Robot Wisdom Weblog for June 1999 (waxing)

Hispanic wildchild Gloria Trevi in deep trouble: http://www.latimes.com:80/excite/990627/t000057732.html

The allegations by five young women against the pair have prompted fevered analysis by Mexican gossip columnists, literati and fans on both sides of the border. Is "la Trevi" being persecuted for her money and liberated persona, they wonder? Or did her sexual stage image hide a true darkness?

Everything we can do, Ellen can do better... http://home.luna.nl/~ellen/present/06-28-99/06-28-99.html

Older poll:

Scott R at Salon commented wisely how with weblogs you learn the editor's views, and so can easily compensate for them. What percentage of 'compensation factor' do you personally apply to the Robot Wisdom Weblog?

I disagree 98% I disagree 90% I disagree 75% I'm about 50-50 I agree 75% I agree 90% I agree 98% View results

AltaVista redesign due today: http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153,408288,00.html

Schrock would much rather discuss the improved AltaVista Network, which will include a "freshness guarantee" of search results, improved multimedia search capabilities and at least 25 new search features by the end of the year. AltaVista also is bringing together the online shopping capabilities picked up in Compaq's acquisition of Shopping.com, as well as launching local portal services called Homebase, built with technology and content from the April acquisition of Zip2 Corp.

I guess this is it-- could be worse: http://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=q&what=web&kl=XX&q=weblog

New first chapters: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/books/front.htm

- "City of Light," fiction by Lauren Belfer
- "Paris Trance," fiction by Geoff Dyer

New NY Review of Books:

- King Hussein: My Secret Meetings with Israelis an interview with Avi Shlaim
- John Gregory Dunne: Michael Jordan's Passion
- Mark Danner: Victory in Kosovo?
- Garry Wills:This Weird Century
- Wislawa Szymborska: The She-Pharaoh
- Jonathan Mirsky: Holding Out in Hong Kong
- Benjamin M. Friedman: The Power of the Electronic Herd

(I'm working on an NYRB bookmarklet that will open the next five pages of an article in new windows. Expect it shortly.)

TV 2nite: Dragnet (TVLand) http://www.tvultra.com/

The best Dragnet episodes are about drugs. Typically, the young junkies come from nice neighborhoods, with good families. Moms with cultured pearls and salon-fried hair, dads with highballs and expressions that disclose chronic constipation...

Why some web-pages need a 'META GEOLOCATION' header: [Deja URL]

Have you ever searched the net for a pizza-service? Ok, you get results, but you are probably looking for one that, at least theoretically, is able to deliver you a hot pizza. ...In short: the web does not know distance...

Hayes modem plus-plus-plus exploit can still work: http://www.macintouch.com/modemsecurity.html [HNN]

I was playing around this weekend and found what appears to be a denial of service attack which works with dreadful effectiveness on iMacs and pretty much any other Mac with certain Global Village modems.

Although I've yet to confirm it, it would appear that the affected modems have their guard time duration value set to zero- meaning that the string should throw their modems into command mode without any silence on the line before or after the switch string.

I read with interest the note about modem problems. I clicked on the link to read the story, it started loading, but then my ppp connection dropped. I thought it was odd, so I tried it again. Same problem. It happened another 10 or so times...

Hard to believe: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-06/28/042l-062899-idx.html

MP3, a basic format for music on the Web, has surpassed "sex" as the most sought-after term in Internet search engines.

[also:] In his keynote speech to the conference, Barlow said the Grateful Dead members held thousands of tapes of concerts in their vaults. They would be releasing them on the Web and allowing them to be passed among fans...

Don't miss: Dept of self-parody? (this URL expires tomorrow, alas) http://www.washtimes.com/nation/nation2.html

"Presence is a new snack chip meant to enhance your confidence, personal growth and image -- created by a team of motivators, aroma therapists and a psychologist," said Robert Ehrlich, who owns the food company that produces this edible therapy.

His line also includes Personality Puffs, Ginkgo Biloba Rings, Echinacea Shells, Kava Kava Corn Chips, St. John's Wort Tortilla Chips, Cats Claw Crunch, Power Puffs, Spirulina Spirals and something called Fruity Booty.

"Our next big introduction is called Vanity Puffs," Mr. Ehrlich said. "It's the cosmetic which is also a snack. You can apply them to your face or eat them, your choice."

New threat to Florida's Disney-topian school: http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,64771-102730-729673-0,00.html

The unorthodox school is the heart of this community where neighborliness is encouraged by the small lots, and homes built close together. Instead of classes, it offers "neighborhoods" of 100 children with four teachers in large rooms with sofas, chairs and desks. Students are encouraged to learn at their own pace and are allowed to undertake presentations or projects instead of tests.

"Goodbye small town, goodbye Disney promises, goodbye Disney vision," she said.

Jakob Nielsen still thinks you can formalize good info-design: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990627.html

For content integration to succeed, the separate sources need to agree on standards for meta-data to describe each content unit:
- Writing style for headlines...
- Controlled keyword vocabulary...
- Conventions for linking between collections
- Standards to support parameter-driven access...
- Differentiating classes of content...

Navy NT SNAFUs: (technical but funny) http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1999/0621/fcw-specialreport-6-21-99.html

The Kitty Hawk ADP shop also suffered break-in problems with the Spawar-modified Microsoft Corp. Windows NT operating system software, which Bibeau described as "leaving us with an off-the-shelf system that really is not COTS." He said Spawar worked with a contractor to tailor a system for IT-21 but did not provide the Kitty Hawk with a list of the changes made. As a result "it took us six days" just to set the system clock, Bibeau said.

...While describing the growth of specialized World Wide Web pages on SIPRNET as an interoperable and innovative way to manage information, Felmly said this proliferation of information stymies users who do not know how to locate the information they need. This has led to Web one-upmanship, Felmly said, when one staff member asks another for information, only to "have him to say to your boss, 'It's on the home page,' then it becomes your problem.... My five least favorite words have become 'it's on the Web page.' "

Cmdr. Larry "Dobie" Gillis believes bandwidth has emerged as a vital combat resource that needs to be managed in the same way as ammunition or fuel. He said the Navy needs to institute strict information management procedures to ensure that staffers transfer the minimum amount of data needed to get the job done and not "the War and Peace version of it."

The warmer it gets down here, the colder it gets up there: http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,64730-102660-722588-0,00.html

..."Sightings this far south are unprecedented" and suggest the greenhouse gases thought to be warming Earth's lower atmosphere may be chilling and adding water to the planet's upper atmosphere to form the icy clouds at mid-latitudes, said Mike Taylor, a physicist at Utah State University's Space Dynamics Laboratory. Known as noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds, they are on the edge of space, located in a mile-thick layer 51 miles above the planet, at least five times higher than normal clouds, Taylor said June 23.

Don't miss: Why Japan is missing the Net.boat: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/06/28/japan/print.html

Chatting with members of the local tech community, I've heard all sorts of horror stories about the reams of regulations for how domain names are parceled out and how a handful of backbone providers fleece Internet service providers. Japan's telecom industry may be in the midst of deregulation, but that hasn't stopped authorities from tangling the Net in mounds of red tape, or from maintaining onerous per-minute access charges.

...Japan doesn't really have techno-nerds as we understand the breed in the West. Instead, the country has "otaku," which translates roughly as "obsessives," with a decidedly negative connotation.

Handing pieces of paper to one another offers brief moments of human interaction. This is how "wa," or group harmony, is promoted. E-mail may be infinitely more efficient and a good deal less wasteful, but it doesn't do much for one's sense of wa.

And a totally brilliant Tom Tomorrow: http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/1999/06/28/tomo/index.html

Across this nation, from the farmlands to the suburbs, Americans in search of guidance and insight depend on the ceaseless toil of the East Coast Media Elite!

Nice short poem by Jeffrey Skinner: http://www.poems.com/today.htm

...for me -- here, here. What you call
memory is a long and sweet,
delicious crack of wood in my teeth
I bring back and bring back and bring back.

I did a little Joyce-hacking this morning: http://www.deja.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=494499507

...But one can almost imagine an 'Autobiography Wizard' that prompts you to enumerate all the settings from your youth, and the dramas that took place in each setting, and the psychological themes that each drama enacted, and then works with you at combining elements of similar scenes, and eliminating the less vivid, more redundant ones.

Alt.showbiz.gossip sig quote:

If only Mama Cass had shared that ham sandwich with Karen Carpenter, they'd both be alive today.

More smart archeological detectivework: http://www.usnews.com:80/usnews/issue/990705/animal.htm [Explorator]

For thousands of years small bands of hunter-gatherers were able to share the same stretch of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean terrain. But the ratio of tortoises to hares shifted markedly about 44,000 years ago, with the increased number of fast prey suggesting that the human population was suddenly too numerous to subsist on slow animals alone.

...By examining the DNA of today's South Seas rodents, Lisa Matisoo-Smith of the University of Auckland has been able to reconstruct the migration patterns of the early humans on whose boats the vermin hitched rides. The southern Cook and Society islands, she reports, formed the base of migration for both rats and their human hosts, now thought to have settled there 2,000 years ago.

Kubrick gives Cruise an ulcer! (no spoilers) http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/pr/kubrick.html [Drudge]

Rather than cut his film, Kubrick came up with the idea of digitally adding figures to partly hide the most explicit 65 seconds of the scene when it is shown to U.S. audiences. (The rest of the world will see it as Kubrick originally made it.) "There is nothing in the picture that Stanley didn't approve," vows Cruise.

After seeing the completed film for the first time, "we were in shock," Kidman told Booth. "The second time, I thought, 'Wow.' It's going to be controversial..."

Pinochet ruling scares Thatcher! http://www.drudgereport.com/matt.htm

Mrs Thatcher "is said to be anxious that she might be indicted if she traveled to parts of South America in the light of her decision to recapture the Falkands by force....She is said to have been concerned that some countries might try to indict her for her role in Northern Ireland policy, including detention without trial and claims of alleged shoot-to-kill operations by the security forces."

At Rainbow Gatherings the use of alcohol is restricted to 'A camp' just outside the entrance: [Deja URL]

I feel the need to say something in defense of A-camp. Most of em are just alcoholic idiots who learned their behavior from their parents and in jail, and they really don't know any better. There is no evidence of any thought of malicious intent on the part of the majority of em, or indeed any thought at all; so ya gotta Love em, cuz liking em is just too much trouble...

Unfocused meditation on the ups and downs of Silicon Valley: [3pg plus annoying multipage timeline] http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/special/svboom/boomlead.htm [SN]

Capitalist idealism imbues material products with a metaphysical importance, as if the newest microprocessor, the next computer, the coming generation of software will make life itself better.

This Fairchild plant came to symbolize the dangers, not the promise, of manufacturing. The cleaning solvent 1,1,1 trichloroethane had leaked from its underground tanks into the groundwater and contaminated the water supply of the neighborhood across the street, the quiet suburban tract of Los Paseos, where at least 19 parents reported miscarriages, stillbirths and children born with congenital medical problems.

The report points out that the median wage paid to hourly workers in California last year was actually 1 percent lower than in 1993, when adjusted for inflation, and the decline was greatest for the lowest-wage workers.

TCI knifes @Home subscribers: http://www.internetnews.com/isp-news/article/0,1087,8_144121,00.html [Slashdot]

The memo coaches customer contact personnel to keep the new strategy "low-key in the eyes of the subscriber" and "to avoid talking about it to begin with if possible." The document also advises against using the term "upstream limit" or mentioning the 128-kbps rate.

Sweet new Squares chapter from Ellen: (Flash) http://home.luna.nl/~ellen/present/06-27-99/06-27-99.html

End of an era: Archimedes Plutonium resigns his dishwashing job at Dartmouth: [Deja URL]

My second thoughts is that after this vacation of many months
that I will resume my work in these areas:
 
(1) superconductivity
(2) Fusion Barrier Law
(3) carbon-fibre-human-skeletal-system
(4) human cloning
(5) starting the church-of-god-is-an-atom

A little clarification on the iToaster: http://www.seattletimes.com/news/technology/html98/aoll_19990625.html

Latman said Microworkz licensed its operating system's underlying "kernel" from Be, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based company that split from Apple Computer about a decade ago. But everything above the kernel - the upper interface, or what the user sees on the screen - was developed by Microworkz, Latman said. ...He discounted as false reports that the operating system incorporates elements of the Linux operating system. [Screenshot]

Don't miss: AstroPic: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990627.html

Our Earth is not at rest. The Earth moves around the Sun. The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy orbits in the Local Group. The Local Group falls toward the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. But these speeds are less than the speed that all of these objects together move relative to the microwave background...

Albert Brooks trashes the competition: http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,64448-102226-713550-0,00.html

The discussion began with an acknowledgment that Adam Sandler was probably the most popular comic in America today. Albert Brooks responded by comparing Sandler to a disease. "Let's salute whatever else America likes that's crap! How about cancer? They all seem to get that. Must be good! People keep getting it!"

Book-excerpt on venture captalists: http://eXaminer.com/990627/0627excerpt.html

As Kleiner Perkins sees it, the Florence of the Renaissance had the Medicis, the American steel industry had the House of Morgan, and Silicon Valley in the late 20th century has Kleiner Perkins.

Review of the Cockburns' new Iraq book: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-06/27/013l-062799-idx.html

The CIA operation itself seems to have been crippled by divided opinion among agency managers, differing emphases by assorted CIA components, and field officers exceeding their authority, all coupled with the shifting allegiances and essential powerlessness of the Iraqi opposition elements. One CIA officer among the Kurds, if this account is accurate, almost single-handedly instigated the 1996 uprising that split the Kurds, resulted in an alliance between Saddam and one Kurdish faction with previous ties to the CIA, and dramatically increased Iraq's confidence in its ability to obstruct the UN disarmament program.

NetSkink reviews 'Pirates of SV': http://eXaminer.com/990627/0627skink.html

Gates obviously did not want to be reminded of the one case where the court came down hard against Microsoft. So I changed the subject, pursuing instead the issue of how I can convince my colleagues that Microsoft's products won in the competitive marketplace based on quality and price. "How rude you are," Gates told me, his face turning pale. And I, meanwhile, found it more than a tad disconcerting that Bill Gates could be agitated by the questions posed by a nebbish like myself.

Philip Greenspun picks a winner: http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg062799.htm [Tomalak]

On Friday the 18-year-old Hunter, who'll enter his junior year at Earlham this fall, took the top award in an intriguing competition that harkened back to the early days of the Internet. He won the first annual $10,000 ArsDigita Prize, established by a Boston-area foundation to reward young people 18 and under who put their technology talents to work by coming up with advertising-free, Internet-based information tools that anyone can use free of charge.

RWWL headers-poll results:

Nerve nude (56), Dilbert (28), Zippy (27), AstroPic (27), Doonesbury (24), Ellen (23), Poem (12), Word (11)
Net.Literate portal (22), net (15), tech (13), science (12), history (11), fun (11), art (11), media (11), issues (8), search (3), shop (3)
Cams (21), Google search (20), #-jump (16), Site search (11), Help FAQ (8), ImagineRadio tunes (7), Backup weblog site (3)
Interact: mail me (11), newsgroup (3), my netnews (2), anon feedback (0)

9am to 2pm CDT: This is Hell live RealAudio funny progressive talkradio with guests Tom Flynn of Free Inquiry magazine; Ari Schwartz of the Center For Democracy and Technology (Net censorship); websites of the week: Mormon genealogy database and lyrics server; Liane Casten of Chicago Media Watch (GM foods, breast implants); Victoria E. Brown of National Alliance of the Disabled (Supreme Court decision); and Eric Marcus (Stonewall anniversary). USK forum. Moment of Truth archive.

Seen at Nerve: http://www.nervemag.com/highlights/

"Americans now spend more money at strip clubs and peep shows than at Broadway, off-Broadway, regional, and nonprofit theaters; at the opera; the ballet; and jazz and classical musical performances combined." -- Charles Panati, Sexy Origins and Intimate Things

Very intense Progressive Review:

This war was conducted, in no small part, by people who called themselves, in their private lives, killer litigators. Their speciality was making the other side lose. So now we have seen what happens when you give a bunch of corporate lawyers their own air force.

Google search on 'hell': http://google.com/search?q=hell

#1- This Is Hell!

Cheap solar water purification: [Deja URL]

For those not familiar with the pasteurization process, if water is heated to 149F (65C) for about 6 minutes all the germs, viruses, and parasites that cause disease in humans are killed, including cholera and hepatitis A and B. This is similar to what is done with milk and other beverages. It is not necessary to boil the water as many people believe.

The new device is called a solar puddle, and it is essentially a puddle in a greenhouse.

DaveW does some URL-hacking: http://news.userland.com/1999/06/26/

Hey check this out. I can point to Wired articles in a very weird way. Look at this URL carefully. See the "scriptingNews" in there? You could change that to any string. I tuned into this by looking at a URL that SlashDot is using. I wonder what Wired does with this? Will they pay me money for that hit? Interesting!

(Doesn't seem to work with the print version, alas.)

American pronunciations recrossing pond: (Telegraph)

John Wells, professor of phonetics at University College London, who is the dictionary's author, said yesterday that the survey, based on 100 words, had shown a growing trend among the young for Americanisms. Those questioned used "veycation", placed the emphasis on PRIN in princess and turned garage into "guRARGE", stressing the final syllable.

Van Gogh declared authentic: http://www.foxnews.com/news/international/0625/i_ap_0625_99.sml

The work is not a typical Van Gogh. The abstract perspective and brush strokes lack the artist's usual realistic touches, like a fence, a rooftop or a church spire, and it is painted in a pointillist style. Top Van Gogh scholars have insisted that the artist painted the landscape in the creative finale that led up to his 1890 suicide. [Pic]

A long, illustrated page about Van Gogh fakes: http://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/fakes2.htm

Way back when, I tried to compile a Richard Lester page but found too little to link. Happily, Salon has done the research: [2pg] http://www.salon.com/people/rewind/1999/06/26/lester/index.html

A disastrous little variety program called "The Dick Lester Show" managed to catch at least one viewer's attention -- Lester received a phone call the next day. "I watched your program last night," Peter Sellers told him, "and it was either one of the worst shows I've ever seen, or you are on to something."

Susie Bright welcomes a Marilyn Chambers revival: http://www.salon.com/health/sex/col/brig/1999/06/26/marilyn/print.html

The other key to Marilyn's appeal -- the character behind that great face -- can be seen in the film "Insatiable." Although '70s pornophiles wouldn't have used this term, she could "bottom" like nobody else. Even though Chambers didn't make S/M or fetish movies per se, she could take an otherwise vanilla situation and turn it into a power-charged tour de force.

Extreme silliness from Ellen: (animated GIF I think) http://home.luna.nl/~ellen/present/06-25-99/06-25-99.html

Little brother and sister are happy swinging.

New Science News: http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_wekly/sn_ind99.htm

- Image of a Planet: Too Hot to be True
- Cows' milk, diabetes connection bolstered
- Lead and bad diet give a kick in the teeth
- Old Glory, New Glory

Bookmarklet: This one for Dykes looks for a new cartoon every Friday, though it only comes out every two or three weeks.

The main reason I polled about the header-links is that I'm thinking of adding a Sammy-Sosa-Watch that tracks his projected homerun total for the season-- currently 61: http://www.fastball.com/cubs/

Ouch! http://prorev.com/indexa.htm

For longtime homeless advocate Carol Fennelly, however, the Washington Post slipped back into its more comfortable stance of graceless snottiness. .... Here are some of the phrases Washington's largest newspaper used to describe one of the finer people of the city:
-- Nagging Activist (in the headline)
-- Agitator
-- Annoyance
-- Shop-worn sound bite
-- God-talks-to-me zealot pushing a cause that's fallen out of fashion
-- A mother Teresa with yuppie tastes...

[And on website accessibility regulations:] The rules are highly technical, prohibitively costly, and - ironically -- nearly unreadable themselves. While proposing to restrict the use of color and requiring sound versions to accompany visual material, the instructions themselves violate one of the most basic rules of readability: the columns are too wide.

New 'Dykes to Watch Out For' cartoon: http://www.washblade.com/forum/cartoons/dykes/990625a.htm

Multitask along with Ginger!

I haven't covered the Pacifica wars much because the reports have all been from 'insiders'. Here's a mass media overview: http://eXaminer.com/990625/0625kpfa.html

"We have a core group of listeners, but they are not growing," Fabbri said. "If you look at the protesters, the vast majority are over 50 and white."

Older poll:

The Robot Wisdom Weblog has a zillion little links at the top. I have no idea if people use them! Which of these header links have you clicked more than once? (choose all that apply-- but not if you visit them via some other page) [Vote][View results]

So what are people using the portal-page for? (I've almost forgotten about it!)

Which of these header links have you clicked more than once?
- Nerve nude of the day (10%)
- AstroPic of the day (6%)
- Net.Literate portal (6%)

Google search for 'computer games': http://google.com/search?query=computer.games&num=20

1- Welcome to the World of PlayStation
2- ZDNet
3- Computer Games Online...

Columbine shooter's t-shirt read 'Natural Selection': http://www.rockymountainnews.com/shooting/0625autop.shtml [OSRR]

It is not clear what the shirt's inscription referred to, but there is a video game with the same name. The game's World Wide Web site says it encompasses a "realm L where anything can happen," a place for the "bravest of the brave and the fiercest of the fierce."

MS spins iToaster: http://www.theregister.co.uk/990625-000018.html

Hostile witness David Colburn had earlier said the AOL PC plan had been largely abandoned, but Microsoft attorney Michael Lacovara was able to produce a news report saying AOL was in talks with MicroWorkz Computer, whose $199 iToaster was introduced at PC Expo. Is The Register alone in noting that the source of this story was, er, MSNBC?

Windows gets a 'V-chip': http://www.cnnfn.com/1999/06/25/technology/microsoft_games/

The next version of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system is expected to include software allowing users to determine what types of games can be played on their computers, according to a report published Friday.

Lucid alert about human genome patents: http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/opinion/columns/GENOMESH.htm [CDreams]

While Venter plans to release the full "consensus" human genome sequence openly on the Internet -- thereby putting it in the public domain -- Celera will patent and keep to itself information on variations in that sequence.

Last month, meeting in closed sessions, the research labs of the Human Genome Project abruptly changed direction, opting to go for a "blueprint" of the genome first, lest Venter have snared all the interesting SNPs before a more plodding government effort gets to them.

Maybe AOL really does have a clear direction? http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/25/ns-8636.html

According to Rick Latman, president and CEO of Microworkz, representatives of America Online are to visit the Washington based company to discuss Microworkz producing AOL-branded PCs. But a source familiar with the talks says AOL is interested in buying Microworkz outright.

The Be crowd are guardedly ecstatic at the AOL prospect: (multipage thread also includes this tidbit:) http://www.benews.com/story/?ID=1308&type=reply&EditorialID=1460

Microworkz Sales Guy: "Well, the iToaster uses an entirely new operating system developed by Microworkz. It borrows some ideas from Linux. It also borrows some ideas from BeOS. However, it is a new piece of software we have developed here specifically for the iToaster."

Drudge loves a good meteorological apocalypse: http://www.drudgereport.com/matt.htm

High-flying clouds of ice crystals were spotted in the sky over Colorado Tuesday night, the first time they've been seen this close to the equator. The cloud clusters are common closer to both poles of the Earth during the summer. They had never been spotted in the U.S. south of North Dakota. "This could be a signal that something is happening to our upper atmosphere," Gary Thomas, a professor at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, tells Firday's DENVER ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS.

Great excerpt from Po Bronson's new Silicon Valley novel: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/06/25/bronson_excerpt/print.html

Top programmers are not nerds stuck in the back room anymore. They lead wildly imaginative lives. Kevin and Max are both pilots. One Saturday, they held a plane party on the tarmac at the San Mateo Airport -- just bring $15 to cover the gas for an hour. Another thing they did was buy an old Wonder Bread delivery truck and repaint it in pastel colors as the "Freezing Man" truck, which they equipped with massive freezer units and drove around the Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert, handing out ice cream sandwiches and Creamsicles to people in the 100-degree heat.

Kevin is one of the rare engineers in the valley who is really, really good at what is called "hardware bring-ups," the nether place where hardware and software meet. Most hardware guys have electrical engineering backgrounds, and don't understand the importance of scalability. Kevin, who has a computer science background, can design a software system in sync with the hardware servers to be the Big Network's backbone.

The New City network of alternative weeklies has a new 'portal' with lots of best-of selections: [multipage] http://www.newcity.com/newcity/content/current/features_archive.html (via a banner at Salon)

Great illustrated article on prehistoric-textile detectivework: http://www.post-gazette.com:80/healthscience/19990621vvenus2.asp [Explorator]

Only a minority of the Venus figurines have any apparel. Adovasio and his colleagues, however, have noted the presence of belts, bracelets, various headcoverings, string skirts and bandeaux, narrow strips of material worn on the torso. "Even the so-called naked ones often have necklaces and bandeaux, which are often written off as tattoos," he noted. "But tattoos with seams?"

Likewise, if the Venus of Willendorf is indeed wearing a head covering, it too might be related to a present-day practice. Barber said women in some cultures, seeing the hair as an analogue for pubic hair, routinely cover their heads after marriage.

PBS panders to 'GenX': http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/citation/wc990623.htm

The real premise underlying VAGUEpolitix is threefold: First, that politics really is dull. Second, that fancy graphics and attitude can make it less so. And third, that even people with bad ideas can con PBS with youth, technosavvy, and claims of Zeitgeist-sense.

Like other politics-oriented sites, VAGUEpolitix is in part a Web digest that points users to information elsewhere on the Internet.

Older poll:

Cybernetic hygiene:
1) If your main hard drive crashed totally right now, how much data would you lose?
2) If your computer doesn't boot the next time you turn it on, do you have an emergency boot disk (usually a floppy or CD) handy?
3) I scan for viruses [how often]
4) I clean my mouse with alcohol or equivalent [how often] [Vote][See results]

Hilarious restaurant review of a Russian gay bar: http://www.times.spb.ru/current/features/rest.htm

We sat with our backs to the Dark Room, where The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name is permitted to clear its throat and burst into song.

New The Nation includes Hitchens on the China spy scandals: http://www.thenation.com/issue/990712/0712hitchens.shtml

Huang has now been deposed by Judicial Watch in its landmark lawsuit against the Commerce Department and has been asked about his role as a Chinese agent, his role at the DNC and his role at Commerce. He has so far invoked the protection of the Fifth Amendment more than one thousand times, which is believed to be an indoor record (and invoked it in answer to such questions as "Do you recognize the late Ronald Brown in this photograph?").

Ana and Jenni to be featured at MOMA: http://www.fetik3.com/bbs/messages/8024.html

The message of the Web installation is the democratization of fame. Where traditional distribution channels are controlled by large corporations or require large sums of money to penetrate, the Web provides a way for individuals to communicate directly with anyone interested. This fact will change the public's relationship to the famous in ways that have yet to take form. To demonstrate this, we have isolated three separate categories of content that will represent the Web within the show. They are as follows:
- Self Appointed Fame: People who have found fame through their use of the Web
- Off-line Celebrities on the Web: Stars who have been popular in other mediums who use the Web to communicate directly with the general population or their fans.
- Misinformation and Propaganda: Using the web to spread underground, uncommon, and extreme points of view.
Each of these areas has a series of Web Sites that will demonstrate the concepts to the audience...

New Progressive Review:

"Bernard Beck, a sociologist at Northwestern University, said child raising had taken a more management-style approach, especially among parents who were well-educated and successful. In some ways, Mr. Beck said, children have come to be seen a bit like growth stocks."

A very long, very intelligent interview with a female porn star/ producer: http://www.nervemag.com/Goodman/chong/chongPrint.html

The entire language of recovery really denies people their individuality, their personhood. Totally going off on a tangent right here, I recently read part of Andrew Morton's Monica's Story and that entire book was written in the language of recovery; you find out nothing about Monica whatsoever. You don't get a sense of her as a person at all.

I'd rather have control over what I do than be like most of my classmates, who are now working as paper pushers and being abused by their superiors and having to deal with office politics.

...Well, she put up a really big fight, like really major, like grand mal seizure. It's becoming like family legend now, you know, Grandma's Big Fight. So, she was the first female of her generation from that social status in Singapore not to get her feet bound. From what they told me she kind of started the ball rolling and then other families, their daughters would go, "Well you know, so-and-so from the Lee family did not get her feet bound, so we're not going to get our feet bound either."

A lot of performance art, it takes place in these stupid little galleries in the middle of nowhere and the people who are there are just all these art people. You know, it makes no impact whatsoever because they're preaching to the converted. We are the media generation, and it may be going too far to say if the press isn't there then it doesn't happen, but I think that to communicate to a lot of people you've got to work with the media instead of thinking of the media as an enemy.

Depressing account of a 'record gangbang' video shoot: http://www.nervemag.com/Ueland/houston/

But I can't help thinking that Jackson Pollack had more regard for his inanimate canvas than the participants do for her. The woman could jump up from the gangbang, haul off a couple perfect back flips and no one would know to applaud.

New first chapters: http://www.calendarlive.com/HOME/CALENDARLIVE/BOOKS/CHAPTERS/index.htm

- The White House Connection By Jack Higgins
- Mary Pickford Rediscovered Rare Pictures Of A Hollywood Legend By Kevin Brownlow
- Brief Interviews with Hideous Men By David Foster Wallace
- Local Girls By Alice Hoffman

Okay George Carlin update: http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/1999/06/23/carlin/print.html

"Look what they're doing to you. First, they focus-group and find out what it is you're thinking. Then they take what you're thinking and they change it and then they have an advertising campaign and they re-teach it to you a different way. And then they take another focus group to find out whether it sank in."

That's the key word to what I do. It's rhetoric. It's exaggerated prose and it's done to make a point usually in a very, I hope, funny way. Or at least in a new, interesting way. And the point is not for you to believe it and take it and go home and act on it.

The artificial weeping in this country, this nationwide mourning for dead people is just embarrassing, and these ribbons and these teddy bears and these little places where they put notes to dead people and all this s___. This is embarrassing and unnecessary, and it just shows how immature, how emotionally immature the American people as a class are.

Very nice synopsis of Dylan's Neverending Tour: http://www.salon.com/ent/music/review/1999/06/22/dylan_live/print.html

Dylan has played an average of close to 100 shows annually, all over the world, for the last 12 years. ...Dylan remains a crank and an odd star indeed; and anyone who spends as much time as he does on tour buses has some home issues.

I read it first in the Weekly World News: http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/Thursday-Times/timbooboo03011.html?1334425

In 1988, a year before A.J. Ayer died, he died technically for four minutes after choking on some smoked salmon. In that state he had a vision of a bright red light which was responsible for the governance of the Universe. It made him reconsider his scepticism about life after death, and he wrote an article about it.

Rainbow notes: [Deja URL]

Last night we had to help a dog who had a run in with a porcupine. We pulled 27 needles out of the dogs mouth area. There are just as many porcupines as dogs... Still waiting to see a bear or rattlesnake. Today I hauled in 26 racks of bread donated by Arnold Bakeries, 7 cases of canteloupes, 1 case of bannans, 1 case of tomatoes. 4 bags and natural bread.

TV Ultra salutes Bewitched: http://www.tvultra.com/

There was just something about Elizabeth Montgomery. Part of it was that irresistable mix of girl-next-door innocence and an undercurrent of hottie sexuality. And that face. That face that was immortalized in the 1983 new wave cult classic "Elizabeth Montgomery's Face" by the Embarrassment.

How gay are you, sexually and culturally? [Vote in poll] [View poll results]

Article on this topic: http://www.observer.com/pages/frontpage3.htm

Kurt Andersen asked if he could assign himself two separate percentages: "If I could give myself two scores, one on the sexual, one on the cultural, I would put myself much higher on the cultural," he said. "I'd say 0 to 1 on the sexual and, like, 20 on the cultural, or maybe more."

...And actress Liv Tyler, whom the paparazzi caught mid-smooch with Drew Barrymore at the Oscars?

How gay are you? (projected and more carefully smoothed from 91 votes)

=------------------------------------------=
|
| m                              Sexually
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| m
| mm
| mmmm
| mmmmm
| mmmmmm                                  m
| mmmmmm                                  m
| mmmmmm                                  m
| mmmmmm                                  m
| mmmmmmm                               mmm
| mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm  m  m  m  m m   mmmmm
=------------------------------------------=
 00  10  20  30  40  50  60  70  80  90 100
 not gay                            way gay


=------------------------------------------=
|
|                               Culturally
| mmmm
| mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
| mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
| mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
=------------------------------------------=
 00  10  20  30  40  50  60  70  80  90 100
 not gay                            way gay

How gay are you? (63 votes)

=---------------------------------------=
|
| m        m
| m        m                   Sexually
| m        m
| m  m     m
| m  m     m
| m  m     m
| m  m     m
| m  m     m
| m  m  m  m
| m  m  m  m  m
| m  m  m  m  m  m
| m  m  m  m  m  m                    m
| m  m  m  m  m  m              m  m  m
| m  m  m  m  m  m     m  m     m  m  m
=---------------------------------------=
 00 02 05 10 25 40 50 60 75 90 95 98 100
 not gay                         way gay


=---------------------------------------=
|
|             m
|             m              Culturally
|             m
|             m
|             m
|             m           m
|             m  m        m
|             m  m        m
|             m  m        m
|             m  m     m  m
|          m  m  m  m  m  m
|          m  m  m  m  m  m
|          m  m  m  m  m  m
|          m  m  m  m  m  m  m
|    m  m  m  m  m  m  m  m  m
| m  m  m  m  m  m  m  m  m  m  m
=---------------------------------------=
 00 02 05 10 25 40 50 60 75 90 95 98 100
 not gay                         way gay

Peter Jennings had a segment tonight on Wicca at Fort Hood

Long sympathetic update on the Unabomber: http://www.nypress.com/col1.cfm?content_id=85&now=6/23/99&content_section=1

"The alternative hypothesis is, I think, much more interesting, but much more frightening: that here is a guy who was incredibly sane, incredibly bright, who devoted the bulk of his adult life to handcrafting and sending bombs throughout the country. The image of the sane bomber is much more frightening than the image of the mad bomber..."

Kaczynski was evidently the last person involved to learn that his lawyers "intended to base their defense on claims that their client was crazy," Mello writes. It was November '97, and jury selection had already begun when Kaczynski, on one of his first actual appearances in court, was visibly stunned to learn that his lawyers had made a psychiatric report on him public without informing him. "Kaczynski's surprise appeared to be genuine," Mello writes. "He slammed a pen down on the defense table, and it skittered across the table." And in Mello's opinion, "His anger was warranted."

"The letters for me really proved for me beyond any doubt that he was not just mentally competent to stand trial, but mentally competent to stand trial by a country mile. There are really some piercing insights in those letters about the culture of capital defense lawyering and the dynamic of adjudication that are really fascinating."

"That is why I am convinced that the prosecutors agreed to the guilty pleas in the end, because they knew that Judge Burrell had laced the record with so much error" that inevitably there would be an appeal and the guilty verdict "would have been thrown out because of the magnitude of the errors Judge Burrell had committed, even before the first witness was sworn."

World notables pick this century's most important innovations: [multipage] http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/bonus/0699/cbessay.htm [Wired]

- Amir D. Aczel; Math history professor, author: Airplane.
- Steve Case; Chief executive, America Online: The Internet.
- Peter Cochrane; Executive, British Telecommunications: Vacuum tube.
- Ben Cohen; Co-founder, Ben & Jerry's: Rocketry, nuclear fission.
- Shelley Day; Founder, Humongous Entertainment: Computer games
- Larry Downes; Technology consultant, author: The Internet.
- Bill Gates; CEO, Microsoft: Microprocessor.
- Jeff Hawkins; Creator, Palm computer: Transistor.
- Quincy Jones; Musician: Fender bass.
- Francis McInerney; Executive, North River Ventures: American democracy.
- Stepan Pachikov; Founder, ParaGraph International: Computer.
- Ralph Petroff; Chairman/ CEO, Time Domain: Rocket.
- Heidi Roizen; Silicon Valley entrepreneur: Word processor.
- Paul Simon; Former U.S. senator: Manual typewriter & Heartscan.
- George Wang; Director, IBM China Research Lab: Internet protocols.
- Larry Wangberg; President/CEO, ZDTV: Cable TV.
- Louis Woo; Executive, Lernout & Hauspie: Speech/language technologies.

Shelly Day's is cool: http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/bonus/0699/cb007.htm

This game changed my life. Adventure was a text-based game (no graphics, no music, no sound) that was quite the rage with computer science undergrads on college campuses. My friend gave me a few preliminary instructions and sent me off. (I had agreed to spend 10 minutes with it.) After 20 minutes, he said we really should go back to the party. After 45 minutes, he said so long and left to join the others. He'd come back and check on me every so often. Seven hours later, I was still glued to the screen. I missed the whole party, but I've never regretted it.

Sounds pretty bogus: (includes pix) http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_376000/376321.stm

Women are attracted to more masculine-looking men at the most fertile time of their menstrual cycle, psychologists have shown. During the less fertile times, they choose men with more feminine-looking faces. These are seen as kinder and more co-operative but less strong and healthy genetically.

...Take part in a new experiment to determine the influence of family background on face preference by clicking [here].

Eric Raymond on speaking at MS: http://www.linuxresources.com/articles/linux_review/19990623.html [Slashdot]

It was kind of amusing, really, fielding brickbats from testosterone-pumped twentysomethings for whom money and Microsoft's survival are so central that they have trouble grokking that anyone can truly think outside that box. On some subjects, their brains just shut down -- the style reminded me a lot of the anonymous cowards on Slashdot.

...Oh, and Neal Stephenson solicited my advice on the proper firearm for dealing with cougars while hiking with his kids.

Ethics of private investigators' lying to acquire info: http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctf445.htm

"Some in Congress believe pretexting is a despicable practice, but in context it's consistent with the moral standards of society," says Wind, a founder of CAFPA, whose firm claims to be the "nation's leading asset information provider."

Don't miss: Update on Michael Milken's masterplan: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2280934,00.html

International Business Machines Corp. was the first company to sign up as a customer of what UNext.com describes as an "online business-education community called Cardean" -- named for a Roman goddess -- that will allow employees to take courses electronically on their own schedule, from work or home or even while traveling.

New Progressive Review covers worldwide J18 actions:

One rioter was injured when a man hit him over the head with a wrench defending a car carrying the man's mother and pregnant girlfriend. Said one anarchist activist at a press conference the next day, "The anarchist philosophy needs to evolve to the point where we control ourselves better."

Futurology from Freeman Dyson: http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990626/freemansch.html

Dyson believes that a mere 50 watts of direct current collected by a solar array could provide a hut in the remotest village with a fluorescent light or a black and white TV or access to the Internet for several hours a night. The snag, of course, is the cost of photovoltaic collector panels--about $5 per watt. No Third World villager could afford that.

Slow multipage gallery of Chicago's goofy cow-sculpture event: [Messy URL] (via WGN)

Click on a cow's name and a new window will pop up. Once you've gotten your fill, just click on the link to get back to the list.

Interesting new New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990626/news1.html

- Buckypens: It's time to rewrite the rules of microchip manufacture [nanotubes as atomic fountain pens]
- A coup for coffee: Caffeine may protect cells from the ravages of radiation
- A super star: If our Sun is special, we may need to narrow down our search for intelligent life
- Coming down for dinner: Early birds developed wings to pounce on prey from rocks and ledges

Jenni's Amsterdam tripping-journal: http://www.jennicam.org/~jenni/journal/0623.html

I can achieve permanent bliss, if I put a little effort into it. I will not lie, even if the truth is bad, because a lie is no better. If I'm ashamed for doing something, I will apologize, and look forward happily to my future actions without shame, but with experience.

Jenni's newsgroup is full of debate about her morals: [Sample thread]

What if Jenni quit the cam?

Here's another poll that caught my enthusiasm: (I'll link it again in a day or three since it's the 2nd one today) http://www.misterpoll.com/poll.wga?id=131834758

Cybernetic hygiene: When the computer crashes, we usually kick ourselves for not being better prepared. How lazy are you about anticipating problems?

Desultory: http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/

From Latin desilio, to leap down, from de, down + salio, to leap. Synonyms: Rambling; roving; immethodical; discursive; inconstant; unsettled; cursory.

Salinger's daughter publishing a 'JD Dearest': http://www.observer.com/pages/publish.htm

"I think it's brave and fine," said Ms. Maynard. "When I knew Peggy she was 17, and I was 19. I spent one of the worst nights of my life trying not to wake Peggy Salinger. The last time I saw her was the day Jerry Salinger sent me out of his life."

Chris Byron on Compaq and wilfully blind stock analysts: http://www.observer.com/pages/envelope.htm

Case in point: the astounding failure of nearly the whole of Wall Street to predict -- or indeed even catch the barest whiff of -- Compaq Computer Corporation's bombshell announcement of June 17. In that announcement, the besieged computer maker's acting chief executive, Benjamin Rosen, disclosed that Compaq would report as much as a 15-cent-per-share loss for the second quarter ending June 30, versus Wall Street's consensus forecast of a 22-cents-per-share profit for the period. As we'll see in a minute, the collective look of dumb stupefaction that greeted this announcement on Wall Street wasn't the result of mere oversight. You don't just "overlook" or somehow "miss" a $630 million swing to the negative in a company's earnings in a mere 90-day period.

Globalisation wins a really obnoxious victory: http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/173/business/burma.htm [CDreams]

"This is a severe blow to the practice of state and local governments using moral criteria to make financial decisions," said Simon Billenness, a pro-Burmese democracy activist in Boston who helped guide the bill into law in 1996. "The ruling will divorce morality from state spending."

The Teflon punditocracy: http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/06/23/text/p1s5.html

In a quest for accountability, media-watchdog magazine Brill's Content focuses on the Sunday morning talk-show hosts who lace questions with opinion. For roughly six months, the publication has tracked predictions made by commentators. "You never hear George Will saying, 'I made a prediction four months ago and it wasn't true,' " says Michael Colton, senior writer at Brill's Content. "People have short attention spans, and a lot of the predictions are long term. And it's not like viewers are sitting there taking notes."

For the most recent issue, Mr. Colton drove to New Jersey, where a chimpanzee was made to answer yes and no questions on a range of news topics. The magazine reported that Chippy the chimp scored a .500 average, while Mr. Will in recent months has scored .333.

Interesting analysis of Disney's weaknesses: http://www.forbes.com/Forbes/99/0705/6401050a.htm

People who have left Disney have familiar gripes: Micromanagement and cost-cutting have dampened the old creative spirit. Horrors, the creative types are even being asked to fly coach, a rare hardship for Hollywood's pampered class. Executives like Anne Osberg control the most minute details, such as the color chips used to make Aladdin or Little Mermaid figurines.

Cute story: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/99/Jun/caution.html

They've been working on some really nifty virtual reality simulators, the case in point being to incorporate Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters into exercises (from the data fusion point of view). Most of the people they employ on this sort of thing are ex- (or future) computer game programmers. Anyway, as part of the reality parameters, they include things like trees and animals. For the Australian simulation they included kangaroos...

TV 2nite: Frontline does Alzheimer's: http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/173/living/Dynamic_look_at_beloved_Pop-.shtml

"Pop," airing tonight at 9 on WGBH-Ch.2, is a filial love poem, driven naturally by the dynamic of Hy Meyerowitz.

Hy says much that is memorably rich with emotion, nothing more so than: ''My life - it wasn't much, but it was great.''

Potatoe dynasty's successor? http://www.drudgereport.com/matt.htm

"GW Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes acknowledged that her boss is still getting up to speed on foreign policy issues. In recent weeks, Bush has referred to Greeks as 'Grecians,' Kosovars as 'Kosovarians' and East Timorese as 'East Timorians.'"

The reason I always tag Fox news headlines is that they cause problems for AOL users. Here's a revised format that may work better-- the story is quite interesting, on Roseanne in Jerusalem: http://www.foxnews.com/news/international/0622/i_ap_0622_119.sml

The entertainer is in Israel to inaugurate the Jerusalem branch of a Jewish mysticism school where she studies in Los Angeles. She told reporters she will return to Jerusalem "when I can stay forever."

A recent CounterSpin reported on the Pentagon's insane ambitions for 'Star Wars': (10 min RealAudio) http://www.webactive.com/cspin/cspin990521.html

When you mention space-based weapons, most people think of the Star Wars missile defense program. But few people know that that's just the tip of the iceberg, since the media fails to uncover the long-term planning behind this astounding story. Author and journalist Karl Grossman will join the program to explain the goals of the space race at the dawn of the 21st century.

The 'US Space Command' website includes lots of hideous graphics, etc: [multipage] http://www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace/LRP/ch05a.htm

US Space Command -- dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment.

Salon could coast for a few years on its IPO's $26M: http://www.fool.com/lunchnews/1999/lunchnews990622.htm

Salon.com lost $3.8 million in fiscal 1998 and lost $4.3 million over the first nine months of fiscal 1999. Losses are expected to widen.

Seen on alt.showbiz.gossip: [Deja URL]

In the local rag this morning, it was reported that the editor of The Onion... has had an injunction taken out on a man from Richland Center, WI who has sent letters that seemed threatening. The man from Richland Center thinks that the editor (Scott Dikkers) is evil and will burn in hell.

Brendan Eich reassures me that his "deeply alarming homepage" was just a third-party prank: http://home.netscape.com/columns/techvision/innovators_be.html

Brendan's technical skills are so strong, his vision so broad, and his verbal skills so highly developed that his voice is a powerful one inside Netscape.

Keeper headlines:

Babelfish finally gets some competition (free online translation) (RBuzz)
A long list of weblogs (via GeneHack)

New Onion:

Area Man Dead Of Fries

Professional reverse-engineer: http://www.azcentral.com:80/computing/news/0621wharton.shtml

Wharton, 44, supports himself, and a handful of expensive and eccentric hobbies, mostly by working as a highly paid forensic engineer.

Don't miss: Ellen's Flash storytelling reaches a new level: http://home.luna.nl/~ellen/present/06-22-99/06-22-99.html

Red Square vs. Green Square

Long, thoughtful analysis of videogame violence: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/06/21/game_violence/print.html

Last year, Moriarty's speech was on the subject of violence in games. As he spoke, two short clips appeared on a screen behind him, repeating hypnotically. One was a clip from "The Great Train Robbery," a silent film historians call the first real movie hit, showing a mustachioed Westerner shooting a gun directly toward the camera; the other, a short sequence from Quake, showed a guard being shot.

The press has reported Lt. Col. David Grossman's claim that games like Quake are good training for murder, because they teach you to "clear a room" by moving quickly from target to target and aiming for the head... On the basis of this, I have to doubt that Grossman has ever actually played Quake. No monster in Quake can be killed with a single shot; at least two hits are required. It is impossible to make a "head-shot"...

Great wide-ranging Germaine Greer interview: http://www.salon.com/people/lunch/1999/06/22/germaine_lunch/print.html

Women like Monica Lewinsky will always interpret very low-level interaction as evidence of commitment and real interest and so on. So that women will constantly put the best construction on a relationship and then end up humiliated and ripped off.

You have to die of something. I choose not to die of dementia. Not to die a vegetable or a puddle. I'd rather be struck down, just like you, in the middle of a productive life. Please may I have my heart attack? Can I please not take estrogen?

Cheap BeBox: http://www.be.com/press/pressreleases/99-06-22_iDOT.html [Slashdot]

The first of iDOT.com's BeOS based PCs will be priced at under $500, including a Cyrix MII 333 processor, floppy drive, 32 megabytes of RAM, a 3.2 gigabyte hard drive, 24X CD-ROM, keyboard and mouse. Monitors are available for $129 for a 15-inch monitor and $229 for a 17-inch monitor.

New Progressive Review looks at the KLA

New Village Voice includes this bleak subhead: http://www.villagevoice.com/columns/9925/ridgeway.shtml

E. Coli: Australian for Meat

And an excellent Nat Hentoff praising NYC's best public school: http://www.villagevoice.com/columns/9925/hentoff.shtml

The report found that if there is a principal with high, determined expectations of the teachers and of every single student, the rest will fall into place. Not right away, but it will happen.

From last week's Onion, a crotchety interview with Ray Bradbury: http://avclub.theonion.com/avclub3523/avfeature3523.html

O: Do you think screenwriters are just too lazy to write without profanity?
RB: Oh, they're just trying to show off. It's just male macho crap.
O: But that sells tickets.
RB: No, it doesn't. At least, I don't think it does. They imagine it does. It all started with Saturday Night Fever about 20 years ago. In the very first scene, the guys drive up and call him a "f___head." That's the point where I got up and left the theater with my wife. I said, "I don't need that." That's where it all started, about 20 years ago.

A tasteful portal for supermodel fans: http://www.supermodels.nl/ [WebSoup]

firstVIEW: Probably the biggest photocollection on the net. Unfortunately, not with the models names! Here come Dave's firstVIEW HUGE model-identification pages in handy!

Salon's first million? http://quote.yahoo.com/q?s=saln&d=v1

Symbol  Last Trade   Change     Volume
SALN    12:26PM 11  +1 +10.00%  88,100

Detailed summary of Eyes Wide Shut: (London) [AIC]

But even at its most baffling, it is an astonishing work made with masterly control and at the same time a humanity that this director's detractors have insisted he did not possess.

Ancient Aztec poetry: http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/features/1999/0622/fea2.htm

Our fathers are intoxicated,
the intoxication of strength.
Let the dance begin
The owners of the wilted flowers have gone home,
those who own shields of feathers,
those who guard the heights,
Those who take prisoners alive are now dancing.
Defeated, the owners of the wilted flowers leave
those who own the shields of feathers.

I don't understand the Salon deal at all-- does this mean the auction was over the weekend, and as far as anybody knows nobody bid at all??? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-06/22/080r-062299-idx.html [OSRR}

Hambrecht had originally estimated the San Francisco-based political and cultural journal, which features such articles as "Chick Fight!: My First Barroom Brawl" and "Liddy Does Oprah: On the Not-Quite-Campaign Trail With Elizabeth Dole," would be offered at a price ranging from $10.50 to $13.50, so it's clear that the demand from bidders was relatively lukewarm.

(It sure doesn't seem to be moving at Yahoo-- can't it drop below $10.50?)

Windowseat recommends this clipboard extender for Windows: ($20 shareware) http://www.thornsoft.com/98_ProductOverview.htm

New to ClipMate 5.1 (now available), ClipMate will remember the "source url" of any data copied from IE or Netscape, making it easy to revisit the page - with just a click.

Nat'l Enquirer: http://www.nationalenquirer.com/stories/more_stories.html

- WILL SMITH'S EGO TURNS 'WILD WILD WEST' INTO WILD WILD MESS
- JACKO BABY DEATH HOAX -- MICHAEL HOOKED ON DRUGS [Demerol] & OUT OF CONTROL
- It's An Outrage! Internet Sickos Are Betting On Who's Next To Die

We are thousand-year-old carbon... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990622.html

In this photograph in red H-alpha light, very young planetary nebula PKS285-02 is seen surrounded by unusual expanding shells only thousands of years old. Much of the carbon that composes humans is thought to be created by red giant stars and ejected into the cosmos in planetary nebulae like PKS285-02.

Worm.Zip's smarter brother: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/NextFiles/nextfiles990621.html

But wait, there's more: it then connects to an Internet Relay Chat and sends (to an unknown recipient) local system settings, passwords, system configuration, lists of disks, directory information, Internet access phone numbers and passwords, remote access service logins and passwords, and ICQ user data.

Cool rave for Kipling's Kim: (Telegraph)

The book is also a social history of the railway. If H. G. Wells's The History of Mr Polly examines the bicycle as a force for social change, Kim does this for third-class railway carriages, as disciple and holy man cross and re-cross India, watching the barriers of caste and gender break down.

Beetle genetics gives geological clues: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/0622sc25.htm

Kim came to the conclusion that the different species of carabuses diverged all at once about 40 million years ago in and around Tibet, exploding into a multitude of species in a very short period around the time of the Himalayan orogenic movements, when diverse environments allowed many different species to flourish.

eBay post-mortem: http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153,407390,00.html

Technicians traced the main cause of the outage to a problem with the Sun Solaris operating system, which overwrote files and corrupted the Oracle database. The database, Version 7.3.2.2, recognized a data block in an incorrect format, and that caused the main hardware--a Sun E10000 server--to crash.

New first chapters: http://www.usatoday.com/life/enter/books/chapter.htm

- "Timbuktu" Paul Auster (Henry Holt & Co) Mangy mutt Mr. Bones tells of his life with the mad homeless poet Willy G. Christmas, as together they roam the Baltimore streets (Fiction)
- "First, Break All the Rules" Buckingham and Coffman (Simon & Schuster) Interviews with 80,000 managers reveal old-fashioned strategy for success (Nonfiction)

Several new items at CounterPunch: http://www.counterpunch.org/

The role of the Delta Force, the identity of the two Army officers, the revocation of Posse Comitatus all form part of the disclosures of a forthcoming documentary film, Waco: A New Revelation, put together by the same team that produced an earlier, excellent film, Waco: Rules of Engagement.

June Wired online: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.06/

Belonging: Making sense of culture on the Net.

More Moments of Truth from Jeff: http://www.robotwisdom.com/issues/jeff/index.html

- 19 June "Clinton's Hypnotism Ends" [deep]
- 05 June "No opposition to me!"
- 29 May "Milosevic indicted by Hague"
- 22 May "Totalitarianism is doomed"
- 01 May "Capital: normative and high school" [Katz/Columbine]
- 24 April "Capital's big tits and violence" [wild]
- 17 April "Public Radio's bias/ Cato" [excellent]

On the nano-frontier: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/24/ns-8583.html

The box-shaped robot is only 5 millimetres (0.2 inch) long, 9 millimetres (0.36 inch) wide and 6.5 millimetres (0.26 inch) high. It has a pair of round connectors on both sides that can be linked up with other robots for more extensive assignments.

Ralph McGehee does a database dump on the 1968 Tet offensive as a CIA fiasco: [Deja URL]

Ten weeks before Tet attack, CIA analyst Joe Hovey predicted "all out offensive...January to March 68...urban centers". George Carver, a top official, shot it down.

Rainbow approacheth, in PA: http://www.welcomehome.org/rainbow/sites/annual-site.html

This year the North American Rainbow Gathering (hence referred to as the Gathering) will be in Pennsylvania from June 28 - July 10 on a site near Ridgway, PA in Allegheny National Forest where Otter creek and Little Otter creek run into Bear Creek. The site is called Lower Bear Creek, and it's in the SE part of the forest.

Nitty gritty: http://home.earthlink.net/~kzirk/scroll/Minutes/howdyfolks.html

Endangered species: The Indiana Bat. Local conservation groups have a court order stopping the cutting down of any standing trees, living or dead, in the Allegheny National Forest to save the endangered Indiana Bat. Please don't cut living or dead standing trees.

Timber Rattlesnakes are native to this area and live in the rock beds, make noise if walking through this area to warn them of your presence. The area is roped off, but If you see one leave it alone and walk away. We are in a marshy area, mosquitoes may be annoying. Ticks may be in the tall grassy areas.

Things that make you go 'Hmmm': (rec.arts.books)

"Am I the only one bothered by the fact that we are encouraged to refer to some people as "persons of color", but would get in trouble if we refered to those same persons as "colored people"?" --Bruce McGuffin

Here's my first try at HTML-izing Jeff Dorchen's Saturday morning radio commentaries: http://www.robotwisdom.com/issues/jeff/99jun19.html

Clinton is the first president who ever tried to hypnotize the left.

Clinton believed that he and his generation made up as politically viable a fabric as the white sheep did, and he was right. The black sheep do indeed make up as viable a political fabric as the white sheep.

Baffling but cool theory of antenna design: (w/unclear pix) http://www.sciam.com/1999/0799issue/0799techbus3.html [Slashdot]

Just why these fractal antennas work so well was answered in part in the March issue of the journal Fractals. Cohen and his colleague Robert Hohlfeld proved mathematically that for an antenna to work equally well at all frequencies, it must satisfy two criteria. It must be symmetrical about a point. And it must be self-similar, having the same basic appearance at every scale--that is, it has to be fractal.

The company's FAQ: (w/clear pic, multipage site) http://www.fractenna.com/fasfaq.html

Twenty years ago, Landstorfer and Sacher, using optimization approaches, came up with randomly bent antenna designs which are clearly random fractals--but again not discussed as such.

In general the fractal parts produces 'fractal loading' and makes the antenna smaller for a given frequency of use. Practical shrinkage of 2-4 times are realizable for acceptable performance.

[White Paper:] Looking at lightning it is clear that it is a finite iteration, random fractal.

Short interview with nude-urban-tableau photographer Spencer Tunick: [2pg w/fun pix] http://www.salon.com/people/story/1999/06/21/tunick/index.html

I know it sounds really wacky, but usually people who wear gold don't pose. People who wear silver do pose. People who have pearl earrings or pearl necklaces don't pose. I never give it to anyone wearing a suit unless they've undone their tie, and there's some kind of leather or shell hanging from their neck -- something that hints at their individuality. No one wearing Tommy Hilfiger would pose. The hip-hop crowd -- white or black -- wouldn't pose.

Bookmarklet:

This bookmarklet looks for the last string of digits in the current URL and adds one to it: Increment URL. In Mac Netscape, it seems to only work from the Apple Menu. Improvements welcome.

Bean-counter foresees a reckoning: http://eXaminer.com/990620/0620ackerman.html

With Fed worries back on simmer, it is increasingly likely that key stock averages will achieve new highs this summer. Because shares have gotten so far ahead of earnings, though, it is a rally I would not trust. Bonds are a better play at these levels because buyers are effectively betting that inflation will pose no threat for the foreseeable future.

Interesting animated-background-gif experiment from Ellen: http://home.luna.nl/~ellen/present/06-20-99/06-20-99.html

Build

Everyone's beautiful when they're unselfconscious: http://www.jennicam.org/guests/index.html

Fun examination of the channel-surfing culture: http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/677.htm (asg)

It happens every Monday night. TNT and USA face off with competing wrestling shows. Young men sit in front of the TV, remote in hand. And they ping pong back and forth between the WCW and the WWF with a head-snapping speed that would make their grandmothers queasy. 'I've never seen anything like it,'' says Brooks. 'We've done minute-by-minute rating tracks, and whenever one of them bumps up, the other bumps down. They must be sitting there with the remote glued to their hands.''

Chomsky on the 'peace': [Deja URL]

The outcome suggests that diplomatic initiatives could have been pursued on March 23, averting a terrible human tragedy with consequences that will reverberate in Yugoslavia and elsewhere, and are in many respects quite ominous.

While the facts and the spin differ sharply, one might argue that the media and commentators are realistic when they present the U.S./NATO version as if it were the facts. It will become The Facts as a simple consequence of the distribution of power and the willingness of articulate opinion to serve its needs. That is a regular phenomenon. Recent examples include the Paris Peace Treaty of January 1973 and the Esquipulas Accords of August 1987. In the former case, the U.S. was compelled to sign after the failure of the 1972 Christmas bombings to induce Hanoi to abandon the U.S.-Vietnam agreement of the preceding October. Kissinger and the White House at once announced quite lucidly that they would violate every significant element of the Treaty they were signing, presenting a different version which was adopted in reporting and commentary, so that when the Vietnamese enemy finally responded to serious U.S. violations of the accords, it became the incorrigible aggressor which had to be punished once again, as it was.

Ewan's next role after Joyce: http://ewanspotting.com/news.html

"Moulin Rouge will be based on myth, in this case Orpheus in the Underworld. McGregor will play a young poet who defies his father by moving to 'the absinthe-soaked, amoral, bohemian' neighborhood of Montmartre in Paris... In Paris, the poet is swept into the Bohemian underworld and begins a passionate but ultimately doomed love affair with the star of a nightclub, and the most famous courtesan in Paris, played by Nicole Kidman... Luhrmann said the picture will use a variety of music devices, 'but it will not be a fully scored musical like 'Evita.'' There will be 'break-out in song moments, traditional devices and newly invented ones,' such as dialogue spoken to music similar to his hit single... 'The entire film is not about 1899 turning into the 1900s,'' said Luhrmann. `It is really an investigation of what it is like to move from 1999 to 2000, a period of great change. And I wanted to celebrate everything that was great during this time, particularly music.'... Shooting is set to run in Australia from October through February. Fox intends to release the film in late 2000...

Is Cringeley speculating here wrt Worm.Zip, or is this a real number?!? http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit19990617.html [YAWL.jp]

That night, at least for a while, hundreds of thousands of Microsoft files were lost.

TV 2nite: Late show on Chgo PBS: "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control" http://www.spe.sony.com/classics/fastcheap/index-s.html

Comparison of the wide range of opinions on the new Hannibal Lecter: (no spoilers) http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/99/06/20/stiboobnw01002.html?1334425

...Although Hannibal was "undiluted porn... I would not want it banned". Tom Shone, in these pages, conceded that the book was well written, but found, in the explicit exploration of Lecter's consciousness, "a slow but steady leakage of atmospheric pressure"...

Mattel's suggestive action figure: http://www.channel2000.com/news/stories/news-990619-144344.html

The problem is that the spring-loaded arm can be pumped rapidly up and down from Tarzan's chest to below his loin cloth, a motion that some people call suggestive.

No changes will be made to the doll itself. However, Mattel's retail service group is making sure the arm will be secured in the package so it cannot drop below Tarzan's waist while the toy is still in the store, Rosales said.

Digital cinema one-upped by new 48fps 'Maxivision' format: http://www.deja.com/=dnc/viewthread.xp?AN=491351050

Both Roger Ebert and Todd McCarthy say it's impressive, and Roger makes a strong pitch for Maxivision being a better future for the movies than electronic projection.

This text-to-speech demo looks like fun if I can get aiff, wav, or au to work on my Mac: http://www.bell-labs.com/project/tts/voices.html [WebSoup]

Select a voice: Man - Woman - Child - Gnat - Coffee Drinker - Big Man - Raspy - Ridiculous

...Okay, four hours later and I got to hear it. (Downloaded new plug-in that didn't work, downloaded new Netscape 4.6.1, much reconfiguring, and finally I get the plain old stupid little Netscape aiff window. Blech!)

Drudge feels a song comin' on: http://www.drudgereport.com/

"Start spreading the news, I'm leaving today I want to be a part of it - New York, New York... These vagabond shoes, are longing to stray... Right through the very heart of it - New York, New York... I want to wake up in a city, that doesn't sleep And find I'm king of the hill - top of the heap..."

MAG: FIRST LADY PLANNING TO MOVE OUT OF WHITE HOUSE BY FALL

Robert Parry notes the new, closed hearings on Contra-crack, and reviews the big picture: http://www.consortiumnews.com/061899a.html

Despite all the new evidence, the GOP-controlled House Intelligence Committee appears unlikely to put these pieces together in a way to give the public a clear look at the big picture.

"Lamest trope from a living politician": [Deja URL]

"...and I know, that with our history as our rudder, and our ideals as our compass, we can reach our new horizon." --Al Gore

Very loose interview about Linux game development: http://www.ga-source.com/interviews/ddt.shtml [Slashdot]

So it turns out that id Software is very high-strung. Some chemistry underpinned by the personalities of the owners and their history makes it that way. Mostly manifests itself as nasty politics, outlandish purchases, and extremely generous compensation policies. It's all a very tree-house/boys-club feel, but instead of hoisting up porno and "the faces of death" into the treehouse, we were... wait a minute, we were doing that, too. Nevermind.

Q: How does Linux game development differ from Windows game development? A: With Linux game development, you write a lot more super-handy tools and scripts. Every once in a while, you catch a memory leak, realize that the operating system hasn't crashed, and you get this warm, s___-eating grin for the next hundred lines of code. You tend to think more about portability. You enjoy much cleaner OS documentation. You write more code, because Linux is leaner, but the code is a pleasure to write...

Stephen Gaskin aims for Green Party nomination: http://www.deja.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=488812537

To the Association of State Green Parties Presidential Exploratory Committee...

I loved your platform. I found it serious and real. It was like a breath of fresh air. I am defintely interested in seeking the Green Party presidential nomination...

Decent long review of Salon and Slate, etc: http://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/features/99/06/10/ZINES.html [AAN]

Salon has expanded enormously in recent months, and intends to expand even more in the future. Indeed, senior editor Scott Rosenberg says the magazine metaphor doesn't even fit anymore (hence the "Salon.com"); he calls it instead "a network of Web sites."

On the other hand, "Alt," a new weekly column by Jenn Shreve on the alternative press, is the very definition of vapid: once-over-lightlies of pieces she barely seems to have read.

But Slate's biggest problem by far is its reliance on Microsoft's brain-dead Web technology. Without question, Slate is one of the slowest-loading, buggiest sites I use regularly, with mangled graphics and weird "broken pipe" messages cropping up every time I log on.

But Robert Parry's Consortium, without marketing money or fancy graphics, gets just 500 to 1000 hits per day, far below the 1.2 million "unique users" Salon claims it attracts on a monthly basis.

TV nextMonth: Chicago's channel 20 will be broadcasting the BBC news nightly at 9pm! [via This Is Hell]

9-ish am to noon-thirty CDT This is Hell live RealAudio funny progressive talk radio with guests Mary Powers of Citizens Alert (police brutality); a very deep Moment of Truth by Jeff Dorchen (I'll try to get a copy to post); 'Angie' of the Young Lords (60s Puerto Rican version of the Black Panthers); website of the week: Linux.com; and Peter Phillips of Project Censored

A few details about Inktomi's Yahoo-buster: http://www.eet.com:80/story/OEG19990617S0011

Paul Gauthier, chief technical officer at Inktomi (San Mateo, Calif.), said that human developers were used to set up category taxonomies and statistics modeling, under the goal of making directory linkages relevant to a search at hand, and high-quality in terms of responding to human inference patterns. The latter steps of creating entries for the broad directory categories were automated, using several proprietary Inktomi concepts of concept induction to find the most appropriate directory links.

Doctress Neutopia's excellent adventure: [Deja URL]

It is Italian night at Arcosanti [Paolo Soleri's architectural utopia]. I will be helping serve spaghetti out of the wheelbarrow!

NetSkink's journal-entry about her leap into Net.biz: http://www.bossanova.com/rebeca/readme/readme.06.14.99.html

...Which is why, even though I now have a new label that reads "CEO," I will not take down this page until I absolutely have to. (Hopefully never.) And which is also why I am placing my bets on the fact that people are often quite smarter than most companies would like them to be. Or at least more reactive.

It is a return to loving what I am working on in an indescribable way.

$199 Internet box (w/o monitor, I bet): http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,38074,00.html?st.ne.fd.gif.j [Slashdot]

The iToaster, so named because it is appliance-like in its ease of use, the company says, runs on a hybrid operating system, taken from both Linux and BeOS, rather than the Microsoft Windows platform. In addition, the e-mail, word processing, Web browser, and spreadsheet applications offered with the system are non-Microsoft. However, the iToaster does not include the one-year of free Internet access that was included with the Webzter, a significant omission considering the iToaster's placement as an Internet device.

The company will not divulge all of the specifications of the hardware, except to confirm that the iToaster runs on an Intel Pentium class processor, and includes a 2.1GB hard drive.

A taxing game from Ellen: (Flash) http://home.luna.nl/~ellen/present/06-19-99/06-19-99.html

Digital cinema not quite ready for prime time: http://www.techserver.com/noframes/story/0,2294,61482-97755-697725-0,00.html

For "Star Wars," a 35 mm film print was converted to electronic information on a digital tape, which then was transferred into an array of 18 computer hard drives. The data then went to a digital projector, which created a screen image by bouncing light off special computer chips containing more than 1 million microscopic mirrors.

Review of evidence in classic murder mystery of Jill Dando: http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000647321007942&rtmo=rhEQEXhX&atmo=KKKKKKrM&pg=/et/99/6/19/tldand19.html">(Telegraph)

One witness, Richard Hughes, who lives next door to Dando's house, said that before seeing the man he heard the unmistakable double bleep of Dando's car alarm being activated and then, about 30 seconds later, a scream. The killer used a semi-automatic 9mm 'short', as opposed to the longer standard 9mm firearm, but no shot was heard.

In effect, the police are unable to decide if the shooting was a contract killing; a stalker murder; the most common form of homicide (ie committed by someone known to the victim); or something else.

The British Museum's adults-only section: (Telegraph)

In 1953 the Library handed over to the Museum some late 18th-century condoms which had been found used as bookmarks in a 1783 Guide to Health, Beauty, Riches and Honour. Made of sheep intestines with delicate pink drawstrings, they too add to the period charm of Cupboard 55, to which they were promptly consigned.

Decent overview of the graphic-novel scene: http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/Saturday-Times/timbooboo02005.html?1334425

Knockabout Comics specialise in humour - they are the UK publishers of Robert Crumb - and have just brought out hilarious pictorial versions of classic texts, most recently Hunt Emerson's account of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover (#6.99), which injects a vein of saucy and surreal humour lacking in the original, and The Cartoon Kama Sutra by Sherry (#7.99).

Gaming jargon: http://www.macledge.com/NEWS.chtml

Lars Brubaker thought that creep & save would kill the replay value of the game since you'd kill a creature and if you took a lot of damage, you reload. Checkpoints were put in Defiance to compensate for a lack of a save game feature. This "feature" was panned and bitched about by the press because people want creep & save.

Native American commercial pharmaceutical empire: http://www.foxmarketwire.com/wires/0618/f_ap_0618_22.sml

As the biggest consumer of pharmaceuticals in the world, the federal government gets the lowest price of all. Indian tribes are entitled to the same discount the government gets.

Giant robotic fly experiment: http://unisci.com/stories/19992/0618994.htm

To find out what other forces insects take advantage of, he and his coworkers constructed a pair of 25-centimeter-long (10 inches) Plexiglas wings, modeled after the wings of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, and immersed them in a tank of mineral oil. The thick, viscous oil is needed so that the scaled-up wings, flapping slowly, will react the same way as smaller, one-millimeter-long fruit fly wings beating rapidly in the air.

Deja.com IPO lays it on the line: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,37989,00.html [RBuzz]

The filing warned prospective investors that its new Web site "could alienate a substantial number of our existing users." It also said that if users fail to contribute to its ratings of products, "our Web site will not appeal to consumers, advertisers, or e-commerce merchants, and we will not be able to generate the revenue we need to become profitable."

The filing also warns that the company has lost money in every quarter since its inception and that it expects to keep losing money and experience negative cash flow "for the foreseeable future."

NTK rumor: http://www.ntk.net/

The omphalos of high weirdness, Austin's FringeWare store, is beeping a quiet SOS. We can't tell from here whether they're genuinely closing down, or if the 75% OFF - EVERYTHING MUST GO signs, and a unusually coherent plea for help from certified cyber- psycho Don Webb is just an ingeniously direct media hack to up sales.

Methodology of yesterday's chimp experiment: http://www.eurekalert.org:80/releases/euhsc-yrf061099.html

The subjects were first presented with a sample photograph of an adult female, representing the stimulus to be matched. The sample then disappeared and test chimpanzees saw portraits of two additional individuals: one was the offspring of the individual in the sample, and the other an unrelated individual (matched for age and sex). The subjects made a correct response by moving the joystick-controlled cursor to select the related individual.

Ambitious hypertext Joyce is too fancy for me: [multipage] http://www2.shore.net/~laura/thesis/ [TracerLock]

To help the reader in navigating through this site, I have divided its content into several components, and each component opens in a separate window. So, for example, every time a bibliographic reference is clicked on, the bibliography will be displayed in a separate window, while the "master window," that window used for the primary text of "Sirens," remains unchanged.

New first chapters: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/books/front.htm

- "Collected Tales and Fantasies of Lord Berners," fiction by Lord Berners
- "Music for Torching," fiction by A.M. Homes
- "Turn of the Century," fiction by Kurt Andersen

Request: Is it possible to track the bidding in the Salon IPO?

Awesome Beat memoir: http://www.nervemag.com/Ewert/boyForBill/

Allen Ginsberg had told me how gross he had found William S Burroughs to be in bed: "You know how in his writing, two characters will be having sex, and then one becomes a giant parasite and devours the other? Well, Bill would get like that sometimes. He would start saying things like, 'Mm, what a delicious essence you have, my dear, I think I'd like to consume it,' and he'd make these slurping noises. He turned it into self-parody, but there was a real greed or neediness underneath that was unattractive."

Feeling his bony, old man's leg through the fabric of his jeans, I felt a wave of affection and protectiveness for the guy. ...I was, I think, the last person William Burroughs ever slept with.

Very intense short story about performing in a gay sex club: http://www.nervemag.com/Heim/frogAndFox/

My favorite weird effect of the E/K drug cocktail is the "mistaken identity" syndrome. I see someone I know, begin to speak or salute or embrace him, then realize I don't know him at all. This has happened so many nights now I've lost count.

What makes you believe you can't do a damn thing about people who are sitting on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean who wants to practice psychology? http://199.97.97.16/contWriter/cnd7/1999/06/17/cndin/9432-1026-pat_nytimes.html

What happened was the birth of a service known as e-therapy or webcounseling, the delivery of mental health services over the Internet. Its methods, many believe, will lead to permanent changes in the field.

Only 162 practitioners of Internet counseling are listed at IMHS, a web site dedicated to the activity.

Schwambach, who also writes a column for newspapers, charges $1.50 a minute for her time through her web site.

"You can't do a damn thing about people who are sitting on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean who wants to practice psychology."

Don't miss: Dr Moreau loses round one: http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,60964-97016-692330-0,00.html

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected an attempt to patent a technique for making animal-human hybrids, the activists who submitted the patent application said Thursday. The activists, who said they submitted the patent as a demonstration and never planned to actually make a half-human, half-animal creature, called the ruling a victory for their cause.

The comic "Dykes to Watch Out For" seems to cover a lot of the same ground as Tom Tomorrow, but with a lot more humanity: [multipage] http://www.washblade.com/forum/cartoons/dykes/archive.htm (Kia)

"NATO doesn't give a damn about the ethnic Albanians or human rights.. It's just worried about 'geopolitical stability', which is Newspeak for 'Wal*Mart'."

(I'll make a bookmarklet when I figure out the publication date.)

Scary Navy computer-aided training: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/CuttingEdge/cuttingedge990610.html [Wired]

A camera on top of each workstation monitors students' eye movements as they handle the crisis simulations. If it appears they're missing something important on their screens, the computer alerts the instructor monitoring the exercise.

New The Nation

Good news in Progressive Review:

In 1963, only 417 bald-eagle breeding pairs were found in the lower 48 states .... Now wildlife officials have counted 5,748 -- a 1,278 percent increase in 35 years -- and figure they have undercounted them.

Absolute zero, and they're still jiggling: http://unisci.com/stories/19992/0617991.htm

MIT researchers measured such "zero-point motion" in a sodium Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a collection of gas atoms that are collectively in the lowest possible energy state. According to Wolfgang Ketterle, "the condensate has no entropy and behaves like matter at absolute zero."

Weird experimental result: http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/SCIENCE/SCIENCE/t000054370.html

Chimpanzees can match mothers to sons purely on the basis of familial resemblance. Yet, surprisingly, the chimps perceived no more resemblance between mothers and daughters than between unrelated individuals, researchers reported today in Nature.

Wide-ranging book review about Jesus, Freud, RD Laing, Salon, Rupert Murdoch, &c: (small font) http://www.nypress.com/col1.cfm?content_id=72&now=6/17/99&content_section=1 [More]

In Unholy Madness -- subtitled The Church's Surrender to Psychiatry -- he argues that Christianity lost most of that old revolutionary spirit a long time ago, back when Constantine made it the official religion of the Roman Empire. It was no longer underground or outcast or persecuted, but in fact at the very center of power in Europe. One theologian has written that if Jesus had preached this version of Christianity he never would've been crucified-indeed, the Romans would have lionized him and sent him out to give speeches in trouble spots around the empire. To Farber, modern Christianity has made the same sort of unholy alliance with psychiatry...

"Christianity was the first powerful egalitarian movement to challenge these kinds of invidious distinctions made by people in power," he contends. In terms of the mental health movement, he'd like to see it return to those roots.

A glimpse of Java smartcard design, using the WW2 Enigma cypher as the example: http://www.javaworld.com/jw-08-1998/jw-08-indepth.html [HG]

Unlike packets in the TCP/IP world, these APDU packets don't carry any sort of addressing information. Instead, they are implicitly addressed to the computer on the other end of the serial link. However, like their big-brother packets in the TCP/IP world, APDUs do carry a few bytes that are common to all packets. These can be used by the smart card infrastructure to decide when to send the APDUs to the server on the smart card, and when to interpret them directly.

Keeper headlines:

Survivors recount 1763 shipwreck adventure (CSM)
First chapter of new David Foster Wallace (USA Today)
Tracking Titanic grosses vs Phantom Menace (WebSoup)
One-minute daily soap opera for Sega Dreamcast (Japan)
UK kids getting one minute to be noisy (BBC)
Global warming sinks two Pacific islands (UK Independent)
Cry-in-the-Dark dingo-mystery may be solved by new DNA analysis (Oz)
'Alife' Einstein-bot announced (UK Times)
Japan's friendly robots (w/pix) (MIT)

LA mayor faces rebellion over ISP cable access: http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/METRO/t000054365.html [OSRR]

Arkatov and Emerson favor slightly different versions of so-called "open access" to the Internet, while Mayor Riordan backs a franchise system in which cable television firms are allowed to provide their customers with exclusive access to their Internet services.

'Buffy' gamers banned from Kansas City park: http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/local.pat,local/30db1189.616,.html [OSRR]

"Someone called and said they lie and wait for people, and then they jump out and scare them," said Eric Arner, a Lenexa assistant city attorney. Leonard West, a narrator in the game, denied that anyone had tried to frighten others. He said game-players act out a continuing plot that involves discovering who among them are secret vampires.

Even his golf-game is crooked: http://www.cnn.com/books/beginnings/9906/shadow/index.html

Gerald Ford liked Clinton personally but was wary of him. In the summer of 1993, Clinton and Ford had spent several days together in Colorado on vacation. They played golf one day with Jack Nicklaus. Clinton claimed he shot something like an 80. Ford was shocked. Golf was a matter of honor, even for old duffers, and Clinton had repeatedly taken second shots called mulligans. Nicklaus leaned over to Ford and whispered in disgust, "Eighty with fifty floating mulligans."

Tantalising but content-free look at what Mr WebTV is up to now: http://cgi.pathfinder.com/fortune/printversion/0,4216,617990616,00.html

What's keeping him so busy? Rearden Steel. Ayn Rand fans will know that Hank Rearden is a character from Atlas Shrugged who invents a metal that's lighter but better than steel. He's also a super rich entrepreneur who is hated for his wealth and defiance.

Hitchens asks a Chinese dissident about our China policy: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/06/17/china/print.html

"The Clinton policy is made more in Beijing than it is in Washington. The multinational corporations have become the vanguard of the Chinese Communist Party."

Meanwhile, China's exiled hero has no access to the White House, which spreads disinformation about him even as it holds open the door to the Chinese despots, and to those who come bearing their gifts.

Cool interactive art-tarot tells your fortune: [multipage] http://www.way.com/tarcl/lydia/tarot/tarot.html

- The Kiss: Generosity, eccentricity, egocentricity. This kiss is something given for the pleasure of the person who gives it...
- The Confession: This can be an accusation or a confession...
- The Chinese Princess and Black Eunuch: Forbidden taste, this is the point when the Princess brings the innocent game into the unconscious sexual depths...
- The Holy Woman: She is an impassive receptor of damage which is cleaned through herself...
- The Ivy: Ivy symbolises the third party. It is not an object but a relationship...

From a real sweetie: (Flash) http://home.luna.nl/~ellen/present/06-16-99/06-16-99.html

Love me

Gorgeous false-color radar images of Earth: [multipage, 300k images] http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/radar/sircxsar/

IMAGE CATEGORIES: Archaeology || Cities || Ecology & Agriculture || Geology || Interferometry || Oceans || Rivers || Snow, Ice, Glaciers || Volcanoes

Fantastic issue of New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990619/news1.html

- Smart cars: This virtual back-seat driver could save your life
- Seeing the signs: Now a computer can read your gestures
- Buckybulbs: Molecular light bulbs designed by chemists in California could be used to produce glowing walls that change colour at the turn of a dial.

Fractal compression can index database of shoeprints: http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990619/newsstory9.html

Alexander's mathematical technique makes it possible to describe a shoe tread according to its shape. In much the same way that complex fractals can be described by simple formulae, so a mathematical expression that describes a shoe-print can be produced from an image, making it easy to compare with others.

Don't miss: Chimp memetics: http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990619/newsstory6.html

They have found 39 different behaviours, including courting rituals and foraging techniques, that seem to have been passed down in only some chimp societies.

Central Asian mountain flood threatens: http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990619/newsstory1.html

If the dam bursts, the team predicts that a wall of water more than 100 metres high would rush down the narrow Murgab gorge into the Bartang valley, devastating hundreds of mountain villages.

If there was no warning of the impending disaster, the team predict that hundreds of thousands of people would be killed.

For heaven's sake, don't give it to the Goths! http://chicagotribune.com/version1/article/0,1575,SAV-9906160096,00.html [CDreams]

Excess military stockpiles of highly destructive .50-caliber armor-piercing ammunition are being resold to the public through a little-known government program, according to a congressional report to be released Wednesday.

More than 100,000 rounds of the ammunition--designed for long-range military sniper weapons and capable of blasting a hole in a tank from more than a mile away--made their way from military caches to civilian weapons dealers in the last year alone, according to an executive summary of the study, obtained by the Tribune.

(To be absolutely clear here-- the goths are the last subculture one should worry about in this regard.)

Meta: This random (very short) Forbes article proves to have five levels of nested HTML TABLEs-- that's why they display so slow. ...Oh, and also 179 HREFs!

65 secs Forbes            5 tables, 179 hrefs
53 secs MSNBC             3 tables, 92 hrefs, 233 &#s
48 secs Interactive Week  3 tables, 84 hrefs
45 secs Red Herring       4 tables, 59 hrefs
44 secs Time              5 tables, 58 hrefs, Vignette
37 secs Industry Standard 4 tables, 130 hrefs, Vignette
27 secs AnchorDesk        4 tables, 72 hrefs
25 secs Upside            3 tables, 73 hrefs, Thunderstone's Texis
22 secs Raging Bull       3 tables, 88 hrefs

(Average number of hrefs: 93. Just in case you're not sure where you want to go, after you finish their articles...)

Overheard: (asg)

Last night on Nightline, interviewing Serbs, Ted Koppel distinctly said "Bulls___" (unbleeped).

Google searches from Lindsay Marshall: chest, legs, ribcage, dung, lefthand, righthand, posteriore, pustule, enough

14 Irish writers on Ulysses: http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/features/1999/0616/fea1.htm

I've only read parts of Ulysses. But I'm very lucky: when I was a young woman, I had Ulysses read to me in its entirety - in bed, over the course of a winter. As my nighttime story, so to speak. So I heard it before I read it. I loved it when I heard it. The words existed as sounds, rather than signs on a page.

Everything is in Ulysses. It's all been done in that book. You look at people like Quentin Tarantino, and what they're trying to do. They don't realise that all those post-modern tricks they're trying to achieve are all in "Night Town" in Ulysses. Joyce has done all those things we think are new.

In 1993, myself and my boyfriend went to Oslo. I was working in the National Museum there for the summer. We wanted to travel light, so we just took one book with us, the old Bodley Head edition of Ulysses that we picked up in some secondhand bookshop. Then when we got to Norway, we discovered how expensive everything was, we couldn't afford anything. Ulysses turned out to be our main entertainment for the summer. We took turns reading it to each other, by the light of the midnight sun.

When I was 17, I got kicked by a cow and I had to spend a month in bed, recovering. My mother brought me home a copy of Ulysses from Webb's bookshop in Wexford. I'd never heard of James Joyce at the time. To me, it was just another book. I read the whole thing in bed. Of course, I hadn't a clue what it was about, but I was entralled by it. It was like a beacon from the outside world. Ulysses was one of the first literary books I'd ever read. It was a baptism by fire.

Scamming NASDAQ (Chris Byron): http://www.observer.com/cgi-win/homepage.exe?nyo1/BE062199

In any case, a company with, say, 5 million shares at 5 cents per share can be bought lock, stock and barrel for $250,000. Then all you do is merge your own private company into the penny stock shell you've just bought and you've in effect gone public via a cheapo initial public offering, without having to file a single audited financial statement with anyone. What you do next is hire a stock promoter (they go these days by the hoity-toity name of "investor relations consultants") to start cranking out press releases to get your stock price rising.

...Finally, when I asked Mr. Stackpole to name even one single customer who was now using his service, or identify even one single city-in Europe or anywhere else-to which one could make a call using his equipment, he said, "I'll get back to you on that." He never did.

Praising Chrissie Hynde: http://www.observer.com/cgi-win/homepage.exe?nyo1/MM062199

Ms. Hynde can be cantankerous-whether giving diatribes from the stage against flash cameras or trying to marry former pop star Ray Davies in 1982 and getting turned away by the registrar because they were arguing too loudly-but ever since the release of her 1987 cover of the Persuasions' "Thin Line Between Love and Hate," we've known that, if her knuckles were ever tattooed like Robert Mitchum's in Night of the Hunter, she'd have L-O-V-E written on both hands.

So is it hip to be poor? http://www.observer.com/cgi-win/homepage.exe?nyo1/sd062199

Described as "the magazine for thinking thrifters," Cheap Date New York's launch is scheduled in New York on July 1. It was started two years ago in London. "Taking charge," as founder Kira Jolliffe said, "as the only antidotal anti-fashion magazine around, uncovering a population who didn't yet know they were sick of being told what to wear and do and waking up bored in the process."

Present at the creation of folk-rock? [Deja URL]

...We [The Men] wanted to do a song the Goodtime Singers were doing, so to differentiate our version, I suggested we do it in a rock and roll style. We found we had a former drummer and a rock lead player already in the band, so we added an electric bass, stuck a few DeArmond pickups in some Martins, and bingo, we became the first "folk rock" band.

Bob Dylan came to hear us, jammed with us after the show, and proclaimed this was the new direction in folk music. He later appeared with a Strat at Newport. Roger McGuinn and I wrote a couple of songs together in the Troubadour bar, and he started the Byrds. Roger and I were heavily influenced by the first Beatle album.

So it was me and "The Men" who came up with the "folk rock" thingy, but it was Roger and the Byrds who made it a national/international success. The Byrds were an electric band made up of folkies as Frank points outs...

(A followup explains of this poster: "Harvey Gerst was the musical director for a group called the "Men" which later became the "Association".")

New Onion:

Nation's Experts Give Up
'From Now On, You're On Your Own,' Say Experts

Includes 'Why is the Sony Aibo so popular?' infographic: http://www.theonion.com/onion3523/infograph_3523.html

16% Crude, mechanical simulations of love and affection prepare children for adult world
8% Keeps all those goddamn robot cats out of yard
7% Doesn't vomit batteries back up like a real dog

Great Risks Digest includes a heavy duty analysis of the Zip.Worm, and the new MSIE exploit: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/20.44.html

The actual damage was done by an executable, a .EXE file. However, according to some reports the file itself contained the icon of a .ZIP file. Thus, even moderately cautious users could be tricked into opening the file -- which in this case meant executing it.

...the file size is 210432 bytes.

[MSIE:] Of course, if ActiveX had included a mechanism whereby the signer of a control could retroactively revoke that control then it would have been trivial to disable the control remotely. Instead the company had to patch IE to permanently disable the control. Few other companies would have this luxury.

Sony's $85M theme-park/mall: http://eXaminer.com/990615/0615metreon.html

Maybe the most puzzling of the three "attractions" is "The Way Things Work," which is based on author David Macaulay's book that explains the mechanics of such everyday items as zippers. There is a funny little robot that talks to kids at the beginning of the adventure - before lapsing into a pre-recorded spiel - but the rest of the experience seemed surprisingly sterile. There didn't seem to be enough to do for your $7, but who's to say.

Well-annotated new weblog from Bespoke's Tor Kristensen: http://www.bespoke.org/weblog/

bespoke.log art. design. architechture. politics. corporations. society. injustice. technology

Lo-res animation community (animated gif, I assume): [multipage] http://www.16color.com/16/help/using/ [WebSoup]

Once you learn the tools in the animation machine, people will be calling you Walt (Disney, that is)...

Click on a region of the animation machine to learn more about the tools:

Eyes Wide Shut soundtrack: [CDUniverse] [via AIC]

1. Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing - Chris Isaak
2. Blame It On My Youth - Brad Mehldau
3. Jazz Suite 2 Waltz 2 - Concertgeboux Amsterdam
4. When I Fall In Love - The Victor Sylvester Orchestra
5. I'm In The Mood For Love - The Victor Sylvester Orchestra
6. Musica Ricercata No. 2 - Dominic Harlan
7. Backwards Priests - Jocelyn Pook
8. Migrations - Jocelyn Pook
9. Naval Officer - Jocelyn Pook
10. Dream, The - Jocelyn Pook
11. Strangers In The Night
12. Requiem - The Vienna Philharmonic
13. Gray Clouds - Dominic Harlan
14. I Got It Bad & That Ain't Good - Oscar Peterson Trio
15. Jazz Suite 2 Waltz 2 - Concertgeboux Amsterdam (Reprise)

Strange recipes department: http://www.nervemag.com/JacksNaughtyBits/Fisher/

On the radiator the sections of tangerine have grown even plumper, hot and full. You carry them to the window, pull it open, and leave them for a few minutes on the packed snow of the sill. They are ready.

...And then Robert DeNiro rappels in to erase their work? http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/digital/daily/0,2822,26896,00.html

When you sign up for Streamline, the company dispatches a special team to your home armed with bar code scanners to help you come up with what they call a PSL - a Personal Shopping List that enumerates all the products that you regularly bring into your home. And that's not just groceries - it includes video rentals, dry cleaning, postage stamps, even the photos from your latest trip abroad.

Uninformative biocomputing article includes Lego-looking pix: http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_370000/370035.stm

Like a Turing machine, Professor Shapiro's mechanical device has a "rule molecule" designed so that the processing of the molecule modifies another molecule in a predetermined way. To demonstrate the concept, Professor Shapiro has built a 30-centimetre-high plastic model of his mechanical computer.

From the new Progressive Review:

Bob Woodward also offered this touching Hillarism: "I have to take this punishment. I don't know why God has chosen this for me. But He has, and it will be revealed to me. God is doing this, and He knows the reason. There is some reason." Reached at his celestial headquarters, God told this reporter, "That'll teach her not to rig cattle futures."

[Also:] A careful analysis of George Orwell's 1984 by sci fi writer David Ross and an Orwell scholar has found that more than 100 of Orwell's 137 predictions or indicators of a grim future have already been fulfilled.

Coming soon for the Sega Dreamcast? http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/0616cr04.htm

Youths who have been arrested for "computer-geek hunting" have reportedly told police that computer enthusiasts are an even easier mark than drunken middle-aged men because they carry more money and do not resist at all when accosted.

Emily Way writes:

The Enquirer's mention of the Roscoe Arbuckle scandal ("Wild Sex Party Seals Fatty's Fate") is completely bogus... Arbuckle was acquitted completely of having done anything to cause the death of Virginia Rappe (it's theorized now that she died from a botched abortion performed a few days before) and the jury who did so made a statement to the effect that a great injustice had been done him. David Pearson has a great Web site up about silent film in general and Arbuckle in particular at http://silent-movies.com/

Google searches (cont): weblog (Mark D Mills); death, emotion (Don Mecoy); hot water, cow, links, all, gumby, bass (Dan Fitch)

(Understand that so far, Google's algorithm offers the only available guesses of what pages the Net has 'voted' to best characterise each word.)

New Village Voice includes this excellent peek at NYC's digerati's social conscience: http://www.villagevoice.com/columns/9924/kushner.shtml

They quickly learned that they didn't need to make a profit to become rich; they only had to convince a venture capitalist that there was money down the line. They only had to give good PowerPoint and remain festive at all costs.

But truth is, the digerati are less hypocritical than they are suffering elephantiasis of the adrenal gland. Try pitching yourself and an unprofitable service day and night. After you say the word "revolutionary" a few hundred times, your face pretty much molds in a smile.

If the frenzy seemed contradictory to the theme, it was just a matter of priorities, said one attendee. "Everyone's bottom line here is dollars," he explained. "We don't wake up in the morning and want to be nice."

Very excellent James Ridgeway on many hot topics: http://www.villagevoice.com/columns/9924/ridgeway.shtml

Before the declining U.S. electorate knows what hit it, the 2000 presidential primaries could be history. In fact, the campaigns could be over by next March 7.

Ten authors on their (mostly self-) obsessions: http://www.villagevoice.com/vls/162/daum.shtml

Ishmael Reed: "I'm obsessed with how white progressive women have different standards for misogyny from black men as opposed to white men. Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of The Nation, made scurrilous comments about Bill Cosby, yet she pleaded that Roman Polanski be given clemency and she defended President Clinton, who I call the First Sexist. On NPR, Terry Gross constantly runs shows where the guests are allowed to generalize about black male behavior. Generalizing is always the hallmark of racism. When Philip Roth was on Fresh Air, she was joking with him about his comments and having a great time. And I just read Claire Bloom's memoir and Roth's obviously a major misogynist."

New, unsatisfying poll: (mail me improvements) http://www.misterpoll.com/poll.wga?id=2671890690 [View results]

Which of these seem like reasonable responses to tragedies like Columbine? (choose all that apply)
- Gun-control laws
- Metal detectors in schools
- Armed cops in schools
- Encouraging kids to report suspicious behavior
- Increased penalties for suspicious behavior
- Restricting children's access to violent media
- Greater access to psychotherapy
- More money for schools
- Redesigning schools' structures
- Doing away with high school
- Parents being held responsible
- Parents trying to talk to their kids
- Teachers trying to talk to their kids
- Adults listening to kids

What do you think of capitalism?
- We need more capitalism, less regulation.
- We need more regulations to keep capitalism in line.
- We need to redefine how money works.
- We need a new socio-political order.
- The way things are is about the best we can hope for.

Can anyone explain why this poll was such a dud? (only 85 votes)

What do you think of Salon's political coverage?
32% favorable, 14% mixed, 27% unfavorable, 27% don't know

18%  Like advocacy of unconventional views.
 7%  Like diversity.
 7%  Like for other reasons.
 
14%  Put off by advocacy.
 7%  Poorly written.
 6%  Dislike for other reasons.

I don't know it well enough to judge. I know it but I don't know what to make of it. I like its diversity of opinions. I like its advocacy of unconventional views. I have very mixed feelings. I find its strong advocacy off-putting. I like it for other reasons. I dislike it for other reasons. It's generally poorly written. View results

Salon's longshot IPO-auction scheduled for Friday: http://www.latimes.com/CNS_DAYS/990614/t000053436.html [OSRR]

Its Web site had 625,000 unique visitors in April, about as many as ConsumerReports' site...

Salon's shares, which will trade on Nasdaq under the ticker SALN, are projected to sell for about $12 apiece. But the actual level will be set at the "clearing price," the lowest bid at which all 2.5 million shares available would be sold.

Don't miss: Teen-girl fashion choice is the Prostitute Look: http://www.bostonherald.com/bostonherald/colm/eagan06151999.htm [OSRR]

As any doorman at any local hotel can testify, the high school prom scene for years now has been the Parade of the Trollops.

"The Spice Girls changed the world," says Scatha Allison of Newbury Street's trendy teenage boutique Allston Beat...

So how hysterical should we be?
I'd say we have our answer: Very.

In case you forgot who the greatest writer ever is:

Thither the extremely large wains bring foison of the fields, flaskets of cauliflowers, floats of spinach, pineapple chunks, Rangoon beans, strikes of tomatoes, drums of figs, drills of Swedes, spherical potatoes and tallies of iridescent kale, York and Savoy, and trays of onions, pearls of the earth, and punnets of mushrooms and custard marrows and fat vetches and bere and rape and red green yellow brown russet sweet big bitter ripe pomellated apples and chips of strawberries fit for princes and raspberries from their canes.

And by that way wend the herds innumerable of bellwethers and flushed ewes and shearling rams and lambs and stubble geese and medium steers and roaring mares and polled calves and longwoods and storesheep and Cuffe's prime springers and culls and sowpigs and baconhogs and the various different varieties of highly distinguished swine and Angus heifers and polly bulllocks of immaculate pedigree together with prime premiated milchcows and beeves: and there is ever heard a trampling, cackling, roaring, lowing, bleating, bellowing, rumbling, grunting, champing, chewing, of sheep and pigs and heavyhooved kine from pasturelands of Lusk and Rush and Carrickmines and from the streamy vales of Thomond, from the M'Gillicuddy's reeks the inaccessible and lordly Shannon the unfathomable, and from the gentle declivities of the place of the race of Kiar, their udders distended with superabundance of milk and butts of butter and rennets of cheese and farmer's firkins and targets of lamb and crannocks of corn and oblong eggs in great hundreds, various in size, the agate with the dun.

SSC: (short shameful confession) http://www.lemonyellow.com/

Something dreadful happened-- to both me and to my car. This is the dreadful thing that happened to the car: It ran out of oil... And then it exploded (sort of)... And then I sold it for scrap metal. The dreadful thing that happened to me occurred after that final shameful transaction. The cowboy who paid me for it asked me what the problem was. I started blushing and stammering and he said, "You didn't put oil in it. Happens all the time." He did not say, "I could tell just by lookin' at ya.", but I heard it anyhow...

Google seems to have matured to the point where (sigh) my Joyce page is no longer #1 for 'james joyce'. A fun game, though, is to see what pages score best for various words and phrases: http://google.com/search?query=love

Google Search: love
1) LOVE NY - TOURISM IN NEW YORK STATE
2) MSN Insider's Love Month
3) Alabama Love...

Try one with this Google bookmarklet, and mail me if you find interesting ones: [Google search]

My town: All too rarely, Chicago can seem as hip as... oh, say, Rotterdam: ;^/ http://www.suntimes.com:80/output/news/cows14.html

A dozen multi-colored fiberglass cattle took up positions this weekend in front of the Wrigley Building, the first of 300 artistic cows expected to station themselves around the Loop this week as part of a tourist attraction.

New material displays unprecedented properties: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/06/990615075942.htm

Digital camera images, plus the experiments in pure nitrogen, showed that the sparks in air were caused by burning particles thrown off from the fracture surface. When the broken specimens were examined under a scanning electron microscope, blobs of melted material were seen on the fracture surface. The heat generated in breaking the metallic glass was enough, apparently, to ignite freshly exposed metal particles.

Inktomi building its own Yahoo, algorithmically? http://news.excite.com/news/r/990615/02/net-internet-inktomi

The company says its new directory engine uses breakthrough technology that leverages human intelligence to categorize millions of documents within an automated Web directory.

(This can only be IBM's Clever, or an equivalent. Great to see search engines getting smarter, finally! ...Now if only they'd scale up to the current billion-plus pages.)

National Enquirer time: http://www.nationalenquirer.com/stories/more_stories.html

- Khrushchev's Son: Why I Love America
- WRESTLING'S DARK SECRET -- 21 DEATHS IN FIVE YEARS

Tales from the Titanic shoot: http://www.nationalenquirer.com/stories/10497.html

On the last day of filming somebody spiked the clam chowder with the drug angel dust. Eighty people got sick, some hospitalized with hallucinations.

Their top ten Hollywood scandals: http://www.nationalenquirer.com/stories/10496.html

#1 The O.J. Murders
#2 Jacko's Escape -- After Child
#3 Liz & Dick & Eddie & Debbie
#4 Rock Hudson And The Aids
#5 Elvis' Tragic Last Days
#6 Ingrid's Italian Affair
#7 Did Lana Kill Johnny?
#8 Sammy & Kim
#9 Wild Sex Party Seals Fatty's Fate
#10 Hollywood Blacklist

Decent update on the outlook for Iridium's successors: [2pg] http://www.forbes.com/tool/html/99/jun/0615/feat.htm

But at the same time, one cannot help but wonder why satellite companies are continuing to spend billions on the broadband market. It is obvious that satellite broadband will be unable to generate any significant revenue for several years, and it remains uncertain if even then they will ever be able to meaningfully compete with cable, DSL and wireless. It is possible that, having already spent so much time and cash to develop a broadband strategy, they could face the wrath of their shareholders for abandoning their investments.

Banner ads with your name behind them: http://www.wired.com/news/print_version/news/business/story/20205.html?wnpg=all

The plan is to connect surfers with their profiles in Abacus's offline database so that DoubleClick can serve up an exquisitely tailored ad in real-time. To do this, DoubleClick and its network sites will have to collect the names and addresses of surfers, which will presumably be done when they purchase something, and tag their browsers with a bit of tracking code called a cookie. Armed with personal identifiers, DoubleClick can then call up data from Abacus. Thereafter, when a surfer shows up at a DoubleClick site, the site will know precisely who he is and can serve appropriate ads.

I never noticed that Google supports the 'link:' syntax: http://google.com/search?q=link:www.robotwisdom.com/

At least 140 matches for "link:www.robotwisdom.com/"

The Evil MSNBC asks, 'What's WRONG with Google, that they're not selling out?!?' http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2275206,00.html

It works like this: The entire Web is constantly downloaded onto Google's computers, where it is aggregated, indexed and prepared for searches. When a user types in a search, Google performs a complex computation -- solving an equation that has 500 million variables and 2 billion terms -- to determine the best results on the "most important" sites.

In order to do the computation, Google splits up the work on hundreds -- and perhaps thousands -- of low-cost PCs running the free Linux operating system, linked together in a parallel and redundant network.

Yow! It's ringing like a bell: (pic) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990615.html

Our Sun is in a continual state of oscillation. Large patches of the Sun vibrate in and out, back and forth, even as the Sun rotates.

A very deep-toned bell: http://soi.stanford.edu/results/heliowhat.html

The spectrum of the detected oscillations arises from modes with periods ranging from about 1.5 minutes to about 20 minutes...

Musing: Would it make sense to create a training virus that you could send to your friends, and if they open it it just explains how they should have handled it instead?

Open ISP cable-access: end of argument? http://www.internetnews.com/isp-news/article/0,1087,8_137621,00.html

"GTE's demonstration pilot flatly discredits the claim that open access and consumer choice are technologically complicated and costly."

Ever stupider polls: http://www.members.tripod.com/nightcat/mainroom.htm [via WebSoup]

Who's the Spice Girl that you wanna date/ have lunch with?

Sporty Spice  27%
Posh Spice    16%
Baby Spice    16%
Scary Spice   13%
All of 'em    29%

455 Total Votes

Chinese shouting-strategy for learning English: http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990614/V000467-061499-idx.html [Drudge]

But yelling worked. "It's a method that makes you conquer your psychological barriers and learn to speak a foreign language very quickly," Li said in an interview in fluent English after the lecture.

Attention webloggers: If you only list yourself in one place, it should be here, at the Mozilla Open Directory: http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/WWW/Web_Logs/

Top: Computers: Internet: WWW: Web_Logs (29)

Interesting post about positive thinking: http://www.deja.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=377598152 [Sabren]

The creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams, credits his extraordinary success to using affirmations. He details this in his most recent book, The Dilbert Future, in the section starting on page 246 or 247.

If anyone reading this would like to do the experiment, the affirmation is this: "I, (name), am now highly pleasing to myself in the presence of other people." Write this 20 times a day for 30 days, and watch what happens.

(Sabren, by inserting that "=dnc" into the URL it avoids the new, slow formatting-- 'DejaNews Classic')

Annoying word of the day: http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/

vexillology \vek-sil-AHL-uh-jee\, noun: the study of flags

New Progressive Review looks at the Waco-Kosovo connection:

Meanwhile, Dan Gifford, producer of "Waco: The Rules of Engagement" writes that "Secret anti-terrorist U.S. Army Delta Force and British SAS soldiers were present at FBI invitation as 'observers.' But reports of those troops illegally killing Americans on American soil persist from sources that have provided accurate information in the past. So do reports of classified weapons testing on the Davidians that was being micro managed, along with everything else, from Washington. A confirmed June, 1997 'Soldier of Fortune' article by ABC Nightline contributor James Pate tells how FBI agents who crept into Mount Carmel on April 17th to plant electronic devices had a chance to arrest Koresh. But then Associate Attorney General Web Hubbell (the de facto U.S. Attorney General) passed word back from then White House counsel Vince Foster that Koresh was to be left in the building."

A surrealist twist on the web.merchandising model: [multipage] http://www.sme.co.jp/Music/Info/MaywaDenki/02PRODUCT/seihinE.html [LM]

All the items of NAKI series is made in order to see the world from the fish's vision. The items introduced here are only a part of the NAKI items we produced so far. We would like to continue to create new products under the slogan of "1 item = 1 message." We hope you enjoy them.

A new, model weblog: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Lindsay/weblog/latest.html [SB]

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This poll makes me nervous for some reason: (76 votes)

What do you think of Salon's political coverage?

20%  Like advocacy of unconventional views.
 7%  Like diversity.
 8%  Like for other reasons.
 
11%  Mixed feelings.
 
14%  Put off by advocacy.
 7%  Poorly written.
 7%  Dislike for other reasons.
 
27%  Don't know.

Don't miss: JG Ballard loves Fukuyama: (Telegraph)

LOOK closely at your life. How many friends could you comfortably borrow money from? How many of your neighbours would you trust with your children, even for 10 minutes? How often do you leave your front door unlocked? How many doctors, solicitors or police do you really respect? Almost certainly, fewer than your parents, and far, far fewer than your grandparents.

There have been a lot of unreadable-for-me reviews of this new Italo Calvino non-fiction (including one in this same Telegraph section!??) but this one has some quotable bits: (Telegraph)

He answers the question "Why read the classics?" with 14 definitions of a classic. One has become well-known: "A classic is a book which has never exhausted all it has to say to its readers." That has the simplicity of a great truth. But I like also definition number eight: "A classic is a work which constantly generates a pulviscular cloud of critical discourse around it, but which always shakes the particles off."

"It is for each one of us to invent our own ideal library of our classics; and I would say that one half of it should consist of books that we have read and that have meant something for us, and the other half of books which we intend to read and which we suppose might mean something to us."

"A classic is a work which persists as background noise even when a present that is totally incompatible with it holds sway."

Gratifyingly insulting bio of one of my top 20thC villains, AJ Ayer: (Telegraph)

When, in old age, this self-confessed physical coward rescued the then unknown Naomi Campbell from Mike Tyson, the boxer snarled: "Do you know who the f___ I am? I'm the heavyweight champion of the world." Ayer replied: "And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic. We are both pre-eminent in our field; I suggest that we talk about this like rational men."

(Whenever people question my enthusiasm for the Weekly World News, I cite its pioneering coverage of Ayer's factual near-death discussions with an extraterrestrial.)

17yo girl surfs for Kosova: http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1999/0614/fcw-profilebilli-6-14-99.html

Because Kosovars speak Albanian, a language not supported by Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT operating system, Billi's grasp of English has positioned her as a critical link in USIA's train-the-trainer program here.

She has become something of a journalist, piecing together news reports picked up online and distributing them to her information-starved comrades.

DoD orders 'electronic umbrellas': http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1999/0614/fcw-agumbrella-06-14-99.html

Proximity-fused shells contain cheap radar altimeter fuses - "less than $50," Coppola said - to control their detonation a set distance from the ground. He said Shortstop, which comes in vehicle-mounted and manpack versions, defeats this shell by first detecting and then jamming the signals from the radar altimeter on an incoming round.

Tim Davis, president of Condor's electronic systems division, said the company developed Shortstop using commercial products, including an Intel Corp. 386 PC chip and commercial digital signal-processing modules, as well as "several hundred thousand lines" of signal-processing code written by the company.

Interior Dept looks for map-data standards: http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1999/0614/fcw-polspatial-06-14-99.html

Each year, agencies at all levels of government collect millions of bits of geographic information that relate specific points on the Earth to such variables as temperature, demographics, vegetation coverage and land development activities. On electronic maps, the data can be layered to show how a proposed real estate development, for example, would affect the breeding habitat of a particular bird species.

The Irish Times has updated their Bloomsday coverage to include these two odd little timelapse RealVideos (and my two-page summary of Ulysses is still in there somewhere, too): http://www.ireland.com/literature/bloomsday/index.htm

View a day in the life of Bloom's city 95 years on... 24 hours in a 60-second video clip. You can select either Saturday, May 29, or Sunday, May 30, 1999 (Sunday is even wetter than Saturday) and select the option appropriate to your Internet connection.

Musical-Stonehenge theory (18Apr99 below) applied to Pisan baptistery: http://www.wired.com/news/print_version/news/culture/story/20173.html?wnpg=all

Next year, musicians will perform Tarabella's Concerto for Baptistery and Electronic Orchestra in the baptistery. Electronic instruments played at strategic spots within the structure to emphasize the echoes and projection will cause the whole dome to vibrate and resonate.

Cub reporter's big break in 1933: http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/06/14/text/p19s2.html

Dad explained that if word ever got back to the newsroom that Babe Ruth had been at the wrestling match and my dad hadn't tried to approach him, his name would be mud...

Short James Baker Hall nightmare-poem: http://www.poems.com/today.htm

already you're taking too long
already you're late and getting later
already your loved ones are leaving
already you've started over

Patron saint of the Internet proposed: http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/99/06/13/stinwenws01020.html?1334425

Isidore - credited with the creation of the world's first database in the form of a 20-volume encyclopaedia - is the focus of a campaign by Catholic Net users who have persuaded the Vatican to take their proposal seriously.

Wordy expose on how mega-ego PhDs inflate their publication counts: http://www.salon.com/books/it/1999/06/14/scientific_authorship/print.html

A second option would be to add an authorship section at the end of each paper, in which each coauthor would have an opportunity to explain what he or she contributed.

Bob Woodward on Hillary: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-06/14/078r-061499-idx.html

"I'm just confused," she told Morris at the time. "I don't know what works or what doesn't work. I don't know why this is happening. I'm just so confused."

..."We actually did that with the New York Times," she claimed. "We took every document we had -- which, again, I have to say, were not many -- we laid them all out." The New York Times's Washington bureau chief called George Stephanopoulos, Clinton's senior adviser, to note that Mrs. Clinton was wrong. The clearest example was the computer run of the Rose Law Firm billing records -- the same records that had been found recently in the White House residence.

...Sherburne decided not to tell Hillary that Fabiani had collected publicly available negative background information on the independent counsel and quietly given it to reporters.

Some good things about the Nazis: http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/science/1999/0614/sci2.htm

Question: Name the European Chancellor, a non-smoking teetotaller vegetarian, animal lover, at the height of his powers in the 1930s and 1940s, who promoted far-seeing and progressive public health policies and encouraged healthy lifestyle, and who transformed the physical infrastructure of his country?

One of the disturbing truths about national socialism in Germany is that many found much of what it promulgated to align with their own convictions, and this was true in science as in many other areas. And there were many elements of national socialist policy that were sensible and attractive.

Their policies were an eerie mixture of the good, the bad, the ugly and the insane.