MARS PATHFINDER TEAM ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS
Unless you did some serious digging around on the current Mars pages
chances are that you would not even know about this gem of a site.
Visitors are invited to send in questions to the Pathfinder team, who
respond with great enthusiasm and detail to the wide variety of
interesting queries. The archive of questions is full of information
such as what kind of computers and software the Sojourner is using,
many details about the airbags and bounces, the incoming science data,
and much more, all answered by the designers, operators, and scientists
themselves. Anybody yearning to escape the dumbed down Mars coverage
in mainstream media will thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the content
on this site. The site is primarily designed for middle school students
and teachers to submit questions, but don't let that put you off,
the quality of the material is first rate. Highly recommended.
Ask Questions: <http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/ask/question.html>
Browse Answers: <http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/ask/index.html>
In the wake of the killing the media has been saturated with
coverage of tributes to Gianni Versace, but short shrift has been
given to his work. A little searching on the web has unearthed
the Moda Online page which has an extensive "fashionography",
to coin a phrase. There is information about the man, his art
and his business empire. The Collections section includes samples
of his work going back to 1988. The Firstview site also contains
no less then 87 photos illustrating his fashion designs. Unlike much
of the silliness which comes from the fashion industry, usually
not suitable for public display without mockery, these actually
have a certain sultry elegance. Camille Paglia's take on the
man is worth quoting: "Gianni Versace was a true decadent artist
cosmopolitan breadth, sexual pluralism and stylistic 'too muchness'".
Moda: <http://www.moda.iol.it/stilisti/versace/e/DEFAULT.HTM>
Photos: <http://www.firstview.com/WRTWfall96/GIANNI_VERSACE/S001.html>
Camille: <http://www.salonmagazine.com/july97/columnists/paglia970722.html>
MTV AND YAHOO! UNFURL NEW MUSIC SITE
The heart of the new site is the Yahoo search engine and database of
sites related to music. Five broad editorial areas include site reviews
of top music databases, e-zines, gossip sites, goofy stuff (Slap a Spice
Girl, Random Band Name Generator), and music you can play via the web.
The other editorial content includes a cool site of the week, a column
whimsically named Snorkurler, events, announcements and silly polls.
The graphics are very professional, kind of busy but spare at the same
time - hard to describe but worth checking out, so go see for yourself.
If there is to be added value here over what Yahoo already offers it
will have to be in organizing the online music universe in a single
massively comprehensive site. Time will tell if they can pull it off.
Oh yeah, we apologize for the stupid pun in our headline.
<http://www.unfurled.com/>
THE SWISS WW II DORMANT BANK ACCOUNTS LIST
Switzerland has been running ads in various publications listing dormant
accounts left over from the WW II era in Swiss banks. The accounting
firm handling the issue has also conveniently put up a set of web pages
with the same information. There is also some background on the whole
issue, an FAQ section, and instructions on how to file claims.
The New York Times coverage includes interesting vignettes about
some of the people behind the names, famous, infamous, and tragic.
<http://www.dormantaccounts.ch/>
<http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/swissbanks-nazis.html>
WANT TO BE A DOMAIN REGISTRAR?
You'll need $10,000, a half million in insurance, be willing to hire
five employees and have $300,000 in liquid capital. Will all Netsurfer
readers who meet these criteria please raise their hands? Wow, that many...
In any event, following up on the IAHC proposal for registering new top
level domain names the Internet Council of Registrars is taking applications
for companies willing to serve as registrars. The process is open until
October 16, 1997. Find out more about the whole situation, including its
history at the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) site. We've also included
a link to the application for you entrepreneurial types. We'd do it ourselves,
but our capital is pretty gaseous, nay, downright vaporous at times.
Application: <http://www.gtld-mou.org/docs/application.htm>
MOU: <http://www.gtld-mou.org/>
InterNIC obtained a court order restraining AlterNIC from redirecting
traffic to their own domain name registration site. The restraining
order is valid until August 1, when a hearing will be held to argue
for a permanent injunction against AlterNIC. The consensus of opinion
seems to be that AlterNIC is going to get nailed.
<http://www.alternic.net/>
<http://www.internic.net/>
FREE EMAIL ACCOUNTS FROM EXCITE
Excite is offering free web based email accounts, much like HotMail
is already doing. The email is supported by advertising at the top
of each page as you use the service. They also include a short promotional
tag line at the end of each message you send. Perfect for those
anonymous mail accounts we all yearn for from time to time.
<http://www.mailexcite.com/>
Ranking lists, which extol the sexual pulchritude of adolescent student
bodies have been making the rounds in institutions of lower learning since
the advent of math class on Friday afternoon (ancient Mesopotamia, was it?).
It was only a matter of time until one showed up on the web, at GeoCities
as it happens, posted by an anonymous student at a Silicon Valley middle
school. It ranked over 100 female graduates and a few teachers in the
usual sexually explicit manner. GeoCities yanked the site since it violated
their terms of service, which is not really the big story here, they had
a perfect right. Nor is the story that some boy(s) created the list, since
everyone knows that adolescent boys are hormonally challenged and should
be the objects of great pity and permanent detention rather then politically
correct outrage. The real story is that virtual communities build on
existing social interactions, in this case adolescents comparing notes.
And of course, the deeply unspoken subtext is our fear of where we ourselves
would wind up on such a list if it was posted on a the web. Let's leave
with a subtle philosophical question: Would public sexual rankings on
the web drive us to improve our performance?
Wired: <
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/5418.html>
CNet: <
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,12721,00.html>
What was the worst movie NEVER made? Between Star Wars and 2001, which is better? Who is the best villain actor? Those are just a sampling of topics found on the <alt.cult.movies> newsgroup. Interspersed with those weighty questions are rumors about the remake of "The Omega Men" with Arnold in the Heston role and Ridley Scott directing, discussions of the significance of "Mommy Dearest" ("It's the definitive film documenting the wire coat hanger psychosis"), and the search for examples of "Eyeball related violence". Good place to hang out if you love movies, not least because you can join the endless debate about "Which Actors/Actresses would you most like to have sex with?". Refreshingly high signal to noise.
A. Pintura, Art Detective, is a clever educational site probably best
appreciated by kids 10 and older. It introduces the work and style of
several European masters (and Gauguin, too). Building lessons in art
appreciation around a simple noir mystery, Pintura tries to identify a
painting, comparing it to known works by Van Gogh, Titian, Millet, Gauguin,
Raphael, and Picasso. The comparisons open short discussions on art history
and techniques. While the site is far from comprehensive, it's thorough
enough to provide a solid foundation that will allow you to tell between
Renaissance and realism, or Van Gogh and Titian.
<http://www.visi.com/~eduweb/pintura/>
Eclectic Artistry is a site that deserves to be viewed when you have some
time to casually browse around while slowly sipping your cappuccino or
martini. Elegantly designed and easy to navigate, it features a vast
collection of poetry (by famous poets), a large art gallery, a library of
philosophy and much more, including original poetry by your not-so-famous
host, Robin Frazier. <http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/2940/>
At this French site about the sea and things under it, you'll find well
over 100 beautiful and outstanding underwater pictures to enjoy and use
free of charge. Photographer Gregoire Philippe is a computer specialist and
a professional dive instructor, and he offers an interesting explanation of
why he offers these excellent pics for free. The pictures come as large
(2-3 MB) file packages containing dozens of pics.
<http://www.cyberaccess.fr/oceanic/>
For many, the highest mark of honor for a book is a review in the New York
Times (NYT) book review pages. Will this hold true on the Web? Maybe. The
NYT offers its authoritative prose on a site offering an archive of more
than 50,000 book reviews from 1980 to the present. Its busy home page, ever
mindful of best-sellerdom, may remind you of Amazon.Com, with lots of text
and hyperlinks to draw you in. Readings in RealAudio will give diehard
book-on-tape-worms an excellent reason to spend time here. You can also
access book forums with topics like "Book Superstores: Blessing or Curse?"
and "Are Books Too Expensive?" - the kind of discussion you rarely hear
from behind bookstore counters. You can also find plenty of interviews and
columns from the print newspaper. Note that the NYT Web site is only free
to North Americans. <http://www.nytimes.com/books/>
No, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect haven't branched out into reviewing
science fiction books. Rather, some other brave souls have undertaken the
mission of creating an Internet quick reference guide for some of the
science fiction genre's award-winning works. The Guide pages, indexed by
author and title, also let you search for individual items, characters, and
lifeforms in the novels listed. For the time being, the titles in the Guide
are limited to those that have won either Hugo or Nebula awards, the two
most prestigious accolades in the SF world, but the site's designers
maintain that as interest in the Guide grows, so will the collection's
size. <http://husted.com/hgsf/>
Using true stories as its basic fare, this daily tabloid aims to shock and
awaken its readers with the ugly, profane, and stupid news from around the
world. A recent issue had stories on North Korean war plans, Bosnian Serb
war criminals, and Net security problems. The editors claim to have "dozens
of drunk correspondents", the "world's meanest, weirdest reporters" working
for their small, San Francisco operation. This is a real oxymoron, a
tabloid with true news. <http://www.tabloid.net/>
Proving that deconstruction doesn't have to be pretentious, Soundbitten is
a smart, direct, and knowing observer of media absurdity. A single brief
article each day comments on anything from latter-day Charlie Manson
thralls to John Tesh groupies and "sport-triting" to junk mail. Perhaps
familiar to readers of Suck, Wired, Salon, or Feed, principal writer Beato
is wry but unmistakably cranky, especially about marketing and an
audience's willingness to sacrifice context in pursuit of blandness or the
purposelessly shocking. <http://www.soundbitten.com/>
You won't find the Western canon at The Whole Wired Word, but it does have
standards. TW3, as it calls itself, devotes its pages to popular writing,
with a marked preference for A-list light lit. Mysteries obviously occupy
many of its shelves. TW3 chronicles the merits of Chandler, Paretsky,
Grafton, Leonard and Mosley - though, oddly, most of the featured books by
current writers are at least a couple years old. There's a tribute to Allen
Ginsberg and a rich set of links to sites about him, including the FBI's
file on the poet. Writers take note: TW3 accepts original short stories for
publication. <http://www.pictograph.com/TW3.html>
YET ANOTHER YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A NERD
Andrew Hicks, stripper of the soul, reveals to the Internet public his most
private thoughts for the third year. What possesses a man to share his day
to day dilemmas, from illnesses to how he vomits ("[loud retching sound]
Weird, it's all water") to his dodgy taste in jokes ("A cop pulled me over
for doing 69 on the highway." "And were you also speeding at the time?").
The only explanation is that he has a lot to say and the rare skill of
writing honestly without arrogance. Always good for a laugh, he seems to
spend his college days racking up Web accolades.
<http://www.missouri.edu/~c667778/year3/>
21ST: COOL E-ZINE FOR A VARIETY OF TASTES
This publication called simply "21st" covers PC multimedia, the convergence
of consumer electronics and the Net, music, technical topics, cars and
audio, and the mind-machine interface. It truly has something for most
everyone without a fancy, time-consuming interface. "21st" has insightful
and in-depth articles along with all of the technical details that you want
so desperately. They also find time for humor and sarcasm. Hey, who
doesn't? <http://www.vxm.com/21R.9.html>
It's kind of neat to be able to make news a few hundred thousand years
after you die. A team of U.S. and German researchers enabled an anonymous
Neanderthal individual to have his designated 15 minutes of fame by
extracting fragments from his DNA. The results give very strong support
to the theory that Neanderthals did not contribute significantly to the
Homo Sapiens lineage. Looks like there was not much, if any, prehistoric
cross-species hanky-panky. The press release has many interesting details.
A decent college level overview of what science knows about Neanderthals
can be had from the "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis" pages, while the
<sci.anthropology.paleo> newsgroup is buzzing with relevant
discussions. Finally, you can always ask Grogg for some Neanderthal
Advice (e.g. "How do I get my neanderthal man to commit to me and why does
he always grunt in his conversations?"). He's rather good at it, too.
PR: <http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/not_ancestors.html>
HSN: <http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EdPsy-387/Bonnie-Sklar/Neander.html>
Ask Grogg: <http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/5250/index1.html>
BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLIES, BEGUILING BEETLES
Entomologia is a showcase for the collector and photographer of dozens of
butterfly and beetle specimens. Several still life compositions (more
accurately called "nature morte" in Italian, the site's first language)
combine insects and plants in the style of 19th-century nature books and
prints. There's no commentary about the specimens, how they were acquired
or the photographic techniques that captured them. Still, the butterflies
are beautiful and beetles have never looked so appealing. With text pretty
much limited to navigation cues, language is no barrier to full
appreciation of this Italian site.
<http://www.thais.it/entomologia/default.htm>
NETSCAPE RELEASES NETCASTER BETA 3
The previous release of Netcaster had a problem which prevented it
from being installed using the new Communicator 4.01a. If you want to
play with this push product you can download it directly via Communicator's
smart update facility. The jar file is also available if you look around
in the appropriate FTP directory. Windows only at this time.
<ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/communicator/4.01/>
<http://home.netscape.com/download/index.html>
VACATION LEFTOVERS CAN HELP BUY A BUS
If you've returned from vacation abroad and have stuff cluttering your
pockets - remaining foreign currency, stamps, or any collectible items such
as postcards - there's a reverend in the UK who wants to take them off your
hands. Rev. Dr. John Lock wants to buy a minibus with a wheel chair lift
that would allow him to take the disabled or housebound on vacations. Send
along your pennies (or pfennigs) to this worthy cause.
<http://wavespace.waverider.co.uk/~ifcrarev/>
The Rock 'n' Roll site we looked at in last issue's Flotsam and Jetsam
chose to up and move. It's been renamed At the Hop, and can now be found
at the URL below. MIDI away, kids.
<http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Stage/1430/athop2.html>
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