Alright. So 2004 was pretty spotty entry-wise for this once active and (semi)well written blog. I know that we have given countless excuses for such haphazard gaps in reporting over the years (that's right, we've been doing this for years), but NO MORE.
To make up for leaving you all on your own in this big bad interweb we have decided to gift you with one of our better kept secrets.
One of our favorite disposable webmail sites is the venerable Mailinator. No signing up or worrying that someone else has taken your super cool user name, you just make it up on the spot whenever you need a quick addy for accessing information on a website that requires email verification. While not all sites that require email verification will spam the fuck out of you, we all know that quite a number will. Of course the more L337 of you out there are saying "No duh, Mailinator is no big secret! A lot of sites even filter it from their sign up process." True. Which is why they have a list of alternate domains to use. Of course, being so quick and dirty they can only hang onto the mail for about a day or so, so frequent polling is necessary. (If you want to actually hang onto the mail your disposible address receives, try using the time limited forwarder Jetable instead) But our favorite thing about Mailinator is the purely voyeuristic fun of reading other people's spam. Type in any common male name and delight in registration confirmations from porn sites, dating sites, free hosting sites and the occasional message from that girl he said he'd call, but of course never did.
Is this what we've been doing instead of updating this blog, we hear you ask?
Shut up. It's called Research.
While at a friend's this afternoon watching CNN about Ronald Reagan's passing, one of the anchors mentioned a memorial website had been set up. As people around me discussed Reagan's presidential significance, I suddenly blurted out, "Wow! They snapped that domain up pretty fast!"
One of my friends gave me a withering look, "You think they just did that today? He's been ill for years, I'm sure they've had it set up for some time now."
I of course couldn't get such a tiny (but techie) detail out of my head and when I got back to Glossolalia home base I immediately Whois'd the domain and came up with this:
Registrant:
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation (MBWPGLOJUD)
40 Presidential Drive
Simi Valley, CA 93065-0600
USDomain Name: RONALDREAGANMEMORIAL.COM
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com
Name Server: NS1.I2X.NET
Name Server: NS2.I2X.NET
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Updated Date: 13-may-2004
Creation Date: 07-may-2004
Expiration Date: 07-may-2005
Two days shy of being registered only one month ago. Actually I'm surprised that an official source got it. Or am I the only one who finds things like this of interest??
This bit of news just about made my day:
Recording Industry Web Site Downed
Sweet
The news that we get here in these United States is often vastly different than what is reported elsewhere in the world. (Not that Europa doesn't have it's fair share of distractions...)
And so in an effort to put the 'World' back in www, glossolalia would like to introduce [echoplex]"Views From Around the World"[/echoplex]
Our man in Europe, mickstar, brought this little bit of tech-ish dirt to my attention. A UK spin on a US story, true, but isn't it nice to know that open Bill Gates distain is universal?
Salon May Not Survive Beyond February 
I've been reading Salon for about two years now. And yes I will admit that it's mostly their excellent Sex section that I spend the most time browsing, but really the entire site is the perfect example of what a smart timely online news and lifestyle magazine should be. And I always appreciated the fact that for the most part it was free to readers with an option to subscribe for further site access.
But all of that is changing now with their financial difficulties and I find myself torn as to how I should react.
Their new business model of either subscribe or click through Flash commercials to get to the content is understandable given their dire need for revenue, but no less annoying to the semi-casual reader.
I wanted to be fair however, as I have always enjoyed the writing on this site, and so I followed the "Day Pass" link to a multi screen Flash commercial highlighting their Personals. The funny thing is, I'm already an avid fan and customer of Salon/Nerve Personals (but that in of itself will be the subject of a whole other entry here...).
The commercial was about 30 seconds long and I had to interact with it to move from screen to screen. I imagine they want to be sure that the visitor is actually looking at the screen and not simply waiting for the Flash animation to finish while they attend to other desktop activities. After clicking through 3 screens I was allowed to enter "Salon Premium".
Will this get tiresome on a daily basis? Sure. Will people end up subscribing just to avoid the click through? Well therein lies my internal conflict.
In my heart, I want to support this site. I reference it on a weekly basis and as I mentioned before, it introduced me to the more intelligent side of online personals. But with the publishing of this story that states they may not make it to March - well, is anyone going to be motivated and supportive enough to subscribe to a dying publication? Will I? Truth be told, despite all my good intentions, no.
Money is tight for all of us right now and the risk of losing even $18.50 is too much to ask. It's too bad this story had to fill me with such doubt as to my ability to save them. Hopefully for Salon I'm alone with this opinion.
But in the meantime, I'll do the click through to get my daily dose of Sex. Fucks knows the "free" porn sites have gotten me used to that.
Oh... Oh... it just don't get much better than this:
Web Magazine Retracts Virus Attack Story
My fave part is how indignant the writer who got hoaxed is that a brother journalist would do such a thing. A journalist who completely fabricates a sensational story and then sucks others into validating it??
Oh what is this world coming to?...
Dell to Make Floppy Disk Drives Optional
When Apple made the decision to ex floppy drives over 2 years ago I must admit that I was not ready for it. I upgraded from my workhorse Quad 650 to a shiny new G3 350 back in 1999 and for awhile I considered buying an add-on drive to handle all my old floppies. But I finally decided to make good use of the internal Zip and have since never looked back.
Will windoze users do the same? Or will they insist on continuing to use the old media? Time will tell.
