The Rigged-Up Net

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Reach Out and Strong-Arm Someone

Clear Channel invests in new broadcast delay equipment

San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications Inc. (NYSE: CCU) on Tuesday announced that the company has purchased more than $500,000 worth of new equipment that will allow its stations to block indecent material.

Obesity to surpass tobacco as top US killer

Americans are eating themselves to death – soon poor diet and physical inactivity may overtake tobacco as the leading cause of death, according to a US government study.

For more parents, 3 kids are a charm

Whether they keep working, quit or go part time, many women are choosing to have three children — large families by today’s standards. American women have an average of two children (2.013 to be exact) and had fewer than two just 15 years ago. During most of the 1970s and 1980s, women averaged 1.7 to 1.9.

Seattle No. 2 in U.S. with graduate degrees

Nearly one in five Seattle residents has a graduate or professional degree, ranking the city second nationally only behind Washington, D.C., in that category, according to figures released today by the U.S. Census.

The front and back of a fake $1 million dollar bill

The front and back of a fake $1 million dollar bill is shown in this undated Covington Police Department handout photo. Alice Regina Pike, 35, was arrested when she tried to use the bill to purchase $1,675 worth of merchandise at Wal-Mart in Covington, Ga., Friday, March 5, 2004. She faces forgery charges. The U.S. Treasury does not make $1 million bills, but similar-looking currency is sold in some souvenir shops.

Plugging into the power of sewage

The waste you flush down the toilet could one day power the lights in your home. So say researchers at Pennsylvania State University who last week revealed they have developed an electricity generator fuelled by sewage.

TiVo skips past naysayers

TiVo is skipping past the skeptics with ambitious plans for growth and new features that it hopes will keep it a step ahead of rivals.

Study: Texas near bottom for legal fairness in U.S.

At No. 45, Texas ranks near the bottom among the 50 states in a study of legal fairness by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform.

Online porn often leads high-tech way

Gail Harris is an unlikely high-tech pioneer. The former model and queen of B-movie gems Cellblock Sisters and Galaxy Girls fished nude photos out of a trash can years ago and went on to create a multimillion-dollar Internet company with the world’s largest collection of erotic images.

DISH Network Drops Viacom Channels As Talks Stall

EchoStar Communications, the parent company of the DISH Network, said it removed 16 local channels and 10 nationally distributed channels owned by Viacom International Inc. at midnight Monday night, after talks between the two companies broke down.

DirecTV accuses O.J. Simpson of pirating its satellite signals

Satellite television network DirecTV has accused former football star O.J. Simpson of using illegal electronic devices to pirate its broadcast signals.

Painkiller linked to rise in overdose deaths

Doctors prescribing methadone for pain relief may inadvertently be the cause of an alarming rise in deaths related to the drug in the US. Forensic science experts fear that a huge increase in methadone prescriptions is feeding the black market and encouraging abuse.

Tech firm Rackspace expects to add 127 jobs over course of ’04

Rackspace Managed Hosting, which saw its revenues grow by nearly 50 percent for the third straight year in 2003, is looking to boost its employee base by more than 25 percent in 2004, mostly in technical positions. This stellar growth has San Antonio public officials racing to make sure that the local labor market can handle this kind of demand.

AT&T Wireless Phone “Upgrades” Aren’t

“AT&T Wireless is requiring customers in parts of California and New York and elsewhere to “upgrade” their phones and offering free replacements. The catch? In most cases the upgrades have worse features than the phones they’re replacing.”

I guess this was made during the time when AOL was having some major issues with their systems… but it still funny to watch it now.

Watch video here

Inside the Apple iPod Design Triumph

Steve Jobs is recognizably the top cheerleader for Apple’s products. And the inventor of such hyperbole as “insanely great” has not abandoned that characteristic for the company’s iPod MP3 player.

Unchained Melodies

Austin’s wireless future takes the stage at SXSW

Sex no bar to geekdom

The so-called technology gender gap has slammed shut in the US: university students, whether male or female, report near identical take-up of technology, according to the latest 360 Youth College Explorer Study.

Americans driving to distraction

But it wasn’t a laughing matter. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration estimates that up to 30% of the 3 million accidents a year may be attributable to distracted driving.

Ah, this is good stuff..

Watch the video here…

I posted about this before, but now Wired is all over it…

Cannibals Descend on MP3 Players

Digital photographers have found a source of cheap microdrives for their cameras: Creative Technology’s MuVo2 digital music player.

Mysterious virus may thwart HIV

HIV patients who are also infected by a second, mysterious virus are less likely to develop AIDS and die of the disease, suggests a new study.

Acupuncture’s secret: Blood flow to brain

Acupuncture on pain-relief points cuts blood flow to key areas of the brain within seconds, providing the clearest explanation to date for how the ancient technique might relieve pain and treat addictions, a Harvard scientist reports today.

ICQ gets ‘friendlier’ with new service

America Online’s ICQ has joined the social-networking craze.

Worm authors talk trash

Security researchers have discovered that the authors of MyDoom and Bagle are exchanging insults with the author of NetSky, using text hidden inside their virus code.

What is the difference between espresso and drip coffee?

The main differences between espresso coffee and drip coffee are the fineness of the grind and the brewing time. The brewing time for espresso coffee is much shorter, made possible by espresso machines that generate up to 15 atmospheres (ATM) of pressure to force the water through the coffee.

Colleges throw lifeline to students

The subject line of the e-mail was simple: “Are you depressed?”

McDonald’s phasing out super-size fries, drinks

Say goodbye to those super-sized fries — McDonald’s is slimming down its menu. The hamburger giant has started phasing out its trademark Supersize fries and drinks in its U.S. restaurants as part of an effort to simplify its menu and give customers choices that support a balanced lifestyle, a company spokesman said Tuesday.

Why we love Dr. Seuss (in a few words)

A man of few words, but, oh, what a sense of fun and imagination he could pack into those few. And make them rhyme, too! On the 100th anniversary of Ted “Seuss” Geisel’s birth, here are some words he would never have used in his books but we always will remember him for anyway.

London tube gets mobile access

London Underground (LU) is in talks with the four main mobile networks to allow mobile access on the Tube network.

Parents make home drug tests big business online

A cottage industry that has set up shop on the Internet meets the needs of parents who fear that their teens are using drugs — and also of teens who are afraid of getting caught.

Celebrity “friends” key in teen development

Celebrity worship may play an important part of growing up, suggest the results of a UK study.

Enthusiasts Call Web Feed Next Big Thing

RSS has been called the TiVo of the Web, the first “killer app” of the anticipated automation of social and commercial transactions online using the Web’s second-generation XML (extensible markup language) standard.

Rumor had it that HEB has been freaking out about Walmart eating their lunch… I guess they want to turn the tables with HEB Plus:

New HEB concept arriving in Austin

HEB Plus, an expanded store concept from San Antonio-based H.E. Butt Grocery Co., is coming to Austin by the end of the year.

For Exercise in New York Futility, Push Button

For years, at thousands of New York City intersections, well-worn push buttons have offered harried walkers a rare promise of control over their pedestrian lives. The signs mounted above explained their purpose:

To Cross Street
Push Button
Wait for Walk Signal
Dept. of Transportation

And another…

Pushing all the wrong buttons

It’s not a bad habit — pressing the pedestrian crosswalk buttons to make it to the other side — but for years people in downtown San Mateo have been pushing them for no good reason.

I have no idea what that means… maybe you can figure it out.

Click here

Feeling blue? Maybe it’s your cubicle

US porn typosquatter banged up

A Florida man who directed children to pornographic websites by registering misspellings of domains likely to be popular with kids was imprisoned for two-and-a-half years yesterday.

PT Cruiser does convertible right

It’s tough to update a vehicle deliberately designed to look old. That’s a challenge of retro design. But updates are necessary to keep a model selling well.