More Signal, Less Noise
Monday, April 25, 2005
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NETSURFER DIGEST
More Signal, Less Noise |
Volume 11, Issue 16 Monday, April 25, 2005
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NETSURFER LINKS
 BREAKING SURF
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BREAKING SURF Google Offers to Remember Your Search History Google now allows you the option of storing your search history. To use this new feature, you'll need a Google account, which will allow you to retrieve your search history on any computer. A9 actually beat Google to the punch on this feature some time ago. In addition, whenever you're logged in and running a Google search, your history will provide extra information such as how often you've seen the page and when. Google supports all the standard search-history-type operations such as adding/deleting/editing the data and navigating it in various ways - you can display your history from a particular day, for example. For privacy reasons, you can stop and start the recording of your search history at will, and obviously you can remove items as well.http://www.google.com/searchhistory/ BusinessWeek Going Blogspotting The venerable BusinessWeek is dipping its toe into the waters of weblogging. The magazine builds up to the introduction of its own blog in a series of articles about blogging in general. If you've been following the growth of blogs, none of the articles will hold many surprises for you, but overall the series paints an effective portrait of the serious, business-oriented side of the weblog world. After explaining why blogs are important, the articles, themselves in blog form, explore the way major businesses use them. The stories also touch on the consulting industry that has sprung up around the phenomenon, on the venture capital that flows into related businesses, and inevitably on the still anemic business of blog advertising. The series culminates with the introduction of Blogspotting, the Business Week blog "where the worlds of business, media, and blogs collide". Blogspotting has too few posts to let us judge where it's going, but it may be worth keeping an eye on if you're a business news junkie.Businessweek: http://yahoo.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_18/b3931001_mz001.htm Blogspotting: http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/ What are the requirements for computers that will be used in space? Computing power, surprisingly, is not an important criterion since most of the operations called for in space flight are relatively simple and well within the capability of 30-year-old computer technology. The really important factors are low power consumption, low heat emission, and high reliability. This article at Bit-tech.net provides a comprehensive, non-technical overview of the factors engineers must consider before putting computers into space. If you want a more detailed and technical look at the subject, check out NASA's Computers in Spaceflight pages, with mission-by-mission descriptions of computer technology in manned and unmanned flight. Bit-Tech: http://www.bit-tech.net/article/162 NASA 1: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/computers/Part1.html NASA 2: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/computers/Part2.html Why US Broadband Access Lags Other Countries The US lags behind Japan and other Asian nations in broadband deployment and in cell-phone technology. Thomas Bleha blames Bush in this article for Foreign Affairs. While the reason the US has fallen behind other nations in these respects isn't necessarily all that simplistic, there's no escaping the fact that the country that conceived of and built the Internet is not getting access to that infrastructure into the hands of its citizens as well as other countries. The piece looks at some of the reasons that underlie the disparity. It's reasonable to wonder why it matters that residents of other developed countries can access information so much faster than Americans can. The answer's pretty straightforward: in an information economy, laggards lose.http://tinyurl.com/bfyjz Wikipedia is a hot Net phenomenon, and Larry Sanger is one of the key players to thank for that. However, as he explains in his somewhat rambling history of the popular online project at Slashdot, Wikipedia is not really as good as it could be. The missing element, in his highly controversial view, is a stronger role for subject experts. His opinion has led critics to accuse him of wanting to turn his back on the populist underpinnings of Wikipedia and make it more elitist. Sanger's involvement in the project's history, however, gives him a unique ability to draw conclusions about what worked and, equally important, what didn't, in its development. Sanger notes that Wikipedia fails to adequately manage the ability of a few to disrupt the work of the many. The early tolerance of anarchy has proven to be a lasting legacy hard to eradicate. As well, intense competitiveness has often roiled the waters of Wikipedia. Still, it's unlikely that any open project that has involved so many people, has grown so fast, and has had such an impact could have been perfectly controlled. No doubt it's frustrating to see something twist and slip away from the planning matrix, but Sanger's insights are a treasure trove of practical advice, and the story itself is fascinating. http://features.slashdot.org/features/05/04/18/164213.shtml Revenge of "The Screen Savers" One of the popular shows on the old TechTV network was "The Screen Savers". Hosts Patrick Norton, Kevin Rose, Robert Heron, and Leo Laporte tackled a variety of computer and technology issues from a thoroughly geeky perspective. TechTV was acquired by rival cable outfit G4, which in due course fired the original cast of "The Screen Savers" and dumped many other popular TechTV programs. G4 took a stab at re-inventing "The Screen Savers", but the new show is a dismal failure. The older "The Screen Savers", however, still has many fans, so the original show's hosts decided to produce a weekly audio program called "ROTSS" - guess what that stands for - for the Internet. The first episode is now available as a 14-MB MP3 file. Laporte made the announcement on his weblog.Laporte: http://leoville.com/blog/index.php/TLR/comments/the-revenge-of-the-bleep/ ROTSS: http://leoville.tv.nyud.net:8090/tlr/TLR20050417.mp3 A Decade of Online Advertising The resurgence of online advertising is one of the most significant media stories of the last year or so. A 22-page PDF report from DoubleClick neatly puts the past decade of online advertising in perspective. One obvious trend is the invention of forms of online advertising, from the initial text ads to banners to today's varied landscape of keyword-based ads, streaming media, and pop-unders. DoubleClick also notes mainstream advertisers growing interest in online advertising - but then, it would. The report is stuffed with facts and observations. For example, the popularity of blogs and the success of programs such as Google's Adsense and Adwords programs mean that page views are no longer completely dominated by a few sites. The report establishes three main conclusions. First, a seller's market is emerging, at least in some areas. Second, advertisers want proof of effectiveness. Third, users want control over their exposure to advertising. In the face of fancier technology, the spread of high-speed access, and the increasing importance of the Web for business and pleasure, the future of online advertising looks complicated but exciting.http://www.doubleclick.com/us/knowledge_central/documents/RESEARCH/dc_decaderinonline_0504.pdf The USDA has issued a new food pyramid to explain nutrition to the American public. Alas, chocolate sundaes and steaks do not yet extend your life as in Woody Allen's classic "Sleeper". Remarkably, the new pyramid isn't a static geometric description of the foods you should eat, but a whole Web site that uses your age and exercise level to provide you with a more personal pyramid of nutritional needs. Perhaps the best element of the MyPyramid site's design is the emphasis on exercise, represented by the figure scaling the pyramid. What's missing is any sense of what qualifies as a serving or any mention that the best way to lose weight is to eat less. Still, this isn't your mother's nutritional info. Given that the USDA is a government agency affected by various interested parties, you might want to read the background on the changes at the Why Files, which is a detailed examination of what the USDA may effectively put into its nutritional advice. For example, one nutritionist has related that food lobbyists effectively ban any recommendation that people eat less meat. Yahoo has an AP article. MyPyramid: http://www.mypyramid.gov/ The Why Files: http://whyfiles.org/179food_pyramid/ Yahoo: http://beta.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050420/ap_on_he_me/fit_food_pyramid Jim Romenesko Improves Journalism, Accidentally Jim Romenesko just might save journalism from sloppy journalists. In this fine Slate piece, Jack Shafer makes it clear that Romenesko's famous journalism site, part of Poynter Online, is becoming the ethics office for much of the media. Every day, Romenesko points out journalists who cut corners, gain promotions, and gaze at navels. At the site, you'll learn, for example, who has filed reports about events that haven't yet taken place and who uses anonymous sources when it isn't necessary. What's even better is that you cannot tell Romenesko's politics from his posts, nor can you impugn his funding, which comes from the Poynter Institute, a journalism school in Florida. After you read the Slate article go read Romenesko - it's an eye-opener for the non-journalists among us.Slate: http://slate.com/id/2116903/ Romenesko: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45 Andrea Dworkin died Apr. 9, and in searching for appropriate commentary on her radical feminist legacy, we found an article Naomi Wolf wrote for New York Magazine in 2003. Wolf recalls Dworkin's argument that porn would create a generation of men with rapacious sexual appetites who would go forth and savage women to sate those appetites. Wolf thinks Dworkin made an error in forecasting not porn's draw but its effect. Far from making men desire women even more, porn, especially the flood of digital porn, has instead dampened male libidos. Wolf observes that young women feel they must compete with porn stars, and they're losing. Instead of making men more lascivious, porn makes them more picky. Wolf's depressing article points out how women suffer debasement not through rape, but through the requirement to emulate unreal models and situations. It implies that an entire generation of men is going to have serious intimacy issues even when they actually get lucky. For more on Dworkin, read Wikipedia. New York Magazine: http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/index.html Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Dworkin Indy: Music Discovery with Collaborative Recommendation Indy is a program specifically designed to discover and rate new songs. What makes it more than just a piece of software is the combination of an old premise - collaborative recommendation - with a particularly elegant and simple implementation. To the user, Indy is just a little widget with a one big play button and several smaller star buttons. After you install it, hit play and Indy will go off and grab some song. After the song plays, you rate it, then repeat the process. Indy stores the songs you've rated in folders arranged by rating. Over time, Indy learns your preferences and serves up songs which users who share your tastes have rated highly. All the songs Indy plays have been made freely available by the artists - and the Indy Web site lets any artist submit the URL of their own MP3. Indy is only for Windows for now, but promises Linux and Mac OS X versions for this summer.http://www.indy.tv/ Trent Reznor Releases GarageBand File Trent Reznor, the driving force behind the hugely popular Nine Inch Nails and sometime contributor to Doom soundtracks, has just released the single from his new album as a GarageBand file for use with Apple's GarageBand software. GarageBand has been a freebie for a while, and pretty much anybody with a Mac can mix and remix the song as they wish. As far as we can tell, this is the first time a major artist has used the popular amateur music-creation program format to make their music available to the masses. It's a 70-MB download, and you get the multiple, separate audio tracks that went into making the song.http://www.nin.com/current/index.html Currently, the Freesound Project is mostly a promise, a well organized framework that will hold sound clips for use under the Creative Commons licensing regime. The aim is to make sound snippets of all kinds available to researchers and anyone with a need for them. All that's missing is, well, a lot more sound samples. Freesound held 1,370 sound samples at press time which, considering the potential, is just a drop in the bucket (see link). Project supporters are appealing for folks with sounds to make them available here. The site has a sophisticated search engine ready and waiting. Considering the site had only a handful of files a week ago, that search facility will soon become indispensable. To download files, you must register - unless you know a way to hack Flash. Freesound Project: http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/index.php Drop in the bucket: http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=544 Florida Man Wins Pope-Domain Lottery Anticipating the papal name of the next Pope may not have been that hard - really, like it was going to be Ringo I? - but Rogers Cadenhead did it, and bought the BenedictXVI.com domain in advance of the election of Benedict XVI. You may suspect it, but Cadenhead is no typical domain-squatter or porn-redirecter. He has offered the domain to the Vatican. He bought the domain to keep it out of the reach of some purveyor of sin who would have latched onto it like a leech as soon as the new Pope announced his name. Cadenhead is still waiting to hear back from the Vatican on this, but God works in mysterious ways.Cadenhead: http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/ BenedictXVI.com: http://www.modestneeds.org/benedictxvi/ The Contagious Media Showdown is a straightforward competition. Design a Web site. Contagious Media will host your page for you. The site that draws the most unique visitors wins the $2,000 grand prize. Other prizes bring the total pot to $5,000. You need to reserve your Web space by Apr. 30, and post your original entry by May 18. http://showdown.contagiousmedia.org/index.php ONLINE CULTURE Which Papers Have Most Blog Impact? In an effort to gauge the weblog impact of traditional newspapers and magazines, Ethan Zuckerman came up with the metric of links per thousand of circulation (LpkC). It measures just what it seems, the number of blog links to a newspaper divided by its circulation as measured by the Audit Bureau of Circulation. Zuckerman calculates the number of links by polling Technorati, which is, you should know by now, a blogosphere search engine. Zuckerman finds that the small circulation (about 70,000) Christian Science Monitor (CSM) has LpkC of 134.9, a score more than double its nearest competitor, the New York Times (NYT), whose score is 63.1. Bloggers just love the CSM. A broader measure of LpkC would use the number of Google links to each paper, something Zuckerman did not pursue. (We quickly ran the numbers using Google. The NYT comes out with LpkC of roughly 2064, the CSM at about 3760, so it's still about double.) Zuckerman's blog has more analysis, including lists of the top and bottom ten LpkC scores using Technorati.http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ethan/2005/04/21#a883
SURFING SITES By now everyone is familiar with the Ken Burns style of documentary: old monochrome photos slowly pan across the screen while a plaintive violin evokes bittersweet memories of the good old days - even if those days were the US Civil War. "The Old Negro Space Program" is a charming spoof that twists this genre into a myth almost too good to be fiction. This fictional documentary somehow morphs the history of the old Negro baseball leagues, racial friction, and the early days of NASA into a hilarious short film. The blackstronaut "Suitcase" Jefferson tells us that the early space program was "whites only." In response, Jefferson and some friends create the Negro American Space Society of Astronauts (NASSA). The film works well on the small screen and multiple viewings are rewarded with new laughs. If you'd like to compare authentic Ken Burns with the satire, you can find excerpts of his "Baseball" documentary on the PBS Web site. If this has you wondering just who was the first black astronaut, head over to NASA's site to read about Guion Bluford, who flew into space in 1983.Old Negro Space Program: http://www.negrospaceprogram.com/ "Baseball": http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/baseball/shadowball/video.html NASA: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/bluford-gs.html HMS Broadsword in the Falklands The British operation to recapture the Falkland Islands in 1982 was something of a throwback to another era for the UK military. Operation Corporate, as it was called, was an old-fashioned colonial campaign stuck incongruously in the waning Cold War. Whether or not you agree with its justifications, this little war placed the highest physical and psychological demands on the men who were there. Part of the Royal Navy task force was HMS Broadsword, a 4,000-ton anti-submarine frigate with a crew of 230, which was in the thick of the action for most of the six-week campaign. The ship was hit by an Argentinean bomb which, mercifully, did not explode. HMS Broadsword was tasked with air defense for the fleet and the occasional shore bombardment. Compiled by members of her crew, this Web site covers the brave little ship's actions in the war and gives us a taste of what life was like on board. Aside from the diary of events, newspaper clippings, and the fine gallery of photographs (including Argentinean photos of the ship), nice touches include letters to and from the sailors and the advice they gave their families on how to act upon their return: never serve corned beef! We get a sense of what being there must really have been like; the crew of the Broadsword were frightened, homesick, tired, cold, and occasionally bored, but dedicated nonetheless to getting the job done.http://www.btinternet.com/~broadsword82/ Believe it or not, Netsurfer keeps a submarine veteran on staff for just these situations. They say history is written by the victors, and that may be why so few realize how close the German submarine force came to winning the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II. Even fewer realize how they did it. Best viewed with a broadband connection while seated in a firm chair, Uboatnet starts with a movie montage of a young crew coping with an unforgiving environment and even more unforgiving enemies. The technical details of submarine life are revealed in historic photographs of the crew showing off their equipment. Other galleries capture the crew at work, at play, and at war in quite candid shots at a time when photography was not exactly encouraged. Oh, you don't speak German? Drop the URL into the field at Google Language Tools and let it do the work. RIP, Babelfish. Uboatnet: http://www.uboatnet.de/ Google Language Tools: http://www.google.com/language_tools Typology of the Swizzle-Stick and Other Swords Swizzle-stick swords are most commonly used to mortally pin in place martini olives or to make sure that the Drambuie in a Rusty Nail doesn't settle. Little attention is usually paid to the implement - until now. One has to admire the effort and the many (happy?) hours spent in bars by researcher Peter Johnsson to collect and classify these often neglected plastic weapons. Once your curiosity is aroused by his tongue-in-cheek look at bar blades - posted Apr. 1, suspiciously enough - be sure to peruse the rest of the Albion Armorers site, which hosts the page. Albion sells replicas of medieval and ancient weapons, based on the original designs, and Johnsson is Albion's swordsmith. Anyone with even a casual interest in the terminology, construction, and wielding of swords in Western cultures will find a plethora of useful information. Johnsson spent many years examining and cataloguing swords in European museums. His products are true to original designs and fully functional, so they won't break the first time you try to slay a peasant. Albion also makes replicas of swords made famous in film.http://albion-swords.com/johnsson-typology.htm If you've ever played with alphabet refrigerator magnets, you sorta know what the Just Letters site is about. If you've ever played with not enough magnets among a herd of five-year-olds, you exactly know what Just Letters is about. Running on the Flash Communications server, this addictive and frustrating application puts you on one of five different virtual refrigerators. You move those familiar brightly colored capital letters to form any words or patterns you desire. The catch is that you're sharing your canvas with dozens of strangers who are moving the same letters just as fast as you are. Stay with a cozy 15-person fridge or move up to the 80-user frenzy. Work quickly! Cooperate, disrupt, or just watch the action - actually, forget about cooperating. http://web.okaygo.co.uk/apps/letters/flashcom/ A Database of Notable Personages Take a browse through the online NNDB database of information on noteworthy persons both living and deceased. The site offers more than 12,000 profiles to view. Search alphabetically by last name or use the search engine to shrink the pool. The NNDB provides, if known, dates of birth and death, sexual orientation, former lovers, movie and television credits, and a host of peculiar information. The characters featured at this site include everyone - from '70s porn star Vanessa del Rio to Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Just about anyone you can think of, famous or semi-famous, can be found here.http://www.nndb.com/ Have Your Snack Cake and Rate It, Too Mountains of snacks have made their way into grocery stores, vending machines, and your desk drawer. They come in a variety of tastes, shapes, and sizes to satisfy even the most finicky snacker. The folks of Writers & Artists Snacking at Work (WASAW) bring you regular reviews on just about every snack you can recall. These clever snack appraisals will not only advise you what to put into your mouth and what to avoid, but will have you laughing while you do it. With over 200 reports you're likely to discover a tasty morsel just waiting for your purchase. Reviews to date have included such classic treats as Whoppers and Pop-Tarts, but you'll also find international or new products like Reese's Swoops and Tabasco-flavored cinnamon Jelly Bellies.http://snacks.cyberpunks.org/snacks.html Bordering on cyberstalking, Bowie Golden Years is just the fix any David Bowie fan could need. It's a chronology of just about everything Bowie is known to have done each day from 1974 - 1980. The site does not explain why the worship starts in 1974, two years after Bowie's breakthrough LP, Space Oddity, hit the charts, or why it ends in 1980, three years before Let's Dance. In fact, there is almost no "why" at all at the site, which has a clean layout reminiscent of a modern encyclopedia. More problematic is webmaster Rick Griffin's copyright notice: "Permission has been neither sought nor granted by photographers and writers whose work is reproduced here." http://members.ol.com.au/rgriffin/GoldenYears/ In a world awash in tech gadgets, the telephone remains king of the heap. No home or business can do without it, and mobile phones are well on the way to conquering our pockets and belts with the same omnipresence. Telephones are often taken for granted these days, and we forget the remarkable technological strides they have made over the years. At the Cyber Telephone Museum, you can follow the history of the telephone through images, trivia, and memories. Christianson, the purveyor of the site, began collecting old telephones purely by accident and has now turned it into a passion he shares with his son. You can check out photos of his telephones, which date back to the late 1800s, and read about how the family acquired them. If you're a phone collector yourself, you may want to check out the Items Wanted and Items for Sale sections. http://www.museumphones.com/ Back in the days when dinosaurs trampled the earth beneath their mighty feet, when Netsurfers had more hair but less gray hair, when no one knew what netsurfer even was, one Tommy Tutone released a song called "867-5309/Jenny". The song became hugely popular, lots of people started dialing the number, and general meltdowns occurred - often between the ears of anyone unfortunate enough to own the number. The fad triggered rumors that the phone companies had conspired to pull the plug on the number, and a few months ago, a guy with way too much time on his hands, with free weekend calling, and with no long-distance charges set upon a quest to prove or disprove these egregious rumors. He dialed the number in every possible North American area code and put the results on a "Jenny, Are You There?" page. Tutone offers the song at his own site. Click on the Tutone 2 album. Jenny, Are You There?: http://danstheman.com/Jenny.htm Tutone: http://www.tutone.com/ The Internet brings everyone together, and it was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to network a favorite teenage job. Phone a Babysitter.com won't actually drive a sitter to your house, but it will provide nearly everything else. Sitters and parents can sign up for free trials or pay $20 per year. Paid members can contact any other members through the site; free members can only contact paid members. The site only stores first names and phone numbers, but it's far from just a list. Sitters can learn tips on keeping their precious charges safe and ways to market their services. Parents can download instruction forms, home-safety checklists, and information sheets to make sure that everything is covered. A system like this isn't perfect - especially if you're not in Canada or the US - but it can help in a bind, especially if you're new to a neighborhood and you want to discreetly screen candidates. http://phoneababysitter.com/ You may well already know that if you should ever find yourself James Bond's nemesis, and you have the upper hand, you must at all costs avoid a long monologue combined with a ridiculously complex plan for his death. Just shoot the guy, OK? Similarly, a set of rules governs the best practices of good guys. Traditionally, the hero has to do something silly about halfway through a story so that it doesn't end too quickly or easily. After all, we all love a little conflict in our drama, right? In real life, however, you can avoid all that by following a few simple rules: never help an evil overlord when he's hanging by his fingertips from a cliff; always have secret hints for your helpers and sidekicks so that imposters are betrayed immediately; close portals to Hell as soon as possible. Don't forget the classic rule 102: always read the fine print. http://bull.dumpshock.com/humor/hero.html FLOTSAM & JETSAM USB Pen/Jump/Thumb/Flash Drive Comparison Ars Technica compared ten USB flash drives in detail. Testers looked at price, features, and, of course, read/write performance. They also threw in a quick test of a RAID-0 drive set-up with two flash drives hooked up to a Mac. The result is a great consumer resource if you're in the market for flash storage.http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/flash2005.ars This is a one-joke Web site, but a well put-together one. Somebody went to a lot of effort to set up all the sections of the site, not to mention to come up with a decent look and feel. Make sure to leave a feedback comment, since when we looked, there were only two. http://rentmyson.com/ Besides being a fine chef's tool tutorial, this illustrated guide on how to use a knife in the kitchen is worth visiting for the quality of the graphic illustrations, a first-rate example of the art. http://www.hertzmann.com/articles/2005/fables/ Unintentionally Sexual Comic-Book Covers There are only five of them, but two of them feature chimps. Funny enough as it is, but if you still haven't toured Maddox's Best Page in the Universe, here's yet another chance to experience his brand of angry, weird fun.http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=uscc_part1 New York Subway Stations Google Map MonkeyHomes.com, a New York City apartment-hunting site, makes creative use of Google Maps data and annotation technology. It offers a map of the New York Subway stations, linked to the transit authority data about the various subway lines. It can be slow to load.http://monkeyhomes.com/map/nycsubway.php Google Launches UK Version of Maps and Local Searches Google Local UK lets you search for businesses and services around the UK, while Google Maps UK lets you see where they are with its detailed map/address search. We should note that Google Maps UK does not yet have the satellite photo mapping feature that's available in North America.Google Local UK: http://local.google.co.uk/ Google Maps UK: http://maps.google.co.uk/ Who Should You Vote for in the UK Election There's an election coming up in the UK and if you need help to decide who to vote for, visit this site and answer a bunch of questions about your political views. Out pops a little graph that shows how your views match up against those of the five major parties.http://www.whoshouldyouvotefor.com/ Free Amazon.com Music Downloads Did you know that Amazon.com has a huge collection of free music files available for download? You can browse by music type or check out the 200 most popular downloads on the Top Downloads list.Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/468646/ Top Downloads: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/561964/ Free Simpsons Music/Sound Downloads Here's a collection of over 100 freely downloadable music and sound bites from "The Simpsons". You get show themes, end-credit music, and songs, all arranged by season and episode.http://www.simpsoncrazy.com/downloads/music.shtml Yes, you read that right. Links to 622 music videos. And not just some obscure bands, but the likes of the Beastie Boys, Madonna, Iron Maiden, and the list goes on. Mind boggling. Legal? At least in part, possibly in most. Whatever. http://granfaro.blogspot.com/2005/04/622-music-videos-various-from-perfect.html This viral ad shows a bunch of dismounted skateboarders in a ramp-equipped gym-like area making some rather entertaining baskets. We wonder how much film was shot. Gym would have been far more entertaining in school were skateboarding part of the curriculum. http://movies.collegehumor.com/media/movies/b-ball-e-mail.mov Submit a URL and HTTP in tha House will read the content and turn it into some dope rhymes. Amusing, but the simple method behind it is really the fun part. The script grabs words and submits them to a rhyming dictionary to produce the rap. The only thing missing is the Jive filter, explained at JJ Is for Jive. HTTP in tha House: http://plasmastudii.org/arch/rap/rap.html JJ Is for Jive: http://www.kith.org/logos/words/upper2/JJive.html For some reason, this set of six slides of penguins going through airport security is being forwarded all over. Perhaps the horrifying prospect of explosives smuggled up a penguin is just too disturbing not to contemplate. http://www.thedenverchannel.com/slideshow/4402056/detail.html And You Thought Shipping Was Easy... Who ever thought that deliveries could be so entertaining? If you know somebody in logistics and procurement who could use a little stress relief, e-mail this to them. Then play it yourself.http://web.dachser.com/deu/service/global_player/spiel.htm What Do Lots of Pennies Look Like? The US Mint estimates that there are about 140 billion American pennies in circulation. Piled up, that's nearly two cubes, each measuring 127 feet on a side. See what that and more looks like at the MegaPenny Project. It would take 2 trillion pennies to reconstruct the Empire State Building.http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/ SOFTWARE The gcc compiler is the most widely used compiler in the open-source community, so the release of this major revision is big news in programming circles. There are two things to note about gcc. First, gcc 4.0 is a new version of a very old, very mature, and very complex piece of software. Second, the compiler itself is an arcane tool that frequently deals with complicated software technologies which create computer programs on many equally complicated hardware architectures. That's our subtle way of saying that we could not possibly summarize the many obscure technical improvements in gcc 4.0 in our limited space. Read the changes log if you're really interested, and prepare to be bewildered. Users will be satisfied to know that gcc now has fewer bugs and produces faster code more often.http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.0/changes.html |
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