4chan Gives 90-Year-Old Vet a Great Birthday

Hugh Pickens writes "Members of 4chan aren't known for doing things that are cute and heart-warming and when they decide to go after someone, it's typically to subject them to ridicule. But not this time. Someone at 4chan decided that the Internet should get together and wish 90-year-old WWII veteran William J. Lashua a happy birthday, and soon Lashua's local branch of the American Legion was deluged by birthday calls from people as far away as Sweden. The account someone set up for Mr. Lashua's birthday on Facebook had 3,956 'likes' and over 500 comments, most of which wished him a happy birthday and thanked him for his military service. It's not clear how 4chan originally came across a photo of Lashua, but a member of the site posted a snapshot of a flyer that was on the bulletin board at a store in Ashburnham, Massachusetts asking for guests to attend the nonagenarian's birthday on at the American Legion hall and the post took off. In contrast to their usual behavior, 4chan members 'were giving him nice phone calls and sending him nice notes' and discouraging those who wanted to do something stupid or mean. 'They were all being.. well, shucks, awful nice.'"

Can Mickey Mouse teach you something about yourself?

Warren Spector, the famed game designer behind "Epic Mickey," says he hopes the forthcoming Wii video game will teach players more about themselves than the character they're playing.

Transition Metal Catalysts Could be Key To Origin of Life

An anonymous reader writes "One of the big, unsolved problems in explaining how life arose on Earth is a chicken-and-egg paradox: How could the basic biochemicals - such as amino acids and nucleotides - have arisen before the biological catalysts (proteins or ribozymes) existed to carry out their formation? In a paper appearing in the current issue of The Biological Bulletin, scientists propose that a third type of catalyst could have jumpstarted metabolism and life itself, deep in hydrothermal ocean vents."

Computing in the Kitchen: A Mac with a View

Not everyone has the space available for a dedicated home office. Today's featured workspace is tucked in a kitchen, but don't let that fool you. It's streamlined, neat, and sporting a great view.

Earth's magnetic field could reverse itself in just four years...and maybe it once did

The North and South magnetic poles swap places every 300,000 years, in a process that takes as much as 5,000 years. But evidence from an ancient lava flow suggests the poles were once moving 53 degrees per year.

Ideas For a Great Control Room?

lewko writes "Our company is about to build a central monitoring facility and I'm looking for ideas/suggestions about the best hardware and the best way to make it comfortable for those manning a screen. It will be manned 24x7 and operators will be monitoring a variety of systems including security, network, fire, video and more. These will be observed via local multi-monitor workstations and a common videowall. This is going to be a massively expensive exercise and we only get one chance to get it right. The facility is in a secure windowless bunker and staff will generally be in there for many hours at a time. So we have to implement design elements which make it a 'happy' place. At the same time, it has to be ergonomically sound. Lastly, we will be showing it to our clients, so without undoing the above objectives, it would be nice if it was 'cool' (yet functional). Whilst Television doesn't transfer to real life always, think 'CTU' from 24."

Nic Cage is the most versatile actor on the planet. This website is proof.

At the blog "Nic Cage As Everyone," the former Nicholas Coppola plays every single role in the history of moving picture. He's so talented that he even plays real-life people! Here's the Cagemaster as some of your favorite scifi characters.

Ozaki metallic iPad covers

Taiwanese computer peripherals company Ozaki prides itself on producing computer accessories with attitude, and whilst that’s an easy thing to say, it stopped us in our tracks during the rounds of the IFA show floor in Berlin this week with a range of stunning metallic shells for the iPad. Now iPad covers are a dime a dozen, but the metallic finish on these items is extraordinary – they have a silvery pewter surface and look like something the knights of King Arthur’s court would carry. No price yet but … yuuuum!.. Continue Reading Ozaki metallic iPad covers

Black Hole Coffee Table Devours Personal Wealth

Don't worry, your coasters and coffee table books will be perfectly safe on this table. About the only thing designer Jon Gilmore's Nova Black Hole Illuminated Coffee Table can destroy is your wallet.

It may be just circuits and metal, but this robotic snake from Carnegie Mellon University's Biorobotics Lab will give you flashbacks to the hydrobots from Terminator Salvation. Behold the robot that could someday be used for surgeries and search-and-rescue.

Swan song: have your ashes pressed as vinyl

If you've ever imagined the song you'd like to be played at your funeral or you imagine it to be the send-off of the year, then you might be interested in And Vinyly. This UK-based company will press your cremated ashes into a vinyl playing a track of your choice or a vocal message for your friends and family to enjoy and remember you by. Hmmm... Continue Reading Swan song: have your ashes pressed as vinyl

The clearest photo of a sunspot we've seen thus far

This is the clearest, most detailed image of a sunspot ever taken in visible light. These ultra-magnetic structures are thought to be crucial to potentially Earth-threatening space weather, and it's photos like these that will help us better understand the risk.

Most folks remember Tom Carvel (1906-1990) as the frozen dessert magnate behind Carvel Ice Cream empire, but what a lot of people forget is that Tom Carvel created some of the most phantasmagorically confusing commercials ever to air on television.

Fidel Castro, Internet News Junkie

pickens writes "The LA Times reports that 84-year-old Cuban ex-President Fidel Castro consumes 200 to 300 news items a day on the World Wide Web. In a recent interview he called Web communication 'the most powerful weapon that has existed' and extolled its power to break a stranglehold on the media by 'the empire' and 'ambitious private groups that have abused it' adding that the Internet 'has put an end to secrets.... We are seeing a high level of investigative journalism, as the New York Times calls it, that is within reach of the whole world.' Well, not the whole world. Cuba has the lowest level of Internet penetration in the Western Hemisphere (lower than Haiti), plus severe government restrictions and censorship affecting those who do have access. In addition Cuban law bans using the Internet to spread information that is against what the government considers to be the social interest, norms of good behavior, the integrity of the people or national security."

Hang Your PC Tower on the Wall to Save Floor Space

One of the drawbacks of using a desktop PC is that the tower takes up a lot of space on your floor. If you don't have room to spare, you can hang it on the wall with an inexpensive, sturdy rack.

Gubernatorial Candidate Wants to Sell Speeding Passes for $25

If Nevada gubernatorial candidate Eugene "Gino" DiSimone gets his way $25 will buy you the right to drive up to 90mph for a day. DiSimone estimates his "free limit plan" will raise $1 billion a year for Nevada. From the article: "First, vehicles would have to pass a safety inspection. Then vehicle information would be loaded into a database, and motorists would purchase a transponder. After setting up an account, anyone in a hurry could dial in, and for $25 charged to a credit card, be free to speed for 24 hours."

A recent article released by the US Department of Defense (DoD) spoke of the worst compromise in DoD history, facilitated by what was said to be the unauthorized use of a USB drive. As a result of this incident, the US government has seen fit to step up the DoD involvement, working with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in an effort to protect critical national infrastructure. The full article (requires registration) by WIlliam J. Lynn, Undersecretary of Defense, speaks of the DoD and it's experiences which makes it uniquely qualified for cyberdefense. Cyberattacks offer a means for potential adversaries to overcome overwhelming U.S. advantages in conventional military power and to do so in ways that are instantaneous and exceedingly hard to trace. Such attacks may not cause the mass casualties of a nuclear strike, but they could paralyze U.S. society all the same, he wrote. In the long run, hackers' systematic penetration of U.S. universities and businesses could rob the United States of its intellectual property and competitive edge in the global economy.

Wotta week that was. You talked with Peter Wingfield of Highlander, those damn dirty apes invaded San Francisco, and physics had to explain an impossible soccer kick. Also, here's a massive trailer for almost every film of the modern age!

UN Tech Group Finds Most Expensive Broadband

destinyland writes "In the Central African Republic, broadband internet service costs 3891% of the average monthly income. 'Put another way, a month's broadband service costs more than three years' average wages in the country,' notes one technology blog, 'compared with less than two hours' earnings in Macau.' A United Nations' technology group released the figures in a new report in advance of a September 19 summit on the digital divide in developing countries. ('We are trying to avoid a broadband divide,' said Dr. Hamadoun Toure, the secretary general of the UN's International Telecommunications Union.) Their agency noted that the rate for broadband penetration is below 1% in many poor countries, with monthly costs higher than the average monthly income. 'By contrast,' notes the BBC, 'in the world's most developed economies, around 30% of people have access to broadband at a cost of less than 1% of their income.' And the report also estimates that there are 5 billion cellphones in the world — though some people may own more than one."

ApriPoco Controls Your Home with Voice Commands, IR

All the adorable ApriPoco robot needs to control your home are a series of verbal commands and a little IR connectivity. Utter robot home domination—it's a feature, not a bug.

Did we discover signs of life on Mars...in 1976?

NASA's Viking probes were colossally disappointing for those looking for life on Mars - not only were there no signs of life, we didn't even find its essential building blocks. Or maybe we just didn't know what to look for.