I lived across the street from Tower for three years. They are missed.

The storied Tower Records chain has filed for bankruptcy. Musician and Day to Day contributor David Was says he is saddened by what he sees as the long, slow death of the brick-and-mortar record business in the age of the MP3 download.

In December of last year I decided to sell a bunch of old audio CDs, most from back in my music club days. I tried unsuccessfully to sell them 'locally' at a face-to-face retail outlet; those places are dropping out of the business faster than you can speed dial them.

I called one grizzled retailer, mostly of used vinyl, who offered to take a look at my offering, but said it wouldn't be even worth my time to drive over to his shop. He explained that he was going to close his store in less than a year, because no one was buying music in physical form any more.

An Epitaph for a Much-Loved Tower Records

Stephen Colbert gets credit for influencing the language. A group called Global Language Monitor credits Colbert, who parodies a conservative TV host, with "truthiness." The word is defined as "truth unencumbered by the facts." He also used a word inspired by Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. "Wikiality" means "reality as determined by majority vote." The group now calls them the top-two TV buzzwords -- that is, reality as determined by what's said on television.

Colbert Leaves his Mark on the Language

Dozens and dozens of film noir movies from the 1930s and '40s are now on DVD. Our critic at large has piles of them, but he says one stands out: the new digitally remastered Double Indemnity.

Powers says Billy Wilder's film, an account of infidelity and murder starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, is the best example of the enduring power of film noir.

A DVD Release for 'Double Indemnity'

Before most Americans had heard of the Taliban, Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid wrote a book about them. After the Sept. 11 attacks, it became a best-seller. Rashid's recent reporting for English-language newspapers involves Islamist militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Ahmed Rashid, Reporting on Islamist Groups

Previously reported; here's another look and listen.

The 580-page Sept. 11 commission report is now a graphic novel. Two comic book artists talk about why they created the new book, The 9/11 Report, A Graphic Adaptation, and what they hope to accomplish with it.

Guests:

Ernie Colon, comic book artists who has worked at Harvey, Marvel and DC Comics; oversaw the production of Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Blackhawk and The Flash comics at DC; oversaw Spiderman series at Marvel.

Sid Jacobson, was managing editor and editor in chief for Harvey Comics where he created Richie rich; was executive editor at Marvel Comics; editor of The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation

The Sept. 11 Commission Report as Graphic Novel

The top American commander in Iraq has said Iraqi forces will be able to take over the country's security by 2008.

Gen. George Casey told reporters Wednesday that the Iraqi Army and police should be able to fight the insurgency by then, with very little coalition support.

General Predicts Iraq Security Handover by 2008

The administration is on a public-relations offensive in support of the war on terrorism. President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and others have all made the comparison between today's terrorist threat and yesterday's Nazi or fascist threat.

US Connects Terrorist Threat to Historical Menaces

Marginalia is an open source Javascript web annotation system that allows users of web applications to highlight text and write margin notes.

Marginalia Web Annotation | geof

Notate is a web-based tool for annotating and tagging words and phrases within documents. It creates a searchable index of all the annotations you make and displays the annotations against the text they refer to when you revisit a site. Annotations can be kept private or can be shared within a group such as a lab or journal club.

Notate Beta Testing - July 2006

Here's an Applescript to make skipping to random tracks in iTunes a bit more like scanning through FM radio stations: it will select a random track and start playing at a random point.

Scan in iTunes