rabtech writes "I'm very lazy. As part of that continuing effort, I've come up with a guide for installing a soda fountain in the house. I've detailed how to get the equipment, hoses, and supplies, as well as how to install and calibrate the system. Now you won't ever need to move for lack of liquid refreshment! My next project: Food Replicator."

Anonymous Coward writes "I have a relative who will be teaching a college class on the topic of ethical dilemmas brought about by new technology. Unfortunately, he doesn't keep up with technology news, so he's not sure what the most relevant dilemmas are. For example, 'If robots came alive, would we be justified in killing them?' is one that might come up if nothing more relevant were suggested. (OK, it might not be that bad, but you get the idea. He was using Netscape 4.76 on system 9 until last week.) So, what are the most relevant ethical dilemmas brought up by technology? Note that I am looking for ethical dilemmas, e.g. 'Is Activity X moral?' rather than legal dilemmas like 'Is the DMCA constitutional?' Now is your chance to guide the young minds of the future toward stuff that matters."

FyreWyr writes "Whether Microsoft is searching for new ideas, or supporting inventors outright is up for grabs, but they're stabbing at it with $300,000 for 12 spanking ideas (that's $25k each). But as with everything Microsoft, the devil's in the details, or rather, the fine print. At first, you'd swear it was "Brought to you by VISA" - the logo is ubiquitous - but the very last statement in the contest rules reads: "The sponsor...is Microsoft ... VISA...have not sponsored or offered this contest in any way". They also retain a spectrum of rights, and responsibily suggest that you go out and patent really good ideas first. Okay, how much does that cost again? (see end of this article)."

hype7 writes "The Daily Telegraph is running a piece on the world's temperature. Apparently, it was a lot hotter in the middle ages: "A review of more than 240 scientific studies has shown that today's temperatures are neither the warmest over the past millennium, nor are they producing the most extreme weather - in stark contrast to the claims of the environmentalists.""

Chilliwilli writes "Spending more time cursing your code than writing it? Well now there's an answer. feckfeck (a language in the vein of Whitespace and Brainf*ck) will help you get back that precious time by converting your foul words into code. You've heard the hype surrounding VLIWs, well here are FLIWs (4 letter instruction words). The great thing is the more angry you get the more code you'll write. For those programmers on performance related pay this is great news."

Fans of the excellent Cowboy Bebop anime series have been eagerly awaiting the movie, released on Friday in major U.S. cities. The critics seem to like it overall, and, skimming through the reviews, the ones who dislike it seem to do so for the usual reason: it's a cartoon.

Jules V.D. writes "CERN and IBM today announced that IBM is joining the CERN openlab for DataGrid applications to collaborate in creating a massive data-management system built on Grid computing.IBM's innovative storage virtualization and file management technology, will play a pivotal role in this collaboration, which aims to create a data file system far larger than exists today to help scientists at CERN understand some of the most fundamental questions about the nature of matter and the Universe."

Jamie noted that an Exploit was found in Seti@Home and there is code exploiting the hole actually running about in the wild. Patches are available for those of you not interested in running a public warez server or DoS client ;)

dss902 writes "The discovery of 18 new satellites of Jupiter, bringing the total of known Jupiter satellites to 58 were made using the world's two largest digital cameras at the Subaru (8.3 meter diameter) and Canada-France-Hawaii (3.6 meter diameter) telescopes atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Recoveries were performed at the University of Hawaii 2.2 meter with help from Yanga Fernandez and Henry Hsieh also from the University of Hawaii. Brian Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics performed the orbit fitting for the new satellites. More info here." We ran a story on the first eight, but now... eighteen.

Wow, there is absolutely nothing good to post in the bin today, so you get to enjoy this little gem: Here are some simple instructions for making an Enterpris from a 3.5" floppy disk. Remember those? Before CDRWs cost next to nothing? Thanks to Ant for digging this one up. Update Removed the link when the original content was removed.

The BBC are reporting that one of the items displayed at this years Ideal Home Show at Earls Court is an internet enabled toilet roll browser. From the article: A unit installed in front of a toilet on the cubicle wall provides up-to-the-minute information on products, stocks and shares and lottery results. People can even print off the information on a standard toilet roll. Go Ahead, make your TCP Dump comments. We'll wait.

arb writes "The Age is reporting that some radio stations are unable to play copy-protected CDs. It seems at least one radio station is facing problems transferring CD tracks to their digital playout system. Is the lack of radio air-play a price the record labels are willing to pay in their efforts to stamp out piracy?"

jrmski writes "Thom Greco, an astute businessman from the crumbling town of Wilkes-Barre is betting the future of its downtown on a new state of the art fiber optic network. He recently purchased the former Steam Heat Authority, and the underground pipes associated with it. The pipes provide clear advantages in connecting every downtown building with access faster than what's currently available in Philly."