Thanks to a reader who suggested I look at this. Amazon is charging different prices on some DVDs to different consumers, or even the same consumer at different times. “Included among the determining factors, they said, was

which browser was being used, whether a consumer was a repeat or first-time customer and

which Internet service provider address a customer was using… Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith said the price differences on certain DVDs are the result of

tests that the company performs to re-evaluate various aspects of its Web site, such as the

navigation system, what the home page looks like, overall site design and product pricing.” One industry analyst described the pricing strategy as befuddling. I’ll settle for “just nuts”, not having gone to business school. Computerworld

An allegedly haunted Maryland castle was bought by a group of self-proclaimed ghost chasers who plan to monitor round-the-clock for paranormal activity, as well as rent out $250 rooms to chill-seeking guests.

R.U. Sirius on Whatever Happened to MONDO 2000’s Cyber Revolution. The mainstream overtook the fringe, in short. Wired hijacked Mondo’s constituency. But Sirius never stops waiting for resurgent glory days.

Thanks to David Brake for pointing me to the Brill’s Content “All-Star Newspaper”, a sort of news weblog. But, perhaps because of their conceit of putting the journalist’s name big and bold instead of any indication of the content of each of their items, I find it hard to read.

Reports: Saddam Hussain stricken with cancer. U.S. is skeptical of reports of his imminent death. Supposedly, he has handed over day-to-day leadership tasks to his son Qusay, the one who has personally directed the ethnic persecution of Iraqi Kurds and Shi’ites, ordering the deaths of hundreds. MSNBC

Internet music-file sharing news roundup: Scour contracts, MP3.com to be assessed damages, Napster suit appeal nears hearing.

Unfortunately, the way American courts have been ruling against

Internet technology recently doesn’t bode too well for Scour’s future,

even if it wasn’t having money problems. It’s unclear whether Napster

will be able to get Judge Patel’s harsh decision overturned on appeal,

even if the Appeals court actually listens to its arguments and allows its

evidence into the record this time (unlike Judge Patel). MP3.com is

probably going to get its hands slapped pretty harshly this week,

meaning it will have to spend even more money than it already has on

the other four settlements it worked out. Plus, I’m hoping that

MP3.com’s cave-in to the record companies that allows them to now

send spammy e-mail to MP3.com users will drive people away from the

MP3.com service completely. Put all this together with the recent

decision against DeCSS and 2600.com and you’ve got a legal climate in

America that is so anti-Internet file/knowledge sharing that even a

deaf, dumb, and blind investor knows to stay away from this for a

while. Geek.com

When it’s turned on, your cellphone is a handheld homing device, in case you didn’t know. And the ability to locate you in this way has alot of implications, from the tantalizing to the insidious. Geek.com

Evolutionary Psychology news: First, a portrait of the EP mailing list where “dangerous ideas thrive without the usual online rancor and hatred.” Salon And Randy Thornhill, whose work on the evolutionary underpinnings of rape I’ve blinked before, is too much to take for some at the Ars Electronica Next Sex symposium in Linz, Austria. Wired

Read about the aftermath when some Santa Clara County prison inmates fool with a homemade Ouija board. San Jose Mercury

The net is not the first threat to the survival of printed literature, says Tom, the Dancing Bug.

The current state of political oratory

Possibly we no longer even have the subject matter for a good speech.

Speech-making begs for large themes. The fate of nations, for instance. Some

excuse for a hint of outrage and demagoguery. It is not easy — and even harder

without PowerPoint — to make a compelling speech out of the administrative

themes of the age: health care, education, campaign-finance reform.

Of course, political discourse itself has become, in the inner circles of both

parties, almost entirely subverbal wonk talk and, in public, a list of painful and

ritualized clichés. “Twenty-first-century jobs need twenty-first-century schools . .

. Progress, not partisanship . . . Honor is not just a word but an obligation . . .

The hard right over the easy wrong . . . I remember a child . . .” New York Magazine

“Eighteen years ago, after a brutal little war, British commandos re-took the remote Falkland Islands

from the Argentine forces that had seized it.

Well… they’re back. Sort of. But undercover (or under the covers, for those preferring double

entendre) and sleeping with the enemy.” An Argentine director and his crew, posing as tourists, shot a clandestine film in Port Stanley with handheld digital video cameras, telling the story of “an Argentine man visiting

the islands with the aim of impregnating as many British women

as possible, thereby achieving the takeover that 72 days of fighting at a

combined cost of 891 lives and $2 billion could not… The director chronicles his

own (nine-day) creative commando raid into enemy territory” on his website (in Spanish). Inside

The “Lord Of The Rings trilogy will have subtitles when

elves speak in their own language, British star Ian McKellen has revealed.”

“The state of New York and billionaire cable industry

mogul Alan Gerry revealed plans yesterday to build a

performing arts center in upstate Bethel on the site of

the original Woodstock… While the design will harken back to the site’s hippie

past, unlike the original Woodstock festival, the arts

center will have toilets.” NY Daily News