The ultimate call-in contest

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Feb 9, 2001

Rather than accept the outcome, Utah has sued the federal government, challenging a regulation that, changing with almost every census, determines which Americans abroad are included in the count. The House has agreed to delay final certification of the seat -- North Carolina's 13th, or Utah's fourth -- until the Supreme Court can rule on any appeal of a decision by a panel of three federal judges that will hear the case next month.

The census routinely generates lawsuits, lots of them. After the 1990 count, more than 170 were filed, including three that raised some of the same arguments advanced by Utah. But over the years, no state has prevailed in court to win a congressional seat apportioned to another. A spokeswoman for the bureau, Sharon Anderson, said Congress set the standards for each census, among other things taking into account how difficult it might be to find various categories of Americans outside the country.

North Carolina had 18,360 federal and military employees counted last year, and Utah 3,545. Utah, on the other hand, had the most Mormon missionaries of any state, 11,176, compared with 107 from North Carolina. With them excluded from the count, North Carolina won the 435th and last House seat to be apportioned.

The Plant made money

BANGOR, Maine (AP) -- Stephen King, who temporarily closed the book on his serial novel The Plant, has opened his ledger to show the world that the online publishing venture was a financial success. King shelved the project in December after turning out six installments. He said on his Web site that the "fascinating little adventure" netted $463,832.27.

King's decision to pull the plug on the novel was viewed by some as a setback for the kind of electronic publishing in which author and reader deal directly, with no middleman. But King disagreed. "In my view, The Plant has been quite successful," he said, inviting readers to form their own opinion based on the story and on the financial data.

The author said the six parts of The Plant conclude the first major phase of the story and can stand alone. But he reiterated his intention to return to the novel once he completes some other projects. "The Plant is not finished online. It is only on hiatus," he wrote. "I am simply in the process of fulfilling my other commitments."

Marrying MP3s with CDs

SAN FRANCISCO (NYT) -- Rio, a pioneer in the development of the first portable MP3 player, which came out in 1998, recently introduced its first portable compact disc player -- but with a twist. The player, the Rio Volt, joins the ranks of a new class of CD players that play not only standard music CDs but also custom CDs, which listeners can make themselves with increasingly popular CD recorders.

Unlike some of the new CD players, the Volt, which costs $169.95, is not limited to CDs made with either CD-R and CD-RW recorders. It can also play music files that are recorded in either the MP3 audio format or Windows Media Audio, also known as WMA. The result, according to the company, is a hand-held CD player that can play more than 20 hours of music on a single disc.