May 12-16, 2008

A British consumer group turned its probing eye to the computer keyboards in its own offices and found filth a-plenty. Four out of 33 keyboards swabbed were deemed "health hazards," with several harboring bacteria that could cause food poisoning; one had five times more bacteria than the office toilet seat. The group was confident that its repulsive keyboards were no more disgusting than most. ...read more

Japanese official demoted after racking up 780,000 hits on porn sites
An employee of the government of the Japanese city of Kinokawa brought his computer to IT with virus problems, prompting a review of his Web browsing history. Their discovery: he had over 780,000 visits to pornographic Websites over the previous nine months, an average, assuming a 40-hour work week, of about 550 an hour. He was demoted and his monthly pay cut by $190.

Violent video games OK for kids, say Harvard researchers
A 2-year study of 1200 children found that children who played violent video games were just relieving stress. Sure, 51% of boys and 40% of girls who played violent games for 15 or more hours per week were involved in fights in the past year, but researchers say that is probably due to pre-existing underlying psychological problems. The real concern (at least for boys), say the researchers, is "not playing video games at all, because it looks like for this generation, video games are a measure of social competence."

Denver man wants citywide plan for alien invasion
Jeff Peckman will be heading to a Denver city council meeting with an agenda: he wants a citywide commission to deal with the issues of alien life. With the Feds silent in the War on Space Monsters, will local governments be forced to take the lead?

Coders leave celebrity references throughout open source code
George Bush? Britney Spears? Donald Knuth? Satan? All of these names and more are lurking in the great mass of open source Java code out there, according to the code search company Krugle.

Do you keep your computer keyboard clean?

I have one of those airspray cans and use it often

I try to shake out the crusty stuff every once in a while

You could tell at a glance what my current favorite Doritos flavor is by the color of the keys

Clean? You know you can get a new one for $20, right?

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