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BREAKING SURF
Shuttle Investigation Test Fingers Foam
Remember after the first Space Shuttle disaster, how Richard Feynman artfully demonstrated how the solid rocket booster's O-rings could fail when cold? It has taken more people and a more elaborate set-up, but the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) may have just accomplished the same sort of thing for the Columbia disaster. The CAIB has released video of testing it has performed concerning the impact of insulating foam with a Space Shuttle wing leading edge. The results indicate that the foam seen whacking Columbia's wing could very well have done damage sufficient to doom the mission. The New York Times adds some commentary.CAIB: http://caib.us/news/press_briefings/rt030604_present.html
Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/05/national/nationalspecial/05SHUT.html
A team of American and French astronomers has determined the structure of the local region of space, which surrounds our solar system, and have produced a 3-D map of it. The graphics don't do the story justice, but the detailed press release from the University of California, Berkeley is revealing, especially if you like thinking about thermodynamic forces acting over titanic distances. Our solar system, we're told, sits in a cavity of hot, sparse gas shaped like a chimney some 500 light years across. The chimney connects to other low-density cavities, all of which are surrounded by colder, denser gas. The findings confirm a 30-year-old theory, that systems of tunnels of hot gas penetrate interstellar space. The phenomenon is related to so-called galactic fountains, which have been observed in other galaxies to act as vents for supernovae. It's another fascinating indication of how the universe is far more complex and mysterious than we sometimes imagine.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/05/29_space.shtml
Spider-Man Is Closer Than You Think
Geckos have intrigued scientists with their amazing ability to cling to any surface, even glass. They do that with feet covered in microscopic hairs, hairs so superfine that the attractive force of intermolecular Van der Waals forces between the hairs and any walking surface hold the feet fast. Several research teams have been working to synthesize the hairs, but one group has finally presented a flexible "tape" that's coated with them. A hand-sized patch of the material would allow a human to hang from a ceiling. The material is produced with a mold; each square centimeter of it holds 100 million hairs and can support a kilogram. Unfortunately, the brief New Scientist article doesn't follow up on the latest work on web-shooters.http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993785
RIAA Wins as Verizon Capitulates
A US appeals court refused Verizon's request to keep the identities of its users private while it appeals an earlier decision that forces it to reveal them. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) had used the DMCA to force Verizon to reveal the names of file-sharing customers. Verizon continues to fight the order in appeals but, faced with no legal options, it has announced that it will reveal the identities of the customers in question while it does so. CNET and the New York Times have more.CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-1013154.html
Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/05/technology/05VERI.html
AOL Develops, Then Suppresses File-Sharing Software
Among AOL Time Warner's many underlings is a company called Nullsoft, which among other things invented the Winamp MP3 player and the Gnutella file-sharing protocol. That tells you a little about Nullsoft's attitude - or more precisely, about Justin Frankel's attitude, for he is Nullsoft's founder and star coder. That after Nullsoft released Gnutella, AOL pulled the technology offline, although not in time to kill it, tells you a little about AOL. History repeats, they say, and so it does. Nullsoft recently released Waste, which allows users to set up private file-sharing networks. AOL has apparently been using Waste internally, but moved quickly to slam the door on the software's public release. CNET has the facts and Slashdot has a fascinating discussion - well, fascinating to some of us - of the rights of Nullsoft, AOL, and those who managed to get Waste, and whether or not Waste falls under the open-source General Public License. Frankel, meanwhile, seems set on leaving Nullsoft to get out from under someone else's thumb. CNET covers that, too.Nullsoft: http://www.nullsoft.com/
CNET facts: http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-1011585.html
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/articles/03/05/31/1259206.shtml
Frankel: http://www.1014.org/
CNET on Frankel: http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-1012833.html
AOL Time Warner and Microsoft Declare Peace
AOL Time Warner owns Netscape, and sued Microsoft in January 2002 for damages brought about by Microsoft's demonstrated anti-competitive practices (see NSD 8.03). The two titanic companies have settled that suit out of court. Microsoft will pay AOL Time Warner chump change, around $750 million, and AOL gets license to use a variety of Microsoft software, including Internet Explorer. Say goodbye to Netscape Navigator, although considering how bloated it has become, it may be good riddance. Many analysts say this deal would never have happened had former AOL Time Warner chairman and Bill Gates rival Steve Case still occupied the AOL throne he left earlier this year, and that's almost certainly true - Case and Gates have never much cared for one another. Now that Case is out, Microsoft and AOL have an unholy alliance, and each has much to gain. The companies will stop butting heads as direct competitors and will shift back to their original niches - AOL Time Warner as a producer of content and Microsoft as a supplier of tools to access that content. For now, anyway. CNET has the news and analysis.NSD 8.03: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v08/nsd.08.03.html#BS1
CNET news: http://news.com.com/2100-1032-1011296.html
CNET analysis: http://news.com.com/2100-1026-1011700.html
Publication Ban Covers Web Site and Beyond
The US legal system rarely imposes legal restrictions on speech, and does so only under unusual circumstances that are usually overturned on appeal. One case that seems to contradict the tradition is raising eyebrows in legal circles. Katy Johnson was Miss Vermont in 1999 and 2001, and also founded two anti-drug organizations, Say Nay Today and the Sobriety Society. Tucker Max, a bon vivant whose site we covered in NSD 6.03, posted an account of his relationship with Johnson online - apparently not a particularly flattering account. A Florida judge issued an order that forbade Max to write about Johnson, link to her Web site, or disclose any stories about the relationship, even if true. That prohibition against telling tales extends even outside of the Web. The case is attracting all sorts of attention because of the unusual nature of such an order. Max's attorneys are appealing. The New York Times has the story.NSD 6.03: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v06/nsd.06.03.html#SS3
Max: http://www.tuckermax.com/
Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/02/national/02INTE.html
The Guardian Finds Salam - and Hires Him
In a real scoop, the Guardian has tracked down the Baghdad Blogger and signed him up. Writing under the pseudonym Salam Pax, the 29-year-old architect led many to speculate whether or not he really was in Iraq. As the Guardian's Rory McCarthy discovered, Salam (his real first name) did indeed post from a computer in his two-storey family home in Baghdad. His Where Is Raed blog - the title of which refers to a friend, chronicled daily life and in Baghdad as the American military flew and rumbled closer and closer. The blog eventually attracted a worldwide audience of as many as 20,000 hits each day. As Iraq's ruling regime has crumbled, Salam has shared many of his countrymen's ambivalent feelings: hatred of the regime and its terror, but revulsion and anger at the lawlessness that has gripped the country since it disappeared. Salam started to blog to present a more balanced view of Iraq in English; he found the previous English language Iraqi blogs too religious. The decision has led to an assignment that might leave many bloggers jealous: from now on, Salam will write for the Guardian every two weeks.Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,966819,00.html
Salam's first column: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,969950,00.html
Least Favorite Books of the Brits
The BBC is set to slowly ooze news and analysis of the UK's top 100 novels, so the Independent decided to survey a few notable Brits for their least favorite books. With all the junk reading material available today, it's not surprising that some become so disillusioned. Obviously, they fail to check out our Netsurfer Book Recommendations. We direct you to some of the best reading available, but we suppose we'd be slacking if we didn't direct you to some of the worst as well. Mind you, we don't necessarily share these opinions, but these British can be pretty outspoken on the subject of rot in print. How often do you come across the phrase "valetudinarian mythologising"?http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/features/story.jsp?story=404252
Jedi Ghyslain's Family Hires Lawyer, Philanthropists Renege
Remember Ghyslain, the kid who pretended to be a Jedi knight in a video that has wound its way through the Net? If not, see NSD 9.20 for a refresher. Although anonymous donors contributed more than $4,300 for Ghyslain, his family has hired a lawyer to contain the presence of the tape in the media, and possibly to sue those who put it online. Just the spectre of legal action has spooked some donors, who promptly un-donated more than $1,000 of the promised money. The actual scope of legal activity, if any, remains unknown. Waxy.org has a transcription translated from French of a Radio Canada interview with the family's lawyer.NSD 9.20: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v09/nsd.09.20.html#BS3
Waxy.org: http://www.waxy.org/archive/2003/05/29/ghyslain.shtml
Virtual worlds, once a feature of SF, exist in numbers now, thanks primarily to the Internet and online games. While the worlds are virtual, the people who occupy or play in them are not, and some of the participants sell and purchase virtual properties - often swords or castles in virtual role-playing games. Since these transactions take place in the real world, they are governed by real laws, and real lawyers have an interest in that. An article in California Law review, entitled "The Laws of the Virtual Worlds", notes that virtual objects are indistinguishable from real world objects in terms of value. The discussion covers the bases you'd expect, but also delves into such exotic territory as cyborg rights. An abstract is online, and you can download a PDF of the full text or have it e-mailed to you. If you're in any way involved in such activities, you'll really want to mull this over. Theoretically, it's possible that you could be sued for selling a defective shield.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=402860
What happens when hackers take over a virtual world? It just happened to Shadowbane, with amazing consequences. Hackers re-engineered the violent game and created a whole new domain of dismemberment complete with hyperpowerful monsters and safe regions that weren't. The hacking coup was the movement of an entire town to the bottom of a sea and the drowning of its inhabitants. What kind of people have this sense of humor? It is probably time for them to design their own game. Wired has more.
Shadowbane: http://www.shadowbane.com/
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,59034,00.html
Mail Services Company Claims Spam Now Comprises 51% of All E-Mail
MessageLabs, a provider of managed e-mail security services for large clients like the British government, the Bank of England, and Conde Nast Publications (publishers of Wired) claims that of the 133.9 million e-mail messages sent to its global network of 6,000 business customers this month, the majority was spam. ZDNet has a short story, but there's no corroborating press release at the MessageLabs Web site, so it's not clear to us how firm this story is. Even if spam hasn't reached this level yet, it's probably safe to say it will do so very soon.MessageLabs: http://www.messagelabs.com/
ZDNet: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-1012418.html
Fans of graphic literature - which some still call comics - are probably already familiar with the Fantagraphics publshing house. It has been in business 27 years, and has published work of such notables as Robert Crumb, Bill Griffith, and the brothers Hernandez. Fantagraphics finds itself in financial trouble due to the bankruptcy of a distributor and some bad inventory management. The company needs $80,000 in cash by the end of the month or it'll go out of business, and so is asking its many fans to buy its books to help pare down inventory and raise cash. Why should you care? The graphic novels and comics they publish are truly first-rate and it would be a shame to let such a fine source of creativity go under. Browse the Fantagraphics store, and if you see something you like - and you will - go ahead and buy it. If you need a crass incentive, keep in mind that Fantagraphics also publishes under the popular and extremely pornographic Eros Comics imprint.
Fantagraphics: http://www.fantagraphics.com/
Eros Comics: http://www.eroscomics.com/
Imagine being a hot-shot executive at McDonald's: your kids ask you what you did today and you beam with pride as you tell them you planned a revival for Ronald McDonald. Gosh, some folks have all the luck. For now, McDonald's execs are keeping secret their plans to beef up use of the clown, but look for Ronald to show up more and do unexpected things. Although McDonald's officially maintains that there is only one Ronald McDonald, some 250 people don the costume and sweat it out as Ronald McDonald in publicity stunts all over the world. Their actual identities remain a big secret. An official Ronald McDonald handbook covers everything about the mascot, from how to apply makeup to how to behave around children (no hugs, please). Some past clowns have renounced their past, including one vegetarian who now regrets misleading young people. The juicy story is quite hilarious, really, and the funniest thing is that some people get big bucks to take this so seriously. The story is in the Wall Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB105417428331974100,00.html
Thoughts on Future Directions for Content Management Systems
Jon Udell is of the opinion that everything you need to know about content management systems (CMSs), you should have learned in grade school. His tongue-in-cheek opening introduces a collection of slides from his presentation on the current state of CMSs and how it needs to evolve. The presentation contains some esoteric ideas that probably won't make sense to anyone but CMS experts, but overall he makes his point that CMSs, such as HTML editors, XML tools, and blog systems, are stuck in the past and don't really help users write better content. Udell says that it's still far too hard to write for the Web in a rich way and that a huge opportunity awaits a lightweight, Web-aware writing tool that integrates easily with CMSs. Udell's presentation is relevant to Web and CMS developers because of a resurgence of interest in CMSs brought on by the rapid evolution of blog tools.http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/misc/oscom/intro.html
Denial of Service via Algorithmic Complexity Attacks
Researchers have discovered algorithms for low-bandwidth denial-of-service attacks that exploit algorithmic deficiencies in many common applications' data structures. More specifically, they have found ways to shape data input to increase the running time of programs that use various types of hashes and linked lists. These constructs are common in CGI programs that run the back-ends of modern Web sites. The researchers demonstrate this attack on a specific back-end content server, forcing it to drop as much as 71% of its incoming traffic while its CPU just spins its wheels. The attack accomplishes this using less bandwidth than a typical dial-up modem connection. In addition to the technical paper about this attack, the Rice University researchers provide numerous links to related work. They also note that after describing a specific theoretical attack in their paper, they received an e-mail with source code that implemented it within 12 hours. Security related news indeed travels fast.http://www.cs.rice.edu/~scrosby/hash/
Yeah, Yeah - Another Virus/Worm/Whatever
We should make a boilerplate for this.... Bugbear.B is a malicious worm that takes advantage of an old flaw in Microsoft products, although apparently people don't keep their patches up to date. Don't open e-mail attachments from strangers, don't use Outlook, don't put salt in your eye. Some people never learn. CNET has more.http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-1013685.html
ONLINE CULTURE
Amid all this talk about blogs, some people still don't know what a blog is while others pretend to know behind much handwaving. Dave Winer has wondered how to define "blog" and figured it out. Even if his answer is not exactly a scintillating, pulse-accelerating mudhole on the farm, it pays to get down and roll around in it a bit. Winer points out that the most important criterion of a blog is that the voice of the author must come through. That's the heart of it. A blog can't be processed through fancy editing filters or be written in corporate same-speak or anything like that. Your blog can be polished and refined - some are - but it's all yours and no one can change what you write. Winer comments on more, including technical stuff, infrastructure, and content, and to some it might be kinda neat and intriguing. Once you have the blog thing down, here's a question you can ask that will have fellow partygoers staring at you, secretly impressed: just how is a blog different from a wiki? We'll just pass along one link for now.Winer: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/whatMakesAWeblogAWeblog
Wiki: http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi
Seemingly overnight, almost everyone has a blog, or so it appears. This Chronicle of Higher Education article is much like the academic blogs it explores with its quick analysis, good stories, and good links. The question of whether or not academic blogs are going to do anything special is easily sidestepped and the best part may be the links to the blogs themselves. There is only one problem - if everyone is blogging, who has time to read it all?
http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i39/39a01401.htm
It's even easier than ever to design a Web page. Open Source Web Design (OSWD) offers a vast, searchable archive of page designs. You can even search on the basis of a page's adherence to XHTML standards if you so desire. Some of the designs will make your friends and colleagues drool. Strange Banana is somewhat similar - each time you enter the site, you get a new, random Web page design that you can borrow and use. If you don't like the one you see at first, just hit the refresh button and a new scheme will appear. Now you just have to worry about your content....
OSWD: http://oswd.org/
Strange Banana: http://www.strangebanana.com/generator.aspx
To many computer game fans, one main attraction of the games has always been technology. There's always a more powerful video card, a more advanced graphics engine, and a cleverer artificial intelligence to look forward to. However, since the dawn of Pong, computer games have also been about art and culture. Many game narratives rival novels in richness, and many games have given rise to distinct game cultures - Everquest, anyone? The 2003 Melbourne Digital Arts and Culture Conference addressed just such topics. The participants produced a plethora of papers on the subject of games, art, and culture: some technical ("Split Attention Problems in Interactive Moving Audiovisual Texts"); some social ("The Sopranos Meets EverQuest: Social Networking in Massively Multiplayer Online Games"); and some so philosophical that they're barely comprehensible ("Towards an Ecosophical Praxis of New Media"). These and numerous others papers are available online, and provide hours of reading for anybody who thinks seriously about games.
http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/papers/
The Sims on Big and Small Screens
These days, it's not at all unusual to see the virtual worlds of computer games leak into film and television. That Will Wright, creator of The Sims, is getting a development deal with a major studio should come as no surprise. The Sims has already had some exposure on various TV sitcoms as a game, but it seems that there's talk of turning the game into a feature-length movie. A Reuters report at Yahoo has more info on this and Wright's other odd showbiz ideas, which follow robots in unusual situations.http://tinyurl.com/dc6s
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Battle Royale
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All My Life for Sale
The Photoshop Book for Digital PhotographersSURFING SITES
Your Friendly AIM Stalking Bot
The IMStalking site uses the Away Message Stalker Bot to chat with AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) users, but only when they are away. The bot will hook up with your AIM client only when you indicate that you are away, and it will then download and display your personal away message. It only stalks the away messages of people who explicitly sign up. The continuously generated list of messages and quotes makes for fun reading. In fact, so does the amusing IMStalking FAQ, which makes the site worth visiting even if you don't use AIM. It's one very cool application, totally unaffiliated with AOL.http://trenchant.org/imstalking/
Journalism students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign think they know who the mysterious Deep Throat is. They've completed a four-year analysis of documentation pertaining to the Nixon administration's Watergate scandal and they think they know who tattled to reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Their suspect is Fred Fielding, who at the time was deputy to White House counsel John Dean. Woodward and Fielding have no comment, but Bernstein has lit into the investigation, claiming that journalism students should be learning how to protect sources, not expose them. The students, led by journalism professor Bill Gaines, put forth their persuasive case at their Web site.
http://deepthroatuncovered.com/index.html
History teachers with time on their hands this summer would do well to explore the Best of History Web Sites (BHWS) site. This fine portal, by history teacher Tom Daccord, will help visitors find sites for Net-enabled students, or for themselves. It might also save a butt or two when students need to do research of their own. BHWS is well organized and easy to navigate. Divided into eras from Prehistory to 20th Century, each of the first six sections has a top-five list. Four other sections - World War II, Art History, General Resources, and Maps - have sites rated and ranked by stars. Another section is devoted to multimedia, and still another to lesson plans. Daccord's newsletter, a subsite, covers recent history (such as "Looting of the National Museum of Iraq") and Web sites with special focus (such as "New York Times Lesson Plans" and "Asian-American History Resources"). As history sites multiply, the need for supersites, and this educational portal in particular, grows.
http://www.besthistorysites.net/
Stories of Service is a worthy endeavor, and we're not the only ones who think so. The Library of Congress and the National Museum of American History have both recognized the project, which encourages students and volunteers to interview veterans and then produce online movies to tell their stories. The site probably has the most multimedia options for visitors we've ever seen. The movies are available in RealPlayer, QuickTime, and Windows Media Player formats, with a high and low bandwidth version of each. The movies are surprisingly professional looking. Click on the See Our Work link to watch, or on the Get Involved link to participate.
http://www.stories-of-service.org/theproject/
The Third Annual Nigerian E-Mail Conference
Mr. Laurent Mpeti Kabila presents to you an urgent and confidential request: your attendance at the Third Annual Nigerian E-Mail Conference. This is an excellent opportunity to learn new marketing techniques and meet your distinguished colleagues. Needless to say, attending this conference demands the highest trust, security, and confidentiality between you and Mr. Kabila.http://j-walk.com/blog/docs/conference.htm
Sandals and Socks, Then Everyone Talks
An old adage on clothing co-ordination says that red and green should never be seen. We're unaware of any similar proverbial warning against wearing socks with sandals, but there ought to be - when it comes to fashion crimes, some consider that a capital offence. This site is devoted to exposing this most egregious of footwear foulness and so those of a delicate disposition are strongly advised not to proceed past the site's brief introduction - some of the pictures are genuinely hideous. The photographic evidence here seems to suggest that the phenomenon is particularly prevalent among vacationing, overweight, pasty complexioned, middle-aged British males. That's a demographic that doesn't shy from exposing vast acreage of lardy white gut, either, so be advised: think long and hard before you enter.http://www.sandalandsoxer.co.uk/
Where Will You Spend the Afterlife?
How will you spend the afterlife? Wallowing in human excrement with seducers and pimps, whipped by horned demons, and smitten by the hammer of divine justice? That'll be Level Eight - go past the blasphemers and sodomites, and head for the amphitheater-shaped pit of despair known as the Maleboge. The way you live your life determines how you will spend eternity, and it pays to take this online test to see what's in store for your wretched soul. Answer a few easy questions, and before you can say "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here", you'll be allocated the level of Hell appropriate to your sins, with a brief yet sobering description of your eternal torment taken from Dante's "Inferno". After reading our likely fate, we feel a radical change in lifestyle may be in order.http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-test.mv
Next time you're at a loss to entertain kids this summer, do some quick research at the Roller Coaster Database (RCDB). Careful who watches, though. Kids may pester you to drive them to amusements parks you never knew existed. The By Location & Distance advanced search enables you to find roller coasters within a specified distance of your US home, although anyone can search for amusement parks by state, province, and/or country. Other pages list new roller coasters by first year of operation and provide coaster statistics such as length, height, speed, and duration. Your kids may not care, but you will, as will architects out to create the next vomit-caked tower of insanity. The RCDB also offers news, an Inversion Breakdown (number of times you go upside-down), and comments by users. Roller-coaster enthusiasts will notice the lack of a few things - photographs, rankings, accident reports, and safety precautions - that might make this fine site stellar if not preventive. Of course, RCDB will likely be the last thing on your mind when you're banking inverted at 50 or 60 miles per hour.
http://www.rcdb.com/
What do the Butterfly, the Middle Finger, and the Flaming Ferris Wheel have in common? They are all tricks executed with a Zippo lighter. At ZippoTricks.com, you'll discover over 500 tricks to perform with this flame-generating contraption, although it's probably safer just to watch. Unless you're experienced, we don't recommend trying these tricks without a fire extinguisher near by. Video clips give visitors a glance at some pyrobats showing off their unusual fascination and abilities with Zippos. If you're a Zippo owner, you'll find the Maintenance section of this site useful. Learn basic maintenance tips, as well as some unusual troubleshooting pointers for this classic lighter. Exploration of the Community pages yields a message board and chat room for those who want to converse with other Zippo enthusiasts from around the world. If all that isn't enough to satisfy your thirst for fire, visit the Downloads section for wallpaper, screensavers, and more that pays homage to the Zippo.
http://www.zippotricks.com/
As children, most of us learned to ride a bicycle with the security of training wheels and, sometimes, a helmet. As adults, the training wheels have come off - and all too often the helmets do as well. In any vehicle, riders need to exercise caution, and bikes are no exception. Visit the Centers for Disease Control's National Bike Safety Network site to learn everything you need to know about bicycle safety. You'll learn about programs around the US dedicated to promoting bicycle safety. If there isn't a program available in your area, the site offers information on federal grants that can help get one started in your neighborhood. If you're not convinced you need a helmet, a look at The Problem page may change your mind. With over 500 deaths a year attributed to bicycle-related head injuries, you can't dispute that helmets help to save lives. Not only is this site full of useful information, you'll also find a wealth of links to other sites that help promote awareness of bicycle safety.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/bike/default.htm
Turning an Econobox into a Dragster
Speed demons and auto-bashers alike will love this place, although auto enthusiasts sometimes send it hate mail. The VWvortex is a motorhead site, but the helpful technical information in one particular forum thread caught our eye, as it addresses a vexing issue: a guy with a Nissan Sentra wants to beat his friend's Mazda MX-6 in the quarter-mile. The 2001 Sentra SE is all decked out with pearl paint and the works, but the guy needs it to go faster, and he has no money. The team of technical assistants trundles it off to the track, where they document the modifications required to take the beast from a 16.3 quarter mile to a snappy 14.3 seconds on a budget of $0. Yes, Virginia, it can be done.http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=776885
Craig Thom's Photos, Photos, Photos!
This Web site is an extensive collection of Craig Thom's photo collection from various road trips, mainly around the US. It differs from most people's photo sites in that Thom likes to take pictures of subjects that are unusual, to say the least. He has an eye for the strange sights to be found generally in small towns with only tenuous claims to fame. For example, you can view a 20-foot-high model of Superman, giant balls of twine, the world's largest six-pack of beer, and a bizarre pink elephant from Wisconsin. On his home page, Thom lists the least viewed photos as well as his top 30, but go to the Photo Gallery page for an index of photo subjects. His Statues and Monuments page is touching and includes circus-tent and elephant-shaped gravestones in Oklahoma, the tombstone of the last US Army horse in Kansas, and an elegant statue of Popeye.http://www.thom.org/
Norma Brown holds ten patents, including ones for interactive furniture for dieters, a ladder with storage compartments, a bra barrier device, and an avalanche and hypothermia protective system. It takes a lot of writing and numbering, descriptions of prior art, and so forth, in order to obtain such things as patents. Clearly, she's a tenacious sort. These appear to be letters patents, which means nothing's actually been built - but the rights to the ideas are all hers. Check here before you go building your own combination tampon and menstrual pad!
http://tinyurl.com/ciwn
Some things we take for granted, and when folks point them out we feel guilty that we didn't notice what was right under our chins. Then again, other times you wonder how deep someone's obsession goes with something so small. The Buttonarium will definitely make you take a second look at your closet. It features antique and modern buttons of note, with buttons from "The Simpsons" to different mental institutions. We particularly liked the Pacman button.
http://www.buttonarium.com/
The Senior Dogs Project was set up in 1997 to promote the care of older rescued dogs. The older dog's qualities are usually overlooked by people looking to adopt a rescued animal, but they are invariably housetrained, are not teething puppies looking to chew anything in your house that's not nailed down, and are generally highly companionable. Older dogs are usually in a rescue shelter not for the behavioral reasons that often see younger dogs there, but because of other factors such as a guardian's death or illness, or a change in circumstances in an owner's lifestyle. In short, they are ideal pets but their age alone means that euthanasia is highly likely. The Senior Dogs Project site offers many useful tips on healthcare, grooming, exercise, and other aspects of care for those looking to adopt the older dog, and much more besides - you can even search for dogs to adopt by region or breed. Particularly touching are the case histories of successful adoptions.
http://www.srdogs.com/
Tough TV and Movie Trivia Quizzes
This site will test the knowledge of movie buffs and television fanatics no matter how many hours they've sat in front of a screen. First, try out the four 20-question scored quizzes of general television and movie trivia. If you find yourself acing these, move onto the more challenging quote quizzes. These quizzes feature quotes from memorable characters of the silver screen and TV. If you're memory retention isn't up to par, you can always slum it in the celebrity pages, which have trivia, sounds, and images.http://www.triviatribute.com/
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation
Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address has to be one of the most prestigious examples of oratory in the last few centuries, but just think how much better it could have been with a few Powerpoint slides to help him make his points. In no other format could "all men are created equal" be reduced to a bullet point.http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/
We are pretty sure that a brief online test is as accurate as any other method for determining who you were in a past life. According to this one, our reviewer was a herbalist born in Northern India in 1850, which is not ringing any bells at the moment, to be frank.
http://www.onearth.com/whouwhere.html
What better way for a security company to showcase the industry's need for more security than to create a hacking challenge, put it online, and show the number of folks who have passed it? Over 10,000 people have gotten through at least the first level of NGSEC's first security game. For those with the online bent, it's fun and challenging.
http://quiz.ngsec.biz:8080/game1/
SOFTWARE
Yahoo released a new version of its instant messenger software this week, both to introduce new features and to provide important security fixes. The new features include the ability to send instant messages from computers to cell phones, and enhancements in frame rate (20 frames per second) and resolution (320 x 240 pixels) to the webcam capability of broadband users. The improvements will only work for one-on-one webcam viewing and do not work well through firewalls. The client also features new emoticons and, in a bid for commercial revenue, a number of skins and games - Yahoo calls them IMVironments - sponsored by large companies like Kellogg and Disney. Meanwhile, the security update fixes the Voice Chat features of Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Chat, which were susceptible to a buffer-overflow attack. Users are being prompted to download the fix as they log in with these clients.Yahoo Messenger 5.5: http://messenger.yahoo.com/
Security Fixes: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mesg/use/use-45.html