Here in my rainy home of London, stories about “yoofs” and “hooligans” glassing each other with beer pints are pretty rife, which is why I’m hardly surprised the UK government is redesigning the pint glass to cut back on violence. Supposedly 87,000 glassings occur each year in the UK, which says quite a bit about our culture here. Anyway, the government has weighed in and enlisted the help of the Design Council to create a safer glass, with a few different prototypes made so far. The first is coated in plastic to stop it from cracking, with the second design made from two layers of glass, bonded together with resin. It kind of begs the question of whether pubs should just sell the amber liquid in plastic glasses, but you know those Brits—they may be hard-fisted purveyors of a good ol’ glassing, but they still want to look classy while doing it. [ BBC ] Image Credit: OwenBlacker

A new study by the University of Pennsylvania has found that it’s safer for cops to use tasers to subdue perps than their fists and batons. But safest of all? Using words and patience. The team examined over 24,000 cases where police had used force, including almost 5500 incidents involving a Taser. After controlling for factors such as the amount of resistance shown by the suspect, they found that Taser use reduced the overall risk of injury by 65 per cent.

You may recall that last year, a man named Jdimytai Damour was trampled to death in the crush of a Walmart crowd eager to score Black Friday deals. This year, Walmart is taking steps to prevent another tragic incident. In fact, they went so far as to call in the same crowd control experts that help to keep things under control at major events like the Super Bowl and the Olympics. Each store will have it’s own gameplan, but the vast majority of locations (not just SuperCenters) will be open for 24-hours staring on Thanksgiving morning and ending on Friday evening. That way, Walmart hopes to prevent mammoth crowds from gathering outside the store waiting for the doors to open.

No doubt weighed down by his aresenal of 10 pipe bombs, a chainsaw and a sword with a 2-foot blade, a disturbed 17-year old’s plan to wreak havoc in a San Mateo, CA high school was thwarted by a teacher. Shortly after two pipe bombs were detonated in Hillsdale High School, English language development teacher Kennet Santana tackled the boy—pinning him down with the help of a few other members of the faculty until the police arrived. Not surprisingly, the kid is being described as “quiet,” “shy,” and “reclusive.” It’s always the person you least suspect, as they say, but you never hear about the loud, outgoing class clown going all leatherface on his classmates. [ SFGate ]

This according to a young gentleman in New York City, who says that a Verizon support guy sent to fix his phone ended up fixing his face, with fists . In corporate speak, I believe that’s called “thinking outside the box.” Our young supportsman (not a word) hasn’t yet been convicted of a crime, and deserves the benefit of the doubt, but the alleged victim’s account of the scenario is pretty spectacular (that’s him above, with the shiner): “The guy essentially snapped. He cold-cocked me, hit me two or three solid shots to the head while my hands were down,” said Isakson, a limo driver. But surely Mr, Isakson was being a dick, or something, right?

The inventor of this head-pounding “alarm clock” is admittedly a bit quirky (”Hi Mom!” cliche, check!), but I’ll be damned if I don’t give him kudos for inventing the most violent, aggressive alarm clock I’ve ever seen. Sadly, the source site doesn’t allow embedding, so I’ve assembled a series of screen grabs to try and capture the raw violence I saw in the original video. The same video, coincidentally, you can catch in the accompanying link. [ TechEblog ]