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Thanks for the pointers to stories about today's new virus. Today's big virus knocked me off the Internet at about 1PM. AP: "In late afternoon trading, the Dow was down 23.81 at 8,896.89 after gaining more than 90 points earlier and briefly climbing above the 9,000 level." Economist: "The notion of jihad, or holy war, had almost ceased to exist in the Muslim world after the tenth century until it was revived, with American encouragement, to fire an international pan-Islamic movement after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979."  Caleb Carr, on the War of 1812: "The British gratuitously destroyed important structures in Washington (and killed many innocent people) because those buildings were obnoxious symbols of American values whose spread and propagation the London government feared would spell the disempowerment of their own. "9/4/01: "Lurking amid the false revolutions are the gems. That's what we want. Ideas like personal computers and spreadsheets in the early 80s, graphic user interfaces in the mid 80s, desktop publishing in the late 80s, or networking in the mid 90s." Given the events of the last week, would anyone like to speculate on what the next technology revolution will be?  Village Voice: "This pleasant young woman who makes her home in New Jersey is the Taliban rulers' unofficial ambassador in the U.S., and their most active and best-known advocate elsewhere in the West."Frank Viviano: "American newspapers and television stations have all but abandoned any commitment to international coverage. The most powerful nation in modern history has become an ostrich with its head in the sand." Sean Palmer: What is the Semantic Web? 3/21/97: Mullah with a Mission. "Omar is one of the most improbable characters in Afghanistan's tortured history." CNN: "The Israeli Defense Ministry says it is canceling all offensive operations against the Palestinians after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat reaffirmed his determination to honor a cease-fire." DaveNet: Don't open email enclosures. Survey: "Are you getting lots of huge email enclosures in the last few hours?" I'm getting spammed by some guy in Asia with huge enclosures. Oy. It's getting worse. The body of the email is empty. Here's a screen shot of the message. The message source. OK, now it looks like it's a virus. I got the same kind of message from another sender. Don't open enclosures on Windows. Repeat that 850,000 times. Jim Flannagan: "Looks like you're getting hit via the email vector of w32.nimda.amm. Check your web server logs too. My web server is getting a bunch of probes, starting this morning." OK basically email is useless now. I just launched ICQ. If you're getting hit by this virus send me a brief ICQ message. Lots of new links in the Central Asia directory. The performance of the Yahoogroups mail lists is back to normal. Thanks. 11/5/95: Making Microsoft Safe for Capitalism. Doc: "Yes," Hans said after hearing all my excuses. "It's so hard to make friends, isn't it? And so easy to lose them." With that he climbed in his car and I never saw him again. AP: "Share prices soared in Tokyo today, with the Nekkei gaining 175.47 points to close at 9,679.88 as international investors shrugged off Monday's plunge on Wall Street." AP: "Microsoft plans to delay the launch of a new version of Flight Simulator, its popular computer game that allows players to fly airplanes over New York City and other metropolitan areas, because of last week's terrorist attacks." BTW, today I'm getting my TV turned back on. On Saturday I went through heavy withdrawal. I wanted to see the imagery. Then it passed. So I decided to go ahead and get a new DirecTv dish and receiver. Also getting TiVO. I'll try not to get too addicted. Hey it's Tuesday. Take a programmer to lunch. A Scripting News tradtition. Looks like I'm having lunch with Bierman today. He's a programmer. So am I. So we both qualify. If you're in the US, if you can, take a non-American programmer to lunch. If you're in a country where Americans are in the minority, take an American to lunch. Try not to talk about politics too much. Today would be a good day to talk about families with your programmer friend. This is a way of massaging fear. See how your new friend has a family that has stuff in common with yours. At least one reader took offense at the Country Joe song I posted yesterday. It's a historic song. When it became popular lots of young men in the US were facing a future in a box or a body bag for a cause no one understood and few supported. Yes, it's a funny song -- but the underlying subject was hugely fearful. That's why it was such a great song, and I guess it still is. Let me preach perspective. The wounds are not healing quite as quickly as one might hope. The number of flames I'm getting is going up. Remember the First Amendment of the US Constitution, it's one of our most precious freedoms. As you're writing the email telling me where to shove it, please put at the beginning something like this. "Freedom of speech is precious to me." If you can't say that then you don't Get It. 
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