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ATPM 8.01
January 2002

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About This Particular Web Site

by Paul Fatula, pfatula@atpm.com

Pork4Kids

This site, which proudly proclaims itself “a service of the National Pork Board,” begins with three animated children and a pig floating about the screen. Ironically, it is one of the children who says, “Build a sandwich with me,” while the naïve piglet by his side smiles a wide grin. Kids can “Go Hog Wild” playing simple games, touring a real hog farm, and sending pig e-cards to their friends. Links for Teachers and Parents take a more educational direction. There are also plenty of recipes to be found here, and you can even make a Cyber Sandwich if you get hungry…but if you want roast beef on that sandwich, you’ll just have to wait: Beef4Kids is still under construction.

OSNews

This site, which covers every OS out there in its goal of “exploring the future of computing,” features, as I write this, articles about OS X, Linux, Windows XP, and Novell Netware. I discovered the site when I followed a link to an extensive article by Scot Hacker, a fan (like myself) of BeOS, who made the leap to OS X. In addition to off-site links and feature articles, there are interviews, editorials, and forums in which readers can discuss their OS of choice. Interestingly, BeOS, the most popular category, has nearly 50 times as many posts as Mac OS/Mac OS X.

Getting Spammers to Pay Up

What’s an ATPW without an anti-spam link? This one, sadly, is of practical use only to residents of Washington State, but it’s well worth a read for others as well. Its author, in fact, is working on a book about fighting spam. This site helps Washington residents take advantage of the state’s anti-spam laws, providing not only a list of steps to successfully collect money from spammers, but also a sample DEMAND FOR DAMAGES letter and, should that fail, a sample formal complaint, ready to submit to court. (Those outside Washington might want to consult Spam Laws to read applicable laws, if any, for their area.)

Gallery of CSS Descramblers

In case you’ve been sleeping under a rock for the last few years, DeCSS is a program that lets a computer break DVD encryption protocols, either for innocent playing or, well, less innocent purposes. Long a victim of court battles, free availability of the DeCSS source code represents a victory of free speech over the reviled Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and this page is a monument to that victory. It links to numerous implementations of the DeCSS algorithm as well as some rather creative expressions thereof, including T-shirts, songs, and even haiku.

The Flying Cow

Of course, a flying cow! I mean, come on. What could be more normal than that? Cow tipping is for wimps. In this game, you put a cow on a catapult and fling him towards a target, under the watchful eyes of a farmer. The cow moos when he hits the ground, and the farmer occasionally remarks on your skills (or lack thereof). If you get more than 300 points, you are inaugurated into the Cow Flingers of All Time. Go ahead, make your mommy proud: fling a cow today!

appleCopyright © 2002 Paul Fatula, pfatula@atpm.com.

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