] LONDON (AP) -- Eminem stunned tens of thousands of people
] attending a concert in England by giving a necklace
] estimated at $450,000 to one of his fans.

HELL YEA! 'cuz donating half a million dollars to charity where it might do some real good isn't "cool". Gotta make a publicity stunt out of it and give a necklace to a random fan - who will likely end up hawking it anyways and pocketing the cash (wouldn't you?).

Whats next? Confetti cannons filled with $10's and $20's at his concerts??

Laughing Boy

Eminem Gives Fan $450K Gift

] One of four college students who were accused of trading
] songs online and settled lawsuits in early May with the
] music industry has managed to collect his entire $12,000
] fine on the Internet.
]
] Jesse Jordan, 19, a sophomore this fall at Rensselaer
] Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., saw his cause picked
] up by the popular Web site Slashdot.org (motto: "News for
] Nerds. Stuff that matters"). Money began pouring in,
] "anywhere from 10 cents to $500. I never expected to
] raise the whole thing. People are very generous," says
] Jordan.
]
] "Where the money comes from doesn't matter," says Matt
] Oppenheim of the Recording Industry Association of
] America. "Have we deterred these people and others from
] engaging in this kind of behavior? Clearly we have."

Oppenheim obviously didn't get the point.

Fined student gets donations to tune of $12K

] The Recording Industry Association of America, citing
] substantial sales declines, said it will begin Thursday
] to search Internet file-sharing networks to identify
] users who offer "substantial" collections of MP3-format
] music files for downloading. It expects to file at least
] several hundred lawsuits seeking financial damages within
] eight to 10 weeks.

Several hundred lawsuits? Well, I see the RIAA has changed business models. No more traditional sales - we'll just wait until they steal it and then wring them dry.

Music labels to sue hundreds of music sharers

] A 10-month-old girl miraculously survived an 80-foot
] fall, suffering only scrapes and bruises when her father
] threw her out a seventh-floor apartment window late
] Saturday after threatening to kill himself and the baby's
] mother, police said.

Having a fight with the wife it just seems like a natural idea to throw your child out the window. I am just amazed at the stupid acts that people are capable of sometimes.

Peekskill infant survives 7-story fall

Interesting read on how Google certainly has become a very influential entity and why more and more people are beginning to be disgruntled with it.

Is Google's growth provoking a backlash? Industry observers are beginning to think so. A few years ago, they note, it was difficult to find anyone who didn't worship Google, but now many people have a beef with the firm. Some of the complaints are obviously self-serving and maybe even dismissible -- such as those from the Chinese government, say, or the Church of Scientology. But the ire of other groups has more heft. In recent months, the question of how Google should index blogs has become a hot topic online. Google has been attacked by some critics who say the search engine gives blogs too much weight, and others who say it's not giving blogs their due. Then there are webmasters and people in the "search engine optimization" industry, folks whose livelihoods depend on ranking well in Google. With so much riding on the whims of one firm, these people are constantly, pedantically, obsessed with and irritated at Google, sometimes, as in Massa's case, to the point of litigation.

The Google Backlash

] Samsung is trying to bridge the gap with the first DVD
] player aimed specifically at HDTV owners. According to
] the company, the $299 player optimizes standard DVD video
] performance to make better use of the capabilities of new
] high-definition displays. In short, it brings DVD video
] closer to high-definition clarity.
]
] Ordinary DVD players and all basic TV sets
] use what's called standard definition video, which splits
] the image into 480 horizontal lines. The Samsung is the
] first DVD player to use a smart digital imaging chip to
] fine-tune the image and to "upconvert" the video to 720
] or 1,080 lines, both of which are considered
] high-definition. It's a technological cheat, though,
] because the chip is adding resolution that doesn't exist
] on the disc.
SNIP
] But how does the Samsung stack up to full high-definition
] TV? I compared a DVD copy of Star Wars, Episode II:
] Attack of the Clones with an HBO HD broadcast, and the
] player performed admirably.
]
] Make no mistake, the HD broadcast was superior. In
] Amidala's and Anakin's sappy frolic in the field, I could
] make out individual weed stalks in the foreground that
] were lost in the DVD video. But the DVD player held its
] own, and, to many eyes, would appear close enough to HDTV
] to make it worthwhile.
]
] Of course, a new format for true high-definition DVD
] discs will arrive eventually. But today's DVDs are likely
] to remain the format of choice for years to come. This
] player and its successors will help you get
] the most out of them.

This is VERY good news for us video philes. I was afraid that todays DVDs; a format facing obsolesence thats less than 10 years old ("What do you mean I have to purchase all new copies of my DVD's?") would be the biggest hurdle in getting consumers to adopt the new Hi-Def format. To see just how bad of a "problem" this would have been, go into an appliance store and view a HD program next to an NTSC (current television format). Those 480 lines of resolution your brain has been "filling in" all these years, suddenly become apparent, don't they? While pixel interpolation like this is, as he says, no substitute for true high definition media, this should bridge the gap until the old DVD's are phased out.

Laughing Boy

Higher-definition DVD player: A resolutionary idea

] "The fear among artists is that the work of art they put
] together, the album, will become a thing of the past,"
] says attorney Fred Goldring, whose firm represents Will
] Smith and Alanis Morissette.

Of course it is. In this age of ADD, 30 second commercials that scream at you for 12 min. out of every half-hour program, and more-better-faster-now, who has the time or patience to listen to a whole album? They should have seen this coming.

BILLBOARD: Artists opposed to online music stores

] More than a generation before Sally Ride became the first
] U.S. woman in space, some experienced female pilots
] dubbed the Mercury 13 almost beat her to the milestone.
]
] Trained in secret in a laboratory run by a NASA medical
] officer, the group's remarkable experiences are
] chronicled in a new book by Martha Ackmann, "Mercury 13:
] The Untold Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of
] Spaceflight."
]
] In 1961, the same year the first U.S. man achieved
] spaceflight, the women underwent the same series of tests
] as the Mercury 7 astronauts, according to Ackmann.
]
] But the Mercury 13 program did not win enough political
] support to continue to completion, she said, and the
] Soviet Union sent the first woman into space in 1963.
]
] Ackmann, an author, journalist and Mount Holyoke College
] professor, recently spoke with CNN during the same week
] as the anniversary of Ride's historic flight on June 18,
] 1983.

CNN.com - Women secretly trained as U.S. astronauts in 1960s - Jun. 23, 2003

] Seahorses are their own worst enemy. Fished to the point
] of extinction for the traditional Chinese medicine
] market, they mate for life and their unwillingness to
] seek new partners after being separated has done little
] to improve their chances of survival.
]
] One of their better hopes for conservation may lie in the
] unlikeliest of places -- a ramshackle shed perched on the
] edge of the Atlantic Ocean.
]
] Seahorse Ireland says its goal is to help save the
] species by cultivating seahorses born in captivity for
] the growing aquarium market.
]
] "We want to make people aware that the captive-bred
] seahorse is a much better buy," said production manager
] Ken Maher, from the makeshift laboratory in Connemara,
] west Ireland.
]
] "There's no deleterious effect on the environment and the
] seahorse will survive and flourish in your tank."
]
] Seahorses are no ordinary sea creatures, notwithstanding
] their monogamy which is highly unusual for the animal
] kingdom. It is the male who receives eggs from his female
] partner and fertilizes them himself.

CNN.com - Monogamous seahorse is its own worst enemy - Jun. 23, 2003

] A federal district court dismissed a request by the
] one-time plaintiff known as "Jane Roe" to reconsider the
] landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized
] abortion 30 years ago.
]
] The court said late Thursday that Norma McCorvey's
] request wasn't made within a "reasonable time" after the
] 1973 judgment in Roe vs. Wade.

Federal court declines to reopen 'Roe vs. Wade'