Dog owners in Amsterdam are upset that the city has promised to clampdown on people who let their pets walk in one of the cities most famous parks without a leash. They wouldn't be as outraged if the city hadn't also legalized public sex in the same park. A spokesman for the council said, "When the dogs are not kept on a leash they pee on whatever they see and they cause a lot of nuisance for other visitors." Alderman Paul Van Grieken added, "Why should we oppose a rule on something you can't oppose a rule on. Moreover it isn't a nuisance for the other visitors and gives a lot of pleasure to a certain group of people. There still are rules, They must take their garbage with them afterwards and never have intercourse near the playground. The sex must be limited to the evening hours and night."

coondoggie writes "Earlier this week researchers unveiled a system to identify and eradicate botnets in the wild. While currently only a prototype, Georgia Tech's BotSniffer would use network-based anomaly detection to identify botnet command and control channels in a LAN. The system wouldn't require any prior knowledge of signatures or server addresses. 'The researchers said their prototype, which was presented at the Internet Society's Network and Distributed System Security Symposium this week, is based on the fact that botnets engage in coordinated communication, propagation, and attack and fraudulent activities.'"

Although Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Super Mario Galaxy were both touched on at the Nintendo press conference ... it didn't really seem like enough. Thankfully, there are plenty of hands-on writeups to satisfy interested parties. Wired's Game|Life has almost nothing but praise for Metroid. Specifically, Chris Kohler singles out the FPS controls as proving the concept for him on the system. 1up is equally pleased with Mario. They cite its unconventional nature as initially offputting, but ultimately one of the things they enjoyed most about the game. "We simply love the way the game feels. Many gamers are of the opinion that Super Mario Sunshine strayed too far from the fundamentals of the series by focusing so heavily on the water cannon/jet pack, but Galaxy puts the emphasis right back on jumping and stomping foes. The controls are tight and the graphics are crisp, if not exactly a dead ringer for top-of-the-line Xbox 360 visuals. And tiny references to games past are everywhere, from the usual coins, to Goombas of unusual size, to "?" blocks that appear as crystalline squares that can be kicked around the levels as weapons or stomped on to yield rewards."