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BREAKING SURF
Making Sense of Star Wars (with a Digression to Kevin Bacon)
If there's one thing you can say about the Star Wars master plot, it's that the story is not exactly easy to understand. Sure, maybe in the first movie you knew who was good, who was evil, who was a moron, and what their relationship really was. Not anymore. Fear not, Wired has done all casual fans a great favor by finally explaining who's who in the Star Wars universe. It's the Star Wars equivalent of the Biblical "x begat y" detail and clarifies things a bit for the non-fanatics among us. Naturally, Kevin Bacon shows up, only a couple of degrees removed. While we're at it, we'll point you at some amusing Star Wars characters that didn't quite make the cut into the films, but perhaps should have.Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,52408,00.html
Characters: http://www.dailyprobe.com/arcs/050702/farce.shtml
Transcript of Carter Speech to Cuba
Former US President Jimmy Carter is making political and diplomatic news with his tour of Cuba. The US government is decidedly lukewarm about the trip, consistent with its long policy of political and economic embargo against the communist nation. In fact, there's somewhat of a split in opinion over the best way to deal with Cuba, whether the embargo should be maintained or if, in the long term, it's better to improve relations with the neighboring island. Meanwhile, Carter is touring the nation and recently delivered this uncensored address on Cuban television, in the presence of Castro himself.http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/americas/05/14/carter.text/index.html
At times, there's nothing more destructive to a free and prosperous society than the busy work of lawmakers. Important elements of American free society are right now under attack as a result of the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Enacted with strong pressure from industry lobby groups to prevent theft of intellectual property, the act is being used ruthlessly to suppress free expression and scientific research, to stifle fair use through digital locks and regional blocks, and to inhibit and suppress competition and innovation. At least, so claims the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in its deeply disturbing report, "Unintended Consequences: Three years under the DMCA". This must-read PDF document is methodical and factual, alarming in content, not in tone. At times it reads like a pathology, describing a disease as it makes its relentless way through American society, infecting industries, afflicting individuals. The law is a weapon used systematically to restrict legitimate activities of innovators, researchers, the press, and the public. The EFF doesn't say what to do about it, but if the only answer to a bad law is a good one, we need an overarching provision that guarantees fair use, and we need it now.
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/20020503_dmca_consequences.pdf
More DMCA Consequences: Your Felt Marker Is Illegal
A few music companies, most infamously Sony, have begun implementing copy protection schemes on their CD-like disks We can't call these CDs, since they don't follow the CD standard and they don't have the CD logo. These CDs - oops, copy protected CDs (CPCDs) contain some encoded bits that prevent consumers from playing them in computers and some advanced CD players. In fact, the disks can sometimes send an iMac into a coma, as Wired notes. The Campaign for Digital Rights (CDR) has more comprehensive info on what can and can't safely use these CPCDs. Coming to the consumer's rescue, the German language CHIP Online has published an article that explains how to circumvent the CPCD protection using either a felt-tip pen, a Post-It, or tape to cover the ring of special bits. (Use a Web translation engine.) Do that, and the CPCD plays like any CD anywhere. Here's the fun part: the DMCA outlaws the manufacture and sale of tools that allow users to break copy protection - regardless of any other legitimate use that tool may have (read the PDF in the article above). Abracadabra - your felt markers, Sharpies, Post-Its, and electrical tape are now illegal tools. The DMD copy protection scheme is meant to prevent the proliferation of MP3s, but a cursory search on Gnutella for CPCD songs turns up hundreds of MP3s. The Register has the basics.Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,52513-2,00.html
CDR: http://uk.eurorights.org/issues/cd/docs/celdion.shtml
CHIP Online: http://www.chip.de/praxis_wissen/praxis_wissen_8725919.html
Register: http://www.theregus.com/content/54/24940.html
It's True - You Can't Talk (to a Computer) and Think at the Same Time
If Ben Shneiderman is correct, we won't be talking to our computers in the future. Shneiderman is the founder and director of the University of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory (HCIL) and he is convinced that speech recognition just won't do all the work we want for one simple reason: people can't think and speak at the same time. Experiments in his lab have consistently demonstrated that speech uses the same human memory space as short term memory. With these findings in mind, Shneiderman's lab is concentrating on strategies that use visual cues to manage complex data and interrogate our immense databases - in other words, use your eyes to interact with an interface. This Washington Post article is good and the interview with Shneiderman even more interesting, but check out his lab's Web site to see some of his ideas in action.HCIL: http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/
Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56499-2002May8.html
Interview: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56499-2002May8.html
I'm far away, I'm cold, and I have a large moon. What am I? OK, maybe you guessed I'm Pluto, but face it - you know squat about me. That's why NASA has the New Horizons mission on its drawing boards. The $490-million Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission will involve scientists from a dozen universities, research institutions, and NASA centers. Unfortunately, it's not a go yet. President Bush cut relevant funding from NASA's 2003 budget, although project advocates hope Congress will reinstate it. New Horizons must be launched in 2006 so that Jupiter will be in the right place to provide gravitational redirection. If not, the next window opens in 2018. The mission is designed to expose some of my secrets, answer questions about the Kuiper belt, and resolve some puzzles about the formation of the solar system. Hope you make it - I could do with some warm company. If not - well, I'll still be out here, on the fringes of the planetary system. You can read more at Scientific American.
http://www.sciam.com/2002/0502issue/0502stern.html
Einstein: The G-Men Shadowed the Genius
Even the FBI wanted to know more about Albert Einstein. J. Edgar Hoover's FBI created a 1,427-page file on the man only to conclude that he was never much of a threat to domestic security. As one historian puts it, "(Einstein) was not a party animal." Party, in this comment sure to go down in the history of physics as an all-time understatement, means political party. It appears that the FBI didn't understand Einstein's life all that well and even failed to realize he had a mistress. A New York Times article spotlights a forthcoming book on Einstein and the FBI, but the real gold is to be found in the files themselves, which the FBI has posted online. Check them out to learn how the bureau really felt about general and special relativity.FBI file: http://foia.fbi.gov/einstein.htm
Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/science/physical/07EINS.html
The Changing Face, and Heads, and Bodies, of Online News
In the newsprint news business, the wire services - AP, UPI, Reuters - provide editors with newswire stories that they update as more information becomes available. These additions or changes to the original story are known as writethroughs. Something similar is happening on the Web, except readers aren't usually aware of it. In a Slashdot commentary, Open Source Development Network editor-in-chief Robin "Roblimo" Miller exposes the way in which editors change stories as time passes without acknowledging the changes for the reader's benefit. It's not a conspiracy, but it is confusing, especially if you read an original article then find a different update at the same URL. You might find yourself with an entirely different article and author. Miller spoke with various online news editors and journalism professors, who weigh in on the proper course of action in this online news world. There's something to be said for a paper record.http://slashdot.org/features/02/05/08/1924240.shtml
Deceptive Internet Lobbying Implicated in Science Scandal
Last November, science journal Nature published a research paper about the presence of genetically engineered crops in Mexico. The paper ignited a storm of scientific controversy that eventually led to the first retraction in Nature in its 133-year history. On the day the paper was published, persons unknown on various list servers and online discussion groups immediately attacked it. Now, there's telling circumstantial evidence that the attacks were actually the work of the Bivings Group, a company that specializes in online lobbying and "viral marketing". According to an investigation by activist George Monbiot, biotech giant Monsanto hired the Bivings Group for public relations purposes. Monsanto is one of the principal global purveyors of genetically modified crops and thus has an interest in spiking any research critical of such crops. Monbiot's posted the results of his investigation into the links and the apparently fake postings that sparked the attack on the original paper. AgBioWorld has an account of the scientific debate that led up to the Nature retraction. It's a cautionary tale about believing what you read online and the sophistication of new techniques for influencing public debate.Nature: http://www.nature.com/
Bivings: http://www.bivings.com/
Monbiot: http://www.monbiot.com/dsp_article.cfm?article_id=510
AgBioWorld: http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech_info/articles/invadedmexico.html
An innovative online art project that involved the surveillance of remote computers has been shut down. "Minds of Concern: Breaking News" was created by Knowbotic Research, a group of digital artists in Switzerland, and was part of "Open Source Art Hack", an exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. The exhibit is basically a port scanner embedded in a stand that looks like a slot machine. Viewers could scan the servers of organizations that protested in February against the World Economic Forum and get a listing of vulnerabilities. The exhibit did not employ port-scanning methods that the artists and their lawyers had deemed destructive, and the names of the scanned organizations were hidden from the users. Apparently, however, this kind of port scanning is against the rules of the museum's ISP, which told the facility to pull the plug on the exhibit. The New York Times and Wired have informative stories about the exhibit and its demise. Check out the Knowbotic Research site for some other neat cyberart projects.
Open Source Art Hack: http://www.newmuseum.org/medialounge/index.html#open#open
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,52546,00.html
Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/13/arts/design/13ARTS.html
Knowbotic Research: http://www.krcf.org/krcfhome/
Keeping an Eye on the Internet Hacker Climate
As you're reading this, you aren't among the clueless. You likely employ a firewall on your systems, and you may employ other intrusion detection systems as well. You're a good candidate for admission to the Internet Storm Center (ISC), which gathers and analyzes over three million intrusion detection logs every day. Patterned after weather reporting systems, the ISC attempts to expand the process beyond mere reporting - it aims to neutralize the storms. We'd like to see your weatherman do that.... The ISC has had some success in mounting rapid responses to Internet threats, but the rate of success will be a factor of participation and analytical capabilities. Right now, it looks as though the ISC could use more than just a few million participants. Data from DShield, which catalogues online hacker activity, are well represented in the ISC database.ISC: http://isc.incidents.org/about.html
DShield: http://www.dshield.org/
Malware: Internet Traps for the Unwary
Coming across nasty things in dark, dusty corners is one thing, but experiencing ugliness in bright, open spaces is disturbing. Falling into the clutches of a malevolent ad is the last thing you'd expect at a family oriented entertainment Web site like Flowgo, yet that's what happened recently until Flowgo yanked the nasty thing. The ad shunted visitors to KoolKatalog, a site featuring a crass slot machine game and riddled with pop-up ad upon pop-up ad, and which, worst of all, surreptitiously inserted up to ten files into a visitor's computer as it exploited a flaw in Internet Explorer. It's not entirely clear what all those nasty files do, but a couple monitor sites visited and another allows updates to be sent to a victim's computer. Some infected machines have become unstable and are hard to clean, although Trend Microsystems now has a free tool that does the job. Following the trail of the perpetrators of this dirty piece of skullduggery leads to IntelliTech Web Solutions, but its exact responsibility is tangled in a maze of corporate interconnections, so it may not be easy to bring anyone to justice for this piece of online sliminess. Salon has more.http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/05/07/malware/index.html
Once the killer app of online music trading, Napster lost its relevance last year after a celebrated lawsuit and is now on the verge of death. This week, the Napster's CEO, founder, and several top executives quit when the fractious board of directors decided not to approve a sale of the service to German entertainment giant Bertelsmann. The board asked employees to quit with severance pay or take unpaid leave for a week while the company waits for someone else to buy it. The company will linger on and try to reduce expenses over the next few weeks, but the chances that it will survive are slim. The New York Times has a detailed story of this week's events, while Wired focuses on Napster's turbulent history.
Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/15/technology/15MUSI.html
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,52540,00.html
Netcraft Web Server Survey: Apache vs. IIS, Demise of Weak Ciphers
The latest Netcraft survey of Web servers reveals that Apache had a mild jump in marketshare last month, but overall Microsoft's IIS server has been slowly gaining marketshare over the last year. The report analyzes why this is so, which has to do with Microsoft cleverly targeting large server farms, the dotcom die-off, and a general migration from large hosting farms to self-administered small sites. The survey also notes the decisive demise of weak 512-bit SSL encryption ciphers as more sites adopt the more robust larger SSL bit keys.http://www.netcraft.com/survey/
SETI@Home: 500 Million and Counting
The alien signal hunting project - and best known example of distributed computing - has reached a meaningless but noteworthy milestone. The 500 millionth SETI@Home result was returned by Milada, a "happy girl" from the Czech Republic, who wins a T-shirt and the $500 prize. The only reason we bring you the item is because 19-year-old Milada's SETI@Home user profile is so charming.SETI@Home: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/
Milada: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/cgi?cmd=view_feedback&id=13699
ONLINE CULTURE
Nadine: From a Little Typo Seed Grows Spam
Take a confused woman with a weakness for sweepstakes, the Internet, and a typo or two, and you're well on your way to an avalanche of problems for folks who are just trying to do business. This sequence of events is, at its heart, a spam issue (is there anybody on the planet who hasn't received an e-mail or two from Miss Cleo?), but it's exceptional in the detail in which it is recorded and in how it tracks the way spam works. A woman signed up for an online sweepstakes and typed in the wrong domain. The owner of the domain that was typed in began receiving all kinds of spam, and kept a meticulous record of all incoming e-mail at the false address. The documentation is intended to help responsible list managers. It's also a great example of the proverbial "exercise in futility", as the author notes that the mistake continues to generate e-mail. It's a good effort toward raising awareness, but it's kind of like spitting into the wind. The spammers aren't going to pay attention until the day you show up at their front door with a couple of pairs of vise-grips.http://www.visi.com/~rparker/
Meatmarket.com: Deconstructing Online Dating
An amusing essay in Salon takes a look at the growing market in online dating services. Author Heather Havrilesky notes that in the last year online dating services such as Match.com have enjoyed unparalleled growth, and that it's no longer only computer geeks who use them. She deconstructs the contents of the personal ads, which are beginning to resemble slick marketing campaigns rather than the traditional "walks on the beach" soliloquies. These days, it's all about branding and hip pop-culture references. Incidentally, we could not end this item without mentioning Heather's personal Rabbit Blog, hosted at one of the best named domains ever.Salon: http://salon.com/mwt/feature/2002/05/15/online_dating/index.html
Rabbit Blog: http://www.tinylittlepenis.com/
When Yahoo unilaterally changed its users' marketing and privacy preferences in March, there was a great hue and cry from privacy advocates about the unfairness of it all. The outcry had some effect on users - but apparently, not much effect. The New York Times quotes a recent study that concluded that a million people looked at Yahoo's privacy policy page in the month after the scandal broke, up from the normal traffic of 300,000 viewers, but still only 1% of all US Internet users. Slightly more than a million people visited the Yahoo page that would allow them to opt out of Yahoo's new policies, and a mere 73,000 people visited the page for cancelling an account, a drop from the previous month when 114,000 users did so. We wonder whether people don't know or don't care.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/13/technology/ebusiness/13YAHO.html
Macromedia Thinks Customer Service Is for the Blogs
Macromedia has encouraged several of its employees to maintain product-oriented blogs. Blogs have, until now, largely been maintained by webheads as online diaries, but Macromedians' blogs let its employees and other bloggers discuss products and answer questions fairly quickly. In these times of increasingly unsatisfactory customer service, blogging takes a step toward a future that encourages customer involvement. Some worry that corporate blogging will just turn into another sales venue, but if a blog starts to annoy you, you won't read it. Overall, response has been optimistic. While there are always doubters and conspiracy-theorists, the blogosphere - like the Net itself - seems able to route around problem issues. Wired has the story. John Dowdell, one Macromedian blogger, seems a bit dismayed by the press attention, but, frankly, we like his approach. He comes off as a regular guy who's trying to communicate with folks online. And like all of us, looking for the effective way to do it. Dowdell has links to other such blogs, as well.Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,52380,00.html
Dowdell: http://jdmx.blogspot.com/
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Floating Off the Page: The Best Stories From The Wall Street Journal's "Middle Column"
The Bondwoman's Narrative
DAW 30th Anniversary Science Fiction Anthology
What Just Happened: A Chronicle from the Information FrontierSURFING SITES
Lesser Known Facts of the Second World War
George Duncan's Lesser Known Facts of the Second World War focuses on practices and events seldom covered by historians or the media. We were mildly surprised to learn the "V" for victory sign originated not with revolutionaries or Winston Churchill, but with a Belgian refugee in London who urged his countrymen over shortwave radio to write it as grafitti "as a sign of confidence in ultimate victory." Winston Churchill adopted the symbol and, of course, gave it prominence by gesture. Such trivia pales in comparison to descriptions of maritime disasters, massacres, and social conflicts that might sprout documentaries or Hollywood movies if they haven't done so already. In Norway, for instance, Norwegian pro-Nazis or German soldiers fathered about 10,000 children, whom other Norwegians "treated with contempt" for many years. Duncan describes atrocities - and there are many - with dry concision. Academics may fault him for lack of documentation, but Duncan states he found his facts in "various sources including encyclopaedias, almanacs, magazines, newspapers and the hundreds of books published since the end of WWII." Most readers will wish he provided more detail; the subject matter is horrific and fascinating.http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/facts.html
The Radio Drama of United Flight 93
United Flight 93, which crashed in a field in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, is given a gripping sense of reality in this recording of actual transmissions involving air-traffic controllers, other aircraft pilots, and occasional, apparently accidental, transmissions from the doomed aircraft. The recording commences as Flight 93 checks in with Cleveland controllers - and then things go very wrong. Listen in as pilots and controllers try to figure out what's going on. The transmissions are brief, but riveting.http://www.milaircomms.com/audio_ua93.html
A (Reasonably) Impartial Look at the Middle East
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is like that Energizer battery bunny: it just keeps going and going and going. It's not as if news organizations actually help you make any sense of it: you usually either get a pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli slant, but almost nobody gives you the big picture, and your eyes just kinda glaze over until "The Simpsons" comes on the tube. Well, friends, a visit to this site will shake you out of the doldrums. It's actually about as impartial as anyplace you can find when it comes to this subject, and it presents a ton of information in easily-digestible form. You'll find reports, analysis, maps, photos, and more here - mostly stuff you'll probably never hear on CNN.http://www.fmep.org/
Policy, White Papers, and International Analysis
This ambitious project covers a range of socioeconomic and foreign policy issues, with a searchable database of full-text research papers. Students and policymakers alike will find this resource invaluable, as it places much information into the public eye with the technique of deep-linking. Thus, the material accessed comes not from the site itself, but straight from the proverbial horse's mouth. The site's webmasters take pains to distance themselves from partisanship, and to avoid any claim of credit for materials accessed through the site. It qualifies as a library, as the breadth of material it links to is huge. They also offer links to policy jobs, research resources, interviews, and seminars.http://www.policylibrary.com/
The Story of the West Memphis Three
Almost exactly nine years ago, a horrific triple-murder occurred in West Memphis, Ark. The three victims were eight-year-old boys who had just left Weaver Elementary School. We'll spare you the details. This is a true story of this gruesome atrocity visited upon children, the apparently bungling hayseed cops, and the possibly fabricated case the authorities brought against three local teenagers. This site exists to support these last three, the convicted teens - one on death row - and to garner support for their appeals. Having already been the subject of at least a couple of documentaries, the story has legs. The site's worth the time, whether or not you're a fan of whodunnits.http://www.wm3.org/
Learn about the Spyware and Adware Trade
If you've been working with computer systems and networks for any length of time, you've probably - we hope - developed a certain amount of cynicism, if not outright paranoia. With good reason. This site's an opinionated but valuable resource for sorting through adware, spyware, and the issues these resource-hogging intruders raise. The site provides links to screened shareware programs that you may find useful, and clearly identifies suspected or known spyware and the main perps. And if you already have spyware on your system, apps available here will help you remove or disable the intrusive little devils. For egregious cases, the site provides instructions for manual removal. You can also read excellent, brief descriptions of how some of the most "popular" spyware works. The perp list is worth a read on its own, as it is extensive and documented. If it's a rumor, you'll see it here. If it's documented, you'll see it here. If you've been wondering why so many of us avoid RealPlayer like the plague, you'll see it here.http://www.simplythebest.net/info/spyware.html
Your About.com Guide to Schadenfreude
Every once in a while you need a few people who make you feel good about yourself and your place in the deep end of the gene pool. We consider it part of our responsibility as an e-zine that cares about its readers to point you in the right direction to lift your spirits. That having been said, here are some idiots. Well, let us clarify. Here are some idiots on bikes, idiots on skateboards, idiots in Pamplona, staged idiots, natural idiots... you get the idea. Hope it helps.http://sickjokes.about.com/library/blmmouch.htm
Those Humorous Research Librarians
You think your job is bad? Read about the tribulations of the research librarian, constantly enduring a barrage of questions from the unwashed masses (present company excepted, naturally) and, worse, clueless administration. Brian Smith (not that one) has put together the Laughing Librarian, an eclectic online collection of amusing and apparently sometimes more-controversial-than-intended bookmarks, library-themed Zen koans ("What is the plot of a self-help book which has no pages or words?"), odd quotations for your .sig files, and general ranting. Find out why "mesozoic pterosauria" is a bad search term. Here's a hint: what would a search for non-mesozoic pterosaurs turn up?.http://www.laughinglibrarian.com/
Yeah? Well Come Say That to My 24th Level Battle-Finch
Just how desperate do you have to be to spend your time creating a fictional world that mocks folks who spend their time in fictional worlds? Yeah, that's what we thought. But with that caveat aside, let us say, this game rocks! You really recover every ounce of effort you put into it. Unfortunately, the only shortcut key is Alt-F4, but we're sure they'll add more with future releases. It's completely free of PKs (player killers), the bane of many other gaming systems. You can even play this at work without wasting your company's valuable system resources. We just wish it had a boss key.http://www.progressquest.com/
Slumber Inc. hates pop culture. Read the Mission page. This dig at pop culture wants to wake you up and alert you to the insidious messages that bombard you day in and day out. You probably won't feel any need to bookmark the place, but items such as "Get Implants. Get Married" are amusingly reminiscent of the "Tastes Great, Less Filling" advertising campaigns that plowed through the USA a few years back. The faux ad campaigns have a subtle approach, so subtle that without the backgrounder mission statement, you might not be sure on which side of the fence these comments fall. The place is kind of heavy on the social consciousness binge, but it's well done. Almost a sleeper, in fact. Read the FAQ.
http://www.slumberinc.com/Slumberhome.html
Anyone who has tried Web translators knows these translation engines leave much to be desired. To remind us all of the complexity of language - a reminder sure to hearten many professors and professional translators - Carl Tashian, a Web engineer near Boston, has created a modest but enlightening and entertaining site called Lost in Translation. It shows what happens when a computer translates a phrase from English into another language and back into English - five times. Enter English text in a form and submit it; what you get back may make you laugh. We tried "This is a fine piece of work" and ended up with "She is one leaves fine from the work." A couple of experiments, and you'll see why publishers don't use translation engines to translate medical or technical texts for free. Someone could get killed. We submitted "Someone could get killed" and ended up with "Somebody could stop on assassinated." Yikes! Don't try this with a handheld if traffic police pull you over in Spain.
http://www.tashian.com/multibabel/
If you're the sort of person who thinks "The Osbournes" is a little over the top, stop reading and skip to the next review. Still here? We figure you think a little tastelessness has its place in humor, and because of that we're sending you to T-Shirt Hell, mister. This recommendation actually came to us purely for the baby section, because every nine-month-old really needs a romper that reads, "Help! I'm being kidnapped!" We just couldn't stop there, though. After all, "What Would Jesus Do (for a Klondike bar)?" College frat boys can outfit their dogs in "I help him get chicks" and let all the sorority girls know they (i.e. the boys) a) are able to take care of another living being, b) have a sense of humor, and c) could clearly use someone to help dress them.
http://www.tshirthell.com/
Spray Yourself a Lovely Foam PC
With a little imagination and one or two of those foam canisters we'd ordinarily use to help keep the wind from blowing into the glorified refrigerator carton that we presently call home, you can build a pretty cool portable computer system. Who'd have guessed? Instructions and photos are right here for the taking. By the way, as this box is built up from insulating material, think cooling for optimum results. Frankly, we'd prefer to insulate the house. Dragging computer components from place to place has never been all that much of an issue. Back in the 1980s, lugging an Osborne system around really put hair on your chest but today, portable computing is much easier. Still, somebody had to try something different, so heck - view the result here. Differences are what got us to where we are today.http://www.g-news.ch/articles/nhp200nc/
Millions of kids have never been to a drive-in movie. That's no surprise since drive-ins are few and far between these days. To paraphrase Ian Malcolm in "Jurassic Park", drive-ins had their day. Suburban malls out-competed them to extinction. Drive-inMovie.com is for nostalgic grandparents who remember the 1950s heyday of the big outdoor screens and fast-food stands. Teenagers will likely skip the Reminiscing at Drive-inMovie.com page, which launches a MIDI tune as corny and annoying as most of the others at this site. Instead, they'll find it convenient to search here for a place to neck in the dark - the kind of place their parents are unlikely to visit unless the air conditioning goes out at their favorite multiplex. On the home page, you can scroll down to the main resource: a directory of drive-ins in the US and Canada, with a phone number and a brief description for each. We'd have liked ratings by either moviegoers or the host. We did learn, however, that Ohio "remains among the top 5 drive-in states in America." You get a bit of history with your listings. There are also listings of drive-ins in Australia and Europe, along with an interactive crossword puzzle and a catalogue of movie posters.
http://www.driveinmovie.com/
Search Online with Search Online
Google's a great resource, but this slick, quick, and cool meta-search engine plans to compete. Incorporating mouse-over quick tips and other information to bring you up to speed, Search Online eases your introduction. The page submits simultaneous searches to a number of search engines, pares down redundancy, and comes up with a candidate list of results quickly. Particularly attractive here is the preview feature, which opens a source window so you can see whether or not a link is really what you need. As you may know, there is a lot of hidden content on the Web, but Search Online claims to access even some of that. To gain access to all of the features here, you have to register - it's free. We found the site useful, even though we never took the time to register. Chances are, you will too. Got a Web site of your own? They'd love to be part of it, and they make it easy. A worthy competitor for the mighty Google? Ha! You snort. You smirk. You laugh aloud. Until you try it.http://www.searchonline.info/main.jsp
ONLINE TRAVEL
You've herd (snicker) of CowParade, or maybe the similar mooses of Toronto. Now there's LionParade, or something like that, going on in Jerusalem. Jacob Richman has taken pictures of over 50 of the regal cat sculptures, the pride of city, around town. If you're not going to make it to Jerusalem in the foreseeable future, visit the site instead to see such oddities as the lion that looks like a disco ball.CowParade: http://www.cowparade.org/
Lions: http://www.jr.co.il/pictures/israel/jerusalem/jer001.htm
Orient Voyages is the brochure site of a tourist agency by the same name based in the Republic of Uzbekistan. As long as you remember that someone is trying to sell you a trip, it's a nice introductory guide to central Asia. Experienced travelers may find some of the English prose a bit odd: "In Kyrgyzstan they are doing a lot to encourage tourism, because of many potential opportunities to see and rest." The map of the Great Silk Roads is well done with appealing, if predictable, color photos. Buildings and landmarks predominate. Some of the content seems pedestrian, but then, you don't expect Paris, do you? The Buzkashi page captures local flavor with two action shots that accompany a description of ancient competition: "The horse of the winner moves fast and the end of the game is near - one of the 'Chavandoz' is winning. Anxiously he clutches the dead goat and throws it over the line. The spectators cheer enthusiastically as the winner is presented with the prize." If this gets your blood moving, Orient Voyages is ready to help you plan your itinerary. Its site is conservative, its tone reserved and polite - a far cry from Western hype.
http://www2.naytov.com/~tourorient/index.html
SOFTWARE
Tiny, Hugely Useful Windows Apps
Windows users, forget about huge programs. Chances are that you don't really need them. Imagine, if you will, a place in time and space where programs do not exceed 1.44 MB, are not adware, and are free, with source code provided; a place where shareware is included only if there is no freeware alternative; a place where no Microserf has gone before. That place is here. Want small, fast, tightly-coded browsers, e-mail clients, Web servers, and/or other cool stuff? It's all here, and it's all free. Looking for text editors? Hey, this isn't Baskin-Robbins - they only have about 28 flavors at the moment. Suffer. Graphics and system tools are here as well, and they're small, fast, and mostly free. Imagine, if you will, a 97-kB free program that resizes and moves partitions without data loss. That's among the many goodies in here, yours for the cost of a download.http://www.tinyapps.org/
Opera 6.0 for Linux, 6.02 for Windows
Two new versions of the alternative but popular Web browser have been released. Both focus on speed improvements and the usual bug fixes. The press releases have details. Also, in a step towards inevitable bloat, Opera 6.02 for Windows also introduces an SMS (Short Messaging Service) panel, which lets users send text messages to mobile phones directly from the browser. At the moment, this only works in Norway though. SMS. In a browser. Madness.Linux: http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2002/05/20020515.html
Windows: http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2002/05/20020515_2.html