Mike's List is Back!

THIS IS THE FIRST ISSUE I've sent in a long time. I took time out to set up new web and list hosts and generally rethink the whole deal. I've redesigned the home page, set up a web cam and changed the way I do research and writing for the newsletter. The result is that I think Mike's List will be better, more frequent and more fun than ever before. 

I hope you enjoy reading the new Mike's List as much as I enjoy publishing it!

Welcome to BattleBot High

American high school students are being taught essential skills that will prepare them for the future: How to build robots that kill and destroy. A program called BattleBots IQ teaches kids how to build dangerous armed robots. The program has already rolled out in 17 schools across the United States. At the end of the year, a huge tournament will pit robots against each other in a vicious battle to the death. Think of it as a kind of science fair combined with the WWF. 

When You Care Enough To Send Free Stuff 

Friday, July 26th, is System Administrator Appreciation Day. Show your sysadmin that you really care by getting them the gift that keeps on giving. Tell them about Mike's List (and you could win $10,000).

Department of Hubris

Creative Destruction, an online project designed to capture for posterity the Internet boom and bust cycle of 1996 to 2002 is currently soliciting input. Organizers are looking for failed business plans, startup sob stories and other anecdotal information for their historical archive so that, perhaps, future generations of MBAs won't go down the same self-destructive path. They hope to capture that special blend of arrogance, bad assumptions, wishful thinking and prevarication that characterized the rise -- and fall -- of Silicon Valley.

Shooting Tiny Nazis

Wolfenstein 5K is shoot-em-up game that's less than 5K in size. Like the original 1992 Wolfenstein 3D game from ID Software, Wolfenstein 5K puts you in a maze-like Nazi camp. Your job is to shoot your way out. The game is a marvel of tight code -- just a fraction of the size of the DOS original -- created as an entry in the 5K programming contest. 

Don't Try This At Home

A guy named Allen web-enabled an Etch-A-Sketch. Here's how. First, he attached stepper motors and connected them with pulleys to the Etch-A-Sketch knobs. Then he added controls to manipulate the motors using web commands. Oddly enough, it's easier to use an Etch-A-Sketch via the Internet than it is in real life. Give it a try! 

Shameless Pitch for Money

If you've got $20 burning a hole in your pocket, why not support ad-free content -- AND your favorite newsletter? Click here to make a generous contribution to Mike's List!

Found Video

What happens when you pop a water balloon in zero gravity? We turn to the experts at the Microgravity Science Division at NASA Glenn Research Center to find out. The organization develops microgravity experiments for astronauts on the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. Here's how to catch water in zero G after the balloon pops. Here's how NOT to do it.

PhotoShop Phonies

If you can imagine the ultimate car security technology, well, this would be it. (Here's the artist's web site.)

Shameless Self-Promotion

 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!

Gotta-Get-It Gadgets

Here's something that would have come in handy at those WorldCom shareholder's meetings. It's Handy Truster, a pocket lie detector. The portable gadget analyzes lie-induced stress in people's voices with 84 percent accuracy, according to the company. You can even connect it to a cell phone. They cost only $40 each. 

Remember when desktop PCs were big and laptops were small? Those days are gone, thanks to tiny PCs like the Cappuccino TX-3 Mini PC and giant notebooks like the Flip-Pad Voyager laptop. The latest Cappuccino TX-3 features a 1.2Ghz Pentium 3, with 512MB of RAM and a 30 Gig hard drive. It supports FireWire, 10/100 Ethernet and even has four USB ports, all in a 6" by 5.75" by 2.25" chassis. The Flip-Pad Voyager is a massive, 1.4 GHz laptop with two, side-by-side 13.3-inch, portrait-mode LCD screens. The coolest thing is that, when you're finished using it, you fold it in half, then you fold it in half again! 

Have you seen an amazing new toy? Let me know! 

Wacky Web Sites

I told you about the Ugly Animals web site in issue #37. Don't look now, but Stupid Animals have their own web site, too. 

 If you'd like to stick around, check out this off-the-wall web site. 

Learn the ancient Japanese art of Money Origami. 

This search engine web site, called Elgoog, is the opposite of Google. 

If you've always wanted to be a caricature artist, but just don't have any talent, the Caricature Zone web site can help. 

Now you can create your own Terror Warnings from the privacy of your own home. Fun for the whole family. 

Heck, even Goths need to go bowling once in a while...

If you're into leaning your toast -- and, after all, who isn't? -- you might want to join the Toast Leaner's Club.

Forget the whales. Save the Apostrophes!

 If you see a really crazy web site: Let me know! 

Last Week's Mystery Pic

No, it's not "Microsoft's top secret X-Ball project," "the new mirror ball to be featured in the remake of Saturday Night Fever," or even "R2D2's mother, Gloria." It's a NASA satellite called "Starshine." Congratulations to Les Alverson for being first with the right answer. 

Launched in September, 2001, the Starshine project involves several small, optically reflective spherical disco balls designed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and built by volunteers all over the U.S. and Canada. The purpose of the satellites, which were each covered with about 1,000 small mirrors, was to produce flashes of reflected sunlight that observers could see without a telescope in order to track the satellite's orbit and descent towards earth. Click here for more information, and here to watch a Starshine satellite being launched. 

 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]. If you're first with the right answer, I'll print your name in the next issue of Mike's List!