[let page fully load first]

brave new toystore:

PBS and Microsoft have announced the production of a toy
version of the PBS children's show star Barney which will
respond to signals carried by the show, making the toy sing
along with the show, or say whatever he is programmed to say.

more info here

hold the banners please

WebFree is shareware Mac software that edits out
the blinking and animated banner ads from your
view of pages on the web.  Also screens out
advertisements, unwanted images or links, and web
cookies.  It is compatible with both OpenTransport
and MacTCP, and works with all major Macintosh web
browsers, including Netscape Navigator, Internet
Explorer, and Cyberdog.

get it here



searching for your site?

To find out where your web site "Ranks" in a
search engine was used to be a tedious process.
For the first time, anyone can go to 
www.RankThis.com, type in their web address, then
type in the words that they think people will use
to find them on a search engine, and lastly click
on the icon of the search engine they want to
check. This free web site then tells you where you
"Rank" on that particular search engine! Are you
1st, 50th, 200th? If you don't show up in the top
200, they offer resources to help you get better
positioned with the major search engines.



the oily sea of Santa Barbara/ the oily air of
Paris

i was in Santa Barbara recently, and while
beachcombing with friends i noticed the oil spots
gathering on my feet.  At the end of the day,
those of us who had visited the beach found
ourselves heavily tarred, and those who took a
swim found oil in their hair. this was before
an October 1st report from Wired news services:

''Environmental officials in California say an oil
spill which occurred off the coast of Santa
Barbara Sunday should be cleaned up within 72
hours. - an estimated 10,000-20,000 gallons of oil
were spilled by a leak in an underwater oil
pipeline.''

also from Wired News...

* Officials in Paris, France, have ordered that a
large part of private vehicles be kept off the
city's roads today due to potentially dangerous
air pollution levels. - the city is providing free
public transportation to ease the effects of the
vehicle ban.   10-1-97



no cost html-free document sharing and
conferencing on the web

check out the Nicenet Web-Based Communications
tool called the Internet Classroom Assistant
(ICA).  It is designed for post-secondary classrooms and
collaborative academic projects, but it's adaptable to
any group wanting a web-based meeting place. The
ICA requires a regular Web browser running on any
platform and an Internet connection -- there is no
charge, no software needs to be downloaded and no
server needs to be set up.  Go to
http://www.nicenet.org and create a ''class''



computer industry gossip via RealAudio

for those wanting some rich computer industry
gossip (regarding privacy, Java, Apple, Netscape
vs Microsoft, etc) to run on RealAudio in the
background while you do other things, click here



China watchers:

Some weeks ago, Chrysler unveiled its China
Concept Vehicle (CCV) which it hopes to sell in
developing markets. - car is made of molded
plastic and weighs only 1,200 pounds. - won't be
sold in US.

there's a publication on the Beijing scene for
China watchers here




global warning

On a day when the temperature hit an unseasonable
90 degrees in Washington, the president, his wife,
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Vice President Al Gore,
Secretary of State Madeline Albright and other
cabinet members, business leaders, and
representatives from nongovernmental organizations
discussed the dangers of global warming. This
high-profile campaign is meant to garner public
support for initiatives to be signed at a global
conference on climate change in December in Kyoto,
Japan. Panelists spoke to an audience of
university students, utility commissioners,
environmental advocates, and
philanthropist-of-the-moment Ted Turner and wife
Jane Fonda.

Sketching a gloomy future, scientists said that
computer modeling suggests more droughts, more
catastrophic flooding, more outbreaks of
infectious diseases like malaria and cholera, and
more kids with asthma in the next decade. The
scientists said that humans - and especially
Americans - must slow consumption of the fossil
fuels that emit greenhouse gasses that cause
global warming. They warned that a
business-as-usual approach will lead to a tripling
of greenhouse emissions by 2100, and temperatures
in North America will rise by about 10 degrees.

Americans account for only 4 percent of the
world's population, but are responsible for 25
percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
But the four-fifths of the world's population now
putting out less than one-fourth of the greenhouse
gasses - including China, India, and the nations
of South America - has entered an era of
development that requires the same kind of
spiraling fossil-fuel consumption that drove the
economies of the Western economic powers. Few
incentives exist to push the great new economies
toward alternative energy sources - especially
given the example of the developed world.

If the trend of mass fossil-fuel consumption
continues, said John Holdren, Earth and planetary
sciences professor at Harvard University,
developing nations will pass America's emissions
by 2035.

"What we see in the future is a significant
disruption of human health," Holdren said.

source: 10-7  wired news services



deadbeat dads usher in Big Brother

heard on NPR in September :

The Federal Government has started a massive
computer database that all employers will have to
send personal info about all new hires to.  While
this may be the most serious invasion of privacy
by the Federal Government to date, it is justified
as the best strategy to catch "deadbeat  deads"
who are avoiding child support payments by getting
jobs out of state.


NYC getting greener?

New York City is proud to say it now has the
largest, most ambitious recycling program in the
nation. All three million households, plus public
schools, and institutions receive curbside
recycling collection by the Department of
Sanitation.



Nader vs Gates

Ralph Nader is taking on Microsoft!  see this
report from Salon



McKenna keeps talking

check the new interview with Terence McKenna in a
new webzine called C8



lethal chemical weapon storage sites:

The U.S. stockpile of lethal chemical warfare
munitions consists of various land mines, rockets,
artillery and mortar projectiles, bombs and aerial
spray tanks containing weapons such as nerve gas
agents (VX and GB) and blister or mustard agents
(HD, H and HT).  Startech Plasma Waste Converters
(PWCs)(TM) are supposed to safely and irreversibly destroy
all of these hazardous materials at all of the
storage sites.

The U.S. stockpiles, stored in eight states
throughout the country, are located in:

Anniston, Alabama 
Pine Bluff, Arkansas 
Aberdeen, Maryland 
Pueblo, Colorado 
Lexington-Blue Grass, Kentucky 
Tooele, Utah 
Newport, Indiana 
Umatilla, Oregon

There is a also a stockpile on an island in the
Pacific, southwest of Hawaii, called Johnston
Island.

source:  Tue, 14 Oct 1997 11:32:36 -0700 (PDT)
X-Conference: ewire.news From: E-Wire
<ewire@igc.apc.org>



cyberchic on the fashion runway

A recent MIT Media Lab fashion show featured
wearable computers, including a music synthesizer
woven into a dress and a tunic that translates the
wearer's speech into a foreign language.  "People
have always had a fascination with making
themselves personally more powerful," says a Media
Lab professor. "We used to associate that with
magic.  Now, we're getting close to working that
magic into fully realized designs."  Ideas for the
future include using special conductive thread to
reproduce a flexible printed circuit board woven
right into a garment.  (Business Week 20 Oct 97)

-->also from MIT: Yenta

This project is developing a software agent that
finds people who have never met, but share similar
interests, and introduces them to each other. Such
introductions can automatically form interest
groups and coalitions, and can be used to locate
someone knowledgeable in a particular area. Each
participating user runs a copy of the agent, and
these individual copies find each other as
appropriate on the network and begin the
introduction process. The project is an experiment
in creating a decentralized, fault-tolerant
application that handles potentially sensitive
information (such as people's mail, their personal
files, or lists of their particular interests) in
a responsible and privacy-protecting fashion,
using cryptographic and other techniques. The
eventual goal is ubiquitous deployment across the
Internet.

check here for more info



the media is sorry

''Historical truth is now eternally on the lam
from a nation of apologists, spin doctors, and
data massagers.''

&

''Fifty years hence, the newspapers we read today
will be worthless, merely dumpsters full of
apologies for historical truths they are now
failing to tell.''

excerpted from Suck (Wired Digital)...October 17,1997 
by Tom Dowe other work by Dowe here 



From: Headwaters News
<Headwaters@enews.org> To:
;@enews.org@envirolink.org Subject: FLASH:
Activists occupy tree village


H E A D W A T E R S    F O R E S T    ***  F L A S H  
*** Update 10-02-97 -- Thursday, October 2,1997


ACTIVISTS OCCUPY TREE VILLAGE IN BEAR CREEK
WATERSHED Four people perch 100 feet up as loggers
fell trees within 20 feet

STAFFORD, CA -- Four daring Earth First! activists
climbed 100 feet up into the canopy of massive
ancient redwoods today to occupy trees slated for
logging within the Bear Creek watershed owned by
the embattled Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Company.
Maxxam/PL has been felling ancient redwood trees
throughout the Bear Creek drainage in Timber
Harvest Plan 1-96-574. This morning timber fallers
cut trees within twenty feet of the tree-sitters
before logging was halted by activists on the
ground supporting the tree-sitters. The four
tree-bound forest defenders were suspended by
ropes and platforms lashed and tied to trees in a
web of traverse lines. Loggers are unable to fell
these trees as long as the activists remain. The
tree-sitters vowed to remain as long as the trees
are threatened. The Bear Creek logging operation
is directly on the border of the Humboldt Redwoods
State Park and the Maxxam/PL property line. There
is no buffer zone between the cutting unit and the
sensitive old-growth ecosystem of the State Park
-- the largest old-growth redwood forest in
existence. Furthermore, the logging is occurring
on dangerously steep slopes near where dangerous
and habitat-damaging mudslides occurred last
winter. Activists charge that more clear-cutting
against the edge of the park will further fragment
and degrade the park. Likely results of this
particular THP are soil loss and erosion, further
mudslides into the already-damaged watershed, and
blow-down of standing trees within the state park.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in the
process of creating a Habitat Conservation Plan
(HCP) for the entire 207,000 acres of
Maxxam/Pacific Lumber-held land. Earth First! has
called on the federal agency to protect all the
remaining ancient forests and habitat for
endangered species. "We have taken to the trees to
demand that all the old-growth forests be spared
from this senseless destruction," gushed
tree-sitter Water from his perch above loggers.
The Bear Creek watershed provides habitat for
threatened and endangered bird species such as the
marbled murrelet and spotted owl. "Pacific
Lumber/Maxxam and CEO Hurwitz have responded to
public outcry to protect the 60,000 acre
Headwaters forest by liquidating the rest of the
ancient forests in their holdings," said Earth
First! spokesperson Alicia Little Tree. Earth
First! has adopted a motto for this season's
forest direct action campaign of "Not One More
Ancient Tree!" "Maxxam/Palco are falling
1,000-year-old redwood trees today, endangering
the lives of the four tree sitters!" said Patrick
Oliver, an Earth First! activist. "It is insanity
for Palco to negotiate with the federal government
for a Habitat Conservation Plan even as they are
destroying our remaining stands of ancient
forest."

Reposted from Ecotopia News Service.
http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/headwaters-ef/

S E N T   B Y   Headwaters Sanctuary Project and
Bay Area Action. Repost at will -- Please include
all attributions & contact info.
http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/headwaters/   |  
headwaters@enews.org



Colombian Indian tribe warns of mass suicide to
protest Shell and Oxy oil exploration

hear via RealAudio the interview with Shannon
Wright, RAN's Amazon Campaign Director, on
Pacifica Radio's National News

and then take action! 



download sutras from the Pali Cannon

The input of the entirety of the words of the
Buddha and his immediate disciples, as preserved
in the Sri Lankan version of the Pali "Tripitaka,"
is now complete. The texts, consisting of an
estimated thirty-five million characters, were
keyed in over a period of three years, commencing
in 1991.  You can download it now from the Journal
of Buddhist Ethics



the environmental costs of silicon

"Producing a single, eight-inch silicon
wafer--enough for about 250 Pentium CPUs--uses:

4,267 cubic feet of bulk gases, 
3,787 gallons of waste water, 
27 pounds of chemicals, 
29 cubic feet of hazardous gases, and
3,023 gallons of deionized water,

and generates nine pounds of hazardous waste."

--from a publicly available study by Texas
Instruments as reported in Bay Area Computer
Currents 9-3-97  pp.49