Great on-line encyclopedia

Check out Wikipedia, an open-publishing encyclopedia. That means anyone can write to (almost) any entry. You can find outstanding entries about almost anything. I've personally looked up non-Euclidian geometry, Soda Can Stoves, and Leon Czolgosz (pronounced "cholgus") - that's an American history goodie, I swear.

I've personally added to the Oberlin College page, and written the law collective page, which has already been edited and improved by other people using Wikipedia.

To meet all yr game-playing needs, check out Play New Games.org

My pal Jonathan Curley and his lovely with, Kate Curley (who, as it turns out, is also her own person), traveled in Latin America for a year, learning, teaching, and inventing new games with children in Guatemala, Bolivia, Antarctica, and elsewhere. The fruits of their labor of love is on playnewgames.org - check it out, especially if you work with kids, especially if you're a grown up who's feeling a little too grown-up.
posted by Dan Spalding 3:03 PM

Tuesday, March 12, 2002

Classic article from Courtney Love railing against music pirates - and it ain't Napster
Readers of the Steve Albini article about how record labels screw muscians will find some of the math familiar, but Love does a great job spelling out just how artists get screwed over. She's at the center of a lawsuit alleging that since the five (or four?) big labels that control the music industry offer basically the exact same contract to their artists, who they own after signing.

That's why I'm willing to do it with a sword in my teeth. I expect I'll be ignored or ostracized following this lawsuit. I expect that the treatment you're seeing Lars Ulrich get now will quadruple for me. Cool. At least I'll serve a purpose. I'm an artist and a good artist, I think, but I'm not that artist that has to play all the time, and thus has to get fucked. Maybe my laziness and self-destructive streak will finally pay off and serve a community desperately in need of it.
posted by Dan Spalding 10:45 AM

Tuesday, February 26, 2002

Great investigations of police misconduct

The Washington Post and Chicago Tribune have some great articles about coerced confessions, in murder and other cases, where the defendants were eventually released and, often, the real criminals were never found.
posted by Dan Spalding 10:04 AM

Tuesday, January 29, 2002

And for an indymedia-style alternative news source, which is running, I'm told, great open source code, is Kuro5hin.org.
posted by Dan Spalding 10:17 AM

FBI's guidelines to "undercover and sensitive operations
Check 'em out at the Department of Justice's (or, in DC parlance, "Justice's") Reading Room. It's a light 15 page read, outline form.
posted by Dan Spalding 10:13 AM

Monday, September 17, 2001

They make great protest posters and graphics!
Check out the beehive collective. They're based out of Maine, I think, and they do great stuff. F'reals.

And for cheap webhosting info
I'm now up, ad-free, at DotEasy. It cost me $35 to transfer, but now I'm ad-free "for life" with no additional charges. It you buy your domain name through them for some reasonable price (I think $20 or so) they'll host you "for life" with no addl charges, too. This is after my last ISP reached the second part of their business plan. Part I - Spend millions of dollars. Part II - Go out of business.

And my pal Beverly (or Snakegirl) of NYC has a firsthand account of her experiences of the World Trade Center attack, and her analysis of blame/what to do next. Analysis that I mostly agree with, although I think she doesn't do enough to criticize the attack, no matter how much the US has done to provoke it: bombing other countries, selling arms to tyrants we found convenient to work with, crippling sanctions, economic intervention and more.
posted by Dan Spalding 11:57 AM

Monday, July 09, 2001

Zines Alive!
Indeedy, on-line zines are usually terrible. But, zines from a friend's bathroom are usually a great find. What happens when that zine migrates from the top of the tank to a URL? Why, The Inner Swine is the answer.

Chock full of good short fiction, ruminations on people author Jeff Somers will soon eliminate because they're too irritating, his drunken debauchery with his other Jersey City friends... It's all there.

In fact, you can download every page of every issue ever published. You can also download his book of short fiction, check out photo montages of his various mug shots, participate in a design contest for his next tatoo, squirt water at his cat, free Mumia - all on his web page, www.innerswine.com. Check it out, doods!
posted by Dan Spalding 4:58 PM

Friday, June 29, 2001

I just got schooled... Law schooled, that is!

A co-worker just showed me where I can get free outlines of law school courses. So now I know where to go to get the fundamentals of criminal law, constitutional law, torts, civil procedure... the list goes on and on (for about 5 more entries, anyway). And it's free. AND, even though it's Lexis-Nexis provided, you don't need a password. And they're all ready for printing. And there's a bunch more on the site.

So for outlines, check out lawschool.lexis.com/emanuel/index.html (note no "www." at the beginning).

For the general page for law students, and who among us not a student of law, if not life?,: http://lawschool.lexis.com/
posted by Dan Spalding 11:27 AM

Thursday, June 21, 2001

An on-line computer security class - kind of...

At none other than George Mason University, which, according to some thick glossy computer security magazine I snagged on South West, has one of the top five best computer security programs in the US. Also just 15 minutes from where I grew up. Who knew?

Check it out
posted by Dan Spalding 12:01 PM

Wednesday, June 20, 2001

For the record, the cheapest domain name (aka "www.danspalding.com") that I've seen is www.gandi.net". Around $10 a pop, depending on how strong the Euro is (?!,). Thanks to Micah at RiseUp.net for the info.
posted by Dan Spalding 1:52 PM

Tuesday, June 19, 2001

TedRall.com Funniest darkest comic artist ever. Find all his comics conveniently archived for your... convenience.

"In the words of Richard Montgomery Burns - Excellent!"
From some principal cheerfully reading a graduating high school student's "senior quote."
posted by Dan Spalding 4:46 PM

Sunday, June 10, 2001

Are people reading Slashdot.com? It has excellent nerdy-fun technology news (new gear), corporate security fuck-ups (Microsoft hacked again... and again... just after issuing a press release saying they wouldn't get hacked anymore), fun surveys (who'd win in a fight between Ultraman and Gandolf?) and more. A great time waster for the nerd in you.
posted by Dan Spalding 2:52 PM

Monday, April 30, 2001

To find out about what happened with legal in Quebec City (during the Free Trade Area of the Americas protest), see www.quebeclegal.org.
posted by Dan Spalding 5:35 PM

Monday, April 09, 2001

A great on-line weekly: At www.counterpane.com, Secrets & Lies author Gary Schneier analyzes the security (or lack thereof) of popular software and on-line services, and has updates on the latest breakdowns. C'est good computer security analysis!

Psst! It's no secret or lie that www.adcritic.com is one entertaining site! Contrary to it's name, there's nothing critical about ads on this site; just full video of the ads themselves. Whether it's the famed Britney/Dole combo ticket or a raunchy Nintendo ad, this is the site to catch up on what you're missing from consumer culture. Or, to catch up on what consumer culture is missing. In any case, it's a great way to eat up your company's bandwidth. Try downloading the new Planet of the Apes trailer eight or nine times in your desktop's background.
posted by Dan Spalding 12:18 PM

Friday, April 06, 2001

Does anyone even read this section? My two-bit traffic analyzer (from the people who brought you "121 people have visited this site since March 1, 1883") says that most people log on for about four minutes, and see an average of two pages. I'm thinking they look at the opening page and the Peach Pit.

If you disagree, we can settle this Mad Max-style - two nerds enter, one nerd leaves.

See you in the Thunderdome.
posted by Dan Spalding 2:04 PM

Two great sites:
a) www.HushMail.com, which provides free encrypted e-mail. E-mail as we (including moi) normally send it is like a postcard, except less secure and more people can read it. If you use hushmail, unless they're total frauds, it will be gibberish to the average snoop. The above-average snoop will still have trouble - the FBI's vaunted Carnivore system, which is attached to your ISP and can sift through all internet traffic through it (not just the people they have warrants for), will not be able to read your e-mail either. If they subpoena your e-mail from hushmail, they might be able to crack the encryption on your "private key" that's on their server - but it's tough. (or maybe impossible; I asked the good folks at w.hm.c and they haven't gotten back to me in the three hours since)

AND if you have an easily guessed passphrase, then you have almost no security anyway. But hushmail only works when you're e-mailing someone else who has it. And it's super quick n easy to sign on. And they can send a note to your regular e-mail service when you get a hushmail e-mail. And they give you 5 megs. So sign on already!

2) If you want to learn how to file a freedom of information act (FOIA if yr nerdy), check out About.com's FOIA info page. It's really good.

and finally,

4) security.tao.ca has great info on computer security. Or it looks like it does. I trust them and glanced at it and the index seems impeccable.
posted by Dan Spalding 1:25 PM

Tuesday, March 27, 2001

If you want information regarding the latest corporate websites that have been hijacked by anti-corporate globalization pirateers, or just defaced by bored teenagers, check out www.attrition.org. They also have good quality general information about computer security, as well as reviews for Chicken Run and Traffic. (what th'...?)
posted by Dan Spalding 5:42 PM

The West Springfield High School unofficial alumni locator.com?
posted by Dan Spalding 10:56 AM

Ok, it's like this: You have this friend who's the best kind of academic. She studies politics, race, gender, sexuality, and writes about it in a way that's meaningful and accessible. But wait; she's also a running-in-the-streets activists/organizer. And she has literally the second best web site out there. www.Snakegirl.net
(look for a coupla pictures of me on it)
posted by Dan Spalding 9:59 AM

Wednesday, March 14, 2001

Check out this hi-larious interview from my radio show days. It contains many a funny anecdote, puns, and generally good-natured harassing of the interviewer. Also many, many lies are told during the interview.

On top of all that, it's got the line (mine!) that became the quote of the week for that issue of our school newspaper: "It is also by no means disputed that Oberlin students get laid less frequently than students at any other schools."
posted by Dan Spalding 1:41 PM