harrymcc writes "In 1981, tiny Nintendo of America was getting ready to release Donkey Kong. When the company's landlord, Mario Segale, demanded back rent, Nintendo staffers named the game's barrel-jumping protagonist after him. Almost thirty years later, neither Nintendo — which continues to crank out Mario games — nor Segale — now a wealthy, secretive Washington State real estate developer — like to talk about how one of video games' iconic characters got his name and Italian heritage. Technologizer's Benj Edwards has researched the story for years and provides the most detailed account to date."

Consumerist reports an Associated Press release that Steve Warshak, 42, was found guilty of 93 counts of conspiracy, fraud and money laundering. His 75-year-old mother, who has cancer, was found guilty of conspiracy and other charges, and was sentenced to 2-years, but is free pending appeal. US District Judge Arthur Spiegel, in Cincinnati, OH, denied Mr. Warshak's request to remain free pending appeal, but gave him 30 days to wrap up his affairs and report to prison. Besides Enzyte, Washak's company, Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, who also distributes products to boost energy, manage weight, reduce memory loss and aid sleep, will be allowed to stay in business — but must forfeit $500 million. Among their most egregious offenses was a requirement of a Notarized statement from a doctor certifying that they had a small penis. Amazingly, remarkably few customers availed themselves of the refund offer. Unfortunately, it looks like the commercials will still be able to continue...

Leebert writes "Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton is closing its doors today after the attraction owner and the hotel could not work out a renewed lease deal. In its 10-year tenure, more than 3 million people have visited the Trek themed exhibit. 'Trekkies are incensed. They've scrawled reminiscences about the exhibit on the walls inside, and they're calling Cedar Fair and the hotel to complain. But their online rumor that the space the exhibit occupies will become a theater for pop star Michael Jackson is unfounded, Sternberg said. He said nothing's decided.'"

Philipp Lenssen writes "Google announced their very own browser project called Google Chrome — an announcement in the form of a comic book drawn by Scott McCloud, no less. Google says Google Chrome will be open source, include a new JavaScript virtual machine, include the Google Gears add-on by default, and put the tabs above the address bar (not below), among other things. I've also uploaded Google's comic book with all the details (details given from Google's perspective, anyway... let's see how this holds up). While Google provided the URL www.google.com/chrome there's nothing up there yet."

I'm a web developer who has design and programming experience. So, VB, ASP, PHP, Coldfusion, Perl, even C and C++ I have in my belt. I also use Dreamweaver and/or do a lot of my HTML/XHTML/JavaScript coding by hand. So, the DOM, DHTML, etc, all good to me and even OOP thinking and design I have when I code. And I even have MySQL and other databases, again, not an issue here. So, my weak point is — Java — I see so many jobs out there with J2EE, Hibernate, Eclipse, Netbeans. Beside the obvious, which is to learn Java the core language, I don't know where else to go from there. There is so much! What should I read? in what order? What software do I require? UML? Swing? I mean, what is the curriculum required for someone to say they are a solid Java developer? Even assuming I have to go through Java itself, what are the good books out there?