Below The Beltway

For the past several weeks, we have been dealing with cable television frustration on two levels.
First, all of the digitial channels we receive through our Comcast box were showing a distorted picture and distorted sound which made watching anything other than basic cable pretty much impossible for the past two weeks or so.
That was the […]

The new version of Firefox became available to the world today at 1:00pm EDT, and at least some early reviews are very positive:
June 17, 2008 (Computerworld) The Mozilla Foundation is celebrating the arrival of Firefox 3 with a worldwide party — and an attempt to set a new world record for the most downloads ever […]

At 1:00pm EST today, Firefox 3 will be available for download, and the browser wars will begin anew:
Mozilla plans to release Firefox 3 on Tuesday, and the open-source project is opening a new front in the browser wars.
As the Web transforms from a static repository of content into a foundation for applications such as word […]

It’s official, the next version of Firefox will be released next Tuesday:
After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we’re proud to announce that we’re ready. It is our expectation to ship Firefox 3 this upcoming Tuesday, June 17th. Put on your party hats and get ready to download […]

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connnor is apparently involved in a project to bring Constitutional jurisprudence to the online gaming world:
If you imagine what Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is doing in her retirement, you might not come up with this: Designing provocative clothing for virtual avatars to wear in a multiplayer […]

The WaPo’s Howard Kurtz has sour grapes over the fact that the newspaper industry is being forced to change:
Let’s not bury the lead: This is a rough time for the newspaper business, a rough time for The Washington Post and a rough time for me.
No one need shed any tears for the people leaving this […]

The Vatican Website, now in Latin:
[S]tarting today, in addition to its Italian and English and German and Spanish and Portuguese and French versions, the Vatican web site — and quite a sophisticated and attractive site it is — has just added a Latin version as well.
Hey, if this catches on, I may have to work […]

A Saudi Arabian woman was the victim of another insane honor killing recently for the “crime” of having a Facebook profile:
A young Saudi Arabian woman was murdered by her father for chatting on the social network site Facebook, it has emerged.
The unnamed woman from Riyadh was beaten and shot after she was discovered in the […]

Two stories in two different newspapers today highlight the extent to which our technological age has created a new kind of generation gap.
First, today’s New York Times reports on the ways that teenagers have turned to text-messaging to create a new zone of privacy from their parents:
AS president of the Walt Disney Company’s children’s book […]

Apparently, you can never really leave Facebook:
Are you a member of Facebook.com? You may have a lifetime contract.
Some users have discovered that it is nearly impossible to remove themselves entirely from Facebook, setting off a fresh round of concern over the popular social network’s use of personal data.
While the Web site offers users the option […]