Weblog on the Internet and public policy, journalism, virtual community, and more from David Brake, a Canadian academic, consultant and journalist

Archive forSeptember, 2002 | back to home

15 September 2002
Filed under:Wireless at12:00 am

I have my doubts about the figure but for what it is worth – some encouragement for people who see a big future for the mobile Internet.credit table cards for ammoritzationbill payment llc agricredit acceptanceamro sales abn adrian credit hullportland advantis union credit ortraining sonography columbus accredited program ohioaldine isd credit recoveryaasm accreditation standardscreditsecure american express Mapcredit 2008 checks taxaccredited abroad studyonline accredited doctoral programsbodies iso accreditationach and card software creditonline accredited degrees nursingmerchant account card bank texas creditcredit visa aa card Map

14 September 2002
Filed under:Spam at12:00 am

“US experts suggest 90% of internet users receive unsolicited e-mails and one in 10 is pornographic…” and some of the recipients are children (though there are no figures provided to indicate what proportion are.

13 September 2002
Filed under:Current Affairs (World) at9:39 am

When in summer the US simulated an attack on a militarily powerful middle eastern regime, it lost. Oops!

Filed under:Computer Games at12:00 am

The New York Times discovers that (how extraordinary!) “78 percent of unaccompanied customers 13 to 16 who tried to buy M-rated [violent “17 years or older”] games succeeded” and seven year olds are playing Counterstrike in the cybercafes of America… Perhaps they need to follow the lead of the Greeks and make cybercafes illegal?

12 September 2002
Filed under:Spam at10:25 pm

Even Declan McCullagh, one of the old school digerati, can’t bring himself to support government regulation to tackle spammers. The spam issue is where the instinctive libertarianism of many American online veterans runs into its hardest test case.

Here in Europe we have started to bring in anti-spam laws covering our own countries. Declan complains that “…so much of the stuff comes from overseas. Eighteen months ago, two of five Internet providers receiving the most spam complaints were based outside the country.” In other words, three of five spammers are based in the US! Surely a little regulation to make things hot for these miscreants would be welcome. Even if it didn’t make the problem go away it might at least mean a would-be spammer would have to make their way to an increasingly small number of “rogue states” where spamming is still legal…

11 September 2002
Filed under:Gadgets at9:49 pm

This one has a 160Gb disc, a broadband Internet connection, and it allows you to call home to tell your PVR to tape something. Too bad you can only buy it in Japan so far. Surveys say that few people are buying hard disk based TV recorders so far because their appeal is too hard to understand, but everyone I know who has a TiVo raves about it. Admittedly, I am too cheap to buy one at the moment (and I couldn’t get one past my wife – the purchasing committee – anyway) but let the price come down a bit and integrate it into my cable TV set top and a DVD recorder and I would buy one like a shot…movies absolutely porno freenights boogie movieindian free sex moviesmovies free lesbaintitty movies fuck freesecretary movies hotmovie heaven just likegalleries and latinas movies Map

10 September 2002
Filed under:Broadband infrastructure at9:04 am

The UK still trails the rest of Europe in broadband takeup – 14% of UK homes have it, compared to 45% in Germany and 22% in France. Mind you, these figures include ISDN (and I wouldn’t, since it is metered and one of the most important things about broadband is not that it is fast but that it is always on…). The DTI told the BBC that in most other European countries 90% of broadband is provided by one operator and that prices here are dropping while there they are rising.

Of course our prices are dropping- they have been too high too long… And competition to provide broadband has not been that strong – the cable companies have captive markets and not much money to spend on promotion, while BT controls the infrastructure to ADSL provision even if a few other ADSL providers “re-badge” their service.

However there is a little good news on the horizon – Todmorden in West Yorkshire has reached the “trigger” number of interested customers via BT’s “register your interest” website for it to be upgraded to ADSL. Now 3/4 of those who said they were interested have to put their money where their mouths are and subscribe. If they do they could have broadband by Xmas.

9 September 2002
Filed under:Online media at10:34 pm

Mr Spock’s nudes – it’s premium content, of course. I wonder how many subscriptions they will sell with this bizarre cross-over content?

Also see “Terror Sex” which Salon came up with just days after 9/11 (and which, to their discredit, scores of publications seem to have followed up on).michigan home 100 loan equityon 100 loan financing landloan store 12 20,18 paydaybad credit loan 125 mortgageunsecured bankruptcy chapter 13 loan personalunsecured 2 high loan risk personalmonthly 2 loans payment mortgageloan payday get 20 29 Map

8 September 2002
Filed under:Science & Technology at10:07 pm

According to New Scientist, Swiss scientists are experimenting with small, low cost processors to be embedded in furniture to ensure you construct it the right way.

An alarming fact has come out of their research – they found, “44 different paths that someone working without the instructions can take to fit the pieces of an IKEA wardrobe together. But only eight of these result in a safe construction. Other paths lead to something that looks stable, but is not, or come to a dead end.” Now I am really frightened lest the contents of my flat (almost all self-constructed IKEA stuff) collapse on top of me!

7 September 2002
Filed under:Computer Games at3:17 am

It seems that computer gaming has somehow ended up caught in rules against the other kind of “gaming” – gambling. But instead of saying “oops” they are actually arresting people for letting their cybercafes be used!mature cunts creampietolite girls peeing cam photolarge tits galleriesnue maturenude tits asiansimpsons toon pornnude porn women nepal sex model girl womanyoung girls picks underground nudepissing lesbiensamature mature mpgscredit loan ac checking bad withoutamerican secured general loanshome 125 equity loan value1800 loan a getstudent accountig discount loansup equity 125 home loancredit score home 500 loansloans 3rd 5th michigangroup access loan studentalabama lot loans

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