Slashdot

An anonymous reader writes "Ever wondered how much the internet physically weighs? 498,438,559,990kg, according to CNET. To reach this figure, they added together public data on the weight of every computer, server and connecting cable. To this they added 6,075,000kg of iPhones, and over 6,800,000kg of Blackberries. Finally, they added the weight of 287,524 viruses and 85 billion+ webpages."

nk497 writes "London tech workers have stripped off to create their very own naked calendar for charity. Created by TechCrunch Europe contributing editor Milo Yiannopoulous, London Nude Tech 2010 isn't half as frightening as you'd think. It features photos (a few included at the link) of female and male tech entrepreneurs — one with strategically placed Mac — for every month of the year. It's raising funds for Take Heart India, so pick up your copy — it's for charity, right?"Click here to check out a few pics from the calender.

Since 1954 the US Postal Service, with the help volunteers from the small Alaskan town of North Pole, have responded to thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. All that has come to an end. It was discovered last Christmas that one of the volunteers opening children's letters was a registered sex offender. The scare was enough for the Postal Service to drop the program. North Pole Mayor Doug Isaacson said, "It's Grinchlike that the Postal Service never informed all the little elves before the fact." I can see how it would be confusing for a child to get a letter back with all the things Santa wants for Christmas.

Peruvian officials have arrested four people for allegedly killing at least 60 people to sell their fat and other tissues to Italian co-conspirators for cosmetic use in Europe. The indictment says the fat harvesters went after farmers and indigenous people in remote areas, tricking them by offering jobs. The arrests have revived the Andean legend of white foreigners called "Pishtacos." The Pishtacos were said to suck the fat out of people traveling on lonely roads at night, making fine soaps, lubricants, healing salves and beauty creams out of the tissue. We call them cosmetic surgeons.

An anonymous reader writes "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has taken pity on it's loverlorn engineers and is now offering to help find dates for them. From the article: 'Jim McDermott, chief human capital officer of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, thinks he's found a foolproof way to convince young engineers to come to his agency: Find them dates. "There are incentives, and then there are incentives," McDermott told a crowd of human resources officials at the HCMF Conference in Arlington, Va., earlier today. "When we’re hiring, we say, 'Is there a significant other in the picture'; If there’s no significant other, I tell them, 'We can help.''"

Sherri and Tom Milley may be the coolest parents in the world, at least in the eyes of their children. The Milley's were tired of having to help their children with hours of homework each night so they negotiated the "Milleys' Differentiated Homework Plan" with the school. The plan, which ensures their youngest two children will never have to do homework again, was signed by the children, parents and teachers. "It was a constant homework battle every night," Sherri told Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper. "It's hard to get a weeping child to take in math problems. They are tired. They shouldn't be working a second shift."

d'Armond Speers has a doctorate in computational linguistics but that wasn't enough for him. He is now pursuing the coveted "World's Worst Dad" title. To this end he has decided to treat his child like a verengan Ha'DIbaH and speak only Klingon around the child for the first 3 years of his life. "I was interested in the question of whether my son, going through his first language acquisition process, would acquire it like any human language," Speers told the Minnesota Daily. "He was definitely starting to learn it."

Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), who grew up with the rest of his 149 member family living in a shoe box in the middle of the road, would like everyone to stop complaining next Wednesday. He's co-sponsored House Concurrent Resolution 155, which designates the day before Thanksgiving as "Complaint Free Wednesday." He states, "From time to time, we all experience anxiety, frustration, stress, and regret. And often, we respond to these feelings with a criticism or a complaint. Regrettably, complaining keeps people stuck on current problems, inhibiting them from thinking constructively to find solutions. Research has also shown that complaining can be harmful to one’s emotional and physical health; relationships; and can limit professional career success."

MikeChino writes "Working in partnership with the US Army Corp of Engineers, Berry Plastics has rolled out a new breed of bomb-proof wallpaper. Dubbed the X-Flex Blast Protection System, the wallpaper is so effective that a single layer can keep a wrecking ball from smashing through a brick wall, and a double layer can stop blunt objects (i.e. a flying 2×4) from knocking down drywall. According to its designers, covering an entire room takes less than an hour."

PETA found a way to make sure nobody would ever eat pork again. The organization asked permission to bring a pretend pig farm with real pigs, and 3,500 buckets filled with pig urine and waste to the US Capitol plaza. The plan would have worked too, if it hadn't been for those darn Capitol Police, and the fact that pigs are so delicious.