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Virginia Tech has done this quite a while ago (1997) only with a cockroach instead. http://quixote.ece.vt.edu/ ece news/aug97/roachcar.html

Boucher does represent Virginia's "Silicon Valley", but it's Southwestern Virginia, not Northern Virginia ("Virginia's Technology Corridor", so say the interstate signs :) ).

He's the congressional representative for the ninth district of Virginia, which happens to include Blacksburg, VA, home of Virginia Tech, and an awful lot of innovation. Blacksburg is also the home of The Blacksburg Electronic Village, which was a fairly early (circa 1993) project to bring widespread access to the community (ethernet in apartments, etc.). Finally, Blacksburg is home to Cliff.

Interestingly, Blacksburg is also home to BizNet Technologies, Inc., who built BOES (Borderless Order Entry System) for DE Technologies, whom you may remember from this slashdot article on an egregious patent for international commerce. So this latest legislation is definitely a feather in his cap, and an indicator of his continued integrity. It's nice to see that he regards the people as his constituency, not the businesses.

Boucher seems quite friendly to the consumers' side of technology, and, as congressional representatives go, he's been a pretty good one (I'll vote for him again, when given the chance). His record of late shows a committment to undoing some of the boneheadedness that seems to be inherent in the system. He was instrumental in the reactive legislation to undo the "work for hire" clause the RIAA's PAC slipped into the satellite act. He's working with Carl Malamud on the open source tax credit proposal. To use the vernacular, he rocks.

I think what you were talking about is discussed here. What it points to is that the keys were that close together that when they were pressed in succession at normal speed the arms would get jammed, so the new layout was devised not to separate them, but to make the time needed to move between them longer by making the distance between them longer, so that the keys wouldn't be pressed in such quick succession, thus slowing the typist down in fact.

So, although you were right, QWERTY was indeed intended to slow typing down so that the arms didn't jam. A little demonstration of the rearranged keyboard is the Dvorak keyboard.

I know how easy it is to get used to different keyboard layouts having used QWERTY (of course), AZERTY (French), and am currently typing on a QWERTZ (German).

Since the first computer was the Jacquard Loom, wouldn't the first OS be the programmer creating the instruction cards?

Ultimately, this is a controversial topic. Perhaps the strongest contender would be Konrad Zuse , who developed a programmable computer in the 1940s. Interesting first person notes from an inventor in Nazi germany.

In the ACM archives , there is a paper on "Monitors, an operating system structuring concept" by C.A.R Hoare. Since this is from 1974, I guess it's not too old, but still an interesting paper.

Many have been posting about OS/360 (or 390) but while MVS was a major step in OS history, it wasn't the first. It was released in 1964, too late for the first OS.

Also interesting is a time article on the first computer

All the old stuff is fun to read.

w/m

Since nobody seems to understand what I mean about digital signatures, please read about them here or read this excerpt:

Steve
--
Stephen Forrest
4N PM/CS, University of Waterloo

Indeed. Here's a link to an online version
---

You might want to drop Dr. Lee an email, I'm sure he would love to answer your questions.

Although there are no known studies relating to college students and their work hours, it seems they are also bound to their desks and dorms by environments in which faculty, friends and other members of the college community increasingly do their work online. Studies of time spent on instant messaging services would probably show staggering use. And research possibilities online are boundless.

Man, is that ever true. I'm a computer science student at Virginia Tech, which requires each student to have a computer. Every one of our CS assignments are posted (along with sample data files) on the course's web site and we even submit our programs to an automatic grader over the Internet. Even non-CS courses post MP3s of lectures or homework assignments, supplemental material, recommended readings, contact information, research support, and all that good stuff. Not only does almost every course (except maybe english courses) have a separate web page, but most of the CS courses I've seen let students join up on a massive listserv for discussion of problems and announcements of dates by professors. Some courses are even taught entirely online; the requirement being a quick-test every week or so (self-paced learning at its finest).

Tech's web page (http://www.vt.edu) not only allows prospective students to preview the university (and move around real-time in a sample dorm room) but also lets students check grades, room assignments, get news, check on event information, and register for classes each semester. It's insane how web-centric Tech is, and I'm sure other universities out there are just as dependent on the Internet as we are.

And Katz also makes a good point about instant-messaging services: AIM is a huge time-waster, and you don't feel like that much of a dork because you can IM buddies across campus, so it's not like you have an online-only relationship with these people. And as for the research part, that is also true: last semester I penned (or typed) an 11-page formal research paper on how the use of computers in schools like mine is affecting classroom cheating, and I didn't use a single tangible source - the bibliography was entirely from the Internet (and I got a B, too).

Don't catch me complaining though - I love the adoption and total acceptance of technology by major universities.
-ryry

That's MS's ace in the hole. No matter how bad it is (at least once it passes the only-crashes-once-an-hour-or-so baseline), they'll be able to browbeat/bribe universities into teaching C#.

MS has "nonrestrictive" contracts with all kinds of university CS departments (including my own at Virginia Tech) to use their software in teaching. At VT, it's "encouraged" in 1000-level CS classes to use Visual C++; it's really dependent on the professor as to how much of a fight you have to put up to use Linux/UNIX-based utils. As you proceed up the levels of classes, the MS evangelism isn't quite as obvious (i.e. teaching the VC++ IDE in class, as is done in the first-semester freshman Programming in C course), but it's still there.

If MS puts it out there, some university CS departments will get a few hundred G's tossed at them, and then C# will become a teaching language there. Enough of these, and enough researchers at such universities detailed onto C#-centric research, and C# will become mainstream, cross-platform utility or no, proprietary or no.

• First, here are lecture notes from a college course on operating system design.
• Second, some more meterial from another university (it's not clear to me that this is from a course).
• Third, a terse document detailing broad set of features common to operating systems of different periods (also part of an operating sytems course).
• Fourth, another page, which seems to be part of college course, with a section on the history of operating systems.
• Fifth, a web-slideshow on the topic.
• And Finally, a smattering of other links to the same topic by even more authors: another lecture from a college course, chapter 3, section 1 from the book Introductory Information Protection by Fred Cohen & Associates, Operating Systems - Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, and Evolution of Operating Systems User Interface Design

• Ziggy8675309asks: Has Metallica ever used or seen the Napster program?
  . . .
  metallica_lars_live: I've never been on any of these internet sites.

So I'll ask the question again: Have you ever used Napster? Have you actually tried to get an understanding for yourself as to how the program works? You're a musician, not a computer geek, I understand that. When someone tells you about something that is going on in a field outside your own--especially if this someone is a lawyer or trusted advisor--you're going to trust them on it because you don't know about the subject yourself. But I urge you to anyway familiarize yourself with it.

Second question: Have your record sales been hurt as a result of Napster? Has there been any noticable either up or down?

If you answer no, then please stop to think about what you're gaining by suing Napster. Yes, you are in the legal right to do so, but are you really gaining anything? I am a long time fan of Metallica's music. I had not planned on buying Garage Inc. when it came out; I thought I wasn't interested in just covers. But when I heard an illegaly obtained mp3 of Turn The Page, I decided 40 seconds into the song that I was buying the album. I do not believe Napster poses a threat to your livliehood.

Third, from the Garage Inc. booklet:

• But he [James] was astounded by the size and specialist depth of Ulrich's collection. It was, Hetfield says plainly, "fucking huge. . . . I would stay over at his place for days at a time, making tapes of his records and sleeping on the carpet."

Lastly, I'd just like to say that I find it unfortunate that what is likely to be the only chance to communicate with one of my favorite bands is under such circumstances. I've been a fan of your music for nearly a decade now. I understand your fears regarding Napster, and I agree with some of your points, but overall, I think you are making a mistake.

Scott Schneider
scschnei@vt.edu

Mi nistry of Truth</A> is a pretty nifty mysql/php3 web solution.

I originally tried to put this in my own words, but I just couldn't do it any better than Jakob Nielson, so here's his take on this issue (his emphasis):

"The "paradox of the active user" is a concept introduced by John M. Carroll and Mary Beth Rosson (then at IBM, now at Virginia Tech) to explain a common observation in several user studies done at the IBM User Interface Institute in the early 1980s (later confirmed by many other studies, including my own): Users never read manuals but start using the software immediately. They are motivated to get started and to get their immediate task done: they don't care about the system as such and don't want to spend time up front on getting established, set up, or going through learning packages.

The "paradox of the active user" [PDF,66k] is a paradox because users would save time in the long term by taking some initial time to optimize the system and learn more about it. But that's not how people behave in the real world, so we cannot allow engineers to build products for an idealized rational user when real humans are irrational: we must design for the way users actually behave."

Source: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ activeuserparadox.html

The paper is old, but still very relevant. It was written before Gooey Tarbabies achieved World Domination. I was really surprised to discover that many of my current user interface issues have actually been thoroughly documented and processes for (potentially) surmounting them outlined.

Why is it that since we've known about this for so long, so little apparent progress has been made?
My short 2bit answer is the evil upgrade treadmill - everybody is so busy preparing for and researching the Next Big Thing, they don't have time to refine and polish the tools already under our noses.

Besides wearing glasses as someone mentioned, you use a "wand" or 3D mouse to control things. When I was working on my master's degree at Tech, I did a project with the CAVE for a class called Computer Supported Cooperative Work. We did some of the first investigations into hooking up multiple CAVEs so that people could collaborate with each other, seeing each other as an avatar in the CAVE. Unfortuntely, the link to the paper is broken, but here is some info on other projects that grew out of that class project.

My school has one of these....tried it last fall...

Check it out here

Very cool, seems to be the same thing the army is, quote 'developing'....and I know that this has been around for quite some time.

They actually ported Quake and Quake2 to these things, it's actually quite fun...unfortunately financial restraints keep us from doing too much deathmatching....something on the order of $10million a piece.......

But it does definitely feel -almost- real. It's pretty cool to have things come up at you in life size from all sides....hopefully the technology will get a good push and go down in price, I want one in my room .

Julius X

A wrinkle in time. by Madeleine L'Engle
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - (Note: get a copy of The AQnnotated Alice by Martin Gardner
The hobbit. by J.R.R. Tolkien
Anything by Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, Alan Dean Foster, or Piers Anthony
Darkover (any of the books) by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow by Orsen Scott Card
The Narnia series by C.S. Lewis.

A decent collection of Science fiction, mostly suitable for children

Also, Please attend the Worldcon, this year it's in Chicago followed by Philadelphia, PA, then San José. We have a lot of things for you and your children.

of course, our little one is only 6 months old. Mostly he's an excuse to reread Harold and the Purple Crayon

I aplogogise for any redundancies. This list took awhile to compile and find the links, especially as the co-author was breastfeeding at the time...

-----

An endothermic reaction can certainly occur without external energy input--those instant cold packs you sometimes find in first aid kits are a good example. They use a chemical (often ammonium nitrate) that adsorbs heat as it dissolves in water.

The catch is that the reaction is driven by an increase in randomness--so you might be able to take apart the patient, but not put him back together :). For more info, try this page on Gibbs Free Energy that describes the relationship between enthalpy and entropy.

For a couple of pages I worked up using Chime, see

The atomic orbitals page
Repr esentative proteins

To the poster who lamented that Chime isn't available for Linux. Nope, but the Rasmol source code is available- start porting. Chime is one of the major reasons I use NT on my workstation rather than Linux. (I'm not a good enough C programmer to do it, or I'd consider it.)

Eric

For a couple of pages I worked up using Chime, see

The atomic orbitals page
Repr esentative proteins

To the poster who lamented that Chime isn't available for Linux. Nope, but the Rasmol source code is available- start porting. Chime is one of the major reasons I use NT on my workstation rather than Linux. (I'm not a good enough C programmer to do it, or I'd consider it.)

Eric

There were, however, some problems. First, the dinosaurs didn't die off in a few years; they became extinct over a period of millions of years. Second, there was never any palaeoecological evidence of such a "winter" found. Thus, although there definitely was a large impact around the time of the dinosaur extinction, the hypothesis that it's dust caused the extinction could not realistically have been true. Moreover, there's an alternative hypothesis: massive extended flood-basalt volcanism from the Deccan Traps, in India.

Alvarez, however, was a Nobel prize winner. He used the power that gave him to discredit anyone who questioned him. He launched major attacks in the media. And he pressured the chairpeople of academic departments to fire departmental researchers who tried to show the flaws in the hypothesis. Some careers were severely damaged. Read all about it, and the science, here.

The impact crater was eventually found, in Yucatan, Mexico. Research has shown, however, that the amount of dust injected into the atmosphere, by the impact, was far too small to have forced cosmic winter. With Alavarez dead, there is now at least some reasoned debate. Recent work by Sharpton at the U of Alaska speculates that the impact might have vaporized enough rock to make the atmosphere very acidic--and that this might have led to long-term ecological changes that forced dinosaur extinction. (This research was presented at last month's meeting of the American Geophysical Union; abstracts available online via http://www.agu.org/meetings/waisfm00.html.)

Maybe, in the end, it will turn out that Alvarez was right. Or maybe not. For the integrity of the scientific process, though, it makes no difference. A powerful scientist used his political power to squash any scientific debate.

__________________________________
"... the microkernel approach was essentially a dishonest approach aimed at receiving more dollars for research. I don't necessarily think these researchers were knowingly dishonest. Perhaps they were simply stupid. Or deluded." --Linus Torvalds on kernel research by Computer Scientists (in Open Sources)

why don't you try reading the book (online version). if you are interested in what he is talking about.
---

Communism doesn't kill people. People kill people. Humans have an innate tendency to obey and to act in groups, even if it violates their individual moral limits. If you want to read some objectively verified TRUTH, try Milgram's electric shock experiment. In this experiment, the vast majority of normal individuals administered what they thought was a lethal electric shock (it wasn't) as punishment for incorrect answers in a psychological test.

All you need is a perverse leader like Hitler or Stalin and an authoritarian society and lots of people die, the ideology doesn't matter much. A libertarian government is by definition not authoritarian, but I don't see how this could be persistant given the human tendency to follow blindly.
--

I apologize for the brevity of the following; I'd like to explain these points, but I'm just too tired to do so.

The mood controller will not work. Not for another few decades at least. Why you ask?

This is an excellent paper about the current state of affective neuroscience. Read it and ponder the implications. If that doesn't bore you to death, try Panksepp "Affective Neuroscience", which is even better.

Briefly, the problems are as follows.

(1) We've only this known this system exists for a few years, and still do not know its boundaries.

(2) Beyond some minimal lesion studies and some neuropharmacology, we have no idea of the functional make up the said system.

(3) The system is among the oldest in the brain, possibly the oldest, if you include some of it's more primitive components. (The PAG actually rides on the top of the brain-stem, for example.)

(4) It is also, however, the single largest system in the brain, encompassing most of the limbic system, and the right frontal and temporal lobes.

(5) The primitive subsystems (again, such as the PAG) are absolutely vital for continued existence, both mentally and biologically, and are also extremely sensitive to disturbances. They do not take well to probing. Lesions tend to have nasty repercussions, such as permanent stupor.

(6) Presumably the simpler subsystems are easier to manipulate. Unfortunately, they do not directly implement the emotions people wish to alter, e.g. depression, various antisocial behaviors. (Schizophrenia is a frontal lobe problem, and apparently architectural; it'll have to wait for nanotech, at least.) Those are built on stack upon stack of higher systems, several hundred million years worth, at least.

(7) It is largely a chemical system. Silicon chips are not at their best in chemistry. As an added bonus, the neurotransmitters involves must be used for proper function; you can't sidestep the problem with direct electrical stimulation, as in the cortex, because of the interaction between subsystems.

(8) All of that aside, neurosurgery is only slightly more scientific and reliably than alchemy. No one has ever tried anything this complicated (the implants to control seizures and the cat thing don't even come close), and no one in their right mind should expect it to work the first time.

Off to bed now.

I'm working on a paper (which I eventually hope to be able to turn in for some class) dealing with parallels between the Information and Industrial revolutions. One of the major parts is about safety; at this time a century ago, the working conditions of most factories were terribly unsafe; think the Triangle Shirtcoat factory fire (lots of extremely flammable lint lying around; many young women died because of inadequate fire escapes so they jumped from the top stories of the burning building). It took some major (and much publicized) disasters for people to begin calling for safer working conditions en masse. I have the suspicion that it will take a similar mass failure in the electronic realm for a similar push for more bug-free software -- I don't claim to know what the failure will be, I'm just willing to bet that it will be a significant catastrophe. We've already had several minor accidents, like the Mars Orbiter or THERAC-25, but it's going to take something severe that affects many people, like a massive communications infrastructure failure. Though I don't think we have a lot to hope for right now, I have the feeling that eventually, peer-review of a program's source code (under any license, just as long as it's checked) will become basically mandatory, either by the laws of free-market economics or by (yuck) government mandate. The Free Software/Open Source communities already have the structures in place, putting us ahead in the game.

I was in one of these immersive environments about a year and a half ago, and they are extremely cool. It is hosted at Virginia Tech (Balcksburg, Va.) and they have public open houses if you are nearby. My program (Architecture) was experimenting with Virtual Environments, and I am sorry to say I graduated before I got to see the facility come completly online. It is a shared facility, so multiple programs can schedule to use it. If you ever get a chance, check them out. Too bad they are way out of budget for most buisnesses that could use them. Here is a URL if you feel like checking out a real world application of these systems at Tech,VELab and one for the CAVE.

I was in one of these immersive environments about a year and a half ago, and they are extremely cool. It is hosted at Virginia Tech (Balcksburg, Va.) and they have public open houses if you are nearby. My program (Architecture) was experimenting with Virtual Environments, and I am sorry to say I graduated before I got to see the facility come completly online. It is a shared facility, so multiple programs can schedule to use it. If you ever get a chance, check them out. Too bad they are way out of budget for most buisnesses that could use them. Here is a URL if you feel like checking out a real world application of these systems at Tech,VELab and one for the CAVE.

Regarding fMRI's: I've read a bit about this in relation to studying the 'limbic system' (Here somewhere, I believe; interesting papers, even if it isn't).

All functional mapping tends to paint a biased picture of the brain. In particular, the cortex tends to be over-represented, compared to the limbic system. Unfortunately, I don't think this can be avoided at present.

Carrying that further, I'm not terribly confident about how usefull non-invasive techniques can be: in particlar, it is currently rather difficult to study neurochemistry without taking apart brains, which tends to result in death, and even then you cannot extract much detailed information. I'm not sure I'd consider 'functional mapping' to be accurately mapping any functions, esp. sub-cortical functions, while it's based entirely on neural firing patterns.

You might notice I am the one who submitted this story. I am also an employee of IBM's Networking Hardware Division, and I think I can shed some light on this "partnership."

Let me be blunt. My division has been dying a slow death for several years now, and this is the last nail in the coffin. Up until this agreement, we produced hubs, routers, and switches, which is now (almost) entirely sold to Cicso. Our division of 2000+ people are now all spending the next two weeks cleaning up our resumes.

Cicso made out like champs on this one. They have no obligation to support our old boxes, which has been kept squarely on IBM (at great support cost as well). Cisco has acquired every design aspect of our data networking products, right down to the source code.

IBM Global services, however, will sell Cicso stuff, and Cicso will make huge inroads into the Mainframe and Channel Attached markets (i.e. ESCON and parallel channel) which were previously dominated by us (for whatever that was worth).

Don't be fooled by the large $2 billion number -- they would have spent that much anyway on our chips. $2 billion over 5 years comes out to $400 million per year, which is not much for someone with volumes like Cicso. They have already been making deals with IBM Microelectronics before this was announced.

Token Ring and SNA, however, will remain the IP of IBM. There will be a small group of people left here to maintain development on these fronts, but don't expect any significant new designs on this front. Which is fine with Cicso, because these technologies aren't really going anywhere anyway.

Ironic, really, because at one point in our division's history we had the perfect opportunity to buy Cisco, lock, stock, and barrel. Needless to say we have been kicking ourselves daily for that screw up.

And on a lighter note, if anyone reading this is interested in hiring a hardware systems/low level code design engineer, mail me here :).

The germans were a little bit faster. The Z2, built by Konrad Zuse was fully functional in 1940/41.

http://waste.informatik.hu-ber lin.de/WW2/zuse_e.html

http://www.zib.de/prospekt/zuse/index .en.html

http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Zuse.html

I'd hate to disagree, but code can kill people. Actually, code *has* killed people. Fortunately (I guess), it was not the code's intent to kill. Ironically enough, the code was designed to control a system to help people. It's a classic case study that most CS students have (or should have) read at one time or another. It's a bit of a read though, if you're short on time, I suggest you skip to part 2, search for East Texas Cancer Center, April 1986, and read a couple of paragraphs.

I couldn't find the report on IEEE Computer itself, so here are some links from a class homepage with a reprint.

Therac-25 Investigation Part 1
Therac-25 Investigation Part 2
Therac-25 Investigation Part 3
Therac-25 Investigation Part 4
Therac-25 Investigation Part 5

I'd hate to disagree, but code can kill people. Actually, code *has* killed people. Fortunately (I guess), it was not the code's intent to kill. Ironically enough, the code was designed to control a system to help people. It's a classic case study that most CS students have (or should have) read at one time or another. It's a bit of a read though, if you're short on time, I suggest you skip to part 2, search for East Texas Cancer Center, April 1986, and read a couple of paragraphs.

I couldn't find the report on IEEE Computer itself, so here are some links from a class homepage with a reprint.

Therac-25 Investigation Part 1
Therac-25 Investigation Part 2
Therac-25 Investigation Part 3
Therac-25 Investigation Part 4
Therac-25 Investigation Part 5

I'd hate to disagree, but code can kill people. Actually, code *has* killed people. Fortunately (I guess), it was not the code's intent to kill. Ironically enough, the code was designed to control a system to help people. It's a classic case study that most CS students have (or should have) read at one time or another. It's a bit of a read though, if you're short on time, I suggest you skip to part 2, search for East Texas Cancer Center, April 1986, and read a couple of paragraphs.

I couldn't find the report on IEEE Computer itself, so here are some links from a class homepage with a reprint.

Therac-25 Investigation Part 1
Therac-25 Investigation Part 2
Therac-25 Investigation Part 3
Therac-25 Investigation Part 4
Therac-25 Investigation Part 5

I'd hate to disagree, but code can kill people. Actually, code *has* killed people. Fortunately (I guess), it was not the code's intent to kill. Ironically enough, the code was designed to control a system to help people. It's a classic case study that most CS students have (or should have) read at one time or another. It's a bit of a read though, if you're short on time, I suggest you skip to part 2, search for East Texas Cancer Center, April 1986, and read a couple of paragraphs.

I couldn't find the report on IEEE Computer itself, so here are some links from a class homepage with a reprint.

Therac-25 Investigation Part 1
Therac-25 Investigation Part 2
Therac-25 Investigation Part 3
Therac-25 Investigation Part 4
Therac-25 Investigation Part 5

I'd hate to disagree, but code can kill people. Actually, code *has* killed people. Fortunately (I guess), it was not the code's intent to kill. Ironically enough, the code was designed to control a system to help people. It's a classic case study that most CS students have (or should have) read at one time or another. It's a bit of a read though, if you're short on time, I suggest you skip to part 2, search for East Texas Cancer Center, April 1986, and read a couple of paragraphs.

I couldn't find the report on IEEE Computer itself, so here are some links from a class homepage with a reprint.

Therac-25 Investigation Part 1
Therac-25 Investigation Part 2
Therac-25 Investigation Part 3
Therac-25 Investigation Part 4
Therac-25 Investigation Part 5

___________________________________
Forwarded Message
Subj.: Virus Warning!
From: HOONOZE
To: All@msn.com
To: Jake5551212@aol.com
To: President@whitehouse.gov
To: Pope@vatican.va
To: 007@MI5.com
To: Flounder@fish.net
To: Etal@etc.com

************************************************** ****************
WARNING, CAUTION, DANGER, AND BEWARE!
Gullibility Virus Spreading over the Internet!
************************************************** ****************

WASHINGTON, D.C.--The Institute for the Investigation of Irregular Internet Phenomena announced today that many Internet users are becoming infected by a new virus that causes them to believe without question every groundless story, legend, and dire warning that shows up in their inbox or on their browser. The Gullibility Virus, as it is called, apparently makes people believe and forward copies of silly hoaxes relating to cookie recipes, email viruses, taxes on modems, and get-rich-quick schemes.

"These are not just readers of tabloids or people who buy lottery tickets based on fortune cookie numbers," a spokesman said. "Most are otherwise normal people, who would laugh at the same stories if told to them by a stranger on a street corner." However, once these same people become infected with the Gullibility Virus, they believe anything they read on the Internet.

"My immunity to tall tales and bizarre claims is all gone," reported one weeping victim. "I believe every warning message and sick child story my friends forward to me, even though most of the messages are anonymous."

Another victim, now in remission, added, "When I first heard about Good Times, I just accepted it without question. After all, there were dozens of other recipients on the mail header, so I thought the virus must be true." It was a long time, the victim said, before she could stand up at a Hoaxees Anonymous meeting and state, "My name is Jane, and I've been hoaxed." Now, however, she is spreading the word. "Challenge and check whatever you read," she says.

Internet users are urged to examine themselves for symptoms of the virus, which include the following:

• the willingness to believe improbable stories without thinking
• the urge to forward multiple copies of such stories to others
• a lack of desire to take three minutes to check to see if a story is true

T. C. is an example of someone recently infected. He told one reporter, "I read on the Net that the major ingredient in almost all shampoos makes your hair fall out, so I've stopped using shampoo." When told about the Gullibility Virus, T. C. said he would stop reading email, so that he would not become infected.

Anyone with symptoms like these is urged to seek help immediately. Experts recommend that at the first feelings of gullibility, Internet users rush to their favorite search engine and look up the item tempting them to thoughtless credence. Most hoaxes, legends, and tall tales have been widely discussed and exposed by the Internet community.

Courses in critical thinking are also widely available, and there is online help from many sources, including

• Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability at http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html
• Computer Virus Myths page at http://www.kumite.com/myths
• IBM's Hype Alert web site at http://www.av.ibm.com/BreakingNews/HypeAlert
• Symantec Anti Virus Research Center Hoax Page at http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
• Network Associates Virus Hoax Listing at http://www.nai.com/services/support/hoax/hoax.asp
• Dr. Solomons Hoax Page at http://www.drsolomon.com/vircen/vanalyse/va005.htm l
• The Urban Legends Web Site at http://www.urbanlegends.com
• Urban Legends Reference Pages at http://www.snopes.com
• Mining Company Urban Legends Page at http://urbanlegends.miningco.com
• Datafellows Hoax Warnings at http://www.Europe.Datafellows.com/news/hoax.htm

Those people who are still symptom free can help inoculate themselves against the Gullibility Virus by reading some good material on evaluating sources, such as

• Evaluating Internet Research Sources at http://www.sccu.edu/faculty/R_Harris/evalu8it.htm
• Evaluation of Information Sources at http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~agsmith/evaln/evaln.htm
• Bibliography on Evaluating Internet Resources at http://refserver.lib.vt.edu/libinst/critTHINK.HTM

Lastly, as a public service, Internet users can help stamp out the Gullibility Virus by sending copies of this message to anyone who forwards them a hoax.

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This message is so important, we're sending it anonymously! Forward it to all your friends right away! Don't think about it! This is not a chain letter! This story is true! Don't check it out! This story is so timely, there is no date on it! This story is so important, we're using lots of exclamation points! For every message you forward to some unsuspecting person, the Home for the Hopelessly Gullible will donate ten cents to itself. (If you wonder how the Home will know you are forwarding these messages all over creation, you're obviously thinking too much.)
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ACT NOW! DON'T DELAY! LIMITED TIME! NOT SOLD IN ANY STORE!

Home Page of Robert Harris | SCC Home Page
Robert Harris is Professor of English at Southern California College. RHarris@sccu.edu


I keep it around for just this purpose
Mark

up next on WHEN COMPUTERS GO BAD..

http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604 /lib/Therac_25/Therac_1.html


Numerous people died when they were overexposed to radiation that was supposed to only destroy cancerous cells..

It's not like I need my bandwidth or anything.. ;)
http://bmetz.campus.vt.edu/tfn_trailerc.mov

Add to the above A History of Parallel Computing with summaries back to 1950's. Too bad no benchmark numbers.

I listen to a lot of music from mp3.com. Here are my Python scripts to manage my MP3 collection: http://wildgoose.tandu.com/~zooko/ PythonHacking/

Of course, 90% of the music on mp3.com is crap, but then, 90% of everything is crap..

Among the best mp3 selections are Goss amer and Manifest Vision.

Regards,

Zooko