Opinion

Like the Neilsen ratings for television or Ebert and Roeper for the movies, determining the best of what’s on the Web is a nebulous thing.

In last week’s Pique, I told the story of 18-year-old Jeffrey Parson of small-town Minnesota, a computer enthusiast who was dumb enough to replicate the Blaster virus, and leave his name all over it before re-releasing it onto the Web.

The sound of jackhammers has never been confused with the wailing song of the sirens. No one has ever been drawn by the machine-gun bursts of a compressed air demolition machine to seek the source of this tune.

Twenty months ago a gaggle of Whistler residents and second homeowners made the decision to spend a Saturday indoors listening to presentations by consultants, rather than go skiing.

For authorities that have been able to bring anyone to justice for a recent series of Internet worms and viruses that cost billions of dollars in damage, Jeffrey Lee Parson was a gift.

The origins of Labour Day date back to April of 1872, when the Toronto Trades Assembly organized the first North American ‘workingman’s demonstration’ of any significance.

Although the end goal is a paperless society, with the exception of Pique Newsmagazine, a computer without a printer is like a guitar without a low ‘E’ string – you’re just not getting the full effect.

A series of computer worms in recent weeks has infected millions of computers, taking advantage of flaws in networks and software to propagate their mischief. As of Aug. 19, Symantec (http://securityresponse.symantec.

In last Sunday’s New York Times Brent Staples posed a theory on why there wasn’t much looting or violence in the Big Apple during the recent blackout.

When a severe earthquake hit the San Francisco Bay Area in the fall of 1989 downing many traditional communications systems, as well as damaging buildings and bridges and scaring the bejesus out of everyone, many people in one of the most wired regio