This is a simple yet highly addictive game. You need only the manual dexterity to click the mouse button and the mental capacity to avoid crashing into things. As your chopper hurls through a tunnel, you press the mouse button to make it go up and release it to go down. Just watch out for those oncoming brick walls.
It's that time of the year when Business 2.0 magazine publishes its highly anticipated Dumbest Moments in Business list. This past year saw some high profile wonders (Martha, anyone?), but there are a few corkers you might have missed unless you're glued to the business press.
A few years ago, I got started on a jazz kick and became mildly addicted to the genre. Rather than the modern stuff, I plunged into what was on offer from the 1930s through the 1950s and helped Amazon on the road to profitability with all the CDs I bought. But pre-1930s is somewhat murky and sites such as this labor of love help clear the muddy waters. Here you'll find a potted history of jazz from the late 19th century though 1929. Brilliant.
The subcult of iTunes (that is part of the larger Apple cult) makes for interesting exploration. There are all kinds of theories on exactly how Apple splits the profits and how much makes it back to the artists. There's a colorful, fairly energetic yet still subdued rant on this page that offers up some theories. The main reason for the site, though, is to take your winning soda bottle cap codes for free tunes and give as much of that money back to the artists as possible. It's a neat idea, and it'll be interesting to see if it actually works.
When you fly with a swanky 17-inch PowerBook, a number of people always comment on what a handsome computer it is. And there are certainly others on one's travels who think it would be worth stealing. Computers come and go, but the value of the data is what's important. If your Mac OS X computer is part of the mobile set, you might not be aware that there's some serious built-in yet transparent encryption that will protect your valuable data from prying eyes. This slightly technical overview from O'Reilly gives the skinny on how to keep your data safe.
