BREAKING SURF
| Debating Karma Rating Systems |
| The Time Travel Spammer Needs Your Help |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| Starship Enterprise in a Wind Tunnel |
| Branding Hackers |
| Slingshots at Ugh Paces |
| Dial an Orgasm |
| Red Hat-Backed Fedora Linux Project Releases First Distribution |
| New Versions of Apache Released |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
|
|
|
BREAKING SURF
Microsoft Announces Anti-Virus Reward Program
Microsoft is putting up $5 million of reward money to fund bounties on the coders who write viruses. Since the company has not had much luck fixing the security holes in its software, it has decided to go after the people who exploit them. Presumably, the bounty is supposed to serve as a deterrent to virus-writers - if so, Microsoft has grossly misjudged the motivation of such people. The company rolled out the program with the participation of the FBI and the Secret Service, and with the announcement of two $250,000 bounties for information leading to the arrest of the authors of the MSBlast.A worm and the Sobig virus. There's the obligatory press release, and a Q&A with one of the Microsoft lawyers about the program. Allow us to also lead you to CNN/Money, if only for the hilarious PhotoShopped picture of Bill "Sheriff" Gates.Press release: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/nov03/11-05AntiVirusRewardsPR.asp
Q&A: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2003/nov03/11-05AntiVirusQA.asp
CNN/Money: http://money.cnn.com/2003/11/05/technology/microsoftbounty/index.htm
Modern Biology, Ethics, and Eugenics
John Sundman wanted to understand the moral dimension to the revolution underway in the study of our biological selves. He wanted to figure out what the Human Genome Project would mean to him and his family. In this compelling, entertaining, and disturbing essay, Sundman reveals that two of his children are disabled. Is the new genetics simply a new eugenics that will erase the disabled from the future? Or is the new genetics a source of hope for a future without the pain and marginalization of disability? Sundman's two-parter in Salon is sprinkled with remarkable insights, including a suggestion that pre-natal testing be banned. It's fascinating to follow the ways in which biological science has changed as test tubes and Bunsen burners are replaced by computers and sequencers. Sundman adds much about the corporatization of biology as well as the move towards open biology, an analogue of open source code. Responses to the article focus almost entirely upon the eugenics, which Sundman finds far more disquieting than anything he actually wrote.Salon, Part I: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/10/21/genome/index.html
Salon, Part II: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/10/22/genome_two/index.html
Letters: http://www.salon.com/tech/letters/2003/10/24/genome/index.html
Sundman: http://www.salon.com/tech/letters/2003/10/25/sundman_response/index.html
Isaac Newton is enjoying an upsurge in popularity these days. Neal Stephenson made him a major player in his new novel, "Quicksilver". PBS recently celebrated the natural philosopher in their program "The Elegant Universe", a primer on string theory. Now, those who can't get enough of the man who dominated European thought during the 18th century have a new resource, the Newton Project. This remarkable site is an attempt by scholars to make Newton's vast and entire collection of manuscripts accessible online to researchers and the public. Although visitors can currently only view a portion of the collection, some of it is amazing. Take a look at one of Newton's theological manuscipts and see just what the Lucasian professor thought about the end of the world. Or read how John Maynard Keynes went and purchased the bulk of Newton's alchemical manuscripts in the 1930s. Let's hope that someone links the site to Stephenson's Quicksilver Metaweb site. Fact is truly far more remarkable than fiction.
http://www.newtonproject.ic.ac.uk/
Last week, we wrote about MIT's clever attempt to provide on-demand music-streaming to students via the university's cable network. About a day after we published the story, MIT had to shut down the Library Access to Music Project (LAMP) because several music labels complained that the university did not have the proper licenses. MIT blames a company called Loudeye, which sold them the $30,000 worth of licenses in the first place. According to convoluted legal documents, Loudeye may not really have had the right to sell the licenses to MIT after all. Ars Technica has the full story with links to press coverage. Meanwhile, it looks like it's back to illegal file-trading for MIT students.
NSD 9.42: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v09/nsd.09.42.html#BS4
LAMP: http://lamp.mit.edu/
Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/archive/news/1067704898.html
The Economics of Staying in Hell
Suppose that for some unfathomable reason you, gentle reader, have died and gone to Hell to face an eternity of torment. The Devil, being the nice guy that he is, offers you a deal which you can choose only once. Today, he'll toss a fair coin and if it comes up heads, you are free - but if it comes up tails, you're there for eternity. Thing is, the Devil says, you don't have to play today. Tomorrow, he will toss the coin twice, but still one head (or more) will set you free - you'll have better odds. The Devil promises to toss the coin one more time every day you wait to make your choice, and always just one head will free you from eternal torment. Remember, you can only take the deal once. What's the problem? Well, given that your odds of getting out of Hell free get better every day you wait, when should you take the deal? This conundrum and some provocative and frequently amusing follow-ups appear in the Crooked Timber collaborative weblog. It's all about a branch of economics called infinite decision theory, with applications to such esoteric subjects as infinite taxation and the utility of human annihilation.Crooked Timber: http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/000763.html
Infinite Decision Theory: http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Erasoren/papers/Infinitedecisiontheory.pdf
Online Access to Schools Catching On with Parents
Where we come from, the school secretary phones if your child doesn't show up for school, so you know right away if your kid is cutting classes, at least at the start of the day. And nothing beats parent-teacher interviews for showing how well Johnny is really doing. These traditional measures work fine for many parents, but having school information accessible via the Internet promises to make it easy for parents to check in online. The San Jose Mercury News reports that some 6,500 schools in the US now have password-protected databases that let parents access their children's attendance records and grades electronically. Although some teachers fear parents will use the new information systems to hassle them about tests and quizzes, others find the parental access actually reduces the time they have to spend with parents to explain results. Of course, there's an Internet security challenge to this new parenting tool. One student in Southern California has already been caught hacking such a Web-based system, although school officials claim no data were altered. Parents and schools still have to grapple with that delicate challenge of preparing children to fly on their own by letting go bit by bit at just the right time.http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/7116015.htm
Department of Justice Report Secrets Not So Secret
Bureaucrats don't seem to appreciate the limitations of their software. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Tony Blair was embarrassed by the way Microsoft Word keeps all that pesky editing information (see Computer Bytes Man). Now, the US Department of Justice has learned that blacking out a line in Adobe Acrobat is not the same thing as taking a black magic marker to piece of paper. The Department of Justice posted a heavily redacted version of a report on its internal diversity effort. As the New York Times points out, an "information archaeologist" easily discarded the redactions, making the report completely visible. You can read it at the Memory Hole. Just why the department redacted certain portions remains unclear, but what is clear is that someone is going to have to read the manual for their software.Computer Bytes Man: http://www.computerbytesman.com/privacy/blair.htm
Memory Hole: http://www.thememoryhole.org/feds/doj-attorney-diversity.htm
Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/31/national/31JUST.html
One of the hidden little gems in the 1990 sequel to the hella-cool "Predator" was a glimpse of a certain skull on the trophy wall of the alien hunter who gave the movie its name. That skull belonged to those most famous of alien predators, the perfect killing machines of the "Alien" movies, first seen in 1979. After "Predator", the two species battled in comic books, which led directly to the skull in "Predator 2". SF fans have longed to see the two alien killers pitted against each other on the big screen, and rumors of such a flick have long haunted the halls of fandom. Games based on the premise have been available for years. Movie-goers will finally get their chance to see the battle on the big screen when "Alien vs. Predator" hits the silver screen in August 2004. For now, fans have to settle for trailers. Greg's Previews also has an information and link-packed preview of the film. Incidentally, two of the stars of "Predator" have gone on to become American state governors: Jesse Ventura in Minnesota and Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. Weird, huh?
"Alien vs. Predator": http://www.avp-movie.com/
Greg's Previews: http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hp&cf=prev&id=1808496110
High Turnout for DARPA Autonomous Ground Vehicles Challenge
As we wrote in NSD 9.37, the US government military-research organization DARPA is running a race of autonomous ground vehicles between Los Angeles and Las Vegas next March. With a prize of $1 million, the contest has proven more popular than DARPA anticipated. At last count, 106 teams had signed up for the competition and DARPA planned for only a few dozen. If you're interested in robotics, you may want to check out the DARPA Grand Challenge Web site again for updates. In particular, the Q&A and What's New sections give some idea of the many technical approaches that contestants are using.NSD 9.37: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v09/nsd.09.37.html#SCI5
CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-7337_3-5100315.html
DARPA Grand Challenge: http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/index.htm
Amodal Suspension Searchlight Installation
Amodal Suspension, an installation celebrating the new Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, is an installation as only the Japanese can do it. It incorporates 20 robotically-controlled, interactive searchlights. Until Nov. 24, Web site visitors can use a cell phone or browser to send messages that are translated into pulses across the searchlights. It looks and works something like a Morse code transcriber that hangs in they sky. If you operate Amodal Suspension, you can also send a note to a chosen other: "a message awaits in the skies of Yamaguchi". This rather imparts a whole new dimension to the tired AOL cry, "You've got mail!" The Amodal Suspension site also provides an overview of the tech required to make this happen, along with help for wannabe participants, some precedent material, and of course a slew of photos - many of which are quite spectacular.http://www.amodal.net/intro.html
Microsoft Forgets to Renew Hotmail.co.uk Domain
Microsoft forgot to renew the UK Hotmail domain, which meant the domain was up for purchase on the open market. A good samaritan snatched it up and offered to transfer it back to Microsoft, but Microsoft totally ignored his attempt to contact them. Not until the Register called Microsoft's UK offices did anyone at the company take the matter seriously. The Register's inquiry prompted Microsoft's British division to "escalate" the matter to the US mothership. In the meantime, Hotmail.co.uk cannot be reached. This is not the first time something like this has happened. In 1999, Microsoft forgot to renew the Passport.com domain. The Register has the story, along with a link to a write-up from the guy who was involved in the 1999 debacle.http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33814.html
Major Linux News: Novell Buys SuSE, Red Hat Leaves Consumer Market
The Linux world is abuzz with news of the $210-million purchase. Novell is one of the old-time computer giants, best known in the past for its networking software, which was gradually eclipsed by standard Internet technology. The German company SuSE, on the other hand, is one of the upstarts in the retail Linux market, a rival to market-leader Red Hat. You can typically find SuSE's boxed Linux distributions on retail shelves next to those of Red Hat - though not for much longer. Red Hat is leaving the desktop Linux market and focusing on selling enterprise Linux distributions to businesses. Red Hat is catching a lot of flak for its decision; many Linux fans see the move as a betrayal of the movement to make Linux a credible desktop alternative to Windows and a bad business decision. Novell's purchase of SuSE is generally accepted as a positive move by the Linux community, and Novell now has a chance to capture the potentially lucrative consumer market Red Hat just abandoned. You'll find a spirited discussion on Slashdot.Novell: http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2003/11/pr03069.html
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=84640
Spam Wars: Spam Zombies Targeting Anti-Spam Web Sites with DDoS Attacks
Spammers have been releasing a flurry of viruses in recent weeks. The latest, W32/Mimail-E, is a typical example. It targets and infects personal computers to create a network of zombies the spammers can use to relay spam. A new twist is that W32/Mimail-E is also designed to launch a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack against the webservers of several anti-spam organizations. Many of the infected zombie machines are badly secured home computers on DSL lines. They now generate an overwhelming volume of spam, and many Net sites have begun to block e-mail that originates from servers hosted on DSL lines. Steve Linford of Spamhaus.org discusses the latest viruses in a posting to the news.admin.net-abuse.email newsgroup. Spamhaus, an anti-spam site, was one of the victims of W32/Mimail-E. Network Associates has the virus analysis.Linford: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=linford-F33A4D.20565802112003%40news.supernews.com
Spamhaus: http://www.spamhaus.org/
Network Associates: http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_100797.htm
Single Login Identity Management
Identity authentication is a huge headache for businesses. It's costly in terms of both set-up and maintenance, and it often means a wide variety of sign-in systems across many software applications. Identity management technology allows corporate IT staff to combine the variety of log-ins for each employee within a single interface, saving time (and making their jobs partially redundant). A CNET page looks at the new field of identity management, although it includes more information in links and sidebars than it does in the main article. The emphasis here is on "single sign-on", which basically means that a user has to remember only one password to access various applications. While the technology might have a new name, the bandwagon is well aged already, and several companies long ago leapt on to take a seat. Microsoft has its .NET Passport and Liberty Alliance has a competing approach already two years old. Microsoft, unsurprisingly, relies upon centralized servers to manage identity data, while Liberty applies a distributed authentication approach. It seems to us as though passwords themselves are the weak link in any system. Biometrics, anyone?CNET: http://news.com.com/2009-7355_3-5097155.html
Passport: http://www.passport.net/Consumer/default.asp
Liberty Alliance: http://www.projectliberty.org/
ONLINE CULTURE
One of the big challenges in online discussion communities like Kuro5hin and Slashdot is how to keep them interesting and useful to growing numbers of people, without a lot of rules and human intervention. Bores, idiots, and vandals who make nuisances of themselves detract from the value of an online community, but an unpoliced environment risks admitting them. Most sites use reward systems to induce users to behave in approved ways but these can be exploited by determined users. "Notes Towards a Moderation Economy", at Kuro5hin, suggests how such sites can lower their vulnerability to online yahoos or gamers who like to see how far they can distort things. The author suggests that discussion sites add multiple paths to the reward systems, to make them more robust and less open to exploitation. One commentator worries that if ratings become more important than they are now, the dynamic and nature of the sites will change dramatically. The original article and the subsequent comments are a stimulating free-for-all that may sow the seeds of better ways of enforcing online community standards.http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/10/28/152730/78
The Time Travel Spammer Needs Your Help
A 22-year-old Massachusetts resident colloquially known as the Time Travel Spammer is back in the news. While even his own father seems convinced that the guy is reality-challenged, the young man in question is certain that not only is he mentally stable, but that time-travel tech is available somewhere. People who disagree do so only because they have "untrained minds", the Time Travel Spammer declares. In the latest twist, three sites that published hyperlinks to a previous Wired News article on the gentleman have been bombarded with spam, which makes it look like he may have taken offense over that. We're not pointing fingers - certainly not! The Time Travel Spammer wants to get his hands on a dimensional-warp generator so that he can travel back to before the time his father's girlfriend drugged and poisoned him. Once he gets there, he can get his life back, so cut him some slack and just ship him the danged generator. You know who you are.http://wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,61026,00.html
|
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.
For more selections, check out: Netsurfer Books: http://www.netsurf.com/nsb/ Netsurfer Library: http://www.netsurf.com/nsl/ |
Don Quixote
Quantum Computation and Quantum Information
Gridlinked
The Snowflake: Winter's Secret BeautySURFING SITES
Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia
Don't let the name put you off. The Jim Crow Museum is a serious academic resource, and its goal is the elimination of racism. There's nothing pro-racism here. The fundamental concept is to never forget the enemy. The Jim Crow era ended in the mid-1960s with the overthrow of the Jim Crow race-separation laws that were common in many southern and border states, and the rise in Black self-esteem that destroyed Jim Crow etiquette. Most people alive today have no actual experience of Jim Crow. They should, just to know the stupidity and ugliness of the Jim Crow era. The museum has a physical reality and full virtual reality. If you have any doubts about your feelings about racially different people, visit this site. Take it as it's meant and you'll be a better person after your visit.http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/menu.htm
A Visual Record of US Marines in Iraq
The United States Marines have a story to tell about the war in Iraq, and they do it here with images. The galleries run from April to mid-July 2003, and there's not a lot of shock and awe on display, although if you spend enough time wading through shots of marines getting haircuts or "enjoying a meal", you can find some cool shots of weaponry and explosions. Some of the photos, apparently taken in infra-red, are both spooky and somber. Captions are thoughtfully provided, so you can tell what you're looking at. Virtually all of these end with: "Operation Iraqi Freedom is the multinational coalition effort to liberate the Iraqi people, eliminate Iraqi's weapons of mass destruction and end the regime of Saddam Hussein". By the time you make it through the entire set of galleries, you'll be thoroughly indoctrinated.http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/vim/IMU/Iraq%20Freedom%20Imagery/catalogindex.asp
Canada's "Hinterland Who's Who"
Ask Canadians of reasonable age if they remember the "Hinterland Who's Who" television vignettes, and the answer will likely be a resounding yes, followed by the whistle of a loon. An integral part of Canadian TV and pop culture, these 60-second educational videos have created public interest in wildlife conservation over four decades. Canadians, and everyone else, can now view all the videos at the Canadian Wildlife Service Web site. The site also has Hinterland Who's Who fact sheets that showcase Canada's native birds and mammals. Each fact sheet provides a detailed description of the animal's appearance, life history, and habitat. Other, generalized fact sheets discuss wildlife topics such as endangered species and bird feeding. There is a wealth of information available here that will prove to be a useful educational resource for parents, teachers, and wildlife enthusiasts alike.http://www.cws-scf.ec.gc.ca/hww-fap/index_e.cfm
James Lileks Looks at Matchbooks
If you have seen James Lileks's hilarious Institute of Official Cheer - and you have in NSDs past - where "the past is brought back to life, and immediately beaten to death again," you'll know what a knack he has for strip-mining, exhibiting, and commenting on pop culture's recent past. This time, we'll focus on his treatment of vintage matchbooks, which he artfully arranges and overanalyzes. He selects the matchbooks for their "graphic design, peculiar imagery or the sad tale you can infer from them," and there really are some beauties here - "Eat more turkey/Feel perky" must rank as one of the punchiest slogans we've seen for some time, and is the perfect advertisement for a hatchery that rears "ghostly pearl chicks", whatever those might be. The matchbooks advertising long-gone diners, hotels, and restaurants show Lileks at his best, providing him with an opportunity to reminisce about the Minnesota lounge bars and steakhouses of his youth. This is perhaps the key to his appeal; even when pointing out the utterly ludicrous, such as the tablet that "Combats horrid symptoms psoriasis," you can sense the underlying warmth in his treatment, and almost see the twinkle in his eye.http://www.lileks.com/match/
European Space Agency astronaut Pedro Duque has left his native Spain for Earth orbit. He, as did American Ed Lu, is keeping a journal from space, which began Oct. 23. Our Spanish sucks (we thank AltaVista's Babel Fish for the headline), so it's fortunate that Duque is writing in English - although Spanish support is available at a click. On Oct. 24, he describes the slow rotation of the Soyuz spacecraft, the reason for that rotation, and the visuals - among them, flying through the Aurora Australis. Once aboard the International Space Station, life becomes more hectic, and there's this little issue known as zero gravity to contend with. This makes it surprisingly easy to lose things; an issue that we'd never have considered. Although only a few days' descriptions from his ten-day mission on ISS are presented, it yields a cool perspective on life in space.
http://www.esa.int/export/SPECIALS/Cervantes_mission/SEMKBN7O0MD_0.html
Many faithful readers of Tom's Hardware Guide have written in to ask for an explanation of just how computer cases are created - you may have been among them, for all we know. The folks at Tom's are nothing if not responsive, and therefore spent two days at the Chenbro plant in China, where they were cheerfully given free access to almost all parts of the operation. Tom's walks you through the entire process right here. There are some 300 steps involved in producing a single PC case. No, we are not making this up as we go along, nor is this a typo. Three hundred steps to produce a case. Who knew? Learn the difference between soft tooling and hard tooling, which process is better, and why. This a lengthy feature, with many photos, but even a short visit will give you new appreciation for the little box that is home to your system components.
http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20031006/index.html
Bad User Interfaces and Design
This Is Broken is a repository of what's visually and creatively messed up in our world. There are far too many really stupid user interfaces and objects that people must deal with every day. The examples range from utterly undecipherable software screens to the stop sign that was neatly placed right over the only street sign at busy intersection. A blog is a wonderful way to keep track of this sort of thing as it's the visitors who build it by submitting examples. While the intent may be to shine the harsh light of public exposure on interfaces that don't work (and some that are dangerous), what most visitors will get from a visit is many chuckles and a few rolling-on-the-floor laughs.http://broken.typepad.com/
Should you lose a computer file or two, relax. Worse has happened to other computer users, if it's any consolation. "Odd mishaps cause computer grief", a recent article from BBC News, reminds you to back up your data to avoid disasters like those it reports. Many problems arise from carelessness or rage. Number one on the article's top-ten list of computing mishaps is willful destruction by firearm. Of course, there are plenty of other ways to render your hard drive fubar, as witness the admissions and recollections that comprise the meat of this page. We find grim humor in brief accounts like these: "IT were not impressed when I tried to print off 4,444 pages of information!"; "I then started shouting and as the monkey became frightened, it promptly threw the laptop away. The result was a cracked and bashed laptop that would not work anymore. Moral of the story - if you leave your laptop unattended in Nairobi - leave a banana on top of it as a protection offering." We discovered a tacit tip for administrators supposed to protect data that gets lost: blame viruses. It might work, so long as no one heard the gun go off.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3193366.stm
The Expert's Guide to Ruining Your Computer
Computer enthusiasts can easily go overboard when they try to improve their own boxes. Ask any retailer to show you its store of new hardware returned by self-styled experts who couldn't get it to work. Alternately, just ask self-professed enthusiast Sander Sassen. His nine-page editorial at Hardware Analysis, "How NOT to install hardware," is a humorous guide on how to screw up configuration and repair of personal computers. The fun starts when you remove "each and every screw within sight...." To increase anxiety and appreciation, lose a few screws. Insert the rest in connectors of sound and video cards, voltage selectors, or "any holes which look like they have live parts...." Having problems mounting a peripheral? No problem! "Dropping it on a concrete floor from an adequate height is a great way to test overall structural integrity...." To connect cables properly you need misalignment and force, and damage to BIOS chips and motherboards requires a tender touch guided by expertise. Of course, static electricity should be applied to add-on cards: "Take notice of the crackling sound, which is a good indication of a job well done." Technicians and support-desk personnel in particular may get a kick out of Sassen's send-up.http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1672/
The Max Barry novel "Jennifer Government" is achieving cult status (see our review in NSD 9.04). It's a funny, serious work with much to say on the state of humanity and capitalism. NationStates is a free interactive game based on Barry's work - you might say it's an online offshoot. Players get to create a country and then govern it by making decisions on issues and diplomacy. It sounds too simple, but is quite addictive. There are hundreds of thousands players if the online statistics are accurate. Your nation can take up as much or as little of your time as you like. A short visit every day or two seems adequate for all but the most ambitious rulers. There's no winning here; you simply attempt to grow your state while keeping to your values. Long live the Most Serene Republic of Canis Familiaris!
NSD 9.04: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/nsd.09.04.html#NBR
NationStates: http://www.nationstates.net/
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Celebrity Plastic Surgery
Britney Spears, Mary Tyler Moore, and Al Pacino have all gone under the plastic surgeon's knife. Plastic surgery is as common in Hollywood as the phrase, "Lights, camera, action!" While the public generally does not notice most nose jobs, chin implants, and botox injections, Awful Plastic Surgery has found many examples of obvious plastic surgery that have gone horribly wrong - and covers more, far more than just Michael Jackson, a chapter unto himself. The site boasts some of the best of the worst facial reconstructions. Side by side comparative photos are provided for most of the celebrities featured here. View cosmetic surgery mishaps of various stars including Priscilla Presley, Lara Flynn Boyle, Burt Reynolds, Meg Ryan, and many more. Although we can't say how accurate the claims here are, the photographs do seem to indicate that these celebrities have indeed transformed over time in ways that age would never sculpt.http://www.awfulplasticsurgery.com/
Before the ever-lovable Elmo made his debut on the popular "Sesame Street", another character captivated the hearts of millions of children. Those of us who watched the world-renowned kids' show in the '70s and '80s remember the cute, blue, furry Grover. In skits such as his acclaimed opus "Near and Far", he secured his place on "Sesame Street" as one of the most popular Muppets of all time. As the years have passed, however, Grover has been gradually written out of the scripts. What has happened to this once popular children's figure? At Grover Is Bitter, you'll get a glimpse into the private life of Grover. You'll read about his adventures and misadventures from "Sesame Street" and beyond. Although this beloved character once entertained millions of little ones, we suggest that this site be viewed by adults only. After all, Muppets are dark inside.
http://www.zeroboutique.com/grover/index.htm
Minority Children, Education, and Photography
One man is trying to inspire 30 fifth-grade students to dream and aspire to something themselves. These students, who attend a low-income school in Washington, D.C., may not have realized their true potential if not for the open mind and heart of their teacher, Nicholas Ehrmann. With the help of Ehrmann and others, these students are showing the nation that they will not fall prey to statistics that predict that only 56% of them will graduate high school. Officially launched June 2002, Project 312 hopes to help these students reach their full potential. One of its goals is to achieve a 100% high-school graduation rate. Ehrmann and his band of believers seek to break the stereotypes of Black and Latino students by emphasizing the creative genius within each dreamer. You can explore the project through a visual odyssey of uplifting photography that depicts these children in a far brighter light than statistics would have you, or them, believe. The children are the future of this world, and the initiative of Ehrmann and his colleagues will ensure a bright future for us all.http://www.project312.org/
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
Starship Enterprise in a Wind Tunnel
Some wacky researchers over at the University of Queensland put a model of the original Starship Enterprise into a wind tunnel and found its performance surprisingly good at Mach 5. Don't forget to put the shields up.http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/lp/lasdiag/enterp.shtml
Seeing as everybody seems to have a logo these days, famous open-source hacker Eric Raymond is proposing a logo specifically for hackers. He suggests the glider pattern from the Game of Life. Neat.
Logo and FAQ: http://www.catb.org/~esr/hacker-emblem/
Game of Life: http://dmoz.org/Computers/Artificial_Life/Cellular_Automata/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life/
A good Flash game doesn't have to be complicated. This one is simplicity itself - hordes of cavemen attack, and all you have is a slingshot to get Jurassic on their asses. A perfect way to waste a lunch break.
http://www.miniclip.com/slingshot.htm
You know all those jokes you trade with your girlfriend about vibrating cell phones? Well here you go then.
http://dialanorgasm.com/
SOFTWARE
Red Hat-Backed Fedora Linux Project Releases First Distribution
While Red Hat may no longer be releasing retail versions of its operating system, it is not entirely out of the desktop Linux business. The company is backing the open-source Fedora project, whose goal is "to work with the Linux community to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from free software." That's Fedora's fancy way of saying that it will build on and maintain the equivalent of Red Hat's retail desktop distributions. In that spirit, the Fedora project has announced the release of its first distribution, called Core 1. Not surprisingly, Core 1 shares much with Red Hat's last version, 9.0, but also has some significant differences. All of this is well covered in the release notes, which you should really read before trying to install Fedora.http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/
New Versions of Apache Released
The latest versions of Apache, 2.0.48 and 1.3.29, are primarily bug and security fix releases. In particular, they fix security problems with mod_rewrite and mod_alias that could cause buffer overflows. Beyond that, the bulk of the bug fixes are in 2.0.48, since the 1.3 branch is mostly in minimal maintenance mode. In any event, whatever version you're running you should update your Apache webserver.httpd.apache.org/