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NETSURFER DIGEST
More Signal, Less Noise |
Volume 05, Issue 13 Monday, April 26, 1999 |
NETSURFER LINKS
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BREAKING SURF Littleton - The Web, Doom Not to Blame After tragic events such as the shootings at Littleton, Colo., it's natural to want answers. Still, blaming the Web or computer games like Doom for such tragedies seems ridiculous, according to discussion participants at Slashdot's "The Public and the Internet" open forum. The news media make more likely culprits, some suggest. You can find an expected long, hard-fought debate about guns here, with a segue into how to handle terrorists. No answers, but lots of discussion. Other comments debate the registration within hours of the high school shootings of new domain names based on the Trenchcoat Mafia, a group to which the assailants belonged. Poor, innocent Trenchcoat.com gets hate mail, while another - and sick - site bills itself as a supercenter for trenchcoat-wearing tactical urban assault enthusiasts.Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/articles/99/04/22/1110251.shtml Trenchcoat: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,0-35537,00.html
Linux vs. NT, Round II - and Linux Kicks Butt on Database Tests As expected, after we published a link to a Microsoft-sponsored comparison of Linux vs. Windows NT, we got a lot of shoot-from-the-hip e-mail from Linux zealots. Most argued that the study was tainted with the sponsorship of the Evil Empire and irrelevant, and that it was "not fair" because the testers tuned Windows NT for performance and left Linux as is. But the study reports that the authors asked the Linux/Apache community for performance tips and received "no relevant responses". If anything that may be the real news value - pointing out that Linux performance expertise is hard to find. Good post mortems of the study all touching on that issue can be read from the Linux Weekly News (LWN) and Developer.com. And to mollify the Linux crowd we're happy to report another study which compared Oracle Database performance on Linux and NT, with Linux kicking butt. We look forward to e-mail from Windows NT zealots.Study: http://www.mindcraft.com/whitepapers/nts4rhlinux.html LWN: http://lwn.net/1999/features/MindCraft1.0.phtml Developer.com: http://www.developer.com/news/stories/archive/0499/041699_linux.html Oracle Benchmark: http://rpmfind.net/veillard/oracle/ eBay Security Problem: The Ebayla Bug An exploit has pointed out a serious security hole in eBay's online auction process: users can steal the passwords of other eBay accounts. Anyone who posts an item for auction can include a malicious Javascript in the item's description. When someone bids on that item, the Javascript forwards the bidder's password and username. eBay seems surprisingly unconcerned about the security lapse and, rather than instituting a fix, has considered action against Tom "Blue Adept" Cervenka, Ebayla's discoverer. CNet has a little more info.Ebayla: http://www.because-we-can.com/ebayla/default.htm CNet: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,35321,00.html Bugs that allow malice you don't let fly around the living room, and so Microsoft's been busy with the bug spray, swatting a trio of Internet Explorer 4.0 and 5 bugs involving HTML parsing. The bugs allow a site to be spoofed, possibly fooling visitors into revealing sensitive information or reading files on a visitor's hard drive. Read about the security vulnerabilities at CNet and get the fixes from Microsoft. CNet: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,35492,00.html Fixes: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/security/mshtml.asp The National Security Study Group The US Department of Defense, hoping to discover what national security will mean for America in the 21st century, wants Americans to voice their opinions. The department has charged a study group with outlining America's security needs in the next hundred years. To do that, the group will consider philosophies of security on a global scale and ponder how to prevent nastiness like weapons of mass destruction falling into the wrong hands and cyber-attacks on economic systems. The two discussions forums currently available are "What is national security in the 21st Century?" and "What will the world look like in 2025?"http://www.nssg.gov/ The US State Department's Angle on Kosovo As the Kosovo conflict deepens, the number of sites about the war grows. The US State Department has recently added a number of listservs to its site, including the DOSBRIEF list, full text versions of State Department press briefings. The site also includes virtually every official US comment about the situation in Kosovo.http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/kosovo_hp.html There wasn't a dry eye in the arena as Wayne Gretzky, the Great One, skated off the ice for the last time in Madison Square Garden. Over a career spanning some 20 years, Gretzky, whom many consider the greatest hockey player of all time, set record after record. In everything he did, he was nothing less than a role model for the sport, and for Canada. In a nostalgic look back at the stories, the pictures, the game statistics, and the five dozen records, Slam! Sports presents the Gretzky File. The NHL also has a few pages devoted to the man whose mere presence is probably responsible for the existence of its three newest teams. Hockey just won't be the same without number 99. Slam!: http://www.canoe.ca/GretzkyRetires/home.html NHL: http://www.nhl.com/gretzky/index.htm Is it better to give or receive? Ice cream shouldn't trigger such deep conundrums. If you opt to receive, get to your local Ben and Jerry's April 27 between noon and 8 pm, for free ice cream. No buckets, please - they supply the cones. If giver is your schtick, attend Ice Cream University, the educational arm of ice cream consulting company Malcolm Stogo Associates, to learn all about ice cream cake and pie production. Or, for the best of both worlds, contribute to the world community some ice cream research, as did one group that tested the cost/quality relationship of vanilla ice creams. One conclusion bound to be reached: further testing is needed. Free: http://www.benjerry.com/index.html University: http://www.malcolmstogo.com/ Research: http://members.tripod.com/~pakman31/icproducttest.html Casino Buys Wallstreet.com Domain for $1.03 Million The headline pretty much says it all. Players Sportsbook and Casino paid $1.03 million for the domain name wallstreet.com. They plan on using it to let people bet on the stock market by predicting future prices without actually owning any stock. The casino expects to recoup the cost in about six months. Makes us feel better about offering our own venture.com domain for sale to fund more of what we do so well.Sale PR: http://www.com-broker.com/wallstreet.htm Casino: http://www.playersonly.com/ SURFING SITES Most NSD readers probably don't remember the soda fountains and lunch counters that were standard features in drug stores and five-and-dime stores with worn wood floors. Fortunately, Sodajerk has whipped up a history for us to enjoy. We'd always assumed that the colorful lingo of B-movie diners originated in the kinds of diners that belonged in B-movies. Not so, says the Jerk. The argot originates in the soda fountain. Here's where water was city juice and beans were whistle berries, and "shoot one, make it virtue" was the order for a glass of cherry-flavored Coca-Cola. On these pages you'll find the 1930s recipe for the clam milkshake (yes, really) and the original formula for Coca-Cola. Sit a while here to find out where Americana found its cachet.http://www.sodafountain.com/ This site's mutely intriguing content may start you off on a new hobby. Vintage fruit crate labels are colorful, eclectically charming, accessible and, for the most part, affordable. There's not a lot of explanation to accompany the labels, but we found a certain appeal in the mystery. The labels were apparently printed on relatively acid-free paper, durable enough to withstand transport. They were the marketing devices of their time, proclaiming the virtues of the product sold straight from the crate in the shop; not surprisingly, bright hues and colorful characters dominate the images. Compare today's utilitarian preprinted cardboard box, so dismal that it invites its own recycling. Our reviewer ordered Drug Set A, to hang on the wall in her office at a pharmacy group. You'll probably find something here that will speak to you, too. http://www.labelcollector.com/ This slick little site devoted to wine walks us through wine regions and storing wines, and even offers a handy little table to show the best temperatures for serving specific kinds of wine. The design is as clean and crisp as a California Chardonnay, although the few graphics are as rich as vintage port. You'll especially like the site's down-to-earth approach to oenology; the authors never retreat to wine snobbery to find the good in the grape. Although there's a lot of promise here, not all the pages are active yet - we're looking forward to the full site. A handful of judiciously chosen links completes the experience. If you don't know much about wine, but you know what you like, pour yourself a glass and enjoy a few moments here. http://www.intowine.com/ You might consider few things more precious than chocolate, and the Exploratorium's Exploring Chocolate site recounts tales of treasure chests laden with cacao beans plundered on the high seas. The Aztecs, among others, even used the bean as currency. If, however, you'd asked for chocolate in the 16th century, you'd probably get a hot mug o' chili chocolate, guaranteed to keep the chills away on even the coldest nights. While the Spaniards later replaced the chili with sugar, chocolate only "solidified" as food rather than drink a few hundred years later. In addition to the historical perspective, the exhibit includes a RealVideo tour of a chocolate factory, statistics on chocolate's influence on health, and kid activities. http://www.exploratorium.edu/exploring/exploring_chocolate/index.html You've got to feel sorry for Dan Quayle. After becoming one of the youngest US senators, Quayle leapfrogged Republican party elders and secured the number-two spot in George Bush's successful 1988 presidential bid. Despite this auspicious foray into national politics, Quayle has never shaken his not-ready-for-prime time image built on such Quaylisms as "potatoe" and "I stand by all the misstatements that I have made." Nevertheless, the perennial butt of late-night TV jokes has earnestly commenced his quest for the nation's top political job, critics be damned. And critics there are. The Quayle2K Problem catalogues the former VP's plentiful gaffes in what it calls an effort to educate voters. There's also a way to contribute monetarily to this purportedly civic-minded work and a form for submitting your own Quayle quotables. When it comes to the question of a President Quayle, this site's message is clear: just say noe. http://www.quayle2kproblem.com/ When disaster happens, everybody wants to know what went wrong. The answer is usually long, involved, and difficult to follow, especially after incidents of the nuclear magnitude of Three Mile island. An inspired use of Shockwave on this informative site gives a moment by moment account of what went wrong and why, with models and sound effects. The site, another in the elegant and well-designed American Experience range, includes stacks of background information and a bit on the documentary's availability. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/amex/three/ In 1879, British troops charged into South Africa eager to make quick work of yet another primitive native society. They straggled home horrified and disillusioned, winners of no more than a technical knockout over the Zulu nation. In true post-empire fashion, the British have created a historical society devoted to the study of this short, brutal war. Web site visitors can read a select few articles from the subscription members journal. A photo gallery shows sites of the famous battles, and explains tactical maneuvers. Serious students can find out about Trinity College's distance learning B.A. and M.A. programs, which confer degrees in South African and Zulu history. http://www.web-marketing.co.uk/anglozuluwar/ Victorians weren't quite as Victorian as you might think. For example, one of the leading causes of infant death in mid-19th century Britain was opiate poisoning. Laudanum was legal and wildly popular, even as a sedative for babies. This wonderfully thorough Brown University site chronicles the age of Queen Victoria through many disciplines: politics and ideology, literature and art, sexuality and gender roles, economics, and a few more. The site clearly sketches out important trends, while factoring in the many diverse, contradictory elements which made this period one of the most dynamic in British history. http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/victorian/victov.html In 1960s Tokyo, a group called the Tribe embraced hippiedom, first as wandering bums, then as commune builders and rural nature romantics. By 1978, their communes had disbanded. A group of latter day Japanese hippies has revived the Tribe. Read the 1967 Manifesto calling for everybody to reject society and adopt the vastly superior Tribe world order, where "word rule is not there, born from the earth, no building on the earth, existing with the earth, returning to the earth, our each relationship is based on love, freedom, wisdom." Economists say the dismal Japanese economy may have turned the corner, but count on social disaffection for some time to come. http://village.infoweb.or.jp/~fxba0053/ You'll Laugh, You'll Cry - Stick Figure Theater In our online forays, we have discovered a performance art form so simple, with such a je ne sais quoi, that it is bound to enter our culture as an entertainment archetype like mime, sad clowns, and French bedroom farce. Help us welcome stick figure theater to the Net. The stick figure animations act out such simple one-acts as inventing a robot, learning to fly, and going to bed. Like ancient Greek plays, however, stick figure theater has strict rules, one of which is that the protagonist must always meet with a chaotic, bloody death. Le Theatre du Baton Figure raises the art to the sublime. We especially liked the vignette "Lights Out". It's tough being a stick figure.http://www.announce.com/khein/michael/theatre/ The back page of the seminal hacker magazine 2600 brings us Payphones of the World. They're all here: the money-stealing Moroccan payphone, the riot-savaged payphones of Los Angeles, and an amazingly worn but functional payphone in Romania. The photos show phones in a range of styles and colors and levels of functionality and technological sophistication. Some are coin-operated, some take cards, and others use tokens. No matter where you live, payphones elsewhere will look familiar yet foreign. http://www.2600.com/phones/ Having trouble keeping Zimbu, Zira, and Zippy clear in your mind? Not sure who Swanky Kong is? They're all famous, and they're all listed on the Index of Famous Monkeys page. We were surprised at how pervasive monkeys (and apes, who make up most of the so-called monkey list) have become. Check out the dogs, cats and critters indices while you're at it, or the plethora of weirdness elsewhere at the site. By the way, Zimbu is from Dilbert, Zira is Cornelius's wife in the many Planet of the Apes movies, and Zippy is an overall-wearing toy. Swanky? Think video games. http://www.evl.uic.edu/caylor/MONKEY/famousmonkeys.html The Serious History of Jockstraps This site really has some balls. If you've ever found yourself enamored of the thrills of the jockstrap or you have a few lying around ready to throw away, visit this site and see how the humble jockstrap can incite madness and erotic thrills amongst mild-mannered men and women. "There are two sides to the jockstrap that symbolise the homoerotic paradox: the pouch in the front as the shrine of masculinity joined to the straps in the back framing its mythic violator". Buy, sell, and find out how they customize for your needs.http://www.allkink.com/ Planning a party? From the Melrose Place game (drink if anyone has sex, someone calls Amanda a bitch, or any female has visible nipples) to Kiss the Bride (takes turns picking playing cards from a pack - any face card means you have to smooch your neighbor, any number and you drink), you'll find something to liven the spirits. Our favorite was the Face Off game, in which you watch that film and every time Sean Archer (played by either Nicholas Cage or John Travolta) runs his fingers over someone's face, you take a shot of tequila. Guaranteed to have you leaving via taxi. http://www.barmeister.com/games.html ONLINE TRAVEL Although Stories of the Dreaming may sound like some sort of psychoanalytical dream analysis page, it's actually a site run by Australia's Cultural Network and the Australian Museum. It's devoted to preserving the indigenous Australian heritage of storytelling that records history and culture. In addition to a little background on the tales, you can find more than a dozen stories here in text, audio, and low and high-quality video versions. Some of the RealPlayer G2 videos come across like children's books, while others show the storyteller standing in the settings they're explaining. Before you think these folks backwards for their non-scientific explanations of the origins of the universe or perhaps irrelevant in modern society, remember the line that's already formed outside Mann's Chinese Theatre for "The Phantom Menace". Somewhere, Joseph Campbell is smiling.http://www.dreamtime.net.au/
Caucasus (Global Flashpoints: No. 89 of a Series) While everyone is focused on Kosovo, which almost no one had heard of a year ago, get ahead of the global flashpoint power curve and check out what ethnic conflicts are coming down the pike. The Caucasus is a good candidate. Three former Soviet republics with dramatic scenery: Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan; disputed and breakaway regions with mysterious names: Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh; flaring ethnic conflicts: Azeri/Armenian, South Ossetian/Ingush; and extra-value features like a lot of oil and borders with Turkey, Iran, and Russia all make this a place to watch. Contested Borders in the Caucasus, a site containing the entire text of a book of the same name, will tell you as much as you need to know.http://poli.vub.ac.be/publi/ContBorders/eng/ At the WorldOnline site, check your geographical facts and figures, or get a snap shot of the globe through rankings based on statistics. For example: China has the largest population of any country, yet it has no city large enough to rank in the world's top 20. The airport of world's second largest city, Mexico City, handles only enough traffic to rank as the world's 44th busiest. The largest corporation in the world is Mitsubishi of Japan. Figures come from the Encyclopedia Britannica. http://home.worldonline.nl/~quark/ FLOTSAM & JETSAM Ever felt you were at a loss for words? These fill-in-the-blank letter generators will help you in your hour of need. With menu choices such as "stop leaping out of the closet and freaking me out", you're sure to find the right words for any occasion.Bitch Letter: http://net.indra.com/~karma/letter.html Apology Note: http://net.indra.com/~karma/formletter.html If you're struggling for a way to die disgracefully, or at least become violently but non-fatally flatulent, try the Death by Curry site. The wonderful recipes (we've already tried a green chicken curry) let you choose by curry type or strength. What a way to go! http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/6654/ Before getting carnal, check out the Sex Thermometer to get the skinny on any prospective paramour. There are even tips for those whose physical chemistry might be lacking. Bill and Hillary, for instance, are advised to "spice it up a little more with some oils and incense". Yikes. http://www.sexthermometer.com/ Let Leonard Crabs, Attorney at Law (not really), tell you how to sue the bastards. Everything is someone else's fault, and having a tree in your yard makes you automatically guilty in his eyes. Clever, although it isn't easy to make fun of lawyers as the legal profession usually gets there first. http://www.arccentral.com/crabs/main.html Hope Community Church in Minnesota knows full well that some days are harder than others. As well as offering the usual prayers and hymns, they have also compiled an outstandingly good list of jokes, misprints, and funnies guaranteed to lift anyone's mood. As they say - "Don't let worry kill you. Let the Church help." http://www.hopecc.com/humor/humor.html We kept clicking on links to leave this site - but the danged thing just kept coming back.... A must for all you avid boomerang enthusiasts. http://ic.net/~tbailey/Boomerang.html Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? Make sure your watch has the same time as the US official timekeeper, the USNO Master Clock. If you have RealAudio/Player, you can listen to a "live" broadcast of the timepiece, but ironically, since you'll be listening to the buffered version of the time, it'll be a few seconds off.http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/time.html Unlist from Junk E-Mailers, Phone Solicitors PopularDemand will unlist your e-mail address and/or phone number from a bevy of solicitors and junk mailers. Pure altruism? Not quite. After the unlisting procedure, visitors are given the option of signing up to receive targeted e-mails. Talk about cognitive dissonance.http://www.populardemand.com/ It can be frustrating to keep up with changing e-mail addresses for friends and colleagues. ActiveNames intercepts defunct addresses and forwards mail to the intended recipient's current address, if both sender and recipient have ActiveNames installed. http://www.activenames.net/ |
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