The bummer about MMORPGs is that, eventually, they end. Star Wars Galaxies will be undergoing a galaxy-ending disaster in only a month or so. The Matrix Online and Tabula Rasa also had big, planned events to give their players some semblance of closure and a goodbye to remember. Players of the Japanese MMORPG M2, however, got no fond adieu when the game was taken down out of the blue, permanently, due to a simple server malfunction.

Colonel Muammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi, long-time Libyan dictator, has been reported dead by Al Jazeera, which showed photos of the alleged corpse. Among many, many other things, Gaddafi was responsible for the extremely unreliable Libyan Internet by likley ordering the several country-wide black-outs that occurred throughout the course of the political turmoil in the country.

So far, the details on his death are pretty sparse. At the moment, there is no word of how he actually died, but Mohamed Benrasali, of the national council’s Tripoli Stabilization Committee, reported that Gaddafi was captured alive, but injured, and died from his wounds while being taken from his hometown of Surt where he was captured. Considering Gaddafi’s stranglehold on the Libyan Internet, this is a victory not only for the Libyan rebel forces but also for advocates of free speech, freedom of communication, and Internet as a right, not a privilege, everywhere.

Video of what appears to be Gaddafi’s body via Al Jazeera after the jump. Unsurprisingly, it’s a bit graphic. You’ve been warned.

So, if you’re on the East Coast, you’ve heard everything there is to hear about Irene. If you’re on the West Coast, you’ve probably heard everything you care to hear. Well, whether it tears the coast apart or not, whether plywood boards and transit suspensions are necessary or not, whether you’re going to be eating all that canned food in the coming weekend apocalypse or over the next year, let’s focus on the one thing that is for certain: Images of Irene are just epic, especially from space. That being that case, take a few minutes to zen out to the ethereal beauty of weather patterns before your power kicks out, or not.

The ever-present, always busy Anonymous has been up to their hacking ways again, this time taking down the website for the Syrian Ministry of Defense. The hacked webpage included a message to the Syrian people, assuring them the world is on their side and against the regime of Bashar Al-Assad, and a message to the Syrian army, encouraging them to “defend [their] country” by rising up and unseating Al-Assad by force.

Images at the top of the hacked page linked to videos depicting ongoing violence in Syria and the bottom of the page contained links to various protest groups. Source code from the page suggests the hack was performed by someone who uses the handle Poppy. While Anonymous is no stranger to hacks motivated by global politics, this is the first time in a while that they have hacked anything unrelated to the arrest of Anonymous affiliates or the support of WikiLeaks. Only time will tell if this is a one-off attack, or the start of an entire campaign.

James Richard Verone, a Gastonia, NC resident and former Coca-Cola truck driver has been charged with larceny from a person for robbing a local RBC Bank of $1. Verone committed the robbery to receive free healthcare while incarcerated because he has no benefits and can not take on the financial cost of his own care.

The charge is larceny from a person because Verone only took $1. The charge carries reduced jail time, but like bank robbery, the crime is still a felony. After passing the bank teller a note demanding $1 and healthcare, Verone sat quietly in the bank and waited for police to arrive. He was arrested and taken to the county jail, where his $100,000 bond has since been reduced to $2,000. He doesn’t intend to pay it, he is purposefully staying in jail.

The BodyGuard, designed by cameraman David Brown, is an armored glove equipped with a high voltage stun gun, laser pointer for aiming, video camera and flashlight. Brown developed the concept for the BodyGuard — which is designed to prevent violent situations rather than end them — one night in 2004 when he and a few of his friends were discussing a recent mountain lion that attacked some cyclists, leaving one dead and the other maimed.

When using a knife, gun, or other handheld weapon, Brown felt the item could be easily dropped, thus leaving the wielder unable to protect his or herself. So, he came up with the glove concept because he felt it would be more difficult to lose the weapon, but also because using one’s own hand was much more instinctual than using a foreign object.

Communication is vitally important in the wake of a disaster, especially for the first responders that arrive on the scene. But in cases of widespread destruction like the recent earthquakes in Japan, using the ubiquitous cellphone can be nearly impossible when cell towers are inoperable. AT&T’s recently announced Remote Mobility Zone portable cell towers aim to solve that problem by providing cell coverage with a device that fits inside of a suitcase.

The device is comprised of the suitcase which contains a “picocell” communication system, and a separate satellite dish. As the name implies, the picocell can’t handle huge volumes, only about 14 simultaneous calls. It can also supply limited data access, though far less than a full-size tower would. The device can function anywhere AT&T is licensed to operate, giving them a large area of operations. But because of its small size, it has no internal power supply and must be connected to an external generator.