NETSURFER DIGEST
More Signal, Less Noise
Volume 08, Issue 39
Thursday, October 03, 2002

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In Association with Amazon.com
BREAKING SURF
MIT Launches Widely Anticipated OpenCourseWare Site
The Next Wave of AIDS: An Intelligence Assessment
Fritz's Hit List
UCSD Bans Link to Terrorist Web Site
Brain/Motor Interface Research Hopes to Overcome Paralysis
File-Sharing Software Steals Online Commissions
The Death of Metatags
Washington Post Tries to Swat Gadfly
Court Rules the Web Is On-Campus
Online Dating Databases Growing
Surfin' the Day Away
Is Microsoft Ignoring Chinese Software Piracy?
NSF Sponsors New Advanced P2P Architecture Research
High-Tech Prophets
Halloween Is on the Horizon!
ONLINE CULTURE
The Kinky Netropolis
Netsurfer Recommendations
SURFING SITES
Diet and Fitness Gauging Aid
Ethics in America - PBS Takes a Look
A Tale of Two Ashcrofts
Quick Hits of Brit History
Babelfish Games of the 19th Century
Demographics and the Global Future
The Official and Ultimate Ninja Web page
Car Crashes of the Rich, but Not Necessarily Famous
Country Livin'
A Museum of Fads
"American Idol"? American Slave!
Olde-Tyme BBS User Directory
Ten New Card Games
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
What's Your Pirate Name?
Ladies of Liberty
Hide and Go Type
Typefaces Categorized
SOFTWARE
Red Hat Linux 8.0 Released
OTHER LINKS
BOOK REVIEWS
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Contact and Subscription Information
Credits


BREAKING SURF

MIT Launches Widely Anticipated OpenCourseWare Site

MIT has unveiled the initial phase of an ambitious project to put many of its educational materials online. Over the next five years, the university plans to publish course and curriculum notes for around 2,000 classes. The project has loftier goals than merely to make a world-famous curriculum available to netsurfers. It also aims to develop best practices for publishing such teaching materials online. The initial version of the project includes representative course materials from all five of MIT's schools, mostly in PDF format. Make no mistake - this is not just another batch of course materials online. It's an important Internet initiative by one of the most respected educational institutions on the planet and worth your attention, especially if you have any interest in science and engineering. We highly recommend it.
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

The Next Wave of AIDS: An Intelligence Assessment

A scientific advisory group to the CIA has produced a report about the impact of AIDS in five countries which are strategically important to the United States. The National Intelligence Council (NIC) report focuses on Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, India, and China. These countries are still in early to mid stages of an AIDS epidemic and their governments have not yet seriously addressed the issue. Together, they represent about 40% of the world's population. Not surprisingly, the report concludes that the evolving epidemics and the difficulties that governments will encounter as they try to deal with them will have significant economic, social, political, and even military implications. The NIC site also has numerous other detailed publications about similar global strategic issues.
Report: http://tinyurl.com/1r5e
NIC: http://www.cia.gov/nic/index.htm

Fritz's Hit List

South Carolina Senator Fritz Hollings is the frontman for Hollywood in an attempt to pass a law which would require anti-copying technology on a wide array of electronic products. Just how wide is apparent at this blog, which lists things such as baby monitors, navigation systems, Barbie toys, AIBO-like toy robots, and even those annoying wall-mounted talking fish. All would have to include such anti-tampering technology. The blog is the brainchild of Princeton professor Edward Felten, who's had his own run-ins with anti-tampering laws (search NSD for our extensive coverage of Felten). Felten's headline for the blog says it all about his and many other people's opposition to such laws: "Freedom To Tinker... is your freedom to understand, discuss, repair, and modify the technological devices you own."
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/cat_fritzs_hit_list.html

UCSD Bans Link to Terrorist Web Site

It's against the law these days to provide support to terrorist organizations, thanks to the USA PATRIOT Act. Seems that word hasn't seeped down yet to the Che Cafe Collective, a student organization whose Web site contains a link to The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, one of 34 terrorist organizations named by the US State Department. Officials at University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have told the student group to remove the link immediately or face disciplinary action. So far, the student group, which promotes "radical social change", is defying the administration. Last April, UCSD forced another student organization to remove a link to the Kurdistan Workers Party, which is also on the State Department's prohibited list. It also ordered members of the offending group to write an essay acknowledging that they broke the law and promising not to do so again. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education scoffs at the UCSD's interpretation of the USA PATRIOT Act and says it threatens freedom of speech. CNET has more.
Che Cafe: http://checafe.ucsd.edu/
CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-959544.html

Brain/Motor Interface Research Hopes to Overcome Paralysis

Nearly every move we make is triggered by neurons firing in the brain. For those with spinal cord injuries, most of that neuronal activity leads nowhere, cut off before it can reach its intended target muscle. Current research on brain/motor interfaces, however, promises to overcome the injury barrier with a wireless connection between the brain and wheel chair, prosthesis, or even natural limbs. Scientific American reviews the research that today holds out that promise. This exciting interdisciplinary work unites robotics, computer science, neuroscience, and electronics. Research has progressed from early experiments with rats to macaque monkeys, from stiff, implanted electrodes that soon stopped working to flexible electrode arrays that continue to work fine a year after implantation. Despite recent progress, however, the authors caution that the first practical application of a neuroprosthetic device could be a decade or more away, and it probably won't help stroke victims or others with extensive brain damage. Still, for all the caveats, there seems little doubt that serious spine or limb injuries may one day be less disabling than they are today.
http://tinyurl.com/1rc8

File-Sharing Software Steals Online Commissions

Do you use a file-sharing program such as Morpheus, Kazaa or Limewire? If so, you're probably hurting small Web sites that try to bring in a few pennies with the commissions paid by affiliate programs, such as that run by Amazon.com. As part of several file-sharing apps' installation processes, users are asked to participate in a software affiliate program. When you agree, the affiliate commissions from all your relevant online purchases will be redirected to the makers of the file-sharing software instead of to the Web sites that may have referred you to the products. Sites that rely on affiliate commissions are being hurt and they are losing money. Software manufacturers are supposedly rewriting their code to stop this problem, but the new code won't help unless it is installed - and a cash cow is difficult to kill. Amazon.com has stopped payments to Morpheus, but it's not clear how much money affiliates have lost. This New York Times article is a fine discussion of the problem and potential solutions. CNET presents a look at how online merchants are starting to fight back.
Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/27/technology/27FREE.html
CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1017-960214.html

The Death of Metatags

Looks like the HTML metatag is officially dead. The typical metatag is a bit of non-rendered HTML code on a Web page that contains keywords and/or a short synopsis of the page contents. Metatags have several uses, including functions such as identifying character encoding, but one is by far the most common. Originally, search engines were to read metatags to produce more relevant search rankings, but of course it didn't work out that way. People began to plant false content in their metatags so that their Web pages would rank higher in search rankings, particularly in the porn industry. At present, only the Inktomi search engine bothers to look at metatags as part of its ranking algorithms. The top engine, Google, certainly ignores them. Two editors of search engine watch sites eagerly serve as pallbearers at the metatag funeral. Andrew Goodman, editor of Traffick, makes the case for not bothering with metatags. Danny Sullivan, of Search Engine Watch, takes off from there and adds his own thoughts. RIP, metatags.
Goodman: http://www.traffick.com/article.asp?aID=102
Sullivan: http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/10-meta.html

Washington Post Tries to Swat Gadfly

Bill Purdy, an anti-abortion activist, registered the WPNI.org domain, uncomfortably close to the Washington Post-Newsweek domain of WPNI.com. Not content with that, Purdy has allegedly telephoned Post employees to read e-mail meant for them that he had inadvertently received. The Washington Post is none too happy about this, and has demanded that Purdy remand the domain to them, arguing trademark violations. It also dubiously notes that Purdy has violated an existing court order that forbids him from registering any domain name similar to WashingtonPost.com. Purdy has been subject to litigation for such matters in the past. The Post also accuses him of transgressing the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which holds that except under very limited circumstances, deliberate or attempted interception of electronic communications violates federal law. The chances of prevailing on the latter argument are seen as slim by legal eagles. This is a potent argument for registering several variations of one's corporate identity. It may cost $15 per domain more each year, and it's a pain, but it's cheaper than lawyers. We point you to CNET.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-959992.html

Court Rules the Web Is On-Campus

It used to be that you could only badmouth your teachers in the restroom, the lunchroom, and out of school. Today you can do it online - at times, at a price. As the decision in this Pennsylvania case makes clear, students do not have a right to post Web pages that denigrate a teacher because such speech is not protected. In this case, Bethlehem, Penn. officials in 1998 expelled a student after discovering his Web site, which among other things called for donations to hire a hit man to assassinate an algebra teacher. Clearly the site was in bad taste, but did it merit expulsion? This fascinating piece at Law.com shows how the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that cyberspace could be considered part of the school's campus. With increasingly tech-literate kids, cases like this grow in importance.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1032128621859

Online Dating Databases Growing

Part of an MSNBC series on online dating, "Video, voice and instant gratification" gives an intriguing look into the future of dating. The popularity of using the Net to find a date is already high, and the willingness of users to pay is fueling efforts to make the experience more spontaneous and vivid. Short Message Service (SMS) - text messaging using cell phones - is already popular in Europe and is spreading to the US. Users like SMS because its mobility allows more spontaneity and instant flirting than does the relative anchor of a desktop computer. SMS is just the first step in a future that some think will expand online dating so much that it becomes the preferred way to meet someone, whether for dating or friendship. Looming on the horizon are online video and voice (for those too stupid to use a phone, apparently), which will allow users to better grasp whether there's enough initial chemistry to try for a meeting. Long before two prospective partners will meet face to face, the ice will have been well and truly broken. The variety of ways companies are trying to provide meaningful experiences is dazzling. Chance encounters offline may still work for some of us, but many folk find the online variety far more effective and certain.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/809820.asp

Surfin' the Day Away

If you aren't a Web addict, you probably know someone who is, if a new survey is accurate. It reports that the average worker spends more than an entire workday each week surfing sites that have nothing to do with work. You might assume that most of that time would be devoted to surreptitious porn binges. You'd be wrong. Shopping sites draw the most attention, followed by news, and then by porn. This stands to reason - many companies block access to porn sites from employee desktops, but only 4% block news sites. Apparently, managers figure employees may be likely to access porn, but are unlikely to access news, shopping, or gambling sites while on the job. You always suspected they were clueless. You can view the press release on a Web page and the whole report as a PDF.
Press release: http://www.websense.com/company/news/pr/02/082102.cfm
Report: http://www.websense.com/company/news/research/webatwork2002.pdf

Is Microsoft Ignoring Chinese Software Piracy?

What if piracy benefits rather than costs software makers? Take the case of Microsoft in China, please. China has the second highest rate of software piracy in the world, and Microsoft is a common victim. Nevertheless, recent deals and statements seem to indicate that Microsoft is turning a blind eye to Chinese piracy. Why? One theory says that computers that are colonized by Windows, even illegal copies of Windows, won't be running competing open-source operating systems. Piracy becomes Microsoft's strategy to deprive competitors of precious screen space. Whether or not this network effects argument will work remains to be seen. Although Microsoft won't comment on this aspect of its China strategy, Salon.com has a rather persuasive piece arguing just this point.
http://salon.com/tech/feature/2002/09/26/piracy_unlimited/index.html

NSF Sponsors New Advanced P2P Architecture Research

MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science has received a $12 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a new secure and even more decentralized Internet infrastructure. The Infrastructure for Resilient Internet Systems (IRIS) project will focus on peer-to-peer (P2P) network architectures based on what is termed distributed hash table (DHT) technologies. DHT-based peering architectures exhibit improved performance and security, factors that address some problems with the current Internet such as distributed attacks and inefficient P2P content searches. As a side effect of such research, this new network architecture will probably exhibit greater resistance to censorship. The proposal has extensive technical details and is well worth reading by anybody interested in cutting-edge P2P work.
IRIS: http://iris.lcs.mit.edu/
Proposal: http://iris.lcs.mit.edu/proposal.html

High-Tech Prophets

Predictions are generally as accurate as flipping a coin. Here, two of a half-dozen top tech gurus note that they expected people to be doing most of their computer interactions by simply talking to them, and it should have started several years ago. Each of the many more than a half-dozen prognosticators at this Dow Jones report has an admitted failure, and each a success story - and each offers a new prediction for the future. This is a short article, an easy read, and well worth the two minutes it will take you to check out.
http://sg.biz.yahoo.com/020927/72/337su.html

Halloween Is on the Horizon!

As September fades into miserable autumn (actually, we're still wearing shorts, even in Canada) in the lands that do that Halloween thing (that means no whining about the season reference, Aussies), we're fond of (and apt to use) far too many parenthetical remarks. But that is only because we are distracted by the stealthy approach of Halloween, which often sneaks up and slits our throats with a remarkable dearth of novel and deserving Halloween Web sites. So, like the seasons, we turn to our two dozen readers and ask, should they know of any decent Halloween sites, that they relay the URLs to us at our pressrm@netsurf.com address. Boo!

ONLINE CULTURE

The Kinky Netropolis

An article in MSNBC illustrates how matchmaking sites strive to mine revenue by catering to every conceivable sexual niche. In any large enough pool of humans, there is bound to be a reasonably sized group with some specific fetish - and there is reasonable money to be made from trying to hook such people up. Sites such as Adultfriendfinder.com, Alt.com, Fetishnetwork.com, and Cruisingforsex.com cater to just such niche markets and apparently are quite lucrative. The article is full of references to Web sites of interest to the alternative sex crowd. Another phenomenon, noted in a Wired piece, is the steady increase in the incidence of explicit porn spam. It's no longer the naughty schoolgirls who want your attention. These days, it's just as likely to be a woman catering to the needs of man's best friend. Not surprisingly the material has aroused the ire of everybody from psychologists to animal rights activists, all of whom worry about the desensitizing effect of such easily available material - and who ignore the fact that it's been widely available online for at least 20 years, since the days of the BBS.
MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com/news/809823.asp
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,55420,00.html


Netsurfer Recommendations

Items our staff likes and you might too. Click on the image or title to order at a hefty discount from our affiliate Amazon.com, and send a few pennies our way as well.

The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women & the Artists They Inspired
Francine Prose
HarperCollins; ISBN: 0060196726

The ancient Greeks believed that nine muses (quick, can you name them all?) inspired those who excelled in the arts and sciences. Taking as her inspiration those mythical women, Francine Prose gives us the lives of nine real women who inspired real artists from Dante to Lennon. This is not a book with a point as such. It is rather an exploration, a probe of what it means to be a muse and of the rewards and pitfalls such a position visited on those women. Human lives are seldom boring. Human lives touched by and influencing great art never are.


Hold the Enlightenment: More Travel, Less Bliss
Tim Cahill
Villard Books; ISBN: 0375507663

Fans of Tim Cahill need no introduction to this collection of travel writing essays. Cahill is a regular travel columnist for Outside Magazine, well known as a refuge for some of the best modern travel writers around. Cahill, by virtue of his beat, is surely one of the most widely traveled people on the planet. He also happens to have a great sense of humor, which makes reading his various travel adventures so much fun. If you've never sampled Cahill, you can't go wrong picking up this book or just about any of his other collections such as " Pecked to Death by Ducks", " Pass the Butterworms", " A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg", or the classic " Road Fever".


A Hard Day's Night
Richard Lester (Director), The Beatles (Starring)
Miramax Entertainment

The first Beatles movie was never expected to be more than a quickie exploitation flick that would cash in on the Fab Four's popularity. To everybody's great surprise, it wound up a big hit - not only of the moment, but one that has stood the test of time as a fun and occasionally delightfully wacky movie. In the movie, we meet the Beatles at the height of their early popularity and sample their engaging personalities when they're not running from fans in what is essentially a chase music video. It's not hard to understand why the DVD re-release is a bestseller out of the gate. "A Hard Day's Night" doesn't just have the Beatles phenomenon pushing it; it's an excellent work of cinema that influenced filmmaking (hand-held cameras), television (viz " The Monkees"), and every high-energy music video made thereafter.


The American Fantasy Tradition
Brian M. Thomsen (Editor)
Tor Books; ISBN: 0765301520

It's not hard to discern the flavor of fantasy from the UK (Tolkien) or Latin America (Borges), but what American works and authors evoke the tradition in that country? Brian Thomsen here assembles a collection of short stories by authors who may make up the literary canon of American fantasy. Thomsen divides the subject into three rough categories: "The American Tale: Folk, Tall, and Weird" explores fables and legends; "Fantastic Americana" is set in the American historical landscape; and "Lands of Enchantment in Everyday Life" focuses on worlds that exist beyond and perhaps adjacent to our own. Fans of literature will enjoy this collection of works by fantasy giants like Hawthorne, Poe, Baum, Twain, Lovecraft, King, Le Guin, and others.




For more selections, check out the Netsurfer Library at http://www.netsurf.com/nsl/

SURFING SITES

Diet and Fitness Gauging Aid

If, like most, you struggle to understand how one day you suddenly can't fit into your favorite outfit, this site is for you. After free registration, you can log and store records of your daily diet and activities (your job plus any exercise no matter how small). The site will let you know how you're doing in terms of meeting nutritional, exercise, and weight goals. You can track your long-term diet and fitness progress with clear graphical reports. This site won't make you lose weight, but seeing in black and white or on an incriminating pie-chart how your favorite treat adds up to 20% of your daily calorie intake does help to focus the mind. The site also offers a journal for self-motivating pep talks, a graph of recommended weight to height ratios, and articles about living healthily. One error we found was that the weight graph doesn't allow for being underweight.
http://www.fitday.com/

Ethics in America - PBS Takes a Look

Scandals associated with Enron and other corporations have brought ethics and values to the forefront of the news. It seems perfect timing for Endgame: Ethics and Values in America, the interactive online companion to the PBS special of the same name that aired in September. The show aimed to show how people make right and wrong decisions, with three elements of broadcast - news, drama, and live TV - and interactivity on the Net. A short original film, "A Fork in the Road", set the scene: A model high-school teacher, Julia, and a former student of hers, Alison, drive home after an awards ceremony, and a moment's inattention on Julia's part seems to cause an auto accident that kills another driver. Should they report the accident to police and thereby risk a scandal that would threaten Julia's new charitable foundation for needy students? Viewers could go online and answer questions about this moral dilemma, as well as "interview" Julia and Alison. Poll results triggered discussion by a panel of experts, a live audience, and Web-enabled home viewers. We regret we didn't watch the show, which the Web site documents with interviews, background, and poll results from the show and ongoing poll results from the Web. Some teachers might be able to use the Web site as a lesson tool. With its innovative programming and integration of media in this project, PBS and its co-producers may well have set a standard for ethical debates and talk programs.
http://www.pbs.org/endgame/

A Tale of Two Ashcrofts

Need further proof that politicians are duplicitous flipfloppers? If so, check out this article, written in 1997 by then-Senator John Ashcroft, entitled "Keep Big Brother's Hands Off the Internet", which finds the current attorney general opposing those who would use the Internet as a tool to spy on others through the interception of online communications and the use of decryption technology. In hindsight, it's a captivating read, with almost every other paragraph directly contradicting the actions of the John Ashcroft of 2002. Admittedly, things have changed a bit in the five years since, but when Ashcroft mentions that "the state's interest in effective crime-fighting should never vitiate the citizens' Bill of Rights" you get the funny feeling that maybe he should heed his own admonition. Curiously, the document seems to have disappeared from the US State Department Web site, but Google has it cached.
http://tinyurl.com/1rec

Quick Hits of Brit History

There you are, deep in a historical novel set in 18th-century Great Britain, when you find yourself needing to know a bit more about the period's prime minister. Brittania's History Quicklist is an excellent reference in which you can find brief overviews of England's prime ministers, as well as many other historical briefs. The thorough coverage includes narrative histories, biographies, country houses, maps, monarchs, and much more. You can read selections from original historical sources as well as many articles written specifically for Brittania. The articles aim for the casual reader, and range from short to moderate length. Most material is reliably hosted on the site, although a few areas reference external sites, some of which we had trouble accessing. Navigation through so much material can be a little tortuous, so bookmark pages you want to come back to. We particularly liked the article "Dartmoor of the Baskervilles", discussing the historical basis for Doyle's "Hound of the Baskervilles".
http://britannia.com/history/quickhistlist.html

Babelfish Games of the 19th Century

When you translate something using only a dictionary, it turns out badly enough, but imagine if you translated your Portuguese homework into English by using a Portugese to French dictionary and then a French to English dictionary. That's just what Jose da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino did in 1855, and they published their results for the world to see in "English as She is Spoke". Twenty-first-century man Mark Rosenfelder wondered if we're any better off today with our modern translation tools. He pitted "English as She is Spoke" against AltVista's Babelfish translation engine. As you might expect, the results are hilarious.
http://www.zompist.com/spoke.html

Demographics and the Global Future

The Economist took a long hard look at the 2000 US census data, compared it to other countries and Europe in particular, and analyzed what it might mean to the global economy. You might think there are a lot of rich, capitalist Americans now, but there are going to be a lot more flooding the market soon. While the median age of Europeans is rising rapidly, the US's is holding pretty steady, partly because of an increasing population of young Latinos. We're not entirely sure who came up with the headlines for the figures, but we're pretty sure it was a Pop-Up Video employee masquerading as an editor for the Economist. The predictions make for an interesting read.
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1291056

The Official and Ultimate Ninja Web page

There is a school of thought that says the ninjas were warriors skilled in the ninjitsu arts of stealth and espionage, who were deployed by Japanese feudal lords, and whose heyday was in the Kamakura period (1192-1333). In his Official Ninja Webpage, teenage ninja fanboy Robert Hamburger presents an alternative history starting from 450,000,000 BCE, when ninjas discovered flipping out and thus God granted them dominion over everything that is totally sweet, to the present day as they flip out, cut off heads, whale on guitars, pork hot babes, and pop six-foot boners. Hamburger's views are by no means uncontroversial, as the X-rated hate-mail he posts on-site shows, but he rounds on his detractors, pointing out that they have probably never seen a girl naked, and ought to get a life. Grudgingly, we have to concede that some of the claims made on the site are factually and historically suspect, but there is one thing for sure: with its ninja movie scripts, hilarious PumpUp sections, and photographic ninja sightings, this site is awesome.
http://www.realultimatepower.net/

Car Crashes of the Rich, but Not Necessarily Famous

There's only one thing more grimly compelling than a car wreck, and that's a car wreck involving a top-of-the-line car that costs more than your home. Wrecked Exotics enables you to indulge in some guilty rubbernecking online, with hundreds of photographs of all your favorite luxury cars totally totaled. The 580-horsepower V-12 engine of the Lamborghini Murcielago may deliver a blistering top speed of 205 mph, but see this $273,000 beauty struggle to hit 1 mph as its battered husk is winched onto the back of a truck. The $810,000 McLaren does 0-60 mph in just 3.2 seconds, but the photographic evidence on display here would seem to suggest that it does 60-0 mph in even less time if you put a brick wall in its path. If you wonder what sort of idiot it takes to trash these cars then have a look at some of the posts on the lively un-moderated message board. Schadenfreude has never been such fun.
http://www.wreckedexotics.com/

Country Livin'

You know how to make butter and sharpen mower blades. Can you put a new handle on an axe? How far apart should you plant cherry trees? Who cares? You'd probably care if you lived off the land, especially as a do-it-yourselfer. Kountry Life is a large informational community site with zillions of tips on how to maintain and improve life in the country. City slickers may hoot at the How-To menu of tips such as Emergency Shoe-Lace Repair, Making a Chick Brooder from a Kiddie Pool, and How to Fix a Runaway Alladin Lamp - but even they should know how to deskunk a dog or season a cast-iron skillet. If pasteurizing milk is not your cup of tea, you still might enjoy the rest of the site, like the Kitchen or Gardening channels. It's hard to pass up the Country Humor section. Some of the jokes here are lame but may be funny to folks so tired from driving fenceposts they'll laugh at corn. If you're in the right mood, though, you'll find a certain charm or bite to them. (For example, our Midwestern reviewer likes "The Australian and the Texan.") If none of these downhome features hold appeal, check out the Memory Lane bulletin board to get a whiff of reality in the sticks.
http://www.kountrylife.com/contents.htm

A Museum of Fads

Return to the days of your youth, when pet rocks, hot pants, and model trains were all the rage. This site is a nostalgic and informative look at the world of fads. Whether you wish a fad had stayed or that it never return, you're bound to find something memorable here. Browse the fashion gallery for a look at some of Jackie O's vogue legacies, or take a tour in the events section and reminisce about the days of panty raids. Scour the collectibles pages and discover trinkets and treasures long since lost. We guarantee you'll find something from your youth, something that'll make you ask, "What the heck was I thinking?" The good news is you weren't the only one thinking it. From invention to extinction, detailed history guides you through the rise and fall of each fad, each proof that a good salesperson can sell anything. Just ask Gary Dahl, creator of the pet rock. With over 5 million sold, Dahl turned a garden staple into a personal fortune.
http://www.badfads.com/home.html

"American Idol"? American Slave!

Salon reports on the almost Faustian pact finalists of this summers TV talent show "American Idol" had to sign. In exchange for a shot at fame, young hopefuls had to sign away - well, just about everything but their eternal souls. Each contestant is invited to sign a contract that grants the show's producers unconditional rights in perpetuity to anything and everything recorded of the contestant in connection with the show, and allows the producers to use the contestant's likeness, voice, and any other biographical material in any way they see fit - even if it is private, embarrassing, defamatory, or untrue. Any and all information disclosed to or obtained by the contestant concerning the show is confidential, and if a contestant reveals any of it, a $5-million penalty clause kicks in. The final ten contestants were tied into an all-embracing recording/management/merchandising contract with UK production company 19 Group. Some of the contracts' juicier fine print is reproduced in the Salon article, but we have to ask why it takes a lawyer 700 words to say "Your ass is ours?"
http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/09/18/idol_contract/index.html

Olde-Tyme BBS User Directory

All sorts of directories help you find old college roommates or high-school buddies, but very few focus on people who met each other online and have lost touch, which is sure to be a growing industry over the next few years. BBSMates lets users search a list of 75,000 bulletin board systems that existed from the 1980s to the present. There aren't too many listings now (for example, the site lists only 157 females altogether, so perhaps a few dozen are still missing), but it's sure to become a more valuable resource as time passes. A useful addition would be an area code tracker that could suggest area codes to search in case a board might be listed under an area code that has changed since the BBS heyday.
http://www.bbsmates.com/

Ten New Card Games

Get out the poker chips and a deck of cards, there's a new game in town - actually, there are ten new card games in town. Games can be played by from two to eight players. Created by Gregory Robinson, these games are long overdue in the world of card playing. Some resemble poker or blackjack, but you can also try your hand at He Shoots, He Scores!, a card game based on hockey, in which the best offensive and defensive lines scores goals. We'll stick with Strat-O-Matic. There's also a game for the kids called Runs Out that combines easy arithmetic with a simple objective: get rid of all your cards first. If you're looking for a game with more strategy, try Tuxedo. In this game, runs of the same suit score you points. Win by creating a run of four from every suit in the deck. If you like card playing, this site is a must destination.
http://www.10cardgames.com/

FLOTSAM & JETSAM

What's Your Pirate Name?

Ours is either Iron Roger Kidd or Captain Prudentilla Cash, depending on which gender Netsurfer is this week. Occasionally we're Dirty Harry Rackham, but only if we don't bathe much and brandish a large cannon.
http://www.fidius.org/quiz/pirate.php

Ladies of Liberty

Their turn-ons are long walks on the beach, candlelit dinners, and free-market economies. They can be found on a calendar in Vargas-esque poses, raising funds for several female Libertarian Party candidates. Now, if we put this kind of art on the ballot, it would do wonders for voter turnout.
http://rachelmills.com/calendar.html

Hide and Go Type

Ever make a graphic with a specific font and then forget the one you used? Have no fear, Identifont is here! Play 20 questions with it and it'll try to figure out the font you're looking for from its type libraries.
http://www.identifont.com/

Typefaces Categorized

Looking for just the right typeface for that project? Trying to match a typeface? Fontscape is huge directory with hundreds of fonts organized into very finely graded categories, such as "Simulation Fonts: Pen handwriting: Formal: Copperplate." Links to purchase are included as well, although Fontscape itself is not an e-commerce site. Every designer should bookmark this.
http://www.fontscape.com/

SOFTWARE

Red Hat Linux 8.0 Released

Red Hat has released its latest Linux CD compilation, but not without some controversy. Red Hat is touting the new user-friendly interface, which involved making some look-and-feel changes to the two dominant Linux user-interface frameworks, Gnome and KDE. The changes apparently do not sit well with independent KDE developers who are upset that Red Hat has been messing with their work. The Linux community is split over the issue - some applaud the move towards uniting the interfaces. In any event, Linux users will be interested in this release, with the latest and greatest software, OS News has an early review of the package, aimed mostly at technically sophisticated users.
Red Hat: http://redhat.com/mktg/rhl8/
OS News: http://osnews.com/story.php?news_id=1842

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Publisher: Arthur Bebak
Editor: Lawrence Nyveen
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Writers and Netsurfers:
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