I’d like to thank Peter for finding Malcolm Gladwell’s Web site. He wrote an article on physical genius that I’d been dying to read (I missed that issue of the New Yorker when it was on the news stand). As I’d heard, it’s a fantastic article.

The Industry Standard’s story on the Time Warner/AOL merger is pretty sparse. This is the kind of story I’d expect them to nail … maybe their followup coverage will be better. Their magazine keeps getting fatter with advertising, so who cares, right?

A Russian cracker stole thousands of credit card numbers from an online CD store, and posted them on his Web site after his blackmail attempts failed. This is probably what the company would refer to as a worst case scenario.

Oh. My. Goodness. AOL and Time Warner to merge? I wonder what this means for “open access” to cable for ISPs, now that AOL will become one of the largest cable companies? This merger is downright scary on so many levels.

Two in a row! Today’s John Carroll article deconstructs a nasty Cadillac commercial in which rattlesnakes serve as proxies for underprivileged people.

Scott Rosenberg’s first column of the new millennium catalogs a few of the mistaken predictions that plagued the previous decade. The one that particularly stings is the predicted death of AOL. If only we had been correct …

Jon Carroll wrote a great column about marriage, or at least being in a couple, today.

By the way, I’m trying to create a new euphemism for the sudden run ups in share prices that occur after a company makes any Linux-related announcement. That euphemism is “to K-Tel”, and is inspired by the recent rise in KTEL after K-Tel announced that their Web servers run Red Hat Linux. The previous item provides a usage example.

Investors K-Teled Salon’s stock yesterday. After Salon announced a syndication deal with Red Hat’s Wide Open News, SALN spiked. Whatever.

Turadg Aleahmad has written a PHP major mode for Emacs. I don’t know if it’s any good. There’s also a Cold Fusion mode, which I also haven’t tested.