Although I'm not sure the corporate overlords will let me retroactively expense a movie ticket, I wanted to take a few minutes to write my review of Hellboy II. It's been a pretty good summer for movies already: but Wall-E and Iron Man were pretty much perfect A movies. I was a big fan of the original Hellboy comic, the first movie, and of Pan's Labyrinth- my fear was that it could only go downhill. And I was wrong. VERY wrong. Read on for my review which will be mostly spoiler free.

An anonymous reader writes "Adeona is the first Open Source system for tracking the location of your lost or stolen laptop that does not rely on a proprietary, central service. This means that you can install Adeona on your laptop and go — there's no need to rely on a single third party. What's more, Adeona addresses a critical privacy goal different from existing commercial offerings. It is privacy-preserving. This means that no one besides the owner (or an agent of the owner's choosing) can use Adeona to track a laptop. Unlike other systems, users of Adeona can rest assured that no one can abuse the system in order to track where they use their laptop."

diegocgteleline.es writes "After three months, Linux 2.6.26 has been released. It adds support for read-only bind mounts, x86 PAT (Page Attribute Tables), PCI Express ASPM (Active State Power Management), ports of KVM to IA64, S390 and PPC, other KVM improvements including basic paravirtualization support, preliminary support of the future 802.11s wireless mesh standard, much improved webcam support thanks to a driver for UVC devices, a built-in memory tester, a kernel debugger, BDI statistics and parameters exposure in /sys/class/bdi, a new /proc/PID/mountinfo file for more accurate information about mounts, per-process securebits, device white-list for containers users, support for the OLPC, some new drivers and many small improvements. Here is the full list of changes."

An anonymous reader writes "derStandard.at has an extensive interview with Ubuntu-founder Mark Shuttleworth, in which he seems to be pushing for a switch to QT in the GNOME-project: 'I think it would be perfectly possible to deliver the values of GNOME on top of QT.' He goes on to talk about Apple as an 'innovation leader' and problems with Hardy Heron."

In 2004 we discussed the Piraha, a tribe in the Amazon, when a study appeared characterizing their language as a "one, two, many" language. Now reader mu22le informs us of a new study of the Piraha pointing to the possibility that they use no number words at all. Instead they seem to use the word formerly thought to mean "two" to represent a quantity of 5 or 6, and the "one" word for anything from 1 to 4. The language has about 300 native speakers. "The study... offers evidence that number words are a concept invented by human cultures as they are needed, and not an inherent part of language, Gibson said."

jamie found the news that Tesla Motors is delivering roadsters in California. (We've been following developments on the Tesla front for a couple of years now.) According to a letter from the CEO, "9 production Roadsters have arrived in California, another 3 arrive this weekend, and they will keep arriving at the rate of 4 per week... In fact, currently there are 27 Roadsters in various stages of assembly." The early owners must be proud, but there could be complications.

J0sh writes "I've been lucky enough to be asked to do tech spotting for the TED conference, one of the biggest and most exclusive technology, entertainment, and design conferences in the US. Many of the folks there are superstars in their field (like Craig Venter and Stephen Hawking), and most of them have the opportunity to take action on the technology that they see there. The problem is that I'm only one guy trying to find the most mind-blowing technology on the planet in order to inform the few people who can make an immediate impact with it. I figured if there's one place to find those kinds of advances, it's here. What unknown tech is about to completely change the world that these people need to know about? Let me know."

Kligat writes "The Kuiper belt object formerly known as (136472) 2005 FY9 has been rechristened Makemake and classified as a dwarf planet and plutoid by the International Astronomical Union, according to the United States Geological Survey. The reclassification occurs just a month after the latter category was created. The object was referred to by the team of discoverers by the codename Easterbunny, and the name Makemake comes from the creation deity of Easter Island, in accordance with IAU rules on naming Kuiper belt objects."

The NYTimes reports from Washington on two separate actions on Friday that, between them, have halted Bush administration clean-air initiatives in their tracks. The current administration is no favorite of environmental groups, but these groups sided with the administration in a court case brought by the utility companies. On Friday an appeals court threw out the EPA's Clean Air Interstate Rule, established in 2005. The court ruled that the EPA had exceeded its authority when it established that rule, which set new requirements for major pollutants. According to the article, even the utilities were appalled to see the rule completely gutted; their objections had been narrower. Here is a podcast with the reporter (MP3) giving some background on the ruling. The second major blow to clean-air efforts came later in the day on Friday. Quoting: "...the EPA chief rejected any obligation to regulate heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide under existing law, saying that to do so would involve an 'unprecedented expansion' of the agency's authority that would have 'a profound effect on virtually every sector of the economy,' touching 'every household in the land.'... In effect, Mr. Johnson was simultaneously publishing the policy analysis of his scientific and legal experts and repudiating its conclusions."

NIckGorton writes "Dr. Michael DeBakey, the father of modern heart surgery, died this week at age 99. He was integral to the development of pretty much everything in modern cardiovascular surgery: bypass (heart-lung machines that made open-heart surgery possible for the first time), coronary artery bypass surgery (he did the first one ever), carotid endarterectomey (again he performed the first one), the development of Dacron graft blood vessels, and the development of MASH units. He was a consummate geek and numerous surgical instruments bear his name. He was also the first surgeon to videotape surgeries — in the 1960s. He was considered by the NEJM to be the single greatest surgeon alive until two days ago. In his career he performed over 50,000 heart surgeries and practiced medicine (though not surgery) until the day he died. In 2005 he underwent the Debakey procedure, which he pioneered, to treat the aortic dissection he suffered."

Roland Piquepaille writes "Japanese researchers have found a way to build long threads of DNA using miniaturized hooks and bobbins. In fact, they've demonstrated how to manipulate delicate DNA chains without breaking them. They've designed these laser-directed microdevices to pick up and manipulate individual molecules of DNA. The scientists have used optical tweezers to catch and move these microdevices, which could be used in the future to detect genetic disorders such as Down syndrome." Here's a link to the journal article.

Erik J sends word that the rumored price cut on the 20-GB Xbox 360 is true, sort of. The Seattle PI's coverage says: "But the reduction isn't exactly what it might have appeared. In reality, it's more like a clearance sale, designed to empty the shelves for a new Xbox 360 with three times the digital storage, at the same price as before... As widely reported in advance, Microsoft is dropping the price of the 20-gigabyte Xbox 360 to $299.99. The unexpected twist: Sales of that model will end when current supplies run out."

As part of a research study to determine if an octopus has a favorite tentacle, twenty-five of them have been given Rubik's Cubes to play with. Although marine experts don't expect them to crack the puzzle, they hope to prove that the sea creatures have a preferred arm out of eight that they use to feed and investigate with - just like humans are right or left-handed. Claire Little, marine expert at the Sea Life Centre in Weymouth, says, "Uniquely, octopuses have more than half their nerves in their arms and have even been shown to partially think with their arms. We hope the study will help the overall well-being of octopuses. They are very susceptible to stress so if they do have a favourite side to be fed on, it could reduce risk to them." Most importantly, if the cepholapods are able to solve the cubes they might one day replace a room full of Shakespeare writing monkeys in Infinite Improbability Drives across the universe.

Residents in southern India are earning close to an extra dollar a month by using public urinals. In Musiri, a remote town in Tamil Nadu state, it not unusual to find dozens of people queuing up to use the new toilets. S. Rajasekaran, a truck cleaner said, "In fact, many of us started using toilets for urination only after the ecosan (ecological sanitation) toilets were constructed in the area." The article doesn't say how the government knows exactly when or how often you've relieved yourself. I suspect an elaborate series of tubes, graduated cylinders, spigots, and one very sad Indian official keeps everyone honest.