The staff at Victrola Café & Art is sick of talking about Wi-Fi. Given the opportunity, as at a recent cupping in the back of the store to smell and taste the latest in-house roasts, the group prefers to talk about cafe culture, or how to create a nuanced light roasted coffee.

This isn't exactly news. Once again, one can't legislate courtesy.

Some Cafe Owners Pull the Plug on Lingering Wi-Fi Users

VeriSign Inc.(VRSN.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , the top manager of Internet domain names that allow people to find and surf Web sites, will keep control of Internet addresses that end in .net for six more years, the group that oversees Internet address allocation said on Thursday.

*sigh* ... these registries should not be run by for-profit companies.

Verisign keeps .net

In a nationwide advertising blitz, the Homeland Security Department has urged businesses and families to "Get Ready Now" for potential terror attacks or other disasters. But an internal audit released on Wednesday concluded that the department had fundamentally failed to follow its own advice.

Computer systems at 19 department sites that served agencies like the Transportation Security Administration, Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard had no functioning backups or relied on obviously deficient or incomplete backups, the report by the inspector general of the department said. Even the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is in charge of disaster recovery, was unprepared, the report said.

Audit Finds Security Dept. Is Lacking Disaster Backups

United Airlines plans to announce today that it is the first domestic airline to receive approval from regulators to install wireless Internet networks on its planes.

Yay ... about time!

United Airlines Approved for In-Flight Internet Service

"We really felt like the Lord was calling us to try to give one of these embryos, these children, a chance to live," Ms. McClure said.

Mr. McClure, though, disliked the fertility business, which he felt created extra embryos that were often destroyed or aborted. He feared that paying fees to receive the embryos would be helping an industry "that I have real problems with."

He consulted a Southern Baptist church elder, who advised him, " 'If you want to free the slaves, sometimes you have to deal with the slave trader,' " Mr. McClure said.

I hate people.

From Stem Cell Opponents, an Embryo Crusade

] Europe's highest court said Tuesday that it had no
] jurisdiction in a case involving the practice of buying
] drugs in low-priced countries within the European Union
] and diverting them to nations that set higher prices.

Lessig has argued that price discrimination on the part of drug companies is not necessarily a bad thing.

Court Refuses to Hear Case on European Drug Pricing

] In this case, a Blackhawk helicopter was sent by the
] Department of Homeland Security to intercept the errant
] plane, and a crew member, kneeling in the open door, held
] up a sign indicating the radio frequency that the pilot
] should tune to. As it turned out, that frequency was
] jammed at the time by a problem with a transmitter aboard
] another plane on the ground.

Ummmm....

No Order to Down Stray Plane, Pentagon Says

They put up all of their reviews, etc.

Times Special Section on Star Wars

] The Mayo researchers call the type of movement and
] calorie burning that they study NEAT, for nonexercise
] activity thermogenesis. The leader of the research team,
] Dr. James Levine - a nutritionist, an endocrinologist and
] a professor of medicine - has defined the term as "the
] energy expenditure associated with all the activities we
] undertake as vibrant, independent beings." Those
] activities include "occupation, leisure, sitting,
] standing, walking, toe-tapping, guitar playing, dancing
] and shopping," he writes. His team has even measured the
] energy burned in gum-chewing (11 calories an hour, if you
] chew six pieces at a time).

New Weight-Loss Focus: The Lean and the Restless

] LOS ANGELES--Today saw the second of the big three
] console makers announce its next-generation platform. At
] its pre-E3 press conference, Sony Computer Entertainment
] gave the world its first look at the PlayStation 3, as it
] is now officially called. While the device's price has
] not yet been set, its release window--spring 2006--has.
] Flanked by Sony Computer Entertainment America President
] and CEO Kaz Hirai, SCE head Ken Kutaragi introduced it as
] a "supercomputer for computer entertainment."

They've all jumped the shark on the specs of these boxes ...

PlayStation 3 announced for 2006