dAzED1 writes "My little brother is heading for training at 29 Palms as a Navy Corpsman with FMF. He gets a [Sailor|Soldier|Marine]'s pay, so while he can't afford gadgets, I can; since he'll be in a LAR unit, I was thinking of getting him a small video camera, an iPod, and some sort of solar recharger. Whatever he takes, he'll have to be able to carry in his pack, which is already going to be heavy with his medic gear. Other than the weight issue, I am having problems finding a solar recharger that doesn't get wildly differing reviews as to basic quality. He'll have plenty of sun and few clouds, but it needs to be lightweight, effective, and robust. With price not being much of a concern, what would you suggest for accomplishing this? Advice on a small robust video camera would be appreciated as well."

Today, the Black Mesa Team released an impressive trailer for their remake of Half-Life . The remake is a total-conversion mod for Half-Life 2, bringing the updated graphics and AI of the Source engine to the original game. The team has been dropping hints lately that the project, which began in 2004, is almost done, and the trailer confirms that it will be out in 2009. They also recently announced that they've "dropped Counter-Strike: Source as a requirement for Black Mesa, and from now on, the only thing you'll need to play the mod is a Steam account with any Source engine game installed! Black Mesa is now running completely off of our own content and base Source shared content, and we felt the vastly increased user base more then [sic] justified creating all the extra assets needed to make this switch."

John and Ann Till, from Petersfield, in Hampshire, spent three months collecting recyclables to pay for their honeymoon flights. The couple earned one reward point, which they converted into BA air miles, for every four items they recycled. In the end, they amassed 36,000 miles. Mr Till, 31, a railways communications manager, said, "We wanted to make our honeymoon special and were trying to think of ways to raise money for it. I saw on the machine that you got a Tesco Clubcard point for every four items you put in. For every 250 points you got 600 British Airways miles. We worked out that it would be possible to turn rubbish into our flights — as long as we had enough."

Erik J writes "In a fairly bold (and quite possibly stupid) move, the Sci-Fi Channel has announced plans to use missions and campaigns of players in their own developed MMO to shape and guide a new 'ongoing' television show. They hope to have the project up and ready to air by 2010, as they work with game developer Trion World Network to create 'the ultimate merging of the TV and gaming mediums.'"