From bobrankin@MHV.NET Thu Feb 26 11:35:19 1998
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 00:52:13 -0500
From: Bob Rankin
Reply-To: TOURBUS-Request@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
To: TOURBUS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Subject: TOURBUS - 26 Feb 1998 - Send Your Kids To Mars
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TODAY'S TOURBUS STOPS:
SEND YOUR KID'S NAME TO MARS / NETSQUIRREL.COM
TODAY'S TOURBUS ADDRESSES:
NASA's Send Your Kid's Name to Mars
- http://spacekids.hq.nasa.gov/mars/home.htm
NetSquirrel.com
- http://netsquirrel.com/
Howdy, y'all, and greetings from the University of Alabama!
As always, we have a _BUNCH_ of stuff to talk about this week. If you
have been a passenger on our little bus of Internet happiness for any
amount of time, you will probably remember our recent squishing of the
Bill Gates' email tracing hoax (see the 11 December 1997 and 12
February 1998 TOURBUS posts at http://www.tourbus.com/ for more
information). Well, David Emery, a David Copperfield lookalike who
debunks urban legends for the Mining Company, informed me earlier
today that the Bill Gates email tracing hoax has morphed ... AGAIN!
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The new hoax has a return address of "swoosh@nike.com" and says that
athletic shoe and apparel maker Nike is
offering free Nike shoes and clothing as part of a contest
that all of you are invited to participate in. Microsoft
Corp. has developed a new e-mail tracing system and is
currly [sic] offering us the opportunity to help test their
system. With the use of this new technology, we bring a
contest to you. We ask that you forward this e-mail to your
fellow students.
After one month of testing the tracing software, we will
randomly select 500 names from the list of recipients and
each will be given their choice of a gift certificate for
$120.00 toward any purchase of Nike shoes or apparel. Thank
you and good luck.
As with all of the Bill Gates' email tracing stories clogging up the
Information Superhighway, the Nike/Microsoft email tracing story is --
brace yourself -- not true (GASP!). David Emery goes on to report
that Nike has officially stated that
"Swoosh@nike.com" is NOT a valid Nike address. You have been the
unfortunate victim of a hoax -- reports of a Nike 'software
testing' promotion are false. Nike does not send unsolicited
email to anyone.
Stephanie Vardavas of Nike also told me a few moments ago that
There are also a couple of other hoaxes that emerged within a few
days of this one, and we don't know if they're related. Both are
"new shoes for old." One tells consumers to call our 800 number
to have their old shoes exchanged for new ones, and one tells
consumers to just mail their old shoes to a facility of ours with
their name and address, to get new shoes in exchange. Both have
been circulating in email and both are of course totally false.
I often hear people ask "who do these Internet hoaxes actually hurt?"
Well, the answer is two-fold:
1. It hurts the people who are gullible enough to fall for
these hoaxes (and, until we add a little more chlorine to
the gene pool, there will always be gullible people out
there) ; and
2. It hurts the companies "targeted" by the hoaxes. The Make
A Wish Foundation was so overwhelmed with email from people
responding to the "Craig Shergold Brain Tumor Boy" hoax
that, for a time, they were having difficulties carrying
out their regular mission: granting the dying wishes of
children with terminal diseases.
You might not agree with Nike's or Microsoft's business practices,
but ask yourself this: what if _you_ (or your business) were a
victim of one of these hoax attacks? Would your system be able
to withstand the volume of email that the hoax would generate?
Would your phone be able to handle the volume of calls from
people who, believing the hoax was true, contacted you for more
information?
Like it or not, email hoaxes are _everyone's_ problem. Because
until we _all_ stand up and do what is necessary to stop these
hoaxes outright, there is no telling which one of us will be the
next victim.
-----------------------------
SEND YOUR KID'S NAME TO MARS!
-----------------------------
On a less serious note, The nice folks at the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration want to send your kid's name to the surface
of Mars. As a way of promoting the planned 1999 launch of the Mars
Polar Lander, NASA is collecting the names of school children from
all over the world. These names will then be stored on a CD-ROM that
will be shot into space as part of the Mars Polar Lander's payload.
Adding your name to the list is pretty easy (and, best of all, it
is totally FREE!). Just point your Web browser to
http://spacekids.hq.nasa.gov/mars/home.htm
Then, click on the words "Sign Me Up!" at the bottom of the page. The
rest of the instructions are pretty self-explanatory (type in your
name, and then click on the "Add Me" button).
Now for the cool part. After you add your kid's name to the list of
other names being sent to Mars, NASA automatically forwards you to a
page where you can view, download, and even print a certificate
showing that your kid's name is now part of the payload of the Mars
Polar Lander. Three version of this certificate are available:
1. A screen version (that looks GREAT but may be hard to see on
small screens);
2. A print version (which looks okay, but uses your browser's
less than spectacular default font -- usually Times or Times
New Roman); and
3. A blank 87Kb Adobe Acrobat version (you have to have Adobe's
free Acrobat reader to view this file; once you open the file,
you need to highlight the words "Type Name Here" and then type
in your kid's name -- and make sure you press the "enter" key
before you print the certificate).
All three versions of the certificate are pretty impressive, but the
best results come from printing the PDF version on a high-quality
color printer. The certificates' message is also pretty cool:
Thank you for participating in this historic event. The Mars
Polar Lander and future missions to Mars will help us unravel
many of the mysteries surrounding the red planet. One day we
hope to send space explorers to Mars and beyond. You could be
that future explorer, but only if you stay in school and study
hard, especially in the areas of math, science, and computer
technology.
Remember to keep your eyes on the skies because your name is now
part of the cosmos!
My favorite part of this message, of course, is the part that says
"stay in school." I think I might just follow that advice. :)
---------------
NETSQUIRREL.COM
---------------
Brace yourself for some shameless self-promotion. Your fearless bus
driver now has a new home on the Net. Thanks to the nice folks at
Hiway Technologies (http://www.hway.net/), my new Web site is at
http://netsquirrel.com/
and my new email address is
crispen@netsquirrel.com
My Web site is still in the larval stage, but pretty soon it will
include:
* The _new_ official Southern Word archive;
* A complete, searchable archive of every Advanced HTML (ADV-
HTML) discussion list post since January of 1997;
* A complete archive of my Roadmap96 Internet training workshop;
* ALL of my other Web pages that are currently stored on sites
all over the world (including my pages from
,
, and
; and
* MY NEW WEB WORKSHOP, WHICH I _REALLY_ WILL START WRITING ON
APRIL 1ST (no, this isn't an April Fool's joke).
So, let me be the first to invite you to a sneak peek of my new Web
site at . It, like most other Web pages, is
a work in progress (and is it just me, or does my site's squirrel logo
look an awful lot like a SKUNK?!). Still, I'd love to hear your
feedback.
That's it for this week. I'll be in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,
this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday to give a speech at the South
Carolina Business Education Association Conference, so I may not be
able to respond to email (or send out this weekend's TOURBUS Plus!
post) until I get back to Tuscaloosa late Saturday night. I hope
that's okay. :)
Oh, one last thing: be looking for a special series of TOURBUS reports
from Spring Internet World in Los Angeles next month (March 11th-ish,
I think). I'll be doing the "poor man's tour" of Internet World --
I'm staying with some friends in Santa Monica and only visiting the
conference's exhibit hall (because exhibit hall admission is free) --
but I _WILL_ be there ... weather and squirrels permitting. :)
TODAY'S TOURBUS STOPS:
SEND YOUR KIDS NAME TO MARS / NETSQUIRREL.COM
TODAY'S TOURBUS ADDRESSES:
NASA'S Send Your Kid's Name to Mars
http://spacekids.hq.nasa.gov/mars/home.htm
NetSquirrel.com
http://netsquirrel.com/
--------------------------------
TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE DAY
--------------------------------
COAT (noun). A legal gathering.
Usage: "All rise ... this coat is now in owduh"
(Special thanks to me for today's wurd)
YOU CAN FIND ALL OF THE OLD SOUTHERN WORDS OF THE DAY ON THE SOUTHERN
WORD HOMEPAGE AT http://www.brigadoon.com/~crispen/word.html
=--------------------------------------------------------------------=
For info on my book "Atlas for the Information Superhighway"
Visit http://www.brigadoon.com/~crispen/atlas.html
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=====================================================================
.~~~. ))
(\__/) .' ) )) Patrick Douglas Crispen
/o o \/ .~
{o_, \ { **NEW** crispen@netsquirrel.com **NEW**
/ , , ) \ http://www.netsquirrel.com/
`~ '-' \ } ))
_( ( )_.' Warning: squirrels.
'---..{____}
