|
|
|||
Snippets #38, Saturday, 23.Nov.2002 (ISSN 1530-9622)
_______________S N I P P E T S _________________________from James S. Huggins' Refrigerator Door ___________________________________#38, Saturday, 23.Nov.2002 _____________________________________________ISSN 1530-9622
__________CONTENTS _____0. Thoughts _____1. Quotations _____2. Ephemerae _____3. New/Changed on My Site _____4. Awards
__________0. THOUGHTS Although you receive this on Saturday, I'm writing it on Friday. As I write, I'm on a brief holiday, down south of Houston, near NASA, visiting my mother. Spot, my all black cat, accompanies me on these trips. Once scared of cars, she has become quite the traveler, frequently standing up in the seat and looking out at neighboring cars, frequently to the delight of the passengers of those cars. Holidays like this let me sleep a bit later than normal, have a wonderful breakfast including made-from-scratch biscuits, take the occasional nap during the day, and pursue my eclectic interests of reading, both on and off the net. Included in the collection for today is an article about Alan Ralsky, one of the net's biggest spammers. It was an interesting article, and it encouraged me to share my information about Cloudmark and SpamNet again. SpamNet is a free cooperative service to filter spam. It isn't perfect, but I like it. Also, today, I received an email about broken links on my site. The page is my page about coughing as a way to stop a heart attack. The email was right, several of the links had changed. So I went out to the net to see if I could find the new URLs. I found one; the other is "gone". So I went looking for more and, sure enough, even though this "myth" is more than three years old, I found an article through Google News that was just posted yesterday that had the same myth. I've updated my page to correct the links and add the new article. The Office of Information Awareness and the Total Information Awareness project continue to generate news and comments. I've included an editorial that draws similarities between this project and the information collected by the East German Stasi. And, the private sector continues to push to have information be something you must pay for. In the latest case, private pressure from commercial sites has caused a free government website to shut down. The Energy Department has shut down PubSCIENCE, a Web site that offered free searches and abstracts of energy and science articles and reports. I've included a link to The Washington Post article that reports that the popular site was shut down after private sector groups said PubScience competed with similar commercial services, including Scirus and Infotrieve. But despite that, there are still internet projects that "aim to change the world". One of these, the International Children's Digital Library, intends to offer 100 titles from 100 cultures (10,000 total) by 2007. I've included links to an article about the library, as well as the library itself. Among the interesting innovations are the techniques being provided to find the books. [quote] Still, most commercial organizations don't really like the free flow of information. WalMart, Target, BestBuy and Staples are all claiming that their sale prices are copyrighted and have used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to force websites providing that information to take it down. To those of us that track these types of skirmishes, this is not new. But many in the public are unaware. Companies want to use copyright to protect all types of information. It has been proposed, for example, that sports scores be protected by copyright. Then you would need a license from the NFL to write about the score of the Super Bowl. The Register, an irreverent publication from the UK, provided some of the initial information about this latest attack. The story has also been carried on radio. (I heard it on the news yesterday.) On the national front, we passed the Homeland Security Act. Aside from the fact that I hate the name "Homeland", I have major problems with our approach to all of this, particularly as it relates to privacy. I've included a couple of articles to explain some of the issues. Each day, I enjoy finding an unusual site. Today is no different. The Cold War Era Civil Defense Museum is a delightful site, dedicated to the Civil Defense personnel of the United States who worked throughout the Cold War to try to protect the public from nuclear attack. Relive some of those memories and check this one out. Who knows whether there will be another issue of Snippets before Thanksgiving. So, just to be safe, let me wish everyone a very joyful and safe holiday.
__________1. QUOTATIONS We won't have a society if we destroy the environment. Man shapes himself through decisions that shape his environment. The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else. The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives. The unique personality which is the real life in me, I can not gain unless I search for the real life, the spiritual quality, in others. I am myself spiritually dead unless I reach out to the fine quality dormant in others. For it is only with the god enthroned in the innermost shrine of the other, that the god hidden in me, will consent to appear. Every so often, I like to go to the window, look up, and smile for a satellite picture. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
__________2. EPHEMERAE Every day interesting “stuff” crosses my desk. Some isn’t important enough to put on my site in any permanent way. But it is interesting enough to put there somehow, quickly, at least for a while. These are ephemerae: collections of temporary, transitory tidbits.
Macon Area Online.com (21.Nov.2002),
Detroit Free Press (22.Nov.2002), Cloudmark.com:
InfoWorld (22.Nov.2002),
Washington Post TechNews.com (21.Nov.2002),
Washington Post (21.Nov.2002), International Children's Digital Library
The Register (21.Nov.2002), FatWallet.com:
Christian Science Monitor (21.Nov.2002),
AlterNet.org (19.Nov.2002), Cold War Era Civil Defense Museum: ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
__________3. NEW/CHANGED ON MY SITE
How to Stop a Heart Attack By Yourself: ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
__________4. AWARDS Nothing this time. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|