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BREAKING SURF
Before Sept. 11: The Secret History
Time magazine has published a major investigative piece about US anti-terrorism policy before Sept. 11, 2001. It tells the story from the perspectives of top US national security officials and institutions. The feature begins with the last days of the Clinton administration, which had finally put together a plan for dealing with al-Qaeda. In the transition to the Bush administration, the plan sat on the back burner as President Bush and his staff concentrated on ballistic missile defense and other issues. By early September 2001, the al-Qaeda plan had finally wormed its way into the consciousness of highest levels of the national security apparatus. By then, we now know, the government had insufficient time to avert the impending tragedy and the rest is history. This is fine journalism and it dissects in detail the run-up to the Sept. 11 attacks.http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020812/story.html
Console Classix's Game-Sharing May Lead to More
Legal emulation is the future - at least, that's the view of the president of Console Classix (CC). That company has reverse-engineered the contents of over 200 Nintendo game cartridges. It has also designed system emulators and an interface that lets the humble user log in and download a game. You're probably thinking this can't be legal. A few technicalities fall in CC's favor: US courts have held that it's legal to reverse-engineer a game console BIOS. Also, US copyright law permits individuals and companies to copy software they have purchased, under certain circumstances. If you dot every I and cross every T, you can make a perfectly legal copy of a game. CC's log-in interface ensures that no more than one user at a time can possess a given game copy. In essence, this works exactly like a video rental shop, except that instead of renting original game cassettes, CC is renting electronic copies of the same. Nintendo legally challenged this twist a year ago, but CC refused to back down and Nintendo seems to have let the matter drop. Has CC come up with a workable, new, legal way to share files? Visit the site, and decide for yourself.http://www.consoleclassix.com/
SPAM FILTERS CATCH LEGITIMATE E-MAIL!!!
If you're using a spam filter, you may be filtering out messages composed of all capitals or messages that contain words like Viagra. Granted, most people don't write in all capitals or talk about their Viagra habit in e-mail. Nevertheless, if they do, spam filter programs will transfer their e-mail to the junk mail file or, increasingly, not even download the messages for the recipient. The problem is that legitimate e-mail and newsletters often use characters and technical headers like those used by the spammers. This Editor and Publisher article quotes an anonymous ISP law expert who says spam filters are catching dolphins as well as tuna. Filter definitions are driven by those who complain most, and they mostly complain about certain words or phrases - so recipients will continue to miss legitimate e-mail as an easy solution is nowhere in sight. In the meantime, online writers and editors are going to homogenize their writing to make it inoffensive.http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/features_columns/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1570036
Some of us run little Web domains on the side. At least one of us was flabbergasted to find e-mail from the Spamcop spam blocking service telling us that because of "open mail ports, violations of (Spamcop's) acceptable use policy, and other various complaints", our domain would be added to Spamcop's spam block list. However, because the domain in question exists on a Web-hosting company's server, we decided to follow this up rather than raise an immediate ruckus. Visiting Spamcop's Web site, we found a note that explained that these warnings are actually forged spam meant to tie up Spamcop's time and/or make it look bad. If you've received such an e-mail, we urge you to visit Spamcop's forgery explanation.
Spamcop: http://spamcop.net/
Explanation: http://www.julianhaight.com/forgery.shtml
ProQuest Digitizes Entire Run of New York Times
Imagine reading the New York Times from its beginning to the present. Now, if you have the time and the money, you can. ProQuest, a research firm, has fully digitized the gray lady of journalism. If your institution buys a subscription, you can view an image of each and every page of the Times as you search for particular topics and people. This is the first newspaper that ProQuest has delivered as part of its Historical Newspapers project. As more historical papers come online, what was once a tedious process of consulting indices and looking at microfilm will become one of pointing and clicking. Will wonders never cease? ProQuest has a press release and a preview and Wired covers the story.Press release: http://www.il.proquest.com/pr/02/20020719.shtml
Preview: http://www.il.proquest.com/proquest/histdemo/default.shtml
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54030,00.html
AOL Says Pop-Up Ads Bad for Business, Refocuses on Community
The stock of AOL Time Warner has taken a beating since AOL and Time Warner merged and AOL's growth rate has slowed dramatically. This New York Times article looks at the post-merger happenings at what is still the world's largest ISP and notes that late last year, AOL internal surveys showed that member satisfaction had started to wane. AOL had increased the number of pop-up ads last year in response to the declining per-ad revenue. AOL users seem not to have appreciated the strategy. When, to remedy the situation, AOL reduced the number of pop-ups, user satisfaction "improved notably". New AOL software due out this fall will reportedly refocus on building the AOL community and will tone down the advertising. The article goes on to discuss the recent management shake-ups and compares management styles of new AOL CEO James de Castro with the merger crew.http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/05/technology/05MOOD.html
MSNBC Thinks Discussion Boards Full of Litter
MSNBC, apparently uncomfortable with the free-for-all give-and-take of traditional discussion boards, has killed off that section of its Web site. Exhibiting corporate control freak behavior, the media company will do away with the public boards in favor of blogs maintained by designated correspondents. According to CNET, MSNBC was unhappy with the discussion boards "because of the high cost of monitoring discussions that often turned into obscene flame wars." Joan Connell, MSNBC executive producer for opinion and communities at MSNBC, is quoted as saying that this was a business decision and that "Much like a public park, you have to keep (discussion boards) clean and free of litter, and that involved hiring people." The sanitized-for-your-protection MSNBC Weblog Central will open at the end of August.MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com/
CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-948211.html
The Mother of All Parliaments Gets New Site
The UK Parliament Web site has spiffed up with an image of Big Ben's clocktower and has an adjunct site that plans to broadcast live video of question period. The new site launched without much fanfare and will try to iron out any wrinkles before Parliament resumes in the fall. It's the definitive, authoritative place for anyone interested in the day-to-day workings of British democracy, and includes the complete text of Hansard, the official record of proceedings. You can also find information on the devolved legislatures in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland (the Cornish are still waiting but that's a story for another day); a directory of MPs, peers, and offices; active bills; and committees (lots of them). We liked the 20-minute Windows Media video that reviews the importance of Parliament. You can get a taste of Parliamentary debates from the excerpts that stretch back a decade to Margaret Thatcher's time. The mother of all parliaments finally has a site that properly reflects its stature. The Guardian has more.Parliament: http://www.parliament.uk/
Video: http://www.parliamentlive.tv/
Guardian: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/openup/story/0,11872,765625,00.html
Afghanistan is coming to life these days, in ways good and bad. The country's communications infrastructure barely exists, so it's a good omen that Kabul now has its first Internet cafe, which boasts 11 computers in the Intercontinental Hotel. The online service there is expensive at $5 an hour, and it's filtered with Net Nanny, presumably to protect the sensibilities of the locals from the ravages of some aspects of Western culture. The content filter isn't strictly the result of state requirements but is the decision of the owner partnership of US-based Telephone Systems International and the Afghan Ministry of Communications. The cafe hopes Internet access will be used for constructive purposes such as education and medicine, and obviously isn't prepared to offer too dizzying a taste of information freedom, at least not just yet. Wired has the brief story.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,54285,00.html
Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance
The National Science Foundation and the US Commerce Department recently sponsored a conference to look at how nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive sciences impact human performance. The result is this extensive report that explores how those technologies can be used to improve human cognition and health, enhance education, improve societal interactions, and - not surprisingly - enhance national security. It's a heady brew of high concepts, and frankly it seems filled with vague goals removed from reality which nobody could really argue against. Nevertheless, the Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno technology convergence does present some exciting opportunities for our civilization. Good reading for the academically inclined.http://itri.loyola.edu/ConvergingTechnologies/
Jacob Nielson on Making The Physical Environment Interactive
Famed user interface guru Jacob Nielson muses on the possibilities offered by interfaces to objects in our environment. The archetypical example is the squeezable doll, which these days is likely to contain a processor that can evoke complex responses depending on which bit of the doll is fondled (don't even go there...). Nielson discusses how such interfaces can break away from the graphical metaphor and take advantage of gestural and other interactions firmly embedded in the physical world. The highlight of his article is a link to a collection of physical user interfaces called Phidgets designed by students of Saul Greenberg at the University of Calgary. The Nerf e-mail notification device concept is cool, as is the idea of bugs on a leaf which show the status of your instant messenger contacts.Nielson: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020805.html
Phidgets: http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/grouplab/phidgets/gallery/gallery.html
This Salon article doesn't have as catchy a title as "Death of a Salesman", say, but you get the point. This two-page look at lapsed domain names includes some amusing observations. Why were these domains registered and then allowed to lapse? Why were these sites never built? Why did some of these domains have such honkin' long names? What were the registrants thinking? Did RentAChicken.com ever have potential? maybe - who wouldn't at least visit a site built around that concept? Perhaps the registrants had a great idea, but lacked the wherewithal to carry it forward. How would one rent a chicken on the Web, for example, without running afowl of USDA restrictions? In many cases, we suspect, registrants simply ran out of content after registering the name itself. Salon's got the article; read it and laugh or weep as you will.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/08/03/deleteddomains/index.html
Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roche Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette
The Marquis, a major historical figure during the American and French Revolutions was awarded the very rare honor this week of being named an honorary U.S. citizen. Only five other people have ever been so honored putting him in the rare company of Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa, Raoul Wallenberg, William Penn, and his wife Hannah Penn. Check out the brief but action packed biography of the Marquis, and you can find the brief but whereas filled congressional resolution on Thomas - search for Lafayette or S.J.RES.13.RS. Well deserved and certainly overdue.Marquis: http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/served/lafayette.html
Thomas: http://thomas.loc.gov/
New Scale Measures Computer Cruft
The force of entropy is relentless, nowhere more so than in your PC. In fact, you can measure it using this newly invented PC entropy scale. Taking its inspiration from the wind forces measured on the Beaufort Scale, the Cruft Force Scale measures the deterioration of your PC as it accumulates files, software, and fixes - cruft. Dr Dobb's Journal (DDJ) defines the scale and the Jargon Lexicon defines "cruft".DDJ: http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=7453/ddj0208q/0208q.htm
Jargon Lexicon: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/cruft.html
Beaufort Scale: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lot/webpage/beaufort/
What Is Art and Would You Take It to a Desert Isle?
Want a great site for a party? Check out this site on rating what makes a great work of art. Take the poll, see how you rank art, then see how others have done the same. If it means anything, popular acclaim calls Jane Austen the greatest artist, followed by Shakespeare; Britney Spears is last in the preset list of ten. We guess Spears's fans aren't too concerned about whether her music is art. In analyzing the voting pattern, TPM Online's Julian Baggini notes that voters differentiate between art quality and accessibility. We recommend you read his coherent and reasoned analysis after you take a look and vote.Poll: http://www.philosophers.co.uk/games/britney_spears.htm
Analysis: http://www.philosophersnet.com/article.php?id=575
Welcome to the Pantheon, St. Juan Diego
The first Native American saint was canonized by Pope John Paul II on July 31. Learn more about St. Juan Diego at the Catholic Community Forum. Regardless of your religious beliefs or lack thereof, its pages make interesting reading as they afford a glimpse into the fabric of life in 16th-century Mexico. The canonization has been covered in the news media, but reports have largely omitted details regarding the newest official Catholic saint. That's too bad, as the man lived a fascinating life.http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintjem.htm
"Plan B" Blog Novel - Is It Time for Plan C?
"It's dark, and the smells that reach me from the rubber floor are not too inviting." So begins Diego Doval's blognovel, "Plan B". Despite the best efforts of Internet innovators, publishing largely remains a tree-killing business so its nice to see another effort spawned by the fusion of the online medium with the storytelling muse. As for just what this brave attempt at literary experimentation is all about, best go to the horse's mouth for that - we don't trust ourselves to paraphrase it concisely and you can just click the "What is Plan B?" link at the site. If you want to know what others make of it, check out the spirited discussion at Slashdot with its vigorous mix of deliciously crushing put-downs and hopeful support. "Plan B" is very much a work in progress; tune in and decide for yourself whether to egg him on or just egg him."Plan B": http://blogs.salon.com/0001172/
Story: http://blogs.salon.com/0001172/stories/2002/07/26/whatIsPlanB.html
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/articles/02/07/31/1919240.shtml
The original AdCritic site was a free archive and analysis of ad campaigns. The site could not keep up with its bandwidth bills and went belly up during the dotcom crash. Its assets were acquired by Crain Communications, which owns ad-related media properties such as the industry magazine Advertising Age. The new AdCritic will cost you $70 per year and includes ten issues of a paper magazine called Creativity. The site features a searchable archive of TV and radio ads, news articles and featured commercial clips.
AdCritic: http://www.adcritic.com/
Advertising Age: http://www.adage.com/
Insecurity at Barnes and Noble
Steve Manzuik, the moderator of a security information mailing list, accidentally discovered a security loophole at Barnes and Noble's site while looking up books he wanted to buy online. His curiosity aroused, Manzuik nosed around and found additional problems that could compromise the security of customer information. He alerted Barnes and Noble via e-mail and offered to fix the problems for free. He thought the company would get right on the problem but was surprised when nobody bothered to respond. Seems the folks at Barnes and Noble are more lackadaisical than customers probably expect. It appears that Barnes and Noble has known about the problems for some time, won't talk about them, and, according to an insider, isn't in any hurry to fix them either. Online security is important when customer information is threatened but the three-monkey trick just doesn't cut it. It seems to us that these problems just aren't getting the attention they deserve from senior management. Wired has the story.Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54251,00.html
ONLINE CULTURE
What's a blog ecosystem? In a bit of good news for the ignorant and apathetic, it doesn't much matter. A blog ecosystem clumps together several hundred "most linked" and "most prolific linkers" blogs, The stats of Myelin's blogging ecosystem consider nearly 4,200 blogs. Its number one on a recent "most linked" list was blog enabler Movable Type. Weblogs continue to grow in popularity. There's an avalanche effect in play, as it appears that many bloggers start keeping their online diaries because somebody else's blog prodded them to. BlogTree records these influential interrelationships as a genealogy. Blogs are like games: you're either seriously into the medium or you're not. Further links from Myelin's site will help you explore further.Myelin: http://dev.myelin.co.nz/ecosystem/
BlogTree: http://www.blogtree.com/
In NSD 8.27, we reported on Grammy-winner Janis Ian's essay on the music file-sharing debate. Her influential commentary received a lot of notice in music and online circles. Now, Ian has written about the fallout from that original article, which confronted the music industry and record labels in particular. Ian states that she has received 2,200 e-mails: "I've answered every one myself, getting an education I never intended to get in the process." Ian goes on to deconstruct the feedback and generates more thoughts on the issue. This second chapter is eminently worth reading if you're following the debate.
NSD 8.27: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v08/nsd.08.27.html#OC3#OC3
Ian: http://www.janisian.com/article-fallout.html
Mobile Phones Induce Human Swarms
If there ever was an example of how new methods of communications spawn new human behaviors, this is it. The availability of instant and mobile communication by cell phone is allowing people to congregate quickly at focal points of interest. This Washington Post article calls it "swarming". The Post's first example is Prince William. When young women see him somewhere, they call their friends, who head for his location and call their friends, who etc., etc. Some swarming is deliberate - protestors coordinate their actions with cell phone alerts. Other examples occur spontaneously, such as when socially inclined people swarm to and from parties based on what they hear from a web of cell phone contacts built up from communicating cliques. It's pure network-driven behavior in the petri dishes of sex and politics. The Post article gives several more examples and touches on the etiquette of keeping the cell phone lines of communication open or risking ostracism. Incidentally, the word is that in the very near future the Washington Post will require registration in order to read their articles.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23395-2002Jul30.html
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Inside the Cult of Kibu: And Other Tales of the Millennial Gold Rush
The Eyre Affair: A Novel
101 Damnations: The Humorists' Tour of Personal Hells
I Love Paris: Fashion Chill Out Lounge CollectionSURFING SITES
Plan to spend some time at this Incan-descent site. As soon as the home page appears, you know you're looking at something special. With several photo galleries and a lot of descriptive text, this site will hold your attention, even if you never really considered yourself to have much of an interest in Incan culture. How did the Incans manage to build such huge stone structures? We use small stones to form large constructs, and it's easy to assume that that's how it's always been done. Not so. Incas moved huge pieces of granite and carved messages into this durable material. This site's an education award-winner for good reason - it's not only informative, but some of the photos are simply breathtaking. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this is a veritable encyclopedia of things early Incan. Links to half a dozen or so equally fascinating hubs by the same author are conveniently provided. All are informative and feature many excellent images. Pack a lunch before settling down and clicking this link.http://www.jqjacobs.net/andes/
With wildfires raging across hundreds of thousands of acres of the western US, this is the perfect time for Firecall, a spectacular National Geographic Web presentation. Norbert Schuster, a 52-year-old firefighter, arrestingly describes his work and brings a sense of what is really involved in this annual mission. Related links include the National Interagency Fire Center, what it takes to become a wildland firefighter, and more. If you live in wildfire country, or even stop through for a visit, you need to take a look here. The tips presented could save not only your own life, but those of many others as well.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/firecall/
Orismology. Spondulicks. Floccinaucinihilipilification. What do they mean? These and other weird words are defined in referential detail at World Wide Words, subtitled "Investigating international English from a British viewpoint". The brain behind this eclectic educational site for word lovers is Michael Quinion, once a radio producer and now a researcher for the Oxford English Dictionary. Quinion delights in tracing etymologies of words popular or arcane, obsolete or current, including many from "the linguistically inventive and playful American frontier." William Faulkner, for one, would probably have loved some of the Greek and Latinate terms (cataglottism, absquatulate, and sternutation come readily to mind) that Quinion illuminates with authoritative brevity. The mere list on his Articles page is engaging, with titles such as "An Exceedance of Impactful Ignorals: New terms that blush unseen" and "Beam me up, Scotty! The linguistic legacy of Star Trek". Quinion adds many nice touches here. His "Surprise me!" button, for example, produces randomized word explorations. His weekly newsletter is archived in .zip format so you can read it offline. Whether you're a biopunk, a New Puritan, or some other downshifter defined in his data-havenish Turns of Phrase index, you'll find nothing twee about World Wide Words.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/
"Hello, Mr. Taliban, did you know...". This site opens with a parody in which a Taliban representative, refusing to give up Osama bin Laden, is subjected to a barrage of telemarketing calls. The site designer hates telemarketers with a passion, so he put together his Web site to help like-minded folks in their battles against voice-spam. Tired of having them ring you up in the middle of dinner or any other activity? Find some great snappy comebacks to the telescourge here, and learn why the Caller ID feature you pay extra for doesn't always work. This site's packed with information on everything from hang-up calls - who knew autodialers were at fault? - to products and software (some free) that keep the pests at bay. Telemarketing is a $400 billion a year business and Americans lose about a tenth that amount each year to fraudulent telemarketers who usually target older marks; roughly 60% of fraud victims are over 50. The techniques that thin out telemarketing calls are similar to those that slow e-spam - not surprisingly. Do check out the site's bonus material. We don't laugh out loud at stuff we see on the Web all that often, but we did here.
http://www.antitelemarketer.com/index2k18x6.htm
AltaVista's New Prisma Search Engine
AltaVista has introduced a new search engine, one that it's hoping is psychic. As at any search facility, you enter a search term. The new engine, Prisma, looks through your results and guesses what you were trying to get to, based on the most commonly associated words or phrases in your returned documents. Click on one of these AltaVista Prisma terms, and it searches again, refining your original entry with the new term to come up with a new list of returns and Prisma terms. Those of you envisioning a hall of infinite search engine regression, fear not: "AltaVista Prisma does not appear when you refine your search twice in a row or when your search has fewer than 20 results." Sort of a bummer, actually. The service is still in the testing stages, but works. What we'd like to know is the answer to "Will Prisma make AltaVista relevant again?"http://www.altavista.com/sites/search/prismapromo/
Over the years, we've tried to help our readers learn about scams. It's a challenge to keep up as scammers and swindlers invent new ways to cheat. A visit to Scams and Swindles will keep you updated on a variety of fraudulent activity. This daily news portal currently focuses on the seamy doings primarily of corporations and government. We haven't found any headlines here on Net fraud yet. Recently, the shenanigans at WorldCom have dominated the home page, which links to stories at major media outlets around the world. Think of the police blotter of your local newspaper, but with international scope; you can find links covering the Olympics skating scandal, corporate finance, civil service, and immigration. It's sobering to realize this is just the stuff we know about. Who knows what fraud has yet to be exposed? Such is the grim until-next-time appeal of Scams and Swindles. One thing you won't find here is guidance on how to avoid becoming a victim. External resources for your protection are linked under Related Sites.
http://www.swindles.com/
Movie Script Archive Holds Ill-Gotten Scripts
First, the good news.... Movie buffs and aspiring screenwriters can study 139 scripts of modern classics, SF flicks, and other Hollywood productions at INFlow's Screenplay Repository. "Titanic" is here. So are "The Godfather", "Terminator", and "Star Wars". You get the picture. Each script is a single HTML page you can save to read offline. There's much to be said for learning by example. And they're all free. Now, the bad This site was last updated in November 1999. Worse, you have to wonder about the provenance of these scripts, which "were shamelessly ripped off from other places on the net." There's also no way to tell what version - working, final, transcript, etc. - these scripts are. For example, the "Men in Black" script posted here lacks the scene with the crack Tommy Lee Jones made about Dennis Rodman. It's unclear who's behind this site, but the collector wrote "May god, copyright owners and people who worked hard and were not credited forgive us."http://corky.net/scripts/
Five Stars for Filmmaking Portal
Creative people understand this statement by producer/director/webmaster Salomon Gill: "Filmmaking is my passion and my life." In light of the profound influence of movies, you could even say filmmaking is part and parcel of the American dream. Gill maintains a wonderful resource for anyone who wants to pursue the filmmaking dream. What a portal! Hollywood news hits you first, but what many students want are answers to questions such as "How do I become a director?" and "Where do I go to cut a deal?" Gill offers practical advice, including a primer on the basics of filmmaking and an outline on how to write a script. Before you start fleshing out your notes, though, you might find yourself exploring the column of pull-down lists that anchors his home page. Despite a few broken links, this compressed directory seems to cover everything from articles to visual effects, from dictionaries to organizations. Other useful lists on the home page include Box Office Top 10, Opening This Week, and Upcoming Films. Bravo!http://www.filmmaking.com/
Best Electronic Games Death Match
The object of this series of choices is to parse computer games to divine the best in the world. Am I Game or Lame, instead of just asking folks to name their favorite games, prefers to sneak up on the answer. When you visit the site, it asks you which of two games is better. Select your favorite (or opt out of that choice) and another pair of games appears, and on and on until tedium sets in or you finally get your name in the "Guinness Book of World Records". There's no guarantee your favorite game is even on the list, but you can ask the site's maintainers to add one. Currently, the top five are Legend of Zelda, Mario 1-3, Half-Life, Grand Theft Auto 3, and Super Mario World, but this is probably changing as we write. Unless you've badly misspent your life, you'll probably discover lots of games you've never played or maybe even heard of. There's enough data collected here to support a Ph.D. thesis or two if analyzed cleverly, we suspect, although the experimental design probably deserves criticism. The site's amusing, enlightening, and maybe even ultimately useful.http://amigameorlame.segmented.net/
A Close Look at Subliminal Ads
Humans are programmed to notice patterns, and sometimes we see them where they don't exist. With that in mind, we approached this site on subliminal advertising. Are suBliminal ads for real, or is it all just in oUr heads? ObviouslY, some level of subtext is present in advertising - sex sells, right? - but do liquor ads really feature subtle skulls in ice cubes? The hypothesis behind the site is that while we don't think we notice stuff in ads, we really do, subconsciously, and therefore the ads influence us in all sorts of ways. This site's filled with all kiNds of examples. Frankly, a lot of it strikeS us as no more valiD than the ravings of the Area 51 conspiracists, and the site could benefit from some attention to backgrounds and a general clean-up. Still, it's a good thing that this place is here to direct us without all that subliminal mumbo-jumbo. We hate that. Hmmm.... Wendy's is open till 1 a.m. these days, isn't it?http://www.poleshift.org/sublim/
PEBKAC (Problem Exists between Keyboard and Chair)
Rinkworks, whose unique collection of online humor we've spotlighted before, has the panacea to all tech support woes - the "me too" syndrome. It's nice to hear you're not the only tech support person who's taken the mouse footpedal call or the CD cup-holder one. They front this collection of computer illiteracy by a quote from Charles Babbage, and it's in some way comforting to know that user error has been the leading cause of computer problems since the time of the difference engine.http://rinkworks.com/stupid/
Fortune cookies are a tradition, if not in China then at least in Chinese restaurants. When you break one open, it'll tell you something like "Joy is just around the corner." What you need instead, friend, is a dose of reality. That's where this place comes in - fortune cookies with real messages. Things like "Pray for what you want, but steal what you need." It seems obvious that many of the execs at Enron, Adelphia, and WorldCom have been taking such advice to heart. We've been eating at the wrong Chinese restaurants, apparently. No fear, play catch-up here. Either some folks really take the cookie biz seriously, or the site's creators have outdone themselves in the hate-mail section, entitled "Dearest Bad Cookie". Kind of reminds us of the love that went back and forth between Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the townsfolk of Antelope, Ore. awhile back.
Bad Cookie: http://www.badcookie.com/
Rajneesh: http://www.religioustolerance.org/rajneesh.htm
FunPic's E-Postcards and Parody MP3s
We like FunPic for many reasons. One quick way to get an idea of how this e-postcard site works is to check out the Top 100 link atop the home page, which sends you to a thumbnail index of the top 100 selected e-cards. Most of the 100 are pictures of babies or animals or animal babies, but some are adult. Most of the artwork is photographic but some is drawn or animated. The variety is awesome. Most are cute, humorous, or both. The Categories pull-down menu is a good way to find what you want. Each picture gets a ranking from 1 to 10, in case you doubt your own judgment. You can e-mail cards, with or without a personal message, for free - no need to register. Lovers of pop culture will get a kick out of FunMP3, a section of musical parodies. (Alas, you can only send them to your MP3 player.) Among the sly takeoffs here are "America Inline" and "I'm a Whiny Canadian Bitch" along with Britney Spears barbs such as "Lick My Baby Back Behind" and "Oops! I'm Pregnant Again". Lots of surprises here!http://go.to/funpic/
As Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki said, the first step in any start-up is to print the T-shirt. At Cafe Press, that first step couldn't be easier. Upload your design using their simple formats and you can have custom shirts, mousepads, coffee cups and other cool custom swag ASAP. To sell them online, you only need to direct customers to your customized Cafe Press page. You put up no cash - Cafe Press makes its money on mark-up. Prices are good, quality is excellent, and they automatically send you a check for your profits.
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/index.aspx
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
The site is pretty much self-explanatory and, it must be said, refreshingly candid. PayPal accepted.http://www.buymeahooker.com/
This isn't just any old Flash bowling game, this is an official Brunswick bowling game. All variables apply: lane conditions, spin, power, placement, and, of course, your choice of Brunswick bowling ball. High scores are tracked. Maybe you can start a league?
http://www.brunswickbowling.com/html/game.html
When someone realized that MadLibs used the same concept as the guestbook CGI, MadLibs clones sprung up all over the Net. eLibs is one that lets visitors create texts, although from the quality we see, we'd guess the average author is age 12. It's a sign of decline that a participle is designated on the form as "Verb Ing".
http://www.elibs.com/
SOFTWARE
XHTML 2.0 Specification Working Draft Released
The World Wide Web Consortium has released the draft for the next generation of HTML standard. Web developers get an early peek at what is likely to become the standard for creating Web documents in the future. The new specification is "intended for rich, portable web-based applications" and is not meant to be backwards-compatible with its ancestors, HTML and XHTML. The big concept here is modularity, and there's also a bit of fiddling with your favorite HTML tags.http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/
X3D Draft: Successor to VRML 3-D Programming Language
The Web3D Consortium has released a draft of Extensible 3D (X3D) standard and an accompanying software development kit. The standard is supposed to succeed VRML, the once promising standard for building 3-D worlds on the Web that never really took off. The new standard hopes to provide some advantages in compact 3-D representation. It's firmly based on XML, is very modular, and is friendly to embedded devices and broadcast technologies.Standard: http://www.web3d.org/x3d/
Development Kit: http://sdk.web3d.org/