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Daniel Weintraub reviews Arnold's 100-day plan. "Can he succeed? I think he can. Just as Schwarzenegger has rewritten the rules of political campaigning, if he wins, he will be able to re-write the rules of governing. He would do this because he would have an ability that the Legislature does not have and that most governors before him have not been able to master: the ability to communicate directly with the people of California." I've read this before; the idea is that California has a "weak-Governor" system, which requires that the Governor be able to lead rather than manage.
Donald Rumsfeld surveys Iraqi progress in the WSJ. "The Coalition is not in Iraq to stay. Our goal is to help Iraqis so they can take responsibility for the governance and security of their country, and foreign forces can leave."
Air France is buying KLM. Wow. As a Dutchman and France disliker, I can't feel good about this, but I have to admit it makes economic sense. Apparently they will retain separate brands.
WineSpectator reports French Wines Still Facing Hard Times in U.S. Market. Boo hoo.
Bill Whittle on Power. As usual with Bill, it is long, interesting, and well worth reading.
So the baseball playoffs are under way. Some great games so far. Ole's picks: Giants over Marlins, Cubs over Braves, Yankees over Twins, and As over Boston. Then Giants over Cubs, As over Yankees, and the Giants win the series.
With three games each day, how do you possibly watch all the action without Tivo?
CNet has a cool new area called Digital Living. Really well done, although it is chock full of ads (sigh). I like the way they've smoothly incorporated Flash and video. Is this the home of the future? Remember, "the future is already here, it just isn't evenly distributed."
Their "lavish living room" is really just a fancy den, centered around a home entertainment system. Interesting. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't have any electronics in my living room, we use it for visiting with people...
Creative just joined the long list of companies making wireless media adapters; essentially a way to get music from your PC to your stereo system. There is a fundamental realization behind these products that your PC is where music lives. No more "hardcopy".
On the heels of Disney's new MovieBeam service, we find that Movielink is partnering with Roadrunner to provide video-on-demand services. The difference is that Disney serves the movie in the family room, via a set-top box, while Movielink serves it in the den on the computer.
Wired considers The Incredible Shrinking Studio. "Along with freeing musicians from the studio, the new power of laptops, and some of the software that has been written to use that power, has had a huge impact on the market for synthesizers. Instead of spending $3,000 for a high-end hardware synthesizer, musicians can now buy software-based synths and load dozens of them on a laptop." I'm sure Ottmar would agree!
Matt Haughey notes that the new Windows Media Center edition includes the ability to pause and rewind live radio. So there we go, first we have a wave of products which do this, then Microsoft folds it into the operating system. Their implementation is probably inferior, but it is free...
Don Box reminisces about PDCs past. Was it really 1996 when the term "ActiveX" was unleashed?
 Daring Fireball discusses Dell's Dud, the new Dell DJ MP3 player. "Based solely on this single promotional photo, I could even start taking potshots at the Dell DJ, pointing out why it's not just an iPod knock-off, but an inferior knock-off." But that isn't the real problem. Rather, "This idea that the iPod's position is precarious - that any day now, some cheaper weak-branded knock-off will knock Apple off its perch - is exactly backwards." So let the market decide!
Bruce Sterling makes a list of ten technologies that deserve to die. It is a lousy list, including non-technologies like "prisons" and "cosmetic implants", and why exactly do DVDs deserve to die?
 Want to be weightless? Then perhaps Zero-G is for you. Not for me, I don't even like roller-coasters...
 This is terrific! The ACME Product catalog, made up from frame-grabs of Roadrunner cartoons. There's a lot of useful stuff in there, like "instant girl" :)
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