An anonymous reader writes "A judge in San Diego apparently had people secretly film her courtroom on two separate days in an effort to try to get a (better paying) job as a fake judge on TV. She's now being investigated for the actions, leading to a long list of the perhaps questionable snarky things she said during the days she was being filmed. There are pages upon pages of snarky and snappy quotes that sound preplanned for a TV audience, but perhaps oddest of all is that multiple times she had the entire courtroom cite the wisdom of Yoda in saying: 'Do or do not. There is no try.' Does George Lucas get royalties when that happens?"

Not that it will change anything, but researchers at Bristol University say that your dog might be a gloom-monger. In addition to the downer dogs, the study also found a few that seemed happy no matter how uncaring the world around them was. "We know that people's emotional states affect their judgments and that happy people are more likely to judge an ambiguous situation positively. What our study has shown is that this applies similarly to dogs," said professor Mike Mendl, an author of the study and head of animal welfare and behavior at Bristol University.

Straight from the plot of a dozen anime movies and at least 2 video games, Xiao Lin, and little sister Yin will stage a three day fighting festival to find men worth dating. Potential suitors must first show off their archery skills, then carry heavy weights over sharpened bamboo spears, and finally defeat one of the sisters in full contact combat. "They can chose open hand or any weapon they wish but we won't be holding back. If they can't beat us they aren't worthy," explained Lin. "We tried dating agencies but the men we met were all to weak. We could beat them easily," said Yin.

The Grand Midwest Hotel in Dubai gave a baby born in their lobby free accommodations for life. From the article: "Ram Chandra Sharma, a bellboy at the hotel, said the woman had been staying at the hotel with her husband and 5-year-old son for about two months. He said the woman sent him to retrieve towels and a bed sheet and the baby was born soon after he gave them to her. Mohammad Arshad Shah, the owner of the group of hotels, said a room will be named after the newborn boy and the family will receive some free nights at the hotel. He said the baby will receive a lifetime of free stays."

fridaynightsmoke writes "A former electrical engineer for utility EDF has been prosecuted for illegally supplying power to some 1,500 homes in north London. Derek Brown, 45, was arrested in 2008 after being seen tampering with the electric grid in a manhole. He specialized in connecting separate supplies to houses that were split into apartments. One landlord involved, Haresh Parmar, was jailed for 9 months for stealing £30,000 worth of electricity for 22 of his apartments. Brown's assets will be seized and he has been sentenced to 8 months suspended, and 150 hours community service."

McDonald's in Hong Kong would love to super size your nuptials. Starting January 1st, couples can spend few thousand Hong Kong dollars and have a McWedding. From the article: "The package has all the details to attract a wedding banquet cynic or a Golden Arches obsessive: a baked apple pie wedding cake, dress made out of party balloons, kiddie party favors for guests, and of course, catering by McDonald's. Alcohol is banned to make sure there won't be drunk party guests acting inappropriately at the family venue, so newlyweds will have to toast their union with soft drinks instead."

Pope Benedict XVI has warned that people are in danger of being unable to discern reality from fiction because of new technologies, and not old books. "New technologies and the progress they bring can make it impossible to distinguish truth from illusion and can lead to confusion between reality and virtual reality. The image can also become independent from reality, it can give birth to a virtual world, with various consequences -- above all the risk of indifference towards real life," he said.

It probably comes as no surprise, but researchers have found that most of us would gladly put on a mask and fight do-gooders if given super powers. From the article: "But power also acts like strong cologne that affects both the wearer and those within smelling distance, Galinsky noted. The person gains an enhanced sense of their importance, and other people may regard them with greater respect as well as extend leniency toward their actions. That combination makes for an easy slide into corruption."

disco_tracy writes "A new device gently pulls your finger in the right direction when you need to turn a car. The technology could replace the GPS devices and make it easier for distracted drivers to navigate. The device could also help the blind maneuver around obstacles."

jamax writes "According to the BBC: 'The Russian military has come up with an inventive way to deceive the enemy and save money at the same time: inflatable weapons. They look just like real ones: they are easy to transport and quick to deploy. You name it, the Russian army is blowing it up: from pretend tanks to entire radar stations.' But the interesting thing is these decoys are not dumb - actually they appear to be highly advanced for what I thought was a WWII-grade aerial photography countermeasures. Apparently they have heat signatures comparable with the military tech they represent, as well as the same radar signature."

It turns out the people of Oklahoma don't appreciate any educational program that refers to the founding fathers as "old dead white men." From the article: "The Oklahoma City public school district is taking a second look at a plan to teach at-risk students using rap and hip-hop after receiving complaints over one lesson referring to the Founding Fathers as 'old dead white men.' The program, known as Flocabulary, is an educational tool that uses rap and hip-hop music to help students learn and memorize basic principles of vocabulary, reading, writing, social studies, math and science. The district was authorized to spend $97,000 in federal funds on the program and has already spent $10,000, NewsOK.com reported."

Bobby Cleveland is the proud owner of the world's fastest lawnmower again. He managed to get his rider up to 96 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats to reclaim the title from his speed mowing rival, Don Wales.

Oxford University's Bodleian Library has purchased a huge £26m warehouse to give a proper home to over 6 million books and 1.2 million maps. The Library has been housing the collection in a salt mine, and plans on transferring the manuscripts over the next year. "The BSF will prove a long-awaited solution to the space problem that has long challenged the Bodleian," said its head librarian Dr Sarah Thomas. "We have been running out of space since the 1970s and the situation has become increasingly desperate in the last few years." The 153 miles of new shelf space will only be enough for the next 20 years however because of the library's historic entitlement to a copy of every volume published in the UK.

alphadogg writes "The No. 1 reason why friends dump friends on Facebook is when they get fed up seeing too many useless posts, according to new research out of the University of Colorado Denver Business School. Posts about polarizing subjects such as politics and religion as well as inappropriate and racist comments also sever many Facebook relationships, according to Christopher Sibona, a PhD student in the Computer and Science and Information Systems program. 'Researchers spend a lot of time examining how people form friendships online but little is known on how those relationships end,' said Sibona, whose research will be published in January by the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 'Perhaps this will help us develop a theory of the entire cycle of friending and unfriending.' Sibona surveyed more than 1,500 Facebook users to get to the bottom of why people dump each other. Not surprisingly, people who flood others with posts are at great risk of being unfriended. 'The 100th post about your favorite band is no longer interesting,' he said." Samzenpus likes this.

Australian inventor Sam Adeloju has won the £20,000 ($32,000) James Dyson Award for inventing the coolest piece of life-saving equipment ever. The Longreach is a modified bazooka which can fire an expanding flotation device up to 150m to a person in distress. From the article: "Mr Adeloju told NEWS.com.au that the Longreach was inspired by a grenade-launch training session with the Army Reserves. Weighing just 3.5kg, it shoots the rescue device 150m in a manner similar to the way the army uses a grenade launcher to deliver flares and aerial observation devices. Hitting the water activates an expanding foam unit in the Longreach rescue unit, which also incorporates LED illumination and a vortex air whistle."

Dthief writes "From MSNBC: 'Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee. Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat. "They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the family home. As it grew out of control, the Cranicks called 911, but the fire department from the nearby city of South Fulton would not respond.'"

ptresset writes "From Singularity Hub: 'Artists and programmers in the UK have decided to improve upon the male and female symbols outside many toilet facilities. They’ve developed a set of robotic arms that take pictures of people entering into a bathroom and then use that image to create a unique drawing to place outside the door. It then wipes away this art to make room for the next person’s caricature.'"

The latest example of people blindly following their GPS into danger has ended in tragedy. A 37-year-old Senegalese man drove himself and a companion into a lake, killing the driver. From the article: "Apparently, it was a very dark night in a bad rural road. The man was a foreigner who didn't know the area. When he saw the end of the road, it was too late. He didn't have time to stop the car. Perhaps he was going too fast, perhaps it was a sudden turn into the cliff. Whatever it was, I have traveled through these roads and I know how treacherous and bad they are. I'm not surprised that a foreigner fell into such an apparently obvious — but not really — trap."

The bomb suit relay and the robot obstacle course are just two of the events you can enjoy at the Bomb Squad Olympiad. Over the next three days squads from across South Carolina will compete and showcase their bomb defusing capabilities for the public. I hear the deep fried dynamite is especially good.

The Seventh Circuit Court has ruled that Beverly Stayart can't sue Yahoo! because she did not like what she saw on the results page after searching for her name. Stayart claimed that her "internet presence" was damaged by Yahoo! because results for a search of her name showed listings which included pharmaceuticals and adult oriented websites. The court disagreed. From the article: "Stayart had sued under Section 43(a) of the federal Lanham Act, which prohibits false advertising, false implications of endorsement, and so on. Her problem was that a Lanham Act claim requires a showing that the plaintiff has a 'commercial interest' to protect, and Stayart did not have a commercial interest in her own name."