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BREAKING SURF
In a response to an appeals court last month upholding the finding that Microsoft illegally held a monopoly, the company has announced that it will allow vendors and users to customize their Windows desktops. The Microsoft press release takes great pains to smugly avoid admitting guilt at doing anything wrong whatsoever, yet in an obvious attempt to divert a second harsh sentence, and possibly a signal that it is ready to reach a settlement with all parties, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is quoted as saying that "We recognize that some provisions in our existing Windows licenses have been ruled improper by the court...." Translated into plain talk, that says "we're not guilty, but the courts think we have acted improperly" but in fact, the courts think Microsoft has acted illegally, a word we wouldn't expect to see. The rest of the press release is pretty much just a shill for Windows XP. Those close to the legal case remain unimpressed, and there are hints the release of XP may be delayed through legal proceedings. CNet has more.Press release: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2001/jul01/07-11OEMFlexibilityPR.asp
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6547460.html
Talk about having your finger on the pulse of the world! Google Zeitgeist is a neat spotlight on the trends in what Google users are looking for, sifted and extracted from the ceaseless surge of searching. This look at the search terms typed into Google's search engine doesn't display the most sought-after terms, but the top gainers and losers for each week, probably measured in raw numbers rather than percentage. At press time, the most accelerating query was "tour de france". The most plummeting was "canada day". A chart of language use shows English to dominate searches - the Microsoft of languages to coin an unfortunate phrase. Flavors of Windows take a surprising 90% slice of the operating system pie, a number out of whack with most Net user data. A varying selection of charts and lists completes the page, but one seeming constant amusingly provides the top five misspelled queries. If you follow the page over time, you'll be able to see the rise and fall of culture, shifting views of what absorbs us at the moment. There's an archive, also, for a retrospective.
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html
When the Russian Aviation and Space Agency ran short of money before launching its promised docking and stowage module for the International Space Station (ISS), Spacehab, a Houston company interested in commercial space ventures, came calling with a compelling proposition. Now Russia is building a $100-million substitute module called Enterprise, using Spacehab money. Enterprise will have space for private micro-gravity research but its most unusual feature is a planned film studio equipped with internal and external cameras for heavenly vistas and orbital movie-making. Most major media companies have already expressed interest in the project, although whether this can pan out on a commercially sustainable basis remains to be seen. FoxNews tells us that the Russian Aviation and Space Agency has approved the project but the ISS Partnership and NASA are still reviewing it.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,28185,00.html
One day, in the middle of a transit strike, a man in England pedalled to work on his bicycle as usual. He went to lock it to the wrought-iron fence near his workplace but found a newly posted notice there warning that any bicycles found leaning against or locked to the fence would be removed. What would you do? What would any upright hater of petty despotism do? To ridicule the oppressive weight of absentee-landlord high-handedness, the man, who calls himself the Fencemaster, decided to attach other, not strictly forbidden objects to the fence. The notice didn't say anything about ironing boards, so that's what he started with, attaching one to the fence. When it was removed, he tried in turn a stuffed tiger, a teapot, a green refrigerator door, a frying pan, a kettle, a copper lion, and some cutlery. Oddly, these too were removed despite not being forbidden. The Fencemaster even managed to photograph the landlord's henchman as he removed the utensils. If you'd like to read about one man's fight against arbitrary nonsense, or have ideas about how to fight the tyrant who started this, read the story at Wired and then pay the Fencemaster's site a visit. It's all rather bizarre.
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,44935,00.html
Fencemaster: http://www.whatshouldiputonthefence.com/
We wouldn't wish being the son or daughter of the President and First Lady on anyone but someone's got to do it, we guess, and now it's Jenna and Barbara Bush's turn to twitch and twist in the spotlight of media attention. Part of that attention is this breezy Web site about the First Twins, put up - respectfully, he says - by Rudy Rucker. It's full of pictures and frothy tales about the two 19-year-olds, including their encounter with the Chuy's Restaurant manager who called the cops after they purportedly tried to buy drinks using false IDs. Our first reaction to this was "The drinking age is what in the US?!" We guess some other countries - ahem - have a more civilized view of such things, but that's another story. Poor Jenna and Barbara - able to drive, able to vote, able to kill foreigners, but not able to drink - soon found themselves in the company of officers from the Austin Police Department. This is an amusing and chatty fan site and while we don't think this kind of attention is good for any teenager, let alone famous ones, it does put a friendly face on Bush twins' frolics and foibles.
http://thefirsttwins.com/
Windows XP License Activation Details
This paper gives details about what exactly goes on under the hood when you activate your Windows XP license. The authors write that the impetus behind this research was the belief "that each individual has the right to detailed knowledge about the full implications of the employed means and possible limitations imposed by [the license process] on software usage." It specifically addresses what information about your machine the new licensing process transmits to Microsoft - mostly strings and the identification numbers of your hardware components. The paper is quite technical and of interest to hackers comfortable with encryption and hex notation. It concludes that Windows XP is reasonably tolerant about how much of your hardware you can upgrade before you'd have to re-register the operating system. Of course, there's a great deal of resistance, possibly futile, in the technical community to any such hardware-based limitations in the first place.http://www.licenturion.com/xp/fully-licensed-wpa.txt
Open vs. Closed Source Roundtable
Over five recent days, a number of Net luminaries argued the relative merits of open vs. closed source. The debate started with a speech given by Microsoft senior vice-president Craig Mundie in which he attacked the GNU General Public License as a threat to intellectual property. The ensuing debate was carried on in numerous online forums, one of which was this roundtable at SiliconValley.com. The roundtable is notable for the assembled list of participants which included Craig Mundie himself, Larry Augustin, Bruce Perens, and others. The roundtable started out as a moderated forum for the panel only, but on July 1 it was opened to the public.http://www.siliconvalley.com/roundtable/
We know quite well that our readers don't like either pop-up or pop-under ads. You're quite vocal in letting us know when something goes wrong with our usual configuration and our ad service starts sending us ads using those techniques. You are not alone. This FoxNews article not only confirms that our readers' feelings are widely shared, but also shows some unintended consequences of those ads. It talks about how X10 shows up in top Web hit listings as a result of its pop-up ads. The article also discusses why those ads are so common these days. They are perceived to give higher click-through rates, a vital feature with the astounding drop in advertising rates since last year. The article notes that rates per thousand ad exposures have dropped from somewhere around $85 last year (actually, we know that only very specialized sites ever got that kind of rate) down to about $1 per thousand. Quite a bloodbath. The article also has a couple of links to anti-pop-up software PopNot and AdSubtract which we reproduce for your convenience.
Story: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,28826,00.html
PopNot: http://www.hdsoft.com/popnot/
AdSubtract: http://www.adsubtract.com/
One of the more esoteric ways to attack a Web site involves advertising. The attack hinges on the per-click charges which certain search engines charge for ad exposures. For example, GoTo.com sells ads associated with certain search terms and charges buyers a given amount every time a person clicks on the purchased ad. Enter the bad guys, who try to attack the advertiser by clicking repeatedly on the ad in question, thus running up a large bill for the advertiser. The story in this article is actually a bit more involved. The click-through attack was apparently advocated by a spammer who wanted people to use it against companies that sell auto-dialers, the technological foundation of intrusive cold-call telemarketing. Not surprisingly, GoTo.com and other companies have sophisticated filters to detect patterns in click-throughs and they don't charge the advertisers for obviously bogus ones. All in all this is a fine example of how every niche in the Net security ecology gets exploited to its limit.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,44901,00.html
Making fun of Barney the purple faux dinosaur is a venerable online and offline tradition. Lyons Partnership, owner of the annoying mascot, is apparently not amused by the hundreds of anti-Barney sites and has stepped up its campaign to legally hamstring them via the usual threatening letters from its lawyers. In most cases, Lyons probably doesn't have a case, since in the US many if not most of the sites are clearly protected satirical speech. The article does note that Barney's owners have brought 77 lawsuits in 20 states. The prospect of costs involved in defending against such lawsuits may intimidate some Web sites into ceasing and desisting even if they are likely to win in court. The scare tactics are not likely to endear the "purple quivering mass of gyrating goo", as one site put it, to the already vastly annoyed anti-Barney crowd. Wired has more. (Can you spot the Netsurfer in the story?)
Story: http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,44998,00.html
Barney: http://www.barneyonline.com/
Anti-Barney: http://www.jihad.net/faq/part1.html
"Effective July 9, 2001, Webvan has ceased operations." That's the epitaph for Webvan's Web site presence. The company finally succumbed to bankruptcy after running through $700 million of investor's cash. At one time, Webvan was the most high-flying of the Web-based home delivery retailers but its volume of orders had coasted downhill and it had problems attracting further investment, which it needed to keep operating. The last stock quote for Webvan was 6 cents, down from a high of $30 at the time of its IPO. The company plans an "orderly" sale of assets and does not anticipate resuming operation. Both CNet and Wired have background stories.
Webvan: http://www.webvan.com/
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-6519317.html
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,45098,00.html
ONLINE CULTURE
The Trouble with Trash Talk: Kids on the Censorship Front Line
The sexy media catchphrase here is "cyber-bullying". Since at least the days of Plato's academy, kids have been engaged in the venerable practice of schoolyard trash talk. While you can read the trashy graffiti written by schoolboys on the walls of ancient Pompeii, these days, the smack is online, and frequently the authors get expelled. Salon's feature has several examples of kids talking kids' talk on the Net and getting into serious trouble because of it. The examples range from simple name-calling to rating local girls for their sexual prowess on online bulletin boards. In one extreme case, online harassment has led to physical threats against the target. The challenge for the adults involved is to deal with kids' trash talk and to teach them the limits of polite behavior without overreacting. The challenge for kids, as ever, is to avoid getting caught.Salon: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/07/03/cyber_bullies/index.html
Graffiti: http://www.hackwriters.com/graffiti.htm
Pompeii: http://www.smokylake.com/Christy/graffiti.htm
The Markle Survey on Net Governance
It is interesting to note that the many media reports on the newly released Markle survey don't bother to question the very premise of the research. The report, entitled "Toward a Framework for Internet Accountability", right up front presumes that somehow everything on the Net has to be accounted for and controlled. The introduction even notes that this was a "major opinion research effort to expand our understanding of the views of both the general public and Internet experts on how the Internet should be governed." This premise flies in the face of a fairly significant body of opinion that the most valuable part of the Net is the fact that it can be anarchic, anonymous, and unpolluted by any sort of government. Possible biases aside - decide for yourself - the report still makes interesting reading, noting the enthusiasm of the American public for the Internet and its perception of online risks. The report is a large PDF file, so plan your download accordingly.http://www.markle.org/news/_news_pressreport_index.stm
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
The new flick "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" is of interest for no other reason than that it is the first film to try to illustrate its entire human cast with photorealistic computer-generated images. This is not the forum to debate the ethics or future of the technology, so we won't. What we will do is say, "Gee whiz, that's freaking cool" and then point you to the official site of the film, which features a look at how you make photorealistic actors with computers as well as other background info. Yeah, there's a trailer, and probably other stuff too, but frankly, there's only one real draw to this film and it doesn't matter what the script is like or who is mouthing the words.http://finalfantasy.com/
We suspect darned few people ever think about Minnesota Public Radio (MPR). A lot of you have never even heard of it, have you? It's a pretty sure bet, however, that most of you in the US and Canada have at least heard of MPR's flagship program. That'd be none other than Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion". As popular as the radio show has been, it'd figure that they'd have a Web site. And they do. Stop in and listen to last week's show, grab an update as to who's going to be next Saturday's show, or find out whence the next one will be broadcast. You can read a grab-bag of stuff from the mail-bag, both e and snail, to which Garrison provides answers in his usual style. How does he do this stuff? There's a section in here that tells a bit about his typical day. Also some links to his five-minute daily show (betcha didn't know there even was one, eh?). We're pretty sure you netheads can bump up his stats if you really want to.
http://phc.mpr.org/
The Easter Egg Archive has tossed together a startlingly large collection of information about those little tidbits hidden away in computer software, movies, music, art, books, and even your watch. It's always fun to find movie tricks and coincidences that make you travel the path of true conspiracy. (Was "The Matrix" in fact full of bits from George Orwell's "1984"?) You may not have noticed, but go back and look at all of the movies made by George Lucas and you'll see at least one reference to his student film "THX-1138" in every single one of them. Among the hundreds of Easter Eggs found, take a moment and vote for ones you really find to be interesting. Not to be just a resource for listing these little tidbits, the Easter Egg Archive also lets people discuss the points they've made, often correcting the most minute details you'd ever imagine could be debated. Take care that if you're going to quote anything from a movie, you get it right - or someone will notice the single word you omitted.
http://www.eeggs.com/
Its origins include human sacrifice, the royal ballrooms of Louis XIV, and the Machiavellian maneuverings of Henry Ford; it spans continents, cultures and centuries and has exploited virtually every technological leap in its evolutionary struggle. It is square dance, and if you ever thought the do-si-do was merely an amusing antic enjoyed by Li'l Abner and Daisy Mae, you have a lot to learn. You can learn most of it at the European Association of American Square Dancing Clubs site, wherein lies an unexpectedly lively examination of the last 500 years of this art form. The site includes a genealogical chart of the dance, a host of photos and audio files, and well-written essays that reveal some details you might find fascinating even if you've never boxed the gnat.
http://www.eaasdc.de/history/sheindex.htm
BOOKS & E-ZINES
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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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Sir Apropos of Nothing
Casino Moscow: A Tale of Greed and Adventure on Capitalism's Wildest Frontier
Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusadehttp://www.logophilia.com/WordSpy/
Books, Books, Prices, and Availability
Reading is an addiction. You get hooked on the cheap stuff, newspapers and magazines, and move up to the heroin of reading, books. It's an expensive habit, as any reading addict will tell you. ISBN.nu is not a detox center. It's actually a carefully underplayed drug supermarket for reading addicts. Enter a snippet of a title or a name of a favorite author and it searches nine big new and used book sites. Results are ordered by either price or availability and highlight special come-ons like coupons. If your chosen drug - uh, book can't be found at any of the nine sites, you can automatically search the Alibris rare and used book site. Our reviewer was last seen entering ISBN.nu. No further news has emerged.http://isbn.nu/isbn.html
Where are the boys from Blair? Judging by its past editorial schedule of, oh, about one issue every couple of years, the newest Blairzine e-rag should be making its appearance any minute now (but we won't hold our breath). In the meantime, we recommend you browse the archives and play the "Gay or Eurotrash?" game, get practical advice on how to become a Blonde Asian Freak or read an interview with Lynda Barry. The less-than-fresh latest issue, circa 1999, tackles puppet ratings, electric wheelchairs, "Cats", Carol Channing, and sewing your own pillows ("I cannot overemphasize how important the choice of fabric is. Remember, just like in everyday life, it's more important what's on the OUTSIDE."). If you love Pippi Longstocking, cute skaters, Russ Meyer, Clarks Wallabees, or high camp, go park yourself on the Blair doorstep and insist that the boys come out to play again.
http://www.blairmag.com/
SURFING SCIENCE
Taking advantage of Mars's closest position to the Earth in 13 years, the Hubble Space Telescope took a snapshot of the planet. Mars was only 68 million kilometers away at the time. The photo reveals details as small as 10 kilometers in diameter, and clearly shows the polar ice caps and huge dust storms blanketing large parts of the planet.http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/2001/24/index.html
We could scarcely believe how much there is to be found over here. It's all on the subject of fruit crops, but the information just pours over you, rather like a tidal wave. You wanna know about pineapples? Your host, Mark Rieger, has got you covered. He starts with a discussion of taxonomy, then moves smartly into the origins and history of the fruit. He goes on to discuss medicinal and non-food uses, global production statistics, and then provides a richly illustrated botanical description. Think you've had enough? Too bad. You're not even close to done. Mark goes on to describe culture methods for the fruit, backyard-growing considerations, and harvesting methods, ending with a description of nutritional values and the percentages of US recommended daily allowances (RDA) of nutrients the fruit provides. Visit any page. The layout is essentially the same, whether you're interested in apples or oranges, plums or pistachios. Each link is richly illustrated and carries more information than you can shake a cutting at. With nearly forty cultivars from which to select, this is a great source, not only for those interested in horticulture, but for anyone with an interest in fruit crops and their uses.
http://www.uga.edu/hortcrop/rieger/
From time to time, we hear reports of studies that dead frogs or toads are evidence of environmental threats such as global warming, ozone holes, and pollution. Evidence of such causality abounds at FrogWeb: Amphibian Declines and Deformities, a site maintained by the National Biological Information Infrastructure. This collection of links gives quick access to reports from major media such as USA Today, CBC, ABC, CBS, and National Geographic and to research findings of the US Geological Survey. The goal is to unravel "clues to the causes of massive die-offs of frogs and other amphibians." The good news is that this site is proof of collaboration among state, federal, international, and nonprofit agencies, along with academic and industrial partners. Surely something is afoot - or, shall we say, aweb. Think twice before you order frog legs at a restaurant.
http://www.frogweb.gov/index.html
CORRECTIONS
The Southern Yat Hysterical Society, which we covered in NSD 4.25 ("Stomp Some Romp, New Orleans Style"), has moved to a new Web address.http://www.whereyat.com/