A big "thank you" to Sally and Amanda for pointing me at OnTheIssues, a web site that consolidates positions from each of the issues they have been able to track down. The organization was originally chartered in 2000 for the 2000 presidential election with the goal of providing "non-partisan information …

Verisign, the company that has a government-granted monopoly to control the root-level domains for .com and .net, is looking at reviving its SiteFinder service, according to an article in the Washington Post. With claims like "Site Finder was not controversial with users, 84 percent of whom said they liked it …

An article in Wired by Lawrence Lessig makes some interesting points about price discrimination by drug companies. He argues that there are rational reasons for charging more money in the US and other developed countries than in Africa. The basic argument goes like this: we think it is bad to …

There's a lot of spam out there these days, and not a small amount of it relates to the enlargement of certain parts of the anatomy. Well, the Denver Post is reporting that Jeffrey Horton of California is suing a number of the fraudsters because their products don't work. For …

Like it or not, Apple's switcher ads certain had an impact on popular culture. The election appears to have been touched by it as well, looking at the new Howard Dean Ads that are being readied for airing in Wisconsin. They're kind of cute, and you can vote on which …

OK, now we're getting somewhere. SCO's amended complaint (appearing on Groklaw) contains information about which files are infringing and on which lines. There are 4 tables of lines in the complaint (hopefully this isn't their whole case), and they refer directly to the lines of code in the Linux 2 …

Appropriately Clemson-colored M&M's were found by a lady in Greenville, South Carolina --marking the first winner in the M&M contest this year. The article appears in The Island Packet.

According to an article from the Washington Post, the University of Virginia will be dedicating $16M to keep the university affordable. The plan, dubbed Access UVa will attempt to eliminate need-based loans for low income students attending the university, a plan to cap needs-based loans for all students (in state …

SCO's lawsuit against IBM expanded from $3B to $5B this week, through the addition of copyright infringement claims. It appears that most of the new claims come from IBM's sale of their AIX operating system after the folks at SCO told them they were no longer licensed this summer. An …

MIT's Technology Review has an article entitled Why Heather Can Write which attributes increased writing abilities to kids who frequent sites for fan fiction. In contrast to stories that have appeared recently discussing the deleterious effects of the internet's Instant Messaging technologies, this article focuses on what kids can learn …

An article from InfoWorld gives some preliminary information about Samsung's upcoming satellite TV-receiving telephone. The announcement from Samsung earlier this week indicates that they have created a single chip that will decode the satellite signals broadcast at 2.6GHz (as opposed to 12.2GHz to 12.7GHz used by DBS …

Apple today released a beta version of iChat that will exchange video with Windows users who use AOL's AIM version 5.5. Seems to work... pretty cool. Also included is Direct Connect, but it appears to not always connect directly between two macs.

Apple has released (available through Software Update) a new version of their Bluetooth drivers for the Macintosh. Bluetooth Update 1.5 (available for Panther users) will allow you to use a Bluetooth headset for your iChat connections and other sound I/O. Further, if you are near a Bluetooth printer …

Although a little strange, the folks at NBC5 in Chicago have an article about a program by Rush University Medical Center to train barbers to talk to their patients about prostate cancer and getting tested. Hey, if it gets people in to see their doctors early, it's a great idea …

A frightening story for those who purchase drugs online. A report from AZCentral (in Australia -- requires information disclosure) details the FDA's warning about an internet pharmacy that was selling counterfeit birth control patches. The fake Ortho Evra patches were being sold by the New Delhi, India company as genuine Johnson …

It has been a dirty little secret for years that there are all sorts of pornographic computer games available. However, it appears based on an article from The Sun (in London) that the sheets are being pulled off of a game that will have strong marketing and explicit sexual content …

A quick update from the New York Times about the Mars Rovers. Spirit (the one with the memory problem) is busy erasing its flash memory in hopes that will solve its storage problem, while Opportunity continues to look at soil samples. So far, the most interesting thing found are some …

The New York Times is reporting that Bill Moyers and others are asking The History Channel to open an internal investigation into a documentary aired last year accusing former President Lyndon B Johnson of participating in the assassination of former President John F Kennedy. The row is about a show …

According to an article from MSFN (Microsoft Software Forum Network), Microsoft has announced the availability of a beta version of their 64-bit Windows operating system. Official information on the 64-bit Beta can be found on the Microsoft site. Requirements are: Athlon64 or Opteron Processor 256MB RAM 1.5GB Hard disk …

In exciting typographical news today, ABC News is reporting that the US State Department has issued an edict that Courier New 12 be replaced by Times New Roman 12 as the official font in all documents issued by the State Department (with a few exceptions, such as treaties).