NY Times article covers low cost carriers adding frills to their flights. Simpsons episodes, gift baskets, Kate Spade uniforms, all to spruce up economy class.

Apex to roll out game console with a 1.2 gigahertz Via C3 processor, and an Apex DVD drive for about $300. Interesting idea for competing with the consoles, until PS3 and Xbox 2 take it all away again.

Caption: “Japanese businessmen hold a service aimed at fending off viruses and glitches for their computers in a purification ceremony conducted by a Shinto priest according to Shinto rituals at Kanda Myojin shrine in Tokyo January 6 2004.” Where are the Macs in this picture? Are they pure of virii and glitches?

According to Nielsen//NetRatings (PDF) Windows Media Player is the top non-browser based Internet application for the month of November. 48 million unique users. AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger are surprisingly close at 28.3 million and 27 million respectively. Why is Yahoo! the top instant messaging program in the workplace? It installs without administrative privileges and easily bypasses the corporate firewall. Why does MSN Messenger have 37% market share? According to WebSideStory Windows XP is used by about 35% of Web users worldwide. 42% of Google users in October and November 2003 used Windows XP. Windows XP just happens to install Windows Messenger by default, asks you to sign into your computer with your Passport, and launches on startup. Yes I am comparing U.S. market numbers to world market numbers, but MSN Messenger seems to be used primarily at home by about the same population as Windows XP users.

John Perry Barlow, songwriter and EFF co-founder, now has a blog. He chose TypePad as his publishing system.

Wikimedia put online a cry for help and gathered $20,000 in about 24 hours. Impressive.