Thanks to SARS, FIFA has moved this year's Women's World Cup from China to the US, a story on BBC News says. A news release on the association's site thanks China for its understanding.

The BBC News is reporting that the X-Prize entry being built by Burt Rutan's company (Scaled Composites) flew earlier this week. A picture in the article shows the mated two-part sub-orbital craft above the earth.

An interesting story from the Associated Press and appearing on Globe Technology provides a description of a successful program by the Oakland Public Library to obtain more books through donations by using Amazon's gift registry. The program has been reasonably successful so far (they claim 200 of 400 books …

A reasonably fair article in Wired looks at the upcoming FCC rule changes that have been proposed and will be under consideration at the meeting of the Commission on June 2. They do a reasonable job of laying out what is at stake and bringing in some lessons from the …

According to a report on Wired, there is continued growth on the cellular ringtone front, leading to estimates of over $400M in sales for 2005. Further, the music industry is expecting to reap between $50M and $70M from ring tones this year. One piece that I find slightly ironic about …

The Vatican has chimed in on the new EU Constitution and the appropriateness of Turkey becoming an EU member, and isn't keen on the idea. An article on BBC News reports that the Vatican's foreign secretary has raised doubts about the appropriateness of breaking from the shared European heritage and …

In a move that pushes Europe closer to becoming a real states as opposed to a loose federation, the new constitutional convention has released its proposed constitution. An article in the BBC News today discusses some of the issues (from the viewpoint of the UK).

It's not just for repairing aging tool boxes and backpacks, anymore. Now, the folks at Ducti have come out with a line of handbags, wallets and other products that are intentionally made of duct tape. I first found out about this alarming trend from an article on SunSpot.Net.

According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, a manufacturer of dive computers has been hiding a dangerous secret for seven years. A secret that likely was the cause of significant injury for at least four people and a potential safety hazard for others. The article claims that Uwatec …

If you have been privy to disclosure of actual UNIX source code (System 7 and before don't count) without an NDA, Eric Raymond wants to know about it. The theory is that if there were enough people who had access to the Unix code, it wasn't a secret and therefore …

I'm not so much interested by the music as I am by the way that the catalog has been done, but Pearl Jam is now offering a huge number of "albums" (75), many that are actually concert recordings, by date, of their 2000 tour. Each individual song is available for …

An interesting article in the Economist about Sun, Microsoft, and Linux and their collective (and separate) futures.

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald once again trudges through the area of information overload. But, instead of focusing on how you can filter, this one focuses on how you can reduce the load for everyone else. Amusingly enough, that's how this web site started. In my zeal to …

This one is fun and possibly interesting. It is very much in the form of a personality test and asks a lot of similar questions. If you like personality tests, and are familiar with Star Wars, you should give it a try.

Taking its cue from the Creative Commons folks (dedicated to a strong open source model), the folks at OpSound have created a library of open source sound and music, free for use and modification as long as it is attributed and the eventual software/movie/music is released under the …

Bruce Almighty is a new film with Jim Carrey that centers around a TV reporter whose life isn't going as he has planned. It's hardly new territory from the standpoint of the over-driven, uptight character who blames everyone else (including God) for his own misfortunes. In this case, God decides …

It's nice to know that some CEOs can keep their sense of humor, despite taking on on the chin (or in this case, the butt) for the company. The CEO was bitten in the bum by a Rottweiler, which he humorously states is part of a plot by dogs against …

A report from BBC News recounts the story of a 15-year-old British girl who is being tormented by a group of "cyberbullies" that have put up a web site about her.

The launch of Beagle 2, the "British-led expedition of Mars" will lift off in less than 10 days aboard a Soyuz rocket. Scheduled to arrive in December, the Beagle 2 will search for life on Mars.

An article carried by Wired originating from Reuters says that the Chinese now believe that the SARS virus crossed over to humans from civet cats. The cats are considered a delicacy in certain parts of China (yes, that's delicacy, as in food, not pets). They are believed to be a …