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BREAKING SURF
Some bacteria hibernate as spores, which lets them survive long periods in harsh conditions, but findings of really old bacteria have always been greeted skeptically. This week, Nature publishes an astonishing story about the raising of bacteria from spores trapped in a 250-million-year-old salt crystal from New Mexico. The DNA of the unknown Bacillus species most closely resembles that of Bacillus marismotui, which thrives in salty conditions. The scientists took great pains to avoid contamination so the finding seems credible, although other investigators still need a crack at it. Just how anything living can survive so long is still a mystery, but it does give new - um, life to the concept of panspermia (the transport of life between planets by natural forces). You'll find links to the Nature article, in summary or full text PDF, here as well as commentary on the significance of the finding.http://www.nature.com/nature/fow/001019.html
Candidates talk a lot during election campaigns (we've got them south and north of the US/Canada border now) in debates, town hall meetings, TV ads, and so forth, despite which it's sometimes hard to size up the office-seekers. To the rescue rides Martin Lewis with his amusing analysis of the US presidential candidates. What price freedom, he asks - and answers: about $160 (plus shipping and handling). That's the cost of software called the Truster that turns your PC into a lie detector machine and which Martin used to analyze Al Gore and George Bush. In this wry commentary, he judges Gore reliable, while Bush is considered to exaggerate from time to time. What's next? Looking for hidden code in the responses? Whether any of this is worth more than a pinch of coonpucky is debatable, but it is an entertaining read. Do we have any volunteers to use it once Canada's Jean Chretien and Stockwell Day get going?
http://www.time.com/time/daily/0,2960,58092-101001019,00.html
Voteauction.com Shutdown Order Fails to Stop Site
This vote auction site is not down for the count, despite an Illinois judge's order to shut down. The site is owned by an Austrian and is apparently located on Bulgarian servers. The court injunction has shut down domain name service to "voteauction.com", so the site simply moved to the new domain "vote-auction.com". Most of the news media have missed a novel element of this case: the government is suing not only the owners of the Web site, but also the ISP and the domain name registrar. This may present a far greater threat to free speech than vote buying.Story: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3274948.html
Vote Auction: http://vote-auction.com/
Vote Auction News: http://www.vote-auction.com/pr.htm
"You step into a scanning room to the tune of upbeat music. In seconds, bursts of white light have recorded 200,000 points of measuring data - enough to determine your size and dimensions more accurately than ever." And presumably creating yet another database entry to be matched against your credit records. No matter, the idea by clothing retailer Land's End is science fiction come true and would be even cooler if you could actually get clothes cut to your scanned dimensions. Alas, for now you can only use your model to "try on clothes, create outfits, be surer than ever what size you should buy". The company is sponsoring a tour of the system through various cities to give people a chance to create their own virtual model. Oddly, the tour apparently overlooks Silicon Valley, where we know for a fact people are panting for the chance to have themselves digitized. A reasonably promising technology marred by upbeat music.
http://www.landsend.com/spawn.cgi?target=SCANTOUR1000
Internet Stock Manipulation Works
To the tune of almost $1 million, if this article is to be believed. A teenager has apparently run a typical pump-and-dump scheme. He bought stock in some companies, hyped them on financial message boards, and sold when the stock rose. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) caught on and investigated, resulting in a settlement without admission of guilt and a fine of $285,000. According to 60 Minutes, the kid made about $800,000 from his trades, leaving him way ahead even after paying off the Feds. John Lebed, the teen in question, told 60 Minutes, "I wasn't posting any kind of false information. I didn't make up any facts or do anything like that." He was even kind enough to include a disclaimer in his posts telling people to do their own research. Was this a crime? If so, why isn't the SEC arresting all financial advisors on Wall Street? Wired has the story, and 60 Minutes has the interview transcript.Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,39583,00.html
60 Minutes: http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,242489-412,00.shtml
First Instance of Media Subversion of Information Attack
This appears to be the first well documented instance of a type of threat which has been discussed for years. The Orange County Register wrote three stories about a man charged with cracking into a NASA site. About a week later, the Register found that the text of all three archived stories had been altered, mostly with juvenile stunt scribbling. While in the past, a number of newspapers have had their Web pages defaced, this appears to be the first time that archived news stories were changed. In this case, the blatant nature of the alterations led to a quick discovery, but the possibility of subtly altering history by changing the public record has come to light. Inside e-zine has the story.http://www.inside.com/story/Story_Cached/0,2770,10757_7_4_1,00.html
More SDMI Digital Watermark Cracking News
Salon has been following the SDMI watermark cracking challenge in detail. Its latest story reports on a set of university researchers who claim to have successfully defeated the SDMI system. The group decided to participate in Phase 1 of the cracking contest because there was some scientific merit in doing so. The members declined to participate in Phase 2, opting instead to make their work public. This development comes on the heels of an investigative Salon piece that seems to confirm that all SDMI watermarks have been broken in the contest, something which has not yet been officially acknowledged. The SDMI section in Salon has all the related stories including these latest developments.http://www.salon.com/directory/topics/sdmi/index.html
Reading Pravda never was a truthful experience, despite the name, but the new online Pravda, in English, may be a step in the right direction - isn't everything on the Net true? Actually, the only link between this Pravda and the now-defunct official Communist Party propaganda tool is that Viktor Linnik, this one's founder, used to be an editor for the original. With banner ads in Russian and in English that is at times stilted and sorta quaint, the electronic newspaper sports major headings which give some insight into how Russians feel, think, and talk. A recent issue featured Caspian Sea pollution, trade with Japan, lots of US bashing, and discussions about budgets. The articles - even in detailed view - don't qualify as much more than short summaries, so don't expect depth. As Wired reports, this isn't the only Pravda around these days. Several print versions carry on a financially perilous existence, often supported by political parties.
Pravda: http://english.pravda.ru/
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,39433,00.html
Stephen King had promised to keep his self-published e-novel "The Plant" going if more than 75% of downloaders paid $1 per chapter. Anyone can download chapters but they must agree to, at some point, pay the $1. If fewer than 75% of downloaders pay, King stops writing. So far, he's kept typing - 75.6% of downloaders have paid for the first three chapters. The fourth chapter has now been released. "The Plant", about a vampire plant that takes over a publishing company, is set in pre-Internet times: the early 1980s. King still hasn't decided if he'll actually finish the novel and that, for dedicated fans, is the scariest part.
The Plant: http://www.stephenking.com/download.html
King: http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2000/08/11/guide_king/index.html
Have You Lived up to Your Info Quota This Year?
Approximately two exabytes - a billion times a billion bytes - is the amount of unique information produced globally each year. A group of researchers from the School for Information Systems and Management at the University of California-Berkeley attempted to convert the annual global production of films, pictures, x-rays, and many other forms of information into megabytes and came up with the two-exabyte total, or 250 MB per person. The researchers have kindly posted suggestions as to what to read in their study, depending on the amount of information overload you suffer from. Us, we're just happy to be contributing our 250 MB a year.http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/how-much-info/
How Low Would You Sink for Publicity?
We cheerfully admit that this story is mostly a fun morsel for media insiders, but it's so funny that we just had to bring it to you. Just how low will public relations people go to promote their clients? Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post decided to find out. Given that we ourselves are buried in press releases and other PR detritus, this story hit very close to home and left us ROTFL.Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7115-2000Oct14.html
ROTFL: http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?ROTFL
RealNetworks Releases New Audio Standard
RealNetworks has unleashed a new standard called RealAudio 8, jointly developed with Sony. It claims the standard provides CD-quality music in smaller file sizes than MP3s, and that audio can now stream using two-thirds less bandwidth than the current RealPlayer G2 technology. The company also released a new version of its RealProducer software, which can create content in the new format. RealNetworks will only further its virtual lock on the online broadcast industry.http://www.realnetworks.com/company/pressroom/pr/2000/realaudio8.html
eBay is cleaning house, moving the steamier, sexier, and more pornographic items into a red light district. In what the company is calling a tough call, content that it deems pornographic or unsuitable for minors will be moved out of the open area of the site and into a Mature Audiences section. As eBay gets deeper and deeper in bed with Disney on a number of deals, some have wondered if the new sheriff in town might not be wearing mouse ears. CNet has more.
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-3248714.html
eBay: http://www.ebay.com/
Handspring has just released a couple of new models of their wildly popular handheld computers. The Visor Prism is its version of a color PDA, with 65K color support and excellent photo reproduction. As part of the launch, Handspring demonstrated a movie-playing capability on the device. The other PDA is the Visor Platinum, which runs a faster CPU than most Handspring and Palm units - 50% faster, according to the company. Prices for the Prism and the Platinum are $449 and $299 respectively.
http://www.handspring.com/
This brief document from online security organization SANS pulls together some predictions about security trends in the upcoming year. Brief paragraphs from luminaries involved with security in industry, government, and law envorcement outline what they see as threats and trends in the coming year. The first third of the document contains the predictions, while the rest is mostly ads for SANS security courses and books. It's in PDF format, but possibly of casual interest to security types.
http://www.sans.org/SANSSecAlert2_102000.pdf
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Items our staff likes and you might too. Click on the image or title to order at a hefty discount from our affiliate Amazon.com, and send a few pennies our way as well.
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The Beatles Anthology
Blueprints for High Availability: Designing Resilient Distributed Systems
The Essential Groucho: Writings By, For, and About Groucho MarxONLINE CULTURE
This week, Wired, the online e-zine, decided to spell "e-mail" with a dash. Ordinarily, this rates right up there with watching paint dry in excitement, but there is reason to note the event. In explaining the decision, Tony Long, copy chief of the e-zine, wrote that "no editor worth the name can justify looking on benignly while the English language is butchered in the name of some tin-pot revolution, regardless of its narcotic effect at the time", and more. Wired once forged ahead as the flag bearer of the digital revolution, trumpeting individuality, decentralization, and the power of technology to empower the individual. With this explanation Tony seems to have managed to insult everyone who worked to make it so and who appreciated that work. One man's tin-pot butchery is another man's freedom from convention and sublime evolution. The issue stirred up a hornet's nest of reader reactions, chronicled in a follow-up article. For what it's worth, we've used "e-mail" since 1994 and for some reason now feel compelled to apologize for that.E-mail: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,39450,00.html
Reaction: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,39651,00.html
Yea verily, in the beginning, Turing created the Machine. After years of strife, turmoil, and countless begats, the great and mighty Penguin, whose name was Tux, bestrode the Earth in digital splendor. So goes the story - heavily edited down to the two sentances above - in the wonderfully written Gospel of Tux (v1.0). This literary treat showed up on Slashdot last week, and chronicles in Biblical splendor the story of computing, culminating in the birth of Linux and the Fourth Age of Open Source. The cool story was written by someone called Lennier, obviously a person with some not inconsiderable literary talent. An instant and entertaining classic.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/10/19/1555251&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=71
SURFING SITES
How to Not Leverage Scaleable Mission-Critical Buzzwords
The Buzz Saw is dedicated to stamping out that particular form of technobabble known as the buzzword. Buzzwords have taken over the public relations industry and many other forms of communication. The four brave souls who created and maintain this site list the most egregious current examples and rail cogently against their use. The creators also have very excellent opinions of themselves and the site is very edgy and trendy, without relying on much multimedia flash. Eliminating buzzwords and similar "in" language is a superb goal. If anything, the Buzz Saw is too limited and too mild, trading edge for content. Still, all revolutions need to start somewhere and if the Buzz Saw gets a good anti-buzzword trend going (the jury is out on that call), it's more than done its job.http://www.buzzkiller.net/
Slaves to Money: Slaves on Confederate Currency
Paper currency was once art as well as legal tender, and not the uniform, boring stuff governments print today. In the 19th century, individual banks, companies, government units, and even people could and did issue their own paper money. Most notes featured elaborate artwork as a defense against counterfeiting. Beyond Face Value is a project created by historians at LSU and funded by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. Its subject is Southern paper currency from the Civil War to Reconstruction that contains images of slaves and slavery. The art is nicely reproduced and the accompanying narrative places it in historical and economic context. This site is a paradigm of a virtual museum exhibit: engaging, attractive, effective, and easy to use.http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/BeyondFaceValue/index.htm
Recondite Monday Night Recreation Remarks
When Dennis Miller joined the Monday Night Football staff this season, he was quite up-front in admitting he was not first-and-foremost a sports announcer, and he seems determined to point it out with a variety of obscure cultural and historical references every game. That's what the Annotated Dennis Miller at Britannica.com is for - to assist those who are actually watching for the football and for whom Miller is incidental. From Dante's "Inferno" to oil well fire expert Paul "Red" Adair, Miller's references run the gamut of intellectual intimidation. Locke Peterseim, the Britannica.com staffer with the unenviable job of tackling the dense references, cuts him down to size with his marvelously sarcastic "What Miller might have meant" commentary. If you'd like to have the references translated while you're watching the game, try Dennis Miller Demystified, which broadcasts an abbreviated version of the same sort of commentary live. Annotated:http://www.britannica.com/bcom/original/article/0,5744,12332+1,00.html
Demystified: http://www.dmdmyst.com/
The embarrassing fact is that even though we can use the MuseumSpot portal to view online collections housed at the Louvre, the Smithsonian, and other monuments to high culture, the exhibit our vulgar- minded reviewer first clicked was "When Nixon Met Elvis" at the National Archives and Records Administration. Read Elvis's weird, strung-out, handwritten letter asking the President if he could be a federal drug enforcement agent. Aside from organizing exhaustive links to the high and the low, MuseumSpot also lets you search huge graphic databases of art, shop the gift sites, and send some of the best art e-mail postcards you can find on the Net.
http://www.museumspot.com/
A Remote Robot with a Green Thumb
Telerobotic surgery give you the creeps? Try something else as experimental, yet more pedestrian: remote gardening at the Telegarden, a Net project started in 1995 at the University of Southern California and now on display at Ars Electronica Center in Austria. Don't get thrown by the old dates; this prject is still active. As a guest, you can view the indoor garden by clicking images to move the lens of an industrial robot. As a member, you can tend the garden by planting seeds or squirting water, and you can chat with fellow plant lovers. Try the multipage simulation tour before you sign up for the real thing - at modem speed, you may feel slow as a slug as you click your way toward a greater communal technohorticultural collaboration of root, robot, and router.http://telegarden.aec.at/
We know your fondest wish is to converse about hedge-mazes, farmer's markets, and window-box gardens, and now you have a place to go. RealGarden City is for folks who grow tomatoes in flowerpots and harvest herbs from the city park - more as hobbyist than urban survivalist - and is an offshoot of Real Garden Magazine, a French publication (which explains the French page titles). The site is a community of bulletin boards on subjects like the ecosystems of cities or bird identification, and one strange thread about the Richard Gere/gerbil thing - we don't know why. You can also attend free online classes: the class on photographing nature in the city is full; the one on improving your nature-writing skills has already started, so get in line for the next round. This smorgasbord of online urban farming is available through an e-mail and password registration. We're hoping that Martha Stewart doesn't get a copy of the mailing list.
http://community.realgarden.com/
The whole concept of Jayskids.com is so outrageous that at first we really thought it was a joke. But the claim that Screamin' Jay Hawkins ("I Put A Spell On You") fathered as many as 75 children came from the rock legend himself, and erstwhile biographer Maral Nigolian took it upon herself to track down all those screamin' children after Hawkins died last February. She never imagined she'd get more than 1,200 hopeful responses, but from that harvest, she has winnowed at least 33 confirmed progeny and several more "gray" submissions. Details are still being sorted out for a proposed gathering at Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but it's bound to raise the roof.
http://www.jayskids.com/
You're a stay-at-home father, and like it or not, you face solitude, caregiving responsibilities, maybe part-time work, and, for some, lowered self-esteem. In your spare moments, check out Slowlane.com, a support site for stay-at-home dads, fathers in general, and their families. It has a lot of practical information such as how to run a home business, start a playgroup, and find other stay-at-home dads, and it covers issues such as divorce, custody, homosexuality, and social acceptance. A variety of resources beckons: articles and personal essays ("Tips on Taking a Toddler to Disney World", "The Realities of Working at Home", "Networking Hints"); a monthly newsletter; e-mail loops; Web rings. Some dads may consider the discussion and bulletin boards the most useful resource here, but if you don't have time for those, at least take a look at the excellent collection of links to sites of relevant organizations, sites for dads, and sites for mothers and grandparents. You'll also find a glossary called Term Browser and a modest gift shop.
http://www.slowlane.com/
You can never take enough tests. That's the guiding principle of AllTheTests.com, a search directory of online tests that measure IQ, EQ ("the social equivalent of IQ"), infotech comprehension, and more. We never realized there could be so many kinds of tests online till we got here. We dabbled in the fun category, which links to the lipstick personality test, Find Your Star Wars Twin, "Are You A Spammer?", and many other self-assessment challenges you'd likely never find without this site. Relationship tests also abound, including the Relationship Auto-Blender, the Two-Partner Match-o-Matic, and Can You Survive a Long Distance Relationship? The Knowledge category covers learning styles, plant and animal trivia, and more - even the AA9PW Commercial Radio Exam. The site rates each test with icons to indicate whether results are sent by e-mail, whether the test requires paper and pencil, and whether you can take it offline. As you might guess, this site has much to offer both occasional and obsessive visitors.
http://www.allthetests.com/
Yeah, here's another test. You know you will always be a very special snowflake in NSD's eyes, but that does not mean your personality cannot be slotted into one of 16 categories. The social scientists at the Spark Personality site spent weeks in bars talking to strangers, perfecting their test. Do you relate to life better orally or anally? Aren't babies incredibly special? Do you prefer Shakespeare or Einstein? Answers will describe you as dominant or submissive, introverted or extroverted, abstract or concrete, and some other stuff. Put it all together and you learn whether you're an Artist, a Mastermind (like our editor, by the way), a Businessman, or a something else. Forget the tired old "What sign are you?" drill. Make 'em take the test before you take 'em home.
http://test2.thespark.com/person/
Anagrams, Crosswords, and Wordplay
Here's a verbal mixmaster: the Anagram Engine has generated over 100 million anagrams during its three-year existence. Obviously, puzzle addicts and others really like the engine, and with good reason, since anagrams are only one facet of the site. Got most of the letters for your crossword's 2-down, but still can't think of the word? No worries - there's a crossword solver plopped right there on the opening screen. This page is actually constructed as a sort of mini-portal for puzzler or information hounds. In addition to the above, you get links to Google, an acronym finder, a dictionary and thesaurus, and to the puzzlemaker at DiscoverySchool.com that offers a dozen or so customizable puzzles for your pleasure. A nod of approbation goes to this site. The tools it provides, together with those that it links to, make it a joy to visit for those who love wordplay.http://www.easypeasy.com/anagrams/
Forget worrying about fur coats. The fashion industry is switching to novelties on a smaller scale. For a small price, you too can participate in the latest rage with a full complement of Beanie Baby attire. Sell off the heirloom necklace from your great-grandmother - it's nothing compared to a necklace made of authentic Beanie Baby necks. Your wrist can be complemented by wearing a ring of Beanie Baby heads on a distinctive scrunchy. The real spender, however, will certainly opt for a hard-to-find Beany Baby-hide coat for a mere $35,000! Perfect to keep away the winter chills.
http://www.bostonharbor.com/beaniebabybodyparts.html
Did Leif Ericson beat Christopher Columbus to the New World? Some Viking did. If you seek proof, the Leif Ericson Vikingship site can lead you to the historical or community site you're looking for. The mission statement on the home page gives you a quick introduction to the site and its sponsor, a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia firm in its belief "that Leif Ericson was the first European to discover and explore the North American Continent." The centerpiece here is Ravnen, a Viking ship replica that has sailed the Atlantic - mostly, it seems, from parade to parade of celebratory ships - in the care of folk who cherish the Norse way of life. You'll find more meat in the Norseman Newsletters section than in the scrawny Historical Background or bibliographic Library. Curiously, even the FAQ has little information about Leif Ericson. If you like what you do find, you'll probably want to follow some of the site's external links (those that work, anyway) for more background.
http://www.libertynet.org/viking/
Freesearchers presents a page chock-full of links to some good Net tools. A lot of these places have been around for a good long time, like Zonelabs, Gibson Research, Anonymizer, PGP, and more. Essentially, the site brings together links to a solid constellation of top-rated toolkit programs and services for PC users. Listings are sparse (we didn't say it was a big constellation...), but the content that's included is as good as it gets. The main emphasis seems to be on privacy links here, but you can find surfing and e-mail tools, cleaning utilities, and even a few tools for multimedia or linguistics (such as the venerable standby, BabelFish). We like it; the clean pages load quickly and each entry briefly describes what you can expect. It's a reasonable place to begin your search for useful tools, even if you don't use Windows.
http://www.freesearchers.f2s.com/
ONLINE TRAVEL
Some folks decide they'd like to see the world, and they just up and do it. For the rest of us, there are sites like Mark Burvill's Virtual Annapurna Trek, which he hopes will turn some of the latter into some of the former. His site records a three-week trek he took last year through the Nepalese Himalayas. The account is compelling, witty, and highly worth the read. In order to best experience this site, you'll need Flash. We'll let Mark give you the disclaimer himself: "Please note that I wanted to present an honest, no-holds-barred-warts-and-all account, and so if swearwords, poo, vomit and the (ahem) occasional joint are things which offend you, this site probably isn't your cup of mint tea." This reviewer has to admit, however, that she's never laughed so hard reading an account of vomiting before.http://www.bov.clara.net/
Dunno if you've noticed, but it's actually cool to live downtown again. If you're still stuck in the 'burbs, a trip to the Urban Photo Page might be a breath of gridlocked air. The photos take a treasures-within-the-city approach, and it really is rather refreshing to see pictures of New York City parks, Trinity Church in Boston, or a sunset view of the New Orleans skyline as artistic urban experiences. Originally the Calgary Photo Page, Urban Photo has spread out to encompass articles about the urb experience, Urbanite Magazine, discussion boards, and photos from many other cities. Several receive full treatment (Boston, Calgary, Montreal, Halifax) including street, neighborhood and subway maps, and even the miscellaneous cities like Phoenix and Salt Lake City have ample pictures - maybe even of your neighborhood.
http://www.urbanphoto.org/
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
If you consider an exciting afternoon one where you sit around waiting to painstakingly split infinitives, the Language Fun Farm is right up your alley. The information architecture isn't the greatest, but the language news is top-notch if you can get past the annoying rainbow interface.http://www.teflfarm.com/
There's finally a genealogical tool for those of us better with faces than with names. Ancient Faces lets users search photographs by surname, location, and more. Searching is free, as is uploading, as long as you submit to the lengthy (and probably not worthwhile for some folks) legal agreement.
http://www.ancientfaces.com/
SOFTWARE
Apache 1.3.14 has been released. This features security fixes in the mod_rewrite module (previously reported), as well as two security bugs related to the mod_vhost_alias and virtual hosting. The virtual hosting bugs could allow a remote attacker to access the source to CGI applications or even access any file on the system.Announcement: http://www.apache.org/dist/Announcement.html
Download: http://www.apache.org/dist/
At work, you often see people typing at their desks, their lips moving not to the words they're writing but rather to the song they're listening to with their headphones. Or perhaps they're actually watching their favorite TV show, streamed from home using SnapStream. Users can download the beta copy of the Personal Video Station (PVS) and watch, manage, and record television and video on their PC. Alas, it is only for Windows platforms.
http://www.snapstream.com/
Are you into 3-D simulation? If so, your first stop at Hypercosm will probably be the download page, because you need to install the Hypercosm 3D Player to appreciate the interactive content of the site's Showcase, the highlight of these corporate pages. Hypercosm applets can be used for interactive audiovisual demos (as in the "Dremel Multipro online owner's manual"), presentations, and games. The instructional applets here include "Shuttle Docking with ISS" and "Mars Polar Lander". Games include air hockey, Demolition, and Meteor. We found the gene-splicing applet cool but sluggish on a Pentium 166. A slow processor or skimpy memory may frustrate you as you wait for one segment of an applet to play and the next to load. But as long as you have sufficient hardware, you can appreciate the niftiness of some of these samples.
http://www.hypercosm.com/