Mercury News columnist says wait four to six months before upgrading to Mac OSX. Link

Does TiVo know what you watch? David Martin, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Denver, has written a paper asserting that TiVo "gathers enough information to track individual users' home viewing habits while apparently promising not to do so; could identify the personal viewing habits of subscribers at will; and has a much more explicit privacy policy disclosure on its Web site than in the printed material that accompanies the purchase of the product." Link

Prank letter from Will Hertes asking for a job with the FBI, and the FBI's reply. Site has lots more joke letters to corporations. Link

Funny first-person account of a Disneyland vacation in the "GenX Guide to Disneyland." Link

Curmudgeon king P.J. O'Rourke explains celebrity and modern trends to old people. Favorite quote: "Techno being a form of music that sounds like a combination of a skipping record, the chime when you leave the car door open, the microwave telling you it's finished with defrosting and the spin cycle on your washing machine." Link

A strange day to be a fair-use advocate on the Internet. On the one hand, Internet laws like the International Treaty on Cybercrime seem so ill-considered that it makes you want to take away all technology-related lawmaking privileges enjoyed by governments. On the other hand, we all hate spam and love it when spammers go to jail. On the other other hand, the current anti-spam bill looks like a total debacle.

Mike Godwin on the Cybercrime treaty (found via Memepool): Link

Declan McCullagh on the anti-spam law at Wired News. Link

Ew, ew, ew! The first-person saga of a man who fixed his own botched circumcision while at college, using a nail-scissors and ice-cubes. Favorite quote: "You know what you must do. Eat it. It is your destiny." Ew. You have been warned. Ew. Link

Stop alien abductions! Using the simple directions on this site, you can build a Lensman-style thought screen helmet that blocks telepathic communication between aliens and humans. Link (Thanks, Denis!)

Further signs of the aporkalypse: Fox is running a new, Power-Rangers-style show based on Mexican masked wrestling, called Los Luchadores. It features an evil cyborg chihuahua that talks like the Yo-Quiero-Taco-Bell rat, and a total hottie hero called Maria Valentine, whose "trendy crop tops, stylish bell-bottoms, tattoo, and pierced belly-button are always a big hit." Modern primitivism is now officially out. Link

Postmodern essay-generator. Funny! Link

Found on Xblog: Martin Amis on the porn industry: Link

Found on kottke.org: Baton-shaped, frozen, push-up food! Link

And something less ire-rousing. The way, way, way funny "Ulysses for Dummies." Link

Which reminds me of this Slashdot piece about IDG's international legal debacles in "protecting" the "For Dummies" brand. Especially noteworthy (and baseless) was their campaign against a Swede running a FAQ. Link

Also of tremendous humorosity: This letter from the Webmaster responsible for "Ulysses for Dummies" to IDG's overzealous legal department. Link

Oh, and don't miss "Corporate Standover Tactics for Dummies," a great Web resource tracking IDG's campaign against a bunch of unemployed silk-screeners in Australia. Link

Really, is there any circumstance in which such a nastygram doesn't result in the sender looking like a hypersensitive, overly litigious, bullying idiot Dummy®?

Potterwar! Warner's lawyers are sending nastygrams to teenagers running Harry Potter fansites. Remember when Viacom cease-and-desisted all of the Star Trek fansites? Buncha jackasses. Yah, yah, you gotta protect your service-marks, etc and so forth, but do law professors really teach their students that suing die-hard fans is the best way to protect a corporation's assets? Link (Link found on Jane and Richard's blog)