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."

Oracle Goddess writes "'Years from now, when you've moved on to Windows 7, you'll look back at Windows Vista fondly. You'll remember its fabulous attributes, not its flaws.' That's the opinion of Steve Guggenheimer, vice president of the OEM division at Microsoft. 'I think people will look back on Vista after the Windows 7 release and realize that there were actually a bunch of good things there,' Guggenheimer said in a recent interview. 'So it'll actually be interesting to see in two years what the perception is of Vista.' A dissenting opinion comes from Bob Nitrio, president of system builder Ranvest Associates, doesn't believe organizations that skipped Vista will ever regret their decision. 'I don't think for a second that people are suddenly going to love Windows 7 so much that they will experience deep pangs of regret for not having adopted Vista,' said Nitrio. If I had to bet, I'd go with Bob's take on it." My first thought was, Steve meant Windows 7 is designed to be virtually unusable as payback for all the complaints about Vista, but I might be biased.

A group of research engineers at Berkeley have developed a mobile phone microscope that can photograph microbes in your blood, and analyze them for disease. The group hopes the device will be useful to doctors in developing countries to diagnose blood diseases in the field. The device uses a phone attachment with an LED, and magnified images are fed into the cell phone camera. Software installed on the phone analyzes bacterial counts, or the images can be sent to labs for quick analysis. UC Berkeley bioengineer Dan Fletcher led the CellScope research team. He said, "The same regions of the world that lack access to adequate health facilities are, paradoxically, well-served by mobile phone networks. We can take advantage of these mobile networks to bring low-cost, easy-to-use lab equipment out to more remote settings . . . We had to disabuse ourselves of the notion that we needed to spend many thousands on a mercury arc lamp and high-sensitivity camera to get a meaningful image. We found that a high-powered LED — which retails for just a few dollars — coupled with a typical camera phone could produce a clinical quality image sufficient for our goal of detecting in a field setting some of the most common diseases in the developing world."

She can sit with the family when she admits that she added too much rum to the spice cake.

High school teacher Frank McCourt had received dozens of excuse notes from students over the years, most of them forgeries. One day while looking at the pile of obvious fakes, and thinking about how much the kids complained about writing even short essays, he had an epiphany. Why not teach the art of the excuse note? "This is the first class to study the art of the excuse note — the first class, ever, to practice writing them. You're so lucky to have a teacher like me who has taken your best writing and turned it into a subject worthy of study," he said to the class. Frank's classes have written a wide range of notes including ones from Adam and Eve to god, and historical figures. Frank was even commended by the school superintendent for his innovative idea. "That kid writing an excuse note for Judas. Brilliant. I just want to shake your hand. There might be a letter in your file attesting to your energetic and imaginative teaching. Thank you," he said.

For some reason people in Arvada, Colorado are upset that someone left a claymore mine in the Goodwill drop box at a local strip mall. Police were notified and the Jefferson County Bomb squad disposed of the explosive. Officials say they don't know if the mine was operational or not. I guess the residents of Arvada don't think the disadvantaged deserve a secure perimeter.

Scientists from the University of East Anglia are studying the potential health benefits of dark chocolate, and need 40 female volunteers who would like to eat chocolate every day for a year. The chocolate loving 40 must be post-menopausal and have type 2 diabetes so it can be determined if the flavonoid compounds in chocolate can reduce the risk of heart disease. Dr Peter Curtis, of the UEA's School of Medicine, said, "Our first volunteers are about to return for their final visit to see if the markers of heart health - such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels — have changed. A successful outcome could be the first step in developing new ways to improve the lives of people at increased risk of heart disease."

It turns out a passed out person and a yoga master possess a comparable amount of flexibility. Here's a gallery of the unintentional yoga masters alongside the forms in a more traditional manner.

61-year-old Li Shuqi is only raising one of the ten plagues of Egypt but from the fuss his neighbors are raising you'd think he was working on all ten. Li has spent the last three years raising locusts. He has about two millions locusts living in five locust houses and sells them to Beijing restaurants where they are considered a delicacy. Li says, "My neighbours are constantly keeping an eye on my locust fields and checking the security of the meshes that prevent them from escaping."

Officials say that a pair of New York state employees used taxpayer money to creating a "man cave" at the Capitol Building. The pair transformed a maintenance area in a Capitol garage facility into the mother of all break rooms equipped with a TV, board games, DVDs, couches, rolling papers and marijuana scales. The two are suspended without pay and one is charged with marijuana possession and criminal use of drug paraphernalia.

angry tapir writes "If you're the kind of person who walks down the street worrying about the depletion of IPv4 addresses, the iPhone can now tell you how long you have until that happens. IPv6 network backbone and collocation provider Hurricane Electric has introduced an iPhone application that counts down the number of days until that moment of reckoning."

The CTO at Dudley H.'s company sat everyone down and said that "there should never, ever be a need for technical support." All customer issues are a result of a poorly implemented or designed product. The helpdesk staff countered that many users are lazy and/or stupid, but the CTO set a new policy that all client issues were to have a "problem/improvement" report written about them, and that all reports were to be reviewed at the highest level. Hilarity ensues.

Find out what it's like to be matched based on 29 dimensions of arbitrary compatibility.

BotScout writes "An Ohio man, fed up with deceptive junk mail, made the mistake of losing his temper while on the phone with a St. Louis company pitching an extended auto-service contract. Now he finds himself behind bars, where he is charged with making a terrorist threat and is being held on $45,000 bond. According to court documents, Charles W. Papenfus, 43, allegedly told a sales representative during a May 18 telephone call that he would burn down the building and kill the employees and their families. He was indicted for making a terrorist threat, a Class D felony; and he could be sentenced to up to four years in prison if convicted. I get a lot of this kind of junk mail too, but I usually just call their 800 number and waste as much of their time as possible."