Here’s an article from one the local alternative weeklies that compares the architecture of branch banks. It’s pretty humorous, unfortunately the online version doesn’t include the pictures that were in the newspaper itself.

According to the BBC, the British government tapped all of the phone calls between England and Ireland over the past 10 years.

Microsoft’s market cap is higher than the GNP of the Netherlands.

Salon covers Red Hat’s purchase of a Web design studio, and speculates that this is one of the steps in their attempt to chase some of those magical portal-bucks that everyone is after (including Salon).

San Jose Mercury News geek-gossip columnist Chris Nolan has been suspended for investing in a company that’s on her beat. The story itself is in the Mercury News, and is very thorough. I imagine that this will blow over, as it should, but it’s nice to see newspapers give at least a nod to ethics anyway.

An interesting break in the Wintel duopoly: Microsoft’s free PCs, supplied by Lan Plus, have AMD K6-2 processors, not Intel Celerons, as one might expect. Lan Plus makes the Northgate branded computers (I remember when Northgate was a top-tier maker of PC clones) that you see being hawked on cable shopping channels.

It looks like InfoWorld rolled back their redesign. The old site is back up. Anyone know what’s up with that?

If you thought hanging out in front of a webcam all day is an easy route to fun and profit, allow Jenni of JenniCam fame to set you straight. Rogers Cadenhead passed along that link to a rant from the frustrated Jenni.

Wired News Washington bureau chief and libertarian at large Declan McCullagh takes on hacktivism over at IntellectualCapital.com.

The Elite modeling agency plans to represent cyber-models? Umm … OK.