Mike's List
Spam War Mercenaries

SUDDENLY EVERYONE IS TALKING about Stanford University Professor Lawrence Lessig's anti-spam proposal that I told you about September 20 in Mike's List 45. (It took the mainstream press long enough to cover it. Sheesh!)

His idea is to enlist mercenaries or bounty hunters in the war against spam.

Like some other proposals, all commercial messages (i.e. advertising, etc.) would be required by law to identify themselves as such in the Subject line of e-mail, with something like "ADV" (short for "advertisement") in all capital letters. That would enable users to auto-delete or pre-sort all such messages if they chose to do so. But unlike other proposals, Lessig would build into law a system whereby whoever is first to provide information leading to the spammer would get reward money from that spammer.

This is a brilliant idea because spammers -- especially illegal ones -- are too slippery to be caught by normal law-enforcement methods. They hide their identities, set up phony companies and send hit-and-run messages.

The idea if implemented would result in thousands of greedy propellerheads racing each other to analyze e-mail headers, conduct searches and identify, then report, spammers. You could imagine a mass mailing of spam going out in the morning, and the FTC getting deluged with specific information on where to arrest the perpetrators by early afternoon.

The world would be a better place.

The mainstream press just this week discovered the idea because California Representative Zoe Lofgren, whose district includes Silicon Valley and Stanford University, announced legislation Monday that would implement Lessig's idea.

If you support this idea, send a note to your congressman saying so!

'Escapism' Is Main Idea Behind Controversial PC Game

A computer game being developed, called "Escape from Woomera," challenges players to escape from four of Australia's infamous refugee detention. Despite the vaguely anti-government, anti-law-and-order message of the game, the Australia Council, a government body that subsidizes the arts, has granted $25,000 to the company developing it. The grant has upset the rest of the federal government. Game designers are working to fully reproduce in detailed, lifelike 3D the Woomera, Baxter, Port Hedland and Villawood detention centers. The real Woomera was closed in April because of a lack of detainees, though critics of the government's immigration policies had been clamoring for the site to be shut down for some time. Woomera's torrid history is punctuated with rioting, hunger strikes, suicides and -- you guessed it -- breakouts!

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Unanticipated Convergence  

The Sony Vaio GT3/K is a prototype combination laptop and camcorder -- and a brazen act of convergence that probably won't be surpassed until someone figures out how to combine a DVD player with a Segway. The ... thing ... weighs 2.4 pounds, runs ME/2000, sports a 30 gigabytes hard drive and up to 256 megabytes of memory, integrated ports for FireWire, USB, NTSC and Memory Stick. The GT3/K features a 680,000 pixel CCD -- not bad for a laptop. Everything swivels. If Sony decides to sell it, I'll let you know. Get more info at Dynamism.com.

Found Video

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation archives a documentary video showing hippies in Canada's Yorkville staging a sit-in. The main hippie interviewed is a 19-year-old draft-dodger named Bill, who would grow up to become cyberpunk novelist William Gibson. He's best known for coining the term "cyberspace" and inventing the cyberpunk literary genre in his ground-breaking 1984 novel Neuromancer. The documentary was broadcast on the CBC September 4, 1967.  Brace yourself, then click here.

Don't Try This At Home

The folks at RSG have posted step-by-step instructions for building a handheld device that lets you walk around the neighborhood hacking into your neighbor's X10 camera video streams. The X10 is that inexpensive wireless video camera advertised in those annoying pop-up ads. They're used as web cams, security cameras and, well, with this RSG contraption, you can find out exactly what your neighbors are using it for. 

The Art Gallery

An art project called "Fly" attempts to implant a web server into a living fly.  

Proof You Can Buy Anything on the Web

You can buy a paperback edition of a work of classic English literature that features YOU on the web.

You can even buy a bicycle attachment that lets you ride on water on the web.

Mike's List on the Radio

Craig Crossman's Computer America features Mike Elgan every Thursday night. The show runs from 7pm to 9pm SVT (Silicon Valley Time). Listen to Computer America on your local Business TalkRadio station or over the Internet every weeknight. Don't miss Computer America!

Reader Web Site o' the Week

Check out Andilinks, the "Information Sector Database." The site features links to cool categorized links to some of the best sites on the Internet!

Get YOUR web site on the high-traffic Mike's List Reader Links page. HERE'S HOW! 

Gotta-Get-It Gadgets

A cool new pocket-size gadget called Radio YourWay from PoGo! lets you record AM and FM radio shows just like you record TV with your VHS player. You can even program it to record radio shows at a pre-set time while you're away! It's also an MP3 player and digital voice recorder. Once you've recorded your radio programs, you can use the included USB cable to download them to your PC. It holds four hours of radio or voice recordings, unless you use the SD or MMC expansion slot for additional storage. The Radio YourWay costs $149. 99 at FirstLook Products.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., and Panasonic plan to introduce this summer an electronic book called the Sigma Book that actually looks like a real book. It features low power consumption and a very high resolution screen. Panasonic says you'll get up to six months (or 10,000 pages, whichever comes first) on three AA batteries. It features "instant-on," so there's no waiting to boot. Two facing black-and-white 7.2-inch displays have screen resolution of 1,024×768, which is very high for such a small gadget. Personally, I'm waiting for it to come out on paperback.

The world's smallest digital camera, called the Che-ez! Snap, used to be available only in Asia and Europe. Now Sharper Image is selling it for $70 in the U.S. The one-pound camera takes pictures at 640x480 and stores them in eight megabytes of on-board memory. The tiny camera connects to your PC via USB and can be used as a web cam. The battery is rechargeable.

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Quacky Web Sites

In English-speaking countries, ducks say "quack, quack," but in Turkish, they go "vak vak." The Sounds of the World's Animals web site chronicles animal noises in 36 of the world's major languages.  

Put on your SARS mask and check out the SARS Watch web site.

It's the total opposite of Martha Stewart Living -- Car Living is a web site devoted to information and best practices for living in your car.

If you don't appreciate living in modern times, you will after one visit to the Surgery of Ancient Rome web site. Marvel at rusty old Roman rectal specula, bone forceps and the dreaded male catheter.

If you're going to visit Japan on business, you should learn how to bow appropriately. Animator and illustrator Nora Krug's web site will show you how. (I just hope I never run into scary looking businessmen like those in the site's example...)

Invisiblog enables you to publish a blog in total anonymity.

Miss the sixties? Sixties City is a groovy web site that brings you back to those swingin' days of yesteryear. Far out!

It's not really a wacky web site, but rather the wacky 404 error message of the year.

Just click on the face and see what happens.

The LikeTelevision web site lets you watch entire episodes of Dragnet on your PC.

Totally Absurd Inventions shows the craziest ideas ever submitted to the patent office. You can search for, but not necessarily find, the genius in ideas like the "Gerbil Shirt," "Pantyhose 3x" and even the "Cheese Filtered Cigarette." I didn't even know comb-over techniques could be patented!
 

Twisted Games

Scissors, Paper, Stone

Flugtag

White Van Man

Mumbleypeg

STD Invaders

Blast Billiards

Traffic Jam

Gyroball
 

Reader Comment

Mike,
My daughters are now 18 and 15 years old and have had mobile phones for a number of years (not unusual here [in Australia]). They are typical of teenagers who text all the time, because it is easy and ubiquitous.

This is not just about access to PCs. The older daughter got her first notebook in Grade 5, as part of the worlds' first schools to trial the use of notebooks for all students (I cheated and gave her my TI notebook so that I could get a new one). Both girls have notebooks and we have an ADSL connected PC at home. The LAN at their school uses 802.11b networking (installed two years ago) so that they can have ready access to the nearest printer and back up all of their documents on their own folder on the Student Server.

But texting can be done from the lounge whilst watching TV -- in Mum's car, in the train, in their bedroom, etc. I find it great that I can send messages whilst they are in class, knowing that they will get the message at the next break.

Last week, a colleague and friend from San Diego arrived in Australia. The first thing he does is activate his GSM phone on the Aussie network. At the same time as he was moaning about the USA mobile phone system, my eldest daughter was texting me from a bus crossing the border from Latvia to Estonia. She is in Europe competing in gym competitions. Once again, the time zone difference means that we can stay in touch with no hassles and during her competition trips she does not have access to PCs.

Faxes did not replace mail, or couriers. Videoconferencing has not replaced travel. SMS texting does not replace phone calls and emails. But I cannot imagine doing without it.
Peter

* * *

Mike,
Boy, I found you're site and am enjoying it. SMS is quite popular overseas, as you say. I travel internationally and only here in the states do we use the feature as an afterthought. I just came back from Tel Aviv where everyone actually has both thumbs on their phone at all times! I am just trying to use SMS internationally as of today (T-Mobile) to see if I can get a message to buddies in Europe. I think that part of the reason is that Americans think getting a text message is ruder then a phone call.
Ron

* * *

Mike,
I can tell you that among my group of friends (ages 14-21) sending txt messages by cell is a very common thing. 7 messages a month? Try 7 a day, or 7 an hour. And most of our friends, and their friends, and so on and so forth, do the same. And the few who don’t, it’s because their cell plan only includes a small number of messages per month, and any extra cost 5 or 10 cents. And whomever is paying the bills (read: their parents) won’t add the 100 or 500 txts per month for $3 to their plan. One of my friends only recently got this added to their cell plan, after they sent 150 txts in a month at 10 cents per. I think it’d be interesting to see the averages not just by country, but by age group. I think it’d likely show similar averages for most countries in the 16-25 age group, and the disparity would be in the older age groups.
Helen

I get hundreds of reader e-mail messages per week, so I can publish only a tiny fraction of them. I reserve the right to edit letters for length and clarity. Send comments to: mike@mikeslist.com

Big Number o' the Week

275,000 (The number of music tracks Apple sold at 99 cents each in the first 18 hours of its vaunted music service.)  

Geek Trivia o' the Week

One of Microsoft's most important executives during the past decade left the company in 1999 and recently created and launched a new board game. Who is the executive and what is the board game?

Know the answer? Send it to geektrivia@mikeslist.com (be sure to say where you live). If you're first with the right answer, I'll print your name in the next issue of Mike's List!

Mystery Pic o' the Week

What is it? Send YOUR guess to mysterypic@mikeslist.com (be sure to say where you live). If you're first with the right answer, I'll print your name in the next issue of Mike's List!

LAST WEEK'S MYSTERY PIC: No, it's not "the arm of some jerk who has more money than me," "Kevin Mitnick's return to the internet," or even "Sony's new Nipplecam," as suggested by some readers. In fact, it's a demonstration of Microsoft Lab's "GWindows" concept, whereby the user navigates using a combination of voice commands and hand gestures. Brian Buonomo of Long Island, New York, was first with the right answer. He wrote: "It's Microsoft's new human/computer interface. It uses the two web cams to track hand movements into cursor input on the screen. Just like in the movie Minority Report, nice original idea, huh :-)" Congratulations, Brian!

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