New York Times covers the digital adaptation of liner notes and art that has accompanied music for decades. I will have an entire CD downloaded (pirated) but I will still go out and buy the CD for the artwork and lyrics. Pearl Jam usually thinks outside the jewel case. John Mayer's site rocks because there are lyrics posted for every song. Too bad it's in Flash. How long until download sites like Napster and iTunes embed lyrics in their media files?…
RecordStoreReview.com reviews music stores in the U.S., Canada, England, Japan and more. Special tilt towards mail order, but good to see Amoeba Records is the third store added to the list….
Ireland now has driving data recorders, similar to an airplane's black box. It is not mandatory, but there will most likely be a large reward in your insurance premium….
Google has a new Deskbar for Windows users. You can now search from your taskbar and have a small window display the results without opening you Web browser….
US raises spectre of conscription by recruiting volunteers for the Selective Service System's regional boards "to decide which young men are eligible for deferments, postponements or exemption from military service."…
Part of Longhorn is Wallop, where you can share photos, blog, and interact with your friends. It's invite only and I do not have an invite. :( This project was presented by Lili Cheng at the PDC. It is part of MS Reasearch's Social Computing Group. Scoble? Any help?…
On Friday Lions Gate Films will release Shattered Glass, a movie about Steven Glass and The New Republic. To quote Charles Lane : "For the press, truth is, or should be, an absolute value." Steven Glass fabricated sources and therefore stories for TNR. The best known case is "Hack Heaven" from the May 18, 1998 issue. Forbes broke the original story….
Borrusia Dortmund averages nearly 78,000 fans a home game. WOW. The average crowd in Germany is 36,492. In England 34,816. In Spain 29,345. In Italy 26,084. In the United States the MLS averages 14,677….
Today's Dallas Fort Worth Star-Telegram has an article about women sports idols, specifically in the WUSA. Before WUSA there were leagues in Japan and Norway that provided opportunities after college if any players were interested. The idols were there, just not in person….
MIT Technolgoy Review profiles Intentional Software, a new company funded by Charles Simonyi. They aim to make writing code as easy as a PowerPoint presentation….
The Economist : How good is Google? "Craig Pisaris-Henderson…reckons that Google's operating margins on sites other than its own must be much worse than FindWhat.com's (23%) or Overture's (12%) because it has been wooing advertisers away from Overture by being more generous to webmasters."…
New York Times article today about Microsoft pursueing a buyout of Google. If I had $50 billion I would try to invest in Google too. If the deal goes through I wonder what will happen to Linux within Google. Dump your vi, we are a Visual Studio company now!…
I just downloaded the new Napster software. I search for "acoustic" yields 132 results. One of the things I like about iTunes, and what I end up buying, is the tracks I usually do not find on an album. I like the live, exclusive, and acoustic tracks in good quality formats. So far Napster has not come through with anything other than the standard album fare. I still have my 5 free downloads, so I will try out the full process….
Peter Lewis of Fortune reviews Office 2003, comparing it to the car market. I am still waiting on my new Office 2003 Professional packages to arrive. "[T]he fact is that, for the vast majority of humans on the planet, Office 2003 does not qualify for ?must have? status. There are dozens if not hundreds of improvements, but with a few exceptions ? mainly of interest to large corporations with thousands of employees ? they fall into the nicer cupholder, satellite radio, and optional navigation system category."…
State of Minnesota has a website graphically detailing the ancestory groups of Minnesota as well as the entire United States as reported in the 1990 U.S. Census. It is interesting to take a look at U.S. Irish….
Today's New York Times profiles KFC's new advertising campaign promoting fried chicken as healthy eating. From one of the ads: "The secret's out. One Original Recipe chicken breast has just 11 grams of carbs and packs 40 grams of protein. So if you're going low-carb, high-protein, go KFC."…
