Big day today - gearing up a for a major dinner party.  I'm Shirley's consiglieri.  Onward!

Today's bonk on the nail head: John Robb asks Will ISPs like AOL, MSN, and EarthLink go after the RBOCs via VoIP?  Uh, yes, they will!  And he comments "A fast way to get there would be to buy Vonage and work with Akamai to roll it out globally."  Indeed.

David Burbridge considers IQ and the Wealth of Nations.  (The book, and the relationship.)  An interesting counterpoint to IQ and Populations.

Here's a great Rolling Stone interview of Steve Jobs.  He makes a strong case for a purchase model for online music (a la iTunes) vs. a subscription model (a la Rhapsody).

Canadian regulators have ruled it is legal to download music via P2P, but illegal to upload.  They've also imposed a $25 "tax" on MP3 players, kind of like we have on blank tapes.  [ via Dave Winer ]

The PlayQTV looks like an interesting competitor for the Pinnacle ShowCenter.  "The Play@TV Media Viewer is exceptional.  The engineers who designed and developed the TV user-interface (UI) did a remarkable job of making it intuitive, easy-to-navigate by remote control, pleasing to the eye, and informative."  Hmmm...

Walt Mossberg tries two Microsoft Smartphones, and concludes "Neither phone is anywhere near as good as the Treo 600."  The biggest problem: they're too slow.  I know, I know, the hardware will catch up to the software.  Someday.  Meanwhile I continue to love my Treo.

This is good news: AlwaysOn reports Tivo-based Set-Top Boxes in High Demand.  "After years of lukewarm demand, the elves at satellite television provider DirecTV are suddenly scrambling to fill holiday orders for its TiVo-based set-top boxes."  Finally.

Abacast is P2P distribution for radio stations.  Interesting!  [ via John Robb ]

There's a horrible new bug which can cause a website to appear to be at a different URL than it actually is.  For example:Click Here, then notice the URL up in your browser's Address area!  Not good.  [ via Don Park, who comments "It's like discovering that everything you designed was built on a gigantic turtle that just woke up." ]

Here's an interesting note, courtesy of Ottmar Liebert...

Hey, it's the 2003 Snow Sculpture Championships, from Breckenridge, Colorado!  No, I am not making this up, check it out!  The piece at right is named "whirled white web".  [ via Cory Doctorow ]

Dave Winer: no one listens to anyone.