Anthrax in the Mail

On wednesday the 29th a man was arrested for sending fake anthrax threats through the mail. The man's name is Marc M. Keyser, he is 66 years old and lives in California. He has sent at least 120 envelopes containing sugar packets labeled "Anthrax Sample" to many different places around the country, and even more are suspected to be in the mail.

He sent his letters mainly to newspapers and television stations, but some Starbucks have also reported receiving letters. Keyser didn't keep his letters local, his letters have gone as far as Boston, where two newspaper offices had to evacuate their buildings. Offices in Minneapolis have also received these envelopes.

I watched a report on this man earlier today on the news, they said that he has been arrested for the same crime before, but was let go because no real harm was caused. They are not sure if he will be let go for a repeat offense, especially when the effects were so far reaching this time. 

Personally I don't know why Keyser would do something like this, especially twice. There seems to be no real connection between the places he sends his letters other than they are mostly news buildings, nor a reason for him to be sending anthrax threats to these places. I think it has to be something more than just a prank, because if he was arrested already for doing this why would he risk it again? Also, a lot of work went in to addressing the envelopes as well as placing things in them, more work than I think would be done for some prank. 

It probably won't be long before investigators find a reason for Keyser's actions, and when asked if he would do it again he was quoted as saying "Absolutely"

From The Boston Channel

Carzen

Carzen is a site that just launched a few days ago, the purpose of this site is to match people up with a new car that would be perfect for them. This site works like many other matching sites, but instead of taking a personality test you answer questions about what your ideal car would be. The questions range from mileage, safety ratings, and cost to what brand and model you would like.  

After completing the test the site generates a list of cars that fit your answers. The list can be sorted by price, model, and how close the car was to your results. The list even gives an expected price for each car.

I took the test to see which car would be best for me. I chose the cheapest option which is from 10,000 to 15,000 dollars and even at that price range there were many cars to choose among. I then got to choose features like cd players, iPod inputs, power outlets, airbags, and many other options. At the end of the test, which took about ten minutes I found out the ideal car for me would be the Kia Spectra EX, it matched 89% of my specifications. 

I thought the test was very easy and fun to use. The site was well laid out, with an excellent design. It could be a very useful tool for those who don't know where to start in looking for a new car. I'm sure this site will be successful and continue to grow.

Online Music

Mostly everyone has bought music online, either from the popular iTunes or from another online store. But soon new fees might have an effect on the popularity of these sites. 

The group in charge of deciding how much money need to be paid is called the Copyright Royalty Board, and they want to raise the royalty rate to 15 cents per song. This doesn't sound like much, but considering the current rate is only 9 cents per song this could raise the actual prices of the song out of the convenient price range. With the new rates, songs on iTunes would raise  from the current 99 cents a song to $1.05 per song. Personally I think that if iTunes raised its prices to that that more people would turn to illegally downloading their music more than they already do. 

Apple apparently feels the same way and are trying to switch to a percent of revenue royalty rather than a price per song. Apple thinks that 6% of the revenue is fair, while the copyright owners (those who receive money from the royalties) think that 8% would be fair. Either of those would actually make the current rates drop down to around 6 cents a song.

Even though the prices are only different by a few cents, the result of the Board's decision is very important to all online music stores, and even online radio. Many online radio sites can only survive if the current rates stay the same. Pandora, a popular online radio site, is worrying about having to shut down. They've had these problems before when royalty rates for online radio went up, but they managed to stay online by putting up more ads, but they can't keep adding more advertisements forever and they may have to shut down if the prices go up again.

The decision made by the Copyright Royalty Board will last for the next five years, and we'll have to wait and see if their decision affects any of the current online music sites that many people enjoy everyday.

Story taken from TechCrunch