Salon.com > Patrizia DiLucchio

Death of a dwarf

Mon, 10 Sep 2001 18:10:00 +0000

OK, he was no Aaliyah, but when I learned that Hank Nastiff -- a recurring character in the Howard Stern stable of dysfunctional radio personalities -- died last Tuesday, I felt a genuine pang.

In April 1998, Hank the Angry, Drunken Dwarf unwittingly hijacked the annual beauty poll run by People Magazine Online, beating out Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney and the usual gang of suspects, and crashing Time Inc.'s Pathfinder Web servers in the process.

For one brief moment, Hank became a bona fide Internet celebrity of sorts, an iconic manifestation of the hive mind at work and a pain in my ass. One minute Hank was throwing up on the sidewalks of Fall River, Mass., where he lived with his mother; the next, he was voted the most beautiful person in the world. That's how fame's 15 minutes of high beams work sometime. Get used to it.

Bill Gates' other CEO

Mon, 07 Feb 2000 17:00:00 +0000

If a picture is worth a thousand words then Corbis, with its collection of more than 65 million images, must have a street value greater than the Bible, the lost libraries of Alexandria and the collected works of Stephen King combined. But it's Steve Davis' job to figure out how to make money off the vast archives. Corbis' president and CEO says the digital image provider is betting on a world where digital art will be everywhere -- even in the wired devices that will soon replace the funky magnets and calendars cluttering your refrigerator or desk.

Davis didn't exactly envision this high-tech future; he arrived at Corbis through the back door of intellectual property -- as an attorney interested in the process of protecting the copyright of digitally transmitted images.
It was Bill Gates who in 1989 founded the company; it is still privately held by the Microsoft mogul. The Corbis archives contain some of the world's most significant and recognizable photography and fine art, including works from Ansel Adams, Galen Rowell and the 17 million historical images of the Bettmann Archive. Its recent acquisition of Sygma, the world's largest news photography agency, suggests that Corbis is positioning itself as a digital platform for real-time news content.

Did “The Blair Witch Project” fake its online fan base?

Fri, 16 Jul 1999 16:00:00 +0000

One of the hottest topics on the Net this summer is "The Blair Witch
Project," a low-budget horror film that's generated more buzz than the chainsaw used in that Texas massacre. Before it even opened, the indie had inspired over 20 fan sites, a mailing list, a Web ring, a Usenet group -- and more than its fair share of glowing reports on the influential movie site Ain't It Cool News. But was all the excitement genuine?

"Internet marketing," notes Gordon Paddison, director of interactive
marketing at New Line Cinema, "is the most inexpensive and efficient mode of marketing around. And it's available to those with limited resources. Online is all about word of mouth."

"'The Blair Witch Project' filmmakers are using their friends to generate their fan sites," says another industry executive point-blank. "That was an organized effort. What happened is that they tricked the press."

Dr. Laura targets the new Sodom: Libraries

Thu, 27 May 1999 16:00:00 +0000

Listeners who tuned in Dr. Laura Schlessinger's radio talk show on April 15 got a real earful: "The ALA" -- American Library Association -- "is boldly, brashly contributing to sexualizing our children," Schlessinger told her audience of 20 million. "And now the pedophiles know where to go." What a way to commemorate National Library Week.

Schlessinger was riled up about the association's bill of rights, specifically a clause that put the group on record against restricting kids' access to any library materials, including the Web. The library group's stand was already controversial, but Schlessinger went nuclear. She couldn't have sounded more outraged had she stumbled upon a bevy of Schlessinger impersonators flashing the pink for Hustler magazine.

"Here it is," she said. "On the ALA's home page list of recommended teen Web pages, the ALA recommends Go Ask Alice, a site discussing many graphic issues including bestiality, sadomasochism, group sex and other. In my opinion, the ALA has done something evil, which -- as you know from Mother Laura -- is something way past dumb."

Screen decor

Wed, 19 May 1999 16:00:00 +0000

Chances are you spend too much time sitting in front of a computer. And let's face it, your desktop is bleak. Functional, yes; fun, no. While just about every other mass-market product's appeal revolves around its design, computer interfaces remain intimidatingly utilitarian -- a throwback to a time when the Internet had not yet achieved its gold-rush entertainment value and computer culture wasn't sexy.

But a growing community of computer users, weary of standard-issue windows and icons, is taking matters into its own hands.

"Who wants to look at a desktop with gray, blah, same-old windows, when you can change it at the drop of a hat to suit your mood?" asks Janet Parris, a retired teacher from North Carolina who has designed more than 100 landscapes using Kaleidoscope, a popular shareware utility for the Macintosh. Her various designs will transform a desktop into a "winter wonderland" of snowflakes and sleighs, or adorn it with roses, bunnies or Byzantine ornamentation. There are rebels on the Windows front as well, designing alternative desktops using new interface design utilities like eFX and Stardock's WindowBlinds.

Event Horizon's Web gamble

Mon, 07 Dec 1998 20:00:00 +0000

Some things should sell themselves -- like beer in a ballpark, or science fiction on the Internet. But the act of faith that launched Event Horizon, a Web site devoted to literary science fiction, defies much of the conventional wisdom about the two markets it hopes to conquer -- science fiction magazines and online publishing.

Rising phoenixlike from the creative ashes of the late Omni -- the first big-league magazine to try to reinvent itself entirely online -- Event Horizon has set a gold standard for science-fiction excellence on the Net. Online readers can sample the work of outstanding writers like Robert Silverberg, Lucius Shepard, Howard Waldrop and Pat Cadigan. They can participate in live chats with the likes of Neil Gaiman, Kim Stanley Robinson and William Goldman.

Dr. Laura, how could you?

Tue, 03 Nov 1998 20:00:00 +0000

The scenario inspires dija vu: a well-known figure, caught at the center of an Internet sex scandal, follows up a public denial by a courtroom-mandated confession. Dr. Laura Schlessinger -- talk radio phenomenon and morality maven to the masses, whose syndicated show receives upward of 60,000 phone calls a day from listeners seeking her counsel on subjects such as premarital sex, fidelity and the importance of being a stay-at-home mom -- had been caught with her pants down. Literally. True, the resulting photographs were ancient history, 20 years old or more. But suddenly they were on dozens of Web pages and newsgroups across the Net. How was the best-selling author of "Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives" going to spin this?

It all began on Oct. 19, when Web-porn giant Internet Entertainment Group (IEG), which previously made headlines with the Pamela and Tommy Lee honeymoon sex tapes, posted a dozen pictures purporting to be Schlessinger on its ClubLove Web site. The photos -- taken by Schlessinger's mentor, California radio personality Bill Ballance -- displayed a sportive, 20-something Dr. Laura in various stages of undress, including one classic open-legged money shot. To enhance viewing pleasure, IEG offered "Live Picture Technology," enabling users to zoom in on specific body parts. As Seth Warshavsky, the entrepreneur behind IEG, boasted on the site, "You can point your arrow on any part of her body and blow it up to full size!"