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| Notice: GeekPress is back up and running, thanks to Paul! It's still a not-so-serious tech news blog, but the format is significantly looser. Diana, having given up programming for philosophy, has her own philosophical blog NoodleFood. More of her work can be found at DianaHsieh.com. |
| Southern Comfort's Internet Hangover |
| 1:47:40 am mst / 10 January 2001 found by paul / filed in business / source Business Week 68 hits / 2 comments / 0 e-mails |
| The company that manufactures Southern Comfort bourbon has been stung by this parody ad which has circulated around the internet, featuring a bottle of the liquor and the (fake) slogan "liquid panty remover". One feminist magazine thought it was a genuine ad, and ran a copy of the image along with the e-mail address of the company's PR director, who then got flooded with hate mail. The magazine had to issue a retraction 6 months later, once it realized that the ad was a fake. |
| I would have thought that people could have told the difference between the real thing and a parody. But perhaps it's harder for those without a pliable sense of humor. The article also mentions a directory of more fake ads at attrition.org. |
| read 2 comments |
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| Give Your E-Mail the Creeps |
| 3:50:36 am mst / 10 January 2001 found by diana / filed in software / source Time 64 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| According to this review, FaceMail is a bit of software that puts emotion into your e-mail. E-mails are read to the recipient by one of serveral "people" with the appropiate tone of voice and facial expressions. The reviewer says, "These cyber people seem a little unbalanced. Their smiles are creepy and their winks seem more like nervous ticks than deliberate motions. They are truly fascinating to watch, but if someone insisted on sending me all their e-mail as Facemail I think I’d have to stop corresponding with them." |
| Ha! I love a reviewer with a well-honed "dumb idea" detector! |
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| Honey, I shrunk the cogs |
| 8:43:58 am mst / 10 January 2001 found by paul / filed in nanotechnology / source Nature 81 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Hungarian scientists have used lasers to manufacture, hold, and power tiny mechnical gears that are far smaller than those made by conventional nanotechnology methods. Their rotors are as small as a single tooth on a conventional MEMS cog. |
| I love their idea of a light-powered propeller! |
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| Things to Say When You're Losing a Technical Argument |
| 8:59:04 am mst / 10 January 2001 found by paul / filed in humor / source Pigdog 580 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| A hilarious list! Maybe this explains our recent dot-com downturn... (Link from NewsTrolls.) |
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| Slashdot Down? |
| 1:49:39 pm mst / 10 January 2001 found by diana / filed in internet / source Misc 79 hits / 3 comments / 0 e-mails |
| When I checked Slashdot this morning and got no response from the web server, I figured that it was a fluke. When I tried this afternoon and couldn't manage to even get back ping requests, I got suspicious. The lack of server response has been confirmed by Brian of BBspot and Rusty of Kuro5hin. So Slashdot seems to be down, perhaps for some hours now. |
| Dear God, what will we do!?! Update: Get down off that ledge! Slashdot is back up again! |
| read 3 comments |
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| Trojan horse steals ICQ users' identities |
| 4:42:14 pm mst / 10 January 2001 found by paul / filed in security / source CNet 120 hits / 3 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Hundreds of ICQ users have found their ID numbers and passwords stolen as a result of a Trojan horse program disguised as a JPEG image file. The smaller numbers (from the earliest users) are considered the most desirable. |
| Not as bad as scalping low numbers in a delicatessen, but nearly so... |
| read 3 comments |
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| What Was EBay's E-Mail Motive? |
| 5:10:36 pm mst / 10 January 2001 found by diana / filed in business / source Wired 37 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| The motives behind EBay's bizarre e-mail telling users that they had to re-opt-out of spam remain something of a mystery. Was it a legitimate attempt to correct a bug or an attempt to get more people to opt-in to e-mail marketing? |
| Conspiracy theories abound! |
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| Memory slag |
| 7:42:31 pm mst / 10 January 2001 found by paul / filed in security / source TBTF 165 hits / 1 comment / 2 e-mails |
| The author explains why it's not a good idea to send MS Word documents via e-mail. Basically, they can include bits of other unrelated old documents which can still be read with a hex editor. This can be quite embarrassing as illustrated in this related column in the Industry Standard. More technical information is also available in this excellent essay. |
| "You have been warned." |
| read 1 comment |
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