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Tuesday December 31, 2002

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition - Blair's News

How Fiber Works:

In this edition of HowStuffWorks, we will show you how these tiny strands of glass transmit light and the fascinating way that these strands are made.

Less Bang:

Next year will put to the test a key strategy for chipmakers: Invest as much as possible in technology during the downturn in order to become that much more profitable when semiconductor demand picks up.

The problem is that the recovery for semiconductors next year is expected to produce growth of only about 10% -- a pretty middling rebound. Big, rich chipmakers such as Intel (INTC:Nasdaq - news - commentary - research - analysis), Texas Instruments (TXN:NYSE - news - commentary - research - analysis) and IBM (IBM:NYSE - news - commentary - research - analysis) probably won't see the returns they would have expected a couple years ago when they started investing billions in state-of-the-art chip fabrication plants.

Smooth Criminals:

Dec. 31 — This year brought no Melissa virus, no Code Red, no daylong outages at Microsoft or Yahoo, and few tales of high-profile hacks. So one might conclude computer crime was down in 2002. And that would be a mistake. Because this year more than any other, fame-seeking teenage graffiti artists were pushed aside by real criminals who have discovered how user-friendly the Internet is. Millions of dollars are being stolen now from innocent and naive Net users by con artists of every flavor, and there’s reason to believe organized crime rings are now taking a sizable slice of that pie.

Why Ask Why?

Where did those traditions come from anyway?

Posted by Kyle 12:07 PM (CST)