mophab writes "Air-O-Matic, sellers of the pull my finger iPhone application is suing InfoMedia, makers of the iFart iPhone application for trademark infringement. From the article: 'Air-O-Matic sent a letter to InfoMedia, warning that use of the phrase "pull my finger" was a trademark infringement, asking InfoMedia to cease and desist, and requesting compensation for lost sales, estimated at $50,000.' If this doesn't prove IP lawyers are out of control, I don't know what will."

I wonder if the crew will hear the rocks over the engine.

evariste.galois writes "Wikipedia has a special section called, 'Language Philosophy,' in every article for a programming language. This section looks at the motivation and the basic principles of the language design. What if we investigate further than that? What deeper connections between philosophies and programming languages exist? By considering the most influential thinkers of all time (e.g. Plato, Descartes, Kant) we can figure out which programming language fits best with aspects of their philosophy (Did you know that Kant was the first Python programmer)? The list is not exhaustive, but this is a funny and educative start."

Timberwolf0122 writes "An Australian airliner was grounded after four baby pythons escaped from their container in the aircraft's hold. The snakes, just six inches long, were among 12 Stimson's pythons being flown from Alice Springs to Melbourne. At first it was thought the reptiles may have been eaten by the other snakes, but this was discounted after they were weighed on landing. Mace Windu was unavailable for comment on account of him having enough of snakes on a Mother f'ng planes."

The 5 rules of Facebook etiquette.

Nadya Suleman, aka. Octomom, has eaten up her 15 minutes of fame and has moved on to feed on her children's 120. She has filed two applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in an attempt to commercially exploit her tabloid-bestowed nickname. Suleman plans on using the Octomom name on dresses, pants, shirts, and disposable and textile diapers.

You don't need to drink your cocktails at the Alcoholic Architecture bar because a vapor of gin and tonic is constantly pumped into the air. About 40 minutes is enough for the average person to start feeling a little tipsy. Special protective suits are offered to customers, as the G&T mist permeates clothing. The brainchild of Sam Bompas and Harry Parr, the bar has a capacity of 40 people, and a special soundtrack featuring the noise of liquid being poured over ice cubes plays continuously.

Kids don't make the best interior decorators.

Randy Sarafan is committed to share his everyday life, so much so that he has built a chair that tweets his farts. Randy decided to make the office chair to help "accurately document and share [his] life as it happens." A natural gas sensor, an Arduino, and a Squidbee wireless module combine to make this monument to excessive free time.

Since it went so smashingly the first time, a cruise line will mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic with a cruise that will follow the ship's original route. The Balmoral, operated by Fred Olsen Cruise Lines, whose parent company Harland and Wolff built the Titanic, will set sail early April, 2012, but you can start booking your seat now. The cruise will carry 1,309 passengers — the same number that sailed on the fateful voyage — on the same route as the Titanic, leaving Southmapton in early April 2012 before docking at the Irish port of Cobh (formerly Queenstown), where the Titanic made its final call on April 11, 1912. The cruise will continue to tempt fate and irony by following the route of the Titanic and, on April 14, it will arrive at the exact location the vessel sank some 100 years before, where there will be a special memorial ceremony between 11:40pm (when the ship hit the iceberg) and 2:20am on April 15 (when the ship sank).

The two Nevada state employees, Tami and Kevin Jenicke, who took 77 gravestones from the Southern Nevada Veterans Cemetery to build a patio aren't overzealous Marilyn Manson fans, or really into Halloween, they just have extraordinarily poor judgement. The Attorney General's Office is now investigating the incident and trying to decide if taking the stones is considered a crime. Tami Jenicke is a spokesperson for the state veterans home. Kevin Jenicke works at the cemetery. A veteran and their spouses can be buried together and that requires replacing the current headstone. Tami and Kevin took these stones which are usually destroyed. "We have to step back and say, 'How have we failed?' Our veterans deserve a respectful, peaceful final resting place," said Carole Turner with the Nevada Office of Veterans Services.

A man who had a 30ft dung-firing ballista on his land to deter intruders has been burgled after police told him that it would be illegal for him to use it. Joe Weston-Webb, a former traveling showman who also owns a human cannon and an "exploding coffin," decided to use the siege weapon to scare off intruders after a series of break-ins and an arson attack last year. He fixed the old ballista and equipped it to fire bags of chicken droppings at intruders if an alarm was triggered. Nottinghamshire Police put an end to his defense plan when they told him that using the giant catapult would be illegal as it did not constitute "reasonable force." Burglars broke into his workshop this week and stole or damaged £10,000 worth of goods and equipment. "It is ridiculous that we are in this situation now in which we can't defend ourselves," Joe said. I don't want to live in a world where an honest, hard-working man can't use a classical Roman weapon of mass destruction to defend himself.

Staying at least fifty degrees warmer than his environment is the secret to Joe's longevity.

Russian Surgeons have found a 5-centimeter high spruce growing inside a man's lung. Artyom Sidorkin, 28, had complained of extreme pain in his chest and had been coughing up blood. Instead of cancer surgeon Vladimir Kamashev found the sprout. "I blinked three times and thought I was seeing things," Vladimir said. Medical staff believe Sidorkin had somehow inhaled a seed, which later sprouted inside his lung. That theory seems much more likely than an evil pharmaceutical company treepacolypse, which was discussed during a smoke break this morning.

A passenger who landed a twin-engine plane at Southwest Florida International Airport after the pilot died in flight, saved four lives and is being called a hero. Federal Aviation Administration officials say the pilot died after takeoff from Marco Island Executive Airport on Sunday. The plane was on autopilot and climbing past 10,000 feet when the pilot died. The passenger who took the controls is licensed to fly single-engine planes but isn't certified to fly the two-engined King Air plane. An air traffic controller called a friend in Connecticut who picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue, and is rated to fly the aircraft. The pair talked the new pilot to a safe landing.

John Hunt, an atheist, has won the right to have his baptism removed from Church of England records after arguing that he was too young to give his consent to the ceremony. John was baptised at the age of five months but by the time he was eleven the oppressive nature of elementary school, and the inherit unfairness that comes along with picking soccer teams had convinced him that there was no god. After the church told him that his baptism could not be deleted because it is a matter of historical record, John secured a "de-baptism" certificate produced by the National Secular Society (NSS), rejecting "superstitions" or the idea of original sin. The certificate reads: "I reject all its creeds and other such superstitions in particular the perfidious belief that any baby needs to be cleansed of original sin." This week the church finally agreed to remove the record saying the entry would be "corrected."

More and more schools in the UK are turning to bouncers to watch over classes when teachers are not available. One London school went to a doormen's agency for "cover supervisors," who watch over lessons when teachers are away, and gave jobs to two bouncers, one of whom is still at the school. Andrew Baisley, a mathematics teacher, said, "The idea is that it's about crowd control and childminding. If they're stern and loud, that's what is necessary to do the job." At least the kids get to watch Road House instead of old National Geographic specials when the teacher decides not to show up.

The Finch Arboretum is being overrun by ground squirrels. Their plan is to do what any slightly disturbed and high assistant groundskeeper would do: blow them up. The Spokane Parks and Recreation agency is using a machine called the Rodenator Pro to detonate some of the estimated 100 to 150 squirrels tearing up the grounds. The Rodenator Pro pumps propane and oxygen into the tunnels of squirrels, then sends an electric spark that causes an explosion. The shock waves kill the squirrels, collapses their tunnels and decides the winner of the $20,000 golf match. In the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, "Au revoir, squirrel."

Helps put our economic power in perspective.

Afforess writes "A recent closer look at the oft-skimmed EULA agreement for iTunes has an interesting paragraph in it, Gizmodo reports. 'You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.' Although humorous, some readers suggested that this may be a defense measure to previously discussed price changes in the iTunes music store."