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BREAKING SURF
DARPA Cancels OpenBSD Grant after Project Leader's Anti-War Statements
The OpenBSD project is widely acknowledged as maintaining a model secure operating system and the US government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) used to fund it. Shortly after project leader Theo de Raadt made anti-war statements to the press, the University of Pennsylvania, which administered the grant, informed him that DARPA had cancelled the funding. De Raadt claims the cancellation came in retaliation for his political views, but the university denies that. DARPA puts a different spin on its decision, and says it cancelled the project after a routine review (one that had not been scheduled before de Raadt's comments) due to "evolving threat posed by increasingly capable nation-states". The sudden lack of funds also led to the cancellation of a programmers' brainstorming convention, and a DARPA spokesman said that the funding cut was aimed directly at stopping that meeting. Putting the pieces together, it seems that DARPA is trying to block security testing and brainstorming on OpenBSD for fear the information would leak to "increasingly capable nation-states". The Daily Pennsylvanian has the story and OpenBSD Journal has the discussion. Daily Pennsylvanian:http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/23/3ea643207f30d
OpenBSD Journal: http://64.90.164.50/article.php3?sid=20030422123107
Mosaic, the first popularly known Web browser, was released Apr. 22, 1993. Developed by some folks at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Mosaic fundamentally changed access to Internet content. The spinoffs from this technology include the instant messaging clients and media players that so many take for granted today. And new tools continue to show up. The message to browser providers seems to be: just make a small, fast browser. We don't need bloatware. Give us something quick and easy, and we'll be happy. Do we need an e-mail client built into the browser? No. We like choices. Instant messaging? Usenet readers? Why don't you just give us a bare-bones browser, and let us plug in the latest and greatest apps as we choose them? Interactivity. What a concept. Happy tenth anniversary, browser. CNET has a series on your history.
http://news.com.com/2009-1032-995679.html
Cisco and "Lawful Interception" of Internet Communications
Declan McCullagh's CNET column this week talks about a recently published document from Cisco that details the "lawful interception" capabilities it plans to implement in its equipment. Cisco makes the vast majority of the industrial-strength routers that move data around the Internet. The article includes an interview with Fred Baker, a Cisco fellow and former chairman of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) who worked on the proposal. Ironically, Baker was IETF chairman when the organization voted against creating standards that would enable such intercepts. Oddly, McCullagh does not include a link to the original Cisco report. In response to the article, Paul Wouters, "a concerned Dutch citizen", weighs in with an informative post about the Internet wiretapping situation in the Netherlands, which is apparently "far ahead" of the US on this issue.CNET: http://news.com.com/2010-1071-997528.html
Wouters: http://www.politechbot.com/p-04673.html
Beating the Spyware Infestation
Who knows what ugly slime lurks beneath your Windows desktop, what nasty vermin swim in the dark depths of your hard drive? PC Magazine knows. Hey, if you like pop-up ads, don't mind allowing companies to trace your browsing habits, and can put up with a Trojan horse or two, you might not want to read this. Otherwise, listen up. Your computer has probably collected a variety of surreptitious spyware applications. Some are drive-by downloads, apps you unknowingly download just by visiting a site or clicking on an ad. Others accompany file-sharing or other programs. Most of these apps "merely" track cookies rather than function as true spyware, which can do stuff like record your key strokes, or as Trojan horses, which let others take over control of your computer. These infestations raise not only the issue of privacy, but also the question of performance - too many of these lurking unwanteds can make your machine sluggish and unresponsive, and it's really tiresome to click away pop-up ads for pop-up ad cures while you're playing Minesweeper. PC Magazine reviewed nine software packages that claim to identify and remove spyware. It ranks Spybot Search & Destroy shareware as the best of the bunch. Our own reviewer put the software to work on his computer and was pleasantly stunned by the results. The PC Magazine piece provides details of the problem and info about the test procedures used. It's must reading.PC Magazine: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,978170,00.asp
Spybot: http://spybot.safer-networking.de/index.php
Grub: LookSmart's Distributed Web-Crawling Project
Consider the world's most popular search engine, Google. A huge and expensive bank of machines centrally located in Silicon Valley crawl the Web and compile the Google search index. LookSmart thinks it has a better way to index the Web - harness the spare cycles and bandwidth of a large number of volunteer machines. This week, LookSmart released a distributed client/screensaver called Grub. While your machine is idle, Grub ventures forth to crawl the Web, indexing it and forwarding the results to LookSmart, where they are incorporated into LookSmart's Wisenut search engine. The main advantage this approach would have over a centralized effort like Google is that, with enough volunteers, it can index the whole Web every day, whereas Google manages to look at an estimated one-third of the Web every month. At press time, Grub had 2,112 clients running, crawling 88,718,861 URLs in the last 24 hours. Wired has a story. Also at press time Grub was also causing some uproar because its client does not correctly read the robot exclusion files on websites thus causing lot's of web traffic where there should not be any.Grub: http://www.grub.org/
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,58497,00.html
Invisiblog: Anonymous Weblog Publishing
It's not hard to be slightly anonymous when publishing a blog, but in most cases your blog host or ISP will know who you are. Invisiblog seeks to change all that, and may give dissidents and whistleblowers a way to publish their stories without risking discovery. The free anonymous blog hosting service is based on two stable, well tested technologies: PGP public encryption and the Mixmaster network of anonymous remailers. Even the Invisiblog hosts themselves are unable to find out who you are. There are some disclaimers, however. The content may be removed in response to court orders, you can't modify or delete your posts after the fact, some reporting functions like statistics are public, and you have to take precautions to keep your traffic to Invisiblog anonymous. If this works, the project will turn into a commercial venture.http://invisiblog.com/
Is everyone you know online or do you have friends and family who just won't join in your love of the Net? If the latter, you're not alone. A new Pew Internet Project survey notes that 42% of American adults are not online, but the noteworthy bit is that 20% of those people have ready access to the Net if they want it. Many people stay unwired because they can't afford to go online, but others are kept offline by technical problems they don't bother to solve, or have solved. If you want to understand what the digital divide truly is, read the Pew survey and a Wired article that summarizes the findings.
Pew: http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=88
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,58498,00.html
People are dumb. That's the only sane conclusion you can reach from this Register story about the willingness of office workers to tell strangers their passwords. "Want to know how to get into my computer? Here you go." This survey, run by the folks behind the Infosecurity Europe 2003 conference, doesn't rate as Nobel class, but it does highlight an appalling lack of security smarts and ethics among office workers. Pollsters asked people a series of questions, including some meant to prompt an answer of a computer password. Men are a tad more likely to reveal it than women, but both sexes do so with alarming ease. The most common password was "password" (still), followed by the person's first name. Another discouraging finding is that most interviewees claimed they would peek if they came across confidential salary information, and some said they would take the confidential information with them when changing jobs. As for the story about a CEO's response when asked for his computer password... - well, it's just plain mind-boggling.
Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/30324.html
Infosecurity Europe: http://www.infosec.co.uk/
BBC Reporters' Final Thoughts on Gulf War II
The personal comments of British reporters who have been covering Gulf War II from that region paint a different picture than the one they've shown you thus far. Now that the war has wound down, BBC reporters have put down some final thoughts - not on the war but on reporting the war. Given somewhat more rope in these opinion pieces than they have as reporters, the folks commenting shine a little light backstage. One states that religious and nationalist vehemence has taken Washington and London by surprise. Another notes that while the Central Command briefings were sterile, the reports coming in from embedded counterparts actually gave a good feel for what was going on. A third clearly feels that US Marines liberated not only Iraq, but also correspondents based in the country. One of the more interesting elements to discover is that some reporters were privy to the invasion plan days in advance, and had to wrestle with their training: how much information should be released and when?http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/2003/reporters_log/
Iraq's Looted Cultural Treasures
Some of the most depressing stories to come out of postwar Baghdad were of the looting of museums and the dispersal and destruction of Iraq's cultural heritage. The 2003 Iraq War & Archaeology site attempts to provide a single destination where visitors can begin to understand the nature and character of the loss and the effort to find the missing antiquities. Perhaps the Web might help prevent individuals from profiting from this tragic loss.http://cctr.umkc.edu/user/fdeblauwe/iraq.html
Prelim Recommendations of Columbia Accident Investigation Board
Although as yet there is no official word about the cause of the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia, the preliminary recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), released Apr. 17, indicate that the investigation plans to blame damage to the orbiter's left wing for the catastrophic failure of the shuttle. CAIB has concluded that present methods of inspection aren't sufficient to assess the structural integrity of reinforced carbon-carbon system components. To overcome this deficiency, it recommends that NASA develop better non-destructive testing methods. The board also recommends that NASA modify its agreement with the National Imagery and Mapping Agency to include in-orbit imaging as a standard requirement for each shuttle mission. Lastly, did you know that two people were killed in a helicopter crash while looking for debris from Columbia in late March? CAIB announced the little known fact that two debris searchers had been killed and three injured in a helicopter accident during search and recovery operations.CAIB: http://www.caib.us/
Helicopter crash: http://www.caib.us/news/press_releases/pr030328-2.html
Trojan-Horse Attack Defense Successfully Challenges Child-Porn Charge
Prosecutors in a British court dropped child-porn charges against Karl Schofield two years after the porn was found on his computer. The prosecutors accepted the explanation of a defense-team computer expert, who claimed a Trojan-horse program that gave remote intruders control of Schofield's computer was responsible for the presence of the 14 child-porn images on his PC. As most of our readers know, Trojan-horse programs can infect an unprotected PC through e-mail, at Web sites, or most commonly alongside downloaded files. This is the first known use of the Trojan-horse defense in a digital child-porn case, but the meager details available online, such as those from the local Reading Evening Post, seem to hint that there was little belief that Schofield was guilty.http://www.getreading.co.uk/story.asp?intid=6541
Missing People and Missing Identities
A Doe is not necessarily a female deer. A Doe can also be a Jane Doe or John Doe - and there are usually more Janes than Johns. These Does are the unidentified dead. In efforts to uncover identities, coroners and volunteers are increasingly posting online whatever partial information they have on unidentified corpses. The Web lets detectives and other investigators check out fingerprint and dental records, among other data points. One repository of this sort of info is the Doe Network, a surprisingly comprehensive and easy-to-navigate site that features forensic facial reconstructions and much more. Couch potatoes, listen up: this ain't so-called reality television. This is real life, and real death, and real people who could easily be someone you used to know. Haul your butt off the sofa and take a look around. You may be able to help out. Even if you can't, just the effort will help you out. It's exercise in disguise. Wired has a story.Doe Network: http://www.doenetwork.org/
Wired: http://wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,58410,00.html
Netflix DVD-Allocation Algorithm Analysis
Netflix is a popular and innovative online DVD rental service. An anonymous Netflix user noticed that the wait time to receive his movie selections differed for two different accounts, even though both accounts had ordered the same movie. To explore this further, he used several trial accounts and over the course of 90 days tracked the wait time for 45 different movie selections. His voluminous and meticulously plotted data reveals the Netflix movie allocation algorithm: "Netflix uses the number of movies you rented in your previous billing period to determine your priority in getting movies. The more movies you rented during your last billing cycle, the less chance you have of receiving a movie versus an individual who has rented fewer movies."Netflix: http://www.netflix.com/
Analysis: http://dvd-rent-test.dreamhost.com/
Science Fiction Awards: Nebulas and Hugos
The big winner this year seems to be Neil Gaiman, who won a Nebula Award for his novel "American Gods" and whose novella "Coraline" appears on the list of Hugo Award nominees. Both, incidentally, were Netsurfer Book Recommendations. "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" is giving Gaiman a run for his money, having won the Nebula for Best Script and up for a Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo. The Nebulas are awarded by the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), while the Hugos are determined by fans who belong to the World Science Fiction Society. Both the Nebula winners for 2002 and Hugo nominees for 2003 can be found on the SFWA website.Nebulas: http://www.sfwa.org/News/03nebwin.htm
Hugos: http://www.sfwa.org/News/03hugonom.htm
Winner of the W3C Page Redesign Contest Announced
We wrote about the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and its plan to renovate its Web page via contest in NSD 9.10. Is anybody surprised that the winner looks a lot like a blog? There are fashions even in leading-edge technical Web designs, and arguably most Web technology innovation comes out of the blogosphere these days. To be fair, Radu Darvas's winning design has a lot of standards technology beneath the surface, which is rather the point for a Web-standards Web site. Four honorable mentions are also noted, and all the entries provide fine examples of a modern news-like or blog-like site design.http://w3mix.web-graphics.com/win.php
Nerve, the popular sex webzine, is feeling a bit defensive about being too high brow. Complaining that it has been "frequently accused of literary snobbery" in the past, it is running a contest for bad yet hot erotica. There are two categories, one for DIY Bad Erotica that you write yourself and another called Found Erotica for the bad smut you find lying around under your mattress or on your monitor. The submission deadline is Apr. 30. Yes, you can submit multiple entries, and no, technical manuals don't count no matter how much they turn you on.
http://www.nerve.com/baderotica/
Media nearly always prepare obituary features for celebrities close to death, so it's not all that surprising to learn that CNN does the same. Seldom, however, do the media release their obits prematurely, and that CNN did allow sneak peeks at some two-year-old mock-ups is at least mildly curious. We're generous in even calling these obits mock-ups, as most are just templates with minimal filler. The seven not-quite-dead-yet folks CNN prepped the obits for include Dick Cheney, Nelson Mandela, and Bob Hope. You can see them at the Smoking Gun site. The pages are now invisible at CNN, but like everything else online, they live forever somewhere else.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/cnnobit1.html
ONLINE CULTURE
What do you get when you put together a database of recently changed weblogs, RSS feeds from said weblogs, their geocoding information, and a clever Flash application? You get a map of the world with flags that indicate where a weblog was recently updated along with the first few lines of the new entry. Not too many weblogs show up on any given load but, according to the site, this is because only about 10% of blogs are geocoded. This little Flash application is way up there on the coolness scale.http://www.brainoff.com/geoblog/
Add another bit of jargon to the lexicon of blog terms: deathblog. A deathblog is a blog which exists after its author has passed away. Blogs have been around long enough that a number of them have outlived their authors. What happens to such blogs? Some of them are just frozen in time, maintained online indefinitely by the blog-hosting service. Others become memorials to the dead, with comments by friends and family. Still others become information conduits tracking the course of investigation into the death of the author. Wired has a story with examples of each type, along with some information about weblog hosting services' policies in the event of death - mostly, the hosts just leave things alone.
http://wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,58509,00.html
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Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market
Spinning the Semantic Web: Bringing the World Wide Web to Its Full Potential
A Secret History of the IRA
The Craft of Research, 2nd editionSURFING SITES
Ask a Simulated US Government Official
If you've been following the Bush administration's incessant press conferences concerning Gulf War II, you've no doubt become acquainted with that most cherished habit of government officialdom: an infuriating penchant for obfuscation. A reporter at such a press conference asks a direct question and gets a labyrinthine non-answer that offers the illusion of coherence without revealing any substance. As fellow concerned citizens, you're no doubt thinking the same thing we are about this disturbing doublespeak: Isn't it about time some Web site exploited it for comedic effect? It certainly is, and the Unofficial Official Simulator has done just that. Now, you too can experience the frustration of the Washington press corps by typing a question to, say, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and receiving a twisting, confusing response just like you'd get if you were there in person. All the quotes used in the answers are authentic, and you can even view sources if you have trouble believing lines like "There are things we don't know we don't know" were ever spoken by the mouth of man.http://codeback.com/
Democrats Wing President on US Government Server
You'd think that the Democratic faction of the House Appropriations Committee would use its US government server allotment for US government business. Let us refer you to the goo that shows otherwise. The subject, complete with cartoons and photos, is what these Democrats feel is the President's hypocrisy, as he promises support for programs which never materializes in his budget. It's not a big page; it lists only 17 instances in which President Bush appears to have said one thing yet done another. Heck, other Presidents have done better than that in the first two months of holding office. We may be hopelessly naive, but somehow, we'd expect this sort of thing would be properly housed on a Democrat-bought-and-paid-for server, rather than on a US government machine. It seems a tad unethical. Of course, ethics come in many flavors, these days. One of our reviewers found himself owing $1600 to the Fed on tax day. His solution? He sent them two hammers and a toilet seat.http://www.house.gov/appropriations_democrats/caughtonfilm.htm
For decades, the belief that the US is controlled by huge corporations and the individuals who run them has increasingly spread. There may be no way to prove who controls what, but some believe there's at least one way to display it. This site, They Rule, takes a connect-the-dots approach to depict interrelationships among large US corporations and top executives. Click on Load Map to view interactive Flash maps such as Old Girls Network, Energy Alliance, or Fortune 500 Top 10. You can vote to weight the importance of each map, get targeted Google search results, post a message, and add links to relevant sites. You'll need to click precisely on small graphics. Browse a while and you'll probably feel as though you're on the outside looking in, unless you're a business-to-business journalist or dealmaker. Depending on your beliefs, whether you are a member of a power elite, and where you stand (or sit or lie) in the scheme of things, your reactions to They Rule might range from "Cool!" to "Preposterous!" It's easy to add a company to any of these maps.
http://www.theyrule.net/
DoHistory, created a few years ago by the Film Study Center at Harvard University, documents the researching methodology that went into the book and PBS film "A Midwife's Tale", based on Martha Ballard's diary entries beginning in 1785. It's a great resource for high-school or college students who are using primary sources for the first time. Deciphering the handwriting in primary sources is one of the most frustrating yet rewarding tasks for a researcher, and there's a section dedicated to it, but unfortunately the Perl script that supports the section appears to be broken. However, visitors can still use a fun Java applet called "Magic Lens" that does the transcription itself. This is a fascinating look at how information goes from mind to pen to documentary.
http://www.dohistory.org/
During World War I, on Apr. 25, 1915, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) landed on the Gallipoli peninsula as part of an Allied effort to take control of the Dardanelles, the 42-mile-long strait that connects the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara, and lay siege to the Turkish city of Istanbul. The campaign was an enormous disaster as the ANZACs had to face rugged terrain and organized Turkish resistance. The Australians, although they suffered heavy losses, fought bravely, and their heroism is commemorated throughout their home country on ANZAC Day. If you're interested in finding out a little more about what happened at Gallipoli (and what went wrong), see this site by Australia's Department of Veterans Affairs, which features exhaustive background on the reasons the campaign was undertaken, eyewitness accounts of soldiers who were there, maps, and information on visiting the Gallipoli site today. We can only begin to plumb the depths of information found here, so do stop by to see it for yourself.
http://www.anzacsite.gov.au/
This Belgian Web site provides excellent source material to anybody interested in World War I. Nine amateur archaeologists have been excavating the Boezinge battlefield site near Ypres, Belgium since 1992. In the process, these licensed diggers have uncovered Roman and Spanish fortresses, an almost-intact British dug-out from 1917, and a German barracks - all while keeping one step ahead of new road construction. In one place, they found that only a few dozen yards separated German troops from British and Canadian soldiers. Among the military artifacts unearthed were mundane objects like point-ended mineral-water bottles, a pickle jar, a Rosella chutney bottle from Australia, and medicine vials. The site also records the fallen soldiers the archaeologists have exhumed during their digs. While none of the soldiers have been identified due to corroded or missing dog-tags (the use of which only began in 1916), all have been reburied with their comrades in military cemetaries.
http://www.diggers.be/
Drive Paul Insane - If Only with His Electricity Bill
In what seems to be an attempt to entertain sadists everywhere, Paul Mathis of Plano, Tex. has wired lots of stuff with plugs in his house to a Web interface, and he allows online visitors to change each item's attributes on the fly. Examples? You can turn on his sprinkler system, or flick on and off a lamp in his home office. The site is appropriately named Drive Me Insane, although we suspect Mathis may have already been hitching a ride when we came along. We're waiting for the day when visitors to the site can secretly set his toaster from light to dark in midtoast.http://www.drivemeinsane.com/
Interesting Things for ESL Students
English is our first language, so we have a certain bias, but we're willing to bet that many who are learning English as a second language (ESL) will enjoy Interesting Things for ESL Students. This site is fun. It's designed by Charles Kelly, who teaches ESL to Japanese students and understands the magnetism of games. Think of all the word puzzles you played as a kid. You'll find many of them here, in one interactive Web form or another, along with quizzes, flash cards, and other learning aids, including Hangman. We found one page, in the Experimental section, that requires a special plug-in, but most of the site uses standard Web technology. Lessons range from the classical (proverbs) to contemporary (slang), with quick feedback for post-MTV generations. Our impression is that there's enough variety to prevent boredom among ESLers, and even to reward kids whose first language is English. Parents and teachers can use this non-commercial site as a challenge or supplement. Are there similar sites for other languages?http://www.manythings.org/
In the Pits with the Panasonic Toyota F1 Team
Any car-racing fan has to visit the Panasonic Toyota Racing site to enter the contest to drive a real Formula One (F1) car. You may want to zip by even if you don't know much about the sport because the quality of the photos and video diaries produced this season by the racing team - including drivers Cristiano Da Matta, Olivier Panis, and Ricardo Zonta - are outstanding. The team members, blatantly using Panasonic media equipment, have recorded images for your desktop, video diaries of a thus far disappointing season, and a gallery of nifty stills. We liked the photos of the strange umbrella-shaped spectator stand at Sepang circuit in Malaysia, aerial shots of a less-than-nine-second pit-stop, and the clear, blue skies of Indianapolis during the 2002 season. Video segments explain the role of the team doctor and how an F1 tire is designed. You'll need a Shockwave player.http://www.panasonic-europe.com/racing/
The list of important inventions about which none of us think twice but which keep our society precariously balanced on the razor's edge of polite civilization is long indeed. Take precision tools, for instance. Without the creation of such machines, everything from cameras to automobile assembly lines would have been impossible. Anyone keen for the history of these instruments and the backgrounds of the people who made them will want to pay a visit to the American Precision Museum in Windsor, Vt. The museum houses "the largest collection of historically significant machine tools in the nation" and offers a Web site with online exhibitions, extensive archives and library, and bios of famous inventors in the museum's Hall of Fame. Reading about precision machine tools may not be bungee-jumping, but the American Precision Museum manages to present a fascinating look at technologies that have shaped our world.
http://www.americanprecision.org/
If you need further proof of the old adage that a sucker (and a scammer) is born every minute, look no further than Quatloos, which blows the lid off a host of white-collar scams and frauds. Visit to learn more about golden oldies like the infamous Nigerian 419 scam and less refined scams in which businesses are duped into paying exorbitant fees for copier toner. In addition to warning about the mechanics behind these often clever frauds, Quatloos also features message forums and tips on how to avoid being conned yourself. So before you hop on a plane to Lagos with checkbook in hand, or even before you decide to enter some multi-level marketing operation, do yourself a favor and stop by here.
http://www.quatloos.com/
So what is Rapture anyway? As any Biblical apocalypsist can tell you, it is the end of time on Earth. The Rapture Index acts like a prophetic speedometer: the higher the number, the nearer we are to Doomsday. Does this sound gloomy? Regardless, the idea is intriguing. The index works like a Dow Jones of end-time activity by counting reports in the media of particular symptoms of the forthcoming Apocalypse. Examples include mundane issues like oil prices, crime rate, and - somewhat controversially - liberalism, but the index also enumerates more traditional indicators such as famine, plagues, and apostasy. The next time a morbid great-aunt mutters "We're doomed, I tell you!", you'll be able to give her exact statistics for just how likely that is. Plus, if the figures start to tilt one way or another, you'll be well positioned to live wildly or repent just in the nick of time.
http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html
The Encyclopedia from the Future
Ever wish you could read an encyclopedia from the year 2260? Just because you're unable to alter the immutable laws of physics to satisfy your yen for reading reference works from our distant future doesn't mean you can't get an idea of what that encyclopedia might look like right here and now, thanks to the Collins Encyclopedia Galactica. Billing itself "the definitive guide to the Universe in the Earth year 2260", the Collins Encyclopedia Galactica is a mock encyclopedia that covers all facets of life in the 23rd century, including selections on alien races, astrophysics (there's a lengthy section covering hyperspace travel), and even corporations of the time. Though it's more science fiction than futurism, the site is fun reading simply for the detailed sketch it draws of a future world, not to mention the high-minded, textbook tone it maintains when discussing topics such as the alien race known as the Morgenson Lizard Men.http://ceg.starforge.co.uk/index.html
Whether it's racing cars, bicycles, or animals, man's need to be the first over the finish line has been insatiable. Now, add cheese racing to the list of competitions. There is no finish line though - it is strictly a time-trial format - and competing humans only have as much control over the outcome as the owner of a racing dog would, less if you take breeding and training into account. Cheese racing involves several slices of processed cheese, still singly wrapped, and a softly glowing barbecue. The sport is sure to be a hit at your next camp-out or patio party. This site explores the rules, history, and art of racing plastic-wrapped cheese products. The activity is not recommended for youngsters (or possibly even the alcohol-impeded, although we don't doubt that doses of alcohol - in racers, in spectators, and on the track - can only improve the sport) due to the hot, gooey, explosive nature of the winners.
http://www.cheeseracing.org/
You don't need to own a guitar to prove you've got some of the hottest moves. In the world of the air guitarist, all you need is a stellar imagination, a great groove, and a limber body. Visit the site of Air Guitar Australia to check out the Best Ever Air Guitar Instruction Manual to learn the tricks of the trade. This manual provides would-be air guitar champions with the inside scoop on dress code, beginner to advanced moves, and chords and fingering. The manual is a bit hard to find, like everything else at this disorganized site. Just click around; you'll find it eventually. If not, satisfy your curiosity with a look at some of the world's best air guitarists on the Air Guitar Australia and New Zealand Championships pages. With a little determination and lots of practice, you could find yourself ranking among the best, like Roxy McStagger and Dr. Strange Pork.
http://www.airguitaraustralia.com/
A bit of silicon oil and a dab of boric acid equals a legend. It's the recipe for Silly Putty. You know you love the stuff; it's just too cool not to love. It's been referred to as a solid liquid because, although it seems solid, what you're goofing about with is really the liquid form of the material. Introduced to the world in 1950, this is truly classic - so much so that it's been added to the collection of the Smithsonian Institution. Learn more here, and earn your Master of Silly Putty degree.
http://www.sillyputty.com/
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
Sure, search engines are great when you know what you're looking for, but what about those times you'd rather explore unknown corners of the Web? If you're in a random mood, swing by ChangingLinks, which delivers a different Web page with every click. It's a nice way to alleviate the surfing blahs.http://changinglinks.com/
"Casablanca": Stop Them before They Film Again
Word on the Boulevard is that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez want to do a remake of "Casablanca". That is so wrong on so many levels that words fail us. Fortunately, this petition pretty much covers it all.http://www.petitiononline.com/no2jlo/petition.html
f*ckf*ck, the Programming Language
We quote the Web site: "Spending more time cursing your code than writing it? Well now there's an answer. f*ckf*ck will help you get back that precious time by converting your foul words into code."http://www.chilliwilli.co.uk/ff/
Purring Kitty Mobile Phone Accessory
The bond between a woman and her cell phone is indeed a beautiful thing to contemplate.http://www.vibelet.com/
Should you care to go for the complete Google experience, you may wish to recreate the menus at the Google cafeteria as you search for the phrase "Silicon Valley company cafeteria food".
http://googlemenus.blogspot.com/