Forget staying in the shallow end. Swimmers at the Dagenham Swimming Pool in Essex are now only allowed to swim across the width of the pool for safety concerns. Officials say they would have to hire another lifeguard if people were allowed to swim lengths, as it is more difficult to keep an eye on them and there is not enough funding to pay for one. I can't quite wrap my head around how swimming one direction instead of another makes it any easier to spot someone drowning, and neither can local resident Dean Bradford. He says, "This is just the nanny state gone mad and it's affecting my life and other people's lives. It's another obstacle for people trying to get fit and healthy."

suraj.sun writes "Verizon has asked a court to affirm its claim to be 'America's Most Reliable 3G Network.' From the article, 'Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon and Vodafone Group PLC, asked a US court for a judgment that its advertising claims to be "America's Most Reliable 3G Network" were truthful, which rival AT&T called "misleading" on Monday. In papers filed in US District Court in Manhattan, Verizon said assertions on July 1 by AT&T Mobility LLC, a unit of AT&T, that its advertising was false could not be supported. AT&T, which has its principal business in Atlanta, had filed the challenge with the National Advertising Division of the Council for Better Business Bureaus. Verizon Wireless said its claims of having "America's Most Reliable 3G Network" and "America's Best 3G Network" and "America's Most Reliable Wireless Network" are "truthful, accurate and substantiated" and do not violate the trademark law known as the Lanham Act. It said that AT&T's challenge "relies on the incorrect premise that speed is an essential element of the standard for measuring network reliability.'" I can only hope that at some future date a court will decide which light beer truly is the best tasting.

An anonymous reader writes "Employees at Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto received a shock this morning as they checked their voicemail and found that each and every one of them had received a message from Captain James T. Kirk, AKA William 'The Shat' Shatner, upbraiding the company for abandoning their plans to remove toxins from its hardware. The organization behind this stunt was Greenpeace, who, to underline their point, scaled the building and painted 'Hazardous Products' on the roof with toxin-free paint."

BoxRec writes "Problems have arisen with the latest UK space launch to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. According to a BBC report the 300 gram payload of cheese has disappeared from the radar screens somewhere over southern England. From the article, 'Dom Lane, of Shepton Mallet's West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers group, told BBC Wiltshire: "We've been tracking the trajectory and the current prediction is that it could land anywhere from here in Wiltshire to Hemel Hempstead. The GPS isn't coming through on the web so we might need listeners' help to find it because we're not sure where it is at the moment."'" Update: 07/30 03:53 GMT by Samzenpus :The space cheese has been found.

Slatterz writes "Reports about the number of germs contained on common office keyboards are a perennial favorite — according to some tests, the innocuous looking keyboard sitting in front of you might contain 400 times more germs than a toilet seat. It's a fact not lost on big name manufacturers, with Lenovo announcing in 2008 a desktop PC called the IdeaCentre K210, which had a special anti-microbial keyboard. All well and good, but why worry when you can just pop the entire keyboard in the dishwasher? The Silver Seal fully submersible keyboard is a 100% waterproof keyboard. The whole board can go into the dishwasher, with seals to protect the gold USB connector, and 'laser etched' keys guaranteed not to fade during the punishing cleaning cycle."

The kissing booth is the more popular choice at the fair, but he marshals on.

91-year-old Louise Brown is The Authors Guild's worst nightmare. Since 1946 she has read about a dozen books a week and has never paid for a single page. Now she is on the brink of checking out book number 25,000. Most impressive is the fact that Louise has never incurred a single late fee. Janice Goldie, of Dumfries and Galloway Libraries, said, "We are amazed at Mrs. Brown's achievements. When she first joined the library service she was allowed to borrow six books a week. This has now risen to 12 and she always takes her full quota. Although she has borrowed nearly 25,000 books, she has never once had to pay an overdue charge. The staff at Stranraer Library think she's a remarkable lady and look forward to her weekly visits. They would like to know if anyone can beat her reading record."

In an attempt to cut the costs of running its homeless shelters, New York City is buying one-way tickets for homeless families to leave the city. Since 2007, over 550 families have been sent to 24 states and five continents. Officials say that there are no limits on where a family can be sent, and all they need to participate in the program is a relative to agree to take them in. Arnold S. Cohen, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for the Homeless, an advocacy group in New York, says, "The city is engaged in cosmetics. What we're doing is passing the problem of homelessness to another city. We're taking people from a shelter bed here to the living room couch of another family. Essentially, this family is still homeless."

Most children will start to heel around age 6.

A team at Northwestern University, led by Dean Ho, has discovered that nanodiamonds are a wound's best friend. Insulin is very attracted to nanodiamonds and in addition to regulating blood sugar, insulin can accelerate the healing process and stave off infection in wound sites. Since the tiny diamond can be easily placed in a wound without causing further damage, this is an excellent way to get an increased amount of insulin there as well. From the article, "A substantial amount of insulin can be loaded onto the nanodiamonds, which have a high surface area. The nanodiamond-insulin clusters, by releasing insulin in alkaline wound areas, could accelerate the healing process and decrease the incidence of infection. Ho says this ability to release therapeutics from the nanodiamonds on demand represents an exciting strategy towards enhancing the specificity of wound treatment."

A pest control company in Japan has come up with a way to catch human rats, an Anti-burglar door mat. The mat is basically a giant adhesive trap that weighs a respectable, but hardly immovable, 8kg. Still the company says the mat is effective, claiming that it has proved itself during a recent break-in at a restaurant already. The mat will become available in Japan starting this fall and is promised to be more humane than the companies last invention, The Poison Cookie Burglar Feeding Station.

His life was a carnival so it shouldn't come as a surprise that his death has turned into one too. The next act in the Michael Jackson circus is brought to you by LifeGem. The company, who specializes in turning human remains into precious stones, has purchased a lock of the dead singer's hair and plans on transforming it into diamonds that can be sold to adoring fans. "We are currently evaluating Jackson's hair sample to determine how many diamonds can be created. This will be a limited collection and we anticipate great interest," said Dean VandenBiesen, the founder of LifeGem. I hope in the near future there is a race to be the first country with a living Michael clone.

suraj.sun writes "Cows may not think it is the real thing, but Coca-Cola is preparing to launch fizzy milk on the world. The drink contains skim milk mixed with sparkling water, flavored with fruit and sweetened with cane sugar. Scientists have developed the drink at the firm's laboratories in Atlanta, Georgia, ensuring it will not curdle in its 8 oz. aluminum bottle. Going under the name Vio, Coca-Cola has begun test-marketing the carbonated drink at natural food stores and delis in New York. It sells for about $2.50 a bottle, no chilling required. One of Coke's copywriters claims it tastes 'like a birthday party for a polar bear.' It comes in four 'natural' flavors — peach mango, berry, citrus and tropical colada — and could even be marketed as a healthy nutritional drink. But it has 26 grams of sugar a bottle, on a par with other non-diet Coca-Cola products, and 1.5 grams of fat. The drink is part of a wider Coke initiative called Project Life to develop milk-based products. If it is a success in the United States it could be launched globally." Nothing washes down a grilled rat cheese sandwich like a bottle of fizzy milk.

The Dept. of Zombie Disposal: Taking out your dead.

runyonave writes "There are some things in this world that will never be forgotten, this week's 40th anniversary of the moon landing for one. But Moore's Law and our ever-increasing quest for simpler, smaller, faster and better widgets and thingamabobs will always ensure that some of the technology we grew up with will not be passed down the line to the next generation of geeks. That is, of course, unless we tell them all about the good old days of modems and typewriters, slide rules and encyclopedias."

An anonymous reader writes "According to a CNN affiliate site, 19 people have been arrested with connections to an Illegal songbird fighting ring. From the article: 'Police said 150 birds were seized in a canary-fighting investigation in Shelton on Sunday. Police said canaries and saffron finches were seized and 19 people were arrested at a Ripton Road address. "There was 100 canaries fighting, and they were betting on them 'til they were dead. It's absolutely shocking," said neighbor Marion Sega.'" If you doubt the aggressive nature of the canary, just ask Sylvester the Cat about the damage this bloodthirsty species can cause.

mhajicek writes "A great way to meat clients! These guys are prototyping business cards laser engraved on beef jerky." Nothing says, "take my company seriously," like a business card made of jerky.

path0$ writes "British Ex-DJ Steve Miller claims that his Wi-Fi allergy is making his life one big misery , forcing him to live in an iron-clad home far from any neighbors. According to the article, more and more people are suffering from an allergy like his. The only positive side to this is that at least Miller didn't think of suing anybody yet, like these people did, who claim to suffer from the same condition and were mentioned in a Slashdot article in 2008."

gyrogeerloose writes "The San Diego Union-Tribune reports in a New York Times wire service story that a black bear known as 'Yellow-Yellow' (named for the two yellow ear tags she sports) has solved the problem of opening a food container that was previously thought to be bear-proof. The container, known as The Bear Vault, was constructed in a manner similar to a child-proof pill bottle, and had passed tests at zoos where bears were given a certain time to break in. The only bears able to open it were grizzlies large and strong enough to rip the lid off using brute force — up to several years ago, when campers in the High Peaks region of New York's Adirondack Mountains started reporting successful break-ins. A redesigned canister was introduced last year; Yellow-Yellow, a relatively petite 120-pound black bear, figured that one out too. The manufacturer is working on a new design expected to be released next year. New York state officials have agreed to test it by filling it with food and placing it in Yellow-Yellow's territory."

Jeremy White writes "CodeWeavers examines Microsoft's latest financial results and concludes they will overtake Microsoft by the year 2018. The data includes a graph with exacting and highly rigorous projections, along with a documentary about the discovery."