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Man Patents Self-Burying Coffin 159

Posted by samzenpus from the ashes-to-ashes-righty-tighty dept.
disco_tracy writes "A California inventor has filed a patent for a coffin that screws into the ground vertically. The reason? It greatly reduces excavation labor and burial costs, decreases land use, and opens up more space for burials in unused areas of a cemetery. Writer Clark Boyd also lists 5 other unconventional burial options, including lye, ecopods, GPS devices that track bodies buried without headstones, cryogenics and — my favorite — getting buried in the sky."
Earth

Concrete That Purifies the Air 88

Posted by samzenpus from the clean-roads dept.
fergus07 writes "Although much of the focus of pollution from automobiles centers on carbon emissions, there are other airborne nasties spewing from the tailpipes of fossil fuel-powered vehicles. These include nitrogen oxides (NOx). In the form of nitrogen dioxide it reacts with chemicals produced by sunlight to form nitric acid – a major constituent of acid rain – and also reacts with sunlight, leading to the formation of ozone and smog. Everyone is exposed to small amounts of nitrogen oxides in ambient air, but exposure to higher amounts, in areas of heavy traffic for example, can damage respiratory airways. Testing has shown that surfacing roads with air purifying concrete could make a big contribution to local air purity by reducing the concentration of nitrogen oxides by 25 to 45 percent."
Microsoft

Microsoft Clears MechWarrior4 Free Launch 131

Posted by Soulskill from the done-and-done dept.
Vamman writes "If you've been following the drama surrounding the free release of MechWarrior4, then you're probably aware that the initial announcement, made last summer, was a bit premature. Now, nearly a year since that announcement was made, MekTek Studios has announced that Microsoft Legal has given clearance for the free release of Mechwarrior4. This move by Microsoft Games couldn't come at a better time for the community, as the owners of MechWarrior are attempting a reboot of the franchise."

Comment I, for one, actually like Songbird on Linux (Score 1) 356

by BanachSpaceCadet (#31726346) Attached to: Songbird Drops Linux Support
I've seen a lot of posts that are essentially saying, "good riddance." However, I will miss Songbird. Let me tell you why. When Songbird was first released, it ate through way too much memory for me to be able to use it in Linux. I love the features though, so I kept checking back as new releases came out. By about version 1.0 or so, the memory leaks were taken care of, and it was a great music player! It has far more features than Rhythmbox, especially for managing your song library and meta-data (I have about 12,000 songs, so I appreciate this). As compared to Amarok, it knocked it out of the park. Amarok crashed for me all the time (I've heard it doesn't do well with large libraries), I personally find it ugly, and the layout is unnecessarily cluttered. Songbird has worked like a dream after they fixed their beta-version issues. It's nice to look at, easy to use, very customizable, and should also make iTunes users feel at home (although it has many, many advantages over iTunes). So Songbrid, I will miss you. I'll keep your current version on my system for as long as I can, but with my distro upgrades, etc., you will probably be swept away within a few years. So long, and thanks for all the music.

Comment ResEdit was what I first loved about Macs! (Score 2, Interesting) 965

by BanachSpaceCadet (#30972268) Attached to: Apple's Trend Away From Tinkering
ResEdit was always my argument in Mac vs. PC arguments! (This was back in the good old System 7 days.) My PC friends could bring up right-clicking, software availability, etc., etc. all day. Then I would show them some of the stuff I'd done with ResEdit (e.g., remake Oregon Trail into a parody version of itself), and I would win the argument hands down. (OK, maybe you could do the same stuff on a PC, but none of us knew how.) These days, I'm a Linux guy, but it's sad to me that Macs are getting more locked up all the time. I guess someone has to satisfy the demands of the just-do-it-for-me consumers, but I'm sad that it turned out to be Apple.

Comment OK, how long should I wait then? (Score 1) 1231

by BanachSpaceCadet (#29970642) Attached to: Some Early Adopters Stung By Ubuntu's Karmic Koala
I've been an early adopter in the past, but right now, I can't risk stability issues. I only have one computer, and if it's not running, I can't do my work. I'm willing to spend a few hours installing, but I don't have time to spend an entire day ironing out bugs. Surely things should stabilize within a few weeks or months. Does anyone have a suggestion as to how long I should wait? (I plan to do a fresh install.)
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VA Mistakenly Tells Vets They Have Fatal Illness 108

Posted by samzenpus from the experiencing-technical-difficulty dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Thanks to a computer glitch and bad diagnosis coding, the VA sent a letter to thousands of veterans telling them they have Lou Gehrig's Disease. Some were right, but many were mistakes. From the article, 'Recently, the VA determined ALS to be a service-connected disability and generated automatic letters to all veterans whose records included the code for the disease. However, since the coding contained both ALS and undiagnosed neurological disorders, some of those letters were erroneous.'"
Medicine

China Admits Use of Death-Row Organs 309

Posted by samzenpus from the you-won't-be-needing-this-anymore dept.
h.ross.perot writes "Like a page from Larry Niven's Known Space series, here is a real report of criminals' organs being harvested for 'profit.' From the article: 'China is trying to move away from the use of executed prisoners as the major source of organs for transplants. According to the China Daily newspaper, executed prisoners currently provide two-thirds of all transplant organs. The government is now launching a voluntary donation scheme, which it hopes will also curb the illegal trafficking in organs. But analysts say cultural bias against removing organs after death will make a voluntary scheme hard to implement.'"

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