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There are now 104 separate categories, including Best Non-vocal Performance By a Vocalist (did I make that up, or not?).

I am on unemployment, I have very little income, and a tax cut for me might only help a little.

Norwegian teen acquitted of charges associated with posting DVD decryption code on Internet – another legal win for decrypters (see Elcomsoft acquittal): The case had been widely described as a “David vs Goliath” battle, pitting 16-year-old Jon Lech Johansen from a small town south of Oslo against huge corporations and …

Windows Media technology to be licensed cheaply: In a bid to secure a central place for itself in the new gadgets that are increasingly the preferred platform for digital media, Microsoft said yesterday that it would license its Windows Media technology to consumer electronics makers at lower prices and better …

Paul Boutin says it’s time to dump the disc: This spring, the compact disc celebrates the 20th anniversary of its arrival in stores, which puts the once-revolutionary music format two decades behind Moore’s Law. The IBM PC, introduced about a year and a half earlier, has been revved up a …

For at least the last five years, whenever my father-in-law and I start talking about computers and-or music, he always comes around to a statement something like this: why isn’t there a service where I can pick any song I want and have them make a CD for me? If …

Important conceptual breakthrough – Long Beach, CA offers a free public high-speed wireless Internet network: Web surfers in the cafes along the four blocks of the city’s Pine Avenue thoroughfare, within walking distance of the local convention center, can now log on free to a wireless WiFi network set up …

Fortune looks at legality of TV show swapping: TiVo is a leading brand of personal video recorder (PVR) that saves shows to hard drives instead of cassettes. (Ironically, TiVo counts several of the plaintiffs in the SONICblue suit, like NBC and CBS, among its investors.) Consumers love TiVos for the …

The problem with the homeless is the problem with social welfare policies in general: we want to provide for the individual, legitimately needy, but we don’t want to encourage dependence upon such help, to foster a “culture of dependence.” Santa Monica is a nice, upscale, generally liberal beach city just …

Is there any substance that elicits a more complex set of social consequences and reactions than alcohol? It is almost equally praised and vilified, promoted and banned, embraced and rejected. I personally was a drunk for most of my 20s, quit drinking entirely for almost 10 years, then gradually, cautiously, …