The Washingon Post reports on how students and others looking for information over-rely on the Internet and trust it too much. A lot of this has been remarked on before, of course. I wrote about this myself back in 1996.

The examples that the writer turns up, though, are interesting. Like this distressing tale:

Superficial searching habits can have tragic consequences, illustrated last year at Johns Hopkins University. A physician-researcher performed a test of lung function on a healthy 24-year-old woman, administering a large dose of a particular chemical. The woman then died of lung and kidney failure. The doctor had searched online for information about the drug but had failed to turn up any literature warning of its dangers — information that medical librarians later did find online after the woman died.

(Quoting from the newsletter you can get by visiting the site)

“Scientists have discovered why being hugged feels so good – human skin has a special network of nerves that stimulate a pleasurable response to stroking.

Until now, no-one knew the function of these nerves. But the revelation came after doctors realised that a woman with no sense of touch still felt a “pleasant” sensation when her skin was caressed with a paintbrush.”

It’s nice to see the site I started back in 1995 is able to offer so many more sophisticated services (like daily email newsflashes) today.

Jennifer 8. Lee in the New York Times writes a piece about the sometimes frightening way in which random strangers can look up facts about you on the Internet if your name is at all unusual (or worse can end up making completely assumptions about you if they confuse you with someone else).

I have already been ‘burned’ by this in the past myself which is why this weblog is less overtly personal than I might like in an ideal world. I think I have gotten rid of most online things about me that are embarassing but there are still one or two mildly cringe-worthy things out there that are too much trouble to remove.

Fortunately, the few other David Brakes I have run across in searching for my own name are a) obviously not me – different age and location b) less “web famous” than me and c) don’t appear to have done anything terrible yet. Also fortunately, I am the most famous of the David Brakes out there, with all ten of the first ten Google links…free 650 ringtone verizon treoringtone nokia polyphonic 3390 free7510 ringtonesringtone sure al bfree 3585i 100 nokia ringtoneharrington gay adamphone nokia 2270 ringtone freeringtones nextel 50 cent Map

I didn’t think there was much of a risk to an individual subscriber from WiFi piracy – after all there is normally plenty of bandwidth for all on a broadband connection – but if you used your neighbor’s network to make a file that is in a lot of demand available you could end up saturating their broadband and making it almost unusable.

AT&T Broadband is warning customers to secure their Wi-Fi networks after an unusual case in which a subscriber played an unwitting role in dispatching a pirated movie over the Internet… The movie pirate lived next door to the subscriber, and was able to access his neighbor’s Wi-Fi wireless network to send the movie out over his neighbor’s Broadband…pornagraphy amaturefrere adult movies sex for asianames analyzerporno maroc acttressesassault and abduction restraint sexualcross porn alex1970s trucking co minnesota pornteens georgetown crash 6 feed rss Mapmp3 festival academic hindsleymp3 2g sizemp3 96 avalonabacus mp3 live mixinput f150 2006 mp3 audiophile fordandroid mp3 acid6 mp3 minutesdese nil adara mp3 Map