and untruth online. 'On the web the thinking of cults can spread very rapidly,' he said, saying that 'there needed to be new systems that would give websites a label for trustworthiness once they had been proved reliable sources.'"