Wmy2k7

(Credit: Takeaway/Wikimedia Commons)

Imagine you went out to eat and sat down to a meal of pasta shaped like the Batman logo. If a collaboration between Italian pasta maker Barilla and Dutch research organization TNO comes to fruition, restaurants could one day have 3D food printers that make this a reality.

According to Dutch news Web site Trouw, the two have been working on a fast 3D food printer that prints pasta and is targeted at the restaurant market. Diners could bring a USB stick containing their 3D designs, and chefs could plug-and-print on the spot.

Related stories

• 3D-printed pizza: Here's what it looks like
• 3D Systems launches world's first kitchen-ready 3D food printer
• ... [Read more]
  
  Related Links:
  Wear a mini 3D-printed container garden as a necklace
  Preorder an unofficial Iron Man suit for $2,000
  Science says perfect french fries lie beyond Mars
  Children's book turns readers into 3D-printing artists
  Girl wants a dragon, so scientists make one
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

I've had this link in an open browser tab for over a month, glancing at it every other day to renew my sense of awe. It's a photo gallery of the most intricate PC case mod I've seen in years--a diorama of a fictional battlefield that shows kitbashing at its best. Japanese designer Hiroto Ikeuchi spent over a year fleshing out this scene with model kits from a variety of companies, using an open (non-functioning) PC chassis as a sort of military base. Soldiers strategize on top of video cards, anti-armor bazooka launchers are powered by a USB hub, and a heliport finds its foundation on top of a weathered keyboard. Clutter is reconstructed into a form of storytelling. Ikeuchi tells Wired that the story isn't done either, as he plans on adding to his "living" sculpture. Many more photos of this awesome build can be found here.

You know what the passengers aboard the RMS Titanic were thinking on that chilly April night in 1912, while clinging to the sinking ship’s deck? We don’t know, but it probably wasn’t “I hope someday the vessel that delivered us into the hands of death is made into the focal point of a theme park.” On that note…

We’re always struggling with the question of Too soon? when companies use historic tragedies for their own purposes. But this time, it’s not like this Chinese company is alone in trying to cash in on the historic sinking of the Titanic: Heck, you can already buy a tea infuser shaped like the ship and there will soon be another Titanic setting sail with guests onboard.

But a theme park is supposed to be a happy place, so we can only imagine what kind of ghosts might be enticed to haunt this $165 million full-scale replica the company is planning for the main attraction.

Part of the allure of the ship in China is apparently the 1997 movie of the same name, you know, the one with Kate and Leo. And the whole thing is a testament to humanity, or something.

“When the Titanic was about to sink, the greatest extent of human spirit and responsibility was shown and that spirit goes beyond borders and it is eternal,” the company’s chief executive said in an interview with the state-run Xinhua news agency (via the AFP). “We chose to rebuild the Titanic in China so that such spirit can be promoted or inherited in the east.”

Not only will the ship be docked in a “prominent” position on a river, but — sigh — the replica will also recreate the experience of what it felt like to be on the luxury liner when it hit an iceberg. Reportedly. And also, sigh, again.

Take Our Poll

Chinese firm to build replica of Titanic [AFP]

When you hear about government waste, perhaps you have some vague idea of money being spent on things it shouldn’t be, like a new ping pong set for the Capitol game room or free novelty shot glasses at the White House (both are fictional examples, I think). But it’s not that Medicare is spending money on the wrong thing in this case — it’s that it might be paying close to double what it should. For penis pumps.

A new report by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services [PDF] says that penis pumps cost the Medicare program $172 million between 2006 and 2011 on 474,000 claims.

So what’s the big deal? After all, the Mayo Clinic says the pumps — or vacuum erection systems — are one of the few treatment options for erectile dysfunction, notes Reuters.

HHS is peeved at the cost because well, Medicare might’ve done better shopping for the pumps on the Internet and paying half as much money as a normal consumer would, the report says.

Government waste is a hot button issue in the U.S. capital right now while lawmakers argue over the best way to balance the budget.

“Medicare payment amounts for VES remain grossly excessive compared with the amounts that non-Medicare payers pay,” said the December 2013 report. “Medicare currently pays suppliers more than twice as much for VES as the Department of Veterans Affairs and consumers over the Internet pay for these types of devices.”

If Medicare instead had its payments cover what non-Medicare members pay, the government could’ve saved about $14.4 million in each of those six years, the report says.

Sounds like it’s time to teach someone at Medicare how to Internet.

Penis pumps cost U.S. government millions, watchdog cries waste [Reuters]

While much attention has been paid to the growing movement to improve the wages of fast food and retail workers in the U.S., there have been a number of of lawsuits in the last year involving long-held payment practices at the nation’s gentlemen’s clubs. Dancers at an Atlanta strip club are the latest to sue club owners, alleging that they are being forced to pay the owners for the right to work at the club.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that three dancers at the Tattletale Lounge sued the club and its owners in federal court on Monday, alleging violations of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and seeking class status to cover the 250 or so dancers that have worked at the club during the last three years.

“Defendants have maintained a pattern and practice of not paying employees wages, not paying for overtime wages, failing to provide proper time for required lunch and rest breaks and otherwise failing to provide statutorily mandated wages and compensation,” reads the complaint. “These violations were, and are, so egregious that Defendants go so far as to require each and every similarly situated employee to pay out of pocket costs prior to receiving any compensation.”

From what we understand of the industry, it is standard practice at many clubs for dancers to pay a fee to the club for each night they dance. In some cases, that fee is taken out of the dancers’ earnings at the end of a shift, while other clubs require upfront payment. Clubs have long held that dancers are independent contractors — much like hairstylists who rent chairs in a salon — and thus do not merit things like a minimum hourly wage, overtime, breaks or other considerations as mandated by state and federal law.

In September, a federal court in New York ruled that popular strip club Rick’s Cabaret held its dancers to such strict, micro-managed guidelines that the women were de facto employees and should be treated accordingly.

The Tattletale lawsuit states similar allegations to the Rick’s case, saying the dancers are required to attend staff meetings without compensation, must work a set number of hours or be suspended or fired, can only wear club-approved outfits while working and must get approval from management for their stage names.

In addition mandatory per-shift fees — $20 to the “house mom,” $10 to the doorman, among others — the dancers at the club say they were also forced to share 20% of their tips with the club DJ, and up to 10% of their tips as a performance fee to the club. That may be in violation of the FLSA, which says that tips belong wholly to the tipped employees and are only to be shared if the employees are part of a legal, agreed-upon tipping pool.

There is something missing in your life. You may not realize it right now, but you are suffering from a severe lack of giant pieces of novelty candy. When we say “giant,” we mean “26-pound gummy bears.”

We first learned about this strange industry from The Worst Things For Sale, which featured a three-pound worm along with an animated GIF of a guy chomping on it. This piqued our interest for what should be obvious reasons when you see the GIF.

Also, sugar. On Amazon, you can find other packaged giant candies. There is an 8-pack of giant Pop Rocks packets, for example.

There’s also a giant box of Nerds. Why does this exist? Who could finish such a container before they went stale?

That person with a very powerful pancreas might also be a fan of the giant gummy bears and worms, weighing in at three or six pounds. Or the even more giant ones available from specialty shops, such as the 26-pound gummy python.

I asked whether we could split one of these at our next Consumerist staff meeting, but was voted down. maybe because of the nutrition information:

Cherry & Blue Raspberry flavored
Weight: 26.9 pounds (12.2 kg)
Calories: 36,720
Servings: Approximately 306

Sprint has reportedly been eyeing a merger with T-Mobile since December. Together, the two companies might have the size and clout to stand up to the nation’s two largest mobile carriers, Verizon and AT&T. But could T-Mobile’s small size and untraditional strategies actually be the roadblock preventing the purchase from happening?

As Bloomberg reports, T-Mobile’s “maverick” pricing may indeed present a major obstacle to Sprint’s merger plans. An analyst told Bloomberg that there isn’t “political appetite” among regulatory officials “for seeing the national field reduced by one, especially if that one is a maverick carrier,” adding in a terrible phone pun that such a move “would hit a lot of static.”

How has T-Mobile earned this reputation for being plucky? It’s not just the big personality of their party-crashing CEO John Legere. Despite–or maybe because of–being the smallest of the four major national mobile companies, the carrier has been making a clear mark for itself with pricing models that the larger companies still shy away from.

In just the past year, T-Mobile has dropped a number of international use fees, offered to pay early termination fees for families who make the switch to their service, and dumped contracts for customers who provide their own phones. They also broke with the standard subsidized-phone model, separating the cost of phones from the cost of their usage plans.

On top of all that, last week T-Mobile snapped up a chunk of the wireless spectrum from Verizon, a move that increased their coverage reach in both cities and rural areas.

Last year the head of the anti-trust division at the Justice Department cautioned that regulators needed to “maintain vigilance against any lessening of the intensity of competitive forces” in the mobile arena.  If Sprint and T-Mobile were to merge, there would be only three major national wireless carriers remaining. Such a merger could also kill off a company whose pricing models have actually been managing to shake up the industry a bit.

If regulators are hesitant to let that happen without thinking it through, then good. When companies truly have to compete for business against innovative rivals, consumers tend to be the winners.

T-Mobile Pricing Seen as Obstacle for Any Sprint Merger [Bloomberg]

The conversion of Philadelphia to Kabletown continues. Comcast’s relatively new headquarters already dominates the city’s skyline, pointing into the clouds like a giant USB drive. Now comes news that the Lords of Xfinity are set to erect an even taller middle finger to all the people of Philadelphia (myself included) who would much rather have another cable and Internet provider.

Rumors of a second building began to sprout up last fall, with some even whispering that Comcast would be moving its newly acquired NBC operations from NYC to Philly. Comcast denied that it was relocating anyone, but the Philadelphia Inquirer has confirmed that the cable/Internet/TV mega-company will be adding a fittingly large building in a lot adjacent to its existing HQ.

The new building will stand 1,121 feet tall, 150 feet taller than the current Comcast tower and 573 feet taller than the statue of William Penn atop Philadelphia City Hall, which had once been the maximum height of any building in the city.

Because Comcast lives in a 1950s industrial film, the tower will apparently be called the Comcast Innovation and Technology Center. (Science! Industry! World of Tomorrow!)

It will include 13 “sky gardens,” a fancy term for three-story atriums, where the company’s software designers, engineers and product developers will contemplate the universe, and how to wring every last dollar out of people for enjoying it.

Interestingly enough, the top floors of the new building won’t be reserved for CEO Brian Roberts to stand atop while sipping expensive brandy and rich-person-laughing. Instead, these floors will be given over to the fancy Four Seasons Hotel that will relocate to the new tower.

On the plus side for Philadelphia, the construction of the tower will result in jobs for thousands of people both during and after construction.

25% of the building’s 1.5 million square feet of office space will be available for rent to other businesses, so maybe I can relocate a few blocks from my cold, dank cave to a deluxe office in the sky-aye-aye.

Comcast is expected to break ground on its new digs sometime this summer.

It sounds too awful to be true, but it is: A man who brought in a BMW to a repair shop for some minor work ended up with a wrecked car instead, after an employee admitted to taking it out for a joyride and wrecking it. And apparently, that is totally legal.

The customer is out one vehicle after the incident, but it appears all he can do is sue the repair shop, reports WESH.com in Orlando. Police confirmed that the worker was driving the car and was involved in not one, but two accidents in the wee hours of January 8.

The car was towed by another company, whose owner called up the repair shop to see what the heck had happened.

“He proceeds to tell me that it wasn’t the owner but one of his employees that wrecked it,” the tow company owner said.

But unfortunately for the car’s owner, it’s not against the law for an employee to drive a customer’s car, the cops say. And the repair shop apparently told the owner “Not our problem.”

“They gave (their employee) permission to take my car across the state of Florida and total it and not give it back to me. And in the meantime, I’m out a $7,000 BMW, and they told me tough luck,” the customer says.

It’s not like he’s totally out of luck, with no recourse. He can sue the repair shop — and it’s to be hoped that it was a fully licensed and insured because that would likely cover the cost of the wrecked car. But until he sorts through all of that, which would take place in civil courts, the employee is just fine in the eyes of the law.

Which brings to mind this, of course:

Repair shop employee wrecked customer’s BMW on joyride, police say [WESH.com]

Jon snapped this photo of what he called an “amazing Lowe’s sale” and sent it along. Indeed, it’s pretty amazing, if by “amazing” he actually meant “pointless” and “stupid.”

As these errors go, at least the “clearance” price is lower than the original price. That isn’t always the case.

Confusingly, the Lowe’s website lists this product too. Its regular price is $29.97.

If I had a nickel for every time a medieval sword-fighting practice session in a Taco Bell parking lot turns into a drug deal gone wrong… well you know where I’m going with this. It’s a weird occurrence and in one recent Cleveland case, pretty embarrassing for the accused drug dealers in question. Sounds like they got taken by a bunch of teenagers, wielding swords, no less.

The story two men told Cleveland cops at first was that they were just hanging out with some teenagers in a Taco Bell parking lot, practicing their medieval sword-fighting craft, when the teens up and robbed them, reports Cleveland.com.

But see, there was bit more to that story, and that bit maybe should’ve had the men thinking twice about calling the authorities. Seems the twosome sort of forgot to mention that the alleged reason they were in that parking lot was to sell pot to the group of teenagers.

When police asked about the robbery, neither of the suspects mentioned that part of the story. Instead they said they were just their to practice their sword skills.

“But that’s clearly not what ended up happening,” said the public information officer for the local police department.

Instead, cops say that when the two men got into a car with the teenagers to sell them $80 worth of marijuana, one of the teens pepper-sprayed one of the alleged drug dealers, grabbed the stash and ran. The two men then called the police to report the robbery, failing to mention it was pot that had been stolen.

Police looked at one of the men’s phone records and spoke to witnesses before determining that the and the other guy had met with the teenagers with the intent to sell them pot, not just play with swords. Gotcha.

One of them men was charged with trafficking marijuana, obstructing justice and possessing criminal tools, while the other is facing charges of trafficking marijuana and obstructing justice.

Two men robbed of their marijuana in Westlake after practicing medieval swordfighting, police said [Cleveland.com]

When it comes to dive watches, many immediately think of iconic Swiss watches like the Rolex Submariner and the Blancpain Fifty-Fathoms. Of course, the story doesn’t stop here. In fact, there’s another country that can credibly lay claim to a long and storied history with the dive watch: Japan. If you need evidence of Japan's dive watch prowess (or just a road map to buying yourself one), read on.

...

Read More »

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Have you heard of ShopKeep POS before? They happen to be the cloud-based point of sale platform which was specially designed by retailers for retailers, and you know when an initiative like that happens, it is more often than not a solution that works like a charm. After all, who else better to know the issues that retailers face than retailers themselves? Well, ShopKeep has just announced the ShopKeep Mobile, which happens to be a handheld point of sale device which will run on Griffin Olli hardware alongside the ShopKeep POS app.

Jason Richelson, Founder & CEO, ShopKeep POS, shared, “This is a complete handheld POS that is connected to the cloud. It’s everything you need to run your store – in your pocket. It also removes one of the worst parts of the retail experience for shoppers, which is waiting in line; and creates a more personal customer interaction by removing the counter as a barrier. This is groundbreaking technology that will bring the customer experience you get in the Apple store to small businesses everywhere.”

Specially designed for the iPod touch, ShopKeep Mobile will boast of an encrypted credit card swiper as well as a high speed laser barcode scanner that will be able to ring-up sales directly from the showroom floor. Stores that can use this range from clothing boutiques to specialty retailers, where it is capable of being a game changer, maximizing revenue per square footage simply by removing their counter as well as providing customers with a better shopping experience.

Apart from that, the ShopKeep Mobile will also be accompanied by a full range of reports, inventory management and QuickBooks integration via the BackOffice, customer database, emailed receipts, rapid item search, discount by $ or %, ability to turn tax on or off, ability to ring-up ad-hoc sales, printer support, unlimited customer care and an offline mode. Right now, ShopKeep Mobile remains in production beta.

Press Release
[ ShopKeep Mobile POS announced, targets small businesses copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

(AP) An Ohio woman made fliers offering a case of beer and a pack of cigarettes as a reward for f

A federal court dealt a deadly blow to net neutrality on Tuesday by striking down the FCC's open Internet rules and practically inviting broadband providers to offer preferential treatment to companies willing to pay for it. It was a deadly blow, but did it really kill net neutrality dead?

Read more...

Getting your daily dose of THC shouldn't require coughing and hacking through bong hits or dropping hundreds of dollars on vaporizers. Here's how to give your cooking a dash of psychedelic deliciousness.

Read more...

We already know that the NSA intercepts computer deliveries to introduce backdoors into hardware, but now a story in the New York Times suggests that the Agency uses radio technology to spy on 100,000 computers that aren't connected to the internet.

Read more...

Privacy is at the forefront of everybody's mind, now more than ever. So Blackphone, which will run a "security-oriented" version of Android and claims to be able to foil the NSA, couldn't be better timed.

Read more...

Alcohol may not solve all our problems, but it can solve at least one: A researcher in Scotland has found a way to purify arsenic-tainted water with the barley husks leftover from making whiskey.

Read more...

Riding a bike is a musical experience in more than a metaphorical way: Brakes squeal, spokes click, derailleurs clang. Composer Johnnyrandom sampled himself "playing" his bicycle and the results are positively gorgeous.

Read more...

Almost everything looks cooler when it's filmed in slow motion, right? Explosions, athletic feats of achievement, glass breaking, water pouring, fireworks shooting, highlights happening, fighting and pretty much everything else in the world. Except one thing. Beatboxing. It looks positively explicit in slow motion.

Read more...

You're not looking at a digital painting or a photo that's been manipulated with Photoshop or some sort of hyper real painting here, you're looking at a real photograph taken with a real camera. No Photoshopping at all. Hard to believe, right?

Read more...

Remember kids, you should never judge a book by its cover. Even if that cover looks like a parasitic, towel-eating monster that's taken up residence in your anus.

Read more...

Adobe is updating Photoshop to let you create 3D-printable files within the program. Hooray!

Read more...