Articles


Review: The Hulk

In late April, I was feeling concerned because all of my reviews had been favorable. I wrote in that review "At this point, you are wondering if I ever pan a film." The time has come, the movie is The Hulk and to cut to the quick, don't waste your …


1000 Stories

Wow.... As I was submitting story number 999, I realized that I'd cranked out 1000 of these since January of this year, when I decided to start this little site. My guess is that there have been fewer articles read than written, but that's quite alright, as I'm not looking …

McDonald's asks suppliers to cut back on antibiotics

The Washington Post is reporting that McDonalds restaurants is asking their meat suppliers to cut back on the use of antibiotics. The move comes as a reply to the growing concern that antibiotics in the food chain are contributing to the increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a growing health concern. McDonald's …

Whiteness studies?

The Washington Post has an interesting article on a growing trend (about thirty campuses in the US right now) to offer so-called Whiteness Studies courses in colleges. The idea has raised quite a bit of controversy on some campuses, due to the nature of the subject matter and the way …

ICANN targeted by House bill

A bill sponsored by two Washington state Democrats (Brian Baird and Jay Inslee) will make its way in to the US House of Representatives aimed at auditing the controversial ICANN and putting a decision by the organization to give Verisign a monopoly on "wait listing" domains on hold. An page …

New Macs? Hack, leak, or just big screw up

I have been refraining from the various blow-by-blow rumors for the upcoming Apple WWDC, but this one is just too juicy to let pass. I will note that the following may well be a hack from outside of Apple or it may just be a huge mistake from inside, but …

iStorm collaborative application for the Macintosh

Thanks to Amanda for pointing out this new piece of software from Math Game House Software called iStorm. The product provides a combination of electronic chalkboard and voice collaboration application for Mac users. The product costs $19.95 for an individual license and is available for download as a demo …


Industry group urges UK to steer clear of GPL

An article from CNet details the efforts of Intellect (an industry group made up of IBM, Microsoft, BAE Systems, Intel and others to get the UK government to steer clear of allowing GPL licenses for government funded projects. It's pretty common for governments (including the UK and the US Federal …

Xbox 2 slated for 2006

CNet reports that Steve Ballmer commented at a press conference in Japan that the replacement for the Xbox isn't due until 2006. This was a bit of a surprise, since many expected it in 2005.

RIAA sends warning letters to individual swappers

The four people whose names were given up by Verizon (under court order) and one person who subscribes to Earthlink (which did not fight the request by the RIAA) have been sent letters by the RIAA. According to an article from CNet, the RIAA didn't say anything other than they …



New iPod software

Apple has released version 2.01 of the iPod software. The update includes goodies for both Macintosh and Windows users, but most importantly for the Windows folks are Audible.com support and USB 2.0 support. Better support for Asian languages Enhanced On-The-Go playlist functionality Improved playback performance Improved handling …

FTC hearing on personal information privacy

Wired reports about an FTC hearing on personal information privacy. As would be expected, various groups showed up to complain about too much and too little information being available. Privacy groups such as EPIC argued that companies should ask for less information and keep to just what they need to …

Sweden eyes oppressive copyright laws

An article from afterdawn details the goings-on in Sweden where they are preparing an implementation of the EUCD (European Union Copyright Directive). The proposed legislative implementation of the EUCD is considered one of the most prohibitive that has been proposed to date. Among the provisions are: An additional tax on …

iTunes with stored value cards may be on the horizon

In a Rolling Stone article this past week about Apple's recent discussions with independent music companies (covered here), it is revealed that Apple representatives say the company is working on a stored-value model to enable non-credit card purchases of songs from iTunes. It's a great opportunity, and I hope they …

Activaire to provide iPod "Musak"

Following up a story from earlier this week, another company is providing background music via Apple's iPod. Activaire is a New York company that runs an iPod- based music service offering content licensed directly from independent music labels. An article from Wired provides some additional perspective.

Personal space travel to resume

If you have $20M, you can have one of two seats on upcoming Soyuz missions to the ISS. According to an article from the New York Times, Virginia-based Space Adventures and the Russian Aviation and Space Agency have reached an agreement to resume commercial space travel to the ISS. NASA …