The Null Device
2005/5/8
You know those nifty "Widgets" that MacOS X 10.4 supports; those lightweight HTML/JavaScript objects that sit on a special desktop layer and can show you the weather/train timetables/your iTunes playlist/how all those APPL shares you bought are doing? Well, they can automatically install themselves without your consent, as this page demonstrates. The author even provides a goatse.cx widget (not auto-installed, mercifully) to underscore the potential for mayhem.
Meanwhile, a carefully-constructed trick webpage can cause Firefox to execute arbitrary code on any platform (such as, say, installing rootkits or botnet clients). The Mozilla Foundation have patched this, though it's not in the Debian distro yet.
(via 
substitute, slashdot) ¶ 2
A company in North Carolina claims to have solved one of the hard problems of audio processing: how to transcribe recorded music with chords into note data. They claim to have successfully transcribed recordings of a Glenn Gould performance of the Goldberg Variations into (a high-resolution variant of) MIDI.
(via MusicThing) ¶ 0
According to this Graun article, George Galloway may not have won his seat (which, after all, he picked up by a slender margin) without the help of gangs of enforcers intimidating the opposition:
Others in the room had voted for the Liberal Democrats. None had cast their vote for Galloway. Rowan Livingstone, who decided to go Green, explained, 'They came to our door and when my flatmate said she would not be voting Respect they shouted at her and called her ignorant.'
Elsewhere in Bethnal Green, student Benjamin Virgo, 34, explained what had happened to him on Tuesday night. 'On the way out to the corner shop to buy milk and bread I passed a couple of young guys. After I'd crossed the road they threw a bottle at me. They became more aggressive, so I reached for my mobile and started to call the police. They followed me into the shop and announced to the other customers and staff that I was a racist. Then, fists in my face, they ordered me to stop my call, reminded me that they knew where I lived and threatened to burn my house down. The police never came. George Galloway is now my MP.'