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BREAKING SURF
During the first Gulf War, the Pentagon forbid the release of photos of military remains returning to the US. During the Clinton administration, the policy was loosely enforced; President Clinton attended numerous ceremonies honoring dead servicemen, well covered by photojournalists. Since Gulf War II started March 2003, the Bush administration has cracked down hard on such photos, and we've seen no American military coffins in the media since. On Apr. 21, a military contractor fired a worker for photographing flag-draped coffins in a US Air Force transport. Under the radar, so to speak, flew the Memory Hole Web site, which last year filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for photos of returning coffins. In response, the US Air Force just this week released 361 such photos to the Web site - exquisite timing.... The New York Times reports that the mainstream media, including its own staff, displayed stunning journalistic ineptitude in not even knowing that military photographers were taking the shots. The Pentagon labelled the release of the photos "a mistake".Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/23/national/23PHOT.html
Photos: http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/coffin_photos/dover/
FBI Shrinks Deconstruct Columbine
On the recent fifth anniversary of the Columbine massacre, in which Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold slew schoolmates and teachers, Slate released a story on the deconstruction of the event by FBI mental health experts. The FBI convened a psychiatric summit three months after Columbine and came to some conclusions about what drove the two young killers. The experts decided that Klebold was depressive and suicidal, while Harris was a psychopath. The Slate article focuses mostly on Harris and the evidence the FBI shrinks used to label him a clinical psychopath. There is far more information on the incident at the Columbine Almanac, a Web site maintained by Dave Cullen, who has been reporting on the story from day one.Slate: http://slate.msn.com/id/2099203/
Columbine Almanac: http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/stories/2003/06/13/theColumbineAlmanactableOfContentsAndSummary.html
How Much is Stealing an Election Worth?
Bruce Schneier provides an estimate in the latest issue of his Crypto-Gram newsletter. One of the foundations of computer-security theory is that making your systems expensive to break into will hopefully drive potential intruders to less difficult targets. Schneier crunched some numbers and figured how much a US Congressional seat is worth to the winning party. By corollary, Schneier's value hints at how secure electronic voting systems need to be. He writes: "affecting the balance of power in the House of Representatives is worth at least $100M to the party who would otherwise be losing. So when designing the security behind the [voting machine] software, one must assume an attacker with a $100M budget." This issue of Crypto-Gram has a number of other worthwhile items, including one on the futility of national ID cards, another on hacking Bluetooth phones, and yet another on a decidedly low-tech, man-in-the-middle hack involving children's nannies. Worth reading.http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0404.html#4
Many people have been gnashing teeth over Google's Gmail, mostly over privacy concerns. Tim O'Reilly thinks these folks have gotten themselves worked up over nothing and gives nine reasons why. He cites Google's excellent track record of making sensible decisions and respecting users. All free e-mail systems show ads, he points out, but Google's promise to be relevant. This is where the fear arises, because to do this, Gmail has machines read your messages and make decisions based on the content. O'Reilly points out that many companies today already monitor your electronic life to positive effect. In his mind, Gmail is just a first step toward a future in which all your information will reside somewhere like Google, all intelligently searchable and socially networked. The critical issue isn't privacy, it's ownership of data. O'Reilly wants to be sure he can move all of his data when and where he wants. Not everyone agrees with O'Reilly, as a vigorous discussion on Slashdot makes clear. One Slashdotter wonders if Google will remain trustworthy after its impending IPO. Gmail has also addressed fears. For yet another take on the whole thing check out Brad Templeton's thoughts.
O'Reilly: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4707
Slashdot: http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/04/16/219211.shtml
Gmail: http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/more.html
Templeton: http://www.templetons.com/brad/gmail.html
Infoworld asked six experts how to snatch e-mail from the clutches of spam and make it a useful tool again. Eric Allman, author of Sendmail, would like to see ubiquitous server authentication. Bill Warner wants to identify the person behind every e-mail. Eric Hahn, of Netscape and Red Hat fame, wants strict, automated content policies. Ray Ozzie, creator of Lotus Notes, wants to replace e-mail with a melange of groupware tools. Dave Winer, annoying blogger, wants everybody to use RSS instead of e-mail. Finally, Brewster Kahle, of the Internet Archive, wants a legal crackdown and vigorous law enforcement. Why do we get the impression that none of these solutions will ever see the light of day?
http://www.infoworld.com/infoworld/article/04/04/16/16FEfuturemail_1.html
E-Mail Lists Suffer in War on Spam
You may have noticed that e-mail lists are taking hits in the war against spam. Certainly, we have. We get bounces, and on occasion our staff writers don't receive assignments because an ISP decides there are too many links in the e-mail. It's an insidious thing. Nearly all of us hate spam, but some ISPs have taken things to the extreme - they scan inbound e-mail and filter out stuff that might be spam-related, either by content or by origin. If they find something they don't like, they kill it before the user gets a chance to see it. The problem of differentiating legit e-mail and mailing lists from spam is gaining recognition and efforts to identify desirable e-mail lists (like ours) separate from spam are underway. Recognizing the problem is half the battle. Legitimate e-mail lists have a storied history of on again and off again service; this is just one of the more protracted and thorny issues. CNET condenses the discussion.http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5190826.html
Google Debate over the Search Term "Jew"
Should Google censor its search results? That's the question triggered by the appearance of Jew Watch, an odious anti-Semitic site, atop Google's search results for "Jew". It's easy to feel disgust when vile sites rank so prominently, but Google points out that its search results are objective and based on the automated operation of the algorithm used. Nobody at Google tweaks the output in a particular direction, so the idea that Google staff has anything to do with search results is silly. Search for "Judaism," "Jewish" or "Jewish people" and you get the expected and more wholesome results. Regardless, some folks prefer that Google filter the output to avoid displaying such nasty surprises, but that can't be done without ruining Google's effectiveness even ignoring the debate over who decides. The Net community can manipulate Google results with page links, and Jew Watch has dropped to fourth place since this story broke. Google's explanation of the situation and a link to Wikipedia (now the first "Jew" search result) round out our coverage.Google: http://www.google.com/explanation.html
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew
EarthLink Tracks Spyware Numbers, Sorta
EarthLink and Webroot offer Spy Audit, a small Windows application that tests computers for a variety of infections, to all netsurfers. EarthLink has compiled the results of these scans and released numbers that are frankly depressing. Spy Audit found an average of 27.8 instances of known spyware per tested computer. Now, the great majority of those suspects are cookies that, although they collect info on your surfing habits, are basically harmless. Still, ignoring cookies still leaves 5.4 instances of hidden software per machine. The threat appears exaggerated, yet it is there. Ars Technica analyzed Spy Audit's performance and found it dubious. The best choices for spyware control and removal are the free programs Ad-aware and Spybot Search & Destroy - available only for Windows because that's the only operating system to need them.EarthLink: http://www.earthlink.net/spyaudit/press/
Spy Audit: http://www.earthlink.net/spyaudit/
Webroot: http://www.webroot.com/services/spyaudit_03.htm
Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1082106771.html
Ad-aware: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
Spybot Search & Destroy: http://www.safer-networking.org/
The famous 20th-century mathematician Paul Erdös (1913-1996) has Erdös number 0. Anybody who co-authored a paper with him has an Erdös number 1. Anybody who co-authored a paper with that person has an Erdös 2, and so on. He's the Kevin Bacon of the mathematerati. A seller on eBay with an Erdös number of 4 is auctioning the opportunity to attain an Erdös number of 5 by co-authoring a paper with him. The seller warrants that he is a serious scientist with expertise in "evolutionary algorithms, machine learning, agent-based modeling of complex biological and social systems, complex systems research in general, social network theory ... engineering design automation using machine learning algorithms, artificial life, and any of a number of other specialties". You get 40 hours of his time, the opportunity for co-authorship and the coveted Erdös number 5. At press time, bids were up to about $400. The auction runs until Apr. 30.
Erdös: http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Erdos.html
Auction: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=318903995d
Burger King is selling a new sandwich with a great promotion - an online chicken. Even by Internet standards, Burger King's Subservient Chicken is an odd bird. It will do lots of things a good corporate spokeschicken shouldn't. The chicken - rather obviously, a man in a costume and garter belt - awaits your commands. People have asked the chicken to do some pretty odd things - look at the archive. The chicken is mature enough to not do anything obscene, despite the set right out of a low-budget porn flick. Try some commands; you'll be amazed. If your imagination lets you down, Boing Boing will point you in entirely new and often obscene directions. Boing Boing also offers a decent history and a few minor hacking tips related to this oddest bird. We asked the chicken to dance and sing and found it incredibly amusing. Wired has the backstory on how this site leaked out before the new sandwich launch. It's viral marketing at its finest.
Subservient Chicken: http://www.subservientchicken.com/
Boing Boing: http://www.boingboing.net/2004/04/08/subservient_chickens.html
Wired: http://wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,63053,00.html
In times past, the equinox, especially the vernal equinox, was an occasion for celebration and often arcane rituals. This year, on March 20, more than 180 photographers celebrated the occasion by making virtual reality (VR) panoramas. The World Wide Panorama site hosts the results, organized alphabetically by photographer or by region. The pictures provide fascinating and sometimes beautiful views of different places around the globe and let you look around, often in full screen mode. It's best if you have a fast Internet connection. Two panoramas that impressed us were the stark, pale winter glory of Lebret in the Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, and Pigeon Point Light Station, on the San Mateo coast of California, in which the ocean, green-clad cliffs sprinkled with flowers, and low clouds combine in a bracing seascape. It's not the first time people have celebrated a solstice or equinox with such happenings but the events are getting bigger and better. This particular event was the brain child of Don Bain and Landis Bennett, who are both active in the VR field. You'll need QuickTime, and it's well worth looking at.
http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/wwp304/index.html
Orb and Other Devices Track Numbers with Color
In science fiction and cyberpunk, data is often represented more tangibly than as mere numbers in a database or whatnot. That fiction is starting to become reality. Ambient Devices has introduced the Orb. The Orb tracks the Dow Jones Industrial Average in color - red for loss and green for gain. The deeper the color, the greater the movement. Ambient Devices' work draws on MIT Media Laboratory's Tangible Bits project, but its goals are commercial. In addition to the Orb, the company makes a device that monitors a wireless weather-data stream and changes to indicate the forecast, and its Executive Dashboard has gauges that track several wireless information streams, including the Homeland Security threat level. Remember in "Neuromancer" when Case describes cyberspace in terms of differently colored data cores? Wired has pundit quotes, but check out Ambient Devices' page for details. If you have a spare $150 you can pick up an Orb at the Discovery Store.Wired: http://wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,63093,00.html
Ambient Devices: http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/orborder.html
The EFF Patent-Busting Project
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has initiated an effort to overturn what it considers illegitimate patent awards that have not received adequate review. The US Patent Office is notorious for granting patents, particularly in the software arena, that many outside observers consider obvious technology or grounded in prior art. The EFF will challenge such patents, concentrating on those that affect non-profits and free speech. They intend to challenge such patents as one-click shopping, pop-up windows, and affiliate linking. The EFF Patent Busting Project will seek to document the damage done by such patents and will challenge them with a re-examination request to the Patent Office.http://www.eff.org/Patent/
Fight over Control of Libya's Domain
Just as Libya makes inroads in rejoining the community of nations, someone has decided to remove the country from the Net. This Register story describes the complicated confrontation over who is in charge of Libya's top-level domain (.ly). The Libyan government itself is not involved; individuals are fighting over who has the right to control the domain-name server. Talk about personal politics.... The fight isn't even close to being resolved.http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/16/why_libyanet_fell/
A New Look at an Old Time Traveler
A few years ago, John Titor claimed to be a time traveler from 2036 in a series of messages. Like the Enterprise crew who needed to travel back in time to pick up a couple of whales and save the galaxy in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home", Titor said he needed to travel to 1975 to pick up a small IBM system that will allow him to fix the Unix 2038 bug. Being that nothing is bug-free, the poor guy wound up about 25 years later than he'd planned. Although Titor certainly seems to have been a fraud, he was engaging in answering questions and his answers were well grounded in current science. The Titor phenomenon has resonance in today's world of Homeland Security and Plastic has given it another look. He reminds us of John Bigbooty in the cult movie "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension".http://www.plastic.com/article.html;sid=04/04/16/13331488;sid=04/04/16/13331488
Trends in Technical Book Sales
Tim O'Reilly, who heads the eponymous popular technical-book publishing outfit, shares some information about trends in technical-book sales. O'Reilly signed up with Nielsen BookScan, a service that tracks the top 3,000 books sold each week by major booksellers. Perhaps a sign of a recovering tech economy, the weekly averages of tech-book sales are rising. Sales of application-specific books for things like Photoshop and Mac OS X are leading the charge. On the other hand, sales of sysadmin-related books remain in a general decline, and O'Reilly speculates that this may be due to the outsourcing of IT jobs overseas. O'Reilly's article has a graph and more detail.http://tim.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/publishing/usmarket_0404.csp
CNET's Download.com Music Looking for Content
CNET's popular Download.com operation, known for its large repository of freeware and shareware, is about to launch a free music section. Consequently, it is looking for content. If you have any music you want to contribute, you can register and distribute your tunes for free. Obviously, you can't upload any music you don't own the rights to. If you're just interested in getting free music, you can subscribe to the Download.com Music newsletter and be notified when they go live.http://music.download.com/
ONLINE CULTURE
To quote from the Toothing FAQ: "Toothing is a form of anonymous sex with strangers." We wrote about the phenomenon in NSD 10.13. To tooth, use your Bluetooth-enabled cell phone to hook up with strangers also so equipped. The phenomenon of toothing hookups is based on Bluetooth phones' ability to send and receive anonymous messages within a range of a few meters. This FAQ, from a toothing chat forum, codifies the general protocol for hooking up with other toothers, as it is currently practiced in the UK. Bluetooth phones are much more common in the UK than in the US, as is the use of public transport, which puts strangers with time on their hands in close proximity. Note the pleading tone of US posters to the forum thread, who are having trouble finding compatible partners in their Bluetooth-scarce environment.FAQ: http://toothing.proboards28.com/index.cgi?board=tchat&action=display&num=1078412493
NSD 10.13: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v10/nsd.10.13.html#BS16
Grab the nearest book, open it to page 23, and find the fifth sentence on the page. Caterina Fake (yes, that's her real name) asks visitors to her blog to do that and post the result. People have responded in droves and the enigmatic results are here for your Zen reading pleasure. Shortly after this meme made the rounds of various weblogs, Kellan Elliott-McCrea of LaughingMeme wrote an amusing autopsy of the phenomenon. We have a feeling this particular meme will be resurrected periodically in one form or another. It's entertaining and fits perfectly into the self-congratulatory mindset of most bloggers.
Fake: http://www.caterina.net/archive/000521.html
LaughingMeme: http://www.laughingmeme.org/archives/001960.html
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Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief
The Decadent Cookbook: Recipes of Obsession and Excess
Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction
High Performance MySQL: Optimization, Backups, Replication, Load-balancing, and MoreSURFING SITES
Perspectives on Perry's Visit to Japan
The arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry's small flotilla in Tokyo Bay in 1853 sparked the development of Japan from an isolated medieval society to a modern, Western-style state and world-class military power within a generation or two. A project of professors John Dowers and Shigeru Miyuagawa, Black Ships and Samurai is not merely about the historic meeting between Americans and Japanese. The developers offer it as a model of how two vastly different cultures view one another: the classic "us and them". The Core Exhibition presents a multi-page narrative of the visit accompanied by contemporary American and Japanese illustrations, but the Web site's tour de force is the digital rendering of the 30-foot Japanese Black Ship Scroll painted in 1854. The digital version of the scroll has QuickTime-enriched multiple views and text translations. More than just a history lesson, Black Ships and Samurai is also a valuable portrayal of human interaction as well as a visual treat.http://www.blackshipsandsamurai.com/
The New Americans is an indie film project, sponsored by PBS, that examines how the US has changed the lives of its many immigrants, and how they subsequently change the US. Following a diverse group, we glimpse the resettlement of Nigerians in Chicago, Dominican baseball players in Los Angeles, a Mexican meatpacker heading for Kansas. Why do they leave their homelands? In some cases, to avoid violent death, and in others, simply in hope of improving their lot. The latter seems to be a common refrain, but adjustment to the US is often much more difficult than they had ever imagined. As is generally the case on PBS sites, a wealth of information is available in sidebars. Related material includes lesson plans for educators, schedules of broadcasts, and a quiz.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/newamericans/newamericans.html
Life and Death in the Roman Coliseum
Opening its doors in 80 CE, during the reign of Emperor Titus, the Roman Coliseum was the ancient world's greatest sports venue. Gladiatorial games at the Coliseum could draw crowds that any Major League Baseball team would envy, although one could argue that the comparison is unfair, considering the level of action. Based on the Discovery Channel's "Coliseum: a Gladiator's Story", this Web site brings the Roman Empire's most famous and enduring building to life. Features include a virtual tour of the Coliseum's unique architecture, a slide show of the history of the edifice in art and film, a Roman and Coliseum history quiz, and, best of all, video clips that recreate both the design and the blood sports of this arena of death. We especially liked the famous sea battle recreation that took place in the purposefully flooded Coliseum floor. Morituri te salutamus, indeed.http://media.dsc.discovery.com/convergence/colosseum/colosseum.html
This site will offend many. The initial page says you have to be over 18 and a resident of the UK to enter. The age requirement is to protect the site from British obscenity laws and the residency rule is to protect it from John Ashcroft and his ilk, we assume. However, the site is as good a spoof as has been seen in a very long time, and many of you will find it ROTFL funny. Nope, not sexy, funny. Oh, yeah - the Trojan condom company has set up this sex parody of the Olympics to market its products in the UK. Absolutely, positively don't miss the videos.
http://trojangames.co.uk/
Signs of Life is a community photography project that seeks images of signs with funny spellings, grammatical errors, and alternate meanings. The goal is to establish a commentary on aspects of human nature based on unusual signs we display as ads, warnings, or notices. If you have any unusual ones in your own holiday snaps then this is the perfect place to display them. The random selections we saw included a road sign that warned of livestock crossing for the next 89 miles, a "dangerous snakes" sign next to a designated area for pet exercise, and a sad, handmade sign that advertised a divorce yard sale. The most amusing signs depict little black stick figures getting into all sorts of trouble with items as various as sea defenses and farm equipment. Who knew that the little guys got out and about so much? Perhaps there are signs out there showing them roller-blading and sipping tequilas.
http://signsoflife.goose24.org/
We wouldn't dream of disrupting classes or other popular venues of youth. A remarkable independent video might do just that, however, if the cat gets out of the bag. So mum's the word about Street Climb. Talk about stunts! Do not try these at home. Or above your home. Or above a series of homes. This three-minute Windows Media video celebrates martial arts with a hip-hop soundtrack and sequence after sequence of street and park gymnastics that take cues from the movies. "The Matrix" comes to mind as the athletic protagonist flips in mid-air, somersaults from rooftop to sidewalk, leaps from building to building, and generally gives the impression of a swift and supple streetfighter opposed only by hard surfaces, gravity, and time in some video game. If the kick-boxing, tumbling, backflipping, wall-bouncing, car-hopping, rock-diving, roof-rolling, sand-sprinting, and bag-punching caught here mark the future of independent filmmaking, orthopedic surgeons are going to benefit. A lot.
http://red2.axg.net/downloads/movies/monkey.wmv
An FPS, for the uninitiated, is a first-person shooter. Think Quake or Unreal Tournament. Typically, such games occupy gigabytes of disk space and require hefty hardware to run at decent speed. In a stunning display of programming sophistication that hearkens back to the elegant, non-bloated software of years gone by, the team at .theprodukkt has released a demo of a 3-D FPS game that is only 96 KB big - smaller then the Unreal Tournament README file. You'll find impressive screen shots and a download at the Web site.
http://www.theprodukkt.com/
Coyle and Sharpe - Street Pranksters of the '60s
One day in 1964, two pollsters asked a man a deadpan query: "Would you be interested in helping future generations to fly?" When the young man responded in the affirmative, the pollsters asked, "Well, then, would you let us graft a pair of chicken wings on your forehead?" The team of Jim Coyle and Mal Sharpe was clearly ahead of its time, and certainly well ahead of Allen Funt's "Candid Camera". They worked for radio, and their program was a huge hit. The Official Coyle & Sharpe site is dedicated to these so-called Masters of the Street Prank, and it's a comprehensive place with MP3 bits, video clips, discography, and more. It's kind of a cross between a museum and a specialty store. Some of this material is hysterical. The MP3 of the druggist was one of the great items on this classic menu when we dropped by: two men approach a pharmacist with a request to buy some sterilizing stuff, because one guy has a pain in his chest and so the other plans to operate. In the back of a station wagon. Parked across the street. All conversation was captured on a hidden tape recorder - no mean feat back in the early 1960s. If you drop by, leave yourself plenty of time. Odds are, you won't leave any time soon.http://www.coyleandsharpe.com/
The Story of the Manson Family
Over three decades ago, Los Angeles was center stage for one of the most vicious serial murder sprees in American history. The Manson family, led by the infamous Charles Milles Manson, embarked on a gruesome series of murders in the summer of '69 that left nine people dead and many of the Manson family members behind bars. Cielodrive.com lets visitors review the evidence behind the Manson murders, including an in-depth look at the victims and the perpetrators. The site also notes outside sources of information such as books and other Web sites. In addition, guests can explore the motives behind the murders, including the link between the Bible and the Beatles' White Album. The site provides a fascinating glimpse at one of the most sensational crimes to involve the Hollywood elite.http://www.cielodrive.com/
The Web is fairly awash with new news portals these days, so why should you check out Topix.net? Well, for one thing, Topix.net features specialized local news and information pages for every American ZIP Code and state, plus a long list of cities. The site's organization is based on over 100,000 pre-built topic-specific pages for standard news subjects along with companies, actors, and more. The site's search results are similarly organized, a useful format when you're confronted with hundreds of results. Additionally, Topix.net keeps track of your previously viewed pages and displays them in a handy box at the top of the home page. We also like the e-mail feature that accompanies every listing. Topix.net does all this and scrounges news from over 4,000 sources. What's not to like?
http://www.topix.net/
Kisses come in more than one shape or size, just like those that enjoy them. There's the terror of the first kiss, the regret of a final kiss, and the passion of a delayed kiss. A site called the Kiss exists to be a place to share all those details with other fans of kissing. Anybody can submit a story about a kiss that mattered to them. The variety of tales is amazing. Short poetry-style entries rejoice in new love and rambling tales speak of kisses shared with lost loves. What is clear is that romance is alive and well and nearly everyone has a kiss that springs to mind as soon as the topic is raised. This site should be compulsory reading for any movie director seeking to recreate true love. Just remember to bring a box of tissues - not all of the endings are happy.
http://kiss.arrr.net/index.shtml
Don't Sleep on the Shift Stick, Baby
Roads have long symbolized freedom, but would it be so great if you had to live in a car? CarLiving.com intends "to inform and empower, not just by talking about life in cars, but by demonstrating alternative ways of seeing the world, and understanding that the only boundaries on our road are those set by ourselves." And civil engineers, no? Because the site defines car living as a stay in a vehicle for even a single night, the target audience includes campers, students, and disgruntled relatives as well as indigent motorists. The site is a hodgepodge of a survival guide, with first-hand recollections, a quiz about celebrity car-livers (including David Letterman, Jim Carrey, and Sally Jessy Raphael), and plugs for a book on the subject. We like adventure but prefer domesticity with a real roof overhead.http://www.carliving.com/
Quantifying the Language Tolerance of Football/Soccer Refs
Although certain football/soccer fans have earned a tarnished reputation through a lack of civility and behavior beyond boorish, the professional athletes they watch display much of the same attitude and the job of the on-field officials is tough. Several serious and mostly serious efforts have tried to guide refs in disciplining players - several of whom make more per game than all the refs combined make per year. The Bad Language Mapping and Tolerance Levels chart is both sad and funny. While it helps the foreigner understand the cruder Brit slang, that's not really the point. The discussion that follows is a solemn attempt to quantify the badness of these curses for referees, and to guide them in appropriate responses. Regardless, the main attraction here is the chart. The meanings of most everything should be clear. If there is something you don't understand, it's something you don't want your children to know either. The chart is useful in many fields other than soccer. Our reviewer now uses it at his place of employment.http://www.carosi.freeserve.co.uk/corshamreferee/wordmap.htm
We may take shoelaces for granted most days, but if you want to honor those bits of fabric that keep your shoes on your feet then this is the place to visit. You can learn how to tie your laces more efficiently and how to stop your shoelaces from coming undone, or discover the 15 different ways that laces can be strung through your shoes, including one method that uses two differently colored laces for a more dramatic effect. All instructions are clearly outlined in a number of steps and are accompanied by wonderfully clear diagrams despite the complexity of the subject. It's not easy to describe a knot without waving your hands around or actually tying one. Keep your toddler away from this site unless you're prepared to let the kid wear slip-on shoes for the rest of his days.
http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/
As graphics and sound replace print as the prime means of communication, it makes sense to look toward the more graphic forms of literature to convey knowledge. Cartoons can have a role beyond amusing and arousing readers. A well drawn strip can teach much that its audience would ignore in more traditional text-driven formats. The Howtoons series of projects shows exactly how to use cartoons to pass on knowledge to readers who might not be receptive to other text forms. Each self-contained strip shows kids aged 5-15 how to build something. Even those not able to read can follow the graphics. If you have children in the target age range, point them here. Indeed, if you feel the need to build a marshmallow shooter yourself, check it out.
http://www.howtoons.net/
Michigan State University provides an excellent online tutorial on American Sign Language (ASL). At its ASL Browser, you can view hundreds of video clips that showcase words performed in sign language. The QuickTime videos are easily viewed by clicking the respective words in the righthand frame. While this site presents a small sampling of ASL, anyone interested in more thorough study can purchase the award-winning Personal Communicator CD-ROM through this site. This site is an excellent resource for those studying or teaching ASL, as well as for someone who may want to learn some basic signs. Its simple design and navigation it both inviting and easy to use.
http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm
PBS's Wayback site is aimed at pre-teens with an interest in tracing where their family came from or those who are just plain curious about the skeletons in their parents' closets. The site has an entertaining mix of photos, interviews, and maps, plus plenty of contributions from kids themselves. For example, two teenagers explain how their family reunion is run. They have games such as modelling vintage clothes, competitive sports, and talent shows. There's enough advice and checklists for any budding organizers to get started on a family reunion project of their own - if they have the time, they can use the online forms to document their own family tree before the get-together. It's a good way to get the skinny on parents - all the kids have to do is sit back and listen closely as older relations tell the incriminating stories of what tearaway kids their parents were at their age.
http://pbskids.org/wayback/
You don't have to go to the Alps to learn how to yodel. You can earn yourself a Certificate of Yodelology by following Norm's online Yodel Course. The course progresses through ten levels. The first lesson starts with the straightforward one note "Hodl-oh-ooh-dee," and each lesson is set out in musical notation with an accompanying audio file. By the time you have reach level 10 you will be ready to don your lederhosen and check out Norm's Yodelops page and its suggested locations for yodeling - Achensee in Austria is the Mecca for yodelers, though the sandstone rock formations of Sedona, Ariz. provide marvelous echo chambers for yodeling.
http://www.yodelcourse.com/
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
The 213 Things Not to Do in the US Army
A bored comic genius stationed with the US Army in the Balkans compiled a list of things you are not allowed to do in the army. To quote just one of them would do a disservice to the other 212 utterly hilarious items on the list. Think Bilko on drugs.http://www.avalanchetankers.us/archives/000058.html
"Spider-Man 2", "Kill Bill Volume 2" Movie Trailers
The trailers for the two highly anticipated movies are now online. Kill Bill Volume 2 opens in the US this weekend, Spiderman 2 will be out on June 30."Spider-Man": http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/spider-man_2/trailer/
"Kill Bill Vol. 2": http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/kill_bill/volume_II/trailer/
In this Flash game, the Bride gets to dispatch hordes of sword-wielding Yakuza in that Japanese restaurant from the movie. Tons of fun, and well executed. Fair warning about all the dismemberment and squirting red pixels.
http://kill-bill.cz/game/index.php
How well has brand marketing worked on you? Could you identify an alphabet made only with letters from automobile logos or movie posters? Welcome to Logo Game, a great way to spend lunch, either against colleagues or as a team-bonding event. We recommend the Web Surfers and Tech Lovers quizzes, although the site offers different quizzes in many fields.
http://www.logogame.com/
The Brits, it seems, have a problem with streakers at their football matches, which is the basis for this engaging little online game, which may just be a bit more exciting than the football games themselves.
http://www.kontrabandcontent.co.uk/graphics/games/streak.swf
If you need a mindless distraction in your day, try out this simple game of matching a name to a face. Don't be discouraged by the stats, which may be skewed by repeaters.
http://www.zerotv.com/namegame/index.cfm
SOFTWARE
Postfix is a mail server that is rapidly gaining ground as a replacement for the venerable but aging Sendmail. It is the default mail server shipped on Mac OS X machines, as well as the mail server of choice on a number of major Linux distributions. Postfix 2.1 is a major update with a complete documentation rewrite and numerous new features for flexibly dealing with spam. The most notable of those is the ability to inspect mail before it is accepted into local mail queues - i.e. you can drop spam during the SMTP dialogue and before it clutters your disks. Extensive and detailed release notes can be found on the download pages of the Postfix Web site.http://www.postfix.org/
The Internet's premier DNS software has just been bumped up with a number of major new features, notably support for the latest DNS Security standard. Other enhancements focus on better support for IPv6, more administrative options for controlling DNS zones and operation, better statistics, and support for single DNSs with multiple IP addresses. The organization that supports the open-source BIND, ISC, has also announced that it will, for the first time, offer commercial support contracts, an important feature to corporate users worried about risk mitigation. ISC's press release page has a summary, while its BIND page has extensive documentation and downloads.
Press release: http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/about/press/
BIND: http://www.isc.org/index.pl?/sw/bind/
Most people who use wireless networks, particularly on Windows systems, are already familiar with NetStumbler. The application allows you to discover and profile wireless networks. It's one of the favorite tools used for WarDriving and mapping wireless spots. Major changes in this version include bug fixes, support for several new wireless cards, changes in graphing and reporting options, and a variety of scripting features.
http://www.stumbler.net/