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January 1999 Archive

infosift

Michael Sippey makes his irregular publishing schedule official and kills the inspiration for this very feature you're reading right now as he launches yet another redesign of Stating the Obvious. [1.4.99]

238 days and counting: good Burning Man essays from Dan Lyke and Rico Gagliano. [1.4.99]

Beware the killer Furbies. [1.4.99]

I guess Adobe's purchase of GoLive spells the end of the line for PageMill. Remember when PageMill was expected to dominate this market? [1.4.99]

Is secure e-mail the Trojan horse that will make network computing a reality? [1.4.99]


Those clever folks at Connectix continue to amaze. How would you like to play PlayStation games on your PowerBook? [1.5.99]

They've been keeping a low profile for quite some time, but it looks like things are heating up over at the Banzai Institute. [1.5.99]

Gotta love them wacky millennium cults. [1.5.99]


Meet the nominees for the 1999 Webby Awards. [1.6.99]

George says six is enough. [1.6.99]

Depth masquerading as shallowness? Or vice versa? I don't know what to make of reformatting. [1.6.99]

Over 2,300 years after his death, Aristotle is still wowing the philosophy crowd. And check out this guy's take on Derrida's ranking as most overrated: "[When one thinks of] French philosophy, one thinks of picking up an idea and running with it, possibly into a nearby brick wall or over a local cliff." [1.6.99]


SF Gate asks the musical question, "Will the Internet put you out of work?" Hint: If your job involves a cash register, the answer is probably yes. [1.7.99]

Necco's new diskette-shaped candies promise to be somewhat less flavorful than actual diskettes. [1.7.99]

Intergraph gets booted from Macworld Expo for trying to demo NT workstations at its booth. Update: MacWEEK reports that TechWeb got it wrong -- Intergraph was reprimanded, not expelled. [1.7.99]

People on Mars by 2010? [1.7.99]


Is Microsoft ready to throw in the towel on MSN? [1.8.99]

It seems to me that this whole "destination site" hoopla is the same model Time Warner's been trying (and failing at) for years with Pathfinder. [1.8.99]

Batman gets a futuristic, anime-style makeover in the upcoming animated series "Batman Beyond." If you've got the bandwidth, check out this bitchin' preview (2.3 MB; QuickTime 3). [1.8.99]

Politics aside, I love this guy's approach. A domain-name speculator, under pressure from Big Media lawyers, redirects the disputed domain to something really nasty. [1.8.99]

Nick Usborne's latest banner ad rant gets the issue exactly backward. Banner ads aren't dying because they don't work for advertisers. Banner ads are dying because they don't work for publishers. [1.8.99]


According to a new report from Studio Archetype, site usability is a key factor in gaining trust from wary e-consumers. [1.11.99]

Hotline users rally in support of the software's teenage creator as he struggles for ownership of his source code. [1.11.99]

Every year, the editors of BugNet recognize one Windows developer that has made great strides in increasing the quality of its products. And this year's award goes to... no one. [1.11.99]

Hey, did you know indie documentarian Errol Morris directed the latest round of Levi's commercials? It's true. [1.11.99]


As e-commerce commands the attention of Internet analysts and investors, MSNBC wonders: Whatever happened to content? [1.12.99]

Does anybody else find it funny that USA Today's article on ICQ refuses to call Suck by name? (To find the reference, look for the Carl Steadman soundbite.) [1.12.99]

Dan Gillmor's got it right: in an industry that allegedly celebrates "thinking different," the ongoing ridicule of Joe Firmage is unbecoming. [1.12.99]


A new cryptography algorithm runs circles around RSA. The inventor: a 16-year-old girl. [1.13.99]

DOJ: "We're done." Microsoft: "Great. Can we go now?" Judge: "Not so fast." [1.13.99]

More movie-name domain games: This time, a studio neglects to re-register with InterNIC, and links that used to go to the movie site now lead to porn. [1.13.99]


WIPO tackles domain-name trademark disputes with a new proposal to ICANN. Also, more odd journalistic circumlocution as Reuters refers to notorious porn merchant whitehouse.com as "another site using the name of the residence of the President of the United States." [1.14.99]


Charging licensing fees for FireWire may be good for Apple, but is it bad for the industry? [1.15.99]

With venture capitalists throwing in their support, MP3 may now be moving too fast for the record companies to catch it with proprietary formats. [1.15.99]


So you think your company's systems are Y2K-compliant. Would you bet your life on it? [1.18.99]

Notorious contrarian Steve Albini says the compact disc may not be the permanent storage medium manufacturers say it is. [1.18.99]


Some people seem to think "open source" means "work for us for free." [1.19.99]


With the company he built foundering at the edge of financial ruin (and most observers agreeing they went bankrupt creatively years ago), Stan the Man takes his next generation of heroic creations straight to the Web. [1.20.99]

Someday we'll just shake our heads in disbelief when we look back on the time when we thought there were more than eight planets. [1.20.99]


The iMac was number one in sales again in the fourth quarter, but don't expect a repeat performance. Even if iMacs outsell all other computers, industry analysts don't know how to deal with computers that come in multiple colors, so they're treating each color as a separate model. [1.21.99]


Time Digital Daily seems to have been the only media outlet who bothered to show up for last night's Cool Site of the Year awards. [1.22.99]

"We're tattooing this number on you for your own protection. We promise not to use it to keep track of you." Yeah, right. [1.22.99]

I see a blue Mac and I want to paint it black. [1.22.99]

If you know what this is, you'll want to see it. If you don't know what this is, you need to see it. Oblique Strategies. [1.22.99]


Prodigy's been trying for years to get subscribers to their proprietary service to move over to their Internet service. Now Y2K gives them a reason. [1.25.99]


Mad props to my main man Cam for counting me in. [1.26.99]

A new Forrester study indicates that when it comes to building (and retaining) Web traffic, content is still king. [1.26.99]

Paging Mark Twain: Joltin' Joe sees his death reported on TV. "Not only is DiMaggio not dead, he is not in hopeless condition." [1.26.99]


Super Bowl tech ad watch: Intel out, Apple in. [1.27.99]

ZDII asks some interesting questions about Amazon.com's strategy. [1.27.99]

CSotY winner Derek Powazek has posted a first-person account of the confrontational atmosphere at this year's ceremony. (Sorry about the broken frameset.) [1.27.99]

If you're the sort of sick puppy who enjoys quantifying tragedy -- and deep down, who isn't? -- here's the thing for you. (Weren't these called "experience points" in D&D?) [1.27.99]

Don't JPL engineers have better things to do with their time than make balloon-powered cars? I guess not. (Scroll way down to see pictures of the cars.) [1.27.99]


The theme for the Internet industry in 1999 seems to be consolidation. The latest match-up: Yahoo and GeoCities. [1.28.99]

Sony's taking Connectix to court over Virtual Game Station, the unauthorized PlayStation emulator for the Mac. [1.28.99]

News.com lauds the effect AOL's caching scheme has on download times, but completely neglects ethical and legal issues raised by such implementations. [1.28.99]


Coolmeister Glenn Davis takes a hard look at reports of the banner ad's demise. [1.29.99]

Scott Rosenberg casts the Pentium III privacy debate as just one example of a larger problem in the tech industry. [1.29.99]

Little did he know he'd be documenting the birth of a new medium. John Labovitz tells the story of the evolution of his phenomenal e-zine-list. [1.29.99]

I doubt this is going to be around for long. [1.29.99]

#title jjg.net infosift archive: January 1999

Michael Sippey makes his irregular publishing schedule official and kills the inspiration for this very feature you're reading right now as he launches yet another redesign of Stating the Obvious. [1.4.99]

238 days and counting: good Burning Man essays from Dan Lyke and Rico Gagliano. [1.4.99]

Beware the killer Furbies. [1.4.99]

I guess Adobe's purchase of GoLive spells the end of the line for PageMill. Remember when PageMill was expected to dominate this market? [1.4.99]

Is secure e-mail the Trojan horse that will make network computing a reality? [1.4.99]


Those clever folks at Connectix continue to amaze. How would you like to play PlayStation games on your PowerBook? [1.5.99]

They've been keeping a low profile for quite some time, but it looks like things are heating up over at the Banzai Institute. [1.5.99]

Gotta love them wacky millennium cults. [1.5.99]


Meet the nominees for the 1999 Webby Awards. [1.6.99]

George says six is enough. [1.6.99]

Depth masquerading as shallowness? Or vice versa? I don't know what to make of reformatting. [1.6.99]

Over 2,300 years after his death, Aristotle is still wowing the philosophy crowd. And check out this guy's take on Derrida's ranking as most overrated: "[When one thinks of] French philosophy, one thinks of picking up an idea and running with it, possibly into a nearby brick wall or over a local cliff." [1.6.99]


SF Gate asks the musical question, "Will the Internet put you out of work?" Hint: If your job involves a cash register, the answer is probably yes. [1.7.99]

Necco's new diskette-shaped candies promise to be somewhat less flavorful than actual diskettes. [1.7.99]

Intergraph gets booted from Macworld Expo for trying to demo NT workstations at its booth. Update: MacWEEK reports that TechWeb got it wrong -- Intergraph was reprimanded, not expelled. [1.7.99]

People on Mars by 2010? [1.7.99]


Is Microsoft ready to throw in the towel on MSN? [1.8.99]

It seems to me that this whole "destination site" hoopla is the same model Time Warner's been trying (and failing at) for years with Pathfinder. [1.8.99]

Batman gets a futuristic, anime-style makeover in the upcoming animated series "Batman Beyond." If you've got the bandwidth, check out this bitchin' preview (2.3 MB; QuickTime 3). [1.8.99]

Politics aside, I love this guy's approach. A domain-name speculator, under pressure from Big Media lawyers, redirects the disputed domain to something really nasty. [1.8.99]

Nick Usborne's latest banner ad rant gets the issue exactly backward. Banner ads aren't dying because they don't work for advertisers. Banner ads are dying because they don't work for publishers. [1.8.99]


According to a new report from Studio Archetype, site usability is a key factor in gaining trust from wary e-consumers. [1.11.99]

Hotline users rally in support of the software's teenage creator as he struggles for ownership of his source code. [1.11.99]

Every year, the editors of BugNet recognize one Windows developer that has made great strides in increasing the quality of its products. And this year's award goes to... no one. [1.11.99]

Hey, did you know indie documentarian Errol Morris directed the latest round of Levi's commercials? It's true. [1.11.99]


As e-commerce commands the attention of Internet analysts and investors, MSNBC wonders: Whatever happened to content? [1.12.99]

Does anybody else find it funny that USA Today's article on ICQ refuses to call Suck by name? (To find the reference, look for the Carl Steadman soundbite.) [1.12.99]

Dan Gillmor's got it right: in an industry that allegedly celebrates "thinking different," the ongoing ridicule of Joe Firmage is unbecoming. [1.12.99]


A new cryptography algorithm runs circles around RSA. The inventor: a 16-year-old girl. [1.13.99]

DOJ: "We're done." Microsoft: "Great. Can we go now?" Judge: "Not so fast." [1.13.99]

More movie-name domain games: This time, a studio neglects to re-register with InterNIC, and links that used to go to the movie site now lead to porn. [1.13.99]


WIPO tackles domain-name trademark disputes with a new proposal to ICANN. Also, more odd journalistic circumlocution as Reuters refers to notorious porn merchant whitehouse.com as "another site using the name of the residence of the President of the United States." [1.14.99]


Charging licensing fees for FireWire may be good for Apple, but is it bad for the industry? [1.15.99]

With venture capitalists throwing in their support, MP3 may now be moving too fast for the record companies to catch it with proprietary formats. [1.15.99]


So you think your company's systems are Y2K-compliant. Would you bet your life on it? [1.18.99]

Notorious contrarian Steve Albini says the compact disc may not be the permanent storage medium manufacturers say it is. [1.18.99]


Some people seem to think "open source" means "work for us for free." [1.19.99]


With the company he built foundering at the edge of financial ruin (and most observers agreeing they went bankrupt creatively years ago), Stan the Man takes his next generation of heroic creations straight to the Web. [1.20.99]

Someday we'll just shake our heads in disbelief when we look back on the time when we thought there were more than eight planets. [1.20.99]


The iMac was number one in sales again in the fourth quarter, but don't expect a repeat performance. Even if iMacs outsell all other computers, industry analysts don't know how to deal with computers that come in multiple colors, so they're treating each color as a separate model. [1.21.99]


Time Digital Daily seems to have been the only media outlet who bothered to show up for last night's Cool Site of the Year awards. [1.22.99]

"We're tattooing this number on you for your own protection. We promise not to use it to keep track of you." Yeah, right. [1.22.99]

I see a blue Mac and I want to paint it black. [1.22.99]

If you know what this is, you'll want to see it. If you don't know what this is, you need to see it. Oblique Strategies. [1.22.99]


Prodigy's been trying for years to get subscribers to their proprietary service to move over to their Internet service. Now Y2K gives them a reason. [1.25.99]


Mad props to my main man Cam for counting me in. [1.26.99]

A new Forrester study indicates that when it comes to building (and retaining) Web traffic, content is still king. [1.26.99]

Paging Mark Twain: Joltin' Joe sees his death reported on TV. "Not only is DiMaggio not dead, he is not in hopeless condition." [1.26.99]


Super Bowl tech ad watch: Intel out, Apple in. [1.27.99]

ZDII asks some interesting questions about Amazon.com's strategy. [1.27.99]

CSotY winner Derek Powazek has posted a first-person account of the confrontational atmosphere at this year's ceremony. (Sorry about the broken frameset.) [1.27.99]

If you're the sort of sick puppy who enjoys quantifying tragedy -- and deep down, who isn't? -- here's the thing for you. (Weren't these called "experience points" in D&D?) [1.27.99]

Don't JPL engineers have better things to do with their time than make balloon-powered cars? I guess not. (Scroll way down to see pictures of the cars.) [1.27.99]


The theme for the Internet industry in 1999 seems to be consolidation. The latest match-up: Yahoo and GeoCities. [1.28.99]

Sony's taking Connectix to court over Virtual Game Station, the unauthorized PlayStation emulator for the Mac. [1.28.99]

News.com lauds the effect AOL's caching scheme has on download times, but completely neglects ethical and legal issues raised by such implementations. [1.28.99]


Coolmeister Glenn Davis takes a hard look at reports of the banner ad's demise. [1.29.99]

Scott Rosenberg casts the Pentium III privacy debate as just one example of a larger problem in the tech industry. [1.29.99]

Little did he know he'd be documenting the birth of a new medium. John Labovitz tells the story of the evolution of his phenomenal e-zine-list. [1.29.99]

I doubt this is going to be around for long. [1.29.99]