Pizza, Beer, and Tracicle. Monkeybashi, #2 and the kidlet are coming to the Bay Area at the end of January. Toss those New Year's Resolutions aside and put the meetup on your calendar. When: Saturday, January 29, 6pm onwards Where: Jupiter in Berkeley (right at the Downtown Berkeley BART station) more inside

Curious George - Patenting an Product Hi everyone. I have what I think is a clever idea to slow speeding cars (I live on a narrow street that people think is a freeway) and even though I know the item could be put together pretty cheaply using existing technology, I am not an engineer. Nonetheless, after polling friends with the idea (after swearing them to a double pinky swear) it does seem to have potential. First off, I was wondering if any of those businesses you see advertising on daytime TV (i.e. "...patent your idea with Inventor's Submission Service...") are legit? I'm guessing probably not. Second, how would I, a smart boy but not a mechanical engineer get something like this patented, and then even more importanly, marketed? I'm not exactly rich, so hiring someone to build it is out of the question. Can one just patent an idea for a product, or do you need to build a working prototype? Thanks. PS- Regarding the legal stuff, I live in California in the USA.

The Nectar of the Gods is under threat of extinction - Pulque, the ancient drink of the pre-Hispanic Mexico favoured by the Aztec elite, is in danger of disappearing from daily use into museums and anthropologist's notebooks. In other South-American & ancient civilization themed mind candy, the first Andes civilisation is being studied. The zenith of the culture was from 3000 to 1800BC. They constructed complex buildings & irrigation systems.

You've seen the ads for Eharmony.com. What they don't tell you is they're a christian based dating site. The founder of eHarmony, Dr. Neil Clark Warren is associated with Focus on the Family, a right wing christian group. Is this some bizarre form of social engineering based on marriage and family?

A yummy Gingerbread CPU. Also on this site: a gingerbread laptop.