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/_/_/ |_|__/|__/_/ |_/http://www.acronymchile.com/yawn.html
2002-11-08
Better early than never
##################### NET TO SET YOU FREE ###############################
This one is interesting, though likely to be disagreed with...
http://www.robotwisdom.com/weblogs/selfknowledge.html
##################### CRISIS/HOAX IN PHYSICS? ###########################
At the Incunuabula blog,
http://www.incunabula.org/blog/
came across this:
Remember the Alan Sokal hoax paper, "Transgressing the Boundaries:
Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity",
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/noretta.html
which the physicist managed to get a nonsense essay into a refereed
journal of cultural studies? Well, according to the kids on Usenet,
http://makeashorterlink.com/?R35126F52
two French hoaxers have managed to get one back for the cult.studs. The
brothers Bogdanov have succeeded in publishing at least three hoax
papers in published physics journals, with titles like "Topological
field theory of the initial singularity of spacetime". They're all
nonsense, it turns out - and rumour has it they even managed to get a
couple of Ph.D's out of it.
It is left as an exercise for the reader to verify whether the story is in
fact a hoax or not! The references to the papers are available in the
usenet post, along with abstracts from the theses:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?R35126F52
The overall thread seems to indicate that it is in fact a true story.
Also here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/27894.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/27963.html
Very detailed info here and in linked pages:
http://cass.eahosting.com/cass/bogdanov2.htm
And here:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/bogdanov.html
These later links offer a more measured take on the story, which may be
more complicated than it at first appeared.
##################### INFORMATION #######################################
Interesting article on Google's dominance of the Internet:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-964036.html
Some links at the bottom relating to alternative/complementary sources
which might be worth a look (haven't checked them out myself yet):
http://www.lii.org/
http://www.ipl.org/
http://infomine.ucr.edu/
http://www.vlib.org/Home.html
http://www.findarticles.com/PI/index.jhtml
##################### BIFURCATION (WARNING, VERY UNPLEASANT!, IMHO) #####
This is horrible... but at least there are NO PICTURES!
http://diepunyhumans.com/2002_09_01_archive.html#80975787
The story linked is here (and there are some pictures):
http://www.bmezine.com/news/people/A10101/split/
They do it to tongues too:
http://www.bmeworld.com/amago/bodmod/
##################### KEYBOARD MADNESS ##################################
Why does my typing appear on my neighbour's PC?
HP wireless keyboard roams far and wide
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/27971.html
##################### GOOGLE CENSORSHIP? ################################
Seems that your location can change the search results you get:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/11-filtering.html
Last month, a Harvard Law School study brought to light that fact
Google does not include certain web sites in the French and German
versions of its search engines, in particular neo-Nazi or white
supremacy sites that have content that might be deemed illegal to
publish in France and Germany.
##################### KING MOB ##########################################
Smart Mobs, book review:
"Smart Mobs are the Slashdot effect applied to the meatspace
zeitgeist."
http://www.mindjack.com/books/smartmobs.html
##################### MIND CONTROL ######################################
http://www.rense.com/general2/astro.htm
"Astronaut Gordon Cooper, one of the original seven Mercury astronauts,
has confirmed the existence of a mind control program administered by
NASA in the 1950's and 1960's involving gifted American
schoolchildren."
##################### ANATOMY ###########################################
Gallery of old anatomical drawings:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/dreamanatomy/da_gallery.html
##################### WHEN IS A CD NOT A CD? ############################
BMG is going to release solely copy protected CD's. Philips, custodian of
the CD standard, have objected to BMG's use of the CD logo on such
products. The mistakes in the material quoted below are quite remarkable.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/27960.html
...this is what you get from the BMG Kopierschutz Team (typos left in):
“we are sorry you have troubles with our copy protection technology.
The copy protection reacts on the special new technology that is build
in in burners. Unfortunately htis technics was built in many new CD
players, even if they can't copy a cd. “The copy protection yet does
not recognize wheather that burner technics is build in a cd player or
in a burner. That's why the cd playern might not play a copy protected
CD. Since burner technics are also built in car radios, this may be the
reason, why you can't listen to a copyprotected cd in your car. “As
far as we were adviced, our copy protection is according to the Red
Book Standart as well as all labelling on the cd. “A standart home CD
player is one that has no burner technics built in. Our Cds play on
all Cd players without burner technics. “There will be no cd
manufactured without copyprotection any more.”
##################### OPENOFFICE ########################################
Link from Linuxtoday
"When Sun Microsystems realised how much they were paying arch rivals
Microsoft for software, they set about creating a free, downloadable
office system. Ben Hammersley explains how they did it..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sbs/story/0,7369,823267,00.html
##################### PHONE TAPS BECOME MORE EXPENSIVE ##################
The Register reports (quotes from story):
A software error is being blamed for an incident in which mobile phone
users discovered they were being bugged by German secret squirrels.
According to reports last week, some customers of mobile phone operator
O2 noticed an unusual phone number on their bills they didn't recognise
and a call charge associated with the number... After further
investigation, though, it was revealed that the number belonged to the
German secret service. The number was showing up on people's bills
because they were being bugged - and paying for it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/27917.html
##################### NUKES #############################################
Makes you wonder if stray nukes are as likely to originate from good old
USA as from former USSR:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27867.html
##################### TONGUES ###########################################
Keeping languages somewhere safe (link from LinuxToday):
"Now, a group of scientists and engineers are crafting a modern Rosetta
stone that will preserve more than 1,400 of the world's 7,000 languages
on a 3-inch nickel disk"
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,54345,00.html
##################### ...FOR OLD ROPE ###################################
New texts from old, a program which combines documents to make new ones:
http://eblong.com/zarf/markov/index.html
He has a couple of examples, like this one made from the Alice books,
Genesis, and Revelations:
http://eblong.com/zarf/markov/revelation_of_alice.txt
##################### YAWN ##############################################
Another, now defunct, newsletter called YAWN
http://yawn.detritus.net/
##################### SPAM ##############################################
Also interesting is a further link to this:
http://www.mememachinego.com/archives/000541.html#000541
which apart from having a very good domain name, has something interesting
to say about why spam-scams are how they are:
"These scams take the forms they do because they're parodies—no, a
better way to put it: they're cargo-cult effigies—of the deals the
ruling class cut for themselves."
##################### VIRAL #############################################
Viral marketing:
http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,825255,00.html
"A friend emails you a video clip parodying a well known advert. You
watch, chuckle, and forward it on, presuming it to be the handiwork of
some mischievous subversive. In fact, there's a good chance the spoof
was made by the very brand it appears to bash."
##################### END ###############################################