] William Shatner has covered 'Common People'
]
] Ben Folds is pushing back the release date of his
] next solo album to early 2005 in order to give 'Star
] Trek' veteran William Shatner's upcoming collection, 'Has
] Been', his full attention. The set is being targeted for
] a September release by Shout! Factory.
]
] Shatner's album was produced and written mostly by
] Folds and includes cameos by Henry Rollins, Aimee Mann
] and Joe Jackson, who duets with Shatner on Pulp's 'Common
] People'.

This track will be played on our show today... It is *shatner pause* amazing

chachacha.co.uk - William Shatner has covered 'Common People'

] I.B.M. plans to announce today that it is contributing
] more than half a million lines of its software code,
] valued at $85 million, to an open source software group.
]
] The move is one of the largest transfers ever of
] proprietary code to free software, and I.B.M. is making
] the code contribution to try to help make it easier and
] more appealing for software developers to write
] applications in the Java programming language.

The New York Times : Technology : In Competitive Move, I.B.M. Puts Code in Public Domain

] Will drinking coffee have the same effect as caffeine?
]
] It's a mistake to assume that the effects of caffeine
] always extend to caffeinated drinks such as coffee.

Interesting /researched/ article summarizing studies on the performance enhancing effects of caffeine -- straight or as it comes in coffie -- and creatine -- and what happens when you try both. The highlights are that caffeine in a direct form has a noticable positive impact on performance/endurance, but that they are neutralized when delivered via coffee; creatine should be consumed post-workout not pre-; and choose one, caffeine or creatine, they may cancel each other out in some cases.

Three myths about creatine and caffeine...

] Feeling blue? Americans reported spending an average of
] three days a month feeling "sad, blue or depressed,"
] according to a government survey released Wednesday.

Wow. That's it? If this were a cumulative thing that you
could borrow against, any day now I'll live happily ever after.

] The survey also found that the more days a month people
] said they were sad, the more likely they were to take
] risks including not using seat belts or binge drinking

I take it back, Geoff.

Yahoo! News - Survey: Americans Sad About 3 Days a Month

] You don't support Democrats.
]
] Why should your ketchup?

Ketchup is nothing more than flavored tomato paste. Something that looks and tastes a lot like Heinz Ketchup can be made in your kitchen sink without so much as bending a copyright rule. It is effectively all freely-redistributable objects: tomatoes, vinegar, salt, and spices. So why don't we, as consumers, make ketchup in our kitchen sink, and how does Heinz have 80% of the ketchup market?

We don't make ketchup because it is cheaper and much more convenient to buy ketchup from Heinz, Hunts, or Del Monte than it is to make it. But convenience is only part of the story. Convenience alone would suggest that Heinz, Hunts, and Del Monte share the market equally because they offer roughly equivalent convenience. In fact, Heinz owns 80% of the market.

Heinz owns 80% of the market not because Heinz tastes better. If you go to the Third World and find 100 people who have never tasted ketchup before, you find out two things: one is that people don't actually like tomato ketchup, the other is that they dislike all ketchups equally.

Heinz has 80% of the ketchup market because they have been able to define the taste of ketchup in the mind of ketchup consumers. Now the Heinz Ketchup brand is so effective that as consumers we think that ketchup that will not come out of the bottle is somehow better than ketchup that pours easily!
(http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/young.html)

W Ketchup

] Matt Damon, who's been in New York with new girlfriend
] Luciana Barroso, admits that he's never voted.
]
] The "Bourne Supremacy" star tells Playboy, "My reasoning
] has always been that because I'm from Massachusetts,
] everyone I would have voted for didn't need my vote.
] That's changing now because of where we're going in this
] country. I'll vote for John Kerry."

Similar reasoning didn't make me too upset that my absentee ballot didn't arrive until the day after the 2000 election (Gore got over 60% in MA). Similar reasoning has also made sure my registration is active here, and that I've voted in all subsequent electoral foo.

New York Daily News - Daily Dish & Gossip - Rush & Molloy: Usher and date in the tunnel of love

] One of the 15 papers, The Anniston (Ala.) Star (Click for
] QuikCap), expressed public dismay with the vote yesterday
] -- saying the decision amounted to censorship. In an E&P
] interview after that article appeared, Star Executive
] Editor Troy Turner said: "Sure, 'Doonesbury' causes
] editors headaches from time to time, but there is a
] proven readership for it. Newspapers need to think of
] readers first, or they will continue to struggle."

Good for the Anniston Star! I'm sure Trudeau is not too concerned about losing 38 papers in light of the 1400 other papers that publish it, but still. I'm not a fan of a syndicator generating the comics page for a bunch of newspapers, but I guess that's how it works.

Continental: Complaints Led to Drop-'Doonesbury' Poll

] The No. 2 earner was David Tepper, of Appaloosa
] Management, who earned $510 million. His funds have
] enjoyed annual growth of 34.8 percent since he launched
] the firm in 1993.

This puts his $50M donation to CMU (in exchange for the
highly ranked business school being named the Tepper School)
in perspective.

Soros' salary tops Wall Street for 2003

] Dear Roger Clemens,
]
] Let me offer my hearty congratulations on starting the
] All-Star Game. Wow, that is really terrific. I'd like to
] note, however, that I hate you.

I understand this column a bit too well.

Roger and Me - Why I hate the greatest pitcher of all time. By Seth Stevenson

] Duquesne University, under a National Science Foundation
] Grant (NSF), has initiated a unique learning opportunity
] for chemical engineering undergraduate, post graduate and
] doctoral fellows by purchasing two SGI® Altix®
] supercomputers and an SGI® InfiniteStorage system from
] Silicon Graphics. Dr. Jeffry Madura,
] associate professor and chemistry chair at Duquesne, and
] his colleague Dr. Jeffrey D. Evanseck, associate
] professor of chemistry, have teamed up to create a
] state-of-the-art learning and research environment to
] enable their students to conduct research of the highest
] caliber in both quantum chemical computation and
] molecular dynamic simulation.

Duquesne University Selects SGI Altix Supercomputers and SGI InfiniteStorage Solutions for State-of-the-Art Research Environment