December 11, 2001– Newsletter #160

Greetings, Weekend Silicon Warriors,

This has nothing to do with computers, but I think you’ll
find it funny. My wife and I are trying a different slant
for the holidays this year. We addressed an envelope to
everyone on our friends and family list. The only
reference that it came from us is a return mail sticker.
We then bought a deck of playing cards that have an
image of Santa Claus on the back. We enclosed one of
the playing cards in each envelope and sent them off.

Get it? It’s a Christmascard. *snicker*

I’m sure it will result in a few phone calls from those who
just don’t get the joke. I expect many to start with,
Joseph, what the %$#& is this?

Did you hear

I’m sure you’ve seen it by now. IT is a scooter.
Maybe you’ll remember that I wrote just that in February
of this year. Read it here.

The first Web page created in the U.S. turns 10 on
December 12th. The page was posted by Stanford
University physicist Paul Kunz. It consisted of three
lines of text, an email link, and a link to a huge database.
It’s funny how many pages still look a lot like that one.

Excite@Home has new life. Comcast Cable and Cox
Communications have announced that 160 million will be
given to the ailing company to keep up high-speed
Internet connections. Excite@Home filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection in September of this year.
Hopefully the courts will accept the bail out and
Excite@Home will get another shot at it.

It seems that Bloomingdales.com is throwing in the
cyber-towel. Macys.com isn’t quite going that far, but
they will be scaling back. Federated Department Stores
Incorporated, owner of both sites, made the
announcements last Tuesday.

Now onto today’s topic

Just when I didn’t think there was any other method of
cramming advertising down our throats, I run into one.

First there were banner ads. Then there were multiple
banner ads. Then pop-up ads showed up. Then came
pop-under ads. I think they were created at the exact
same time as the X-10 camera. Active ads hit the market
and ran all over my desktop. Gator then showed up and
threw ads where I didn’t know ads could be thrown.

That’s it, right? There are no more areas on the browser
face that can become an ad right?

Wait. You forgot the cursor.

I can hear your eyes rolling out there.

Orbitz is a site that offers discount airfares from a bunch
of air carriers. I’ve used it. Comet Cursor is a site that
allows you to replace a user’s cursor while that user is in
your site. I know them fairly well also. They set up a
cursor system for HTML Goodies. We never went ahead
with it because the Comet Cursor people wanted too
much access to the Goodies server. Guess what?

You’ve got your Comet Cursor in my Orbitz.

Well, you’ve got your Orbitz in my Comet Cursor.

Throw in some Gator and now you’re talking!

Yep. Now your cursor can deliver you the lowest airfare
price on that trip to Sheboygan you’ve been planning.

A user must have allowed Comet Cursor to place some
code on their system. I’m sure many of you get those
lovely gray boxes asking if a cursor may be installed.

If you say yes, and here comes the Gator angle, then
cursor code is installed that keeps an eye on what sites
you’re visiting. For the sake of argument, let’s say you
head off to Travelocity.com, a good site in its own right.
You ask for a price on two one-way tickets to my
hometown, Cleveland, Ohio.

Comet Cursor also performs the search and pops up the
best price from Orbitzon the cursor.

Wow, you say. That’s a much better price. I shall buy
from Orbitz! I’ll just go and

I shall

Uh

Wait

How do I click on my cursor?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That’s that. Thanks for reading. Oh by the way, yes, I
know there’s a way to go to Orbitz after the price shows
up on the cursor. You see it was a joke.

Joe Burns, Ph.D.

And Remember: The concept of passenger airlines grew
out of World War One. So many planes were built for
the war that after the 1918 armistice, there was a surplus.
War pilots were making a living buying the planes,
giving joyrides and ferrying people around. The first
organized passenger airline, Deutsche Luft-Reederie, was
started in Germany in 1919. France followed later that
same year taking passengers from Paris to Brussels.

In flight service began in 1925 when the French Air
Union began serving hot meals, champagne, wine and
coffee. In 1927, Imperial Airways showed the first in-
flight movie. It was, The Lost World.

Up until 1930, flight attendants were all male. The first
woman to be hired as a flight attendant was registered
nurse and pilot Ellen Church. She was hired after writing
a letter to United Airlines. Swiss Air followed suit soon
after.