A company employs Third World laborers to play MMORPG 24/7 to create digital weaponry and later sues the game's creator for trying to crack down on the practice

And other humorous tales of lawsuits brought on by virtual events. I have this new image of my childhood, me taking a bath while someone I'd hired sits there rocking a joystick back and forth, helping my character run the 1600m run in the Decathlon for Atari 2600

Smoking ban in NYC hasn't hurt business

Though the analysis cited is far from scientific. Still, it's a blessing that coming home smelling of smoke and having to dry clean your outfit the next day is a distant memory. Let's hope public bathrooms without automatic flushing sensors will also go the way of the pterodactyl in the near future

Vietnamese man survives bird flu. Doctors puzzle over two mysteries: how did he contract the disease, and how did he survive?

Frightening possibility is that the disease has recombined with human flu and evolved the ability to pass from person to person, not just from bird to person. That could lead to a global pandemic. Docs believe one reason this man survived was his fitness; he runs 14 miles a day. If that's the level of fitness required to survive bird flu, I'm in trouble

Humorous ACLU ad about the implications of some type of national identity data warehouse

Of course, the private sector (e.g. Wal-Mart, your local pizza joint, Citicorp) sees this as a holy grail and has already made numerous efforts to build such global views of their customers

Implicit Association Tests

I stumbled home from drinks with a friend slightly buzzed tonight and took every one of these tests. It's embarrassing to have one's biases revealed so easily

Bode Miller wins first in the men's downhill at the world Alpine ski championships

Daron Rahlves finished second, making it the first 1-2 finish for U.S. skiers at a world championship. Said Miller afterards: "I don't have any weaknesses really. I'm decent on the flats, but not the best, I'm good on turns, good in the air, off jumps I don't really make mistakes. There's no hole in my skiing."

Police use Photoshopped photos to ID the location of a child pornography site

The police used the invisibles technique employed primarily for puzzles up until now. By erasing people from photos, they made it easier for the public to identify the location

A new movie by Shunji Iwai titled Hana & Alice

Umm, shoot, I can't read Japanese. I'm a huge fan of Swallowtail Butterfly and All About Lily Chou Chou (out on DVD Feb. 15, 2005!) though, so I hope this makes it to NYC. All About Lily Chou-Chou felt to me like a Japanese New Wave movie

Ourmedia.org will offer a place to host audio and video content for free, with unlimited bandwidth

Wow, how are they going to afford that?!