News You Can Bruise for 2002 September 4

I got spam asking How is Greenspan helping you?, which makes it sound like Fed chairman is an elected position.

Panicware Launches Pop-Up Stopper ISP Distribution- A Program Providing Pop-Up Stopper Technology to Internet Service Providers Free of Charge

Who's the biggest ISP in the US? America Online! Who owns the Netscape browser? America Online! And if Netscape 7.0 had the ability to block pop-up ads itself, there'd be no need for AOL to take advantage of this incredible free offer! It all makes sense! (Baseline for making sense established by the amount of sense made by the AOL-Time Warner merger.)

Cellular Humor implies that spreadsheet jokes are thin on the ground, but since all you have to do is take a joke about a lawyer, a programmer, or a consultant (or a joke about a lawyer, a programmer, and a consultant), and change the profession to 'spreadsheet developer', I don't think the shortage is one that needs to be rectified.

Amazing.

One of his multi-million dollar endeavors almost led him into a dangerous deal in Nigeria. The trade ended up being a fraud and two Americans who ventured there before me were killed, recounts Grubbs.

At the request of David Ford, the guy whose machine hosts Crummy, I added automatic nice to the NewsBruiser CGIs and SSIs. I also factored out a lot of the SSI code. No new release yet, though (but I'll do one before I start my ill-conceived drive toward categories).

Steve Robertson makes a guest appearance in today's Goats.

Good job today on "Un-fare!" and "N'Sunk", but "Female cops air gripes" should be "Female cops air gropes" or at least "Female cops air grapes".

• Fantastic Ideas (Feasibility May Vary)
• Mocking Spam Subject Lines
• Being Cranky
• Modifying Words With Themselves
• Marine Biology (Writing About It, Not Knowing Things About It)
• Ancient Rome (Ditto)
• Starting Things And Not Finishing Them

This informative yet disturbing article increases my suspicion that FreeCiv is a solved problem, subject to initial conditions. Since according to my prejudices solved problems are not fun, my brain races to find ways of rectifying this. Perhaps throwing complexity at the problem will help, or maybe I just need to get schooled (though that will only demonstrate that I haven't yet solved the solved problem myself).

Incidentally, here is Civlike News.