BREAKING SURF
| Being Tired |
| Politically Correct Dating |
| Friendster: Fake Profiles OK if They're Paid Ads |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| PHP 5.0 Released |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
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BREAKING SURF
Cassini: Saturn in Pictures and Videos
If you haven't taken a recent look at the Cassini media archives, you're in for a treat. The images are dominated by spectacular false-color pictures of the rings, which reveal new details of their composition. Yes, there is ice, but much of the material also seems to be composed of the same stuff as Saturn's moon Phoebe. Over in the video section, you'll find an animation of Cassini passing through the ring planes, complete with an audio track that simulates particle impacts on the spacecraft. Other animations show Saturn's winds and long-exposure videos of its small moons' orbits. It's very much worth a look.Pictures: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/latest/index.cfm
Videos: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/latest/index.cfm
While in truth our headline could apply to many New York Post stories, most people are focusing on the paper's recent truly historic front-page screw-up. On the day John Kerry picked his running mate for the upcoming election, the New York Post blundered spectacularly in scooping the rest of the media as it went to press with a front page that keyed Dick Gephardt as the chosen Vice-Presidential candidate. Kerry, of course, picked John Edwards. The Smoking Gun has a copy of the original front page, and it didn't take long for Fark to ask its adherents to go nuts and play with the image. The results are hilarious, especially if you're a fan of extreme recursion. Fark's collection is a bandwidth-sucker of a page, but worth every byte.
Smoking Gun: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/art3/0706041post1.jpg
Fark: http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1025820
The only reasonable thing to do with the Tour de France is to stand back and admire it or maybe wonder at the drive or sanity of the participants - unless expending 6,000 calories a day, day after day, often under treacherously wet or dehydratingly hot conditions, is your idea of fun. This year's race began in Liege, Belgium and, 20 stages later, will end July 25 in Paris. So far, the weather has made the roads slick and dangerous. Many riders have fallen and a few have had to withdraw. This year, the great endurance contest features a special tension over whether Lance Armstrong can manage his sixth win, which would elevate him above the other four greats who have managed five. Favorites include Jan Ullrich, who won in 1997, and Tyler Hamilton, an American. So far, the main contenders have stayed reasonably near the front and out of trouble. The early leader in the famous yellow jersey is Frenchman Thomas Voeckler, ahead by less than three minutes. The race weeds out the weak in the mountains, with stages that sometimes involve several 1,000-meter climbs, and that starts in a few days. All the signs this year point to a final outcome that won't be known until very near the end - an upset may well snag victory at the last moment. The BBC has good news, expert commentary, course maps, and information about tactics and the bikes. Outdoor Life Network (OLN) has TV coverage, while the Tour de France 2004 blog is worth a look.
Tour: http://www.letour.fr/
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/cycling/default.stm
OLN: http://ww2.olntv.com/cyclysm/jump.html
Blog: http://www.tdfblog.com/
The Second Tier of Tour de France Info
Unless you've been offworld or skipped the previous article, you know that American bicycling phenomenon Lance Armstrong is attempting to win his sixth straight grueling Tour de France. If your window on the event is OLN, try this drinking game: take a shot - of whisky, not Gatorade - every time OLN mentions "Lance". Our intrepid Netsurfer made a good faith effort but couldn't last an hour. Should you choose to learn more about the Tour de France, we have a second article's worth of links. You can learn just about everything you want to know about Lance Armstrong - but not his shy Canadian girlfriend - at LanceArmstrong.com. Especially nice is the connection to his cancer-fighting foundation. Wired and Engadget have useful pieces on the various technologies at work in the race, from bike frames to communication systems. Baseline has a great article on Trek Bicycle, the company that makes Armstrong's rides. Trek's sponsorship of Armstrong and the US Postal Service team has allowed the company to raise the price of a high-end bike to nearly $5,000 and has made Trek one of the leading bike manufacturers. What's really amazing is that people who don't look good in bike shorts are willing to pay that kind of money to ride slowly through LA streets.LanceArmstrong.com: http://www.lancearmstrong.com/
Wired: http://wired.com/wired/archive/12.07/armstrong.html
Engadget: http://features.engadget.com/entry/1130461946171237/
Baseline: http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1397,1618016,00.asp
eBay to Experiment with Selling Music Files
Until this week, eBay has specifically prohibited the selling of digital music files, despite the demonstrable interest of its customers who keep trying various creative ways around that policy. In a terse announcement, the company states it will experiment with digital music sales for six months, allowing only pre-approved merchants to sell the files. All transactions will take place on sellers' branded Web sites, in a "secure environment". Naturally, sellers must have the rights to sell their files, and the buyer can't resell them on eBay. eBay offers no details on how you can become a pre-approved seller, but we speculate that the initial sellers will probably be established music labels.http://www2.ebay.com/aw/marketing.shtml#2004-07-12154524
The latest installment in the legendary Doom game series ships August 3. The Web site has a new trailer showing the truly creepy goodness. Also, while we're not ordinarily enamored of Flash navigation interfaces, the one here is rather good from the artistic point of view, and not too obnoxious when it comes to navigation. Check the Media link for a downloadable copy of the Doom 3 theme music. Meanwhile, no less a source then Time magazine has a review, clearly an indication of the high profile the game enjoys.
Doom 3: http://www.doom3.com/
Time: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,664641,00.html
Phishing Slightly More Illegal Thanks to ITPEA
To refresh the jargon-challenged, "phishing" is sending e-mail that looks like it comes from a legitimate business in order to snag a victim's private information, typically credit card numbers. A new law signed by President Bush this week makes such activity a federal crime with a two-year minimum mandatory sentence. The law is called the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act (ITPEA), and it makes the possession of false identification with intent to commit a crime a crime. That might deter phishers, but if you're underage and use a fake ID to buy beer, you could be heading for two years at Club Fed - in theory, anyway. Will ITPEA actually put a damper on all those Internet phishing scams? Of course not. But it will make the politicians feel good heading into the election. CNET and its ludicrous new URL scheme have more.ITPEA: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:h.r.01731:
CNET: http://news.com.com/Season+over+for+%27phishing%27%3F/2100-1028_3-5270077.html
Here's a profound idea: create a wiki catalogue that points to creative works and is searchable by a wide range of criteria that includes license type, language, and all the usual descriptors. The success of Wikipedia demonstrates how collaborative, community-edited projects can develop into widely useful and important resources. The proposal is itself a wiki, meaning you can add your own comments and edit content, and there's already a fair bit of public involvement in working out bugs, identifying challenges, and shaping a practical proposal. This is still a work in progress, and it will take much more effort if this barn is ever going to be finished. If you've got the right kind of technical smarts and experience for this kind of thing, get involved. This could be one of the next big things on the Net, if it takes off. You, too, can be a minor Net deity.
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Get_Content
Chatango: Instant Private Chat, with No Software Download
Chatango is a purely Web-based chat facility. Register at Chatango and it provides you with a Web page whose URL is linked to your username. You can give out your personalized link, and when others visit that URL, they can chat with you via Chatango's browser-based application. It's platform-independent universal chat. Post your Chatango link as a button in your eBay profile, post it in your Craigslist posting, post it on your Web page. People click on it to instantly connect to you, and both of you need only your browser to communicate. It's bone simple, quite useful, and it works, solving privacy problems that are poorly addressed by instant-messaging software. It's worth a try. Read the FAQ for all the details. Best of all, it's free.http://www.chatango.com/
Bitoogle's BitTorrent Search Engine
BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol that has just overtaken FastTrack (the network Kazaa uses) as the most popular way to share files online. In the past, BitTorrent users have used occasionally slow and unreliable index sites such as SuprNova.org and Torrent Search to find the BitTorrent protocol files - called "torrents" - that point to downloadable files. Bitoogle has burst on the scene as a search engine for torrents. Bitoogle got so popular so fast that it has already had to shut down the part of its site that showed download statistics for torrents to help limit traffic. It still looks like a beta effort but is a long-awaited attempt at a genuine industrial-strength BitTorrent search engine.BitTorrent: http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/
SuprNova.org: http://www.suprnova.org/
Torrent Search: http://www.torrentsearch.us/
Bitoogle: http://www.bitoogle.com/
Googlebombing "War on Pornography"
Fed up with declarations against pornography by publicity-seeking blowhards, Fleshbot has initiated a pre-emptive counterattack. The site is asking supporters to Googlebomb "War on Pornography" so that Fleshbot will top Google's search rankings for the phrase. By linking to Fleshbot's blog post, porn supporters can ensure that the forces of libidinousness claim the phrase as their own. Interestingly, at press time it's not the Fleshbot article that rises like cream to the top of Google's results, but a Baltimore Sun article. Second is a post on Boing Boing that refers to the Fleshbot post, which probably reflects: a) that Boing Boing is more popular than Fleshbot; and b) that the Boing Boing readers who are porn supporters can't figure out to link to Fleshbot instead of Boing Boing. Imagine that - hip culture weblog beats hip porn in popularity. That's gotta be some sort of first.http://www.fleshbot.com/archives/war-on-pornography-017316.php
Google Buys Photo Organizer Company, Releases "Browse by Name" in Toolbar
Google's latest acquisition is Picasa, whose Web-based photo-organizing technology Google is slated to incorporate as part of its Blogger service. Picasa is another in a string of recent Google acquisitions in the search-engine company's relentless quest to index all data everywhere. Google has also released a new feature for its popular Google Toolbar. It's an extension of the "I'm Feeling Lucky" function. You can now type a phrase instead of a URL in the toolbar, and you'll be taken directly to the Web site that comes up first in the consequent Google search results. It works quite well.Picasa: http://www.picasa.com/google/
Google Toolbar: http://toolbar.google.com/
Proposed Corollary to Godwin's Law
Ages ago, Mike Godwin observed that Usenet debaters sooner or later almost invariably compared their opponents to Hitler or Nazis. Many have incorrectly molded the observation, called Godwin's Law, to mean that anyone who used this technique to win the argument should automatically lose. Godwin's Law was just meant to encourage geeks, who are supposed to be smart and clever, to use better reasoning and debating ability and not stoop to cheap slurs. Geeks being geeks, one has decided to remedy the misconception with a corollary: anyone who calls attention to another's crossing of the Godwin's Law line also loses. That's nothing Earth-shaking and it in fact relies on the misinterpretation it purports to correct, but we point you to the Kuro5hin discussion for the amusing sarcasm in the responses. The first comment sums it all up, with another corollary we heartily endorse: anyone who takes this kind of thing seriously enough to propose a corollary also loses. If we dare suggest that anyone who posts a response in this argument loses as well, does that make us losers, too? We also think that anyone who suggests that someone should get a life also loses.http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/6/30/33339/3949
What Europeans Think of Each Other
You can tell it's summer, even in Europe. Reader's Digest (British Edition) decided to find out what Europeans thought of each other and discovered that the stereotypes hold true. Most Europeans love Italy and the Italian cuisine and people. The UK is respected for its sense of humor and its contributions to culture, medicine, and industry. Europeans also consider Germans the most efficient - and the rudest. Mind you, they paid someone to tell them this. If you need a chart of mind numbing numbers or a good reason to pay attention to Edward Tufte, check out the PDF file of the full results.Reader's Digest: http://www.readersdigest.co.uk/magazine/europeans04.htm
Tufte: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/
Americans Reading Less Literature
The US National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has a warning: Americans aren't reading much literature, and it figures this means the country is in the throes of a national crisis. This apparently means that everybody should quit reading news bites from Internet sources and start reading James Joyce. Go on. We'll wait. Tap, tap, tap - OK, done? The NEA presents the shocking and disturbing scenario in hard copy or as a PDF. Now that you've finished the Joyce oeuvre, "reading at Risk" should be a piece of cake.http://www.arts.gov/news/news04/ReadingAtRisk.html
Allbritton in Iraq Again - on the Corporate Roster
Christopher Allbritton is back in Iraq, again, again. The intrepid blogger who previously used readers' donations to pay his way to the war zone is now working as a stringer for Time and the NY Daily News. This Online Journalism Review (OJR) article details Allbritton's adventures and the new issues raised by his having to answer to corporate paymasters. As expected, some who supported him in the past believe he has sold out, but Allbritton's own understanding of his work and his relationship with his audience is more nuanced and insightful. We can only hope that all reporters are this aware of their complicated relationships.Allbritton: http://www.back-to-iraq.com/
OJR: http://ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1089248925.php
Ten Local News Clips from Salon
Local news - the very phrase might make your skin crawl, or maybe you like hearing about all the mayhem in your fine locality. Given the popularity of the new Will Ferrell film, "Anchorman", Salon decided to put together a sample of some amazing episodes in television news. The clips are hilarious, and point out the dangers of live reporting, which include assault, verbal slip-ups, and breasts. You'll want to check out the movie site and trailers as well.Salon: http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2004/07/08/anchors_away/index.html
"Anchorman": http://www.anchorman-themovie.com/
VeriSign Announces Rapid DNS Updates
VeriSign runs the 13 root DNS servers that track .com and .net domains. When you register one of those domains, you need to wait until the global DNS database gets updated before anybody on the Net can reach your site. Currently, VeriSign updates the databases twice per day, meaning a wait time of up to several hours before your domain is visible. Starting Sept. 8, VeriSign will update the databases in near real-time, meaning that your domain should be visible to the Net within about five minutes. The company made the announcement 60 days before implementing the service, a good move given that messing with just about any aspect of the domain name system has rarely gone smoothly. VeriSign has a FAQ on the subject.http://www.verisign.com/nds/naming/rapid_update/faq.html
ONLINE CULTURE
Back in 1997, Mike Kuniavsky worked for the company that owned Wired magazine. That year, he bought the domain Tired.com from a friend simply because it rhymed with Wired. Until he could figure out what to do with the domain, he put a placeholder Web page at the domain with the simple message "Are you tired? Tell us why," and a link to an e-mail address. As often happens to little Web oddities, the URL found its way around the Web, and Kuniavsky is now sitting on a collection of more than 32,000 e-mail messages from people who were tired and told him why. Slate has the story, and excerpts from several e-mails. Kuniavsky does not reply to the e-mail, nor does he publish them, so these excerpts in Slate may be the only glimpse you'll ever get of this phenomenon.Slate: http://slate.msn.com/id/2103823
Tired.com: http://tired.com/
One of the things the Internet is good at is sorting people into niches. Actually what happens is that the people manage to sort themselves into those niches, simply by frequenting similar Web sites and clumping together like wet kitty litter. Some sites let you find exactly the kind of people you want to hang out with - they're called dating sites. We can safely say that when it comes to sorting people into mutually compatible groups the only criterion more popular then sex is politics. Marry the two and what do you get? Politically correct dating. Salon writes about how modern dating sites are making it easy to choose your date on the basis of political compatibility. The article gives examples from both the liberal and the conservative sides of the spectrum, and even one example (Love in War) which seeks to bridge the considerable love gap between the two.
Salon: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/07/13/politicaldating_sites/index.html
Love in War: http://loveinwar.com/
Friendster: Fake Profiles OK if They're Paid Ads
One of the famous cultural battles on the Friendster social network has revolved around the site's official position on fake profiles - users were not allowed to create them. The site forbid users to pretend to be Elvis or to declare themselves a friend of Elvis (though, let's face it, who isn't a friend of Elvis?). Friendster's policy drew a lot of ribbing from the online hordes, and the service is likely to earn even more as a result of a recent promotion in which it hosted fake profiles for characters from "Anchorman". Friendster tried to foist lame excuses for the movie exception, such as that the policy protected consumers and that fake profiles can wreak havoc on the network, whereas "the profiles created by the movie studio...are funny, rich and entertaining." Look for Friendster to sell more profile slots to movie studios. We have a feeling there will be many friends of Dorothy to be found soon. Wired has the story.http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64156,00.html
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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/ |
Mongo: Adventures in Trash
Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge
I, Robot
Code Complete, Second Edition 
SURFING SITES
Most Web scrapbooks are nice documents but, frankly, boring. Ray Smith's Vietnam site has a Photo Collection page with approximately 225 photos that are anything but boring. Smith and friends cover about four years of the war (1966 to 1970, approximately). Smith was a tank gunner and commander in the 1st Battalion of the 69th Armored Regiment. The photos he displays brilliantly capture both his war and the war in general. This site is not to be missed by anyone still trying to understand Vietnam. Also not to be missed is Smith's extremely well written war diary, My Tour, and a number of other pages. The pages add up to one amazing resource.http://www.rjsmith.com/my_unit.html
Completely Mesmerizing Japanese-Style Flash
First, a warning: don't open this site at work. This is an industrial-strength time-waster without any possible real-world application and is guaranteed to piss off your boss. Tokyoplastic is the ultimate interactive art Web site, and while site navigation is confusing and complicated, the journey is plenty fun, as well. We especially liked the drum machine. Describing the various features would simply spoil the effect, so sit back, pour yourself a single malt, click on the Japanese text under "enter tokyoplastic", and let her rip. Enjoy what would seem to be the concentrated efforts of 250 Japanese Flash animators on crack. Surprisingly, the site is actually the work of just two men in England, neither of whom is even in the slightest Japanese, except by aesthetic. Pacdesco has an interview with them.Tokyoplastic: http://www.tokyoplastic.com/
Pacdesco: http://www.pacdesco.com/tokyo_p.php
The Ancient Olympics Kinda Resembled Ours
Ancient Greeks competed just fine without endorsements from Nike or Nissan, but today's Olympic games have more in common with the original contests than many might care to admit. The ancient games featured vainglory, politics, and posturing. And, yes, women participated. The Real Story of the Ancient Olympic Games will likely hold your attention longer than a hammerthrow - and these days, that's something - maintained, as it is, with educational immediacy by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. We learned, for one thing, that unmarried girls had it better than married peers when it came to athletics: married women were banned from the athletic contests specific to the Hera festival and were barred on penalty of death from the Sanctuary of Zeus when the boys and men competed. Peeping Penelopes, Batman! Get up to speed for this summer's games with easy-to-browse historical summaries. Debunk myths with the FAQ. Bone up on Olympic terms with the glossary. Prove to purist buddies that ancient Greek competitors had their own versions of salesmanship, cheating, and bribery. Alas, not even the Olympics were ever perfect. We find some comfort in that.http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/olympics/olympicintro.shtml
"Tie twine to three tree twigs" is merely one among nearly 400 English tongue-twisters on this so-called First International Collection of Tongue Twisters (sic). The collection is rapidly approaching 3,000 tongue twisters, in 105 languages. Aside from being fun, tongue-twisters often reveal a unique perspective on the culture of the speakers of a particular language. Our reviewer's absolute favorite is the Maori "Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu" which we're sure you know means (roughly), "The place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed, and swallowed mountains, known as landeater, played his nose flute to his loved one." Say that, in either language, twice fast.
http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/index.htm
BBC Offers Free Peeks at Super Stock Footage
The BBC Motion Gallery, a new site, lets you watch selected reels of video. While this is at its heart just a campaign to get customers to buy stock footage, the site is worth a visit just to treat yourself to the showreels. Pump up the volume, and kick back as shot after shot unfolds. In some of them, the narration and video is amazing. One film in the Wildlife section follows lionesses as they discuss the shortcomings of their snoring male counterparts and eye wildebeests - which are sort of the fast food of the African landscape. The site has lots of other cool stuff to take up your morning break time.http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/index.jsp
Could You Pass Eighth Grade in 1895?
If you needed any more proof that the standards of education have fallen in the last century, try to take this final examination, required to pass the 8th grade from Salina, Kans. in 1895. Exam time is five hours - and we at NSD don't remember spending five hours taking any university exam, even back to the 1970s. Pupils are expected to show proficiency in grammar ("Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications."), arithmetic ("Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent."), US history ("Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?"), orthography ("Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e'. Name two exceptions under each rule."), and geography ("Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?"). Think you're smart or at least well-read? Take this test. It's a humbling experience.http://people.morehead-st.edu/fs/w.willis/eighthgrade.html
We've always wondered how some people got their names. Were their parents crazy? Name Our Baby also makes us wonder, not only about the folks behind the site but also about some of the visitors who have suggested names for a boy to be born in two months or so. The parents want you, the Net public, to name their baby - within reason. More than 10,000 visitors have submitted 8,000 potential names for the mystery boy. The three most popular suggestions are Gabriel, Harrison, and Jack. If you, too, have a boy on the way and are indecisive, this temporary community has plenty of zingers for your consideration: 25 Cent; Beanie Weenie; Dr. Funkenstein.... We lean more toward Dweezil, Gollum, and Glory May. Of course, Gilligan is up there, too. Tough choice. Flip a coin or create a Web site yourself. How'd you like to learn that your parents turned to strangers on the Net for your name? This site adds a new twist to that parental standby, "We know best."
http://www.nameourbaby.net/
Take a journey with Nuclear Bob as he documents his quest to not wear the same shirt twice until he exhausts his wardrobe. Starting in early June, Nuclear Bob began taking daily snapshots of himself and his choice of a different shirt each day. The cast of characters and quotable quotes to be found on Bob's chest is varying and often amusing. As befits a nerdy physicist with a self-obsessed Web site - and we mean that with a great deal of affection, for where would NSD be without such types - he wears a lot of shirts decorated with SF notables and cartoon characters, and then there are the loud Hawaiian-style shirts he's sported on at least two occasions. Each new log has comments posted by Bob and other visitors to the site. Sadly, no new entries have appeared since the end of June, but maybe Nuclear Bob is taking the time to morph into Stepladder-and-Tape Bob to fix that danged drooping Einstein poster.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/shirtoftheday/
Play Arcade Classics from the '80s
Many of our favorite arcade games from the '80s are online - for free! - courtesy of a couple of nostalgic Floridian parents. David and Ricki provide access to Pac Man, Missile Command, and many other popular classics on their family site, Triplets and Us. Fans of Tetris, Galaxian, or Donkey Kong can easily blow an afternoon here, even though the Shockwave and Java applets are smaller on a PC monitor than the original games were on a video screen and a keyboard is often a poor substitute for a joystick. Our guess is that, like many parents, David and Ricki know their kids will play electronic games with or without permission, and that, again like many, they are put off by sex and violence in contemporary games. A few games of Pong or Mario Brothers may convince skeptics that this site is OK for kids. You can download DOS and Windows games such as Frogger and Arkanoid as well as play online. David and Ricki provide minimal instructions. As they often note, "If you grew up in the 80's you shouldn't need instructions!!"http://www.tripletsandus.com/80s/80s_games/arcade.htm
Yard sales are a staple of the hazy days of summer. If you're going to be near one any time soon - whether by having your own or touring the neighborhood - you'll fare better by first browsing the Yardsale Queen's Web site. The purveyor of this site, a self-proclaimed yard-sale addict named Chris, provides visitors with a plethora of useful tips for either buying or selling at yard sales or garage sales or whatever they call them chez vous. Chris advises sellers to avoid having a yard sale on a holiday weekend and advises shoppers to bring a lot of small bills and change when making the circuit. In addition to reading the Queen's great tips, visitors can also amuse themselves with stories of yard-sale adventures and misadventures. One such story, offered by Sarah in Florida, describes a customer from Hell who urinates on the side of her house. This portal hosts a wealth of information for the person looking at yard sales as a serious hobby.
http://www.yardsalequeen.com/
Ever dreamed of winning Olympic gold? Well how about winning a medal for rubberband marksmanship? No, it's not an Olympic event yet, but then again we never believed beach volleyball was going to make it either. By the time you achieve world-class proficiency the competition might make the grade as at least a demonstration sport. There is a long history of shooting competitions in the Games so at least there's a precedent. The perfect place to start, other than the back row of your grade-school class, is the Ultimate Guide to Shooting Rubber Bands. The site will show you all the latest techniques, complete with detailed descriptions and pictures. Anxious parents will want to read the safety guide. Just remember that the most importance choice in your new sport is your ammunition, in terms of thickness, diameter, and elasticity. It's a vital choice for any young band-slinger.
http://hometown.aol.com/morganbolt/
Alternate Consumer-Goods Uses and Trivia
If you think toothpaste is only good for brushing your teeth or that Coca-Cola is stretched at most as a mix for your favorite cocktail, then you've obviously never heard of Joey Green. This self-proclaimed mad scientist puts tradition to the test by using out-of-the-ordinary products for ordinary tasks. According to Green, Colgate toothpaste has a myriad of uses, including silver polish, acne medication, and spackling. Green uses coffee grounds to repel ants, corn starch to clean carpets, fabric softener to clean hard-water stains, and mayonnaise to exfoliate. At the Wacky Uses site, he'll teach you some of the - well, wacky uses he has concocted or discovered, as well as some peculiar facts about the products he uses. The tips and tricks you'll find here are free, but for more detail and other curious ideas, you'll have to purchase one of Green's many books.http://www.wackyuses.com/
It's another day in your cubicle farm and the mischief imp is urging you to create some chaos. Stumped for ideas? Fear not, GetAnnoyed.com is here for you - complete with blinking banner ad, of course. The site has collected literally hundreds of tips for the adolescent prankster lurking inside even the most sensible be-suited business geek. How about scheduling your next meeting for exactly 4:14 p.m.? Maybe you can build a roof of aluminum cans over your cubicle or compose all your e-mail in rhyming couplets, too. Luckily for those of us who want to keep our office jobs, the site covers less income-endangering situations as well. The recommended public annoyances include taking a long time on a diving board and then acting as if you were pushed into the pool, keeping your brake light flashing in the eyes of the driver behind you by playing with the brake pedal, and making loud "oooooh" sounds each time the actors kiss in the movies. This stuff is better than it sounds. Trust us.
http://www.getannoyed.com/
Breakfast at Tiffany's may be fun, but with an economy that's still sputtering for most of us, it can be useful to have someone in your corner to tell you how to save money. The Cheap Stingy Bastard site is your online guide to good deals and the frugal lifestyle. When we visited, the weekly feature discussed how you can stay in Las Vegas on the cheap. Other recent gems teach you how to choose a car that's inexpensive to run, how to get MIT tuition notes for free, and where to find free smoke detectors. The site also suggests that you can trade volunteer work for a free vacation. The next time your credit card bill frightens you, maybe try out some of these ideas. Browsing the site is free.
http://cheap.typepad.com/
Giving and Getting Stuff for Free
One man's trash is another's treasure, they say, and that's definitely tested by Freecycle. The site's concept is simple: advertise something you no longer want and that you are willing to give away. It clears clutter from your life, reduces the pressure on landfill, does something positive for your environment, and might even help out a worthy community project. Equally, if there's something you want from the listings on the site, get in contact with the lister and arrange collection. Freecycle groups exist all over the US and have spread as far as India, Australia, and Belgium. The project began in May 2003 and has expanded to include 234,255 freecyclers so far. It continues to grow as it answers the desire we have to pass on belongings rather than throw them out. Offers are managed via Yahoo groups and can encompass the bartering of skills.http://www.freecycle.org/
If you've got crabs, you probably also have questions regarding how to deal with them. Where do you start, what do you do, and what are the basics involved - these are all good questions that come to mind, and all are discussed at this Web site. The site helps you figure out which species you happen to have, and can even help you identify the sex of a crab. The site has several photos that you should find helpful. Crabs are often purchased as pets, then improperly cared for, and ultimately discarded. Hermit-Crabs.com hopes to provide enough information to change some of that, and it's a great start. Oh, come on - what did you think we were talking about? Lice?
http://www.hermit-crabs.com/index.html
Take a glimpse back in time with the dMarie Time Capsule. Simply enter a date and hit the Quick Page or Advanced Page button to begin. The Quick Page feature automatically generates a page for you, while the Advanced Page lets you customize the final results. The end product is a typical "this day in history" record with headlines, top entertainment, consumer prices, and more. This historical portal of noteworthy tidbits houses data for the years 1800 through 2002. The nifty printable-page option and the ability to customize the final result makes this a handy option for a special occasion or birthday gift.
http://www.dmarie.com/timecap/
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
Is it a work of art? Post-post-modern architecture? A cruel mind trick? An adventure in personal hygiene? We think it's all that and more - and it's definitely not for the pee-shy.http://home.centurytel.net/cty90143/jpeg/humor/swisstoilet.htm
Aw, shucks - what a cute way to be assimilated. Just a thought - would a cute little Borg pony produce cute little Borg pony manure? Inquiring mental entities want to know.
http://www.aikarin.com/mlp/customs/103.html
I'll Trade You My Cryptosporidiosis for Your Salmonellosis
The Centers for Disease Control have released, of all things, infectious-disease trading cards for kids. Bad taste or really cool? We can't decide, which probably means it's cool. Clearly, the set needs more cards - for example, wither cryptorchism?http://www.cdc.gov/global/cards.htm
If you ever had any doubts that John Kerry and John Edwards were meant for each other, this touching Flash movie will surely put your mind at rest.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/180007
Internet Archive Adds RSS Feed
If you have an RSS reader, you can keep up with the latest additions to the Internet Archive. An amazing variety of digital data goes through this feed.http://www.archive.org/services/collection-rss.php
Do you love jigsaw puzzles? Of course you do. Here are dozens of online puzzles, with your choice of difficulty and with various features to enhance your online puzzle-assembling pleasure. Just click and drag.
http://www.crea-soft.com/online-jigsaw-puzzle/
Tired of getting gouged with DVD rewind fees? Look no further than these folks, who are selling the fastest DVD rewinder available, complete with customizable rewind "in progress" sound. The rewinder is out of stock, but there's plenty of swag available.
http://www.dvdrewinder.com/
The world's smallest park is a full 452 square inches of downtown Portland, Ore. Mill Ends Park is located in a median strip that divides lanes of traffic, and yes, it is an official public park. Visit if you wish, but please don't step on it.
http://www.parks.ci.portland.or.us/Parks/MillEnds.htm
SOFTWARE
PHP is one of the most popular Web coding languages in use today and the Web-developer community has eagerly awaited the release of PHP 5. Most of the new version's new features aim squarely at hardcore developers, who can now play with more power from PHP's object-oriented-programming model via the Zend Engine II interpreter. This release also boasts improved XML support, hooks for working with SOAP Web services, and a new object-oriented interface for MySQL that's designed to work with the latest release of that database. There's much more, of interest to PHP developers everywhere.http://php.net/