beadfulthings writes "In light of recent discussions about the Internet habits of the older generation, it's comforting to know that in North Carolina, up to 10,000 license plates containing the potentially offensive 3-letter WTF combination will be replaced by the Motor Vehicles division at no cost — if the owner of the vehicle finds the plates offensive. As reported on Winston-Salem's television station WXII, the MVD was alerted to the problem by an irate 60-year-old technology teacher who'd been clued in by her grandchildren. The article includes a helpful slide show of twenty Internet acronyms every parent should know. The article doesn't include any information on how you could actually apply for a WTF license plate."

Keiko Wakabayshi, a 77-year-old Japanese grandmother and master of jujitsu, jojitso, kenjitso, judo, kendo and karate, has been hired by the Italian military to teach soldiers hand-to-hand combat and humility. Standing a mere 5ft tall she easily wipes the floor with the soldiers in the Folgore brigade, most of whom are over 6ft and a third her age. I hear her best move is forward, forward, heavy kick and you should watch out for her laser attack.

A company was told that when their lease was up they'd have to move to a new suite a floor below. A new business would be taking over their space. This wouldn't have been a problem, except that they had just built a server room in the back of their office — equipped with air conditioning units, ventilation, dedicated and backup power — which couldn't be relocated. The solution building management came up with was to wall off the old door to the server closet and allow access to the server room via the handicapped stall in the ladies restroom. The door in our handicapped bathroom just leads to Narnia.

An anonymous reader writes "A recently-introduced law in Japan requires all businesses to have mandatory obesity checks (video link) for all their employees and employees' family members over the age of 40, CNN reports. If the employee or family member is deemed obese, and does not lose the extra fat soon, their employer faces large fines. The legislated upper limit for the waistline is 33.5" for men, and 35.5" for women. Should America adopt universal health insurance, could we live to see the same kind of individual health regulations imposed on us by the government? By comparison, the average waistline in America in 2005 was 39 inches for men, 37 inches for women."

What's in a name? Sometimes everything you need to know.

Cliff Arnall, a psychologist and former tutor at Cardiff University has come up with an equation to calculate the happiest day of the year. Guess what? It's today. According to Arnall the feeling of optimism caused by the combination of lighter evenings, the prospect of holidays and memories of childhood summers is at its peak on June 20. So remember as you sit at work today and stare at the clock, wondering if time somehow slows down while you are in this brick and mortar coffin, wasting the best years of your life, it's never going to get better than it is right now.

In a decision that is sure to make pre-teens everywhere up the brat ante, a Quebec Superior Court ruled that a father couldn't discipline his daughter by grounding her from a school trip. The father is filing an appeal because his moral authority over his child had been undercut by the court, said his lawyer, Kim Beaudoin. The 12-year-old girl was not allowed to go online after she posted photos of herself on a dating site. She then got into an argument with her stepmother, so her father said she couldn't go on a school trip. I wonder what the statute of limitations is on a grounding? I'm still a little pissed about not being able to go over to Eric's sleepover birthday party in 2nd grade.

Gheorghe Dobrescu has to be the most unpopular man in Romania. He recently lost a mayoral race to a dead opponent. A supporter of the dead guy said, "I know he died, but I don't want change." Election authorities gave the post to Dobrescu in the end but some villagers have called for a new election. The dead mayor said that he was willing to forego his usual salary in lieu of fresh brains.

Corrupt writes "A Japanese firm has produced a 38 cm- (15 inch-) tall robotic girlfriend that kisses on command, to go on sale in September for around $175, with a target market of lonely adult men. Using her infrared sensors and battery power, the diminutive damsel named "EMA" puckers up for nearby human heads, entering what designers call its 'love mode.'" These are closed-mouth kisses, by the way.

snydeq writes "PCs preconfigured with stone-age malware, backups without recovery, Social Security numbers stored in plain view of high school students — Andy Brandt gives InfoWorld's Stupid Users series a new IT admin twist. Call it fratricide if you will, but getting paid to know better is no guarantee against IT idiocy, as these stories attest."

If you're like me, the first thing that pops into your mind when you think about chess is the Wu-Tang Clan. Now the Clan have launched a website called WuChess.com , "the world's first online chess and urban social network." I hope instead of black and white they use east coast, west coast pieces.

katicli writes "Geohashing, an obscure xkcd pastime which involves going to random coordinates generated by md5 hashing, the date, and the opening status of the stock market, appears to have just gotten far more interesting. The official wiki reports a warning for other geohashers intending to go to the spot designated for June 14th in the San Francisco area, as several avid fans of xkcd were met by an angry rancher and firearms."

If you hate billboards, then you'll really hate Francisco Guerra's invention. Francisco has found a way to make 4-foot-wide corporate logos made of helium bubbles that can travel for around 30 miles, selling products as they drift, before evaporating into thin air. Guerra, a special effects technician and former stage magician, calls his invention "Flogos." He has made a machine which can form the bubbles into any shape, and release them into the sky at a rate of one every 15 seconds. He has already been hired to make Mickey Mouse Flogos for Disney World, and has also created clouds in the shape of the Olympic rings and a peace symbol. It's only a matter of time before the night sky is filled with fluorescent erectile dysfunction clouds.

kamochan writes "If you are a fan of the Terminator series, this headline in BBC News sent shivers down your spine today. The idiots actually did it, the countdown has started! What the BBC claims the story is about: 'An advanced satellite that will improve greatly the ability of UK military forces to communicate around the globe has been launched into space.' Quite frankly, that sounds scary enough as it is, but why the heck did they have to name it Skynet?"

A four-month-long drug trial that cost over $1 million has been aborted after it was found that jurors were playing the puzzle game sudoku while evidence was being given. Sydney District Court Judge Peter Zahra stopped the trial after the jury foreperson told him that four to five jurors were playing up to half the time the trial had been going on. Everyone knows that if you get bored on a jury you should watch a movie on your iPod, take a nap or work on your manifesto.

This is Blizzard's best idea yet. The only thing more fun than playing Warcraft for 8 hours is watching someone else play it. I hope they remembered to let you sit through your characters installation process at the beginning.

DeathElk writes "Perhaps Chuck Norris has found a soft spot. He just dropped a lawsuit against university student Ian Spector and Spector's publisher, Penguin Group Ltd. Spector had previously penned a compilation of well known 'Facts' about Chuck Norris. We discussed the suit when it was filed last year."

Since 4th ed. came out on Friday there have been countless reviews, stories, wish-lists and undoubtedly a wiki covering it. The problem with all the coverage I have seen so far is that it appears to be incredibly one sided: human-sided. Here's the scoop on 4th ed. from a few who have been forgotten, a gnome and a half-orc.

mattOzan writes "Wired reports on a handy new Web service at youvebeenleftbehind.com, where subscribers can have email notifications sent to 62 non-believing friends in the wake of The Rapture. Personal and financial documents saved on the website will automatically be decrypted and sent to loved ones as well, six days after the presumably sky-sucked administrators all stop logging into the site."

Everyone knows that Germany produces some of the world's greatest engineers but what isn't so well known is their accomplishments in tricking the senile. To combat the problem of Alzheimer's patients wandering off, some care facilities are installing fake bus stops to help corral patients. "It sounds funny but it helps, Our members are 84 years old on average. Their short-term memory hardly works, but the long-term memory is still active. They know the green and yellow bus sign and remember that waiting there means they will go home." said Franz-Josef Goebel, the chairman of a local care association called the "Old Lions." Errant patients now wait at the bus stop for their trip home. After sitting for awhile they forget why they are there in the first place and are brought back to the facility.