] Only now do I realise that while I have been downloading
] songs, I have been unloading my dignity, a song at a
] time. Years of buying music-snob CDs have given way to an
] unending string of boppy pop to accompany me around
] Safeway.
]
] Maybe it’s because iTunes makes it easy to binge-buy or
] download songs as singles. Or maybe it’s simply that
] there’s no incriminating CD jewel box to clutter my
] shelves. But somehow my playlists include Emma Bunton and
] ‘The Power of Love’ by Huey Lewis and the News. I
] know that Huey Lewis had other songs but I do not care to
] hear them. And yet, I have sometimes pondered whether
] there is some merit in downloading Lulu, our
] suspiciously-youthful, toy-boy chasing banshee answer to
] Cher.

[ An interesting note about the urge to collect, without reason...

As someone with a full up 20 gig iPod, and a lot more tracks that won't make it on there at the same time, i fully understand the pak rat mentality when it comes to music. I want to be in a position to say "Yeah, I got that..." to anyone who happens to come over for a party or whatever. It's an obsession that one has to carefully keep in check, no doubt.

I wish this article would go further, but I guess he was too busy buying tunes... -k]

Scotsman.com News - Features - If you're carrying a horse with no name around, fine-tune your music collection

] relatively insignificant controversies from the
] candidates' youth will drown out discussion of the
] momentous issues that will confront the commander in
] chief in the coming four years. Mr. Bush's precise
] whereabouts in 1973, and whether Mr. Kerry threw away his
] medals or his ribbons -- these seem to us to matter
] somewhat less than how the two men might differ in policy
] toward Iraq or North Korea.

[ A good point in this WaPo editorial, though not a new wish. I think all of us would like both sides to approach this battle honestly and address their contentions on factual bases rather than exaggeration and ideological posturing. Alas, i don't see it happening. The day Bush condemns a repub senator for maligning Kerry isn't likely to be soon. -k]

Fighting the Wrong Battles (washingtonpost.com)

] Strategically, the I.B.M. approach is quite different
] from technology leaders, like Intel and Microsoft, that
] specialize in either hardware or software. "In the
] future, advantage is not going to be so much in the chip
] or the operating system, but in the management and
] control layer of technology," Mr. Zeitler said.

[ I read a bit about IBM's virtualization plans a few years ago and found it really compelling. It's interesting to see the tech come to commodity priced hardware... that's a bit unexpected, but ultimately good, i think.

The "return of the mainframe paradigm" has been a floating meme for some time now... i wonder how much traction it will ultimately have. Certainly if any company is in a position to bring together the necessary tech to work it, IBM is the one, I'd say.

My feeling is that the centralization may be illusory -- the part of the paradigm in which your relatively low power workstation offloads computation will come back, but the "mainframe" it offloads to may well be a broad distributed system, possibly a global, public one, though that may be the excess of scifi i've read.

I for one would be right on board with a super thin, super light, wireless tablet which offloads almost all of it's heavy lifting to other nodes. Perhaps even the data storage could be distributed...

ok, rampant speculation mode off... -k]

I.B.M. Plans to Build Servers That Act Like Mainframes

] US firm Microvision has developed a system that projects
] lasers onto the retina, allowing users to view images on
] top of their normal field of vision.

[ Personal HUDs here we come... one step closer to merging your digital world with the real world. For good reason, these sorts of devices have been a staple of scifi for many years. The benefits to be gained by realtime, contextually aware data being available anywhere are extreme... -k]

BBC NEWS | Technology | 'Laser vision' offers new insights

] A California voting systems panel recommended Thursday
] that the secretary of state decertify an electronic
] voting machine made by Diebold Election Systems, making
] it likely that four counties that used the machines will
] have to find others for the November election.

[ Maybe everyone on memestreams is already done with this issue, since no one recommended my article from yesterday, but just in case, here's a followup. -k]

Wired News: Diebold Machine May Get Boot

] The decision draws on memos, testimony, U.S. court
] records and much more. It finds Microsoft can "behave to
] a very large extent independently of its competitors, its
] customers and ultimately of consumers."
]
] To back that up, the decision quotes from an internal
] memo sent to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on February
] 21, 1997 by C general manager Aaron Contorer, a
] software expert.
]
] "There is a huge switching cost to using a different
] operating system," he wrote Gates.
]
] "It is this switching cost that has given customers the
] patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes,
] our buggy drivers, our high TCO, our lack of a sexy
] version at times...
]
] "It would be so much work to move over that they hope we
] just improve Windows rather than force them to move," he
] said.

[ From the reuters summary of the EU decision. IP law issues and questions of actual monopolism aside, this sort of attitude is reason enough to never buy from MS, ever. -k]

Technology News Article | Reuters.com

] Lockheed Martin has completed factory testing of the
] optical benches for the Airborne Laser's Beam
] Control/Fire Control (BC/FC) system. The Airborne Laser
] (ABL) is the first megawatt-class laser weapon system to
] be carried on a specially configured 747-400F aircraft,
] designed to autonomously detect, track and destroy
] hostile ballistic missiles.

[ Uh-huh, NO, it's for vaporizing individual targets! My only question is when Val Kilmer and his rag-tag group of young geniuses are gonna show up and save the day! -k]

Integrated testing of airborne ray gun completed [HOLY CRAP, ISN'T THIS A MOVIE PLOT? -k]

[ I'm telling you guys... a full on bar-tender bot (minus the conversations) isn't that tough... we should totally build one. -k]

Koolio

] Quantum Cryptography "live": World Premiere: Bank
] Transfer via Quantum Cryptography Based on Entangled
] Photons

[ Rad! QC is so awesome. -k]

Quantum Cryptography with Entangled Photons: Welcome!

] "I can think of few, if any, better examples of putting
] the triple bottom line of sustainability into practice -
] delivering environmental and economic benefit directly to
] local communities," says Mr. Gillespie.

[ Indeed. What a very very cool process. This dude gets a virtual medal for being smart. -k]

Real life Tiberium?