CNNGO – Tateishi Burger is an old-school hamburger joint with a faux-modern twist: Patrons can order burgers through a coin-operated ‘vending machine.’ In a country obsessed with vending machines this one takes the love affair to a new, albeit technically inferior level. Pop in ¥100 and out drops the Tateishi Burger. Plop in ¥300 to the orange vending machine nearby, and a Tateishi Royal Burger with pickles and bacon rises from the bottom.

Just don’t try to order two at a time. The machine is automatic — and not really a machine. The chef cooks the burgers in his kitchen and manually operates the machine with a piece of string.

Their worried parents bring them to the doctor, fearing drug abuse or depression, but the evaluations come up empty. A doctor at Children’s Hospital Boston says something else may be at work. “We see kids who are just gaming, and they appear to their parents to have all of the signs and symptoms of drug use,’’ Dr. Michael Rich said about the seductive world of online games. “But in fact they are only hooked on the drug of electrons on their screen.’’

Climbing levels in games like World of Warcraft, where unlimited numbers of role-playing competitors play around the clock and around the world, can be habit-forming and disruptive for both adolescents and adults. Other online activities, from visiting porn sites to incessantly checking e-mail, can also interfere with work, school, and relationships. In a world where always being connected seems as vital as breathing, how much is too much? And does excessive Internet use equal addiction?

A debate already divides behavioral addictions such as compulsive gambling or shopping from physiological addictions to alcohol or other drugs. People don’t die when they unplug from the Internet, Dr. Ronald Pies points out.

“A person who is hooked on a barbiturate, taking tons and tons of it every day, and is suddenly cut off from the supply will go into a physiological withdrawal, which could kill him and often does,’’ said Pies, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine. “I have yet to be convinced that a teenager who sits in his room using the Internet for five, six, seven hours a day, as troubled as he or she may be, has a condition that can reasonably be compared to barbiturate addiction. Which is not to say there aren’t people with a severe, pathological use of electronic media.’’

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The results of that first test, a run of particle beams through the 17-mile tunnel, showed the machine in perfect working order. The scientists are hoping to have the LHC up and running as good as new in November, which after careful research I conclude is less than a week away.

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The medals all feature work by Canadian artists Corrine Hunt and Omer Arbel, and are each laser-etched with a unique design so that no two of the games’ medals will be the same. But perhaps most interestingly, the medals are made from materials reclaimed from used electronics. All that gold, silver, and bronze used to be running something… and now it’ll all be part of some of the biggest and heaviest medals in Olympic history.

The medals are also not flat, but instead move and rise, a design said to spring from the undulating land of Vancouver.

He apparently laments all the trees and time that’s been killed by people having to type and print out “http://” instead of just “http:” and whatever the address is. I’m pretty sure, though, that typing out all those slashes isn’t quite the biggest waste of time on the internet, so I hope he doesn’t beat himself up too badly at night.

Police believe they had been in contact over the internet with people linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and had been planning attacks in France.

Cern’s Large Hadron Collider is aiming to recreate conditions of the Big Bang.

The organisation confirmed that a physicist working at its site had been arrested “under suspicion of links to terrorist organisations”, and said it was helping the French police with their investigation.

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Cohen is Comcast’s executive vice-president for broadband, who believes that FCC should get their hands off the internet. Because, you know, everything is perfectly fine now that private companies are controlling it, making sure to block or throttle down any traffic they want. They just want to keep doing that, because that’s what benefit most all of us, the consumers and other companies trying to make free use of a vital infrastructure, one that should be neutral for everyone.

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Gizmodo -

The newest iPod Nano is incontrovertibly a step up from last year’s model, crammed with new features including a video camera. But can the Nano stay the same cool little player while simultaneously invading the Flip-cam market?

This new Nano—the 5th generation—comes in the same 8GB/16GB sizes as the last one (and the one before that, actually), though it costs more. You’ll pay $150 and $180 respectively, up from $130 and $150. But at least the $20-to-$30 bump can be traced to actual additional benefits.

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