Michelle Shildkret, 360i on behalf of TIME.com writes "JV Games was all set to release 'Beer Pong' for the Nintendo Wii when parents and lawmakers got a whiff, forcibly renaming the game to Pong Toss and filling its pixelated cups with water instead. But the game is still rated 'T' for teen, and anybody who encounters it will be able to draw clear conclusions as to its intended purpose (drink and get drunk)." Lesson: Don't play games that simulate drinking before you play games that simulate driving, or larceny.

If you're like me, your favorite part of the bar is the layer of cigarette stench that coats the walls, seats, air and eventually your clothing. It seems the Dutch agree. Rain Showtechniek, a Dutch company that specializes in stage effects, has created a machine that reproduces that wonderful bar smell we all love. "There is a need for a scent to mask the sweat and other unpleasant smells like stale beer. People find that smells such as Mocha coffee, Havana cigars or cigarettes can be about good moods and different ideas of living well" said Erwin van den Bergh, a spokesman for the company. The machines come in various sizes and prices, ranging from the giant £3500 model for exhibition halls to the smaller cafés machines, priced at £440.

An anonymous reader writes "Havok has released the free version of its widely-used physics and animation engine (but without source code), including tools that integrate with Autodesk 3ds Max and Maya. Developers may use Havok for free for non-commercial games, middleware, and academic projects. Here are the SDK and tools."

swillden writes "Everyone who pays any attention at all to security, both computer security and 'meatspace' security, has heard the phrase Security Theater. For years I've paid close attention to security setups that I come in contact with, and tried to evaluate their real effectiveness vs their theatrical aspects. In the process I've found many examples of pure theater, but even more cases where the security was really a cover for another motive." swillden would like to know what you've encountered along these lines; read on for the rest of his question below.

Those who enjoy drinking beer, playing video games, and (oddly enough) peeing in urinals may be able to reach true nirvana after all. "Place to Pee" is a new video game that relies on a player's ability to hit sensors in a urinal to control game play. While this may seem extremely male-centric, don't worry, ladies, the game designers have thought of you too, and have designed a specialized paper cone for participation. Man, it's a bad day to be a janitor.

AgentPaper writes "Three years ago we discussed an open source brewing project in which a Danish brewer made his beer recipes available for public consumption and alteration. The concept has taken off, first with the 'Free Beer Project' in Denmark and now with Flying Dog's 'Collaborator' Doppelbock in the US, which was created via input from home brewers across the world. One version of the Collaborator is commercially brewed and available for purchase (and is darned tasty), but you can download the same recipe and labels, brew it yourself, and submit your mods back to the project."

Socguy writes "According to a New Zealand scientist, Jim Salinger, the price of beer in and around Australia is going to be under increasing upward pressure as reductions in malting barley yields are experienced as a side effect of our ongoing climate shift. "It will mean either there will be pubs without beer or the cost of beer will go up," Mr. Salinger told the Institute of Brewing and Distilling convention."

Wow. More politicians (of all parties) need to be as open and thorough as Steve Novick is here. We selected 10 of the questions you submitted and sent them to him by email, and his responses... let's just say that if every candidate spoke out like Steve, we'd have a much clearer view of our choices and would be able to cast our votes a lot more rationally.

A barber in Grand Rapids Michigan who had been forced to stop offering beer after authorities told him he was breaking the law, hopes to convince lawmakers to change their minds. He feels that a beer with your haircut is simply old-fashioned service. When will the Nanny State learn that nothing goes as well with a foamy mug of beer as straight razors, scissors and loose hair.

austinpoet writes in with a blog post debunking the theory we discussed a few days back that scientists' beer consumption is linearly correlated with the quality of their work. Chris Mack, Gentleman Scientist and beer drinker, has analyzed the paper and found it is severely flawed. From his analysis: "The discovered linear relationship between beer consumption and scientific output had a correlation coefficient (R-squared) of only about 0.5 — not very high by my standards, though I suspect many biologists would be happy to get one that high in their work... Thus, the entire study came down to only one conclusion: the five worst ornithologists in the Czech Republic drank a lot of beer."

mernil sends in an article from the NYTimes that casts a glance at a study done in the Czech Republic (natch) on what divides the successful scientists from the duffers. "Ever since there have been scientists, there have been those who are wildly successful, publishing one well-received paper after another, and those who are not. And since nearly the same time, there have been scholars arguing over what makes the difference. What is it that turns one scientist into more of a Darwin and another into more of a dud? After years of argument over the roles of factors like genius, sex, and dumb luck, a new study shows that something entirely unexpected and considerably sudsier may be at play in determining the success or failure of scientists — beer."

Not many candidates for the U.S. Senate are 4'9" tall and only have one hand. But Oregon Democrat Steve Novick qualifies on both counts -- and uses them as pluses in his TV ads. Like this one, where he shows why he's the best beer-drinking partner among all the candidates. Or this one, where it's obvious why he's for "the little guy." Also, as far as we know, he's the only candidate this year for any major office who has his own brand of beer. And his online campaign manager is a major Slashdot junkie, too, which is certainly in his favor. But will humor and oddness get Steve into the Senate? We don't know. So ask him. In fact, ask him anything else you'd like about campaigning and politics. He's promised to respond, and seems like the kind of guy who will give interesting answers, at that. (Please follow Slashdot interview rules, as always.)

15-year-old Gemma Anscomb has accepted the Corey Worthington challenge and may have surpassed his mega-party with her internet advertised celebration. When her parents got home they found their dog Bailey had overdosed on ecstasy. Their dining room floor was covered in four inches of beer, their lap-tops, iPods and jewelery had been stolen and they found handcuffs and underwear in their eight-year-old daughter's bedroom. While I appreciate the trend of giant destructive teenage parties and especially the overdosed dog, they all seem about the same to me. What they should shoot for is a party big enough to destroy a neighborhood or region.

lisa 'lisah' h writes "Looking natty in a yellow Tux vest, Linux dignitary John 'maddog' Hall agreed to a rare video interview with Robin 'Roblimo' Miller after speaking at a conference in Jacksonville, FL. The two chatted about the mobile phone project OpenMoko, his volunteer work with Linux International, and beer."

samzenpus writes "I can't think of any dance since the twist that isn't covered by these two. I appreciate a reception that is entertaining even without beer."

stoolpigeon writes "Tor Books is launching a new site and running a campaign in which they are giving away e-books (free as in beer) until the site goes live. To get in on the deal, fill out the form at their site, and each week you will receive a newsletter containing links to download a new book. The first two books are Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson followed by Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Scalzi's site says: 'My understanding is that they don't have DRM on them. Or at least, mine isn't supposed to have, and I don't think they're planning mine to be special in that regard.'"

On January 15th we asked you for tech-oriented questions we could send to the various presidential candidates, and you responded like mad. The candidates were the exact opposite: not a single one answered emails we sent to their "media inquiry" links or email addresses. Slashdot has more readers than all but a handful of major daily papers, so that's kind of strange. Maybe they figure our votes aren't worth much or that hardly any of us vote. In any case, the Ron Paul campaign finally responded, due to some string-pulling by a Slashdot reader who knows some of Ron Paul's Texas campaign people. Perhaps other Slashdot readers -- like you (hint hint) -- can pull a few strings with some of the other campaigns and get them to communicate with us. Use this email address, please. But first, you'll probably want to read the Ron Paul campaign's answers to your questions (below).

wintersynth brings us a story about a group of enthusiasts who made a catapult out of a 2,800lb industrial robot arm. They used it to launch bowling balls, fireballs, and cans of beer toward a stationary target, and they controlled the catapult's aim with a graphical UI on a laptop. "I wanted to be able to control the rotation of the robot so we could aim the robot from the laptop, but I quickly realized that since the desert is so flat, we could do some basic ranging on the target too. I also wanted the targeting to be overlaid in 3d over a photograph of the target area. The software needed to control the robot like an MMO or RTS game. I suspect that video games, in general, have some of the most optimal control interfaces. I wanted to try a control scheme similar to the area effect spell targeting in World of Warcraft."

geekbits writes "For all those who have at one time or another been too lazy to get up off the couch and go to the fridge and get a beer, heat up some pizza, or change the channel when the remote is missing, we may be one step closer to being able to keep our tushes parked just a little while longer. There may also be some slightly more noble implications here. According to an article in The New York Times, in an experiment at Duke University, a 12-pound, 32-inch monkey made a 200-pound, 5-foot humanoid robot walk on a treadmill using only her brain activity. She was in North Carolina, and the robot was in Japan."

An anonymous reader writes "The Beer Brewing Bender Project is finally completed. This is a fan built, full sized Bender from Futurama featuring a 6502 CPU powered brain to make him speak triggered by a prop remote control straight out of the show. Inside his body is a beer fermenter used to brew up a batch of real Benderbrau beer!"