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Comment Tantrix and board games (Score 0) 458

by Alwinner (#34299198) Attached to: Thought-Provoking Gifts For Young Kids?
Playing board games with children is a good way to teach them that games (and life) have rules. Tantrix is good fun, and colourful (www.tantrix.com), and easily picked up by kids. Spending time with the kids teaching them a game like chess may be worth more than any cheap bits of plastic and could encourage them to use logic.
Canada

Feeling Upset? Look At Some Meat 155

Posted by samzenpus from the the-calming-power-of-beef dept.
Meshach writes "A study out of Canada claims that seeing meat actually calms a person down. From the article: 'Contrary to expectations, a McGill University researcher has discovered that seeing meat makes people significantly less aggressive. Frank Kachanoff, who studies evolution at the university’s department of psychology, had initially thought the presence of meat would provoke bloodlust, believing the response would have helped our primate ancestors hunt. But in fact, his research showed the reverse is true.'" I can see all the "Make Steak, Not War!" protest signs already.
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Fat Fingered Sumo Wrestlers Given iPads 69

Posted by samzenpus from the 100-finger-slap dept.
The Japan Sumo Association is handing out about 60 iPads to training stables to help the wrestlers communicate because their fingers are too fat to use a regular mobile phone. From the article: "The iPad was chosen because the sumo association believed the device was big enough to cater to wrestler's fat fingers, unlike the smaller keys on mobile phones, according to reports."
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Playboy Launches Safe For Work Website 98

Posted by samzenpus from the porn-now-without-nudity dept.
If you're one of the three people in the world who actually reads Playboy for the articles, today is your lucky day. Every young boy's favorite magazine to find in their uncle's closet has launched a "safe for work" website. From the article: "TheSmokingJacket.com will contain none of the nudity that makes Playboy.com NSFW — not suitable for work. Instead, it'll rely on humor to reach Playboy's target audience, men 25 to 34 years old, when they are most likely to be in front of a computer screen."

Submission + - Use your skin to control your gadgets (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Alwinner
Alwinner writes: "The human body is the ultimate input device," said Chris Harrison, Skinput's creator. This prototype device will allow users to interact with gadgets by touching their skin. As devices get smaller, the size of fingers limits the size of the input screen. By using the skin, a larger surface is available to interact with the device using sound waves based on the place on the arm the user touches.
Government

Bill To Ban All Salt In Restaurant Cooking 794

Posted by timothy from the too-stupid-to-live-as-long-as-possible dept.
lord_rotorooter writes "Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, introduced a bill that would ruin restaurant food and baked goods as we know them. The measure (if passed) would ban the use of all forms of salt in the preparation and cooking of food for all restaurants or bakeries. While the use of too much salt can contribute to health problems, the complete banning of salt would have negative impacts on food chemistry. Not only does salt enhance flavor, it controls bacteria, slows yeast activity and strengthens dough by tightening gluten. Salt also inhibits the growth of microbes that spoil cheese."
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The 10 Most Absurd Scientific Papers 127

Posted by samzenpus from the burning-potential-of-fire dept.
Lanxon writes "It's true: 'Effects of cocaine on honeybee dance behavior,' 'Fellatio by fruit bats prolongs copulation time,' and 'Are full or empty beer bottles sturdier and does their fracture-threshold suffice to break the human skull?' are all genuine scientific research papers, and all were genuinely published in journals or similar publications. Wired's presentation of a collection of the most bizarrely-named research papers contains seven other gems, including one about naval fluff and another published in The Journal of Sex Research."

Microsoft Demos Three Platforms Running the Same Game 196

Posted by Soulskill from the pick-up-and-play dept.
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Engadget: "Microsoft's Eric Rudder, speaking at TechEd Middle East, showed off a game developed in Visual Studio as a singular project (with 90% shared code) that plays on Windows with a keyboard, a Windows Phone 7 Series prototype device with accelerometer and touch controls, and the Xbox 360 with the Xbox gamepad. Interestingly, not only is the development cross-platform friendly, but the game itself (a simple Indiana Jones platformer was demoed) saves its place and lets you resume from that spot on whichever platform you happen to pick up."
Apple

Submission + - Apple the most admired company (again) (cnn.com)

Submitted by Alwinner
Alwinner writes: Apple and Google are the top two most admired companies in a Fortune 500 annual survey. This is the third consecutive year that Apple was rated number one. Microsoft is not in the top ten, and Sony is down in 38th position ahead of eBay (40) and AT&T (45). Toyota is in a surprising 7th place.

Submission + - Do You Poken? (digizmo.com)

Submitted by roxx669
roxx669 writes: Technology has revolutionized a lot of things, which includes how we socialized. Take the social networking sites for instance, in a positive perspective, it really helps people to find long lost buddies. I have an old friend whom I haven’t met for ages (since 1991), and we were reunited in Facebook. Amazing isn’t it?.

Submission + - Tim Berners-Lee creates new UK data web (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Alwinner
Alwinner writes: The BBC reports that web founder Tim Berners-Lee has unveiled his latest venture for the UK government, which offers the public better access to official data.

A new website, data.gov.uk, will offer reams of public sector data, ranging from traffic statistics to crime figures, for private or commercial use.

Comment The Ig-Nobel rises in value (Score 1) 1721

by Alwinner (#29693879) Attached to: Barack Obama Wins the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
I'm looking forward to getting next years Physics Nobel Prize because I have some great ideas about energy. I thought the Nobel Prize Committee made a serious judgement error when they gave the racist de Klerk of South Africa the Nobel Peace Prize together with the deserved winner Mandela a few year's ago. Now they've given it to someone who has great ideas but who is in charge of a country at war which continues to incarcerate people at Guantanemo Bay without trial. Maybe there will be more respect for the Ig-Nobel prize after this.

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