More Signal, Less Noise
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
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NETSURFER DIGEST
More Signal, Less Noise |
Volume 11, Issue 30 Tuesday, August 02, 2005
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NETSURFER LINKS
 BREAKING SURF
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BREAKING SURF Images of Space Shuttle Discovery The return to flight of the Space Shuttle, Discovery to be exact, is famously the most photographed mission ever. NASA is so worried about debris hitting the shuttle that not only did it mount more cameras on the craft itself but it had the crew carry out a detailed photographic inspection in space. The shuttle crew meticulously went over their ship with its robotic manipulator arm, and even the astronauts in the International Space Station got into the act, snapping photos of Discovery before it docked. The examination took on greater urgency after one snippet of video revealed that a piece of foam from the external tank fell off during launch and was caught on film - a situation eerily similar to the mishap that led to Columbia's fiery end. At press time, the mission was proceeding apace. NASA's multimedia gallery for this mission has many photos and videos, including spectacular film (well, sort of) of the launch.http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/multimedia/index.html The Holy Grail: Cisco IOS Shellcode and Remote Execution That headline was the title of a talk security researcher Michael Lynn gave this week at the Black Hat security conference, setting off a storm of turmoil in Net security circles. Any suggestion that Cisco routers are vulnerable to a security exploit elicits the greatest dread - Cisco routers almost universally shuffle data around the Internet. Lynn suggested and to some extent demonstrated that a worm could essentially take down the Internet by exploiting the bug. Lynn felt so strongly about the flaw that he quit Internet Security Systems (ISS) the day before his presentation. He said it was not right to keep this secret and he expects to be sued for releasing the information. Cisco has a fix available, but still did not want to make this information public. The company pulled all copies of Lynn's talk from the conference proceedings and even tried to legally gag Lynn. At press time, Lynn has agreed not to talk further. The FBI is looking into whether Lynn committed a crime, and ISS is sending take-down notices to stamp out copies of Lynn's talk. A copy is still available at Cryptome, and Tom's Hardware comments on it. Infowarrior.org has a PDF copy of Cisco and ISS's gag order against Lynn and Black Hat. Two CNET articles discuss the surrounding hoopla.Cisco: http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/707/cisco-sa-20050729-ipv6.shtml Holy Grail: http://cryptome.org/lynn-cisco.zip Tom's Hardware: http://www.tomsnetworking.com/Sections-article131-page1.php Infowarrior.org: http://www.infowarrior.org/users/rforno/lynn-cisco.pdf CNET 1: http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-5810669.html CNET 2: http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-5811333.html The GAO reports that the Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and its contractors have been using personal information to develop its Secure Flight program, in violation of US federal law and in contravention of Congressional directive. They must be glad that we live in today's technological society, as if we were stuck with the kinds of washing machines that were available 50 years ago, somebody's tit would be in the wringer right now. Having been caught, the TSA has released an official response that amounts to "Uh-oh. We're violating Privacy Act rules? No problem. We'll just revise them." Bruce Schneier comments on the misdeeds and makes a point-by-point case against what Secure Flight has become. GAO: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05864r.pdf Schneier: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/07/secure_flight.html Cell Phone Usage Patterns Predict Future Events Your mobile phone might just become your worst tattletale. MIT researchers gave cell phones modified with special tracking software to a set of volunteers. The project, called Reality Mining, turned every individual's daily life into data points of phone usage and location. The scientists discovered that by analyzing the patterns they could determine how much time a participant had spent in bed, for example, and that they could predict behavior, such as who would be going out on a particular evening, with nearly 85% accuracy. Of course, you might not want to know so much about your own life, but others do. Neither the project nor the Wired article on it question the centrality of the mobile phone. Do people who don't use mobile phones not have lives worth mining? And what about those people who don't feel tied to their phones and often leave them at home? Reality Mining may not be all its inventors hope it to be, but it is amazing that no one reveals how much time the subjects spent goofing off. We'd be afraid to know the answer to that one.Reality Mining: http://reality.media.mit.edu/ Wired: http://wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,68263,00.html The US is home to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the largest and most effective political organization dedicated to securing digital rights. Surprisingly, the UK does not have a similar organization despite the numerous laws that restrict digital and other tech-centric rights in that country. This may be about to change. Danny O'Brien has challenged visitors to PledgeBank to contribute a few pounds to support a new UK equivalent. He's daring people to back a British version of the EFF. The effort sprang from a talk at the recent OpenTech conference. O'Brien's Oblomovka blog has more information and a link to the video of the session where the concept was born. At press time, more than 500 people had signed up, and it's almost a forgone conclusion that the goal will be reached before the Dec. 25 deadline. Pledgebank: http://www.pledgebank.com/rights Oblomovka: http://www.oblomovka.com/entries/2005/07/30#1122711000 Rare Photos from Scopes "Monkey Trial" Discovered The Scopes "Monkey Trial" is one of the most famous legal proceedings in US history. In 1925, the state of Tennessee prosecuted high-school science teacher John Scopes under a state law that outlawed the teaching of any theory contrary to the Biblical divine creation. Scopes felt that you couldn't teach biology without teaching evolution and natural selection, and agreed to stand as a test case in court in a legal set-up. The resulting trial in the scorching heat of a Tennessee summer became legendary. Both sides hyped the challenge and brought in demagogues to argue the case, including heavyweight attorneys William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow. Bryan claimed that "if evolution wins, Christianity goes." Darrow argued "Scopes isn't on trial; civilization is on trial." This week, a cache of unpublished photos of the trial has surfaced, about 50 in all of which 12 are available on the Smithsonian Institution site. The photos themselves aren't too exciting, but the drama of the trial is still worthwhile given that 80 years later, in Tennessee and elsewhere in the US, the fight goes on. For a decent look at the Scopes trial, try Famous Trials. If you're interested in more depth - and you should be for it's a fantastic story - read Edward Larson's book, "Summer for the Gods".Famous Trials: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm Smithsonian: http://www.siarchives.si.edu/research/scopes.html "Summer for the Gods": http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0674854292/netsurferdigest Suppose you locked four math geeks in a room equipped with an Internet connection and told them they couldn't date until they designed an online matchmaking service. You'd end up with OKCupid, a decidedly non-traditional matchmaking service which exploits the latest fads in social networking, crowd wisdom, and sophisticated mathematical algorithms. OKCupid works by asking you questions, lots and lots of questions. While that may seem not unlike other matchmaking services, OKCupid's own users generate the questions, which OKCupid then automatically scores for relevance. The service takes your answers and maps them with a moderately complicated scoring algorithm against other users - read the Frequently Asked Questions (at the bottom of the page) for the details. The service also observes your behavior on the site, stuff like the number of contacts you initiate, e-mail traffic, page visits, and so on, and factors those into their matching algorithms, too. OKCupid is free, and judging by its exposure in the blogosphere, it's becoming the next Friendster of social fads. http://www.okcupid.com/ Japanese Robot Fetish Produces Repliee Q1 The Japanese fondness for robots is well known, appearing everywhere in their culture: in toys; in entertainment; and in scientific and industrial applications. Apparently, Japan's robot fetish extends to creating every mad scientist's dream, the robot girl (we're sorely tempted to write "robot girlfriend"). A researcher at the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory recently presented an android called Repliee Q1 (What? Not "Ursula Android"!?) at the World Expo in Japan. She has lifelike skin and a sophisticated repertoire of motion, right down to lifelike fidgeting. This group's first try at this sort of robot, Repliee R1, took the form of a five-year-old girl. Check out the small but creepy photo of R1's skin laid out next to its/her underlying body on the Development of an Android page. National Geographic (NG) has a brief blurb and more photos.Development of an Android: http://tinyurl.com/bjj4d Repliee Q1: http://tinyurl.com/bwaul NG: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0610_050610_robot.html Beethoven is certainly one of the greatest composers of all time, a musical titan whose compositions are a mainstay of classical music and continue to delight concert goers everywhere. Two Beethoven fans have put together MIDI files of hours and hours of previously unrecorded Beethoven music. Their Unheard Beethoven site is a mind-boggling and ongoing labor of love - and not the horrendously beepy MIDI files of our youth. Mind you, most of the material consists of earlier drafts of published work, fragments, and abandoned pieces, many of which Beethoven probably never intended to present. No matter. Interest in the great man's oeuvre remains strong, as the BBC discovered recently (see NSD 11.23). As a result of the Unheard Beethoven work, some of the pieces have come to be performed by professional orchestras, although not without disdainful sniffing from critics. MIDI, no matter how non-beepy, is not exactly a music purist's notion of heaven, but if you're a scholar, musician, or just plain can't get enough Beethoven, these files are a veritable treasure trove. CNET tells how the project came about. Unheard Beethoven: http://www.unheardbeethoven.org/ NSD 11.23: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v11/nsd.11.23.html#BS10 CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5793835.html The 23rd running of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, the competition to write the worst possible opening sentence in a variety of categories, has ended. The winner this year manages to mix bosoms and carburetors in a high-octane tribute to either girls or cars - we're not quite sure which. It is, of course, achingly bad, but in a good way. As usual, there's a long slate of winners, plenty of dishonorable mentions, and several suicidally painful puns. Great fun all around. http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/english/2005.htm Microsoft's Virtual Earth Challenges Google While Google maps the moon, Microsoft strikes a blow here on Earth. The beta debut of Microsoft's Virtual Earth (VE) has received mixed reviews, notably criticizing its dated satellite and aerial imagery. In an amusing coincidence, VE's view of the location of Apple's Cupertino headquarters shows a barren lot (see CNN). Overall, however, most people have positive things to say. VE lets you overlay road diagrams atop the satellite imagery, as does Google Maps, but some reviewers find VE's approach more intuitive. Perhaps the most significant innovation Microsoft offers is its applet-assisted ability to locate wireless access points in cities across the US; some business travelers will find this invaluable. Google Earth has more global coverage, and Microsoft clearly is playing catch-up here. Microsoft's integrated features, which include a scratch pad and driving directions, make it clear that as VE matures, it may seriously compete with Google in this arena. Check out PC Magazine for a sample review.VE: http://virtualearth.msn.com/ CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/07/28/disappearing.apple.ap/ PC Magazine: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1840750,00.asp For Windows users, the long wait for Longhorn, now called Vista, is nearing - well, not the end, not even the beginning of the end, but, perhaps, the end of the beginning. You might say that for Microsoft, it just gets beta and beta. MSDN subscribers have access to this beta 1 version of the next major Windows operating system; for now, it's for developers and coder professionals only. Of course, it wouldn't be Microsoft without some grandiose transformational vision; the new Windows Vista slogan, "Bringing clarity to your world", is intended to convince us it will usher in a new standard of ease, reliability, and safety for personal computing. How much of that is commercial puffery and how much of it will actually be realized remains to be seen; you'll have to wait to find out because most of the new features won't appear until the beta 2 version. Slashdot serves up commentary, including the usual rants between Microsoft devotees (they do exist!) and those who snarl and spit when the company name is mentioned. Microsoft Windows Vista: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/default.mspx Slashdot: http://it.slashdot.org/it/05/07/28/1210250.shtml Internet Explorer 7 Hits Beta Stage If you're already using Firefox, this may not mean much to you, but if you are still using Internet Explorer, you might be interested to know that version 7.0 is in beta. Given the popularity of Firefox, Microsoft decided to update its aging browser with such futuristic breakthrough features as tabbed browsing. If you subscribe to MSN, you can download the beta and use it. We wonder how many new security holes will appear once the beta testing ends. Slashdot has commentary.Internet Explorer 7: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/ie7/default.mspx Slashdot: http://it.slashdot.org/it/05/07/28/1210250.shtml Zero Day Initiative Pays for Security Flaws The Tipping Point division of 3Com wants you! Well, it wants your security vulnerability information, at any rate, and it's willing to pay for it. The company is coy on just how much it'll pay, however, although the price will depend on the seriousness of the problem discovered and the significance of the potential damage. This so-called Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) aims to unleash an army of software sleuths eager to ferret out flaws that could compromise the security of computer systems - for cold, hard cash! 3Com has established an elaborate evaluation system to determine the value of a vulnerability but will not act on any info unless the discoverer agrees to the payment offered. Researchers who become repeat users of the ZDI process can qualify for frequent contributor status and associated bonus payments and other benefits. Once a submitter accepts payment, the information provided becomes the property of 3Com, which will then share it with the organization responsible for the product, develop ways to seal the security breach, and publicize fixes. It's a novel and ingenious way to encourage the global community of computer experts to help detect potentially damaging weaknesses.http://www.zerodayinitiative.com/ So, you want to be a published author. Specifically, you want to be a published technical author, producing that bestselling essential handbook for the latest gizmo or software tool. The world's most successful technical book publisher has some advice for you. Obviously, this guide is based on the specific needs and processes of O'Reilly, but it should give any would-be author some idea of what big-time publishers expect. The write-up covers topics like the proposal, contracts, the writing and editing process, and marketing your book. It's worth a look if you're seriously thinking about doing a technical book. http://www.oreilly.com/oreilly/author/ ONLINE CULTURE AIM Fight, Teenagers, and Technology Last week, the Pew people released a study that examines how teenagers use technology. Coincidentally, last week we also discovered AIM Fight, which answers the vital question, "How popular am I right this second?" The AIM Fight concept is simple. When you submit your AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) name and the account name of an opponent, the AIM Fight page will calculate the number of people currently online who have you listed as a buddy, out to three degrees - the winner is the person with more online buddies. What has this to do with the Pew study? Well, it turns out that American teens favor instant and text messaging for digital communication with peers. They regard e-mail primarily as a tool for communicating with adults. It's so old school, dude. The Pew report offers many other worthwhile statistics, for example, that 81% of teens play online games, 76% get news online, and 43% have made purchases online. That last number hints at huge growth potential for online retailers as those teens grow up.Pew: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/162/report_display.asp AIM Fight: http://www.aimfight.com/ One of the unfortunate side effects of the blogging boom is the emergence of a debilitating mental condition known as blog depression, apparently first diagnosed by the Nonist. Sufferers find themselves "disillusioned, dissatisfied, taking long breaks, and in many cases simply closing up shop." One symptom, which the Nonist describes in a helpful blogger public-health pamphlet, is now and then finding your own blog sickening. Fortunately, the informative six-page pamphlet explains the condition and offers practical advice on how to deal with it. In extreme cases, you may need to give up your blog, stop reading, and actually go outside. Remember, help is available. Understand the facts. Face them. http://thenonist.com/index.php/weblog/permalink/a_nonist_public_service_pamphlet/ The Profound Meanings behind Tags Those who frequent social bookmarking sites use tags to label and classify the Web sites they bookmark. However, whether tagging has any broader implications is a question that has no easy answer. Tom Coates has an especially thoughtful blog post on the dynamics of tagging, one that breaks tagging into two distinct camps. One camp sees tagging as a way to put sites into folders, much as we organize papers on a desk. The other camp, in which Coates inserts himself and which he associates with Flickr, is a form of annotation that has a far more explicit and powerful social component, because others label your own materials with the tags they feel are appropriate. The essay is thoughtful and offers a way of thinking about the social bookmarking sites, such as del.icio.us, which are making more of an impact every day.http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2005/06/two_cultures_of_fauxonomies_collide.shtml
SURFING SITES Collaborative Journal of the Vietnam War The Vietnam War briefly returned to the headlines with General William Westmoreland's recent death (See the New York Times obituary), but more than three decades later, the war is fading from the collective American consciousness. Started last April, Vietnam Views is a new communal journal that welcomes the participation of those who were involved with or otherwise affected by the Vietnam War. It's hosted by the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation and it's already collected over 200 entries. Historians are just beginning to appreciate the Internet's power to collect first-person historical material at sites like this. Contributions come from veterans, in-country civilians, families, and anyone else with a memory to preserve. The fast-growing archive is indexed by date, keyword, and graphical, interactive timeline. Browse by your old unit, a location, a date, or a buddy's name. Add a comment to a story or furnish your own. Sites like this make up for all the horse-haters on the Net.Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/19/international/asia/19westmoreland.html Vietnam Views: http://www.vietnamviews.org/ Improv Everywhere's Fake U2 Concert Some of you will have first heard of Improv Everywhere's shtick in NSD 10.45; others may have heard of its exploits on "This American Life" last April (episode 286; you can listen at the site). These guerilla purveyors of humor perform outlandish stunts to make folks in New York City crack a smile, which can be a daunting undertaking even on the sunniest of days. One of Improv Everywhere's best "missions", "Even Better Than The Real Thing", took place last May 21 on a New York City rooftop, where the group staged a fake U2 concert several hours before the real U2 was slated to play Madison Square Garden. Here's a choice excerpt: "Although the band would not be visible for most of their concert, we tried to make them look as much like U2 as possible. There were several obstacles to over come. Firstly, our 'The Edge' was a Korean-American." Read more and find out about how it landed them in court, even after cracking up the police.Improv Everywhere: http://www.improveverywhere.com/mission_view.php?mission_id=48 NSD 10.45: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v10/nsd.10.45.html#SS1 "This American Life": http://thisamericanlife.org/ Facade is a prototype in the genre of interactive drama, a combination of game and story. Three players take part at once: Grace and Trip, an attractive, affluent couple; and you, in the role of their longtime friend. You visit them at home, but the situation quickly deteriorates into a volatile confrontation between them. It is up to you to mediate between them and, in the process, attempt to save their marriage. Unless, of course, you'd prefer to merely stand back and watch the fireworks. Or, indeed, suggest a therapeutic threesome. You can re-play Facade endlessly. The ultimate outcome is each time determined by the personal choices you make as you relate to the fictional characters. Facade is the result of five years worth of collaboration between Michael Mattes and Andrew Stern, two designer/programmers active in the area of developing artificially intelligent art and entertainment. It's available as a free download. http://www.interactivestory.net/ We Are All Fashion Individuals Think you're different? Have your own personal sense of style? You may more resemble the people in the crowd in "Life of Brian" who chorus in unison "Yes, we are all individuals!" Challenge your faith in your one-off style and attitude with a visit to Exactitude, an online project by photographer Ari Versluis and stylist Ellie Uyttenbroek. Together, they have photographed volunteers in many cities over a decade. They identify and photograph people who adopt a particular style to identify themselves as separate from mainstream society - druids, lab-coaters, body-builders etc. They find several, in fact, and all pose identically in their adopted uniform of uniqueness. The online result is a matrix of images that highlights the differences and the similarities inherent in this group-style. This is social commentary at its best, unadorned with explanations but posing plenty of pointed questions. It's strikingly visual and thought-provoking. Is your style already there?http://www.exactitudes.nl/ One Odd, Pleasantly Demented Web Site Aside from the horrid, dull pink gingham home page background, Stammtisch Beau Fleuve (SBF) is an example of why we got into the Web review racket in the first place. Obscure, a little wacky, and with a logic all its own, this site is a little like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. SBF's pleasantly demented creators have organized - and we use that term loosely - the site around a sort of super-sized glossary as they take it upon themselves "to examine boldly the handbasket the universe is going to hell in." The results are akin to Western Culture 101 meets Scientific American in a course taught by Hunter S. Thompson. The wonderful thing about being concerned with civilization or the universe is, of course, that anything and everything becomes relevant: the classics; amino acids; snack foods; the power of abbreviations; you name it. It's much easier to experience than to describe. Prepare to be perplexed and entranced.http://www.plexoft.com/SBF/index.html Creation of a Lego Star Destroyer in Stop-Motion Video What do you do when you have: 1) too much technology; 2) a complex new toy; and 3) ten hours to spare? Why, you and your boyfriend put together said new toy while a digital camera snaps stills. Then, you paste the stills together to create a stop-motion video and upload it to your Web site. Voila - you compress the ten hours of creation of a Lego Imperial Star Destroyer into five minutes and share with a few million of your closest online friends. When it was mentioned in Slashdot in early July, the responses ran the gamut from - and we paraphrase here - "Waah, you put ship together using the instructions, and I watched it!" to the ever-insightful "Hey, look! Breasts!" On the plus side, the Slashdot mention forced the site to disperse the video to multiple mirrors, so it's easily available.Lego Star Destroyer: http://www.adognamedfish.com/archives/2003/01/lego_star_destroyer/ Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/04/086237 The Internet is a free-range prairie for all sorts of opinions, and what better place to demonstrate the sort of anarchic self-expression it supports than I Hate Horses. Dog Food Dale and Glue Factory Bob have a problem with horses. They're too angrily inarticulate to supply the details, but they really, really hate horses. Over the first half of 2005, they've added two dozen impressively profane blog posts of hate-filled equinophobia. In the best flame-war tradition, they've also antagonized a persistent crowd of horse-loving vigilantes, although each exchange quickly deteriorates to "New comments have been disabled for this post by a blog administrator." In a nod to 21st-century commercialism, the site links to an entire marketplace of anti-horse merchandise. The bloggers have spent hours liberally personalizing each article with more invective and horse attacks. It's a tremendous effort with attention to detail. The last post occurred July 1, which means that the blog hasn't taken advantage of the opportunity to discuss the Seattle man who, as the Seattle Times learned, is a data point of proof that horse-hating is at least safer than horse-loving. I Hate Horses: http://horsehater.blogspot.com/ Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002384648_farm16m.html Customers Suck, and Sometimes They Suck Vinegar The hero of this tale, Aaron the gas station clerk, one day sold a bottle of malt vinegar to a teenage kid. So begins this story of amazing stupidity, parental insufferability of the highest order, and incompetent management. Finding strength in Super Lawyer Lady and a supportive labor union,our hero fights the good fight, all the way to the top. We don't want to spoil the outcome for you, so go read Aaron's tale yourself. But wait, there's more! The Web site that presents Aaron's story, Customers Suck, is a delight in itself. As you can probably guess from its name and slogan, "The Customer Is Never Right", the site is stocked with hilarious tales of woe from retail and other workers who have to work with pesky and often utterly insane customers. It's guaranteed to make you pause before you consider a career in retail.http://customerssuck.com/cs/?m=show&id=1020&page=1 Control a Model Train Over the Net Deep down, every guy wants or has model trains. Men buy them for their children before the kids can hold a spoon, much less a control switch. Attics and basements become miniature landscapes, silly hats are worn, and endless amounts of cash are spent in the pursuit of the best set. So it isn't a surprise that three brothers have built a cool train set in the basement of their house in Michigan. The twist is that they're willing to let others play with it, via the Internet. And this is just the start. They aim to fill the basement with remote-control cars, fireworks, and battle bots, all of which netsurfers will be able to control remotely. If they pull it off, and the train set certainly works, they will be very, very popular with gadget-addicts and possibly less so with their parents. A site worth watching, at least until Dad gets home.http://www.controlourjunk.com/ Holy black gloss with fins! An online shrine to what must be the comic world's most famous car, the History of the Batmobile takes us from its first appearance in 1941, when it was just a red convertible with a bat-shaped hood ornament, to the latest Crawler version in the 2005 film "Batman Begins". What a long, strange trip it's been. Never before has so much effort been put into the glorification of a superhero's wheels, but the effort was definitely worthwhile. The 64 Main Chronology entries and the dozen plus Alternative Timelines entries (someone will have to explain that to us) are carefully re-created and include whatever technical specs are available. Every version, whether from print, TV, or the movie, is included. The site even offers fan drawings and real-life replicas. Our only complaint is that the illustrations ought to have been enlargeable, but this is still great fun for the many fans of the Caped Crusader. http://www.batmobilehistory.com/ Guinness, and Only Guinness, for a Week Have you ever heard the urban myth that holds that a diet of Guinness, milk, and orange juice would sustain a man for a week? It's been the subject of many a late-night pub debate. We figure that since water will sustain you for a week, so will these other liquids - but that doesn't mean you should try it. Alas, a Dubliner who goes by Burty did. Of course it doesn't take a nutritional genius to work out that such a diet isn't entirely as good for you as the old "Guinness is good for you" slogan would imply. That quantity of alcohol is never going to be good for you. But the real question was whether Burty could survive the week and win the bet he made with his friend. In blog format, he recounted day by day the hunger, the changes to his toilet habits, and the support he got from the strangest places. Burty's still with us, having gained minor celebrity and plenty of fascinated onlookers.http://theguinnessdiet.blogspot.com/ Blackjack chewing gum made its debut in 1872, and leads off American Food Century's timeline of American foods. Technically, it isn't a food - but it's hard to keep kids from swallowing gum. In the US, packaged foods took off like those newfangleled flying machines, and many folks never looked back. You can use the timeline to track the phenomenon, or peruse a small selection of what the site dubs Heritage Recipes. A smattering of informative and well written articles describe the history of the American salad (largely non-existent until the 1950s), the cola wars, and one or two other things, but leaves you hungry and wondering when more such content will be added. A small selection of audio clips rounds out the site, featuring, among others, Rocky and Bullwinkle hawking Trix cereal. This is a brief but effective amuse-bouche of nostalgia. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/4190/index.htm So, you finally downloaded your copy of Google Earth. You've been zooming around your yard, your neighbor's swimming pools, and Bill Gates's estate (1835 73rd Ave NE, Medina, Wash.). Now what? Hey, you're ready for Google Earth Hacks! The Web site has been up for less than a month but it already offers more than 600 downloadable files of buildings, events, and natural formations. Images are actual photos or 3-D composites, and range from Egypt's Giza pyramid complex to an annotated map of Walt Disney World to aircraft caught in flight. When you've satisfied your inner voyeur, read the FAQ to learn how to create your own 3-D images and map images. Now please excuse us while we clean up our front yard. http://www.googleearthhacks.com/ Test Your Knowledge of Band-Name Origins Rico Monkeon has a lot on his mind. He's a veteran Photoshopper who also creates games that are just a little out of synch with mainstream society. His latest game is the Where Did They Get That Name? Game band-name trivia test. It's a pop quiz - get it? You answer ten multiple-choice questions, each with five plausible explanations for the origin of a band's name. The test ranks your score against celebrities of the musical world, like Simon Cowell or John Peel (when alive), although we strongly suspect that these rankings are all in fun. Don't be discouraged by your first score - each quiz draws from a large database of band names and you'll find your niche eventually. The reasons that appear as choices also tend to repeat themselves, so you'll quickly narrow it down to one or two answers and your scores will rise to Lord of the Dance status. After you nail a couple perfect scores, visit Monkeon's Galletarium for a few chuckles.Where Did They Get That Name? Game: http://www.monkeon.co.uk/popnames/ Galletarium: http://www.monkeon.co.uk/gallery/index.html FLOTSAM & JETSAM All Your Web Fads Are Belong to Us Remember Hampsterdance? Dancing Baby? Ellen Fleiss? Those are just three of the top ten Web fads of all time, according to the editors of CNET.http://www.cnet.com/4520-11136_1-6268155-1.html Caterpillar meets the Bolshoi. Who knew heavy construction equipment could be so graceful? http://www.luckykazoo.com/media/2005/06/jcb-ballet.html Claude Shannon's work laid the foundation for digital information science. He also had an idea for this machine. A visitor pushes the on button on a wooden trunk, prompting a mechanical hand to push the off button. The pictures are worth a thousand words. For more on Shannon, see Wikipedia. The Most Beautiful Machine: http://www.kugelbahn.ch/sesam_e.htm Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon Popping Water Balloons in Zero G This is proof positive that science can be fun. NASA wants to know how fluids behave in zero G, so they send scientists up in the Vomit Comet to pop water balloons. Movies and photos show the results.http://exploration.grc.nasa.gov/balloon/blob.htm Lots of people contribute these uniformly hilarious snippets of conversation heard in various places in New York City. Oh, and we learn that MTV is working on a "Who Wants to Be America's Sweetheart" reality show. To quote numerous New York girls, "Ew!" http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/ War on Terror as Series of Shell Interactions This clever little joke maps the War on Terror to Unix shell commands. Think of it as shell poetry, with an actual point at the end.http://www.boingboing.net/2005/07/24/war_on_terror_as_a_s.html Call us lazy, but we can't top this self-description for a creepy line "dedicated to those who wish to express themselves with a greeting card that addresses the complex lifestyle issues encountered in an secret love relationship and echoes the inherent conflict, passion, desire and deep emotion". http://secretlovercollection.com/collection.php Mickey Mouse Does Something Unspeakable on eBay This seems like a standard kitsch auction: a Mickey Mouse clock that "sure is cute!!!" Then you read the buyer question, "Do you know what goatse is?", and you understand why 77,000 people have visited the page. If you know the reference, we need not explain. If you don't - well, we're still not going to.http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6536902252 Unfortunate Fashion Choices of the Intoxicated Driver Six pack of beer: $4.99. Delicately amusing T-shirt: $19.95. Your mug shot posted on the Internet after you're arrested for drunk driving: priceless.http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0714051dui1.html Films Ordered by Use of the Word "Fuck" The number one film on this Wikipedia list used to be one you've probably never heard of, Gary Oldman's "Nil by Mouth". Rob Zombie's new flick, "The Devil's Rejects", blows that one out of the water, however, with 19% more "fuck" and nearly two more per minute.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_ordered_by_uses_of_the_word_fuck SOFTWARE Nvu: Danged Fine, Multiplatform, Free Web-Design Software Nvu isn't Macromedia's Dreamweaver, but it is a fine tool for creating both advanced Web sites and sophisticated Web pages. Indeed, it feels very much like Dreamweaver most of the time. There are a few Dreamweaver features, many automation related, that Nvu lacks - and one big one is the price. Nvu is open-source software and is free to download and use. The application seems to have been created for Linux and so a few of the interface details will feel odd to Windows and Mac users, but that doesn't make the program any less useful. The early learning curve for Nvu is not at all steep. If you're not in a cutting-edge, collaborative Web-site creation environment, Nvu is an excellent choice, at least as good as Dreamweaver or FrontPage or anything else.http://www.nvu.com/ No, Rico Ajax is not a Latino-Greek singer, but is rather a library of JavaScript tools useful for creating interactive Web applications. Ajax, an acronym, is the technology behind Google Maps and similar applications that allows Web pages to asynchronously request files from the Web. The Rico Ajax tool library makes it easier to create applications that use the Ajax method on Web pages. The documentation remains a bit sparse, but contains several demonstrations of Rico use. The library lets you create cinematic effects, for example, and other complicated user-interface effects with relative ease. This is pretty much of interest only to hard-core Web programmers, wannabes, and groupies. http://openrico.org/rico/home.page |
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