Slashdot Mirror

cloudwilliam asks: "The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article on how many schools have stopped teaching touch-typing as a necessary office skill and are now often saying that basic computer skills are more important. I'd agree with the latter, but what about typing? I learned to type on an IBM Selectric II (and still own one, as a matter of fact) in the mid-1980s, and the last time I was tested, touch-typed at around 60 wpm. Is this an obsolete skill? With handwriting and voice recognition technologies, is using a QWERTY keyboard with nine out of ten fingers something worth knowing anymore?"

cloudwilliam asks: "The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article on how many schools have stopped teaching touch-typing as a necessary office skill and are now often saying that basic computer skills are more important. I'd agree with the latter, but what about typing? I learned to type on an IBM Selectric II (and still own one, as a matter of fact) in the mid-1980s, and the last time I was tested, touch-typed at around 60 wpm. Is this an obsolete skill? With handwriting and voice recognition technologies, is using a QWERTY keyboard with nine out of ten fingers something worth knowing anymore?"

Anonymous Arrestee writes "Today the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that anybody can be compelled at any time to identify themselves, if a police officer asks. People who refuse to identify themselves, even if they are not suspected of a crime, will be arrested. Sound Orwellian? The Supreme Court also said people who are suspected of another crime might not be subject to arrest for not revealing their name. On this latter point, someone will have to bring a separate case. And the SCOTUS is at liberty not to hear any case it doesn't like. The case is Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada [pdf]. Previous Slashdot story here."

securitas writes "The Christian Science Monitor's Gregory M. Lamb wrote a story interesting to anyone who runs a website: How do you accurately and reliably measure the audience for your website? From the article: 'Most websites have no idea how many people view their content. This inherent fuzziness is causing problems for commercial websites, especially online publications desperate to make money from Internet advertising... How can you charge for ads when it's nearly impossible to tell advertisers how many people will see them?' The article discusses the flaws and problems with Nielsen/NetRatings and comScore Media Metrix - they grossly undersample workplace users - and the rise in the number of sites requiring user registration."

securitas writes "The Christian Science Monitor's Gregory M. Lamb wrote a story interesting to anyone who runs a website: How do you accurately and reliably measure the audience for your website? From the article: 'Most websites have no idea how many people view their content. This inherent fuzziness is causing problems for commercial websites, especially online publications desperate to make money from Internet advertising... How can you charge for ads when it's nearly impossible to tell advertisers how many people will see them?' The article discusses the flaws and problems with Nielsen/NetRatings and comScore Media Metrix - they grossly undersample workplace users - and the rise in the number of sites requiring user registration."

securitas writes "The CSM's Eric Evarts reports on how technology makes new cars too expensive to repair, which may lead to disposable cars. The increased use of expensive electronics, air bags and advanced, lightweight body materials are causing costs to rise. Add to it the cost of specialized training and equipment (for an aluminum-body repair shop: $200,000) or even the cost of new parts alone (xenon high-intensity-discharge headlights: $3,000 each), not to mention the knowledge base required (over 1 million pages, available only electronically vs. 100 pages 20 years ago) and a labor shortage. From the article: 'Specialist technicians need advanced reading, problem-solving, and basic electronics skills.... The best people to find are those who have worked in the IT [information technology] industry.'"

parvez1 submits this piece about a process that uses plants to soak up and accumulate contaminants - and gold - from near gold-mining sites. Then the plants are harvested for their metal content. The plants aren't bio-engineered - he's taking advantage of the natural tendency for certain plants to accumulate heavy metals.

il dus writes "The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which seeks to restrict adult content on the internet, will be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. This law has already been declared unconstitutional twice by federal appeals courts because it is, in their opinion, overly broad and restrictive of free speech on the Internet."

securitas writes "The CS Monitor's Andrew Downie reports that Brazil plans to open in May the world's largest digital movie theater network. About 100 theaters will use Sao Paulo-based Rain Networks' KinoCast digital theater DRM software. Rain based its system on Windows Media 9 software with MPEG-4 video compression. 'The MPEG-4 software can squeeze a feature film onto a file of just five gigabytes, 15 times smaller than the MPEG-2 technology presently used' at one-third the $150,000 cost. It takes 20 minutes to distribute a 90-minute film over a VPN and the system avoids the costs associated with transporting physical copies to areas largely inaccessible by road - it can cost up to $750,000 for 500 copies of a Matrix-type blockbuster to be distributed. Interestingly, in the affluent USA the fight between the 35,000 theater owners and Hollywood is about who will pay for cinemas to switch to digital projection. In December 2003 the Guardian published a story with more financial and technical details of the KinoCast digital cinema system."

securitas writes "The CS Monitor's Andrew Downie reports that Brazil plans to open in May the world's largest digital movie theater network. About 100 theaters will use Sao Paulo-based Rain Networks' KinoCast digital theater DRM software. Rain based its system on Windows Media 9 software with MPEG-4 video compression. 'The MPEG-4 software can squeeze a feature film onto a file of just five gigabytes, 15 times smaller than the MPEG-2 technology presently used' at one-third the $150,000 cost. It takes 20 minutes to distribute a 90-minute film over a VPN and the system avoids the costs associated with transporting physical copies to areas largely inaccessible by road - it can cost up to $750,000 for 500 copies of a Matrix-type blockbuster to be distributed. Interestingly, in the affluent USA the fight between the 35,000 theater owners and Hollywood is about who will pay for cinemas to switch to digital projection. In December 2003 the Guardian published a story with more financial and technical details of the KinoCast digital cinema system."

zymurgy_cat writes "An interesting piece in The Christian Science Monitor questions whether or not the 4 million plus cameras in Britain are effective in deterring crime. It touches upon the usual issues of privacy, who has access to the tapes, and so forth. Despite this, people still seem to prefer the cameras."

Norsemann writes "Peter Spotts of the Christian Science Monitor has some very interesting things to say about the latest wave of Linux adoptions throughout Asia and beyond. He hits on some important points about not only China's role in Open Source but the 'global' role in Open Source... Perhaps the best is still yet to come." The BBC also has a nice story about Brazil using Linux in cybercafes.

Makarand writes "According to this article in the SF Chronicle climatologists have a found a link between the warming environment and wine quality. They found that most vintages improved as vineyards' temperatures rose over the past 50 years with the quality improvement more pronounced in the cooler wine-producing regions." I wonder how wine fared during the "Little Ice Age."

oDDmON oUT writes "According to TBO/AP, $246 million is being sought from hardware manufacturer Sony, game publisher Take Two, and retailer Wal-Mart, by the families of victims killed by two teenagers supposedly inspired by Grand Theft Auto. The suit was initiated by Miami lawyer, Jack Thompson, and is not the first time that Thompson has attempted to sue game makers. His crusade to implicate video games in violent incidents has led to countless media appearances, but his 1997 efforts to implicate id and others in a $33 million dollar suit stemming from a school shooting ultimately failed, when the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case, writing that: 'We find that it is simply too far a leap from shooting characters on a video screen to shooting people in a classroom.'" This looks to be an extension of the lawsuit filed last month.

t482 writes "Dr. Michelle Thaller has a nice article describing the current thoughts on gravity. Why is it so weak? Detecting gravity waves has turned into a bit of a cottage industry. "We are close," says MIT physicist Rainer Weiss, a pioneer in gravity wave research for more than 30 years. "I think sometime in the next two or three years we will see something.""

capt.Hij writes "There is an interesting article at the Christian Science Monitor about how water skimmers are able to move the way they do. This new theory debunks the previously accepted theory and answers why smaller, younger water skimmers are also able to move the same way as their elders: 'As he looked into the question, he adds, he learned that the reigning explanation leaves an unsolved puzzle: If these tiny insects propel themselves in the way many researchers think they do, then baby water striders should go nowhere fast.'" There's also a BBC story with pictures.

capt.Hij writes "There is an interesting article at the Christian Science Monitor about how water skimmers are able to move the way they do. This new theory debunks the previously accepted theory and answers why smaller, younger water skimmers are also able to move the same way as their elders: 'As he looked into the question, he adds, he learned that the reigning explanation leaves an unsolved puzzle: If these tiny insects propel themselves in the way many researchers think they do, then baby water striders should go nowhere fast.'" There's also a BBC story with pictures.

securitas writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports on technological change in Estonia, where an enlightened post-Soviet era government believes the Internet is essential for life in the 21st century and backs that up with legislation declaring Internet access is a human right. Estonia is a country where hot, running water was a luxury a decade ago. It's now a place where farmers have broadband Internet, 80% of the people use online banking, Internet usage and broadband penetration rates are comparable to Western Europe, and the government conducts most business (meetings, votes, document reviews, etc.) virtually through a system of networked computers. Not bad for a country that only 10 years ago was a crumbling, bankrupt mess with a network infrastructure to match."

securitas writes "London-based military historian and commentator Gwynne Dyer writes about Asia's developing space race with plans from China and India to land people on the Moon, previously mentioned on Slashdot in China's case. In April India announced it will send an unmanned probe to the Moon by 2005 and a manned mission by 2015. Critics say it's a waste of time and money for India to pursue the goal. Meanwhile, Russian space experts are quietly helping China in what is seen as a growing alliance and a somewhat alarmist op-ed piece from the Washington Times worries about China's 21st century space dominance and monopolization of strategic resources like H3, used in nuclear fusion."

Robber Baron writes "I remember years ago watching a cartoon in which an inventor had managed to create 'portable holes.' Now along those lines, according to this story in the Christian Science Monitor, scientists are on the threshhold of developing the 'do-it-yourself black hole' (Well, no, it's not quite do-it yourself as you need a pretty large collider to pull it off.) They're hoping to use the new Large Hadron Collider at the European Center for Nuclear Research to create many tiny black holes and observe the Hawking Effect as they dissipate. Keep your shotgun handy though, as they are more than likely going to open up a portal into another dimension and all sorts of nasties are going to come pouring out."

Robber Baron writes "I remember years ago watching a cartoon in which an inventor had managed to create 'portable holes.' Now along those lines, according to this story in the Christian Science Monitor, scientists are on the threshhold of developing the 'do-it-yourself black hole' (Well, no, it's not quite do-it yourself as you need a pretty large collider to pull it off.) They're hoping to use the new Large Hadron Collider at the European Center for Nuclear Research to create many tiny black holes and observe the Hawking Effect as they dissipate. Keep your shotgun handy though, as they are more than likely going to open up a portal into another dimension and all sorts of nasties are going to come pouring out."

securitas writes "The NYT discusses The Matrix as a reflection of American society, the 'war on terror', political allegory and the impact of The Matrix on contemporary philosophy. NPR provides streaming audio conversations with Matrix thinkers, including Jake Horsley, author of 'Matrix Warrior: Being the One'; Prof. Frances Flannery Dailey on violence in the Matrix; and Prof. Greg Garrett, co-author of 'The Gospels Reloaded' and why he doesn't like the kind of hero that Neo has become. Finally, the CSM follows up its The Gospel According to Neo with an online chat transcript with Josh Burek, the author of the essay." As if that's not enough Matrix Philosophy, Here's more and Still more. And just a warning, clicking on any of those links might spoil the movie for you.

Xel writes "Josh Burek, writer for The Christian Science Monitor and A.K.A. the guy who sits 4 cubicles from me, has written an excellent essay on religion in The Matrix: The Gospel According to Neo. Sure, this topic has been covered ad nauseum, but it's refreshing to see such a thoughful examination aimed not at geeks alone but a broader, more traditional, and more traditionally religious audience. It also has a nice little glossary at the end where even pasty-faced and vinyl-clad Matrix worshippers may find some easter eggs they didnt know."

Xel writes "Josh Burek, writer for The Christian Science Monitor and A.K.A. the guy who sits 4 cubicles from me, has written an excellent essay on religion in The Matrix: The Gospel According to Neo. Sure, this topic has been covered ad nauseum, but it's refreshing to see such a thoughful examination aimed not at geeks alone but a broader, more traditional, and more traditionally religious audience. It also has a nice little glossary at the end where even pasty-faced and vinyl-clad Matrix worshippers may find some easter eggs they didnt know."

Shadow Wrought writes "We have all read the numerous RIAA articles on Slashdot, not to mention scores of other articles that discuss the industry's purported demise. An article at the Christian Science Monitor calls this assumption into question by pointing to the success that Indie Labels are beginning to enjoy. An interesting read and one that provides pretty good support against the RIAA's argument that a quartet of college students is responsible for their troubles."

Andrevan writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports that a group of US scientists has finished a journey to the southernmost point of Antarctica. The team traversed 775 miles. They hope to reveal information on global warming and precipitation trends that began at the end of the Ice Age. According to Dr. Paul Mayewski, the expedition's leader, analysis should be finished in the next year or two."

8BitWimp writes "Today's edition of the Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article discussing the current plight of the U.S. engineering profession. One 29-year-old engineer recently caught in Nortel Network's layoffs said "I spent seven years in school, and it resulted in a six-year career." The article goes on to say a California computer science professor has statistics to show that a programmer's career is not much longer than a pro-football player. What do other Slash-Dot readers think of this situation as related to their programming and engineering careers? Would you pursue the same career path again?"

Slashback tonight with several updates, ranging from patent encumbrances to SOAP 1.2 to the transcript for Eldred v. Ashcroft, with more bits in the middle on the recent Geek Cruise in the Caribbean, the all-important cable TV lineups, and more. Read on below for the details! A little light reading. hayek writes "The transcript of oral argument at the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft is now available online."

And then we saw the sharks. a9db0 writes "Part II of Doc Searl's travelogue recounting his experiences on the Geek Cruise has been posted here by the fine folks over at the Linux Journal"

In an earlier report from Geek Cruise, Linus predicted 2.6 by June 2003. If you liked the list of features being considered for 2.6, you can thank puriots0 for "the list of what's been included in time for the feature freeze for Linux 2.6", as found at kernelnewbies.org.

Peel back your eyelids and let these images flood your brain. strredwolf writes "I think we had half the story when Cartoon Network said they were going to remove Zoids and G Gundam in their Toonami block. It was more like remove Zoids, move G Gundam to Midnight Run with GI Joe, put HeMan and Transformers on full weekdays, and double up on DB and DBZ. The website and broadcast prove it now. (This report was done while watching to Toonami live.)"

And Stalke writes "Recently, rumours about Stargate SG1 7th season included it both being renewed as well as speculation that it might be cancelled. MGM and Scifi put those rumours to rest today by officially announcing a 7th season. It will begin filming next year with a full 22 episodes ordered. No word about Daniel Jackson returning though :("

Cracking down on alien fraudsters. yep writes "Administrators of the alien-hunting distributed computing experiment SETI@home have announced they will crack down on cheats who rort statistics on computing power lent to the project. The announcement follows a united protest from the chief contributors. SETI@home director David Anderson announced SETI@home would do its best to investigate users returning suspiciously high amounts of work and delete their accounts if it uncovered solid evidence of cheating."

Sure they're not. tiltowait writes "The Hartford Courant article "The FBI Has Bugged Our Public Libraries" has been retracted (this was mentioned here - but the older article has been removed). Even if the retraction can be trusted, this doesn't change the fact that the FBI can still bug libraries as freely as the CIA can assasinate with impunity, or that more McCarthyism is on the way."

This story retracts the claims of bugging made in the previous one. Since the FBI has little incentive to tell the truth on this count, I don't see what incentive anyone has to believe their denial.

Cleaning up the future for SOAP. Makarand writes "A major hurdle in finalizing the SOAP 1.2 specification has been removed. Both Epicentric, a subsidiary of Vignette, and WebMethods, which makes integration software, had said in earlier statements that they may have patents that cover the technology used in the SOAP 1.2 specification which would have made SOAP 1.2 non royalty-free hindering approval by W3C. Epicentric has now amended its earlier statement saying they no longer believe they hold any such patents, and even if they did, they are interested in making them available on a royalty-free basis. WebMethods has made no comments yet."

prostoalex writes "CSMonitor takes a look into wearable computing and digital fabrics. To quote the article, 'many anticipate [this sector] will become one of the next hot drivers of the American economy'." I find the Foster-Miller wearable cables an especially neat technology.

beaverfever writes: "The Christian Science Monitor ran this commentary by Tom Regan on how students in middle and high school are outpacing their teachers when it comes to understanding the potential of and using the internet for learning and doing research. The article addresses a study, The Digital Disconnect, recently released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Regarding the study, Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, is quoted: 'Educators have a choice: Either they need to adapt or they will be dragged into a new learning environment.' Both the study and article are about two weeks old, but an interesting read nonetheless."

prostoalex writes: "Christian Science Monitor warns about approaching era of digital prohibition. With FCC requiring the use of copy prevention mechanisms in future generations of television sets, soon 'Americans may not be able to copy a song off a CD, watch a recorded DVD at a friend's house, or store a copy of a television show for more than a day'. Of course, no article on this topic can go without a mandatory quote from Jack Valenti, who points out: 'It is not legal to make a copy of a DVD now. Everything people are doing legally today, they'll be able to do legally tomorrow'."

guttentag writes: "Christian Science Monitor Reporter Warren Richey suspects he may have stumbled onto a credit card fraud ring that uses Internet merchants to quietly funnel night-vision rifle scopes to Middle Eastern terrorists and privacy policies to cover their tracks. Even if these are isolated incidents, it's worth noting that the privacy rules intended to protect us can also work against us."

tacocat writes "An article in the The Christian Science Monitor talks about the changing use of the Internet. They cite a report from The Pew Internet and American Life Project that talks about people Getting Serious Online. The study is continuation of people they have been following already and found that people are using the Internet more often for serious matters and issue of utility, rather then just for fun."

John Holkeboer writes: "Is biotech all that bad? The scourge celebre of environmentalists is gaining supporters right and left for nothing less than its environmental soundness. Genetically engineered corn requires less pesticide spray and is a renewable resource that could replace petroleum. For example, Dupont is developing "Sonora"- a stretch resistant fiber that can compete with polyester but isn't 100% petroleum-based. As one industry chemist points out, "Clearly, for the chemical industry, sustainable development is the future."" The Village Voice also has a good biotech article this week, talking about the genetically engineered bollworms that we mentioned a few months ago.

capt.Hij submitted this interesting story about the growing amount of corporate-sponsored research at public universities. The Bayh-Dole Act (see here too), passed in 1980, allowed research performed with public money to be patented by private companies, so we're paying most of the bills, the companies are reaping all the profits and in the process, corrupting the research as well.

A reader writes: "According to Christian Science Monitor, tomorrow humans will begin their permanent lives off of earth. Starting with the Expedition 1 launch in Kazakhstan at 7:53 GMT, Oct. 31, NASA plans to always have a human on the ISS, which has a projected mission life of 10 to 25 years. So, it is quite possible, that for the rest of history, there will always be humans who are not living on earth. See this ISS Homepage for more information on the mission."

tuck was the first of many to submit this important milestone in arguably the world's most important scientific endeavor. The Human Genome Project has completed mapping its first entire chromosome, number 22. Second-smallest of our 23 chromosomes, some of 22's genes can cause "heart defects, immune system disorders, cancers, schizophrenia and mental retardation." Portion of its DNA which is "junk" (encodes no protein): 42%. Read it at your favorite source: CNN, MSNBC, the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor, the AP, or Reuters.

Ryan Finnin Day writes "A team from University of Arizona proposes an explanation for the arcs visible on the surface of Europa: a liquid sea with 98 foot tidal swells cracking the frozen surface. Also in the story, plans for a NASA probe in 2008 to use a laser altimeter to detect tidal swells. Read all about it."

Weblogs -- described by one of their creators as the "pirate radio stations" of the Web, are a new, personal, and determinedly non-hostile evolution of the electric community. They are also the freshest example of how people use the Net to make their own, radically different new media. A look at Weblogs plus a list of a few identifiable existing species in the electric community. Feel free, of course, to add your own.

Electric Community Part Two:

Here Comes the Weblog

The members of electronic communities like Slashdot come together in the first place because of some shared interest - in this case a complex, sometimes highly technical range of acquired knowledge - Linux, open source, programming. An individualistic community with a common purpose, sites like this attract focused, like-minded participants, programmers and developers whose shared experience was mastery of a complex operating system, a willingness to endure technical hurdles, and an almost secret common language.

Newcomers, drawn to see what's going on or foraging for information themselves, often enrage the established dwellers of an e-community. They don't know as much, ask stupid questions, speak a different language. Intruders, they throw the ecological balance out of whack.

Mark Stefik of the Information Sciences and Technology Laboratory at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, likens this resentment to the problem of assimilation when natural disasters or wars cause mass exodus to new lands. When the rate of immigration exceeds a certain level, the resulting chaos in the host country can evoke tremendous resentment and backlash.

Size is a factor, too. As an electric community grows, so do the maintenance costs - hardware, bandwidth, the pressure coherently present more and more information, the need for revenue to support all these functions. As more and more people move through the site, it's harder to recognize addresses, message styles, or individual personalities.

So an electronic community faces, from the beginning, a serious dilemma --- whether to stay small, but remain marginal, or to grow, and becoming more profitable and acquiring more bandwidth and software. In a sense, it suffers either way. If a community stays small, it starves. If it grows, it suffers in a different way. The WELL, one of the first and most important electronic communities (I've been a member for years) has survived by remaining small, smart and simple.

Many of its members have reasons for avoiding too much hostility. They have continuing, powerful, very personal ties to one another. Topics range from science and technology to culture, movies and parenting. And the WELL has been successful in part by providing strong, experienced moderators with authority who discourage eruptions of hostility and keep conversations on track without discouraging free speech.

E-communities without personal forums - jobs, parenting, family life - have a tougher time forming a sense of community, since there's no real way for members to get to know one another. People aren't attacking human beings they know, but disembodied voices and messages.

From the beginning, the Net and the Web have been about individuals creating their own media. This process evolves constantly as people online struggle to find communities where they can glean information, keep up with new technologies, receive help, make human contact.

Some online sociologists use the club analogy when it comes to differentiating large and public versus small and exclusive e-communities.

Exclusive discussion groups - those that limit membership and topics - are like private clubs in that they offer membership by invitation or even fees. In these smaller e-communities, people can speak more freely, perhaps say things they wouldn't say in public.

Stefik writes: "To take the private-club idea another step forward, consider the possibility of private clubs with exclusive memberships, rules about confidentiality with real bite, and limits on the ability of the excluded public to post'There might be private newsgroups for people who are generally inaccessible - for example, major financiers, philanthropists, leaders of powerful companies, or even scientists."

The recent surge in classy, well-designed, intensely-linked weblogs - almost all, essentially reflecting the interests and tastes of their creators and a small number of like-minded people -- suggests a non-commercial version on Stefik's idea.

The weblog isn't a new term on the Net, but it's being used in a new way. One previous definition of weblog is an archive of activity on a web server. Another is an online diary. But in the context of the e-community, the weblog is new, and evolving rapidly, despite the fact that specialized and idiosyncratic sites have been around for some years.

On Camworld.com, Cameron Barrett has written about and developing his notion of the weblog - he calls it a small, eclectic site, usually maintained by one person, with a high concentration of repeat visitors, plentiful WWW links, and a zero tolerance for flames.

Barrett, an interactive designer, writes on Camworld ("Anatomy Of A Weblog" ) that he heard the term "weblog" for the first time a few months ago, but isn't sure who coined it.

Weblogs are a perfect example of the biological evolution of electronic communities. Very personal foraging sites, they are limited in membership, their links continuously updated, and are often focused on a single subject or theme.

They seem to almost all be ideologically opposed to hostility, including essayish commentary and observations. Because the site creator limits and approves membership, they don't need to be defended as intensely as bigger sites, nor do they attract - or permit - posters who abuse others. One obvious payoff is that the flow of ideas is strong, uninterrupted and impressive.

Barrett calls weblogs "microportals. Some weblogs: Smug; Flutterby; Scripting News; ; Stating the Obvious -- I was startled to come upon a column by Rogers Cadenhead about why I don't belong on Slashdot (weblogs may be less hostile, but don't look for sweet, either); Obscure Store, and Joshua Eli Schachter's very smart memepool.

Some webpools are designed by their creators simply to revolve around what they find interesting. Writer Keith Dawson describes webpools as "filtered news," but as with anything having to do with the Net and the Web, there are lots of different points of view.

The Christian Science Monitor newspaper, e-mails Christine Booker, was "weblogging" their own publication earlier this week. That is, an editor provided synapses of articles of interest, with links and particularly notable quotes. The editor was providing pre-digested highlights of his paper, only without commentary. Thus "weblogging" has even come to journalism, not usually an institution on the forefront of digital change.

The point is, Booker wrote, instead of asking readers to scan headlines to decide what to read, they have a section at the top of their World report that says, in effect: our international editor puts foreign news coverage in perspective so that you can go straight to the meat. In a different way, that's what weblogs do - interesting stories for pre-selected communities.

Booker, who designs and manages websites for the University of Washington Department of Surgery, and is an avid reader of weblogs, says it's important to convey their personal nature. "Even sites that don't contain any original content or much commentary give me a glimpse into the mind of the weblogger. What someone chooses to link tells me what they're interested in, what they think is funny, what they find absurd. Some webloggers offer links embedded in one or two lines of more or less oblique commentar" (jjg.net) Booker says that as far as she can tell, many, if not most of these sites started very informally and then, one way or another, the URL got passed around soon these "hobby sites" developted devoted audiences, readers who visit them at least daily, sometimes more.

Jesse James Garrett, content editor for Ingram Micro's Web site and editor of the weblog jjg.net says that "weblogs are the pirate radio stations of the Web, personal platforms through which individuals broadcast their perspectives on current events, the media, our culture, and basically anything else that strikes their fancy from the vast sea of raw material available out there on the Web. Some are more topic-focused than others, but all are really built around someone's personal interests. Neither a faceless news-gathering organization nor an impersonal clipping service, a quality weblog is distinguished by the voice of its editor, and that editor's connection with his or her audience."

One of the best weblogs I found was Peter Merholz's peterme.com. "How freakin? cool is this?" he asks in the lead item for May 12, writing about tracking satellites live and real-time using a 3D Java applet. The site mixes the best of web design and technology - interface, design, web development - with pop culture: movie reviews, an essay on the late cartoonist Shel Silverstein.

Merholz has decided, "for what it's worth," to pronounce "weblog" as "we? - blog."

While weblogs don't have the reach and influence - thus, the commercial potential -- of larger, more inter-active and open sites, it's easy to imagine them as powerful supplements to the major foraging sites. And, depending on their members, could be influential at sharing memes, essays and ideas.

Cameron Barrett's thoughts on weblogs can be found here, along with his list of favorites. Keith Dawson, who runs the Tasty Bits of Technology Front site - in some ways a pioneer, classic weblog, also has written about weblogs at here.

To me, weblogs may embody personalized media on the Net - enterprising geeks creating interesting new sites that set out to define news in different ways, to be both interesting, coherent, and more civil. This is the complete opposite structure of conventional media, which is top-down, boring and inherently arrogant.

They may be among the first e-communities to successfully overcome online hostility and abuse as well. That alone could make them highly popular.

Weblogs, however personal, are foraging sites in the classic sense of the term.

But Weblogs aside, the idea of electronic communities as encompassing distinct biological types is irresistible. And it makes sense. I'd identify these species of electric villagers. Add your own:

FORAGERS ( Stefik would call them Wolves): the people running sites or submitting and linking to discovered information.

LURKERS (Stefik's Spiders): The largest group, professionals, academics, researchers and others whose needs for information is practical, and who wait for it, usually in silence.

FISHERMEN: People who trawl selected sub-topics or discussions for specific data, such as information about a kind of information or software.

HELPERS: Electronic communities often have a compliment of knowledgeable veterans who welcome newcomers, and are happy to counsel them in the ways of the site. The helpers don't see newcomers as a threat, but an opportunity for the village to grow and prosper.

IDEOLOGISTS (as in priests and theologists): Vigilant for deviations from what they perceive as the site's purpose, they disagree and criticize, sometimes sharply, but rarely with venom or cruelty.

DEFENDERS (as in warrior bees or ants): Ideologically- driven flamers who seek to keep their communities pure, free from intrusive outsiders, whom they see as threatening and de-stabilizing.

ANONYMOUS COWARDS (Spies, informers, information bringers and Braying Hyenas): Two types, people with legitimate information that they can't share under their own names, and exhibitionists who get to express hostility without consequence. The single biggest cause of the destruction of communities, they are the most frequently cited reason newcomers flee, veterans tire and advertisers move on to more hospitable environments.

TECHS (worker bees and ants): The people in any community for whom the construction of the site is its own reward. They are constantly working to offer options and services, improve software and access.

Some questions: What does an electric community need to work? Are there other identifiable types of e-community members? Are new kinds of sites like weblogs the future, or a minor step on the evolutionary chain?