Slashdot Mirror

Dustin Britton's bad-assness has been cemented in stone after he fought off a mountain lion with a chainsaw. The 32-year-old mechanic and ex-Marine was cutting wood about 100 feet from his campsite when the big cat attacked. "It batted me three or four times with its front paws and as quick as I hit it with that saw it just turned away. You would think if you hit an animal with a chain saw it would dig right in. I might as well have hit it with a hockey stick," he said. Britton escaped the fight with only a small puncture wound and a 50% increase in testicle growth.

A bad day is working in a bakery and having your arm amputated in an accident with a kneading machine. A worse day having someone throwing your severed arm in the dumpster while you're being rushed to the hospital. After Franns Rilles's accident, the bakery cleaned the machines and continued production. The police didn't find the arm until the next day and by then it couldn't be reattached. Locals say the bakery has a good reputation and the prices are very reasonable. The bakery down the street costs an arm and a leg.

An anonymous reader writes "Two FBI agents walked into a public library in Maryland, without a warrant, and walked out with two computers. The library director agreed to release the machines to these smooth-talking feds. According to the article, the director of Frederick County Public Libraries indicated that this was the third time in his 10 years there that the FBI had requested records, but the first time they had come without a court order. The director seemed to indicate no regrets, stating 'It was a decision I made on my experience and the information given to me.' He further justified his actions, noting that the agents indicated specific computers they needed (of the several dozen in the library) and further that they 'had an awful lot of information.'" The library director speculated whether the raid may have involved the Bruce Ivins / anthrax case, musing "Obviously it coincided with the events everyone is talking about," but he said the agents hadn't mentioned it.

Maximum Prophet noted that one of the most influential and loud rock bands in the history of music is coming back together to perform at Live Earth this summer. Yes, that's right Tap is Back. The article has some good news (a new single is coming) and some bad news... apparently Derek is in rehab for addiction to the Internet. Best wishes to him on his recovery- I'm sure it won't impact the performance... if Spinal Tap is anything, they are a band.

Different River writes "Someone broke into the administrative computers at George Mason University and accessed personal information, including social security numbers, of 30,000 students, faculty, and staff. "Before the hacking, the university was in the process of replacing students' Social Security numbers with other internal numbers to protect against identity theft." Looks like they just missed it."

acroyear writes "WTOP, 1500am, a news radio station in the DC area, is reporting that the Patent Office Is Seeing Record Backlog, with 2 years for a patent now, and potentially 4 years to wait by decade's end, and the PTO is considering a 15% increase in filing fees. Personally, I think if they had set a trend of actually rejecting patents that don't belong, they'd have sent enough of a message to keep application numbers to a reasonable level; right now, everybody files because just about everything can get one."

acroyear writes "WTOP, 1500am, a news radio station in the DC area, is reporting that the Patent Office Is Seeing Record Backlog, with 2 years for a patent now, and potentially 4 years to wait by decade's end, and the PTO is considering a 15% increase in filing fees. Personally, I think if they had set a trend of actually rejecting patents that don't belong, they'd have sent enough of a message to keep application numbers to a reasonable level; right now, everybody files because just about everything can get one."