Spam: knight's move

In the United States, the number of Internet users is no longer growing at an explosive pace. When almost every third person is connected to the Internet, rapid development is no longer possible. Therefore, the problem of spam (unsolicited mail), which is not yet very acute in Russia, has long acquired federal proportions in the States. On average, every tenth email received is spam. If a person receives several hundred letters a day, then “junk mail” literally begins to drive him crazy. Spam, of course, can be fought with software filters on email programs on home computers and directly on the email servers of Internet service provider companies. But instead of dutifully taking out the trash thrown by a hooligan through the window from the apartment, it is better to deal with the hooligan himself once and for all. Previously, American providers used not entirely suitable legal acts, such as the Federal Computer Abuse Act, to fight spammers in court. But recently, a number of states have passed special anti-spam laws that can provide victims with real protection. There is no doubt that other states will soon follow this example. So we should expect a mass migration of spammers (albeit virtual) to “safe” places like Singapore, the Czech Republic or Russia. Here, however, there is another danger - in Russia, in order to deal with a spammer, no one will patiently wait for the adoption of the relevant law...

77 pleasures



It is all 77, and not the usual 33, pleasures that the self-confident creators of the site www.77.ru promise us - the site collects and summarizes information about traffic jams on Moscow and Moscow region roads, updates occur every 10 - 20 minutes.

No money



This is, in fact, not about the site de-neg.net, but about the all-Russian campaign for the declaration of income by citizens of the great and powerful. The Ministry of Taxes and Duties has been flexing its PR muscle for years now, inventing creative ways to remind taxpayers of their sacred duty. The goal of the current advertising campaign is to attract as many visitors as possible to the website www.nalog.ru. For this purpose, several tens of millions of advertising banners will be “unrolled” (according to official prices, this costs about one hundred thousand dollars). I wonder if the Ministry of Taxes will pay itself a tax on used impressions? Or will the campaign to raise funds be classified as social advertising? In any case, the MNS website will become one of the most visited for some time - advertising on such a site could theoretically be very expensive. Well, you still have to pay taxes. Otherwise it will become more expensive later.

I-commerce for the poor



The main problem of network businesses now is not the inability to find investments, but the lack of people with whom these investments can be mastered. Find a fresh idea and adequate performers, and investors will most likely line up, even if the project does not promise the slightest profit in the near future. For example, the creators of the Peoplink.Org resource do not hide the fact that their online store is a non-profit project. Peoplink.Org serves artisans and artists from 25 countries, allowing them to find buyers and sell non-traditional products directly, without intermediaries (however, intermediaries usually cannot be lured into such a business: no input, no profit). The goal is “to allow anyone to engage in i-trade, even if he is the poorest of the poor.” True, you won’t be able to sell old rags and dried fish bones through Peoplink.Org - the products must be worthy of an art salon, be it clothes from Nepal, Haitian metal sculpture or carved masks from Cameroon.

Build a friend



It is absolutely impossible to pass by indifferently the “smart” techno-toy from the interesting British team Soda (www. soda. co.uk). In general, Soda works in a rare area of ​​merging modern technologies, architecture and visual solutions. The “Constructor” toy is just a waste product for them, but what a waste! Imagine that you are given the opportunity (right on the website) to assemble two-dimensional graphic models, the joints of which have variable elasticity. The speed and direction of movement of the model depend on the force of gravity, friction and a number of other parameters that you set. Simulating life, even two-dimensional life, especially in such an unusual world where the speed of life is measured by the amplitude of the wave, is not easy - so first carefully study the ready-made models, and only then take on the role of the Creator.

Bridge to the Network
A couple of years ago, I remember, the compiler of Save As mentioned in print that even in Moscow, a connection speed with an Internet provider exceeding 14.4 KB per second is a blessing from God. The average access speed has increased significantly since then. But not dramatically. Indeed, fast Internet is still only available to corporate users. New methods of data transmission (DSL and others like them) are taking root in domestic mail timidly and with difficulty. The NTV-Internet company (www.ntvi.ru), part of the Media-Most holding, has just announced that anyone can get ultra-fast access to the Internet via the Bonum-1 satellite owned by NTV. To do this, you will need an installed NTV+ dish and a special board for the computer. Guaranteed speed of incoming traffic - up to 1 MB per second. True, outgoing traffic (from the client to the Network) will still have to be passed through a regular provider, but its size is incommensurate with incoming traffic. Now you can watch movies and listen to music from the Internet in real time.

According to Itogi, Cooler, RCFoC, Newsweek, TBTF, Langa