centerimg title="Gmail Gadget Now Official" style="MARGIN: 0px" alt="Gmail Gadget Now Official" src="http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2008/12/gmail-gadget.jpg" border="0" //centerbr / pGoogle has released its official Gmail gadget for its Google Desktop product line, offering users the choice to run a gamut of various Gmail accounts as standalone gadgets simultaneously. This tool will introduce a bunch of useful Gmail features including keyboard shortcuts, mail, and contact search, and the indispensable option to award your messages with a star. Not only that, users are able to compose emails in small pop-out windows that does away with the need to launch a browser. This is a Windows-only application at this point in time and will require Google Desktop version 5 or higher to run, so Mac and Linux users are out of luck at this point in time./p pPermalink: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/gmail_gadget_now_official.html"Gmail Gadget Now Official/a from Ubergizmo (a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"US/a, a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"FR/a) | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"Storm Review/a/p pmap name="google_ad_map_081202175120" area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/081202175120?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/ area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"//map img usemap="#google_ad_map_081202175120" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-7335032025195922amp;channel=9684588219amp;output=pngamp;cuid=081202175120amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubergizmo.com%2F15%2Farchives%2F2008%2F12%2Fgmail_gadget_now_official.html"//p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/BWyRQSICEgL2JVSgAgnnRmXWyx4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/BWyRQSICEgL2JVSgAgnnRmXWyx4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=iqnCvrqw"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=pHQ4IPIL"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=pHQ4IPIL" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=rVqDueYg"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=Hlmu6i9g"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=Hlmu6i9g" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=E4ynQ5bs"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=E4ynQ5bs" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ubergizmo/~4/Nv37iNp7sbU" height="1" width="1"/

Today’s Wall Street Journal story talking about yet another takeover attempt of Yahoo is incorrect, say our own sources. And unlike The Times’ story over the weekend, which was equally fictitious, this story had direct consequences in the market.

Today’s story as former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller out pitching private equity funds to raise “$28 billion to $30 billion” to acquire all of Yahoo.

Miller, along with his partner Ross Levinsohn at Velocity Interactive Group, were also center stage in The Times’ story over the weekend.

Our sources say that while Miller and Levinsohn have been talking to Yahoo and Microsoft executives and shareholders for months about Yahoo’s future (and at different times both Miller and Levinsohn have been proposed as Yahoo board members), they have not had any serious discussions with private equity funds about raising capital to take over the company.

The two, along with their other partners at Velocity, have been busy trying to raise a new $300 million fund over the last year anyway. And so far, we understand, they’ve only received commitments for $150 million. So trying to simultaneously raise $30 billion to take over Yahoo seems more than far fetched.

Another reason the story makes no sense - Levinsohn is bound by a non compete agreement with AOL that prohibits him from serving as an employee or board member to certain companies, including Yahoo. In fact, that non compete agreement is the reason Miller couldn’t join Yahoo’s board this last summer. The agreement doesn’t terminate until March, so any near term deal is impossible without AOL’s explicit consent. They wouldn’t give it last summer, and there’s no reason to believe they’d give it now.

Velocity won’t say much about the story, other than to comment that the WSJ made no real effort to contact them for comment before the story was published.

Our sources, combined with basic common sense, tell us the WSJ story is dead wrong. And there were consequences to the story - Yahoo’s stock jumped 11.7% today on the the incorrect news, before settling back down for the day. People lost money, and the SEC should be very interested in whoever was the source for this story.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

The Gadget: Callpod's Fueltank, a 2-in-1 portable battery/charger that can power up any two mobile devices simultaneously, from phones to Bluetooth to portable media players. It uses the same tips as...

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/fueltank4.jpg" align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2" width="800" height="580" style="display:block;float:none;" /strongThe Gadget/strong: a href="http://gizmodo.com/5083726/callpods-fueltank-is-two-gadgets-one-charger"Callpod's Fueltank/a, a 2-in-1 portable battery/charger that can power up any two mobile devices simultaneously, from phones to Bluetooth to portable media players. It uses the same tips as the a href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/review/chargepod-universal-six+way-charging-system-hands+on-verdict-it-revolutionizes-charging-266477.php"six-way Chargepod charger/a, so anything compatible with that is compatible with this./p pscript type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" galleryPost('callpodfueltank', 3, ''); /script/p pstrongThe Price/strong: $70 online, but should be available at Best Buy for $60/p pstrongThe Verdict/strong: Convenient. The Fueltank does exactly what it says it does: charge two devices simultaneously on the road. It's made even better because the charging tips are the same ones used in the Chargepod, so you can support just about every mobile gadget you have./p pIn our test, a completely empty Windows Mobile phone and a completely drained a href="http://gizmodo.com/5057621/callpod-dragon-v2-bluetooth-headset-lightning-review"Callpod Dragon/a charged up to full in about three hours. After this, the Fueltank still had enough juice left to power the phone for another two hours. One quirk though, is that the battery status display only works correctly when the Fueltank isn't plugged in to a power source, and displays somewhere between half to full power when you activate it while it's charging via a wall socket. It works correctly when disengaged and powering other devices./p pIt's kinda similar to the a href="http://gizmodo.com/5098238/powergorilla-portable-laptop-and-device-charger-lightning-review"Powergorilla/a that we tested last week, but only for smaller portable devices and not laptops. In our view, it's definitely worth $60 as a backup or extended battery, especially if you've got a phone like the a href="http://gizmodo.com/tag/g1"T-Mobile G1/a that can barely last a day on moderate use. The Fueltank is the same thickness and about 1.5x as wide as the G1, so it's easily slipped into your laptop bag. A good device for anyone who travels regularly and needs supplemental power where there's no outlets to be found. [a href="http://www.callpod.com/products/fueltank"Callpod/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=camp;i=f0cfa01b561223ad1b0fe21b4262d325amp;p=1"img style="border:0;" src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=vamp;i=f0cfa01b561223ad1b0fe21b4262d325amp;p=1" border="0" //adiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=nS25S48F"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=9lBp1gBZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=nSDpn5tI"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=nSDpn5tI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=u7eB4QsW"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=u7eB4QsW" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/DjeGckK24dI" height="1" width="1"/

(Image via Wikipedia)

They sure don't now. According to Jeff Vail, they just might:

How much of its own food can suburbia produce? In America, the average suburban lot size is approximately 12,000 square feet. That's about a quarter-acre. At an average of 2.56 people per household, and a rough average of 10,000 feet per lot not covered by structures, that's just under 4,000 square feet of yard per person. Of course, this ignores the potential for parks and other open spaces in suburbia to be converted to food-production. It is also an average figure--some neighborhoods will have far less space, others far more. Despite these sources of variability, it is a good jumping-off point. Is 4,000 square feet enough to provide for a person? There are three requirements: calories, nutrition, and the variety and selection necessary to support culture and quality of life. In addition, there are four limiting factors to food production in a given area: sunlight, water, labor, and soil/nutrients. In the interest of space, I'll only address three of these: calories, nutrition, and soil/nutrients--please feel free to discuss the other requirements and constraints in comments.

Can 4,000 square feet produce enough calories to feed one person? At 26 calories per ounce and roughly 8,000 pounds of potatoes harvested from 4,000 square feet (based on intermediate yields from John Jeavons "How to Grow More Vegetables," p. 92), that's 3.3 million calories, or 9,000 calories per day. This is, of course, completely unsustainable, insufficiently nutritious, etc. But it does answer the question--it is possible to grow enough calories on 4,000 square feet per person. The real limiting factors are nutrition and soil, discussed below:

Can 4,000 square feet produce enough nutrients to feed one person while simultaneously sustaining and improving the soil? One issue is that topsoil has been scraped away from more recent suburban developments. How effectively can we re-build soil, and how long does it take? John Jeavons has addressed this question in depth (summarized at p. 28-29 of "Grow More Vegetables"). He concludes that 4,000 square feet is roughly enough to feed one person a complete, nutritious diet, while simultaneously improving soil quality. His method involves 60% (by area) focus on growing soil-improving crops (high carbon content food crops for eventual compost), 30% mixed high-calorie root crops, and 10% mixed vegetables.

Check out Jeff's other suburbia analyses here. If you're ready to jump in and start growing, here are 92 Instructables tagged 'gardening!'

a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/can_suburbs_produce_all_t.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" /Read more/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/can_suburbs_produce_all_t.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" / Permalink/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/can_suburbs_produce_all_t.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890#comments" /Comments/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/green/?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" /Read more articles in Green/a | a href="http://digg.com/submit?url=blog.makezine.com%2Farchive%2F2008%2F12%2Fcan_suburbs_produce_all_t.htmltitle=Can%20suburbs%20produce%20all%20their%20own%20food%3Fbodytext=%20%28Image%20via%20Wikipedia%29%20They%20sure%20don%26apos%3Bt%20now.%20According%20to%20Jeff%20Vail%2C%20they%20just%20might%3A%20How%20much%20of%20its%20own%20food%20can%20suburbia%20produce%3F%20In%20America%2C%20the%20average%20suburban%20lot%20size%20is%20approximately%2012%2C000%20square%20feet.%20That%26apos%3Bs%20about%20a%20quarter-acre..topic=tech_news" /Digg this!/a

div style="FLOAT: right"img title="Nokia Unveils New Accessories" alt="Nokia Unveils New Accessories" hspace="5" src="http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2008/12/nokia-r6-home-music.jpg" vspace="5" border="0" //div pWhat better way to usher in the debut of a a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/nokia_introduces_the_n97_with_a_touchscreen_and_a_full_keyboard.html"new flagship handset/a than accompanying it with new accessories? First of all is the Nokia Home Music that you see on the right - this peripheral offers the ability to tune in to podcasts, Internet radio as well as regular FM radio at the simple touch of a button. You can opt to hook it to a variety of devices, ranging from cell phones to digital music players, a computer or even a Hi-Fi system. As for the Nokia Internet Stick CS-10, this broadband modem offers you quick access to the Internet no matter where you are - just make sure you're on an unlimited data plan with the SIM card inside lest you be slapped with a hefty data bill at the end of the month. Last but not least is the Nokia Extra Power DC-11 that offers users the ability to ldquo;extend the power of mobile devices anytime, anywhererdquo;, as it is capable of storing back-up power for up to two phones simultaneously. There is no word on pricing or availability for any of the mentioned peripherals though, so keep your eyes peeled./p pPermalink: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/nokia_unveils_new_accessories.html"Nokia Unveils New Accessories/a from Ubergizmo (a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"US/a, a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"FR/a) | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"Storm Review/a/p pmap name="google_ad_map_081202084205" area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/081202084205?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/ area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"//map img usemap="#google_ad_map_081202084205" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-7335032025195922amp;channel=9684588219amp;output=pngamp;cuid=081202084205amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubergizmo.com%2F15%2Farchives%2F2008%2F12%2Fnokia_unveils_new_accessories.html"//p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/zyT3qT2_IcO8tSU7yN-Xnmj807I/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/zyT3qT2_IcO8tSU7yN-Xnmj807I/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=0E31G8nY"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=6rm0kkcx"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=6rm0kkcx" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=iFg12wQi"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=pMVWqwFf"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=pMVWqwFf" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=ucgW5vNA"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=ucgW5vNA" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ubergizmo/~4/4C70LjZaO_k" height="1" width="1"/

centerimg title="Sennheiser Earbuds Are Disconnected" style="MARGIN: 0px" alt="Sennheiser Earbuds Are Disconnected" src="http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2008/12/sennheiser-earbuds.jpg" border="0" //centerbr / pThanks to the wonders of wireless connectivity, this pair of wireless Sennheiser earbuds are unconnected as well, offering unprecedented mobility with a touch of style. Too bad they're only available in Japan, so keep a keen eye out for import shops if you want to sport one of these Stateside. Each earbud will be independent from the other, although they do work in tandem with one another. A full charge is able to offer up to 10 hours of non-stop audio, and they boast a "twist-to-fit" design that allows your earbuds to stay in one's ears securely. Each purchase comes with a 2.4GHz wireles receiver and four earbuds to allow you to share your favorite tunes with a loved one simultaneously. We don't think people are willing to fork out $630 for this though, considering the current economic climate not to mention the heartache of losing one side. Being separated makes it all the much harder to find, eh?/p pPermalink: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/sennheiser_earbuds_are_disconnected.html"Sennheiser Earbuds Are Disconnected/a from Ubergizmo (a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"US/a, a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"FR/a) | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"Storm Review/a/p pmap name="google_ad_map_081201195713" area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/081201195713?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/ area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"//map img usemap="#google_ad_map_081201195713" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-7335032025195922amp;channel=9684588219amp;output=pngamp;cuid=081201195713amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubergizmo.com%2F15%2Farchives%2F2008%2F12%2Fsennheiser_earbuds_are_disconnected.html"//p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/-djv6K7AWCiauzhHmNoxSA5d5fQ/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/-djv6K7AWCiauzhHmNoxSA5d5fQ/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=nHkYIC4S"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=lTIu1Ngy"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=lTIu1Ngy" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=7V5DXZsX"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=DMw9SXw9"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=DMw9SXw9" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=k2sTvUwa"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=k2sTvUwa" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ubergizmo/~4/uuivBW_HFkM" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/37138?ns=guardianpageName=Society%3A+Drastic+measuresch=Societyc3=The+Guardianc4=Drugs+and+alcohol+%28Society%29%2CHealth+%28Society%29%2CSocietyc5=Society+Weekly%2CHealth+Society%2CCommunities+Societyc6=Viv+Groskopc7=2008_12_02c8=1127196c9=articlec10=GUc11=Societyc12=Drugs+and+alcoholc13=c14=h2=GU%2FSociety%2FDrugs+and+alcohol" width="1" height="1" //divpI am not an alcoholic but I do have a problem with drink. I rarely get properly drunk - maybe two or three times a year - but when I do, it's on a shameful, monumental scale. Historically, this has often coincided with the Christmas party season./ppThis year, however, will be different. Or that is the idea, at least./ppSix months ago, after I found myself telling friends yet another "hilarious" tale of a drunken incident, I embarked on a self-imposed period of alcoholic awareness, designed to remove the possibility of ever again being incapacitated by drink. I realised that unless I could find a way to avoid my epic displays I would be forced down the route of the alcoholic and have to give up drink completely. I was going to have to learn to deal with one drink at a time. Here's what I, and others in my position, have discovered./ppstrongFirst, establish whether you have a drink problem/strong/ppThis is easier said than done. Hypnotherapist Georgia Foster, author of The Drink Less Mind (Foster Publishing) and a specialist in helping people gain control around alcohol, says: "Sometimes we all drink too much. The odd, one-off 'blitzing it' moment is fine. But if it's a regular occurrence and it's not in check, that's a problem." That may be the case for many, but although my drunkenness was infrequent, to me, those blitzes felt problematic. Tania Glyde, author of Cleaning Up: How I Gave Up Drinking and Lived (Serpent's Tail), agrees that defining the extent of your drink problem is often subjective. "When I gave up drinking, lots of people said to me, 'You weren't that big a drinker'. Some people are able to drink huge amounts and not worry about it. I think you only have a problem when you reach your personal limit of shame."/ppSarah (not her real name), 29, faced this question three years ago. Now a personal trainer, she used to work in the City where binge drinking after work was common. "I wasn't an alcoholic in that I didn't need to drink every day," she says. "But if I went out, I had only to have one glass and I just wanted to keep on and on. Every time I drank, it would result in me getting drunk. I didn't have any control." She was becoming increasingly miserable, smoking more and overeating, too./ppstrongTry hypnotherapy/strong/ppIn 2005 Sarah saw a hypnotherapist for 12 one-hour sessions which, she says, helped re-programme her mind, and convince her that she has control over her actions. It also helped her deal with other issues which were causing her stress and exacerbating her binge drinking. She now finds it easy to stop at two or three units. (She has also stopped smoking.) "I am at a point where I will happily say during an evening's drinking, 'Shall we just have a cup of tea?' instead of, 'Come on, let's do some shots'."/ppstrongBe proactive, and prepared to lie/strong/ppSince her successful hypnotherapy sessions, Sarah still follows some tried and tested practical steps to help control her drinking. And I can vouch for the fact that these tips work even if you haven't been hypnotised (I've always found hypnotism a bit freaky). "Always order a glass of water with every alcoholic drink," says Sarah, "and drink them simultaneously. Stick to small drinks: be firm if someone insists on you having a large glass. If they complain, tell them you prefer small glasses because the drink stays colder." Be prepared for hostility, she adds: "A few people I used to work with did not respond to it well because they felt it was a judgment on them. I would just say: 'Get lost.'"/ppIf it gets too much, says Foster, resort to fibbing. "Pretend you're taking antibiotics, that you have a big meeting the next day or that you have a hangover. Drinking less can be a big social problem - people feel guilty about it. They feel they have to fit in with the social environment by drinking too much." In my experience, this is not always the case: I was with a very drunk friend the other night and apologised for ordering a Diet Coke. "You don't have to jushtify yourself to me," he slurred. The truth is, most people are too distracted by their own drinking to notice yours./ppThe other advice I have assiduously followed over the past six months is screamingly obvious, but it works. "It's all common sense really - eat before going out," says Don Shenker, chief executive of Alcohol Concern. "And don't drink in rounds," he adds, "because you feel obliged to have another drink even if you don't really want one." That sounds a bit Scrooge-like to me. My advice is: buy rounds if you can afford it, just exclude yourself if you want to. /ppstrongIf you can't manage alcohol-free days, you are in trouble/strong/ppHaving a few days a week when you don't drink at all is crucial for gaining control of your alcohol consumption, says Foster. But seven out of 10 of her clients are bemused when she advises this. "Most of the people I see have drunk pretty much every day since they went to university." Personally, I can go for days without drinking, though, and then have no idea of moderation when I do drink. Commonly, people who are infrequent binge drinkers are perfectionists, says Foster. "They're very good when they're not drinking, but as soon as they drink, their rebelliousness comes out and they become "perfect" at doing the opposite of what they're supposed to. When I work with someone like that I try to tell them to stop driving the system so perfectly - because something is going to give." This is me all over./ppstrongExercise extreme vigilance around free booze/strong/pp"There is a real attitude of, 'If it's free, we are obliged to consume it'," says Glyde. "It seems rude not to swipe as much free alcohol as possible." Plus, alcohol is not called a social lubricant for nothing: "Work-related parties can be so intimidating," she says. "Especially if you are supposed to be networking. Everyone is looking over their shoulders, gimlet-eyed. The pressure of having to act like someone you're not brings out the child in all of us. I can remember spitting wine over a company director once and thinking, 'Aren't I clever? I'm really pissed, but I don't care.'" If you are aware of all these factors, have admitted to yourself that you are nervous or intimidated, then you don't have to get caught up in them./ppShenker's key party survival suggestion is to avoid top-ups from waiters: "Finish your glass and pick up a fresh one so you know exactly how much you've had. Decide in advance how much you are going to drink and stick to it."/ppstrongIf in doubt, don't drink at all/strong/ppIf you are like me, then there will be some times in your life - periods of stress, anxiety or childish over-excitement - when you are better off not drinking because the risk of getting trolleyed is too high. Taking the car is my top tip for complete alcohol avoidance in these situations. When I first resolved never to get drunk again I drove everywhere for weeks and drank nothing. Once you've done that for a while, when you start drinking again you can re-learn your limits. Now I know how I feel after one glass (not much different to sober), how I feel after two (a bit merry), and after three (disastrously drunk and ready to become more so). For the first time in my life I have an idea of when I am supposed to stop. I can say from experience that it is far more rewarding than letting gravity decide./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/drugsandalcohol"Drugs and alcohol/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/health"Health/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/w5zQM0kIDrA4tL2ffj1EEfoXNfY/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/w5zQM0kIDrA4tL2ffj1EEfoXNfY/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

pWe see a shirtless dude in a cape, his neck draped in chunky necklaces of all types, wearing two pairs of sunglasses simultaneously then removing them to don some kind of spaceman's helmet. And all the while he never stops belting out his garage rock tunes with the passion of a Pentecostal preacher. This my friends is rock'n'roll. Watch as King Khan and his Shrines perform for god on the top of the world, running through "Welfare Bread" and then "No Regrets" rubbing up against "Land of the Freak". Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 later this week./p pstrong"Welfare Bread"br //strong object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="515" height="405" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" / param name="flashvars" value="file=http://pitchfork.tv/node/2545/embed.xml" / param name="src" value="http://video.pitchfork.tv/mediaplayer.swf" /embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="515" height="405" src="http://video.pitchfork.tv/mediaplayer.swf" flashvars="file=http://pitchfork.tv/node/2545/embed.xml" allowfullscreen="true"/embed /object /p pPitchfork.tv page with embed code is a href="http://pitchfork.tv/dont-look-down/king-khan-the-shrines-part-1-of-3/welfare-bread" target="_blank"stronghere/strong/a./p pstrong"No Regrets" / "Land of the Freak"/strong object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="515" height="405" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" / param name="flashvars" value="file=http://pitchfork.tv/node/2546/embed.xml" / param name="src" value="http://video.pitchfork.tv/mediaplayer.swf" /embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="515" height="405" src="http://video.pitchfork.tv/mediaplayer.swf" flashvars="file=http://pitchfork.tv/node/2546/embed.xml" allowfullscreen="true"/embed /object /p pPitchfork.tv page with embed code is a href="http://pitchfork.tv/dont-look-down/king-khan-the-shrines-part-1-of-3/no-regrets-/-land-of-the-freak" target="_blank"stronghere/strong/a./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/lIraZ7Rd_RxXT8HH4RpNKUG5324/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/lIraZ7Rd_RxXT8HH4RpNKUG5324/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/~4/hMNKfemeflo" height="1" width="1"/

Quote: The Psyclone TouchCharge is wireless in the same way that track lighting is wireless--which is to say that it really isn't. The contact-based charging device is available for Xbox ($69.99), Wii ($59.99), and PS3 ($49.99) controllers, with attachments for the BlackBerry Curve and Pearl, and Motorola RAZR V3 offered as well for an additional $34.99 each.

With attachments for charging two controllers, the TouchCharge cuts cable clutter in half, requiring only one AC adapter in place of two USB charging cables for a PlayStation 3. The PS3 version is compatible with the built-in rechargeable batteries included with each controller, though Xbox and Wii users will have to shell out some extra cash for rechargeable batteries (included in the elevated price of respective TouchCharge units).

To receive power from the TouchCharge, controllers and cell phones can be in contact with any section of the charging pad, so with some fancy maneuvering, you could in theory charge more than two devices simultaneously.

Starting at $49.99, the TouchCharge is not a huge investment, but until it can charge my devices completely wirelessly without the need for attachments, I'm going to stick to the included power cables. Psyclone TouchCharge models for gaming controllers are available at Best Buy, while cell phone charging pads and attachments can be purchased through WildCharge. Source: Gearlog / Press Release

p style="text-align: center;"a href="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126897/bigticketbanner_qjpreviewth.png?335682" rel="lightbox[article126897]" title="Big 20patch 20for 20the 20Big 20Ticket 20- 20Image 201 20 26nbsp 3B 20 20 26nbsp 3B 20 3Ca 20href 3D 22http 3A//img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126897/bigticketbanner.png 3F335682 22 20target 3D 22_blank 22 3E 3Cimg 20src 3D 22/img/newwindow.png 22 20title 3D 22Open 20in 20new 20window 22 20border 3D 220 22 3E 3C/a 3E"img style="margin-top: 3px; margin-bottom: 3px;" alt="Big patch for the Big Ticket - Image 1" title="Big patch for the Big Ticket - Image 1" src="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126897/bigticketbanner_qjpreviewth.png?335682" align="" border="0"/abr/pbrThis patch is gonna fix A LOT of things so you'd better read up on it. Fresh out of Pasta Padre, we've got the list of tweaks and fixes for span style="font-style: italic;"a href="http://ps3.qj.net/tags/nba/158" id="tag" title="National Basketball Association"NBA/a 2K9 /spanspan span span id="iTxt"(a href="http://ps3.qj.net/category/NBA-2K9/cid/5136" title="NBA 2k9 news, screens, trailers"PlayStation 3/a, a href="http://xbox360.qj.net/category/NBA-2K9/cid/5136" title="NBA 2k9 news, screens, trailers"Xbox 360/a)/span/span/spanspan style="font-style: italic;"./span There's a lot to read so enough with the babble and onto the list:brbrpspan style="font-weight: bold;"General/span/p ulliInbound Bug - We have corrected an issue where teams would not inbound the ball after a made basket, resulting in a non-authentic experience. This turned out to be a timing-specific issue with regards to quitting out of another game mode./liliPlayer a href="http://ps3.qj.net/tags/dna/10043" id="tag" title=""DNA/a We found an issue where face sliders were getting offset when downloading the DNA of a player that another user has previously uploaded. Downloaded players should now look identical to when the original user uploaded the Player DNA./liliCreated Player Scrolling Crash When a player was created with the Thick body type and was not placed on a team, on the Bobcats, or on the Thunder, the game would crash when attempting to load the player model in the create player screen or in-game. This issue has been addressed./liliExiting Game Mode Crash A crash was identified when the user attempted to leave a game mode (Association, Playoffs, etc.) when starting the game mode after receiving an updated Living Roster. This issue has been addressed./liliDevelopment Drill Crash Related to the issue above, a few users were seeing a crash when attempting to perform a development drill after loading an Association file. The triggering issue has been identified and resolved./liliSubstitution Issue It was discovered that when the user would change their Substitution Method to By Rotation , the CPU would remain in the By Fatigue method which would result in inconsistent subs or none at all. The CPU will now replicate the Substitution Method chosen by the user s team./lili2K Cam a href="http://ps3.qj.net/tags/framerate/8438" id="tag" title=""Framerate/a We have greatly improved the framerate gameplay in the 2K camera. Additional cameras have also seen performance boosts with the changes made./liliInjury Frequency In-game injuries during The Association will now occur at a lower frequency. This is particularly true with hard fouls, loose ball dives, and general falls./liliAssociation League Leaders Users playing through The Association with 5 minute quarters were finding that their players who should qualify for the league leaders weren t properly being listed. This issue has been corrected./liliAssociation Simulation The simulator inside The Association has been tuned to produce more realistic game results. We found the final scores for most games to be too high pre-patch./li/ul pspan style="font-weight: bold;"Online/span/p ulliPlayer Match Crash It was discovered on launch day that when a certain number of users simultaneously select the Player Match option, the game will eventually crash when looping through the available players./liliTeam-Up Lag An intense round of optimization has taken place for the Team-Up experience. The changes made grant significant speed improvements for users on slower a href="http://ps3.qj.net/tags/broadband/1989" id="tag" title="a high data-transmission rate internet connection"broadband/a connections such as lower-end a href="http://ps3.qj.net/tags/dsl/5469" id="tag" title=""DSL/a connections. The end result is a much smoother gameplay experience for everyone./lili 2K Cam In order to increase user satisfaction with the title, we have added the 2K camera angle as a playable camera angle when playing online./liliFirst FT Lag / Difficulty The first free throw of an online game had a variable amount of lag depending on which camera was chosen for the shot. We have corrected this issue by asserting a fixed camera for this shot that eliminates any controller lag. In addition to this, the make window for free throws in online play has been increased to account for the timing difference./liliWaiting For Opponent Users with poor connections were causing the game to loop too long on the Waiting for Opponent dialog before continuing on into the game. We ve cleaned up this behavior to place players into the game in a much quicker fashion./liliQuick Match Connection Problems An issue was identified where users were being re-directed to the online FAQ instead of being taken into a game. This message will now only appear in appropriate situations./liliOnline League Injuries In online leagues, injured players that were taken off the roster weren t healing. The game now properly detects injured players and heals them in the appropriate time frame regardless of where they are placed on the roster./liliPS3 Voice / Team-Up An issue was uncovered where voice chat would drop or become intermittent when more than two users were talking simultaneously. This issue has been resolved./liliTeam-Up Cameras The Broadcast camera for Team-Up has been optimized to show the user a better balance of their player, the ball, and they player they should be guarding. Also, 2K Cam has been added to the list of cameras the user can use during Team-Up play./li/ul pspan style="font-weight: bold;"Gameplay/span/p ulliSubbing Fouled Out Player A bug was found where you could substitute in a player who had previously fouled out, only when using the quick-sub method of the On-The-Fly Coaching menu./liliResetting Substitutions When the user queued up substitutions via the On-The-Fly Coaching feature, re-accessing the feature before the substitutions actually took place would cause the subs to be reset such that the user would have to manually perform them again. We have addressed this issue./liliPoints Off Turnovers It was discovered that this statistic was not calculating correctly when it is reported to the server for online league games. We have isolated the issue in the AI and have addressed the problem such that the stat is correctly reported./liliDouble Dribble Issue By performing a sequence of moves that ended in a hop step, the user was able to perform a double dribble. This issue has been corrected./liliJab Step Fixes The Jab Step move has been reconstructed to be more balanced in the post. Specifically, it should not be effective in user vs. user games unless the ball-handler touches a href="http://ps3.qj.net/tags/the-defender/4027" id="tag" title=""the defender/a. Also, performing the Jab Step should no longer make the defense go back when the ball-handler loses the dribble./liliPoints in the Paint In an effort to increase user satisfaction, we have tuned interior defense in combination with shooting percentages for shots taken in the paint. The result is something we feel will be more in-line with what our users are expecting./liliShooting Percentages Continuing with the above description, we have tuned down shot success of perimeter shots when the defender is amply covering the offensive player taking the shot./liliPlayVision PlayVision in Team-Up was showing everyone s starting point with no indication on which was yours. We have changed the behavior to only show the floor art for the player you are controlling./liliGeneral Fixes A large number of other smaller issues have been addressed with the aim of increasing user satisfaction. These changes, while minor, have improved the quality of gameplay./li/ul brDid you get all that? With the NBA season heating up the way it's doing right now, it'll be nice to relive the action in-game minus the crappy bugs. Did you happen to catch Andrew Bynum against the Raptors by the way? The kid's got major potential. Why don't you try him and the rest of the Lakers out on span style="font-style: italic;"2K9/span?brbrThe patch comes out this Wednesday for the PS3, and we can expect it to come out for Xbox 360 soon after.brbrhr style="width: 100 ; height: 2px;"brspan style="font-weight: bold;"Other recent patches that you might need to know about:br/spanullia href="http://www.qj.net/First-patch-for-Gears-of-War-2-now-available/pg/49/aid/126789"span title="First GoW2 patch" style="font-style: italic;"First patch for Gears of War 2 now available/span/a/lilispan title="First GoW2 patch" style="font-style: italic;"a title="Home v1.01 patch" href="http://www.qj.net/November-27-More-PlayStation-Home-invites-sent-Update-Home-v1-01-patch/pg/49/aid/126777"November 27: More PlayStation Home invities sent Update Home v1.01 patch/a/span/lilispan title="First GoW2 patch" style="font-style: italic;"a title="Resistance 2 Patch 1.30" href="http://www.qj.net/Now-live-Resistance-2-Patch-1-30/pg/49/aid/126762"Now live: Resistance 2 Patch 1.30/abr/span/li/ulbrbrimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/qj/ps3/~4/8_QLYLgQW3M" height="1" width="1"/

!--paging_filter--pNot all artists can extensively tour the world and simultaneously write massive amounts of new material. a href="http://www.beirutband.com/" target="_blank"Beirut/a's man-in-chief, Zach Condon, just happens to be one of the lucky few. 2007 saw the release of the band's iThe Flying Club Cup/i, a boat load of tour dates in support of the album, and enough new material written on the road for yet another release, due out February 16 of next year./p pa href="http://www.xlr8r.com/news/2008/12/beirut-announces-double-ep"read more/a/p

pstronga href="http://www.myspace.com/deejayrupture"strongDJ/rupture/strong/a/strong included a track by a href="http://www.myspace.com/filastine"strongFilastine/strong/a, "Hungry Ghost (Instrumental)", on his excellent new ema href="/article/record_review/146769-dj-rupture-uproot"strongUproot/strong/a/em mix, and even total Philistines may have noticed something compelling in its chirpy, nomadic rumble. Speaking of ruptures, get a load of that rip in the space/time continuum: "Fitnah", from Barcelona-based Filastine's forthcoming emDirty Bomb/em for DJ/rupture's a href="http://www.sootrecords.com/"strongSOOT/strong/a label, is a beguilingly globetrotting track that manages to sound simultaneously ancient and of the moment. It opens with a collage of TV static, mournful (yes, mournful) Theremin, muffled voices, chiming bells, handclaps, and clicking percussion that seems like it could be the mechanical whir of a camera shutter or a copy machine. Meanwhile, singer Jessika Skeletalia Kenney traces the kind of melancholic modal wail you'd hear walking among Middle Eastern storefronts in Queens (or, presumably, in the Middle East), while beneath her booms a heavy dubstep bassline and stuttering low-end beat. Philistines, alert your authorities./p p object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="300" height="110" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" param name="wmode" value="transparent" / param name="src" value="http://media.imeem.com/m/0z6u7DCAjA/aus=false/" /embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="300" height="110" src="http://media.imeem.com/m/0z6u7DCAjA/aus=false/" wmode="transparent"/embed /object /p pstrongMP3:gt;/strong a href="http://downloads.pitchforkmedia.com/Filistine%20-%20fitnah.mp3" target="_blank"span style="text-decoration: underline;"Filastine [ft. Jessika Skeletalia Kenney]: "Fitnah"/span/abr /[from emDirty Bomb/em; due 02/09/08 on a href="http://www.sootrecords.com/"strongSOOT/strong/a]/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/uLES-L1VBZHaEVG_agAtVIqxao0/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/uLES-L1VBZHaEVG_agAtVIqxao0/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/~4/FH32mBWxtxQ" height="1" width="1"/

Posted by Dennis Sellers

Acrylic Software has released Wallet, a new personal information management application available on both Mac OS X and the iPhone simultaneously. Formerly maintained by Waterfall Software, Wallet is a database application that lets users store and secure important pieces of personal information, such as software serial numbers, web passwords, and...