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BREAKING SURF
eBay Buys PayPal, Abandons Support for Gambling Sites
eBay has purchased the PayPal online payment service for $1.5 billion in stock. eBay's action is a "if you can't beat them join them" strategy - for years, eBay's own Billpoint online payment service has struggled to match PayPal, whose business dwarfs any competitor's. eBay has effectively assumed a monopoly on non-credit card online payment, and the effect of this can already be felt. In NSD 8.26, we told you how PayPal has been aggressively pursuing business with gambling companies, which are being frozen out by credit card banks. Now, eBay will apparently abandon this practice due to the legal uncertainties that surround the funding of gamblers. This will leave the gambling Web sites high and dry with regard to accepting online payments, although another solution should show up soon. CNet has the eBay/Billpoint perspective on the deal and Wired has the gambling story.PayPal: http://www.paypal.com/
EBay: http://www.ebay.com/
NSD 8.26: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v08/nsd.08.26.html#BS10
CNet: http://news.com.com/2100-1017-942231.html
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,53703,00.html
Low Fat Diets: A Big Fat Mistake?
The New York Times is running a major investigative piece about the scientific underpinnings of diets and nutrition science. For the past few decades, dieting dogma has been that eating less fat is the way to stay healthy and lose weight. Nevertheless, despite major propaganda to that effect from the government, the health industry, and food companies, and despite a genuine shift to a lower fat diet by the American public, the incidence of heart disease and obesity is at an all-time high. Could it be that the dogma is fatally flawed? The piece looks at the history of thinking about a healthy diet in America, and brings to light some rumblings of dissent against the accepted wisdom among the scientific community. The provocative conclusion is that Dr. Atkins and others who advocate a high-fat diet strictly limited in carbohydrate intake may actually be on to something. If it were not for the corporate accounting scandals, this topic would easily be at the top of the mainstream media headlines.http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/07FAT.html
Once again, men of superhuman and occasionally enhanced physiology are wheeling around France and adjacent countries in a battle for glory in what is surely one of the most grueling events in sports. The exertion of the athletes may be overshadowed by the anticipation of the next juicy doping scandal. Surely there will be one - it's almost a Tour de France tradition by now. The official Tour site has some decent commentary on the competition and good video clips. The BBC and ESPN have English language stories with the respective nation-centric focus, but for in-depth coverage you'll be better off with VeloNews. Finally, check our book recommendations for Tim Moore's hilarious take on the Tour.
Tour de France: http://www.letour.fr/
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/hi/english/other_sports/cycling/default.stm
ESPN: http://espn.go.com/oly/02tdfindex.html
VeloNews: http://www.velonews.com/tour2002/
Warchalking: Publicizing Shared Wireless Connections
It's old hat to say it, but a grand thing about the Internet is how it allows people to share. A recently evolved manifestation of the sharing culture is the use of Wi-Fi technology to expose broadband connections to shared use. Wi-Fi is a wireless form of broadband that can be set up to accept any public user. In London, author Ben Hammersley set up a Wi-Fi access node that would let him surf the Web from a cafe across the street. Willing to share, he used flyers to let neighbors know about it, to little effect. To publicize the availability of Hammersley's node, information architect Matt Jones devised symbols and posted the scheme on his Web site. These symbols, similar to hobo symbol language, are meant to be posted near Wi-Fi access points and are often drawn in chalk - hence the name of the practice: warchalking (for why the "war", check out the BBC article). Soon, warchalking marks began appearing around the world near similar shared connections. Corporate colossi Time Warner and AT&T are both mumbling about suing users who dare to share. More nimble local broadband providers sense opportunities and one, Manhattan DSL provider Bway.net, even encourages community connections. Business Week has more.Jones: http://www.blackbeltjones.com/warchalking/
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/dot_life/newsid_2070000/2070176.stm
Business Week: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2002/tc2002073_1130.htm
Who'd have thought the death of Ted Williams, the greatest baseball hitter who ever lived, would go tabloid? Williams's son wants the body cryogenically frozen while his eldest daughter wants him disposed of and alleges that the son wants to preserve the body so that he can later sell the DNA for cloning. Is this better than any weird SF novel or what? The inevitable lawsuit naturally set off a media storm - check out the Boston Globe - and plenty of interest in the practice of cryonics. Thus we bring you the indispensable cryonics resources and the faint hope of scientifically plausible life after death. The CryoNet mailing list, the sci.cryonics newsgroup and the Cryonics FAQ are produced by true believers, so approach them expecting enthusiastic bias. Lost in all this juicy dish is the career of Ted Williams, one of the true greats. Check it out at ESPN.
Globe: http://www.boston.com/sports/redsox/williams/july_7/feud_follows_Williams_death.shtml
CryoNet: http://www.cryonet.org/
Cryonics FAQ: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/tsf/Public-Mail/cryonics/html/overview.html
ESPN: http://espn.go.com/classic/obit/s/2002/0705/1402411.html
It would be a mistake to think of the international AIDS 2002 conference as a purely scientific gathering. Reading the news coming out of Barcelona, you could easily mistake it either as a political platform or one big marketing event. Drug companies are sponsoring this gathering, and they are taking every opportunity to aggressively market their latest and greatest wares. The medical news coming out of the conference is predictably bleak. Lots of people are infected with HIV, many will die, the prospects for a vaccine or a cure any time soon are distant, to say the least. Yahoo's full coverage has all the news coming out of the conference and many links to related sites.
AIDS 2002: http://www.aids2002.com/NET6_Home.asp
Yahoo: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/Health/AIDS___HIV/
In a bizarre ruling that flies in the face of common sense, a court in Copenhagen has ordered Newsbooster to remove links to articles at 28 Danish news sites. The news sites feel they lose ad revenue when a third party links to stories within their sites - so-called "deep links" - instead of to their index pages, so they took the popular Newsbooster to court over the matter. Since direct links to relevant Web pages are what make search engines and publications such as our dear old NSD so effective, the ruling has potentially profound implications for everyone who uses the Web. Officials at Newsbooster are stunned by the ruling but plan to appeal. The site still offers links to thousands of news stories based in places other than Denmark, none of whose publishers have complained about Newsbooster's practices. Newsbooster supplies its own brief take on the ruling in somewhat creative English and adds a set of deep links to articles on the decision. Slashdot has community discussion.
Newsbooster: http://www.newsbooster.com/
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/articles/02/07/05/1431249.shtml
Where Computer Time Comes From
Almost certainly, your computer doesn't keep good time on its own. The cheapest watch in Wal-Mart can do better. For some computer systems and users, however, accurate timekeeping is vital. To help such systems stay accurate, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) runs a system of 14 servers to provide accurate time signals over the Internet. David Coursey is an enthusiast on the subject of computer clocks and shares his timely discoveries in this intriguing ZDNet article. If you want your computer to keep constantly accurate time, you can pretty much forget about using Windows or any other GUI. They don't synchronize often enough - the unchangeable Windows default is once a week, inadequate for serious accuracy. The Mac OS X interval may be changeable but, if so, David doesn't know how. David is a serious clock watcher who gives us just enough detail to be interesting and informative without boring our pants off. For that, you have to go to the NIST site itself.NIST: http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/
ZDNet: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-941411.html
Twenty Questions with Google's Director of Technology
Why does Google run Linux? We know you've been wondering about that. Why the heck would the world's most successful search engine employ anything other than "proven" technology of, say, Microsoft? Maybe it's because the code is so inexpensive. Maybe it's because they have over 10,000 computers to maintain. Maybe it's because it works securely. Maybe you ought to head over to this Slashdot interview with Google Director of Technology Craig Silverstein. He'll explain a lot more than we can. And as long as we're talking about Google, have a quick look and a grin at elgooG.Slashdot: http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/03/1352239
elgooG: http://www.alltooflat.com/geeky/elgoog/
It's hard to believe, but the keyboard you're probably using is based on 140-year-old technology. The QWERTY keyboard layout was invented in the 1860s and the only serious attempt to come up with something better occurred during the 1930s when August Dvorak came up with his more ergonomic design. For various reasons, the Dvorak layout has never caught on (indeed there is a fascinating sidetrack into economic theory here ably explained on Marcus Brooks's site) and the keyboard has stood mostly unchanged for 60 years. Peter Klausler, however, decided to try evolving a better keyboard layout with a genetic algorithm. With about 500 lines of C code and some fiddling with fitness functions, he has managed to come up with something which may or may not be better. You can find software to actually try the new layout on his excellent Web page. Finally, for the definitive history of keyboard design, check out Randy Cassingham's book, "The Dvorak Keyboard".
Brooks: http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/
Klausler: http://www.visi.com/~pmk/evolved.html
"The Dvorak Keyboard": http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0935309101/netsurferdigest
The High-tech World of the Cocaine Trade
An ad, not too long ago, on American television had a tagline of "Why do you think they call it 'dope'?" A Business 2.0 article explains that dope traffickers are anything but dopes. The Columbian suppliers of cocaine have been hard at work building an amazing information technology structure. These boys are quick to exploit technology. They use encrypted communications and study radar-sweep data to determine safe points of entry. The technology they employ is American-made, and the people who run it are American-trained. Talk about brains on drugs....http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,41206,00.html
European Online Journalism Awards
BBC News Online was the big winner at this year's European Online Journalism (EOJ) Awards, collecting prizes in seven of the 17 categories. Now in its fourth year, the EOJ competition attracted a record 875 entries and was judged by 122 European journalists and digital media specialists. David Whitehouse, science editor of BBC News Online, won the coveted Internet Journalist of the Year award. The EOJ site not only brings you the story of the competition, but also offers illegal-in-Denmark (q.v.) deep links to winning articles, which cover a range of entertaining and informative topics from the unnecessary deaths of babies in a Bristol hospital to ice on Mars to the death of George Harrison. You can have a fairly long and interesting visit here.http://www.net-media.co.uk/awards/
The Importance of Social Networks
Social networks surround us and bind us together. Networks of machines and of people define our lives, say some interesting students of social networks. This O'Reilly article is more an introduction to some interesting literature than anything like a final word on the topic, but if you've ever wondered about whether or not six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon matters, and how it might, then this is a must-read.http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/webservices/2002/06/04/udell.html
2600, EFF Won't Appeal DeCSS Decision
2600 Magazine decided not to take its famous case to the Supreme Court. For those who may have forgotten, in December 1999, eight major studios sued 2600 for posting the DeCSS code - software that breaks DVD encryption so that users can play the DVDs on Linux machines - at its Web site. Using the DMCA as its basis, a US federal court argued that 2600 had broken the law in posting the code on its site and that anyone linking to the code was also breaking the law. The Electronic Frontier Foundation took up the case to publicize the inherent problems of the DMCA, but now defense lawyers think it unwise to appeal to the US Supreme Court. According to 2600, the case has brought a great deal of awareness about the DMCA to the public, but the magazine's press release doesn't address the decision's substance: the ability to forbid linking to a site because a company doesn't like its content. CNET has background.2600: http://www.2600.com/news/display.shtml?id=1233
CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-941685.html
RIAA Sets Sights on Individuals
Not satisfied with going after centralized file-sharing companies like Napster and peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, the RIAA is now training its highly paid legal guns on individuals. Gee. Who'd have guessed? These are the same people who fought tape recorders, after all. Today, they're going after people with CD burners and blame a decline in sales on burning technology. Regardless of how you feel about the music industry, it does own the copyright to songs and downloading songs you do not own is illegal. It makes more legal and moral sense for the RIAA to go after those who own unauthorized copies of music rather than the P2P network providers. On the other hand, the tape recorder fight was solved with a fee on all blank tapes to be paid to the music industry, and you have the right to use music you purchased as you wish for personal use. This suggests a decent solution to the mess - barring the appearance of sense in the music industry's collective brain.http://www.msnbc.com/news/775684.asp
Hubble has done it again. Check out these stunning pictures of Cassiopeia A, a 10,000-year-old supernova remnant whose light first hit Earth 320 years ago. The colors are rich - the blue means oxygen and the red sulfur - but it's staggering to realize that this is just an echo of an explosion that was old when Rome vanquished Carthage.
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/2002/15/pr-photos.html
Who to Blame for Browser Incompatible Sites?
It used to be that Web developers ranted against Microsoft and Netscape browsers for their non-compliance with Web standards. These days, the major browsers comply fairly well, but Web developers who design sites that only work with the proprietary extensions available in Microsoft Internet Explorer are catching flak. Given that Internet Explorer has in excess of a 90% market share, the habit is understandable, but it is probably a short-sighted strategy. This CNet piece explores the situation from several angles: site coders; browser developers; and activists who favor open standards. It illustrates perfectly the second-order effects emerging from the Microsoft browser monopoly.http://news.com.com/2100-1023-941926.html
Gnutella Pioneer Gene Kan Dies
Kan was the author of one of the early Unix versions of the Gnutealla peer-to-peer file-trading network. He went on to become an eloquent spokesman for the software after founding one of the early Gnutella portal sites. CNet says his death has been ruled a suicide.Story: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-942180.html
Gnutella: http://www.gnutella.com/
Gnutella Clients: http://www.gnutelliums.com/
Open Source Vendors Disappearing: Good or Bad?
Is the disappearance of open source vendors a good or bad thing? Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Associates argues that it is a good thing because open source is about users, not vendors. Giving control of software to users means that vendors don't have as large a role to play and that the use of open-source software in business is the real measure of success. O'Reilly's essay, written with the annual O'Reilly Open Source Convention in mind, is worth reading for two reasons. First, it is an excellent introduction to open-source computing, especially if you are unfamiliar with it; second, it has a partisan, but well documented discussion of Microsoft's objections to open source. It's also a good read.http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2002/06/28/vendor.html
We sadly note that Yahoo Internet Life (YIL) will be shutting down operations. The magazine holds a bit of a soft spot in our hearts since it gave us several Best of the Internet awards over the years - it's been a bit of a mutual admiration society. Although it used the Yahoo brand, the magazine is actually owned by Ziff Davis Media and has 1.1 million paid subscribers. Ziff Davis CEO Robert Callahan attributed the closure to a huge decline in advertising revenue and market share. All 35 employees have been laid off and the last issue will be published in August. Is it just us or is it just insane that the mag can't make a go of it with 1.1 million paid subscribers? CNet has the story.
YIL: http://www.yil.com/
CNet: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-941252.html
Yahoo's Redesign Focuses on Sales
Yahoo has redesigned its interface for the first time in around seven years, downgrading the emphasis on the search engine. Yahoo designed the new look to make you want to use the site as your home page, which, with any luck, will generate new revenue streams. As you scroll down, you'll be treated to tools such as domain registration ($35 a pop), Web hosting, banking, and bill paying. Back when Ross Perot ran for President, he railed against NAFTA, claiming that the giant sucking sound you could hear was American jobs going to Mexico. If Yahoo succeeds, the next giant sucking sound you hear will be your dollars headed to Yahoo. Hey, nothing wrong with that, as long as you know up front.http://www.yahoo.com/
ONLINE CULTURE
Blogchalking for Smarter Blogsearching
Beyond the jargon, this is a pretty good idea. Daniel Padua has proposed a standard for metadata tags for use in blogs. The tags could be used to, for example, find all blogs from people in a particular geographic area. The meta information is to be inserted into meta tags within the blog Web page and in the actual text of the Web page so that search engines like Google can find it. This concept can be considered a subset of what's known as the Semantic Web project, the goal of which is to make Web pages easier to read by machine through proper structure and standard meta tags. Padua has proposed a specific tagging system and even has a nifty JavaScript form that generates the tags for you. As for the name "blogchalking", you've probably already guessed that it's a riff on the recently coined word, "warchalking".Padua: http://www.blogchalking.tk/
Semantic Web: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
RIP AudioGalaxy: An Insider's Reminiscence
Kennon Ballou was a programmer for two years at AudioGalaxy, once a popular MP3-trading Web site. Recently, the RIAA cut down AudioGalaxy in the file-trading wars. The company agreed to remove most of its content and to pay a substantial settlement, effectively ending its business. In this piece at Kuro5hin, Ballou relates what it was like to work at Audiogalaxy, and discusses its technology, corporate culture, the online community of users, and the experience of the lawsuit from the inside. He provides a nice piece of dotcom history, one that's followed by a lively discussion.http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/6/21/171321/675
Janis Ian on Music File Sharing
Janis Ian, multiple Grammy winner, shares her thoughts about music file-sharing and comes out firmly on the side of the consumers. In this scathing article, she takes the whole music publishing industry to task and demolishes the idea that the RIAA and music publishers are protecting the interest of the artists in any way, shape, or form. In the process, she also manages to dish some dirt about NARAS president Michael Greene's sweetheart deals and to attack the typical music industry artist contract as "indentured servitude". Her main point is that the availability of free music spurs sales and benefits artists. Ian is putting her money where her pen is and will be releasing some of her new songs in MP3 format on her Web site. You can sign up for news about the songs at the janisian-announce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com mailing list.http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html
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French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France
WarCraft 3: Reign Of Chaos
American Pie: Slices of Life (and Pie) from America's Back Roads
120" x 72" Sunfish Swim CenterSURFING SITES
Compromised Credit Card Catalogue
CardCops was formed to gather the numbers of stolen credit cards being passed around chat rooms and on hacker Web sites. The gatherers find out the names and addresses of alleged thieves and give them to law enforcement for further action. The stolen numbers have been added to a database that can be checked by anyone who thinks their credit card has been compromised. The database currently has over 100,000 entries and is growing constantly. Users just enter the main numbers and not expiration dates when checking cards, so checking is safe. The site is not only on the up-and-up, but is a useful tool in the fight against identity theft.http://www.cardcops.com/
There's a popular competition on TV that has viewers thinking, "I could do better. Man. I should be on this show. I'd be the one left standing at the end." No, it's not "Survivor", it's "Jeopardy!" (We're not overly excited about it. The exclamation point is apparently part of the trademarked name.) "Jeopardy!" can be played in the comfort of your own home without a remote control. You and your Java-enabled browser will not win money this way, but at least you don't have to put up with Alex Trebek. There are always tradeoffs.
http://jeopardy.station.sony.com/play.jsp
Need traps, torture devices, or weapons of mass destruction? Sounds like it's time to visit VillainSupply.com, which states up front, "If you are a supervillain, mad scientist, warlord, dictator, or despot, then this is the place for you." And you thought terrorists only shopped at Target! Enter one of the main sections, and you'll see how far a tongue-in-cheek can be twisted. Lairs & Bases, for example, hypes a complete inventory of ready-to-build kits such as an armored luxury cruise ship with stealth technology and a subterranean island base with optional volcano upgrade. Find your island or undersea city insufficient? Pick up a space station in Earth orbit for a little over $18 billion. Delight your henchmen with a zombification system or cybernetic upgrade. Or go higher tech with a cloning system or robots. Antimatter costs only $450,000 per liter; a global disintegrator key, a paltry $100 billion. Bidding for "the ultimate formula 'X'" starts at $172 trillion. On a budget? Try the "irradiated entomological enhancement kit," genetic resequencer, or metapsychic bionic implant. You can also buy a White House communications tap, hire a skinhead militia ("Great for random acts of violence, drunken brawling, synagogue desecrations, and incest."), and make a deal with Satan. Now, that's e-commerce!
http://www.villainsupply.com/
Parodies of Macintosh Switch Ads
You know those Apple commercials featuring folks who have switched from Windows to the Mac? If not, these are ads where some unknown but sincere person tells you, the viewer, why they have joyously made the switch from Windows to the Mac OS, and you can view them at Apple's Web site. Macboy.com offers three parody switch commercials. Apple really likes its ads and claims they're effective, but the Macboy ads (they're Flash files) are even more persuasive. Just don't hold your breath waiting to see them on TV and in magazines very soon. All that could prevent that is Apple fearing too much success, or maybe a lawsuit.Apple: http://www.apple.com/switch/ads/
Macboy: http://www.macboy.com/switch/index.html
Type the serial number of your Canadian bill(s), hit the Submit this Bill button, and you've entered the bill into the database so that its future travels can be logged. You have to register to see where it goes next, but that's free. Tracking success hinges upon others examining their wallets and dutifully visiting this Where's Willy site. Its American predecessor, Where's George, was featured in NSD 5.15. Where's George, of course, refers to George Washington, the first President of the US. Where's Willy refers to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the first French Canadian Prime Minister, whose image is featured on the Canadian $5 bill (the lowest denomination of paper money in Canada). The two sites are tightly integrated, so you only need register once at either site in order to use the features of both. The site sells self-inking rubber stamps for defacing your registered bills with a URL, to presumably motivate others to take part.
Free Willy: http://www.whereswilly.com/
NSD 5.15: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v05/nsd.05.15.html#SS10#SS10
You're a cop trying to disarm a suicide bomber. You try to reason with him, but ask the wrong question and he detonates. Say the right thing, and you go on to the next question.... This is the often frustrating yet addictive scenario behind Ambition, the latest in the Flash-based interactive series of psychological vignettes by Zapdramatic. We don't know whether psychologists or other experts had a hand in scripting or consulting these scenarios, but you quickly get involved with disturbed, quirky characters. Presumably, you learn to negotiate win-win solutions, which may help you deal with real people. If you die repeatedly in Ambition, as did our reviewer (who has never been a police officer or hostage negotiator), you can try something less lethal like Customer Service ("She used to have an anger management problem. Now she smiles and passes the rage on to her customers."), The Raise ("Negotiate with your tight-wad boss to get the raise you deserve."), or several other situations. Common sense often goes out the window when logic and emotion clash. You'll need your wits, so put down your beer before you venture in. As the instructions for Altered States warn, "While logic is a useful tool, it may not help you here. Know your opponent!" Good luck. You'll need it.
http://www.zapdramatic.com/
At one end of the privacy spectrum, you have those who want personal information kept private. At the other, you have those who can't wait to tell all. For those who just can't keep a secret, there's Confideinme.com, which solicits open secrets from visitors over age 18. The world is full of people who want to get things off their chests, and many have confessions and conjectures posted, anonymously and sometimes about their chests, on this forum, for reasons best understood by themselves. You have to wonder what sort of person would submit the following: "Ever since I was a kid, I've had this habit of touching the ear lobes of anyone I feel close to, regardless of their sex. People are really tired of it, but I can't stop. I have no idea what it means, but I still do it." Each secret is followed by three choices: send a private comment to the writer, display all secrets submitted by that writer, or forward the secret to a friend. We find no statistics on how many people use this site or how many editors edit submissions before posting. The variety of secrets is scary. Lonely hearts may not find solutions here, but at least they can vicariously take part via gossip.
http://www.confideinme.com/
Have you ever thought you weren't normal? Well, prove it to yourself with You Must Choose, a site that despite its demanding title asks little of its visitors other than their time. Plan to hand quite a bit of it over, as you answer survey questions that run the gamut but generally fall on the far side of the taste-o-meter. It's a bit like playing truth or dare with a bunch of 13-year-olds, only you can be pretty sure your underwear is secure. It's also indicative that the site is rigged to catch searchers fishing for porn, but then again, it's hard to fault them for that. After all, porn is the part of the internet still making money.
http://www.youmustchoose.com/
Love those tunes - it's so nice to download, listen, and then go out and buy the CD. You should be aware, however, that behind the scenes, a number of "services" are eroding your privacy and other rights. You may go buy that CD, for example, and then find that you can't burn a compilation of favorite tracks to play in your car on the way to work. Sure, there may eventually be a workaround, but then RIAA will just have a court ban it under the DMCA. To help explore this world, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) checks in with a primitive game. Dorky as it may seem, the game may reveal some facets of the music industry and your day-to-day life that you'd not considered prior to playing. The game takes you through the pluses and minuses of using peer-to-peer software to get your tunes, as well as issues related to subscription services or just going out and buying the CD. These days, there are no easy answers.
http://www.eff.org/cafe/drmgame/
If you send short text messages by mobile phone or chat software, you may be aware of some shorthand slang - like "brb" for "be right back". If you want to use shorthand because those extra letters cost you valuable time or, more likely, you have a message and have no idea what it means, you can use transL8it's Web-based slang translation engine. Type your message in plain English and click to receive a translation in short message service (SMS) lingo, or vice versa. The catches are that you must have your browser fired up when you want to send a SMS message and that your recipient knows the code well enough to understand the translation, or also has an open browser. Show your honey how geeky cool you are with an invitation such as "wnt 2 go 4 dinr & a mvie??" Send a message to transL8it and it might get highlighted in the Top MSG List. There's no telling where this free service is going.
http://www.transl8it.com/
The word "adoption" likely evokes warm and fuzzy feelings, bringing up images of people who care enough to take in strangers and make them part of the family. Well, there is that - but there's also the other part. In much of the US, adoptees have no rights to access their birth certificate or the medical histories of biological relatives, and one of the goals of Adoption Puzzle is to see that policy rescinded throughout all 50 states. The site presents an impressive array of research tools, as well, and they're easy to use. The Genealogy Today site has taken Adoption Puzzle under its wing, as there are actually similarities between genealogical research and the search for links among adoptees, birth parents, and the adoptive family. Adoption Puzzle hopes to augment services for adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents. If you fall into any of the preceding categories, you'll want to visit. If you don't, you may want to stop by anyway. You only thought you had issues....
http://www.genealogytoday.com/adoption/puzzle/
The more puritan among our readers may not know what Realdolls are. They are simply the most lifelike sex toys known to man - man with a few thousand dollars to blow, in particular. Barbie, this ain't. These babies are custom-built, right down to eye color, male or female. Before you think that merely owning a sexy piece of plastic is unhealthy, let us point you to obsession with same. Our first impression was that this has to be a joke. Photo after photo of dolls. Dolls in different getups. Dolls undergoing "surgery". You'd think that if you actually fork over $6,000 for a silicone partner, it would come with adequate breasts. The Sladesworld.com Realdoll fan site belongs to a man who apparently repairs and modifies Realdolls. His pages intersperse pictures of repairs with the dolls in banal settings. It's almost art. Don't miss the Realdoll testimonial page, either.
Sladesworld.com: http://www.sladesworld.com/infopage.html
Realdoll: http://www.realdoll.com/Letters.html
ONLINE TRAVEL
"One of the biggest and most ancient lakes of world is situated nearly in the center of Asia in a huge stone bowl set 445 m above sea level." That's what it says on the opening page, and we believe it. This site, focusing upon a Siberian lake, is surprisingly extensive. In addition to detailed maps resulting from collaboration between the Russian Academy of Sciences and the United States Geological Survey, the site links to some incredible photos, including shots of the sub-Baikal area and the Circumbaikal railroad. You can watch over half-a-dozen RealVideo presentations. Lake Baikal is an amazing freshwater environment. Consider that it has been in existence for over 25 million years, and contrast that age with the Great Lakes in North America, which have only been around for about 10,000 years. Just the blink of an eye, in geologic terms. Unsurprising, then, that people today want to keep Lake Baikal as pure as they can. The photos and maps alone qualify the site for visiting; even a functional illiterate will find them interesting. For readers, it just gets more interesting.http://baikal.irkutsk.org/
Some travelers like to read up on their destination. Others prefer a travel aperitif of photos or videos to whet the appetite. Parisrama is designed for the latter. Everywhere you look, the site offers photo albums, slideshows, and videos of popular landmarks and museums. You'll need RealPlayer to view videos of the Eiffel Tower, Montparnasse, and other staples of text-based travel guides. Some of the menus in the English version of this frame-based site, including the feedback form, are in French. (Our Midwestern reviewer found something charming about a "Submit" button labeled "OK C'est fait.") At our last visit, the forum (in the Fun section) was empty - "Aucun message pour l'instant!" The last time we climbed the Eiffel Tower, it was vertical, but from the perspective of this site's webcam, it leans like something in Pisa. Ah, the mysteries of technology! Be prepared for a lot of pop-up windows and cookies. If you know little French or none, you may want to keep an extra browser window open to a translation site.
http://www.parisrama.com/english%20version/englishindex.htm
Operation Dialogue is a project of the Canada Institute. Its many sections link to all sorts of Canadian resources, with a special area devoted to Canadian pride. This Web site contains art, poetry, crafts, and essays that celebrate Canada. Many were created by school children from all areas of the country. On July 1, Canada celebrated its 135th birthday and this site is also a celebration of the event. The site is naturellement available in French or English. FLOTSAM & JETSAM
http://www.operation-dialogue.com/
We talked about planned celebrations of the Wright brothers' 1903 flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C. in NSD 8.23, and a reader wrote to point out the site for the North Carolina First Flight Centennial Commission, a state organization housed under the Department of Creating Additional Departments or something like that. They'll take your North Carolina soiree and tell you how to make it part of the celebration. We figure North Carolina deserves special mention, if just for those nifty license plate logos.
http://www.firstflightnc.com/
If you were a Lego person, what would you look like? For those who have spent endless hours futilely screaming this question to the heavens, the Mini-Mizer is here. Make a little person that looks like you or a friend. It would only be better if you could then order that customized Lego creation from the site.
http://www.reasonablyclever.com/
Secrets (Sort of) of Corporate America
Business 2.0 has uncovered a few secret corporate documents. When you see them, you'll better understand some of the scandals of today and get advance word on some other companies that are about to fall in deep. These memo writers are true examples of the Peter Principle. You doubt these are real? For shame.http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,41579,00.html
Crossword Puzzles and Similar Games by Subscription
Crossword addicts will tell you there can't be too many puzzles available. The Puzzle Society offers nine crosswords, some daily and some weekly. They range from moderately challenging to tough (the Los Angeles Times puzzles). A subscription costs $4/month or $20/year, and includes many kinds of puzzles on the site.http://www.upuzzles.com/free/puz/index.html
The Mackinac Island Stone Skipping and Gerplunking Club
Every Fourth of July brings the world's best stone-skippers to Mackinac Island in Michigan. The best pro division entrants often average an amazing 20 skips per throw. More a participant event than a spectator event, stone-skipping has yet to make to national TV.http://www.stoneskipping.com/
SOFTWARE
TouchGraph is a piece of open-source software that can generate spring graph displays from various data sources. The TouchGraph GoogleBrowser is a Java applet based on TouchGraph, which can show the relationships between search results at Google. The best way to understand it is to just give it a try. Type your favorite URL in the TouchGraph GoogleBrowser page (with Java enabled) and have fun fiddling with the controls. You'll get an interactive spring-loaded graph of the Web connections associated with the URL as seen by Google. Pretty neat.TouchGraph: http://sourceforge.net/projects/touchgraph/
TouchGraph GoogleBrowser: http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html
P2P Search Algorithm Benefits from Random Walker Agents
Researchers have determined that a large distributed peer-to-peer (P2P) network such as Gnutella would benefit from a particular type of search algorithm. This has implications for how the various P2P file-trading networks should provide search capability. The research team found that a search algorithm based on multiple random walks through the P2P peers works as well as Gnutella's flood search and cuts bandwidth usage by two orders of magnitude. The researchers also looked at optimal ways to spread content across this kind of network and at the performance of various network topologies. New Scientist has a short plain-language story. The full technical paper is also available, as is a set of slides from a presentation of the work at a recent supercomputing conference.New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992510
Paper: http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~qlv/download/searchp2p_full.pdf
Presentation: http://www.tc.cornell.edu/ics02/slides/lv.pdf
CORRECTIONS
We Goosed - Uh, Goofed on Cygnus
In last issue's "Gilmore Says ICANN Has to Go", we said John Gilmore was a founder of Cygnus Systems. The company name was first Cygnus Support, then Cygnus Solutions. Never Cygnus Systems.http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v08/nsd.08.26.html#BS3