Hope you had a great Cinco de Mayo!  Olé!

I just want to say - there should be a special punishment for developers of software which automatically resizes your browser windows.

WP reports Federal Deficit Likely to Narrow by $100M.  That's good news!  Unless you're a Kerry supporter...  This, combined with the encouraging news on the job creation front, is taking away all the Democratic ammunition, and causing some "repositioning".  [ via Glenn Reynolds ]

Also from the WP, Virginia and Maryland are planning toll-based congestion free lanes.  Capitalism at its finest, pay more to avoid other people :)  [ via John Robb ]

Wondering what Mars would have looked like, back in the day when it had lakes and oceans?  Wonder no longer, here's some amazing renderings of what it would have looked like.  These images use data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter and Terragen software to render the Martian surface.  Excellent!

I know it's around here somewhere, dept.: Nature reports "The most powerful search yet for the Universe's missing matter has come up empty handed."  This ongoing search for "dark matter" reminds me of the search for "the ether" at the end of the 19th century.  At that time light was known to exhibit wavelike properties, but the question was "what is waving"?  A mysterious "ether" was postulated.  In 1887 the famous Michelson-Morley experiment proved there is no ether.  I predict that soon we'll prove there is no dark matter, too.

Mark Cuban has posted Success and Motivation, Part 2, which follows Success and Motivation, Part 1.  "It’s always the little decisions that have the biggest impact. We all have to make that “make or break” call to follow orders or do what you know is right."  I don't know why Mark's comments seem so relevant, maybe it's because he's so successful, or maybe he just makes sense.

Mark your calendars: Steve Jobs will preview OS X 10.4, aka "Tiger", at the Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference on June 28.  Anyone want to bet it will have new video broadcasting capabilities?  I can't wait.

Have you seen the latest iPod ad, "wild postings"?  Really cool.

Sony [finally] launched their entry into the online music store sweepstakes, called "connect".  Interestingly, it currently features Sheryl Crow, who was last seen talking up iTunes in Fortune.  Yahoo wonders where's the 'iPod killer'.

More evidence that video is going the way of audio: CNet reports one in eight Americans want to buy a DVD recorder.  Only one in eight?  The other seven must want Tivo, first :)

More for your calendar; July 4, 2004, for the Freedom Tower groundbreaking on the World Trade Center site.  The Freedom Tower is planned to be 1,776 feet tall, making it the world's tallest building.

Yahoo reports Gates Promises Longhorn Beta in 2005.  I agree with my friend Gary Lang, who opines "my read of this is that WinFS is out".  So what's really in Longhorn?  3D rendering, vector graphics, XAML...

Looks like Russell Beattie agrees with me about Googlemania.  I'm starting to sense a bit of backlash, I don't think users are rooting for Google the way they were two years ago.

Yuri Gitman on his MagicBike: I am like the ice cream man, but with no music and I deliver free wireless access and not ice cream.  "MagicBike is a mobile WiFi (wireless Internet) hotspot that gives free Internet connectivity wherever its ridden or parked."  It is essentially a mobile bridge between WiFi and cellular networks.  Cool.

The VW bus ball sculpture, at the Berkshire Botanical Garden.  Of course.

If you're a student of the great syndication wars, you will find this rant about RSS, Atom, and SOAP to be of interest (translated from French to English, but doesn't lose much in the translation).

BBC has the story of the Picasso painting which sold for $104M.  I like Picasso - some anyway - but I've never found his work to be that compelling.  I have a hard time thinking any work of art could be worth $104M, but I guess worth is in the eye of the beholder.  I know what René Magritte would say: Ceci n'est pas une pipe!

Finally, here we have How Cheers is Like Star Trek Voyager.  Offered as evidence that you can find anything on the web, and no, I am not making this up :)  [ via Woundwort ]