| Netcom's E-Mail Death Penalty |
| AT&T Sends First Spam |
| Pedowatch's Antipedophile Site |
| About, but Not for Women Only |
| Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, and Modern Culture Media Feeds |
| Native American Silverwork |
| Monument to Microchips |
| Ecowareness |
| Bears of the World |
| People Who Like Wolves |
| Beautiful Celestial Photography |
| Blue Skies, or Perhaps an Icy Hell |
| It's the Eighth GUV Survey, Stupid! |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
BREAKING SURF
"Glace" is, as we're sure you know, French for ice. What you may not know is that a significant proportion of NSD's brain trust - editor, copy editor, and substitute editor extraordinaire Judi David - live in the area affected by the recent ice storms that coated northeastern North America. Last week's issue of the Digest was almost derailed and only fast thinking on the part of Judi got it out in time. The skies dumped two years' worth of freezing rain - 100 mm - over five days last week and brought down trees, wires, and spirits. At one point, 3 million Quebecers lost electrical power, and some won't get it back for a week or two. The semi-official Netsurfer Minivan of Good Will still bears a helmet of three inches of solid ice despite being attacked by rain, two wooden rods, and an ax. The best part? As we write this, there's a snowstorm adding to the misery. The following sites offer daily updates, links, and a few pics that don't even begin to tell the story.Icestorm: http://montreal.panorama.net/
Yahoo: http://headlines.yahoo.com/Full_Coverage/canada/Ice_Storm_Hits_Eastern_Canada/
Journal: http://www.info-4-you.com/
Montreal Gazette: http://www.montrealgazette.com/
Annual Net Performance Graph and Weekly Stats
If you're interested in the performance of the Internet, you'll want to bookmark this site. Keynote Systems daily measures the download times of 40 popular business sites from a large number of cities in the US and has compiled a graph of 1997's results, roughly showing relative network congestion from week to week. Besides this nifty graph, Keynote reports new results each week, sometimes with astounding conclusions. From Jan. 5-9, Tampa's netsurfers had to wait on average three times longer for Web pages than did Milwaukee's. Keystone has been doing this for a while, and they've put together a page of their top ten discoveries. The biggest surprises are that the Internet delivers content on average at about the speed of a 56 kbps modem, and that Net performance is not generally due to slow servers - things slow down out in the network cloud between you and the Web site.Graphs: http://www.keynote.com/measures/business/business40.html
Top Ten: http://www.keynote.com/measures/top10.html
Download a Book: Spoken Audio on the Net, In the Palm of Your Hand
This is a concept that has "winner" written all over it. A new site promises to deliver two interesting things. One is a large library of spoken audio files which can be downloaded and played on your PC (not Mac). The other is the same set of files, downloaded into a tiny portable digital recorder which can hold up to two hours of content. Suck down an audio copy of "Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook", hook up the player gizmo, and play it back in your car while you're stuck in traffic. This is cool. You can grab the free PC Audible software or buy the $199 hardware player. Then you can purchase the equivalent of books on tape, but at much lower prices - no media cost and no delivery cost - and play them at your leisure. These guys are going to make a fortune.http://www.audible.com/
Another Explorer Bug: Not Serious but Seriously Sloppy
The latest bug unearthed in HTML parsing libraries used by Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, and Outlook Express does indicate some serious coding sloppiness. The bug takes the form of a buffer overflow - you type a specific URL and the browser either goes belly up or runs malicious code. Though you're not likely to be affected and the bug is not easy to exploit, the real issue is that this is Computer Science 101 stuff - you always check the length of user input to make sure it fits into your input buffer. Microsoft's programmers didn't. Now, would you trust these kids with your mission critical applications? OK, that's perhaps an undeserved potshot, but peel the onion and the real problem reduces to a general lack of qualified software writers. Chew on that while you read the details.http://l0pht.com/advisories/ie4_x2.txt
'Star Trek: Continuum' Warps away from MSN
Paramount has announced that "Star Trek: Continuum", its official Star Trek Web site, will leave MSN and boldly go where fans with Macs and/or Netscape Navigator will be able to access all content. MSN restricted some ST:C content to visitors using Windows 95 and Internet Explorer. IBM will replace Microsoft as the site's sponsor, and full compatibility is expected to take a few months to implement.Continuum: http://www.startrek.com/
News: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,18060,00.html
Yet Another Format Change, and You Wrote Us
Or you didn't. Still, letters about our new format change dominate this installation of Letters to the Editor. We've included a fix if scroll bars drive you bonkers. It's a good thing e-mail still works. Apparently, rain and sleet and snow will stop Canadian posties....http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/letters/letter.04.02.html
ONLINE CULTURE
The latest casualty in the Spam Wars is Netcom. An inordinate amount of spam is routed through Netcom servers, which prompted the inclusion of netcom.com on the Realtime Blackhole List (RBL), part of a voluntary subscription system that allows ISPs to sever connectivity to domains that are known originators of spam. The database of blacklisted domains is maintained by Paul Vixie, a minor legend on the Net (BIND, INN, DHCP). A more interesting development is the practice of certain ISPs to turn on RBL filtering without telling their users. One day, e-mail to and from your friends at Netcom just stops working and you have no idea why. Disruption of your e-mail is supposed to make you pressure Netcom to more effectively prevent spam originating at their servers. The ethics of your ISP messing with your mail are currently being vigorously debated on ba.internet; see the "How many ISP's are blocking Netcom?" thread. By the way, Paul says about 100.RBL: http://maps.vix.com/rbl/
Vixie Enterprises: http://www.vix.com/
Paul Vixie: http://www.vix.com/people/vixie/home.html
An interesting CNet article documents that even the largest corporations are messing around with spam. AT&T sent out an unsolicited e-mail promoting their new wireless service to a large number of webmasters who run related sites. This is apparently the first spam by the telecom giant and depending on the reaction they may or may not do more. A swift kick to the corporate jewels is very much in order here to gently encourage them not to go down that road. Details in the article.
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,18098,00.html
Pedowatch's Antipedophile Site
Pedowatch features a broad discussion of the issues surrounding pedophilia. "Boylovers" contribute views and detailed instructions, lending background to journalists covering such activity and helping law enforcement apprehend perpetrators. Dedicated to the dilemma of Internet openness and child pornography and sexual crime, the site astonishes with its forum-style information boards and unbiased reporting in the relevant issues.http://pedowatch.org/
The Women Leaders Online and Women Organizing for Change Web site has a long title - and a lofty goal. Calling themselves "the first and largest women's advocacy group created on the Internet", the group wants to empower women politically, economically, in the media - in short, everywhere. The site encourages "sympathetic" men to participate. Plans include publishing "action alerts" and organizing voter education to help pro-woman politicians (we guess not the Bill Clinton kind).
http://wlo.org/
ART ONLINE
Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, and Modern Culture Media Feeds
Two superb classics of silent gothic moviemaking have just been made available at the Sync. "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1919) and "Nosferatu" (1922) are available in RealVideo format, and if you haven't seen them - well, until you manage to do so on the big screen with a live orchestra, this will have to do. The site also has a variety of interesting independent and experimental films available for download. Other goodies include links to the legendary Jenni behind the legendary JenniCam, the CYBERlove webcast on love, sex and relationships, and even the House Science Committee hearings on the future of the domain name system. All in all, this is a great bookmark for modern culture junkies.Caligari/Nosferatu: http://www.thesync.com/aikman/aikman.html
Sync: http://www.thesync.com/
The Native Hands site features a catalogue of fine silver bracelets, earrings, buckles, rings, necklaces, pins, and other jewelry. While we wouldn't normally cover such a commercial site, the unique art and artists here make it a worthwhile visit. You can read biographies of the Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni artists and explanations of the techniques of clusterwork, inlay, overlay, and stampwork.
http://www.nativehands.com/
BOOKS & E-ZINES
Post-Holiday Waistline Stress Syndrome Book Reviews
Our reviews of "Eating with Conscience: The Bioethics of Food" and "Weigh Less, Live Longer" may not tickle you with what they say about your eating habits, but they beat a swift smack to the head, or even a bad pork sausage.http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/books/book.04.02.html
The Computer Law Review and Technology Journal
Southern Methodist University's School of Law and the Computer Section of the State Bar of Texas publish this quarterly periodical, featuring articles about computers and the law, so you know they have the street cred behind their material. With only four articles per issue, it's not exactly a high volume publication, but what it lacks in quantity it makes up in quality. Legal eagles will like articles like "Using Technology in the Management and Trial of Complex Cases". Those who may find themselves on the dark side of the law, intentionally or not, will appreciate material like "Management and Discovery of Electronically Stored Information". It comes in PDF format.http://www.smu.edu/~csr/
Batman and Robin, move over. There's a new superhero in town. He goes by the name of Web Hunter and comes with Donna Matrix, the hottest thing to hit the monitor since Teri Hatcher maxed out AOL downloads. It's witty; it's cutting-edge, it scores three points for using the word "chiaroscuro" correctly in a sentence. Here's a sample: "Doctor Luddite, you fiend!" apostrophized Web Hunter. "You've hypnotized these innocent people with those insidious vitamin drinks!" Several hours of reading and a couple of well-deserved plugs for Weatherwood Company later, we found ourselves rolling on the floor with laughter and wondering where we could get a T-shirt. The answer is, of course, right at the site. In a year you can tell your friends you knew Web Hunter "back when".
http://www.webhunter.com/
Pop-Culture-Corn's Tongue in Cheek, Looking for Those Sharp Bits
The variety and sometimes refreshing sass of Pop-Culture-Corn (PCC) may remind you of fruitcake or some other freebie you're embarrassed to admit you like. This versatile, yawping, wisecracking site comes from college students with a lifetime of culture still to digest and attitude to display. The issue we looked at contained a tribute to Don Knotts, a review of "Titanic", an "Obscure Artist Showcase", a tongue-in-cheek guide to dating, the fifth episode of a satirical serial with local color, and a motley assortment of other odd prose pieces that confirm the zany status of PCC. You're invited to contribute to "A Reader-Written Tale", though heed the warning that "logical action and description is better than something like 'He farted on the moon and it shot cheese at God.'" If you want to have fun with such escapist fluff, you may want to leave your manners at the door.http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~bab181/pccmag.html
Want to nominate a friend for the Gutsy Girl Award? Discover ten surefire ways to turn on a man ("Be clean but like it dirty") with SexyGrrrl? Quirk offers late-teen grrrls issues with an intelligent bent. Read the confessions of a porn site operator. Pose your most secret questions to AnswerGrrrl or reveal your most embarrassing sexual secret. On the whole, it feels like you're eavesdropping in a women's bathroom stall - not that we'd know.
http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/6163/
Dead Sites Don't Wear Plaid, and Other Stories
Disobey's eclectic collection runs from easily entertaining to downright hard to enjoy. We weren't really sure how to classify it, but since it seems to think it's an e-zine, here it is. One of the easier reading sections is Ghost Sites. What happens to Web sites that were hot, cool, or new a year or two ago? Are they still around? Are they still hot or cool? Such questions haunt the Ghost Sites page, a collection of Web site obituaries that spring from author Steve Baldwin's perception of the Web as "a great and utterly pitiless electronic ocean that swallowed up sites, careers, and venture capital like a ravenous killer whale." The reviews of dead and dying Web sites range from a lonely frozen Web cam to Microsoft's Mungo Park. As for the rest of Disobey - well, some of it might qualify for Ghost Sites soon.http://www.disobey.com/
The ads in the top frame annoy, but the contents amuse. Lumiere Magazine focuses on fashion, and offers beauty and style articles on topics ranging from caring for your skin to the latest designs from Paris. Oh, to be chic. Another fashion e-zine, FashionStance Magazine, also aims to make us more attractive, in a more common-sense way. The e-zine realizes that we just might not all be millionaires, so you don't have to own a little vacation chalet in Switzerland to benefit from the fashion and beauty info proffered here. The links offer access to an amazing array of fashionable sites, including the one and only Lipstick Librarian (see the Search page).
Lumiere: http://www.lumiere.com/
FashionStance: http://www.fashionstance.com/
Reviews, Original Essays and Fiction, and Reviews
JournalX devotes its electrons to political commentary, original fiction, and reviews of everything from movies to computer games. The Politics and Culture department provides both conservative and liberal commentators who write about the world with a cynical but humorous edge. The Fiction and Reviews department carries short stories, diaries from young people living in New York and San Francisco, and the site's most popular feature, the movie reviews.http://www.journalx.com/
SURFING SCIENCE
Lives On - short for Lucent Innovation's Virtual Experience for Students On the Net - is a virtual tour of five science museums that celebrate the transistor, the heart of the information industry and perhaps "the most significant invention and technology breakthrough of the century and possibly second only to the invention of the wheel." Invented in 1947 at Bell Labs (now part of sponsor Lucent Technologies), the transistor is ubiquitous. It has indeed "ushered in an age of innovation unprecedented in the history of humankind." Pages here offer wonderfully succinct trivia, e.g.: "By the turn of the century, microcircuits will routinely contain one billion transistors per chip the size of a fingernail. The patterns on these chips will be as complicated as a road map of the entire planet") Great stuff for a class report or a lazy afternoon.http://www.lucent.com/liveson/
No matter how you support environmental awareness and biodiversity, the World Wildlife Federation's Living Legacy site has something in your niche. Left-brained, logical types will enjoy charts and maps of eco-regions. Right-brained, emotional types can visit the Top Ten Coolest Places You've Never Seen, many closer than you think. Online games will keep youngsters amused and environmentally-conscious. After the site sways you to save North America's ecological purity, you can take action by sending a free fax or e-mail telling some officials to do something about it, all from the comfort of your own mousepad.
http://www.worldwildlife.org/legacy/
Libearty's Bears of the World is a little gem, a single page chockablock with information, clearly written, efficiently illustrated, and without a single wasted word. Libearty is the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) campaign for bears. The site describes the appearance, habits, and habitat of the eight species of bears - all eight under threat and five with the potential for extinction. It's part of WSPA's larger Web effort, which contains mostly good news about rescues of dancing bears and successful halting of the manufacture of the very specific ammunition preferred by gorilla hunters. Even so, other pages hold ample evidence that it's still the wrong kind of jungle out there.
http://www.way.net/wspa/ws8brs.html
The North American Wolf Association in Houston, Texas, wants to educate the public about wolves and to preserve and reintroduce wolves into the wild in North America. Their site has interesting facts about the temperament, intelligence, and social life of wolves. You can participate with their organization by sponsoring one of the wolves in their sanctuary or by supporting them in a variety of other ways.
http://www.nawa.org/
Beautiful Celestial Photography
Jeff MacQuarrie, a talented amateur astronomer, presents dozens of beautiful and interesting photos on film and captured electronically with his home-built CCD camera through a 16-inch telescope. The site makes great use of thumbnail images. Larger images with descriptive text lie just a click away. This impressive collection of the wonders of our universe also contains several noteworthy lunar shots and out-of-this-world aurora pictures.http://members.aol.com/tchphysics/index.htm
Blue Skies, or Perhaps an Icy Hell
Weather.com, the online presence of cable TV's Weather Channel, has just added a good site for teachers and meteorology buffs. The Weather Classroom is a new series of segments from the TV show (aired twice weekly) with supporting data on the Web that includes a a preview for each episode, a teaching guide, and hands-on experiments exploring the concepts. The text-only version is good for slower dial-up lines.http://www.weather.com/education/
CORRECTIONS
It's the Eighth GUV Survey, Stupid!
OK, we (meaning Arthur) goofed big time on this. The GUV came out with another excellent Web demographic survey. But when we (meaning Arthur) wrote last issue's item, we (meaning Arthur) mistakenly wrote up the seventh survey results. We (meaning Arthur) would like to blame it on the Great Ice Storm of 1998, but we (meaning everyone but Arthur) won't let ourselves (meaning Arthur) do a wussy thing like that. In any event we (meaning everyone including Arthur) strongly recommend a quick read through the Eighth GUV WWW User Survey. Gender parity is almost there, privacy now overshadows censorship in importance, security is still an issue for online buyers, 84% of respondents consider the Web "indispensable", and, once you hook them, most users never switch from the browser they started with.http://www.gvu.gatech.edu/user_surveys/survey-1997-10/