] The American Library Association (ALA) is investigating
] whether its relationship with law firm Jenner & Block is
] a conflict of interest, as the firm has represented the
] Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in its
] recent efforts to gather the names of those suspected of
] illegal file-sharing. In a letter to ALA executive
] director Keith Fiels, Emily Sheketoff, executive director
] of ALA's Washington Office, said that the office has
] grown "very uncomfortable" with Jenner & Block's legal
] activities on behalf of the RIAA. ALA is seeking a letter
] from the firm setting forth how it would handle any
] potential conflict.

This is an odd newsbite in that it only appears in one journal and isn't very detailed. No formal statements on the ALA's website.

ALA might toss their lawyers...

] "You drink tap water? Are you crazy?" asks a 21-year-old
] radio producer from the Chicago area. "I only drink
] bottled water." In a trendy nightclub in New York City,
] the bartender tells guests they can only be served
] bottled water, which costs $5 for each tiny pint
] container. One outraged clubber is stopped by the
] restroom attendant as she tries to refill the bottle from
] the tap. "You can't do that," says the attendant. "New
] York's tap water isn't safe."

Hartford Advocate: What's in your Bottled Water?

] This weekend, a denial-of-service attack took down the
] Web site of The SCO Group, which is caught in an
] increasingly acrimonious row with the open-source
] community over the company's legal campaign against
] Linux.

Most under reported story of the day...

Hackers cut off SCO Web site | CNET News.com

] Mars holds court in the sky this week as the Red Planet
] makes its closest approach to Earth since our ancestors
] lived in caves.
]
] "It is amazingly bright," said David Hudgins, a lecturer
] in astronomy at Rockhurst University. "You cannot
] possibly miss it."

Mars is very, very bright. Even from city parks and streets -- where very few stars are visible at all -- Mars is unmistakable.

Decius: Oh, BTW, the ancient Babylonians thought that a passing of mars like this would lead to plauges and wars.

Kansas City Star | 08/24/2003 | Red star at night is their delight

] An anonymous reader writes "Mike Benham of
] thoughtcrime.org has started a cool project for sharing
] information and building community in San Francisco.
] From the website: "Unfortunately, the traditional library
] system doesn't do much to foster community. Patrons come
] and go, but there is very little opportunity to establish
] relationships with people or groups of people. In fact,
] if you try to talk with someone holding a book you like -
] you'll probably get shushed. The Distributed Library
] Project works in exactly the opposite way, where the very
] function of the library depends on interaction." It
] looks like the software is now available for other
] cities."

Slashdot | The Distributed Library Project

] Recent election problems have sparked great interest in
] managing the election process through the use of
] electronic voting systems. While computer scientists, for
] the most part, have been warning of the perils of such
] action, vendors have forged ahead with their products,
] claiming increased security and reliability. Many
] municipalities have adopted electronic systems, and the
] number of deployed systems is rising. For these new
] computerized voting systems, neither source code nor the
] results of any third-party certification analyses have
] been available for the general population to study,
] because vendors claim that secrecy is a necessary
] requirement to keep their systems secure. Recently,
] however, the source code purporting to be the software
] for a voting system from a major manufacturer appeared on
] the Internet. This manufacturer's systems were used in
] Georgia's state-wide elections in 2002, and the company
] just announced that the state of Maryland awarded them an
] order valued at up to $55.6 million to deliver touch
] screen voting systems.

The press claims this paper is discredited because Avi Rubin was involved with an electronic voting company. Read it for yourself and see what you think.

Analysis of an Electronic Voting System

] Roxanne Jekot, a 51-year-old computer program developer from
] Cumming, said she and a few expert friends could crack Georgia's $54
] million touch-screen voting system in a matter of minutes.
]
] Bring it on, said state election officials.

Well, that's a nice change from the we-will-sue-you-into-quiet-submission thing that so in vogue these days..

ajc.com | Metro | Dare accepted on electronic voting machines

] In Microsoft's research and development labs, Smith has
] spent the past several years slicing and dicing data
] about messages and message authors in an ambitious effort
] to help people make sense of the newsgroup manifold--the
] hordes of know-it-alls, flame warriors, spammers and
] neophytes who, by Smith's estimate, last year numbered
] more than 100 million in the Usenet network of e-mail
] threads, or newsgroups.

Microsoft on Reputation Systems

] "In the old days, there used to be a term, 'buying your
] gross,' " said Rick Sands, chief operating officer at
] Miramax, referring to the millions of dollars studios
] throw at a movie to ensure a big opening weekend.
]
] "You could buy your gross for the weekend and overcome
] bad word of mouth, because it took time to filter out
] into the general audience," he said. "Those days are
] over. Today, there is no fooling the public."

] Added Tom Sherak, a partner at Revolution Studios, which
] produced the doomed picture: "Remember that theory that
] any publicity is good publicity? It's not true anymore.
] Bad publicity and extended bad publicity kills the movie
] that much faster."

High-Tech Word of Mouth Maims Movies in a Flash

] A new Internet worm emerged today that is designed to
] seek out and fix any computer that remains vulnerable to
] "Blaster," the worm that attacked more than 500,000
] computers worldwide last week.

'Good' Worm Fixes Infected Computers (TechNews.com)