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Get
In Shape By Playing 'Quake'
When I was a lad,
we didn't have these fancy computer games that keep kids
indoors, turning them into pale, overweight weaklings. (We had
TV for that.) Now compulsive gamers can become buff
and lean stud muffins with the $200 Simcycle Game Box. In
order to move forward in shoot-em-up or racing games, you've got
to peddle like Lance Armstrong.
Ad Creep
This space chronicles the incessant search for new ways to expose people to more advertising (The 3,000 ads per day that average Americans are exposed to just aren't enough). Now they're messing with time itself. A technology call "time-reduction" enables TV and radio broadcasters to find and delete
redundant video frames or fragments of sound, which compresses programming to make time for more commercials. Prime Image here in Silicon Valley is one of the
chief marketers of this
technology. There are reportedly 200 time-reduction machines currently in use in the United States.
Have you seen
advertising in a completely new context? Let
me know!
Proof
You Can Buy Anything On the Web
Here's a product
that really sucks:
leeches! That's right. Now you can order leeches over the Internet,
thanks to Leeches USA, LTD. They're not sold as food or pets, but rather
for medicinal bleeding.
You can also get
a divorce over the Internet for just $249. CompleteCase is a
Seattle law firm that handles California divorces the easy way.
All you need is a spouse and
a credit card.
Shameless
Self-Promotion
 Listen
to Mike's List every week on the Radio! Now Craig Crossman's
Computer America features Mike's List content on every show (and
I join Craig live on the first broadcast Sunday of every month).
You can hear Computer America on your local Business TalkRadio station or
over
the Internet each Sunday from 1pm to 3pm Silicon Valley
Time. Don't miss Computer
America!
Reader Web Site o'
the Week
In the wake of
the September 11 suicide massacres, most of us want to know what
we can do
about terrorism -- and how to cope with the stress of the
attacks. Check out "Citizen
Warrior," a site build by Mike's List reader (and my
brother) Adam Khan. Don't get mad. Get involved!
Get YOUR web site on the high-traffic Mike's
List Reader Links page. HERE'S
HOW!
Wacky
Web Sites
IT'S
ALL GREEK TO ME: Now you can chat with people around the world
... in Latin! That's right, now there's a chat room -- excuse me
-- "Locutorium" where you can blather
away in Europe's favorite dead language. The site, which is
appropriately named "Circulus Latinus Panormitanus,"
features a host of resources about, and in, the Latin
language.
INTERNET PACKETS:
Someone, for some reason, has photographed and categorized condiments of the kind that come in
small,
squeezable packets.
BACK TO THE
FUTURE: Here's a web site that features exact replicas of dusty
old arcade games from the '70s and '80s such as Pac
Man and Frogger -- written entirely in Java.
WHERE IT'S AT:
Some folks discovered that as you move around with a GPS device,
the screen shows a line where you've been. They launched a web
site devoted to "art" created by driving
around.
WHY
NOT JUST BUY A COLOR CAMERA?: It's possible, though not
necessarily advisable, to take color pictures using a
black-and-white Game Boy camera. This
web site tells you how, but not why...
If you see a really crazy web
site: Let me know!
Last Week's
Mystery Pic
 No, it's not a "Canadian beer TV ad," "Washington Crossing the Delaware
2.0," nor is it "what is left of the government's credibility after being railroaded into the settlement with Microsoft" as suggested by some readers. Most commented on the subject of the picture. But the interesting fact about last week's Mystery Pic is the picture itself. It's a brilliant color photograph taken in 1915! While traveling with the Tsar, Russian photographer Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii took pictures onto
three separate glass plates per image that were designed to be shown in color using a slide projector he invented.
Technicians recently developed a technique to scan
the plates so the images could be assembled in a computer. Last
week's Mystery Pic is one of dozens of breathtaking Prokudin-Gorski photographs in the collection, which is on display at the
Library of Congress Web
site. Congratulations to reader Geoff Washburn for being
first with the right answer. Here are three more examples (click on the pictures to see them full-size):
Have you
seen an amazing, hard-to-identify picture? Let
me know!
Mystery Pic o' the
Week
What is it? Send YOUR guess to [email protected].
I'll publish the name of the person who gets it right first in the next issue
of Mike's List.
RECOMMEND
TO A FRIEND!
If
you don't have anything nice to say, say it to me!
Send rumors, gossip and inside information to: [email protected]
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