“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”
—Orson Welles

DMNews reports that online holiday commerce (as reported by Visa) is up more than a third (33.7% to be precise) over the same time period last year, to $26.52 billion.

I wonder what percentage of those orders arrived on time. My daughter’s holiday order from dELiA’s finally shipped this morning.

I dislike linking to anything that requires registration, but George Johnson’s piece in yesterday’s New York Times about the accuracy of Wikipedia, entitled “The Nitpicking of the Masses vs. the Authority of the Experts,” is worth a read.

Executive summary: Wikipedia is no less accurate than any other encyclopedia you’re likely to be using.

(And if you need a username and login for the Times and don’t want to register, you can always try Bugmenot.com.)

Yesterday, Drudge reported (in red!) about this Windows vulnerability, which is not good news for anyone who uses any version of Windows shipped since 1990. An excerpt:

“Unlike most attacks, which require victims to download or execute a suspect file, the new vulnerability makes it possible for users to infect their computers with spyware or a virus simply by viewing a web page, email or instant message that contains a contaminated image.”

Microsoft’s official security advisory on this one can be accessed here. The New York State Office of Cyber Security & Critical Infrastructure Coordination has a good page of information over here.

UPDATE: C|NET is reporting “dozens of attacks” since last week. “Right now, the situation is bad,” C|NET quotes a security expert as saying, “but it could be much worse. The potential for problems is bigger than we have ever seen. We estimate 99 percent of computers worldwide are vulnerable to this attack.”

Markets are conversations. The conversation about Coldplay’s new CD release, X&Y, is pretty interesting.

Over here on BoingBoing, there’s a reproduction of the list of rules that comes with the CD, for example: “This CD can’t be burnt onto a CD or hard disc, nor can it be converted to an MP3” and “This CD may not play in DVD players, car stereos, portable players, game players, all PCs and Macintosh PCs.”

BoingBoing points to this page that invites Skype users to leave a message for the band. I wonder how that part of the conversation is going.

Over here on Amazon, one of many anti-DRM (digital rights management) reviewers says: “This CD is DRMed to death. You’re not allowed to play it in anything other than a home stereo system CD player or portable CD player. Won’t play in computers, won’t play in DVD players, won’t play in most car stereo systems. Won’t even play in some home stereo CD players. Can’t transfer the music to your iPod, or to any other portable mp3 player for that matter. DON’T BUY THIS CD!!!!!!!!!”

Over here, on Coldplay’s own site, the issue is starting to creep onto the message boards, for example: “until I can transfer their CD to my MP3 player, I won’t be purchasing it.”

That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? The bottom line? Sony got smacked down pretty hard for using rootkit DRM software. Is Capitol next?