Mike's List
Wrestling Gator

THOSE OF YOU WHO TUNED IN to Computer America Thursday night know we talked about Gator, the Silicon Valley-based company that installs intrusive spamming spyware on your computer without your knowledge or permission.

Gator software tracks what you do on your computer and where you go on the web, displaying pop-up ads based on what kind of sites you go to. The pop-ups appear to come from the site you're looking at, when in fact they're generated by Gator, invisibly running in the background. You can't tell which ads are from Gator, and which are part of the site. 

The problem with Gator is that so far the company has gotten away with it, raking in big bucks from advertisers who pay a premium for spamming you even before you fire up your e-mail application. The company has been so successful, they've spawned imitators. So while spam is set to radically increase over the years, making e-mail less useful and enjoyable, Gator and copycat companies threaten to ruin the web as well. 

Fred Langa has written extensively in the LangaList on how to protect yourself, as have others. 

Now there's a new way to fight back: boycotting the companies that use Gator. 

Harvard Law Student Fellow Ben Edelman has developed a way to automatically determine which ads Gator associates with which web sites. He details his methodology and gives useful information about the whole Gator problem. 

Best of all, he lists the companies that use Gator!

Now we can really hit Gator where it hurts: Let's boycott the companies that use the Gator service and send a message to all of them that we're not going to tolerate the degradation of the web's usefulness or the hijacking of our PCs!

Unanticipated Convergence

Two new high-tech pet products -- testicle implants for neutered male dogs (for the dog's vanity, presumably) and embedded microprocessors for identifying a pet -- have come together in one bizarrely useful product: NeuticlesID. Ranging in cost from about $150 per pair for Chihuahuas to $200 for Mastiffs, NeuticlesID can save your pet. If Fido is lost, and if found by an organization that scans your dog's testicles with a proprietary ID wand, they'll be able to get your contact information so the dog can be returned to you. And, no, I'm not making this up!

The Lego People Must Be Stopped!

Tom Owad built an old Mac out of Legos. His "Compubrick SE" and the construction and features thereof are lovingly photographed on his web site.

Some Netflix Customers' Favorite Movie: 'Gone In 60 Seconds'

Netflix, the Silicon Valley-based DVD-by-mail service you first heard about on February 6, 2001, in Mike's List 11, is successful in part because DVDs, which are small and light, are easy to transport. When DVDs arrive in your mailbox, they're easy to spot with the bright-red Netflix color. Unfortunately for Netflix, DVD thieves find the DVD mailers easy to transport and easy to spot as well. Netflix DVDs go missing by the thousands. The company tried sending DVDs in white envelopes to New York customers in a January trial to make them less obvious, but went back to red after the trial. After a three-month investigation into missing DVDs, Netflix fired two employees in March from their Flushing, New York, distribution center. Last June, a Tampa, Florida, postal employee was sentenced to 18 months in prison and forced to pay $21,295 to Netflix for stolen DVDs. In the past month, Netflix initiated a new policy whereby any customer that loses more than one percent of the DVDs they rent gets an e-mail from the company that says: "We are having problems processing your account. Please call us at this number and we will resolve it with you." Previously, the accounts of questionable customers was simply put on hold until the customer did something about it. 

Found Video

Robot inventor David P. Anderson is taking robot locomotion technology one step closer to the ideal first popularized by Jetson's housekeeper, "Rosie," who, if you'll recall, balanced herself on a precariously narrow set of wheels. Anderson's self-balancing robot is amazing to watch. Here's a video. Here are some more. 

Mike's List is Gator-Free!

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Mike's List on the Radio

Craig Crossman's Computer America features Mike Elgan every Thursday night. The show runs from 7pm to 9pm SVT (Silicon Valley Time). Listen to Computer America on your local Business TalkRadio station or over the Internet every weeknight. Don't miss Computer America!

Cell Phone Follies

Konami Corp., which makes tiny, IR-controlled toy cars, and NEC have conspired to enable NEC mobile phones to control the cars. The "MCROiR" series were originally controlled only by the remote-control gadgets that come with the cars. Japanese users with the Mova N504iS or J-N51 cell phones can download the control software. The market for this software must be in the dozens.

Reader Web Site o' the Week

Mike's List reader and mod guru Gary Mullins runs the PimpRig.com web site, home of some of the most incredible case mods ever. See some crazy cases and learn how to do it yourself!

Get YOUR web site on the high-traffic Mike's List Reader Links page. HERE'S HOW! 

Gotta-Get-It Gadgets

It's a floor wax! It's a dessert topping! No, but it is a TV, MP3 player, MPEG 4 video player and digital camera! The MPM-101 from V@mp  does all these things in a tiny $375 package. The gadget supports SD storage and USB file transfer. It's available in Japan for now, possibly elsewhere later. I'll keep you posted. 

Eyetop is a tiny LCD monitor built into clear eyeglasses. Plug it into your PDA, laptop, camcorder or other gadget, and you see what looks like a large display floating in front of your face. Only you can see it. Others merely see a geek with weird glasses on. The $700 peripheral sports a .5-inch 16-bit display and requires no special software. 

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Wacky Web Sites

Graduate student Kate Bingaman describes and photographs everything she buys, and puts it all on display at her Obsessive Consumption  web site.

Ah, the genteel game of golf. The green grass, blue sky and rolling hills. Unless, of course, you're playing "urban golf," in which case you're looking at narrow alleys, gray streets and busy intersections. Read all about it on the Urban Golf web site. 

Celebrities say the darndest things. Sometimes with tape rolling. The Uncensored Celebrity Outtakes web site captures a few classics. 

The Oddies But Goodies web site lists dozens of weird cars that do strange tricks. Some are customized vehicles. Others are assembly line monstrosities that were actually once for sale. 

Speaking of odd cars, what could be odder than Crazy Jet-Powered Vehicles? 

GPS implants, flying pogo sticks and nuclear-powered laptops are nice, but have we forgotten the basics of human culture? Like how to start a fire with a lens made out of ice? The Primitive Ways web site serves as a repository for our erstwhile hunting and gathering lifestyles. 

Twisted Game

Whack A Mole

Reader Comment

Dear Mike,

Please pass my condolences on to Peter, of the " A Naughty Bunny" website. The almost exact same thing happened to me 12 years ago. Only difference , I bought the bunny! we had him for a few weeks, and had just bought a new 386 computer. After just 2 days it did not want to boot up. We located the damage. Quite similar to Peter's. Chewed up monitor cable, mouse cable in 7 pieces (a bunny favorite) printer cable partially chewed in several places. Solution: Bunny proofing. All cables were run through a pvc pipe. Bunny did not like that much. so he managed to hop UP to the desktop level and PEED on the keyboard! These are not Dumb bunnies! They may be the lowest animals on the food chain, but they are sworn enemies of computers everywhere!
Sincerely,

Doug Scott

_______

Mike, 

You said, in jest: Here's my question: "Why would anyone want to work at Microsoft?"

I worked there for 2 years, and left because of my wife's desire to leave the Seattle area. Other than that, I would have stayed for as long as they would have me.

Sure, I admire Oracle and Linux, and I work in PERL and Java, so its not like I'm part of the MS cult... but MS is full of the smartest people I have ever met (and as a PhD from UNC-Chapel Hill, I have met some smart folks). We had the freedom to fight for ideas and make them work, as opposed to picking the ones which were boring but had quick revenue. We could work on the future instead of being bound by it.

Sure there were problems, egos, failures, politics, and the rest, like at any company. But there was an essential spark there, one that I didn't see at IBM or at the startups, the spark which was half "we can make magic happen" and "we won't have to kill ourselves getting it done".

Those "questions" asked in interviews seem silly to some... but they sure are better than "where do you see yourselves 5 years from now" questions. And if you can answer a "silly" question, you wind up doing pretty well when the same question is rephrased. So, how many gas stations in the U.S. sounds silly... unless your job involves estimating market sizes. How much does the ice weigh in a rink is silly... unless your job will involve estimating impact of multiple variables into a summed whole, and estimating costs based on that.

It's funny... once you work there, you often wonder why anyone would want to work anywhere else? I can be the first to point out faults, but I don't think enough people give MS the credit it deserves for being a great place.

Thanks for a great newsletter!

Michael Wexler

_______

Mike, 

Yes, yes, yes!!! Finally someone gets it! I am a mom of 6 and not socializing with too many geeks � breeders and geeks don�t mix real well. Have seen first Matrix 7 or so times and explained to 3 of my sons who went to see it in theatre with me that the Matrix is about software. None of the reviews I have read re: Reloaded were on track, so I am having a little private geekasm here. It was so good for me. If I smoked I�d be having a cigarette right now. Thank you Mike, your list is a highlight of my week. 

Kathryn Booth

Mike, 

I saw Matrix Reloaded yesterday and it blew my mind. I have to say the Ducati motorcycle scene actually caused my heart rate to double, the camera work in this movie is unlike anything else. I dreamed about Zion being infiltrated by Agent Smiths (based on the very last scene) and Squiddies. (Premonition?) If you stayed through the 7 minute credits, then you will be blessed with a not quite long enough trailer of Revolutions. November 5 is so close, yet so far away.

Michael McAteer

Mike,

THANK YOU for saying you liked "The Matrix-Reloaded". I, too, saw the movie, and really enjoyed it. I could come up with lots of critiques and complaints, but I would rather just sit back and actually ENJOY the movie. The whole thing was just plain fun, with lots of twists that required my mind to stay attuned, so I could maybe understand everything that was going on. It was painful reading some of the negative reviews, they just picked apart what was a phenomenal amount of effort, talent, and special effects all wrapped into an intriguing story line. My faith in you was confirmed when I opened up your latest newsletter.

Joe Duhon

Mike, 

Interesting perspective on "The Matrix Reloaded," but I'm not sure why you think it's any more valid than the perspectives of those who think "they just saw a love story, religious movie, ethical film or action flick." 

The main reason I'm moved to respond to your comments is to say that I think you're being unfair in your assessment of Adam Gopnick's review of the movie. He's not saying the film isn't as deep as the first, he's saying it's tedious. (If there's any problem with his review, it's that it barely says anything else about the film at all.) I don't get the impression he regarded the original as particularly deep; he is explaining why he thinks it was so popular and seemed to resonate with so many people, and more or less dismisses the sequel because it lacks those particular elements.

I'm afraid I agree on the "tedious" score. "Reloaded" was about as exciting as watching someone else play a video game. The problem for me wasn't that it ignored "the plight of real humans," as you put it, but that it ignored the necessity of real characters. (Some snappier dialogue would've been nice, too.) My bet is that "Reloaded" will be a cinematic touchstone for one reason: years from now, when Hollywood and software designers have finally succeeded in overcoming the need for actual actors to appear in movies, "Reloaded" will be looked upon as one of the first attempts to point the way forward. Sure, unlike 2001's bomb, "Final Fantasy," "Reloaded" does use actual actors, but it so obscures them and anything they could bring to the film that it might as well not have. Many early talkies, viewed as little as 10 years later, were criticized for being so overwhelmed by and impressed with the new technology of sound that they ignored the role of visuals in creating drama; nevertheless, they're important in tracing the evolution of filmmaking. Like them, I think "Reloaded" will be regarded as being so overwhelmed by and impressed with computer-generated imagery that it ignored the role of life-like characterizations in creating drama. It's not that the characters in "Reloaded" are merely cardboard (lots of movies have that!), it's that they are self-consciously reduced to the level of video-game animations. It forgets that video games are only fun when you can play them -- by design, they're interactive in a way that movies aren't. As such, I agree with you that it is very much a film about software -- and, I would add, software's limitations. For my tastes, it does the best it can with what is today considered state-of-the-art, and demonstrates that that isn't yet good enough to remove the actors altogether. But I imagine that will be good enough in the not-too-distant future.

Michael

Mike,

I saw the The Matrix: Reloaded Wednesday night as well and really enjoyed it. I too checked out the message boards and was surprised by some reactions to the film. However, the most interesting thing I came across were people speculating on the next film and why certain things happened in this film. The spoon for example given to Neo was a hot topic of discussion. One person pointed out that Neo at the end performs a Matrix like action outside the Matrix when he stops the sentinels and they are suppose to be in the real world or are they.... Or is Zion a Matrix inside the matrix? I found all this speculation and thought added to my overall enjoyment of the series and I am looking forward to the next movie in November.

Doug Grammer

Mike, 

My friend/coworker and I saw the movie on the 15th. We were continually finding the references to network issues. Smith now appears to be a virus. The little oriental dude protecting Oracle (sorry, I mean the oracle) is a firewall, and the fact that different keys make the doors open to different places is no surprise. Every user has a different virtual root!

Jason Vanlandingham

Geek Trivia o' the Week

What is LifeLog?

Know the answer? Send it to [email protected] (be sure to say where you live). If you're first with the right answer, I'll print your name in the next issue of Mike's List!

LAST WEEK'S GEEK TRIVIA ANSWER: Last week I asked: "Who coined the term, 'nerd'?" The answer: The popular American children's author Doctor Seuss invented the word for his 1950 book, "If I Ran the Zoo." The line is: "And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo A Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!" Congratulations to William R. Barnette Jr. of Newberry, South Carolina, for being first with the right answer.

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