] A team of Russian and American scientists are reporting
] today that they have created two new chemical elements,
] called superheavies because of their enormous atomic
] mass. The discoveries fill a gap at the furthest edge of
] the periodic table and hint strongly at a weird landscape
] of undiscovered elements beyond.

Uut and Uup Add Their Atomic Mass to Periodic Table

] TEHRAN, Feb 2 — Iran's main reformist party will boycott the
] country's parliamentary elections this month, the head of the party,
] Mohammad Reza Khatami, said today.

Iran's Reformist Party to Boycott Elections

] The Earth is apparently geologically programmed not to
] let the atmosphere get too hot. And if the temperature
] does spike, global cooling processes can kick in as
] little as a decade later, new European research says.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm pro-environment/anti-pollution. But I've always thought the global warming stuff was pollitically-motivated bad science.

Earth uses self-cooling mechanism, study finds

] American Blind argues that Google, by selling
] keyword-based advertising to competing retailers when
] Google users search on "American Blind" or "American
] Blinds" is violating the company's trademark. American
] Blind had threatened to file the lawsuit last year. That
] prompted Google, in a filing with the U.S. District Court
] for the Northern District of California Nov. 26, to argue
] that "American" and "Blind" and other words American
] Blind was claiming as trademarks are descriptive and
] shouldn't enjoy trademark protection.

InfoWorld: Trademark lawsuit filed against Google keywords: January 30, 2004: By : E-business Strategies

] LOS ANGELES, Jan. 29 — Pixar Animation Studios, which produced
] last summer's popular "Finding Nemo," said on Thursday that it was
] ending talks on continuing its 12-year partnership with the Walt
] Disney Company and would seek another studio to distribute its
] films, beginning in 2006.

Rule number 1 about doing business with Steve Jobs: don't fuck with Steve Jobs.

Pixar Sees End to Its Disney Partnership

] SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Gateway Inc., hoping to reverse its
] sagging fortunes in the personal computer business, said
] Friday it would buy privately held eMachines Inc. in a
] deal valued at $235 million.

Gateway to Buy EMachines for $235 Million

] The Democratic candidates for the presidency were back on
] the road today after Tuesday's primary in New Hampshire,
] where Sen. John F. Kerry's convincing victory entrenched
] his front-runner status heading into the next round of
] primaries on Feb. 3.

The only thing I know about Kerry is he was one of the sponsors of the Key Escrow bill a few years back...

Kerry Carries 39% of NH

Elonka wrote:
] Here's a full list of nominees from the official Oscar site.

Wow ... Lost in Translation did really well! I'd recommend it if you haven't seen it. Also Master and Commander (see Tom's comments) and LOTR. But Pirates of the Caribbean?! I didn't see it though I heard it made Disney a lot of money...

RE: OSCAR.com - 76th Annual Academy Awards - Nominee List

]
] The power of word-of-mouth in our world is unquestioned.
] If a friend gives "two thumbs up" for a movie, chances
] are we will go watch it in the theater or rent it on DVD.
] A food critic who recommends a restaurant in his
] newspaper column will be a main driver of traffic of
] wannabe connoisseurs to that establishment. Whether it is
] to find a good dry cleaner, or a good lawyer, there is no
] more valuable recommendation than one from a person who
] has lived through that experience before.

Does anyone know anything about this? I got a mail from it earlier today saying that someone had added an entry about me.

U: The mail I got 2 days ago was that someone was "looking for information"; I got another one today that someone "has information." This is freaking me out, slightly ... Is this just a spam thing? I signed up thinking it would give me more information (it didn't) and it mailed me my password back in the fucking clear ... so these people are morons if nothing else!

U: I'm dumb. It is in fact a scam. The hook is that you have to give them money to contact (via a magic anonymous mail system) the people who've made entries about you.

Word of Mouth Connection / A Background Research Tool

]
] There has been a lot of talk about whether the SCO-IBM
] hearing scheduled for tomorrow was or was not postponed.
] It's definitely postponed. SCO has the notice up on their
] site. It's not up yet on Pacer, but we'll take their word
] for it. Here is what it tells us:

Apparently IBM has asked for the delay ... that probably means
they are about to play an ace.

Today's SCO v. IBM hearing postponed