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Okay, here's five days' worth of stuff, over 1,000 RSS items. Whew!
Citizen Smash chronicles the pathetic attempts to put negative spin on the "Bush serves Thanksgiving dinner to the troops" story. A lot of links. Why do people find it so hard to believe the simplest explanation?
Looks like IBM won a legal battle against SCO, but the war continues. SCO has been ordered to respond to IBM's request that they specify exactly what parts of Linux infringe their Unix copyrights. It will be interesting to see what they come up with...
Econopundit on the Economics of the Alternate Universe. Really good stuff. The best way to analyze policy is to compare what's happening to what else might have happened, not to the way things were. [ via Glenn Reynolds ]
CNet wonders VoIP's Best Week Ever? It is now such a Thing that you don't even get points for saying so. Big companies have the most to save, and are diving into VoIP in a big way. And with services like Vonage, residential customers are, too. I can easily see the day when there are no 'phone companies, and no cable companies, only ISPs. They provide two-way data, and you run voice, video, whatever on top of it. "Hey grandpa, tell us about analog phones again, would you?"
So, there are now more female medical school applicants than males. Does this surprise me? No. [ via John Robb ]
 Check out the Look Out Design Competition, from Norway. Yeah, there is a plexiglas barrier at the tip. Whew! [ via Ottmar Liebert ]
 And more architecture as poetry, the Jubilee Church, in Rome, designed by Richard Meier & Partners. In addition to being beautiful, the concrete sails let in an amazing "play of light".
Andrew Anker contemplates Carrot Capitalism. Gorillas use sticks, but startups can use carrots. And also, your car as an open system? Why not?
Jonathon Delacour is Overloaded. Yeah, me too, especially after being mostly down for four days. What would happen if you were on vacation for two weeks? Would the earth keep spinning? I guess it would, but it is hard to believe :)
Matt Haughey says Wait Until Next Year to Buy that Flat Panel TV. Okay, I will. I'm waiting for that 60" HDTV plasma for under $1,000.
Matt also notes the Dish Network's HD DVR. "TiVo is being beaten (badly) to market by their competitors. I know half of the posts on this site end with 'and this looks like another nail in TiVo's coffin' but it's increasingly looking to be the truth."
AlwaysOn agrees that HDTV Reaches Mainstream. I think HDTV is still in the early adopter phase myself. I live in a pretty geeky circle, and nobody I know has one - yet.
Kevin Laws suggests perhaps smartphones portend The End of the Laptop. "First, people had computers at work. Next, they got them at home. Eventually, the work computer became a notebook, or one was added. The next step is to eliminate the notebook and go back to a home pc with access via your smartphone." Interesting point of view, but I still like the ability to blog upstairs while watching football.
Steve Gillmor thinks RSS will let Sun and Apple challenge Microsoft Office. I don't know about that. I think RSS is important, but... Steve's argument is essentially that RSS levels the playing field. Yeah, maybe, but I think Office still wins on a level playing field, the applications are that good.
Kazaa Lite K++ has been shutdown by Sharman Networks, owners of copyrights on Kazaa. It continues to work, however, and many copies are available on the Kazaa network :)
Gizmodo is innundated with "connected media center" devices to review. Poor babies! This is the latest thing, and everyone has to make one. Or so it seems.
Are you familiar with the ipodsdirtysecret.com story? Yeah, these guys discovered that the iPod's one-year warranty is only valid for one year, and the unreplaceable battery actually cannot be replaced. This irritated them, so they created the aforementioned (but unlinked) website, and ran around spray-painting Apple's iPod ad posters. Anyway Daring Fireball suggests some nice alternative slogans.
So I was gone for a few days, and meanwhile blogshares died and then was resurrected. So be it. Personally I found it was an interesting concept, but it didn't suck me in.
This week's sign of the Apocalypse: Dodge plans Lingerie Bowl. I am not making this up, but I wish I was. Are you kidding me? [ via Woundwort ]
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So, for the past four days my [Windows] laptop was down, and I switched to using my iMac as my "main" computer for a few days. Overall the experience was pretty good. I thought you might find a brief review interesting.
