Four Quick Ones August 15, 2001January 26, 2017 NYAH, NANNY, NYAH, NYAH David Maymudes: ‘The other thing that annoys people around the world about the proposed US missile defense is the offensive capability a system like this might well have – a space-borne laser which can destroy missiles in its boost phase can quite possibly also destroy, say, any airplane that happens to be off the ground in a country we don’t like. So in addition to the psychological effect of not liking that we’re protected from above, there’s also the fact (usually not true in the schoolroom situation that you describe) that we reserve the right to strike out against anybody who annoys us.’ ☞ And speaking of airplanes, let’s say that $500 billion later we are fully protected from Iraqi ICBMs. What’s to prevent a guy in a Cessna from flying a warhead to Washington on a suicide mission? Didn’t some clown crash a plane on the White House lawn not so long ago? (Yes, he did – September 12, 1994 at 1:49am.) So isn’t that $500 billion sort of down the drain? WHAT I WOULDN’T GIVE FOR A BETTER MEMORY! Planet Out Founder Tom Reilly: ‘I usually don’t send semi-spam, but this is important: right now, computer memory is the cheapest it’s ever been, and I mean ridiculous: 512 MEGAbytes of extra RAM is $58 bucks for Mac systems. May be even cheaper for PCs. I upgraded my computer from 256 MB to 1.5 GIGAbytes of RAM for 144 bucks. If you have digital cameras, check out the memory card prices. if you have portable computers, it’s also insane. memory, dollar for dollar is the cheapest most efficient way for your computers to run faster. Cheapest vendor I found that seems reliable: coastmemory.com. A good one: sometimes the cheapest thechipmerchant.com. Good price-watch sites: pricewatch.com and ramseeker.com . Load up and enjoy!’ COOL! Want to see which sites link to yours, if you have one? Or to your child’s or your employer’s? Or to some other, just to gauge its popularity? Go to Google and type in link:thesitename.com. In less than a second, you’ll see the result. For example, link:google.com turns up 274,000 sites that link to Google itself. Poor old Amazon scores only 56,000. BN.com – 196,000. QUICKBROWSE – NO CHARGE TO YOU I should have been clearer yesterday about QuickBrowse. Some of you who have this column delivered each morning via Q-Page (see the button at the very bottom of the screen) thought this meant you’d now be charged. Good heavens no! You’re already paying more than enough for this column. E-mail delivery of a single web page (whether mine or any other) remains free on QuickBrowse. Sorry for the confusion. I don’t want to lose you!