] Ring tones are so yesterday. If wireless companies have
] their way, the next multibillion dollar surprise in the
] cellular business will be "Ringback" tones.
]
] Instead of the usual dialing noise which people hear when
] phoning someone, callers to Verizon Wireless subscribers
] may soon find themselves listening to a song until the
] phone is answered.
]
] The service, pioneered by SK Telecom of Korea, is now
] debuting in California and is slated to be available
] nationally by mid-2005.

Clever. Before, you advertised to a crowd how hip you were with your obnoxious ring. Now, you can advertise to your callers.

Is it weird that I would consider this more than ringtones? I like that I have a minimalistic and superfunctional ring(+vibrate); if I could find a more "effective" or functional ringback tone (something that communicated something more useful than the existing), why not?

'Ringback' tones: Next big cellular thing, or throwback to long answering machine messages? - 11/29/04

] Slower growth and reduced profits will likely squeeze
] three of the nation's top 10 personal computer
] manufacturers out of the market by 2007, a research firm
] predicted Monday.
]
] While manufacturers' shipments increased by double digits
] in the past few years, tougher times lie ahead, according
] to Gartner Inc.
]
] Gartner did not name any candidates for departure but
] suggested many are vulnerable. Dell is the only
] consistently profitable global computer vendor in the
] past several years, Gartner said.
]
] The top 10 worldwide vendors, by units shipped, are Dell,
] Hewlett-Packard Co., International Business Machines
] Corp., Fujitsu Ltd., Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Toshiba
] Corp., NEC Corp., Apple Computer Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd.
] and Gateway Inc.
]
] Personal computer growth, by unit, is forecast to average
] 5.7 percent annually from 2006 through 2008, according to
] Gartner, half the 11.3 percent average of 2003 through
] 2005.
]
] "With PC replacements still in full swing, 2005 should be
] a reasonably strong year for PC vendors," said Leslie
] Fiering, a research vice president with Gartner.
] "However, the end of the replacement cycle is likely to
] strain viability for even the largest PC vendors in 2006
] and beyond."
]
] The personal computer divisions of Hewlett-Packard and
] IBM are vulnerable to being spun off if their drag on
] margins and profitability are deemed too great by their
] parent companies, Gartner said.

Another silly Gartner report?

Computer makers face slowdown, firm predicts - 11/30/04

] Paramount Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures and
] Warner Bros., which includes New Line Cinema and HBO,
] said Monday that they would start releasing films in the
] HD-DVD format in time for the holidays next year.

Yay! Both formats shall thrive!

] But the announcement also put pressure on electronics
] makers to produce devices that support both of the
] competing formats.

When in doubt -- compromise through complexity.

] Privately, entertainment industry executives say they
] cannot afford a format war and do not want a repeat of
] the confusion that slowed the early adoption of
] videocassette recorders when consumers were faced with
] choosing between Betamax and VHS.

But they head that way anyway. Great.

] While the Blu-Ray format can store more digital
] programming than HD-DVD, proponents of the latter say it
] will be cheaper for manufacturers because it is uses
] technology that more closely resembles that used in
] current DVDs.

This is what we like to call a "red herring". Are they talking about the cost of stamping the disc? Oh no, for the first year it will cost $0.10 instead of $0.05. That's disasterous, because of course coming out with the newer, better looking movies with more stuff on them won't encourage them to charge a premium over DVDs.

Oh wait, it will.

] "We think HD-DVD has a clear advantage in cost of
] manufacturing, ease of manufacturing and it will offer
] the consumer a great quality product," Rob Friedman,
] chief operating officer at Paramount Pictures, said in an
] interview Monday.

"Hi, um, these are the right talking points, right? Cost of manufacturing, right?"

] Blu-Ray also has wide support among consumer electronics
] makers and computer giant Hewlett-Packard, which said it
] will start selling PCs with Blu-Ray disc drives late next
] year, coinciding with movie releases.

Someone should inform HP about the increased cost of manufacturing and ease of manufacturing problems. I'm sure they just haven't looked into it.

] Blu-Ray supporters said they did not see Monday's
] announcement as a setback.

"It's ON"

] "The studios should be pushing for compromise between
] Blue-Ray and HD-DVD and forget about trying to trump each
] other," said Harold Vogel, CEO of Vogel Capital
] Management in New York. "For sure the consumer is going
] to be very confused. It's a disaster for retailers if
] they have to carry two different formats."

A voice of reason? Perhaps. Talk of compromise really sounds like the flag of people who don't understand the technology and so figure there is a technical solution. I do not believe that to be the case. It is not a matter of "HD-DVD offers A, B, and C; Blu-Ray offers A, C, D; combine and offer A, B, C, D or at least A, C". The technology really is based on what laser and printing to use; HD-DVD wants to stick with the Existing Methods, Blu-Ray wants to implement New Stuff. It is a lose if you don't make a choice; dual-standard players makes more sense if that's the best we can do.

Studios take sides in fight for successor to the DVD - 11/30/04

] Psychologist Cleveland Kent Evans, who studies names and
] their social effects, says the unusual-name trend among
] celebrities is a kind of self-reinforcing phenomenon. "I
] don't think of these names as coming just from
] celebrities so much as coming from creative celebrities,
] or at least those that want to be thought of as
] creative," he says. "It's the musicians and actresses and
] to some extent the visual artists who give those sorts of
] names to their children. You don't find the politicians
] and athletes giving names like that to their kids."

And What Name Will Phinnaeus Have for Mommy? (washingtonpost.com)

] In a surprising move, Lycos Europe has started organizing
] a distributed denial-of-service attack against web sites
] run by spammers.

F-Secure : News from the Lab

] Human remains found in the chimney of local Salvation
] Army Thrift Store last week were those of a 37-year-old
] man who was reported missing in 1999, the chief medical
] examiner's office said Wednesday.

CompleteWasteOfTime.blogs.com had the right title:
"Someone failed break-and-enter class"

wnbc.com - News - Chimney Remains ID'd As Man Missing Since 1999

] ShotGlass Chess plays by the same rules as regular chess
] but the fun really begins when you capture an
] opponent's piece! Depending on the Shot Glass Chess
] rules you adopt, you or your opponent will be tipping
] back the contents of the shot glass with every capture!

Shotglass Chess - Shotglass Chess Sets, Pieces and Shotglasses

] We have some isolated reports of users who've been hit by
] the new Skulls trojan on their phones.
]
] This trojan has been distributed on some Symbian
] shareware download sites as "Extended Theme Manager" by
] "Tee-222". If you see it, don't install it on your phone.
] It will make the smartphone features of your phone
] useless, so you can still make calls with the phone but
] that's it, no messages, no web, no applications. Recovery
] could get tricky, especially if you don't have a
] third-party file manager software already installed on
] your phone.

This is a pretty nasty looking beast.

F-Secure : News from the Lab

] Microsoft chairman Bill Gates receives four million
] emails a day, and is probably the most "spammed" person
] in the world.
]
] But unlike ordinary users, the software mogul has an
] entire department to filter unsolicited emails and only a
] few of them actually get through to his inbox, Microsoft
] chief executive Steve Ballmer said today.
]
] "Bill Gates (is number one) because he is Bill Gates.
] Bill literally receives four million pieces of email per
] day, most of it spam," Mr Balmer told a conference.
]
] "And so we have special technology which just filters
] (spam).

Wow. Imagine software that *filters* email to avoid Spam. Truly, Microsoft is living on the cutting edge.

But its true, I'm sure it is not a new thing to sign up Bill Gates to spam lists. He is the most obvious and enduring target.

] "Literally, there's a whole department, almost, that
] takes care of it."

I'd like an anti-spam department.

NEWS.com.au | Gates 'world's most-spammed man' (November 18, 2004)

Insight into where the tax system may actually go (rather than the wet dream of national sales tax replacing income tax)

] Pamela F. Olson, a former Bush Treasury official in close
] contact with administration tax planners, said the
] president will pursue a tax system where all income --
] whether from wages, dividends, capital gains or interest
] -- is taxed only once. That would mean eliminating taxes
] on dividends and capital gains paid out of fully taxed
] corporate profits. Most investment gains are currently
] taxed at 15 percent.

From an idealistic standpoint, that's not necessarily bad...

] The administration will also push hard for large savings
] accounts that could shelter thousands of dollars of
] deposits each year from taxation on investment gains,
] according to White House economic advisers who have been
] involved with the planning.

And these are probably a Good Thing...

] And any tax reform, according to Treasury Department officials,
] would likely eliminate the alternative minimum tax, a parallel
] income tax designed to ensure that the rich pay income taxes
] but one that increasingly ensnares the middle class.

...because the rich play even more exotic games, and the AMT didn't scale up with wage and investment increases...

OK -- but how to pay for these...

] To pay for those large tax cuts, the administration is
] looking at eliminating both the deduction for state and
] local taxes,

Uh oh...
] and the business tax deduction for employer-sponsored health
] insurance.

Oh shit.
] That would raise nearly $926 billion over five years,
] according to White House and congressional documents.

Eliminating state and local deductions has a substantially disproportiate effect on the blue "United Cities of America", because the local and blue states provide a lot of services that cost money -- we pay more in Pittsburgh than rural PA, because Pittsburgh has to spend more (ok, bad example).

Eliminating Health Care benefits means that all the talk of improving healthcare was bullshit, because now whatever government or private program is going to have to take on a great deal more customers; when business gets a tax break, they might have still had an incentive to provide private health care even in the presence of a public option; with no legislation and no break, only the elite employees and non-profits will bother.

I think we saw this coming.

Bush Plans Tax Code Overhaul (washingtonpost.com)