Speaking of slashdot, I was wondering if anyone owned dotslash.org… thought it would be mildly funny if it was slashdot’s content, literally, backwards (well, the “still awake at 3AM” brain thought so anyway). Not too surprisingly, dotslash.org also goes to slashdot. Nice touch. However, backslashdot.org is not registered yet, so if you want to start your own renegade DOS news log, go for it! (Yes, I’m kidding.) (Yes, I know that was a lame joke. Again, I plead the 3AM amendment.)

I’d like to thank everyone who pointed me to the hilarious Y2K corporate emails in response to yesterday’s log. It was posted to /. last month.

At Safeway (grocery store) today there was a little handwritten sign taped to the ATM. It said “DOWN”. I thought “down?” and, of course, looked down the machine. Caught myself just in time. Duh. It meant the machine wasn’t working. As in “the computer is down”. Is “out of order” going out of style with the new computer vernacular? Or is this just another “only in Silicon Valley” bit?

Guess who owns splirt.com?

Came across Letters from a Nut in a bookstore (yes I was in an actual physical independent bookstore, they do still exist, go buy some books at one if you can!). This guy writes insane letters and gets responses from places like The Baseball Hall of Fame (he offered to donate a full set of Mickey Mantle’s toenail clippings). It reminded me of a book I gave a friend a while back: Idiot Letters: One Man’s Relentless Assault on Corporate America. In my continued mulling over digital vs physical items, I am wondering whether companies would take email queries with the same seriousness as these typewritten/word processed letters. Email is just too easy and cheap to produce, and there’s a lot of crackpots sending idiotic email anyway. But could someone achieve the same results using email as these guys did with snail mail? Anyone want to give it a try? Perhaps someone already is!

After perusing my access log, I now I feel compelled to say hi to everyone from GeekNews simply because I’m getting many more referrals from there than anyone else (no, this is not a competition, and please, remember, No Wagering!). Logging is more fun with an audience.

As a coworker put it, GirlHacker has been “the web log equivalent of slashdotted”. Welcome all you Now This and Robot Wisdom readers! And much thanks to the inspirational Dinah for starting the reference ball rolling in the first place. OK, enough with the self references, back to the cool ideas.

One day, I just may be tempted to hack someone’s washing machine.

One of those questions that often enters my brain as I am sitting in traffic has finally been answered: just how much does it cost to rent a billboard on 101 in Silicon Valley? Apparently ten times more than it did five years ago. Prime spots are going for $100,000 a month, according to an article in the Mercury News. And if you want one, you’d better plan ahead. There’s a waiting list. Or perhaps you’d prefer a sign on a barge floating in the bay by the Stick (yes, I know it’s actually called 3Com Park; what an expensive billboard that was!). Those open at $35,000 for two weeks. Nice to know that my eyeballs have such expensive taste.

I was delighted to find the complete texts of the L. Frank Baum Oz books online at Project Gutenberg. Of course the fantastical artwork from the books is not included, but that’s what used bookstores are for. (Although maybe someone could do ASCII versions… like the guy who’s recreating the Star Wars movie entirely in ASCII (java 1.1 req’d).)