Library of Congress to Archive Tweets

WTF is it with Twitter that has everyone so... 'boggled,' to paraphrase a Library of Congress blogger? Whatever it is, the aforementioned Library of Congress wants in on it: They announced that they are archiving all of the tweets sent over the service since its inception in March of 2006.

It is not yet known how this "information" will be used, saved, accessed, or by whom, but it is expected to be used by scholars interested in how news and information is disseminated and spread, and how readers' views change about it over time.

© C Harris Lynn, 2010

Wisconsin College Changes Font to Save Money, Environment

The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay is changing the font they use in their e-mail from the default Arial to Century Gothic, expressly to save money and be more environmentally aware. Century Gothic saves some 30% of ink over Arial when e-mails are printed. A gallon of printer ink costs about $10,000! A spokesperson says the font change is part of the college's five-year plan to "go green."

© C Harris Lynn, 2010

Is the Web the Greatest Threat to Endangered Species?

Spokespersons for wildlife conservation organizations say the Internet is the single biggest threat to endangered species, as traders take advantage of its world-wide range and anonymity to trade, buy, and sell endangered species.  However, several proposals meant to curb such trade were defeated at the 175-nation-strong Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Conservationists say Web use has all but wiped-out the Kaiser's Spotted Newt and a ban on trading the Iranian salamander passed handily, but similar provisions hoping to curb the trade of red and pink coral, polar bears, and bluefin tuna failed.  Changes to policies involving the ivory trade are set for delegation later this week.

Authorities say policing the trade is next to impossible and estimating the damage is just as difficult.  Some say they have discovered trades of everything from living, baby lions to polar bear pelts on auction sites and in chatrooms.  While China, Russia, Australia, and Europe are offenders, the United States is the worst.

© C Harris Lynn, 2010

Spam's Carbon Footprint

Consultants from ICF International and McAfee antivirus found that spam e-mail generates over33 billion kilowatt-hours every year - enough to provide energy for nearly 2¹/₂ million homes! Computers work harder when they are actually carrying out operations, such as running mail, and the amount of time that the average business-user's computer is running through spam mail amounts to around 30kg of CO2. The consulting team estimated 62 trillion pieces of spam mail per year, or 17 million tons of CO2!

ICF notes spam filtering (at the ISP level) would be like "taking 2.3 million cars off the road," reducing unwanted mail by as much as 75%. But the firm also says going after the source(s) of the spam is important, too. Worldwide spam fell by about 70% last November when US-based webhost, McColo, was shutdown; McColo had known ties to spammers.

The ICF/McAfee report came on the heels of Symantec's own Internet Security Threat report, in which the antivirus firm said global spam had increased by nearly 200%, with bot networks responsible for over 90% of it. Symantec and McAfee measure spam differently: McAfee counts all spam - even that stopped at the ISP; Symantec counts only the spam that makes it through and is seen (or deleted) by the end-user.

© C Harris Lynn, 2009