An article in the Washington Post this morning describes the benefits inuring to presidential candidate Howard Dean for not having a voting record on the national scene. At issue right now are the key Democratic complaints about President Bush and the fact that nearly all of the other Democratic candidates …

Days after the announcement of the RIAA's Clean Slate program for "amnesty," the RIAA is under fire for creating a misleading program which (at least from cursory examination by lawyers) doesn't provide protection from lawsuits. According to an article on CNet, one California resident has filed suit against the organization …

In a speech yesterday (reported by the Washington Post), President Bush asked the public to "untie the hands of our law enforcement officials." In his speech, Bush has called for extensions to the USA Patriot Act to give the government additional powers which he claims would bring anti- terrorism enforcement …

A creative company in the UK has devised a new fundraising mechanism aimed at people who make a lot of money (which would include just about everybody in the west). As reported by Wired, and as you can see for yourself by visiting the site at Global Rich List, the …

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced yesterday that they have launched a program aimed at determining the usefulness of DVDs and CDs as archival storage media and at setting standards for media that would be appropriate for keeping data for 50+ years. According to information on the …

ATI and nVidia have a new battleground now that the initial Half Life 2 benchmarks are making the rounds. So far, according to an article on Extreme Tech, ATI is in the lead by a healthy margin. However, some of this is suspect due to an OEM agreement between ATI …

As a long-time Star Trek fan, I have to admit that after Star Trek:Voyager and the last lack-luster film, I have not put much thought into watching Enterprise, the latest Star Trek series. However, a recent article in Salon (yes, you'll have to either watch ads or subscribe to …

The Washington Post has an article about a number of schools in Fairfax County, VA that are trying "looping" with their grade school classes. The technique involves moving the entire class (or close to it) up to the next grade level with the same teacher. The technique appears to be …

In response to the Open Letter from SCO's CEO earlier this week, Linux Today has printed a response from Bruce Perens and Eric Raymond. It covers some specific responses to the SCO claims that the Open Source community has been harboring the DDoS attackers and also goes over the intellectual …

IDG News Service reports (courtesy of MacCentral) that Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee) raised questions yesterday about the DMCA's subpoena provisions. Unfortunately, he is still taking the RIAA side in the intellectual property vs. privacy debate. Although he indicated that the DMCA is "not perfect," he …

On the eve of the announcement that NASA plans to run the shuttle again next spring, the Christian Science Monitor has an article about the X Prize, a contest intended to bring commercial entities into the space race.

In a search to find out the popularity of the variations on the name Eric (Erik, Erick) during a discussion with a friend, I happened upon the Social Security Administration's official Baby Name site. Yeah, I thought the same thing.... since when does the SSA need an official baby name …

In a move intended to prove a point, defendants sued earlier this year by EMarketersAmerica.org have decided to continue the lawsuit to its conclusion despite a motion by the plaintiffs to drop the lawsuit voluntarily. The defendants are determined to win a judgment and get court costs for the …

Obituaries are a bit out of character for this site, but I felt it appropriate to note the passing of renowned scientist Edward Teller. Teller is best known as the "father of the H bomb", however he had also worked at finding peaceful uses for nuclear reactions (including nuclear power …

Baby steps to be assured, but still steps. I received an email this morning from Autodesk (makers of AutoCAD) stating that they will be releasing viewers and import/export tools later this fall. The announcement is available online at their site. They are reiterating that they have not yet decided …

In a move heralded as a victory by both the ACLU and the CDT (Center for Democracy in Technology), CNet is reporting that the state of Pennsylvania has suspended the operation of its site blocking law pending further legal action by the federal courts. At issue is a Pennsylvania state …

An article on Wired this morning indicates that the RIAA has settled a lawsuit with one of the newly sued people. This one is a 12-year old and they are letting her off with a fine of $2,000. Fortunately, this move has sparked some new resistance to the DMCA's …

I read with interest an article from CNet about a ruling yesterday by a Federal judge in Virginia who found that software that pops up ads over particular web pages (such as is done by the defendant, WhenU, and others such as Gator) are annoying, but legal and do not …

SCO, the company that created an outcry earlier this year by stating every copy of Linux was in violation of their copyrights, is targeting SGI for their next action. In an open letter from SCO to the Open Source community which broadly accuses the community of coddling those who launched …

For those interested in the logistics of an RIAA lawsuit and how they seek out and find file swappers, there is an article from CNet that does a good job of covering the basics without oversimplifying or going so deep that they get facts wrong.