Science and Technology

The war has sent people scrambling to the Internet for information, community, and expression. It is not a little ironic and troubling that the worst of times for the real world is the best of times for the media, including the new media of the Internet. News sites have been …

If you’ve been following the Dixie Chicks’ saga – and based upon the traffic and comments, in the days just before the war, few were concerned with much else – you know that after Natalie Maines slammed President Bush in London, she apologized the next day. Well, we have all …

The deviantART site has 225 visual interpretations on the theme “Iraq War 2003.” There is some thought-provoking imagery, deft workmanship, creativity, humor and passion. Of the works that take a discernable stand – many are appealingly vague – 95% are anti-war, and most are frankly rather glib and trite in …

Does this look familiar? A little pseudo-spam floating around the Internet – it’s pretty funny if a tad heavy-handed: IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED : HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL FROM: GEORGE WALKER BUSH DEAR SIR / MADAM, I AM GEORGE WALKER BUSH, SON OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA GEORGE …

We have been active in the DMCA-reform movement, participating in the public comment process a few months ago (Ernest Miller of LawMeme did the heavy lifting – Ernie rules), insisting that consumers should be able to make backup copies of their own DVDs, and that news and reviews entities (like …

For a fraction of the cost and inconvenience of actually attending the legendary Berklee College of Music in Boston, you can take exciting courses in music production, writing, business and theory online: Production “David [Franz] was able to make an online music class come alive and teach a topic that …

As the surgical airstrikes against Saddam were beginning last night Iraqi state radio suddenly broadcast this: “The facilities of the Iraqi regime have started to be hit… This is the day we have been waiting for… The attack on Iraq has begun,” the United States jammed and then obliterated Baghdad …

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series has been acknowledged for its cultural impact with a new definition in the online Oxford English Dictionary, along with over 2000 other changes and additions. Muggle, n. In the fiction of J. K. Rowling: a person who possesses no magical powers. Hence in allusive and …

Experts quoted by the Washington Post think it almost certain the US military will use “high-powered microwave weapons” (HPM) against Iraq: They use bursts of electromagnetic energy, delivered by low-impact bombs or “ray gun”-like devices, to disable or destroy the electronics that control everything from an enemy’s radar to its …

We just reported yesterday that MSN thinks broadband internet access has arrived. Well check this out: it makes today’s broadband look like the Pony Express Scientists have developed a new data transfer protocol for the Internet fast enough to download a full-length DVD movie in less than five seconds, the …