spammers unite
It must be bizarro world all the time down in Florida. In the news today is a report of several Florida spammers (aka "bulk mail marketing fulfillment houses") who have filed suit in civil court against several anti-spam organizations.

The funny/dangerous thing about this suit is that it could end up setting precedent as to whether or not spammers actually have the right to spam. I hope they have good lawyers with rock-star attitudes and the threads to match.

I want to try it with 5.25" disks
Need simple storage for your system, but can't afford a networked storage device or a full-blown RAID system? Here's an idea: Build your own out of floppy drives and a USB hub.

Big Brother Redux, Again
Once upon a time, file trading was anonymous and free. Now the recording industry is forcing Internet service providers (with the help of the courts) to rat out customers who trade music online -- whether such behavior violates their user agreement or not. Thanks, guys!

Numbers
What's your Winer Number? If you were to consider Webmonkey as a singular being, our Winer Number is 1. Our extended Winer number is almost impossible to calculate, but my best guess is 27.

If you were to consider the person writing this blog (Mike) as a singular entity within the Webmonkey entity, my own personal Winer number is 2. There you have it.

Another Evany Update
Hey there readers.

First and foremost, we should let you know that our editor Evany is doing very well. She's out of the hospital and resting at home. Lots of fruit smoothies and soft pasta for her!

The whole appendix thing is strange, we've decided. I mean, you don't really need it, but if it turns bad it can harm you very seriously. At any rate, we should have our Evany back in just a couple of weeks. Here's to speedy recoveries!

Evany Update
First of all, thanks to everyone who sent in well-wishings and good tidings to Evany. I know that she appreciates it. (This is Mike speaking)

We went to visit her in the hospital, and she's looking positively tip-top considering that she just had surgery less than 48 hours previous to our visit. She's doing well and she wants everyone to know that she'll be back in the game in no time. A couple of weeks resting in bed and getting her fill of daytime television ought to do the trick.

Meanwhile, yours truly will be pinch-hitting and fielding those pop-up flies as they come. The monkey quad is rather quiet this week. We had a few whirlwind days with the RSA conference and the editor-going-under-the-knife and all. Actually, it's kind of odd to think about... an editor being edited. Taking out the parts that don't belong. OK, OK, I won't go there. Feel free to leave your comments here or to drop her an email sayin' "Hi" or something along those lines.

It's starting to look like summer out here in San Francisco. Sun and breezes. I'm going to hop up onto the roof and snap a few four by sixes with the digital camera. Until next week!

Paging Doctor Monkey
In one of those "Wow, I can't believe this is happening" moments, our very own Managing Editor Evany underwent appendix-out surgery this afternoon!

The word is that she's going to be fine. She was in pain yesterday and had been feeling under the weather all weekend, so she decided to pay a visit to her doctor. It's a good thing that she did, because after a few quick tests, the doctor told her that her appendix needed to come out — stat!

We here at Webmonkey are off to visit her in the hospital and deliver some flowers. If you'd like to offer your "get well" message to the one and only Evany, feel free to email her at Evany@wired.com and say hi.

Meanwhile, everything continues on in the monkey quad. Mike is biting his nails, Jay is laughing at all the sarcastic vegan jokes, and the stereo is pumping. We want our Evany back.

The Big Apple Gets Bigger?
As you may have heard by now, Apple Computer is considering buying a slice of Vivendi. One of those round slices, as in the whole Universal Music arm of the company. At least, that's what was reported across the news sites on the Web this morning after the Los Angeles Times broke the story.

In their trademark "Shhhh!" fashion, Apple isn't saying a word about the deal. Actually, the only people talking are financial analysts. We'll just have to wait and see if Apple CEO Steve Jobs, also known as Mr. "Rip, Mix, Burn," will turn the recording industry on its head. My vote is yes.

BE the paintbrush
The only art supplies you need to make your own GPS drawings are a GPS receiver and some comfortable walking shoes (or a reliable set of wheels, or a sea-worthy vessel). And they're a hell of a lot easier to make than crop circles.

Dull like a fox!
Some people think that the Webmonkey blog is the dullest in the world.

We've never thought so. Actually, now it's official -- we're not the dullest blog in the world. We do have pictures of our shoes, though.