Some security geeks at the San Diego Supercomputer Center did a cool experiment to determine how long an unsecured Red Hat 5.2 machine could survive in the wild without the benefit of patching or a firewall. The answer: not very long.

First the PTO gave Amazon.com a patent on one-click ordering, now they’ve given them an extremely broad patent covering affiliate programs. These patents are a cancer on the Internet industry, as is the practice of patenting “business models” and obvious software solutions. Because Amazon.com is bound and determined to bludgeon everyone else in the electronic space with patents, I’m removing all links to Amazon.com on this site. Naturally, I won’t be placing any more orders with Amazon.com either.

I knew it all along! Most day traders lose big money (thanks to Q Daily News for spotting this story). Most of the guys managing mutual funds suck at picking stocks, what makes the everyday knucklehead think they’ll do any better?

If you haven’t been able to connec to Project Cool, A List Apart, or any of a number of other Web development hot spots over the past day or so, it’s because Covad is incompetent.

You know what’s great about the Web? If you make a name for yourself, people will fall all over themselves trying to give you money. (I think I’m being sarcastic about that being great.)

The Washington Post has a story about Al Gore and Bill Bradley using the Web as the vehicle for negative campaigning. Bill Bradley gets points for offering scans of real letters written by Gore on his site.

Rick Thompson just doesn’t get it. The quote: “If supermarkets were designed like Web sites, milk and bread would be at the front of the store.” The sort of cynical mistreatment of customers that works well in traditional retail isn’t going to fly on the Web. If you make it harder for people to find the things they need on your Web site, people will shop somewhere else.

CeBIT, the huge German computer trade show, has banned online journalists, or at least refused them media access. Only print journalists are welcome. Where do they think most computer enthusiasts get their information these days? Tom’s Hardware or PC Magazine …

Internet researcher extraordinaire Tara Calishain pointed me to Issues2000, which pins the tail on the candidates on all sorts of issues, including the death penalty. In answer to my question, all four major candidates favor the death penalty. That’s what I love about this country … so many choices!

Spurred on by Al Gore’s discussion of his (in my opinion, reprehensible) views on the death penalty, I decided to try to figure out what the views of all the candidates are on capital punishment. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any information at the Bill Bradley or John McCain sites (we already know that Dubya is perfectly OK with the DP), nor was I able to find information on the presidential candidates on any number of anti-death penalty sites. Oh well.