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BREAKING SURF
Mir Wreckage on eBay - for a While Anyway
Mir came down with a relatively nifty light show in the South Pacific, and shortly thereafter purported Mir wreckage went up - and promptly came down - on eBay. Wily entrepreneurs started auctions for wreckage (yeah, right) of the space station only hours after the re-entry. It wasn't long until eBay caught on and shut down the sales, but not before the alleged wreckage fetched bids up to $4,500.http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,42594,00.html
Unless the online advertising market drastically improves, the days of free Net media content may be numbered. Several prominent sites have recently started or are planning pay subscription programs. Entertainment news giant Variety has decided to make all online content available by subscription only. This will work well for them because they have very targeted content, much like the archetypal pay subscription success story, the Wall Street Journal. Salon.com has adopted a partial pay-for-content strategy, offering ad-free pages to subscribers. Even everybody's favorite corporate rumor mill, Fuckedcompany.com, has unveiled paid services. Still in the vapor stage are plans by the New York Times and Britannica.com to start charging. Frankly, we've given it some thought ourselves. It seems a reasonable business strategy, and we know many of you can't live without Netsurfer (ahem!). However, we'll probably wait and see how all these experiments turn out before doing something so drastic.
Story: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-5208494.html
Variety: http://www.variety.com/subscribe
Salon: http://www.salon.com/letters/editor/2001/03/20/premium/index.html
Fuckedcompany.com: http://www.fuckedcompany.com/services/
Huge Gaping Holes in the Foundations of Mathematics
One of the profound questions about mathematics - and in some sense about reality - is whether we discover it or make it up. Do mathematical theorems exist in the ether as eternal truths waiting for us to stumble upon them or do we invent them in our fevered imaginations. Mathematician Gregory Chaitin has done some thinking about this, cleverly standing on the shoulders of giants to give him the panoramic view. He has proven that an infinite number of mathematical facts exist - seemingly resolving the question. But he also proved that these mathematical facts are entirely random, totally unrelated to one other. If mathematicians find any relationships, they do so by luck - "math is true by accident". Now, here's the kicker. Gregory's discovery basically means that any theory of reality - the holy grail of physics, the Theory of Everything - will never be mathematically consistent. These two links tell the story of Gregory's uncomputable number, Omega, how it blows huge holes in the whole of mathematics, and how it places fundamental limits on what can be known about reality. Think about that next time you cross the street.Gregory: http://www.cs.umaine.edu/~chaitin/cmu.html
Story: http://www.newscientist.com/features/features.jsp?id=ns22811
The Cost of Analyzing Computer Intrusions
The Honeynet Project recently set up a Forensic Challenge that asked participants to diagnose the aftermath of an intrusion into a standard Linux system. Participants were given images of the machine's hard disks, some information about logs and a list of things to discover. The purpose of the exercise was to produce "a nonscientific study of tools, techniques, and procedures applied to postcompromise incident handling." And to have some serious geek fun. The project discovered that a post mortem on a cracked system takes a lot of time and money. Specifically, it took an average of 48 hours to perform an analysis which, at the rather low rate of $33.65 per hour - sysadmins make much more in Silicon Valley - costs $2,067.46. If you hire a consultant at $300 per hour (with benefit costs factored in), that rises to $22,620. Real data about a real compromise. ZDNet has fewer technical details than the Forensic Challenge site.ZDNet: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5079958,00.html
Forensic Challenge: http://project.honeynet.org/challenge/
They're annoying as hell, whether in a restaurant, a theater, or a meeting. Cell phones and those who insist on using them in inappropriate locations evoke justly strong emotions. The annoyed will rejoice that they can easily buy hardware which will jam cell phone radio frequencies within some small area. That's technically illegal in the United States, but apparently some branches of the US Government don't know that. There are legitimate uses for the technology, for example in hospital zones: cell phones can potentially disrupt all those important machines that go "ping". This article has the story and a list of sources that supply jamming equipment.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/544178.asp
Slashdot Backs down - Kind of - to Scientology
Last week, an anonymous reader posted some material apparently copyrighted by the Church of Scientology on Slashdot. The Church notoriously pursues and eradicates any critical comments, even to the point of harassing the critics. Slashdot decided to comply with the church's ensuing complaint, and took down the copyrighted material. However, they did it in a wiseacre way, substituting links to the originally posted material on other sites and including extensive criticism and links to even more criticism of Scientology. Here's the info.http://slashdot.org/articles/01/03/16/1256226.shtml
Potential Flaw in PGP Secure Signature Handling
A Czech security firm says it has found a flaw in the popular PGP encryption program. The flaw affects only the secure digital signature feature and does not compromise the program's encryption functions. Technical details are sketchy at press time, but the flaw was downplayed by PGP creator Phil Zimmermann, who noted that for the exploit to work, an intruder would need physical access to your computer. The Standard has some more details.Standard: http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,23029,00.html
PGP: http://www.pgp.com/
Right to Work vs. Non-Compete Agreements
This think-piece on CNet tackles an important issue that pits workers against businesses. Just what rights do employees have to change jobs without being hamstrung by the wishes of their current employers? The issue is the "employment-at-will" doctrine, basically that either party to a job contract can terminate it at any time. However, recent court cases have been chipping away at this concept, frequently to the detriment of the employee. Given the high professional mobility (read: layoffs) rampant right now in the online industry, the ability of workers to freely move from one job to another may not be high on the agenda. But the eventual outcome of this legal fight can have profound financial consequences for everyone. An issue worth knowing about.http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-201-5209901-0.html
ONLINE CULTURE
Swedish readers have responded to our request to help translate the Hatten Ar Din song ("One Part Swedish, One Part Arabic, One Part Hatt", NSD 7.06). The Swedishly-monikered Johan Ericsson told us "the subtitles makes no sense whatsoever, but with a positive attitude you can gather Swedish words.... 'Limma skinkbit', for instance, means 'glue a piece of ham'." The equally-Swedish Mike Olsson wrote that "the subtitles are, as I am sure you have figured out, nonsensical. They are merely words that fit the sound of the Arabic lyrics. The line where the Coke bottle appears sounds like 'Cool kille med lask in hand' which means 'Cool guy with a bottle of pop in his hand' - hence the Coke bottle." Most wondrously, the not-at-all-Swedishly-named Bill Brown sent us a URL that translates all the Swedish lyrics. Glue piece of ham, cool, cool.http://www.geocities.com/pommesrotweissx/
Sweaty Scenes from the Life of an AOL Censor
That's the enticing title of this article, an almost poetic essay about what it's like to be one of the AOL censors. Rita Ferrandino was part of the AOL Community Action Team, entrusted with the job of policing AOL's Terms of Service. In practice, that meant canceling accounts of people who insisted on creating classy handles such as "Silkpussy" or "THROATSLITR". Her story - and a well written one it is - lays bare the human soul as made possible by the perceived anonymity of the Net. The piece is harmless fun for the most part, save when fantasy collides with reality. Provocative and sometimes explicit reading.http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0112/ferrandino.shtml
Professional Suicide by ICQ Log
Ultimately, this is a story of spectacularly bad judgment and eventual punishment, with a moral tailor-made for our times. A couple of weeks ago, logs from the ICQ client of Sam Jain, CEO of dotcom company eFront, surfaced on the Net. The files contained Sam's disparaging comments about business partners and employees and now both groups are deserting the company, and Sam, in droves. Sam admits the logs belong to him, but says they have been altered. Various participants in those online chats have corroborated parts of the conversations. No how matter how true the logs are, Sam is certainly guilty of bad judgement, at least in creating such logs and, if true, in making such inflammatory statements. The moral? Nothing you do on your computer can be considered confidential. Unless you're a security wizard, for all practical purposes your private computer should be considered a public forum. Not a pretty story, but newsworthy. CNet has it.Logs: http://www.echostation.com/efront/
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-5148422.html
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A Primate's Memoir
The Silent War: The Cold War Battle Beneath the Sea
Buddah (Penguin Lives)
Intrusion Signatures and AnalysisSURFING SITES
As kids, a lot of us enjoyed the "Spy Vs. Spy" antics in the venerable Mad magazine. In real life, it's a little creepier. And, according to this FBI press release, that's what Bob Hanssen was doing at the time of his arrest: creeping - or, as they put it, "clandestinely placing a package containing highly classified information at a pre-arranged, or 'dead drop,' site for pick-up by his Russian handlers." The document sheds additional light upon Hanssen's activities and the cooperation of the CIA with the FBI in attempting to resolve the matter. The site links to a number of photos, although considerably fewer than the 27 eight-by-ten color glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was, used as evidence against Arlo and the Alice's Restaurant gang. Still, it's an impressive enough display. You even get an affidavit to download. Altogether, an amazing amount of information is presented in a public forum, which we find somewhat surprising given that the man has yet to go to trial.http://www.fbi.gov/pressrm/pressrel/pressrel01/hanssen.htm
Shockwave - No Plug-In Required
Every once in a while we get it in our heads that we're kinda journalists and so we actually do some research. In this case, a photo piqued our interest. We don't have to tell you it's spectacular, because if you're interested in these things, you've probably already seen it: Ensign John Gay's spectacular shot of an F/A-18 Hornet breaking the sound barrier while enveloped in a cloud of water vapor. The picture and story, in many permutations, have traveled around the Web like a supersonic version of the game Telephone. In its most popular Web-based version, the story starts off "Through the viewfinder of his camera...." We'd tell you the headline, but it varies; we'd tell you the author of that particular piece, but we can't find one. The facts: The photo of Lieutenant Ron Candiloro flying an F/A-18 Hornet was taken by Ensign John Gay standing on the carrier USS Constellation's deck using a Nikon 90 S with the shutter speed set to 1/1000 of a second. It also took first place in the Science and Technology section of World Press Photo 2000.Popular version: http://home.inreach.com/hummels/SoundBar.htm
Attributed text: http://www.wilk4.com/misc/soundbreak.htm
US Navy: http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/images/sndbarphoto.html
Additional info: http://www.flightjournal.com/flybys.asp
Death and Taxes - Choose Your Own!
The SpeakOut.com site is a hodge-podge of areas devoted to various current social and economic issues. The most interesting sections are the selectors which help users focus their views on particular subjects. What do you really think about the various American tax cut plans currently in play? You can plug your personal financial situation into each and see the approximate result. You can even invent your own tax cut plan. The Choose a Religion selector explains the basic tenets of a very diverse group of 26 major religions and then offers a series of questions. If you answer the questions honestly (some can be quite difficult) you get an ordered list of all the religions that scores how your views correlate with each. Some of you are in for some real surprises; some will not be surprised at all. Anyone who answers the questions will think about the meaning of religion or lack thereof in their life.http://www.speakout.com/activism/selectors.asp
The University of Michigan's Making of America site is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through Reconstruction. It's particularly strong in the areas of education, psychology, sociology, religion, and science and technology. You can search for or download more than 50,000 items. While you see clear graphic images of the original documents, the texts have also been put through the optical-character-recognition wringer so that detailed word searches are possible. The site's search and navigational tools are exemplars. This site offers a rare window on a time and place long since past.
http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/
If you're like us, you find mummies fascinating. This PBS site tantalizes with the information and imagery it provides, even if you missed the accompanying show in February - although the network will probably rerun it during future pledge drives. Each segment looks capable of grabbing and holding your attention by the ankh, but one acutely interesting aspect of the presentation involves the pyramid builders. The Greek historian Herodotus claimed that the pyramids were built by 100,000 slaves, and this speculation is still often presented as fact. But as the PBS documentary and site show, archaeologists have uncovered the lost city of the pyramid builders, including their tombs. They've been able to determine, in large part, how they lived, and even what sort of medical care was available to them. These workers were not slaves, no more than the average cubicle-denizen, anyway.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/pharaohs/
Like it or not, television helps define our culture. Much of what we accept as normal TV evolved within our lifetimes or within the lifetimes of our parents. Only 50 years ago, TV wasn't the all-pervasive technology it is today. The Canadian MZTV Museum of Television site chronicles that earlier time, from the beginning of TV in the 1920s and 1930s up to the advent of solid state TVs in the 1950s. The museum emphasizes the physical TV receivers and the people who watched them rather than the content they displayed. In these days of utilitarian screens, we forget that the first TVs were often masterpieces of industrial design with a beauty distinct from their technological functions. This site pays homage to those TVs and those times.
http://www.mztv.com/
Prospect Looks at Author Readings Online
As we've learned from "The X-Files", solid objects absorb the vibrations of words spoken in their vicinity - if only we could play them back. Until that day comes, we have the Internet, and the various spoken-word recording archives listed in this article by Toby Mundy in UK magazine Prospect. Mundy singles out Salon Audio as a goldmine of authors reciting their work, including T.S. Eliot's reading of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", while also touching on the vast supply of historical recordings available online. Ubu.com is another archive worth investigating, with everything from recordings of Saroyan and Joyce to the "sound poetry" of the Kipper Kids. While the article missed smaller sites like Chicago group e-poets, at least it touches on some hidden treasures.Prospect: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/highlights/site_seeing_march_01/index.html
E-poets: http://www.e-poets.net/
With all the talk of foot-and-mouth disease running rampant, this might not be the best time to profile this site, but we're going to do it anyway. The idea behind 10 Acres Backyard is simple: find a fun way to teach children where milk comes from. Adopt one of the girls, whose photos are all available in a catalogue, from the family dairy farm in Kentucky and follow your pick's progress in the monthly newsletter. Just keep in mind that you may be forced into a much more difficult conversation than "Where does milk come from?" with your little ones if they understand all the news.
http://www.10acresbackyard.com/
The gadget and gaming subcultures have Daily Radar to keep them informed on the latest and greatest. Up-to-date news tells you who's releasing what, when it's coming out, and how it looks to the critical eye. Pre-release screen shots let you peek into what's ahead. A treasure trove of information and resources for any game system will flesh out even the most addicted personality's stockpile. Avoiding a pure focus on video games, Daily Radar also gives the gadget aficionado a glimpse at new toys: MP3 players, DVD boxes, sound systems, even the latest mobile phones. The well written product reviews offer enough detail to help in pre-purchase research (which everyone does, right?). Visitors to Daily Radar can also peruse Showbiz reviews, features, and a sampling of DVD screen shots from upcoming releases.
http://www.dailyradar.com/
Very, Very Quick Solutions for Rubik's Cube
The mathematical object/toy known as Rubik's Cube has fascinated a large number of people since Erno Rubik, a Hungarian architect, invented it in 1974. While many people are content just to master unscrambling the Cube (by no means a trivial task), contests to solve scrambled Cubes in either the least amount of time or in the fewest steps have been become common (relatively speaking). The fastest recorded times fall between 11 and 16 seconds (our reviewer is happy to break 60 seconds). Fast solutions require rapid hands and even more rapid analytical thinking. Lars Petrus's site clearly explains his well-regarded speed solution (best time = 15.92 seconds) and offers links to the rest of the speedy Rubik's solution sites.http://ng.netgate.net/~mette/lars/cubedude/
Young minds are sharp, so we're told. The chronologically challenged, too, can have a bit of intellectual fun and learn a thing or two with the inappropriately named College Prep Quiz. You're timed as you try to answer random questions about languages, global studies, life sciences, US history, physical sciences, and mathematics. Get a question wrong and you have to start over. The list of fastest finishers didn't intimidate us until we jumped into several series of tests. Then we were humbled. Our reviewer only got through one test. (Alas, we can't afford to send him back to school, but he did benefit from this assignment.) Site designers Wanda Wojcik and Dyann Schmidel invite job proposals from "schools and other educational institutions." Our guess is they're busy keeping kids clicking with this site and others. Quick now: Which element is the most malleable and ductile metal?
http://collegeprepquiz.com/
Beauty has obsessed most of us at some point in our lives: hair, body image, fashion, nature.... The gamut of good looking is the focus of Beauty Worlds: The Culture of Beauty, a portal for the desideratum that fooled gods and inspired mortals to wage war, make movies, and accomplish other feats of valor and foolishness. Some sources linked here are cheesy; others, scientific, historical, or educational. Whether your interest is Barbie or Miss Internet World, Mayans or mayonnaise, pageants or the Coolidge effect, plenty awaits you here, including a Beauty Blog. We dare you to visit the link-rich home page and eat just one.
http://www.beautyworlds.com/
JAK Powers a Fast Meta Search Engine
Driven by its Java Agent Kernel (JAK) technology, of course, Comet Way's "metabot" shows how you can use said JAK to speed up processes ranging from Web surfing to automotive production. The company has set up a meta search engine to find a particular set of words based within a chosen topic. If you select Finance News, for example, the agent will specifically search a variety of financial sites for your search keywords. Similarly, Comet Way's REsponder reveals more of agent capabilities - you can look up the status of airline flights, compute miles per gallon, or try to find someone's e-mail address. The JAK appears to run fairly efficiently but really all that's important to 99% of you are the fast, precise results.http://www.cometway.com/
ONLINE TRAVEL
In many middle school libraries, the atlas is the only reason the oversized-book shelf exists. If the US Department of the Interior keeps up the good work with their National Atlas of the United States, that shelf might be on the endangered species list. If you have a browser that supports frames, click on the big Make Maps button on the front page to start your adventure. Choose an item in the upper right Map Layers frame and then hit Redraw in the left frame (below the map) to see it displayed. Warning: There is no reset button in the layer frame, so if you don't want to see everything at once, remember to deselect previous choices. Hit the Legend button near Redraw to learn what all the pretty colors mean. What can you find out? More than you ever needed to know, from per capita income to the cancer mortality rate to the distribution of the northern cricket frog. Topographic maps are also available.http://nationalatlas.gov/
It always happens... business trip to Newcastle and the only thing that would make that thrilling town even better is a whopping slab of barbecued ribs. Hunger no longer, the UK Restaurant Guide will point you to the Metro Centre shopping mall and Big Lukes Texas Restaurant (motto: "All you wan't to eat"). We wan't to ask why leave the US? Fortunately, you also get listings of French, Italian, Japanese, and - oh, yes - British restaurants. Apparently, the only place to get a good fish and chips in London is the Savoy Hotel. Eateries are limited to the London/Liverpool/Sheffield regions of the UK, so if you're in Cornwall, start walking. And, what do you know - there are even places to get curry!
http://www.ukrestaurantguide.com/
BrazilMax calls itself "The hip gringo's guide to Brazilian culture and society". Site creator Bill Hinchberger stated in his initial (July 2000) issue that gringos "might be Brazilianists at Berkeley, investors on Wall Street, capoeristas in Amsterdam, or expats like me who reside in Brooklin." His goal is to make the site "a filter for high quality writing about Brazil." A somewhat eclectic mix, his site has covered a land-reform movement, the Mercosur Economic Summit in Rio de Janeiro, a book on the history of coffee, a congress of Brazilian scholars, the national Internet and information technology scene, and an assortment of colorful characters. Every month, the site profiles a Brazilian artist. You'll find the typical articles, reviews, and news, with the addition of a calendar (which lists music tours and mostly academic conferences), links to a summer study-abroad program in Rio, and "7 Reasons why the world is coming to an end." The seventh: "Brazil is going to teach the United States how to make a 100% electronic election with fast and precise results." BrazilMax has our attention.
http://www.brazilmax.com/
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
KidsKonnect's Web index will interest children of any age. Links lead to a wide variety of sites, each of which has been researched and checked for appropriate and safe content by a former elementary school teacher. The index covers over 200 subjects in a powerful resource for children, educators, and parents alike.http://www.kidskonnect.com/
Free E-Mail and Free Translation
You don't have to nag friends or buy that expensive software for occasional e-mail translation anymore. Mail2World not only provides free e-mail, but it will translate between six different languages. A big selling point: the SSL support lets you read a little more securely.http://www.mail2world.com/
If you find yourself with some time at lunch, spend a moment checking out buzzwords on the bleeding edge. Now, when you're in that next meeting and the speaker smugly spits out a word that isn't in any language, you can look smugger, because you know the background.
http://www.buzzwhack.com/
A Dictionary of Non-Dictionary Words
Phrases that strike fear in thinking people: revised tax plan; extended warranty; Back Street Boys album; pseudo-dictionary. At least the Pseudo-dictionary is occasionally clever, like defining "urbanomically correct" as having the proper street clothing. But nobody needs to define "LOL" anymore.http://www.pseudodictionary.com/
Of course, you love chocolate. Of course, you never have enough chocolate. Register your favorite chocolate items and point your friends here. Suggest they act on your preferences. Then sit back and enjoy.
http://www.acme.com/chocolate/
Researchville's Meta Search Portal
Looking for news, multimedia, reference guides, opinions, or specialized resources (education, government, and health and medicine)? This may not be the most extensive or powerful portal on the planet, but you can open searches at different sites in multiple windows and save your queries.http://www.researchville.com/
Feeling unsettled? Some believe that staying in one place for more than a few years is one step short of complacency and "settling down". Fine, head out. Instead of packing everything, why not just move your whole house? Seriously, hire someone or try it yourself, trucking it on over to your new plot of land.
http://www.housemovingindustry.com/
SOFTWARE
Download one of the more than 100 different intelligent agents here that want to help speed up your online activities. They can run around and compile a set of the top responses from a wide range of search agents, find the MP3 you're looking for, or efficiently remove ads from your screen. Some can read your e-mail to you, or find out what the weather will be like. Each comes in the form of a small application that runs while you surf the Web. They can protect your kids or compare prices when you're shopping. AgentLand serves as a center for finding the right agent to help you with the right goal. The only catches, if there might be any, are that not all of the agents are free and most of them assume you're on a Windows system, as opposed to a Mac or Linux.http://www.agentland.com/
CORRECTIONS
It's not often we're taken in by a hoax page and sometimes we even play along, but honesty and emotional masochism compel us to admit we were completely fooled by the Udo of Aachen page we reviewed last issue ("A 13th Century Monk 700 Years Ahead of His Time"). It's a hoax, a fact we should have clued into by the date of the article: Apr. 1, 1999. More obscure clues include the village of "Irrendorf" ("loony village" in German) and a monastery named after Umberto Eco. One we did catch was the Monk Thelonius, although we dismissed it as coincidence. Don't think we didn't have our suspicions. We did do many Web searches trying to either confirm or deny the veracity of the article, but we found nothing to sway us either way. We guess next time we should contact the author before putting a fishy page in NSD, instead of after.The "Degree Confluence Project" has somewhat modified its Web presence. The URL we used in NSD 7.06 ("Longitude Is the One that Goes Sideways, Right?") lacked the "www." and while it worked at the time, it no longer does. Try this one.
http://www.confluence.org/