Rob Lifford

Received via IM from my buddy Dave this morning: so, i lost my wallet LAST SUMMER in the adirondacks. a state trooper from up there woke me with a phone call at 6 am to say it was in an envelope that was tossed anonymously to the front door of the police station THIS MORNING. […]

The RIAA says “MUSIC MUST NEVER BE AVAILABLE FOR FREE OR ARTISTS WILL NEVER MAKE A LIVING,” but what they really mean is “if people can download music for free, they’ll only pay the artists if they think their work is worth it, which means they won’t have to go through us, which prevents us […]

Science reporting isn’t an exact, um, science. In this article,”Japan Scientists Develop Fearless Mouse,” my jaw dropped when I read this: Scientists at Tokyo University say they were able to successfully switch off a mouse’s instinct to cower at the smell or presence of cats showing that fear is genetically hardwired and not learned through […]

We recently noticed that our TVs are now picking up HBO, apparently for free, though no action of our own doing. Maybe someone in the neighborhood was fiddling with one of the cable boxes up on the telephone pole and decided that we just weren’t watching enough boob tube. I realize that as an ethical […]

I just spent a little time on the terrific site NewsDesigner.com checking out the very interesting selection of of newspaper cover treatments of the Saddam Hussein execution (make sure you see both collections, mostly North American papers and international papers), and couldn’t help wondering about the executioner guys in their black ski masks. What’s the […]

This is the sort of treasure you find on YouTube now and again: awesome DIY projects by guys with boundless creativity (and seemingly limitless time on their hands). I’m so grateful for YouTube and Google Video. We don’t have cable, and most of the stuff on network TV is crap, but a body still needs […]