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ADMINISTRIVIA
Netsurfer Seeking Writers for Netsurfer Books
We're looking for a few good writers for our Netsurfer Books e-zine. Perks include pizza and beer money (or should that be tea and cookies? fava beans and a nice Chianti?), and the chance to inflict your idiosyncratic reading tastes on an unsuspecting audience. If you think you can write half a dozen entertaining yet information-packed book recommendations each month we'll need two things from you. First, send us a resume outlining your previous writing experience if any. Second, send us three witty and eloquent sample items such as you might find in Netsurfer Books - pick some books you like. Send everything in plain text (yes, this is a test) to writers@netsurf.com by April 22, 2002. We'll wade through the hordes of submissions and let you know what the next step is. Yes, we do pay, and yes, our editor will beat you up if you don't pay attention to deadlines.Netsurfer Books: http://www.netsurf.com/nsb/
BREAKING SURF
In news that we first suspected was an April Fool's joke, Brilliant Digital has revealed that it has stealthily implanted its commercial peer-to-peer network in the computer of anyone who has used Kazaa's music trading software. Brilliant came up with the technology and bundled it with Kazaa software as Altnet Secureinstall, and will reportedly turn it on in a few weeks. The network will be parallel but separate from Kazaa's regular net, and will support file trading and run distributed computing applications of an unspecified nature, possibly connected to serving ads in connection with online ad giant DoubleClick. The revelation of this previously undisclosed installation has prompted a storm of criticism online, focusing mostly on the secrecy and the danger to both the privacy and the security of uninformed users. CNET has lots of in-depth coverage, including an interview with Brilliant's CEO and instructions on how to uninstall Brilliant's software. Slashdot samples the typical disgusted user's reaction.Brilliant: http://www.brilliantdigital.com/
News: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-873181.html
Criticism: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-875016.html
Interview: http://news.com.com/2008-1082-875620.html
Uninstall: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-875274.html
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/articles/02/04/04/1814258.shtml
Being a weekly, we don't get to report breaking April Foolery as it happens. We can pick over the bones and highlight some of the better ones, however - or we can point you to some Web sites. CNET reports on FuckedCompany getting venture capital, Microsoft buying Napster and creating GOD, and others. The Mercury News adds a round-up of pranks in Silicon Valley, including eBay's Ayn Rand Shop (hey, that could actually work!). Two pranks did stand out, in our minds, for different reasons. Google's effort was notable for its Norman Rockwell-like approach - it didn't try to fool anybody, but it sure was cute. Google posted a page that revealed and explained its PigeonRank technology, which lets it parse search results with clusters of pecking pigeons. We can't help but admire a second prank, by Wil Wheaton, for its sheer skill and the fact that so many, many people were fooled. Wheaton announced that he had signed on to portray his Wesley Crusher character from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" as a recurring time-traveler role on "Enterprise". Boy, did folks fall hook, line, and starship for that one. He even fooled his mom. Check out his blog for the story. See the Museum of Hoaxes for a compendium of pranks in 2002 and in past years, going back to 1582 when Pope Gregory started the whole thing.
CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-873177.html
Mercury News: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/bayarea/business/2982283.htm
PigeonRank: http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html
Wheaton: http://wilwheaton.net/
Museum of Hoaxes: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/aprilframe.html
The Universe Is Pale Turquoise - Uh, Beige - Uh, Salmon
Its the software's fault. That's the final conclusion - for now - of discussion of the color of the universe. You're probably familiar with the recent claim, based on the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, that the average color of the universe was a pale green-turquoise shade (see NSD 8.02). After a bit of hoopla, the researchers double-checked their work and discovered an error in their calculations. Correcting for it, they announced that the universe was more beige than turquoise. Whoops! Wait a minute! Apparently, color science is harder than space science, because the astronomers forgot to factor in the proper amount of daylight, whatever that means. (See? Even we, who can handle rocket science, can't handle color science!) Further reflection (we can handle puns, though) by he-man color scientists seems to indicate the universe is actually, really, truly a pale salmony color. Whatever else, this story demonstrates that the computers are doing the science these days. The Boston Globe has the story. Anyone interested in what traveling through the universe might look like should check out the survey's movie.NSD 8.02: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v08/nsd.08.02.html#BS2
Globe: http://digitalmass.boston.com/news/globe_story.html?uri=/dailyglobe2/085/science/The_complexion_of_the_cosmos_is_decidedly_salmon-.shtml
Color: http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~kgb/cosspec/
Survey: http://msowww.anu.edu.au/2dFGRS/
The Queen Mother is dead. Rarely has a single woman come to represent so much of the best of a nation. Living to 101, she saw an entire century. During World War II, her decision to remain in London during the Blitz earned her the love and respect of her subjects; that love continued until the very end. A fantastic BBC site covers the Queen Mother's life and work particularly well, presents spectacular images, and posts tributes from visitors.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/obituaries/queen_mother/default.stm
US Department of Justice: Drugs on the Internet
The title of this recently released report is "Drugs and the Internet: An Overview of the Threat to America's Youth", which pretty much reveals its agenda. The contents are exactly what you'd expect from a Republican administration: there's lots of drug info on the Net and it's harming America's Youth. Never mind that online drug information has been available online since the days of the BBS culture, and in books and magazines long before then. Somehow, America's Youth has survived. Informed speculation is that this report will be used to justify cracking down on Web sites that promote drug use or disseminate drug information, especially in light of the professed phase two of the project, which among other things has the aim of "Identifying the locations of website domains and the locations of routers for servers hosting [drug related] websites."http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs/682/index.htm
Lawsuits Seek to Muzzle Mailing List
The Aquatic Plant Digest (APD) mailing list is an online forum for discussions about all sorts of watery flora. As is common with such forums, members also discuss their experiences with commercial aquatic supply shops. Last May, a list member posted a blunt message that complained about customer service at Pets Warehouse. Before you could say Luwidgia brevipes, other posters started slamming the company, even inventing the mnemonic slogan, "Remember petSWEARhouse, buy their plants and you'll be swearing!" Pets Warehouse owner Robert Novak tried to respond, but his e-mails bounced because they had attachments. Frustrated, he sued for libel and defamation to the tune of $20 million or so. He not only sued the members and hosts of the list, but also anybody who hosted any information about the lawsuit, including the person who funded a legal defense fund for the APD users, alleging, among other things, infringement of the Pets Warehouse trademark. As legal costs mounted, many users settled, essentially agreeing to be muzzled by potentially frivolous legal threats. Salon has the cautionary story and Aquaria.net has lawsuit info.Salon: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/04/04/aquatic_plants/index.html
Aquaria.net: http://www.aquaria.net/lawsuit.html
The Dumbest Moments in Business
This is the list all the executives have been on pins and needles about, and it's not the Fortune 500. These might be called the UnFortunate 101 - those chosen to grace the pages of Business 2.0's latest edition of "The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business". Think of it as the Darwin Awards for MBAs. In a world where Enron can still score in the top ten of the Fortune 500, the company lands the number one coveted position in this "oh, I thought the B in MBA stood for bowling" article.http://www.business2.com/dumbest/
Commanding Heights: The World Economy and How It Got That Way
Of the many ideological battles of the 20th century, the one which may have the greatest impact on your wallet is the battle between the economic followers of John Maynard Keynes and those of Friedrich von Hayek. Keynes advocated government control of the "commanding heights" of the economy in order to tame the disruptive effects of free markets. Hayek said that in the long term, free markets without the taint of central control were the best way to prosperity. How that ideological battle has played out is the subject of a new first-rate PBS documentary. In an unusual move, the public TV network has made each episode available on streaming video for 30 days after it airs. The Web site also has excerpts from a related book, an exhaustive list of links and resources, and a neat interactive world map - fast forward to see ideological change in economies over time. This is superb television, without economic equations, and with the participation of the actual people who created global economic policy over the last 50 years. It's eye-opening and highly recommended to anyone who works for a living.http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/
Web Radio: Rebuttal and Public Debate at Salon
Last week, we wrote about a Salon article that described the battle between webcasters and the US Copyright Office over the structure of royalty payments. The original article apparently hit a nerve with the RIAA, whose senior vice-president of legal affairs, Steve Marks, sent a lengthy rebuttal letter to Salon. Marks's letter and reader response prompted Salon to host a public exchange of views between Marks and Web radio entrepreneur Brian Zisk who, not unexpectedly, takes exception to some of Marks points.http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/04/03/web_radio_redux/index.html
Lessig is the author of "The Future of Ideas", a provocative new book about the future of intellectual property (and one of our recommendations). His book has set off a vigorous public debate over the balance between intellectual property rights and the rights of consumers to use and express ideas. Indeed, the debate has reached the US Supreme Court. O'Reilly has a short interview with Lessig in which he discusses the court case, recent legislation, his own work in the field of intellectual property rights, and the changing sentiments in the corridors of power within Silicon Valley. Lessig's home page also has some good links to relevant recent articles. it's good reading for followers of the content rights struggle.
O'Reilly: http://oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2002/04/02/lessig.html
Lessig: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/
A Pirate Reviews Music File-Subscribing
An admitted pirate reviews the new music pay services: Pressplay and RealOne, and provides a peek at the new Napster. This Shift article is brief and to the point, and we strongly suggest that the RIAA pay attention. One complaint is that to access the widest range of music, users may have to subscribe to several different services - and even doing that won't guarantee access to a favorite artist. Moreover, the onerous access restrictions largely attempt to negate the digital convergence movement. You can "buy" the music, but you can't do this and you can't do that, and by the way, if you let your subscription lapse, you lose access to the content you thought you had purchased. It's like buying a CD, then having the RIAA tell you that you can only listen to certain tracks, you can't copy those tracks, and if your subscription lapses, all the tracks vanish. Orwell seems to have missed only by 20 years.http://www.shift.com/web/feature/feature014a.asp
Sometimes you have to wonder what these IT companies are thinking. Thanks to the Net, you don't have to wonder for long. It's pretty clear that that "Dilbert" just isn't all that far from reality. ZDNet UK has archived the Top 20 IT Anthems, and we can only presume this is some twisted definition of "top". You can almost feel the seriously disturbed vibes going on at IBM, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Novell, and other places. Listen to some of these offerings by the corporates, and just imagine what goes through the minds of these studio singers as they do this for cash - oh, we so hope that they got paid good money.
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/specials/2002/it-anthems/
Oxford University Press, the biggest scholarly publisher in the world, wants to make money by selling online access to a core group of its key language and reference works. Its new Core Collection will feature a professional interface from which users can search through over 100 different sources. Oxford hopes schools, libraries, and businesses will find it convenient and affordable, especially the smaller places that can't afford their own ink and paper versions. Oxford has already successfully put online the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary and hopes its reputation for accuracy and thoroughness will keep the payments coming. Wired, though, wonders if it will. Multiple resource searching is a standard feature of professional information vendors such as STN, LexisNexis, Dialog and so forth. Many professionals and businesses are used to paying for information. Can the impressive tomes make the Web translation? Time will tell.
Core Collection: http://www.oxfordreference.com/
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,51300,00.html
Word has it that the Web is dead. People just don't bother with it anymore, because there's really nothing new on it. That's what they say, the "they" in this case being the New York Times, which doubtless would love to sound the death-knell for the new medium. We disagree, as we find great content pretty frequently. To illustrate that the bloom is off the webrose, the article trots out a registrar who helpfully notes that re-registrations are declining. Not surprising, really, as most of us have ISPs that provide a certain amount of Web space, while domain names that cost $8 not too long ago are now running double or quadruple that. It seems clear that registrars and others have lost track of the fact that what propelled the Net into exponential growth was inexpensive or free content and services. In any event, the article is here; read it and weep. For a counterpoint, check out Salon's Scott Rosenberg who takes exception to the Times' point of view.
NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/28/technology/circuits/28WEBB.html
Salon: http://www.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2002/04/01/nyt_web/index.html
A pico is a trillionth. Radio is - well, radio. The PicoRadio project is determined to accomplish as much as possible while consuming as few resources as possible. This isn't a high-powered project; the whole idea is to accomplish a great deal with very low power consumption. The PicoRadio project, if successful, will draw all power requirements for its nodes from the surrounding environment. No batteries or other power sources needed. And they plan to have a functioning prototype by the end of this year. Individual nodes are projected to be about the size of a shirt button, and will incorporate sensors, a microprocessor, and a communication interface. Technology Review has more.
PicoRadio: http://bwrc.eecs.berkeley.edu/Research/Pico_Radio/Default.htm
Technology Review: http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_cameron032702.asp
Amazon, an online powerhouse used to bragging about its superior content and user functionality, finds itself in a strange situation. It is busy annoying tenant vendors with a protracted renovation to its virtual storefronts. The supposedly planned maintenance has lasted 11 days now - not something Geordi would tolerate on the Enterprise, we're sure - and it has made some vendors hopping mad. Sure, they've been given workarounds, but these are less than graceful and user-unfriendly. Worse, Amazon won't say when the process will be complete. Maybe it's time for the crew at Amazon to sign up again for Project Management 101. Remember guys? That's the one that deals with planning and there's also something in there about consulting your users. Its a bad sign when the basics start breaking down. CNET has details.
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-871835.html
So you want to run your own ISP? Joltage may be your ticket. This enterprising firm will set you up as a wireless service provider, provided you have a broadband connection to the Internet. Joltage hopes to create a brand for wireless networks: a KFC of 802.11b. It's a franchise operation, although one that apparently requires almost no financial investment. ISPs of franchisees might not approve, however, as they would ultimately have to handle the increased bandwidth. Wired deals with the social issues, InfoWorld the tech.
Joltage: http://www.joltage.com/
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,51353,00.html
InfoWorld: http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/03/22/020322hnjoltage.xml
ONLINE CULTURE
From E-Sex to E-Commerce: Web Search Changes
That's the title of a new study from researchers at Penn State University who know how to write journalistically sexy study titles. The researchers looked at data from the Excite search engine, collected in 1997, 1999, and 2001, to track trends in search topics and in search behavior. Over time, users have apparently switched from searching mostly for entertainment and sex to looking for information on business and travel. The study also found that users now examine fewer results than they used to: "In 1997, less than 30 percent of Excite users examined only one page of results per query. By 2001, the percentage of single-page searches ballooned to more than 50 percent. Furthermore... 70 percent of Excite users wouldn't go beyond two pages of results." We can't get to the study at press time, but you can read the press release.Study: http://ist.psu.edu/pdfs/Spink040302.pdf
Press release: http://www.psu.edu/ur/2002/websearchtrend.html
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F'd Companies: Spectacular Dot-Com Flameouts
Rowing to Latitude: Journeys Along the Arctic's Edge
Pawprints of History: Dogs in the Course of Human Events
Programming Windows(r) with C# (Core Reference)SURFING SITES
If buttocks are your thing - well, Lee has the ad for you. A gang of four expressive, talking butts desperately try to find a jeans store, wanting to put their nakedness behind them. The story of these butt buddies as they travel in search of satisfaction is weird, hilarious, and highly creative. You'll want to watch it over and over, looking for every nuance, every little twitch, clench, and tremble. The bottom line here is that decent, upwardly mobile rear ends want to be encased in Lee's denim. And not to unseat the suspense, the cheeky story has a happy ending. Filmed in Toronto, "Bottoms" is available in dial-up and broadband versions, and for all the usual media players. The real genius here is in making an ad that's so clever and entertaining folks will seek it out and download it. Hello, Victoria's Secret? We've got a great idea for an ad. It's called "Tops"....http://www.lee.be/commercial/start.html
Here's an interesting use for all of that unwanted e-mail. These enterprising souls take the stuff, run it through a text-to-speech translator, and stream it out over the Net to those who just can't get their fill of spam. Unlike the issues tripping up many online radio providers, Spamradio seems nearly impervious to any type of lawsuit. Such a deal! There's something oddly fascinating about hearing that disembodied voice emanating from your speakers, reading such classics as the infamous Nigerian scam spam. You may want to fire up your CD-ROM burner, though - every connoisseur knows that spam is best served warm.
http://www.spamradio.com/
Command a Sherman at the Canadian War Museum
This virtual museum is offered in your choice of English and French. Not surprising, as this is the Web site of the Canadian War Museum, an online companion to the bricks-and-mortar museum in Ottawa. The site has a diverting little game in here called Armoured Warrior. You adopt the role of Canadian tank commander in a Sherman - two miles to the gallon, seats five uncomfortably - in WWII. Offered in an HTML or an enhanced version, the sim lets you quickly begin to understand what the Allied tankers were up against, and just how little protection 80-mm of cold steel actually provides. Other exhibits include a detailed description of the Canadian Salvation Army's work through time and an amazing assemblage of wartime paintings. We'd have loved to be able to click on a painting and bring it into full-screen, but that is unfortunately not possible. You'll want to click on the Today In History link as well, for a glimpse into campaigns past.http://www.warmuseum.ca/
You need to understand what others mean. "Getting to first base", for example, may mean one thing to you and something else to a teenager. Parents aren't the only ones who could benefit from Regional Registers, Slangs and Jargons, a collection of short articles on the contemporary use of language along with lists of phrases and explanations maintained by the Department of Translation Studies at University of Tampere, Finland. This site is academic but hardly dry. "31 Ways (for Southerners) to Annoy a Yankee" will catch your eye. So will "X-Rated Language in TV and Airline Films". It isn't all about dirty words, unless you hate lawyers, in which case a Washington Post article from 1998, "Of Language, Lawyers and Liars," may have special appeal. If you're using AOL to read this, you might want to read the "AOL Language Guide Policy on Vulgarity." We're proud to say that, with respect to AOL, Netsurfer Digest passes muster. Usually, we're squeaky clean.
http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US8/SPEC/
Throw Caution to the Winds of Change before the Storm
Occasionally, a cliche is worth its weight in gold. Those times when you're wracking your brain because you have half a cliche stuck in your head and the other half on the tip of your tongue, turn to the Cliche Finder, where your search won't be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. We don't want to open a can of worms, but some of the submitters need to wake up and smell the coffee. The list isn't entirely cliches, but apparently the site owner's protestations that a cliche is "a metaphor characterized by its overuse" appear to have fallen on deaf ears. Just make sure you take it with a grain of salt.http://www.westegg.com/cliche/
For most of the dotcom generation, the concept of a milkman leaving bottles of milk on the doorstep is completely foreign. Never mind the delivery - just milk in glass seems alien. Milk comes in a carton from the grocery store, right? The whole tactile experience of milk is separate from the cardboard carton or plastic jug, though. The Milk Bottle of the Week site is dedicated to that cold glassiness which woke you up each morning with the knowledge that one wrong move could mean stepping gingerly through the kitchen for the next few days avoiding shards of a morning mishap. Yes, it's a shrine to bottled cow juice - specifically, to the bottles. The navigation is, dare we say, not entirely intuitive. For the uninitiated, the light blue buttons are main site navigation, and the dark blue second and third row of buttons are sections of the milk bottle collection.
http://www.milkbottleoftheweek.com/
Finally! Some life tips that actually make sense. Who listens to that New Age nonsense anyway? Follow the life skills tips of your favorite daytime soaps and have a glamorous lifestyle, all your own. At this site, you'll find tips like "Feeling a little insecure? Buy a gun!" Are you having a crappy marriage? Follow the soaps' advice to fake a pregnancy then steal someone else's baby. For the do-it-yourselfer, here's another gem: "If you've got to fix your Harley, you might as well take off your shirt and do it by the pool." There's no end of good advice here and if it doesn't work, just slap someone, preferably your mother-in-law or ex-best friend. It's a lot like therapy, only more violent and with designer gowns.
http://www.qis.net/~jimjr/life86.htm
What Kind of Death Robot Are You?
Our reviewer is Megazoid ("Look at me, I'm made of dinosaurs!"), and in a state closely resembling adult bliss answered such questions as "What is your perfect job?" by selecting "Dishing out my own brand of vigilante justice" and "What is your reaction to getting hurt?" by selecting "Appear to die, and then leap to your feet with a surge of energy and fight with the strength of a thousand men." Really, when you're no longer 12, these things should not be as much fun as they are.http://rumandmonkey.com/widgets/tests/giantrobot/
The Blue Flash is getting hammered by hits. Who knew there were so many people interested in home-built roller coasters? It's not as though this site presents design plans, and the series of pages has no streaming video or other hot stuff. Nope, this is just a bunch of static photos and text. Still, this guy, who builds grain silos for a living, has put his skills into his other great love - design and construction of a backyard roller coaster. The photos cover the ground - and the air - from workbench to the ride itself. If you find yourself in John's neck of the woods in Indiana, call ahead (he thoughtfully provides a phone number), and he may even let you take a spin.
http://www.geocities.com/negativeg2002/
Child Stars - Where Are They Now?
Kept up late at night fretting the fate of Justine Bateman? Troubled by the potential "When the Laughter Stopped" TV specials about your favorite teen stars? Visit this site regularly and your fears will be both trebled and allayed. Okay, so Justine Bateman has her own designer label, Todd Bridges is out of jail and battled Vanilla Ice in "Celebrity Boxing", Jason Bateman directs and still acts, but what about Melissa Sue Anderson? Corey Haim? Those crazy kids.... If they only knew how much we care.http://members.tripod.com/~former_child_star/
Portal for Grandparent Babyboomers
The target viewers of "LA Law" and "Thirtysomething" are taking off their babyboomer T-shirts and adopting a new title: grandboomers. This generation of new grandparents is encountering problems that weren't nearly as prevalent 20 years ago. Building relationships with grandchildren is difficult enough before you introduce the issues of divorce, mobility, and changes in lifestyle. Tools that were rare or non-existent back then can fill a need, and the Grandboomers site is taking advantage of that difference. Created to be a common resource for these new grandparents, the site gives them a mix of practical information and contributed advice as they learn the tricks of their new role in life. One somewhat out-of-place feature that we nonetheless enjoyed was the publication of series of love letters written from Mary to her soldier boyfriend in 1942-43.http://www.grandboomers.com/
With over 300 pages of material on the site, along with links to many outside groups (most of which are animal rights organizations), it's safe to say that you can find something of interest at the Vegetarian/Vegan Society of Queensland. The site offers a number of vegan/vegetarian recipes, so the adventurous omnivore may be interested in a solidly environmental side dish, dessert, or entree. Vegetarianism is promoted as a humane and responsible lifestyle here, but we found little information regarding the health benefits related to embarking upon such a program.
http://cwpp.slq.qld.gov.au/vvsq/
ONLINE TRAVEL
We guess you're wondering why there would be a site about the bathrooms in Disneyland, right? So were we, but our questions were answered right away: "So, if you're wondering where Daddy should change the baby, which restrooms to avoid, what is the ratio of men's to women's facilities, or even which restrooms have the best theming, IT'S ALL HERE!!!" Even though our question was answered, we're still left feeling inadequate. We never would have thought to even ask which had the best theming, but now we know it's Tom Sawyer's Island, or, in a pinch, Big Thunder. We don't know about you, but going to a bathroom called Big Thunder after a day of junk food and wild rides really gives us the willies.http://www.mouseplanet.com/potties/
Walking through the supermarket or wine store, you will occasionally stare at a rack blankly, each row of bottles undifferentiable from the one above it. Tags proclaim awards granted and brag of fruit that's supposed to be jumping out at you, but you see nothing but bottles and prices and names you don't recognize. The Terroirs de France guide to French wine will lend a hand, helping anyone learn the basics of wine selection. Start by looking up what acidity and bouquet really mean to someone just taking a sip of a sample. Then consider what you're planning for lunch or dinner. When you check out Terroirs de France's thoughts on what kind of wine might be best matched with your meal, you may see some correlation between the taste of the wine and what you'll be eating. Once you feel your experience in wine selection is growing, play their game to test your instinct on which wine you'd choose to make, where in France it would be made, and the time between first harvest and finally opening the bottle.
http://www.terroir-france.com/
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
If you have a good memory, you may remember the cleverly done stickman martial arts animation that we featured in NSD 7.15. A little game based on the movie has popped up online and it's just as entertaining - all it lacks is sound.http://www.evolver.co.uk/wayofthestick.html
The Random Masturbation Synonym Generator
Need we say more?http://www.museumofconceptualart.com/worldwidewank/generator.html
Some come from eTradeshowGirls.com, an online staffing service designed to help tradeshow exhibitors drive prospects to booths and generate sales leads. The girl gallery features photos of attractive women but no info. It's just so, so oogy.
http://www.etradeshowgirls.com/
SOFTWARE
Free Privacy Software from IBM and AT&T
These two corporate giants want to push the adoption of P3P privacy standard technology. Both companies released software that helps companies use the standard to better communicate and manage their privacy policies. The IBM Tivoli Privacy Wizard lets you translate your existing privacy policy into P3P format. AT&T Privacy Bird lets consumers install software that will read a Web site's P3P-formatted privacy policy and display a visual indication of whether it matches their preferences. If you see a green bird, the site has a policy you like; a red bird indicates that the site does not match your privacy preferences. This all assumes that Web site uses the complicated P3P standard in the first place.P3P: http://www.w3.org/P3P/
IBM Privacy Wizard: http://www.tivoli.com/resource_center/maximize/privacy/wizard_code.html
AT&T Privacy Bird: http://privacybird.com/
CPAN is known in the programming community as an indispensable repository of reusable Perl modules. The CPAN.pm modules make it easy to use the archive, either from a command line or from within Perl scripts. Jos Boumans writes about his attempt to clean up the architecture of the CPAN.pm module and create a better CPAN.pm design. He designed the CPANPLUS.pm module, which can do what CPAN.pm does but in a more modular, extensible, better fashion. CPANPLUS.pm is available for testing. Read the Perl.com article for details about what it is, what it does, and how to use it. Of interest to all Perl programmers.
CPAN: http://www.cpan.org/
CPANPLUS: http://cpanplus.sourceforge.net/
Perl.com: http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2002/03/26/cpanplus.html