Who owns fandom? Also see the Slashdot discussion.

McAfee VirusScan Definition update.

Interarchy 4.0 released. I'm still using 3.8. I'll probably upgrade soon.

AOL, Time Warner merger approved.. Which is worse? The U.S. Supreme Court 5-4 vote, or the FTC 5-0 vote? :-P

Style & Technology: The new Palm Vx Claudia Schiffer Edition. Cute. ;-)

XML.com has a pretty good article on Using XML and Relational Databases with Perl, as well as a Q&A document titled: Will XML replace HTML?

Saint Oops! That's very smart. By claiming to be a virgin, she can date all she want without completely alienating her male fan-base.

Windows Media Player 7 for Pocket PC. How long will I be able to resist buying a Pocket PC?

Net2Phone to End Free Web Calls. No big loss, the free service quality was never any good. Last I tried free web2phone services Dialpad.com seemed to provide the best voice/audio quality, although latency was high.

Bare Bones Software updates BBEdit to version 6.0.2. You might want to review the Release Notes before updating.

Palm OS 4.0 beta released. Key features include 16-bit color, wireless connectivity and telephony.

I have seen what is wrong with filmmaking. It is called actors. K-Dog strikes again.

The strongest mouse in the world. No doubt the ugliest too. ;-)

Indecision 2000 - As seen in the U.S. Supreme Court transcript from Bush v. Gore:

Klock: No, Justice Breyer. What I'm saying is…
Souter: I'm Justice Souter. You've got to cut that out.
…
Scalia: Mr. Klock? I'm Scalia.
Klock: Yes, sir? I'll remember that.
Scalia: Correct me if I'm wrong…
Klock: It will be hard to forget.

Indecision 2000 - We're nothing more than a modern democracy that can't count votes.

Indecision 2000 - What's the rush? Florida shouldn't worry about blowing its electoral vote deadline; Hawaii did it as recently as 1960.

Brace yourself, we're in shortage of Cheetos!

The Insider testifies in tobacco case.

Yahoo! on Minitel! I'm not too surprised. France Telecom has been doing a terrific job promoting Minitel terminals as replacement for bulky phonebooks, etc.

CreditCards.com gets ripped off. Why did they wait so long before spilling the beans?

Will Google's Purity Pay Off? Google is quickly becoming my search engine of choice. I still use Yahoo!, for basic searches. I like the way search results are categorized. Yahoo! also uses Google when searching web pages.

Wireless Net phones hit by waplash. WAP services are not ready for prime time, at least not yet.

Sun to release Java 2 for PalmOS. I've been using J2ME and KVM for a little while. It's a little rough right now, but definitely has a lot of potential.

Posh Spice to become Star columnist. Can she spell g-h-o-s-t-w-r-i-t-e-r?

EarhWeb has an interesting article on setting up Windows 2000 user profiles.

Hollywood is not guilty for crappy movies, you are! Another K-Dog rant from HollyWood Bitchslap.

You Go-Go, Girl!

Get a Christmas gift for your favorite geek.

Sun announces Forte for Java, Release 2.0. I just got it installed, looks pretty good so far.

Sony squeezes MP3 player into cell phone. It will soon double as a toaster and coffee machine too. ;-)

Palm, Handspring sales beating holiday expectations. I wonder if Pocket PCs are also enjoying better than expected Christmas sales?

Universal Records - the label which has been so outspoken against Napster - is being sued for copyright infringement on the Web. I guess it means distributing unlicensed music is not a problem for them. They just don't want anybody else to do it.

Slashdot has a review of Perl for System Administrators, the new book from O'Reilly and Associates.

Because of Indecision 2000, we've been watching CNN more than usual. I really can't stand most of their anchors, but I have to admit that I'm quite infatuated with Daryn Kagan. She's smart, quick and doesn't try to sensationalize everything like others do. She's kinda cute too.

We saw Proof of Life and both really liked it. I gave it 4 stars. It ranked number 3 at the Box Office.

Download a free PDF version of Ed Roman's Mastering Enterprise Java Beans and the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition.

WAP doesn't work. It'll get to be a viable technology, eventually. But right now it is nothing more than a marketing buzzword.

Penthouse is offering a lifetime subscription for information leading to the arrest of any person involved in illegal vote tampering as part of a conspiracy to steal the Presidency for George W. Bush.

Woz will be the subject of A&E's Biography on December 13.

New domain suffixes and cybersquatting. What a mess, and it's just the beginning.

Sun vs. MS: Let's call the whole thing off. The Evil Empire spin-machine at work. What I really want to know is how many of Microsoft's own development teams are moving or scheduled to move to C#?

The FileMaker Mobile Companion for Palm OS is shipping.

Linux on the loose. The 2.4 kernel is set to be released later this month.

Det. John McClane and the Pretty Woman are rumored to be an item.

Getting a read on new E-Books. Too expensive for what they are, and the ability to create content was removed.

We went to see Vertical Limit yesterday afternoon. I gave it 3 ^1/2 stars.

We found out that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is not playing locally. I'm miffed!

Indecision 2000 - Dec. 12, Dec. 18, Jan. 6, Jan. 20…

Will Linux Save Microsoft? Notice the reference to a Line OS; I'm glad to know financial analysts can't spell either.

Crack for sale on eBay!

All I want for Christmas is a new roadster.

The Evil Empire banned. Sounds like a very bad attempt at controlling the spin on their security advisory bulletins. Messing with Buqtraq is definitely not the way to go about it.

Indecision 2000 - Jeb Bush: "I may be my brother's keeper."

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Being born and raised in Europe, I've gotten very accustomed to foreign movies with subtitles; it'll be very interesting to see how it fairs in the US.

SyncML: Will it sink or swim? Sounds good on paper. For once I don't blame Microsoft, Oracle and Sybase for taking the wait-and-see attitude.

Do we need a second Internet? I liked Veronica Lake's talkback comments, although she forgot to mention the need for a backbone entirely dedicated to porn. ;-)

Developers offer Rx for Apple. Some interesting comments from developers. There really doesn't seem to be much coming from Apple to entice new developers to the platform. It's time for Apple to actively promote OS X strongest asset, its Unix underlaying.

The PERL CD Bookshelf. 6 of O'Reilly's best selling books on CD-ROM, not a bad deal.

To Aqua or not to Aqua. The problem with Aqua is that it doesn't really give me anything that substantially improves my daily computer usage. At least not over 9, Windows or even KDE. As a matter of fact, it is forcing me to unlearn some of the (bad) habits I've proudly cultivated for years. Without clear benefits, it is hard to convince myself that I should make the effort to learn new ways. My first instinct is to reach for a Terminal window. Granted, I've always been command line proficient, but when faced with the choice I used to favor the GUI approach. This feeling is not specific to OS X; I just find myself wanting to make things simpler, faster and more uniform across OSs. Even though the commands may actually vary from platforms to platforms, CLIs pretty much look and operate the same across the board. Heck, even Tog is frustrated with Apple.

Microsoft crashes Palm developer party. Shouldn't be too hard for the Evil Empire to generate some interest with key Palm OS developers. Palm had no developer programs per-say until very recently. And from what I've seen, they still have a long way to go.

Free software download have string attached. Are you ready to give up your privacy for freebies? Most Americans are.

John Lennon died on December 9, 1980.

FTC to vote on AOL-Time Warner merger. We may get busy signals trying to watch CNN after all. ;-)

ABC and NBC are already canceling new shows. I firmly believe most people simply do not watch new TV shows, at least not with any kind of regularity. We just get hooked during the re-run season; while there's nothing else to watch. Unfortunately, most shows have already been axed by then.

Looking for digital stocking stuffers for Christmas? You might want to check the SF Chronicle's Gadget Guide.

Macromedia has released updated Shockwave & Flash Players.

AportisDoc Mobile Edition version 2.2.1 is now available. A .1 update which probably addresses a few bugs.

The Evil Empire strikes back. This time they are preventing BugTraq from publishing MS Bulletins and security holes.

Inside the extremely wired homes of the rich. Hey Larry can I squat at your place for a year or two?