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How do you expect to achieve immortality?

Well, should sporting prowess have passed you by, or should you have suffered an unfortunate career-ending injury on a night out with some foreign language students, perhaps you might might use your computer to discover a planet or two.

Or, in the case of British utility worker Peter Jalowiczor, four.

The Daily Mail reports that Jalowiczor is something of an astronomical enthusiast, despite not actually owning a telescope. If you want to discover a previously unknown planet, you don't apparently need the technology enjoyed by Admiral Lord Nelson.

Jalowiczor told the Mail … Read more

Germany is a remarkably underrated country. Not only has it largely avoided the financial arthritis brought on by the most greedy banks, it also offers a unique sense of playful optimism in a world gone sour.

You might, therefore, wonder why Germany's transport minister, Peter Ramsauer, rammed through a rather difficult diktat against laptops.

Oh, he didn't ban his no doubt assiduous employees from staring into screens and rectifying traffic problems. No, he banned the use of the word "laptop" as it is not German but Denglish--that difficult mixture of Deutsch and English.

The Independent reports … Read more

Updated at 1:45 p.m. PT December 19: I have heard from an AT&T spokesperson, who has offered me the following comment: "We are crediting the family's entire bill." AT&T will be giving me further details. I will update further then.

Updated at 8:47 a.m. PT December 21: AT&T tells me that its Customer Care is now in touch with Pte. Rivera and says that this is a rare and unfortunate occurrence that should have been handled differently.

I cannot imagine too many U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan … Read more

This is the time of year when you try to calculate how little time you can spend buying things for people who are trying to spend as little time as possible buying things for you.

Online shopping has helped hugely in this regard. You can show your closest friends and family how much you love them without leaving your bed.

However, there are so many choices that one can become addled.

So let me lift your burden and toss it into space. For the perfect Xmas gift is here. Yes, Computer Engineer Barbie.

Perhaps you had assumed Barbie was, at … Read more

If you were a UPS employee, would you be tempted, just occasionally, to open packages? Perhaps, out of curiosity? Or because they didn't smell quite right? Or because they did?

This difficult question arises because of the story of Richard Lynch from Grass Valley, Calif.

Lynch told ABC News 10 that he used UPS to ship a laptop for repairs. The laptop reportedly disappeared en route, the box allegedly arriving with just sheets and soda cans inside.

Keen to prove his notion that someone at UPS has thieved his laptop, Lynch reportedly rigged another package and took it to … Read more

Just when you thought it was safe to enter an airplane, along comes some professor to tell you that it may not be quite so.

For it seems that, despite the entrance of body scanners and their piercing gaze on every last element of your junk (reference embedded for those who missed it), these machines might not be foolproof.

According to Fox News, two professors at the University of California, San Francisco--Leon Kaufman and Joseph W. Carlson--have released a learned document that suggests it might be depressingly simple to fool a body scanner.

"It is very likely that a … Read more

The world can never have enough guns--at least not if they embody exciting new ways to destroy people and things that look wonderful in movies. So here is a weapon that seems to be the sheer personification of gun fun.

It is being tested by the U.S. Navy, and it seems to have some pulsating technical features. It doesn't rely on an explosive charge to propel a bullet toward a bad guy. Instead, Fox News informs me, it expels bullets along parallel rails. The bullets, thanks to the cheery push of an electromagnetic current, spring out at speeds … Read more

Until today, I was unaware that engineers at Apple enjoyed spare time.

However, somehow Andrew Carol, one of Apple's software engineers, decided that it was about time he eased back from designing the computer of the future and thought a little about re-creating a computer of the past.

The Antikythera Mechanism, is, allegedly, the oldest version of a scientific computer. The Greeks, who used to be so clever that they never endured too much of a financial crisis, built it around 100 B.C.

Somehow, it disappeared into history's cracks, until it was unearthed from a shipwreck in … Read more

Sometimes, the comparison just isn't apples to apples.

A rare Apple-1 recently sold for $215,000. However, a rare, transparent Mac SE couldn't even get $25,000 slipped into its garter.

Which inevitably leads one to an examination of the word "rare."

There were, allegedly, around 200 Apple-1s created. There were, equally allegedly, only 10 transparent Mac SEs.

And yet, in bidding that closed on Saturday, a transparent Mac SE failed to attract one bid of the $25,000 minimum on eBay.

The seller, who says he worked in Apple R&D in the 1980s, … Read more