Note: The older the entry, the unlikelier outside links are to work.

Very often when we receive a long email from somebody who is a friend, but not a real real friend, or plain waste of space, we tend to hesitate before answering, sometimes for years. This is mainly due to the fact that there isn't anything you would like to tell this other person, much less write. So you end up writing a very short note, and then think of not sending it at all, after all, your "friend" made all that effort to write you a long letter (probably a cut&paste-changethename-multiletter anyway...). So, next time you worry about the fact that your email seems kind of short, simply include the following text at the bottom. Not only will it enlarge your message, but also make you look like an important miscellaneous company executive or similar. Or it might make you look plain silly, which is basicly the same anyway.

IMPORTANT: This email is intended for the use of the individual addressee(s) named above and may contain information that is confidential, privileged or unsuitable for overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humour or irrational religious beliefs. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email is not authorised (either explicitly or implicitly) and constitutes an irritating social faux pas. Unless the word absquatulation has been used in its correct context somewhere other than in this warning, it does not have any legal or no grammatical use and may be ignored. No animals were harmed in the transmission of this email, although the kelpie next door is living on borrowed time, let me tell you. Those of you with an overwhelming fear of the unknown will be gratified to learn that there is no hidden message revealed by reading this warning backwards, so just ignore that Alert Notice from Microsoft. However, by pouring a complete circle of salt around yourself and your computer you can ensure that no harm befalls you and your pets. If you have received this email in error, please add some nutmeg and egg whites, whisk and place in a warm oven for 40 minutes.

All right, for those of you who have wondered where I get some of my links, here's the answer. Fark.com is an excellent source for the weirdest, most interesting daily news. They put up about 20 links every day, which take a long time to go through thoroughly. Which is why I've sometimes picked out the best and posted them on this site, to save you the trouble. But since I haven't had the time to do so lately, I figured I'd cut corners and let you go through them if you're interested. But be warned: it's going to eat up a lot of your time.

If Swedish is your language, then check out the Swedish version of the same thing.

Let me start with the useful. I think this is an example of the Internet at its best: sounds, pictures, speeches that you'd be completely unable to get access to otherwise. What I'm talking about is EarthStation1.com. They have an amazing amount of stuff from throughout history, choose your favorite. Me, I chose Winston Churchill's World War II speeches. Also, if you're missing that T-shirt with a picture of Stalin on it, this is the place to get it...

For some less useful, but equally entertaining information, check out eeggs.com. "Easter Eggs" are things that creators hide in their work, whether it's movies, software or CDs. I haven't been able to get some of them work, but that's maybe because the combos are as difficult as getting those special moves in Mortal Kombat XII. ("hold down K, Ctrl, backslash, 3 on the numpad, left-click on the my computer-icon and you'll be shown the size of Bill Gates' current bank account"). Moviewise, this is probably one of the coolest: A shot from Raider's of the Lost Arc, which reveals some pretty familiar characters from another movie-series.

Thanks to Dave for these links, all the help's appreciated, especially now that I'm not that often at a computer. But that will change next month, when I'll be sitting at a computer seven hours a day, presumably "working". How wrong they are.

Now that we got into talking science fiction (Douglas Adams, RIP), how about we all do our share to try to change the destiny of this tiny planet called earth and search together for extraterrestrial intelligence (as it seems we are unable to find it terrestrially...), and what easier way to do it than this. The SETI@home program is a special kind of screensaver. Like other screensavers it starts up when you leave your computer unattended, and it shuts down as soon as you return to work. What it does in the interim is unique. While you are getting coffee, or having lunch or sleeping, your computer will be helping the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence by analyzing data specially captured by the world's largest radio telescope. Awoke your interest? Good, join us.

Some of you might be asking why I say we haven't found intelligent life on earth? Well, try this: The rest of the world according to USA.

Douglas Adams, 1952-2001

I read yesterday that Douglas Adams died of a stroke over the weekend. In case you don't know who he is (which you should), he's the author of the five parts of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" -trilogy, as well as several other hilarious books. If you haven't read the Guide yet, this would be a good occasion to do so, in commemoration of the author. I promise you won't be disappointed.
If you want to know something more about the books before starting to read them, or to freshen up your memory, check out the Hitchhiker's Guide Encyclopedia. It's not as thorough as it could be, but it's a start.
Douglas Adams also started a project on the Internet called the H2G2.com. Apparently it's been taken over by BBC, but the idea is still functional, that is an ultimate guide to the planet Earth. Not your ordinary travel guide, this is the place to find some of the weirdest tips on this weird planet of ours.

Just something I forgot to mention yesterday: since my school's over, my updates for the rest of May may be a bit irregular. Hopefully Tero picks up the slack, or is he too "busy"?
Do you keep forgetting things now and then as well? Hopefully we don't all need cholinesterase inhibitors soon...

...I can't really tell, but one thing's for certain: my old e-mail address (which some of you might still be using, moliis@webster.ac.at) will cease to work very soon, since my work here will be done. So change those addresses in your addressbooks, or just keep writing to me through the e-mail links on this page. For awhile at least, I'm going to use the web-based system my ISP has set up for jani@moliis.org, but it doesn't look like a very good system, so I might change to something else later. In any case, I'll make sure to forward jani@moliis.org -mail to the right address, so if you just use that you can't go wrong; unless writing to me is a wrong in itself already.

But if you're interested in what the future will bring other than my graduation, I strongly recommend this essay by Bill Joy, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems. He talks about the threats of Genetics, Nanotechnology and Robotics. Very interesting stuff, even though I disagree with his doomsday-look of the future. It's a bit on the longer side, so print it out, go to a nice cafe and read it carefully. It should have the effect of making you think (contrary to most of the stuff on this website).

I'd forgotten about this site earlier, but now that I came across it again, I thought I'd let you know about it. Once more, one of those places to kill time if you're so inclined. The Spark has a bunch of tests you can do to learn something about yourself. The award that I received for the personality test is the image shown here. In addition to the personality test, I recommend the death test, the Un-telligence test, the gender test, and depending on whether you're male or female, the bastard test or the bitch test.

I have a vision of a time when anyone can watch anything at any time on TV, simply by choosing the desired program from the net. Sporting events are a little different, because they occur at a specific time, and the organizers make so much money from licenses that I doubt they'll be giving up those rights any time soon. But already it's possible to follow some events live on the web. If you don't mind not hearing or seeing anything, then it's actually quite interesting to do. Basically these pages automatically update every 30 seconds, or when something happens, so that you're able to read about it right away. Doesn't beat TV, I know, but people like me who don't have a TV should enjoy it better than reading the results in tomorrow's paper.
So what sports events have I followed with this method? Last year already, I followed a couple of qualifying races of formula one at Formula1.com. That's pretty good, since there's something happening basically every minute, which means there's a lot of updates. I haven't followed an actual race, which would probably be a lot more boring with this method.
The other event I've read live about on the web is the Ice-Hockey World Championships currently taking place in Germany. So there's not the same emotions or excitement involved, but at least you can stay well informed to the minute. And where they don't show the games at all (can anyone say Peru?), this is the only possibility available. The IHWC site is actually pretty good otherwise as well, lots of information about the games. Go Finland!

The first space tourist is safely in the space station. I consider this a historical moment, but why did the guy have to have a name like "Tito" and, more depressingly, look identical to Dr. Evil. "I payed twenty meeeeeeeelllllion dollars to get up here"...