How Las Vegas, Nevada Lost its Status as the #1 Worldwide Gambling Destination - 2012

 

How Las Vegas, Nevada Lost its Status as the #1 Worldwide Gambling Destination

In April 2012, I continued my travel from Los Angeles to Mesquite, Nevada. Already that day, I had taken the Pearblossom Highway to Interstate I-15 North. After observing the new industrial desert at Ivanpah Valley, California, I crossed the state line at Primm, Nevada. Approaching Las Vegas, I had planned for a Las Vegas Freeway “drive by”. Since I was pulling my travel trailer that Thursday afternoon, a drive up Las Vegas Blvd. (The Strip) was out of the question. By the time I approached the city, with rush hour well underway, I took a deep breath and prepared to run the traffic gauntlet that is I-15 through Las Vegas.

Until the 1970s, old U.S. Highway 91, Las Vegas Blvd. and The Strip were all the same road. In North Las Vegas, the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street was also the historic intersection with U.S. 93 (the Salt Lake Highway) and U.S. 95 (the Reno Highway). Other than at The Strip in Las Vegas and in tiny Mesquite to the north, 1967 marked the completion of I-15 in Nevada. Until the 1974 I-15 bypass of The Strip, however, old U.S. highway intersections Downtown were the nexus for all traffic entering or leaving the Las Vegas.

Lost in Nevada history is why it took seven years to build less than five miles of freeway around The Strip. With I-15 truncated at either end of The Strip, the final off ramps connected directly to Las Vegas Blvd. In those days, The Strip was famous for offering every pleasure or vice known to humans. Some might call the freeway delay good marketing. Others might call it shortsighted to delay opening the last I-15 gap in Nevada.

Whatever windfall Las Vegas experienced during the seven-year delay cannot compare to the unending drag that the strategy placed on the economic future of Las Vegas. The 1960’s and 1970’s were the heyday of Las Vegas, growing from a railroad and highway town to the premier international gambling destination. Money goes where it is comfortable and it is now six times more comfortable in Macau than it is on the Las Vegas Strip. In 2012, monthly gaming revenue figures for Las Vegas top out at $530 million. In Macau, a gambling-friendly enclave on the Chinese Mainland, April 2012 saw gaming revenues of $3.13 billion. From today's perspective, a traffic noose tightened around twentieth century Las Vegas left it gridlocked and unprepared for twenty-first century revenue opportunities.

When the I-15 Las Vegas bypass opened in 1974, it was already obsolete. By then, I-15 through Las Vegas should have been well into its first phase of widening and improvement. As a legacy of the old highway plan, I-15 North still makes a tight S-curve as it skirts Downtown. There, it utilizes a highway corridor designed to handle the traffic of the 1960’s. With its grimy bridges and tight turns, you know that you are on an old section of highway. As a consequence, for decades now, one of the few constants in Las Vegas culture is the rush hour traffic tie-up near Downtown on I-15 North.

Despite every lane-addition that highway engineers could manage, at least twice going northbound, the two right-side lanes of the freeway must exit. After years of traffic frustration, local drivers jockey for any possible advantage. At first, they keep to the right and then jam their way back on to I-15 North at the last second. Uninitiated drivers find themselves either shunted off the freeway or forced to act like locals, bulling their way back into traffic. Either way, a weekday afternoon trip on I-15 North through Las Vegas is a guaranteed white-knuckle ride.

From I-15 North, what once was a giant glass pyramid in the desert, the Luxor Hotel, now looks tiny and almost lost on the horizon. Now that I-15 carries far more traffic than The Strip, the latter has become an architectural showplace, beckoning to I-15 motorists. With ever grander and more iconic buildings, The Strip offers a welcoming message to harried freeway drivers. Nearing Downtown, buildings named Wynn, Encore and Trump, stand as high-rise monuments to outsized luxury and gaming revenue. With its combination of overheated traffic and fantastic architecture, a transit north on I-15 through Las Vegas reinforces it own self-image. I can almost see Frank Sinatra, his Rat Pack and the Mob in the 1960s deciding over drinks at the Sands Hotel that everyone should continue to drive The Strip.

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By James McGillis at 06:25 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

Brightsource Energy Industrializes the Mojave Desert - 2012

 

Brightsource Energy Industrializes the Mojave Desert

Recently, I traveled through the Mojave Desert on Interstate I-15 North. At Ivanpah Valley, California, I saw construction cranes building three colossal steel towers. Brightsource Energy, Bechtel and Google had recently commandeered 3500 acres of BLM-administered federal lands there. Prior to that, Buffalo Bill’s and Whiskey Pete’s casinos in nearby Primm, Nevada were the largest local developments.

Buffalo Bill and Whiskey Pete proved that even in the middle of nowhere, travelers would stop for food, fuel and gambling. Likewise, Brightsource Energy proved that “clean energy”, financed by a thirty-percent grant and a full federal loan guarantee, is a surefire investment. Therefore, we now witness the permanent destruction of desert tortoise, kit fox and big horned sheep habitat totaling 3500 acres.

The solar electric generating technology behind the Ivanpah project is yet unproven. There is a Brightsource pilot project in Israel’s Negev Desert, but its power output is only 1.5 megawatts (MW). According to Brightsource, Ivanpah will produce 392 MW. Only in the mega-solar industry could a company inflate its pilot technology 260 times. I cannot predict that Brightsource Energy’s solar thermal technology will fail, but where is the proof that it will work?

Forgotten in all of this is the bankruptcy of our previous “solar savior”, Solyndra, LLC. If nothing else, Solyndra shows how quickly “clean energy” economics can change. Even so, we now sanction Brightsource to build unproven solar infrastructure, largely at public expense. Even before Ivanpah goes online in 2013, Brightsource has plans for larger projects at Hidden Hills, Coalinga and Rio Mesa, California.

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By James McGillis at 09:50 AM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

The Mojave Desert - Where the Pearblossom Highway and the Palmdale Road are One & The Same - 2012

 

The Mojave Desert - Where the Pearblossom Highway and the Palmdale Road are One & The Same

In mid April 2012, I began a trip from Simi Valley, California to Moab, Utah, which is a distance of 745 miles. My plan was to stay overnight at the halfway point, in Mesquite, Nevada. The following day, I would drive the remainder, arriving in Moab before dark. I planned to take the Pearblossom Highway (CA-138E/CA18E) as a shortcut north of the Los Angeles basin. By doing so, I would save a few miles and avoid an ascent of treacherous Cajon Pass on Interstate I-15.

For the uninitiated, the Pearblossom Highway can be an enigma. Whether you start your drive near Palmdale, heading east or from Victorville heading west, there are anomalies. The unincorporated town of Pearblossom is less than half way from Palmdale to Victorville. Even so, “Pearblossom Highway” long ago became its accepted name. At its I-15 off-ramp in Victorville, road signs identify the same highway as the “Palmdale Road”.

Why have different names for the same highway, depending on your direction of travel? The simple answer is that the highway changes numbers mid desert. To make things more confusing, the western end of CA-18 is at that same “Y” intersection in the Mojave Desert. From that obscure and desolate intersection, CA-138E becomes the Antelope Highway, bearing southeast, while CA-18E continues in an eastbound beeline to Victorville.

Ironically, the two highways meet again at the eastward terminus of CA-138 near Crestline. Adding to the confusion is the fact that CA-18 shares pavement with I-15 through the City of Victorville. With so many names and numbers to deal with, I can understand why CALTRANS opted for the name “Palmdale Road”. Palmdale is a far-flung destination to which westbound travelers might relate.

Calling the westbound road the Pearblossom Highway implies that the road might end in that high desert town. In an effort to bypass much of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, would you take a misnamed two-lane road into the Mojave Desert? If identified as the “Victorville Highway”, the route might attract more motorists and more confidence in its eastern terminus.

Despite my fifty-five mile per hour Pearblossom Highway route being shorter and faster than other alternatives, both Google Maps and my Magellan GPS failed to utilize it. Most map databases assume that motorists would rather take a freeway than to save time and distance. I wonder how much time and fuel we might all save if routing software recognized the Pearblossom Highway/Palmdale Road as a legitimate shortcut. Perhaps it is the local moniker, "Deathtrap Highway" that keeps Google and Magellan from recommending it.

For years, the Pearblossom Highway name, with its nostalgia and small town feel, had baffled me. Having made repeated trips through over I-15 and the Cajon Pass, I finally decided to try “the old road” on during a recent transit. At that time, I was not familiar with the road signs along I-15. Nor did I understand the on-again, off-again nature of CA-18 and CA-138. Consequently, my first attempt resulted in a great circle route back to Barstow on Old-66. A week later, I viewed a GM OnStar TV commercial in which a young couple’s unseen advisor safely directs them back to the elusive Pearblossom Highway. 

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By James McGillis at 06:59 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

Two Scenes of Venice by Mid 20th Century Master Costantino Proietto - 2012

 

Two Scenes of Venice by Mid 20th Century Master Costantino Proietto

Recently, Ms. Jennifer Malloy sent me two images of her family’s Costantino Proietto original oil painting. With help from Google Maps and Google Images, I have determined that the main subject of the painting is the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, in Venice, Italy. The view of the basilica is from across Tronchetto - Lido di Venezia. In the foreground, a gondolier plies a covered craft across the ripples of the lagoon. In the middle ground, sailboats hover in the dying light. Some distance behind the sailboats is the grand basilica, bathed in reflected pink light.

According to Ms. Malloy, “From 1964 - 1966, my father worked for the Department of National Defence for Canada. During that time, he was stationed at Fort Chambly, Germany. After returning from an Italian holiday, my father attended a base exhibition, where he fall in love with the C.Proietto Venice scene. Ever since, it has hung in my parents’ living room, in a small town in Ontario, Canada. The painting’s dimensions are 32” X 24” (81-cm. X 61-cm). I hope this little bit of info helps and I look forward to reading more about the artist.”

Originally, both Jennifer Malloy’s father and I believed that his painting was of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. However, using aerial views from Google Maps, I could not reconcile the painted image with photos of St. Mark’s Basilica. As viewed from across the water, the domes in the painting did not match those of St. Mark’s. Unless hidden behind the painting's sailboats, the skyline-dominating Campanile was missing.

Broadening my photo search of Venice, I soon found a match with the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute. For an aerial view of the basilica, click this link. As viewed from the Chiesa del Redentore, across the “trunk” to the southwest, Santa Maria della Salute matches well with this C.Proietto painting. Even the lighthouse, to the right in this painting, is in proper perspective. With such conclusive photographic evidence, I believe that this painting features Santa Maria della Salute.

According to artist’s cousin, Nunzio LoCastro, pastel paintings by Costantino Proietto are rare. In the artist’s early days in Germany, during World War II, brightly colored oil paints were rare. After the war, when new paint formulas became available, the artist’s paintings included lighter and brighter colors.

Together, St. Mark’s Basilica, its plaza and bell tower make up the iconic scene of Venice, Italy. Even so, Claude Monet selected Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute for a series of early-twentieth-century paintings. The Monet series depicts the basilica as viewed from across the Grand Canal, looking south. Since Tino Proietto painted from his own photographs, we can imagine him on the water at sundown, taking pictures of the basilica with his vintage Leica camera. To some, C.Proietto's Venice scene may seem fantastic and surreal. I believe that it is an accurate impression of what the artist saw and photographed one evening in Venice.

After researching and writing this article on the Malloy Family C.Proietto painting, I went back to my photographic archives and made a worthwhile discovery. There, among many other paintings in the LoCastro collection, I discovered another C.Proietto painting of Venice. The final painting on this page is a Costantino Proietto painting of St. Mark’s Basilica, the plaza and Campanile. In contrast to the pastel sunset at Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, the St. Mark’s painting shows a rising sun.

Undoubtedly, the Malloy Family C.Proietto is another of Tino Proietto’s masterworks. With notable humility, Costantino Proietto’s 1960 era business card represents him as a “Kunstmaler”. Translated from German to English, the word means “production painter”. Over his five decade career, Tino Proietto’s output was indeed prodigious. Despite the large number of C.Proietto paintings in existence, I expect the international art community to recognize him as the grand master of “spaddle work” and a great mid-twentieth-century artist.

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By James McGillis at 03:08 PM | Fine Art | Comments (0) | Link

 

In October 2012, The 24-Hours of Moab Off-Road Bike Race Will Feature Family Fun and Environmental Consciousness

In November 2011, as I wrapped up my coverage of the 24-Hours of Moab off-road bicycle race, I did so with a heavy heart. Behind the Rocks, in Moab, Utah, Granny Gear Productions race promoter Laird Knight had just told the assembled race crowd, “We don’t know if we are going to be able to do this again in 2012. Attendance was down this year, and we did not cover our fixed expenses. We’ll head back home, think it over and let everyone know by the end of the year.”

Having attended each 24-HOM since 2008, I was disappointed that the race might not go on. I was such a strong supporter of this family race event that I had developed my own Moab24Live.com website. Each year, I wrote several blog articles here and then archived them at Moab24Live.com. In 2011, I broadcast a live webcam from the event for the full twenty-four hours. Via the internet, I wanted others to see and feel what it is like to attend, or perhaps compete in a twenty-four hour human-powered race. After the October 2011 announcement, I put the 2012 race out of my mind, thus allowing the universe to find a way.

In early 2012, I looked at the Granny Gear website, but could not believe what I saw. Featured on the home page was a banner proclaiming, “2012 Registration is OPEN! Let’s Race!!” In disbelief, I ignored the banner until early April. In October 2011, the race was dead. In April 2012, could it live again? I decided to find out for myself. In an email to Laird Knight, I said, “After your speech last October, I was pleased to see you making plans for 24-HOM 2012. That had to be a big decision for you. Please tell all the fans of 24-Hours of Moab what led you to go forward.”

The next day, Laird Knight emailed back, "It's been a tough year but I'm feeling better and better about my decision to move ahead with the 24-Hours of Moab. The ground swell of support has been heart-warming.

This event has become an integral part of the culture of mountain bike communities throughout the Rocky Mountain region. Kids that raced as juniors back in the mid-nineties now have kids of their own coming to the 24-Minutes of Moab kids’ race.

For many of the "old-codgers" of my generation, being ready for the 24-Hours of Moab continues to be a source of inspiration and motivation… to keep riding and stay healthy and fit. But when it's all said and done, it's just about having fun, and enjoying some fine time with your friends and family." I could not say it better, Laird, so I will not even try.

In the past, the 24-Hours of Moab has received a fair, and maybe an unfair share of criticism for its environmental impact at Behind the Rocks. Critics charge that some racers have gone off course, damaging environmentally sensitive areas. From the articles and pictures I have seen, critics accuse a lot, but offer very little demonstrable evidence of supposed environmental damage. To be sure, there are some photos available of bicycle tracks that deviate from the course. Still, there is not one posted image of a 24-Moab racer making those tracks.

During the 360-days each year when there is no bike race at Behind the Rocks, the place reverts to its cow pasture origins. During 98.6% of each year, cattle, off-road vehicles (ORV), bicyclists, hikers and equestrians traverse and sometimes trash the area. During night racing, a few cyclists may deviate inadvertently from the established line. However, these are dedicated racers, not Kamikaze pilots looking to wipe out as much cryptobiotic soil as possible. A few wheel tracks in the softer soil may be evident, yet that impact is insignificant when compared to local potash mining or uncontrolled ORV usage on BLM and SITLA trust lands.

As Laird Knight told me, “On a mountain bike it never benefits you to cut the course and trade the highly efficient, low rolling resistance "line" that is on-course for the deep sand that you would encounter off course. I have never seen any evidence of intentional off-course travel. We do educate folks about the importance of cryptobiotic soils and of staying on course. As for the venue itself, what I see every year, for the last seventeen years, is practically the same as what I saw the first time I visited the site.

We do clean up the venue and the course of litter both before and after the event. I can assure you that the volume of accumulated trash that we remove from the course before the race is much greater than that which we clean up after the race. We do educate folks about the importance of low-impacts. Their alignment with this ethos shows up in the practically immaculate condition in which they leave their campsites. The trash that we haul out is sorted and recycled. All that said, I would welcome critiques and suggestions for ‘how we could do it better’.”

On the subject of environmental impact at Behind the Rocks, I believe it is time for the environmental critics of this relatively low-impact, family event to come out and see for themselves. It is all too easy to sit in a faraway office and study other people’s documentation or photos. It is quite different to experience a great race powered only by the human body and spirit. On the racecourse itself, other than human breath, there are no emitted hydrocarbons. Again, compare the low environmental impact of this bike race to any motorized gathering in Moab.

As I told Laird Knight, I am an environmentalist and write often about environmental issues. This race and its culture of low-impact, family fun are too good to lose. Thank you Laird Knight and Granny Gear Productions for accepting the financial risk and once more allowing us the thrill of a classic Moab 24 Live race event.

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By James McGillis at 05:26 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

Costantino Proietto - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - 2012

 

Costantino Proietto - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

In July 2011, I published my first article regarding the Italian artist Costantino Proietto (1910-1979). Other than the signature “C.Proietto” on our own original oil painting, I then knew nothing about this modern Italian impressionist. At that time, I published pictures of our Amalfi Coast painting, asking other owners of C.Proietto paintings to share them with our world and me. Soon, several individuals in the U.S. came forward with photographs of their own treasured C.Proietto masterpieces. U.S. soldiers stationed near Stuttgart, Germany purchased each of those initial paintings there.

Some people would write and promise to send pictures, but never deliver. One man sent stories about his family’s close relationship to Costantino Proietto, who they called “Uncle Tino”. There was a story about a dark painting designed not to hurt the eyes of a young measles patient. At the Sistine Chapel in Rome, using real gold leaf, Tino had painted an image of the Madonna. I had only one unconfirmed photographic image of a balding man in his mid to late sixties. If that picture was of Costantino Proietto, I could not prove it. Now, I believe it to be a later image of the man.

In March 2012, I received letters from two relatives of Costantino Proietto, each of whom knew the artist in life. With their stories, Larry LoCastro, second cousin, and Nunzio LoCastro, first cousin of Costantino Proietto brought life to the artist and the man. Within the LoCastro family in New Jersey, there are almost a dozen signed original oil paintings attributed to the artist. Although there are too many new paintings to show them all here, I will post the remaining works in later articles.

Nunzio LoCastro is now eighty-five years old. In 1951, U.S. Army service took him to Germany for two years. Before shipping out, his father told Nunzio to look up a cousin who lived in Germany. That cousin, an Italian emigrant to Stuttgart, Germany was the forty-one year old Costantino Proietto. Having settled in Stuttgart near the beginning of World War II, C.Proietto quickly established himself there. By the early 1950s, he painted at his own atelier/studio, located at the fashionable address, Stuttgart-S. Danneckerstraße 34.

Through the wonders of Google Street View, we can see that building as it looks like today. According to one person who photographed it, in 1899 architect Gottlob Schäufelin finished the mehrfamilienhaus (multifamily property), which later housed C.Proietto’s studio. In describing the studio, Nunzio LoCastro told me that it was had one large room with many windows. According to Nunzio LoCastro, Tino painted on the first floor of that building.

According to Nunzio, Tino lived with his common law wife Gisela at Stuttgart-S. Hohenheimer Straße 62. There we see a four-story apartment building, which dates to the prewar era. Again, with the aid of Google Maps, we can see that his home and studio were only two hundred thirty meters apart. Every day, Tino would rise early, have a cup of black coffee and then walk to his studio. There, he would paint until noon and then return home for lunch with Gisela. After a leisurely lunch, Tino would don a freshly ironed shirt and return to his studio.

Painting there until the sunlight failed, Tino would then go out on the town, enjoying whatever nightlife postwar Stuttgart had to offer. During his evening activities, Gisela was at home. By then, Tino had come to expect a spotless house and two freshly washed and ironed shirts each day. Since he often worked seven days a week, I imagine Gisela at their apartment boiling, washing and ironing shirts well into the night. Although many artists wear a smock, Costantino created his masterpieces while wearing a dress shirt. After work he was still impeccably dressed for a night on the town. With his signature palette knife work, C.Proietto brought elegance, skill and exactitude to his work. For him, creating modern impressionist masterworks in a dirty shirt was unacceptable.

The business card of Costantino Proietto, as displayed on this page, tells us how the man saw himself. On the card, “Costantino Proietto” appears in bold script. The top two entries on his list are in English. First is “Oil Paintings”, followed by “Specialist in spaddle work”. Next, in his native Italian, is “Artista pittore”, meaning “painter of pictures”. In a nod to the French, he follows with “Artist peintre”. Finally, for his host country, Germany he lists “Kunstmaler”, meaning artist, painter or “production painter”.

In less than one year, Costantino Proietto and his works have gone from obscurity to fame. Soon, I expect him to be among the most collectable of twentieth century painters. We can now confirm Randazzo, Sicily 1910 as his place and year of birth. We know that at age fourteen he began an eighteen year unpaid apprenticeship to a master Italian artist and art restorer. In his early thirties, C.Proietto immigrated to France, and then to Switzerland. By 1942, he had settled for good in Stuttgart, Germany. By 1951, he had a studio and a nearby apartment home. According to his cousin Nunzio LoCastro, every day, Tino Proietto lived the good life, traveling, photographing and painting exquisite pictures of scenes that people loved. Any observer of an original painting by C.Proietto can see and feel his joy in life shine through.

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By James McGillis at 10:58 AM | Fine Art | Comments (0) | Link

Yahoo, AOL & Hotmail Heading for the Dustbin of History - 2012

 

Yahoo, AOL & Hotmail Heading for the Dustbin of History

In November 2007, I wrote about the shift in internet traffic away from Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL/Netscape. For its part, Microsoft would not end its takeover bidding for Yahoo until May 2008. By then, both companies had begun their inexorable slide from internet ubiquity and dominance. For its part, Netscape became obsolete and unsupported by AOL, its parent company since 1999. Now spun off, AOL continues to flounder.

Beginning in 1995, Microsoft made history by giving away its Internet Explorer 1.0 (IE) browser. During its existence, Netscape received scant revenue from its users. Even so, dirty tricksters sent email chain letters warning that Netscape would soon dun every user $50. Almost immediately, Netscape’s market share dove, while Microsoft's rose just as quickly.

Hotmail rode on one of the earliest internet email platforms. Still, it was better than Netscape’s and thus Microsoft’s 1997 purchase of Hotmail drew email users away from Netscape. Although spam emails were already a problem in the late 1990s, no one knew that spam would someday represent between fifty and ninety percent of all emails sent. Microsoft/Hotmail and Yahoo’s revamped Rocketmail left both giants with technically crude email platforms. As we learned with the MS DOS operating system, the original architecture often determines the limits of change within a program.

During the past fifteen years, first Netscape, then Microsoft and Yahoo took turns dominating internet search and internet email. By building on their market power, Microsoft at one time owned the largest share of both search and email. Today, none of our featured companies dominates either internet search or email. That honor went instead to a next generation internet start-up known as Google.

Not until 2006, did Twitter’s first Tweet chirp on the internet. In early 2007, when Twitter became a separate company, MySpace owned over eighty percent of the social media market. Although gaining fast, Facebook had yet to go beyond a ten percent market share. At MySpace, each user controlled the content on one HTML page. Whatever MySpace gained in simplicity, it lost in flexibility. After old-media dinosaur News Corp. purchased MySpace in 2005, they stifled change. After its 2011 spin off, MySpace users still control content on only a single webpage.

With its later launch date, Facebook drew on technology similar to Microsoft's “active server pages”, or ASP. Each Facebook user’s home page displays a host of interactive elements. Facebook’s network effect and ubiquity make it all that some users have time for on the internet. Ironically, Facebook achieved what AOL first attempted, which was to encompass and dominate the internet experience of its many users.

What shall be the future of our internet giants, both old and new? Will the masses still follow the tweets and rants of celebrities and fools? Will we still “friend” each other on Facebook or “+” each other on Google+? Texting is here to stay, but it lacks email’s ability to persuade in a longer form. As long as people can write, they will want to ramble on in a textural format.

Spammers have hijacked every AOL or Yahoo email user that I know. Recently, my Hotmail address was hacked and used by spammers. Despite several attempts to reclaim my Hotmail address, Microsoft could not verify me. In that process, Microsoft lost one more internet email customer. For reasons similar to the rise of Facebook and Google, the old internet giants will slip further. The underlying architecture of AOL mail, Hotmail and Yahoo mail will sink further into a quicksand made of spam.

When you access your Yahoo mail or Hotmail, the content display relies heavily on Java script. The demise of AOL and Yahoo mail will come from their over-reliance on that Java script. If you have any doubt, access your Yahoo email via a slow modem. There you will see one element at a time dished to you by the email servers. Relying on executable commands, “robot.txt” or “bots” have learned to exploit vulnerabilities within script-based email systems.

I do not blame every internet problem on the Russians, but every day half a dozen Russian websites crawl this blog, utilizing Java script-bots. With compact Java code, their bots seek out security gaps, including login locations and procedures. Once found, a high-speed computer might be employed to crack a login/password system. If the robot hackers can “crack” my website or your email password in five minutes or less, it is worth the time spent. Usually, you can retrieve your identity, but not before the indignity of spamming everyone in your online address book.

Each time AOL, Yahoo or Hotmail loses another email user to the spammers, they lose a customer forever. Whether Google will still be around one hundred years from now, I cannot say. Still, my Gmail user friends never have to offer apologies because their email addresses were hacked. As with Facebook’s advantage over MySpace, when Google designed Gmail for its 2004 introduction, it had the benefit of the learning curve. Although I cannot say how Google did it, their Gmail system seems impervious to script-based password hacks.

When comment-spammer Good-Finance Blog invaded my website, I spent hours getting rid of nefarious phishing comments and links. Finally, I installed an “include file” at the very top of my website code. Through manual entry, my “top_inc” include-file now blocks a long list of spammers’ Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. Before gaining access to my website, comment spammers now receive a redirect to the FBI website.

While AOL, Hotmail/Live and Yahoo email users often receive more spam than legitimate email, Google has changed the rules for that game. At the top of their Gmail server code, Google installed their own version of a “top_inc” include-file. To be sure, some spam still gets through the Gmail system, but not for long. As quickly as Gmail’s many users report spam messages, Google denies access from the offending server. If the spammers deploy a wider range of IP addresses, Google can refuse email from a given country or region.

No company is perfect, Google included. Their lapses in user privacy policies are well known. If any company will still serve up email to its future clients, I bet it will be Google. AOL and Yahoo will remain niche players only for the near-term. Ultimately, hackers will end their former status as internet search and email giants. Recently, as Yahoo News gleefully reported, AOL announced that its once vaunted patent library is for sale to the highest bidder. A stance like that does not inspire confidence in the future of AOL.

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By James McGillis at 09:34 PM | Technology | Comments (0) | Link