If you’ve been to more than one or two poetry readings, you’ve probably heard the term chapbook. Today it refers to a short book of 40 pages or less –often about 20-24. They don’t have a spine –typically they’re stapled — and are usually limited run items. The term dates from 1798 and means a small books of poems, ballads, tracts or tales. They got their name because they were hocked by "chapmen" (peddlers). The word chap comes from a middle or old english word meaning cheap. It looks like AOL has learned some old Microsoft tricks. The latest AOL software (version 5) is reported to prevent people from using other online services or their corporate connections. There are any number of good online services out there; it might be time to switch. Share with: TwitterRedditEmailLinkedInFacebook

It's that time of year, time to look at replacing machines. Which means we’ve been doing a lot of surfing and collecting a lot of information on building systems. Which will become another one of our articles. If you’ve got suggestions on good resources on building computers –server or otherwise– send us a note. If you send us a link or other information we don’t have, we’ll add a credit and link at the end of the article Apparently the Department of Justice feels their words should match their deeds –at least in the Microsoft case. They’ve just gone to WordPerfect. Ever thought of

Last night there was a full lunar eclipse. The picture at the right –granted the detail isn’t great– was taken at the peak of the eclipse. Wondering what the Transmeta fuss is about? Arstechnica has a good article on their processors. The nickle summary is that the processors are designed to be intel compatible –so they can run Windows and Linux– with the lowest possible power consumption. The numbers floated by Transmeta indicate that under normal circumstances, the chip uses so little power that it’s negligible compared to that used by the LCD and harddrive. As an added bonus, the chips could just as easily be made to emulate the PPC chips that power Macintosh computers. Walt Whitman once said that everyone is ignorant, just about different things. My corollary to that is ignornace can be cured, stupidity is terminal because the stupid think they know everything about everything so they can't be convinced otherwise. Low and behold, science cranked out a study –story at NY Times— backing this up: “Not only do they [the incompetent] reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it,” wrote Dr. Kruger, now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, and Dr. Dunning. This deficiency in “self-monitoring skills,” the researchers said, helps explain the tendency of the humor-impaired to persist in telling jokes that are not funny, of day traders to repeatedly jump into the market — and repeatedly lose out — and of … Continue reading 2000-01-21 →

Beating slashdot to the punch… The FCC has legalized micro-broadcasting for stations "with maximum power levels of 10 watts and 100 watts. The 10 watt stations would reach an area with a radius of between one and two miles, the 100 watt stations would reach an area with a radius of approximately three and a half miles." For the first couple of years the licenses will go exclusively to locals. And they’ll never go to commercial entities. They say they’ll begin taking applications in the next couple of months. The official FCC statement is up at The FCC website. Salon and the NY Times posted articles about this before the event. The best info on micro-broadcasting is at irational.org. As far as equipment, check out Crown Broadcast or go to Radio Info for a list of suppliers. For this type of work, you’ll just need the transmitter and antenna. It looks like a turn-key system is about $4,000. Used equipment can also be had here and there. Prometheus Radio Project has information on costs and technical details and a list of links. There are oodles of FAQs out there, but make sure you check out Stephen Dunifer’s Primer. He’s one of the key figures in the micro-broadcasting movement. Thanks to Rob Petrus for research help. Share with: TwitterRedditEmailLinkedInFacebook

The US continues to push the missile defence boulder up the hill. And once again it rolled down. Tuesday night, a US$100M test of the military’s ability to shoot down a missile with a missile failed Speaking of big and dumb, Australia’s ABA has ordered it’s first shutdown of a website. under legislation that went into effect 1 January. The article notes that theoretically material cleared for print distribution in Australia could be banned for internet display. Never underestimate the stupidity or intrusiveness of government. You may or may not know that Mozilla is not only the name of the project to develop the next version of the Netscape browser, but the original and only Netscape mascot. Curious about the story? It’s part of exhibit 6 of Origin of a Browser. If you’re on @Home, you probably didn’t notice anything Tuesday night. According to CNET the Usenet death penalty against @Home was lifted. Motorolla announced they are developing a small light alcohol-based fuel cell to power a laptop for 20 hours and a phone for a month before needing a recharge. They think it’ll be three to five years to reach market. Share with: TwitterRedditEmailLinkedInFacebook

You don't even have to be lucky to break standard encryption anymore. Distributed.net broke one of the securist 56 Bit schemes around recently. Looks like 128 bit encryption is now the floor for secure communications. If you use a Mac, you might want to be aware of Apple’s Tech Exchange. The page at apple.com brings together info from their technical database, software updates, discussion forums, and hot news. It looks like a great starting point for troubleshooting a Mac. Another key site for this is Mac Fix It. Seems a lot of people are waiting for DSL and some of them have a nicely sarcastic sense of humor. The Newseum is an interesting concept: a museum for news. Their brick and mortor location is in the home of big news media: Manhattan. Their website has some nice exhibits including The Political Cartoons of David Horsey and Stories of the 20th Century. The last exhibit is nicely designed. A funny story gets more amusing… Microsoft forgot to pay the renewal fee on a batch of domains they own including the one behind hotmail. Linux Consultant Michael Chaney, who has a hotmail account, couldn’t get to his email as a result. He ponied up the $35 fee. Well, Microsoft sent him a $500 check as thanks. Michael has now put the uncashed check up for bid on eBay with the proceeds going to the winning bidder’s charity of choice. Bidding doesn’t close until a week from tomorrow, but as of 8:50am CST, … Continue reading 2000-01-19 →

Fashion giant Bennetton is sponsoring a campaign against the death penalty. As part of the campaign pictures of two people on Nebraska’s death row will appear on billboards and in ads world-wide. The link was emailed here along with heated comments against Benetton, stores that carry Benetton products and the "harm" this would do the victim. The death penalty seems to offer three things over life without parole. One, the death penalty keeps someone who’s wrongly convicted from proving their innocence –they do exist, witness the recent movies The Hurricane and The Green Mile. Two, the victim –if they’re alive–, the victim’s family and society get to experience vicarious revenge. Three, politicians get to grandstand about "being tough on crime". Every study that we’re aware of says the death penalty doesn’t deter other crimes. Figures also show there are no cost savings associated with the death penalty. So, you’ve got to ask what the death penalty accomplishes. And what is the right term for a society that is so hungry for revenge that the death of innocents is considered an acceptable risk. The Bennetton campaign seems to designed to remind everyone that no matter how vicious the crimes, those on death row are people. They’ve got parents, perhaps a husband or wife, maybe children. If you found yourself innocent and on death row, would you or your family consider your immanent death an acceptable risk in someone’s re-election campaign? Transmeta, the secretive company running on the money of Paul Allen … Continue reading 2000-01-18 →

There was precious little coverage of the cause of Gene Siskel’s death last year. Well, it turns out that Chicago Magazine published an article on the topic. Yahoo has a funny little parable about Microsoft and Apple. Rob Malda has created a script which turns a weblog could into a poem. Someone is maintaining an archive of these including one generated from this page. If you really dig this, check out this. And it's time for the Hopelessly Complete Waste of Time. Most people want to be famous. This century we started getting people famous for being famous. Now, there’s a chance to be famous for an entire day for wanting to be famous: Iwannabefamous. Share with: TwitterRedditEmailLinkedInFacebook

Whoa!… hit movie The Matrix is now the subject of a philosophy course at the University of Washington. Coverage: IGN. If you need a handful of good references on HTML, check out the HTML Quick Reference, the HTML Tag List and W3C’s HTML Homepage Share with: TwitterRedditEmailLinkedInFacebook

If you haven't guessed already, we believe that change is about to start accelerating radically in the telecom/computer/internet/entertainment convergence. Where policy issues may be the most important is in telecommunications. Webreview has a overview of those policy issues. On the theme of the AOL-Time Warner merger, Salon’s Scott Rosenberg has an editorial on the threat that he feels the merger poses to the current open free nature of the internet. The merger has also been a wonderful source of merger. Segfault has a great piece that merger and mergers in general. They thought somebody else ought to be part of a merger bigger than most country’s GDPs. Is a Big Bad Bully running for President beating you up just because you parody him? Get some press coverage and wait for a white knight think tank to send you a lawyer. Holy Big Money Batman! And in another measure of how quick corporate mistakes float to the surface with the internet, it took less than a week from Apple’s iTools announcement to the discovery that the iTools plug-in sends passwords unencrypted. So, a reasonably knowledgable person can figure out how to snag bunches of passwords as the fly around the ether. I think I'll wait to sign up. More coverage: Macintouch According to an email sent to Browserwatch, the next version of Netscape Navigator is now stable enough that it's now the primary browser for the most of the development team. They may have a beta release in February. Share with: … Continue reading 2000-01-15 →