When you were a kid and ET wanted to "phone home" you thought it was cute, but how would you feel if a program was running on your PC that secretly called home to report in? If your like me you'd be a little concerned, and rightly so. ArsTechnica is running an article that describes this exact behavior in Windows Genuine Advantage (MGA). The code is intended to spot illegal copies of Microsoft XP and prevent users from applying the latest fixes. The problem is that Genuine Advantage also calls home to check in with the Microsoft mother ship, so frequently that a few security sleuths noticed the traffic.

ArsTechnical is reporting that CMP Media, in conjunction with Tim O'Reilly who is credited with coining the phrase, have served the organizer of an event for using the term as the title of their event. While bloggers are in an uproar over the apparent "lock down", many fail to realize that CMP is actually trying to protect the name of the event, "Web 2.0 Conference", and not the general use of the term. IT@Cork, the recipient of the letter, is trying to use the conference name for their own event, which is not only confusing but in ill taste.

Think what you may of the term Web 2.0, but it has become somewhat synonymous with the technological evangelism of O'Reilly and his friends. Scheduling an event and calling it by the same name is the equivalent of the European arena football league organizing a championship event and calling it the "Super Bowl". At some point even the most benign must stop others from blatantly ripping off their ideas and repackaging them to make a quick buck.

While I respect the opinion of many bloggers I feel that in general the blogsphere tends to overreact, much like folks in the real world, and go off "half cocked" when they read one disparaging story. At some point people need to take a step back, evaluate all the evidence before making a judgment call. And please, for the sanity of us all, RTFA (Read The Freakin' Article).

If you’re into cars and competition, there are a lot of reasons to like sports car racing. Aside from the technology, the innovation and the daring display of driving prowess, true sports car racing also exhibits a sort of refinement that isn't found in other series. Take for example this past weekend's Houston street circuit event. Not only was it not, in the words of one commentator, a follow-the-leader crash fest but it was actually more exhilarating that the weekends main event.

The true achievement of the weekend was not that throngs of people turned out to see twenty some exotic race cars do battle on the tight and uneven temporary street circuit, but that of those twenty cars none were involved in ANY sort of accident. Folks this is relatively unheard of for racing in general, much less for a constricted, Jersey barrier filled course. Sure this could easily be accomplished if no one tried to overtake another competitor, but in ALMS racing overtaking is an everyday affair. With four different classes running at different speeds, many promoters tout that there is more passing in one ALMS race than in an entire season of Formula 1.

BBC is reporting that the Canadian dollar (or the loonie) is enjoying a rise in value against the American dollar (USD). At $0.90 per $1 USD, the currency is enjoying strength that it hasn't seen since the 70s. Of course a strong Canadian dollar is great for tourists, but it also has a negative impact on international trade.

By some accounts the US dollar needs to weaken, especially in light of skyrocketing trade deficits. Many economists believe that a weaker USD will help correct some of the trade imbalances with Asia. However, the flip side of this equation is that it will also hurt other economies that depend on exporting goods to the US. Because Canada and much of the world floats its exchange rate, a precipitous fall in the value of the USD will cause foreign goods to be more expensive in the US. In the short term it can have an enormous effect on the amount of goods we buy from those countries.