| When Does Anti-Spam Zealotry Become Censorship? |
| The Net's Sub-cache-ious Memory |
| Chinese Calligraphy |
| Saving Dinosaurs of the Silver Screen |
| ProGrafik's Post-Modern Art and Cutting Edge Design |
| Global Children's Art Gallery |
| AudioNet Launches Extensive Book Related Audio Site |
| Do Your Online Research at the LibrarySpot |
| Enter the Real World after College |
| Index of Current World News |
| Plenty o' Papers |
| Time Travel Conspiracy |
| Mayan Sciences |
| Food for Thoughts on Food |
| Kids' Science Info |
| El Nino |
| NASA Looks at Visionary Interstellar Travel |
| Bone up on Health |
| Netsurfer Science Looking for Writers |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
BREAKING SURF
The 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics
The great ice and snow sports extravaganza bursts into life this week in Japan, and it's likely to be the most wired Olympic games in history. The major online sports media outlets are already humming with Olympic feed, and promise to bring you the action in a bewildering torrent of information. We present you with links to the offical site and to the best of the majors. With a nod and a wink to the heavy Canadian presence on the Netsurfer crew, we'll throw in the SLAM! Sports site for a north-of-the-border perspective on the Games. Among them, these sites deliver plenty of the most frosty netsurfing.Official Site: http://www.nagano.olympic.org/
CBS Sportsline: http://www.winterolympics.com/
ESPN SportsZone: http://espn.sportszone.com/olympics98/index.html
CNNSi: http://www.cnnsi.com/olympics/events/1998/nagano/
SLAM! Nagano: http://www.canoe.ca/SlamNagano/home.html
US Domain Name Management Proposal
The White House has published a long-awaited proposal for shifting the management of domain name registrations from government to private hands. While just a draft proposal up for discussion, this is already getting some flak from various parties, notably Europeans who think it's a bit too US-centric. The details of implementation are sure to be fought over, though no one is likely to quarrel with the paper's main thrust - that the government should get out of the domain name registration business while ensuring that the stability of the Internet is maintained during the transition period. Informed Internet consumers will want to read the entire paper.http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/domainname130.htm
The Unbearable Lightness of Clinton
It's been said that pointing and laughing is one of the best methods of contraception available to a woman. Extrapolating that to the geopolitical arena, pointing and laughing at the White House may be the best way the US can keep the First Penis safely enshrouded within the First Pants. (Given that political activity is occasionally described as vigorous coitus with one's country, the metaphor is all the more appropriate.) Anyway, we bring you one site that feature some politically contraceptive humor. We were going to bring you two, but the Clinton Joke-of-the-Day Page shut down due to too much traffic - no lie. Daryl Cagle's superb cartoonists index has assembled an imposing collection of relevant barbed editorial cartoons. ROTFL all the way around. And, in addition to last issue's sites, may we add Salon to the list of excellent resources where you can follow the swelling scandal.Cartoons: http://www.cagle.com/scandal/
Salon: http://www.salonmagazine.com/
DejaNews Offers Web-Based Personal Newsreader Service
DejaNews, best known for its Usenet search engine, has just launched a beta version of their My Deja News service, in effect a Web-based news reader. Like any decent news client, this service maintains your subscriptions to your favorite newsgroups and tracks what articles you've already read. It operates much like the ubiquitous free Web-based e-mail services. You register and get free Usenet posting and reading access in return for having to endure banner advertising, targeted based on your reading habits. It's slick and it works.http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,18517,00.html
Are Large Parts of Domain Registration Fees Illegal?
That seems to be the gist of a preliminary injunction handed down in federal court as part of a lawsuit against Network Solutions. The court ruled that the government can't spend the $50 million dollars in the intellectual infrastructure fund, consisting of 30% of your domain registration fees. The lawsuit alleges that such fees constitute an illegal tax not explicitly legislated as such by Congress. It notes that federal law prohibits an independent executive agency such as the National Science Foundation (of which Network Solutions is an agent) from collecting fees that exceed the cost of service. The plaintiffs estimate that it costs Network Solutions about $3 to register a domain, and they want money paid in excess of that to be refunded. ZDNet's lucid article explains the situation in more detail.http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/msnb/0203/281457.html
Fox: http://www.foxnews.com/
Thomson: http://rtq.newscorp.com/fox/index.sht
MAE-West Outage Due to Move Causes Net Gridlock
As the US west coast suffered from severe rainstorms last weekend, the western US Internet infrastructure also suffered a serious outage. MAE-West, the major Net peering point in San Francisco, moved last weekend as part of a planned upgrade of the routing switches. Unfortunately, problems during the move made connectivity through this hub slow to nonexistent Sunday and Monday. Wired has a good article about the problem.http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/10024.html
Note on E-Mail HTML, Draft on Disabled Access, and Standard for VRML
Three Internet technologies reached important milestones this past week. The World Wide Web Consortium released two documents. One deals with proposed uses of HTML in e-mail messages, aiming at embedding more meta-information in e-mail messages and providing for standardized methods of displaying it (yay!). Another document comes from the Web Accessibility Initiative working group and targets HTML authoring standards to make HTML accessible to people with disabilities, primarily the blind. The document, with its strong emphasis on style sheets, is more a look to the future since current browsers do not yet have robust support for style sheets and HTML 4.0. Finally, the VRML consortium has just announced that VRML 2.0 is now an ISO standard.E-mail: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-HTMLThreading-0105/
Disabled: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-0203/
VRML: http://www.vrml.org/consort/iso98.html
Netscape Communicator Source Code
It's fairly old news by now that Netscape is giving away the source code to Communicator. But we figured you'd want to take a look at the actual press release, unfiltered by the bombastic pontificating of the frenzied media. Look for the Netscape Web site with the source code and supporting resources later this quarter.http://home.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease558.html?cp=nws01flh1
ONLINE CULTURE
When Does Anti-Spam Zealotry Become Censorship?
The latest incident in the Spam Wars marks a watershed of sorts. Anti-spam zealots have clearly crossed the line between simple opposition and totalitarian mob rule. As we've reported, Sanford "Spam King" Wallace wants to create his own backbone network to cater to spammers. He put up a Web page advertising the services-to-be. Note that this route has not yet been used for any spamming at all. Even so, the ISP hosting his page, Galaxy Net, and their upstream provider became so flooded with hate mail and threats, they were forced to drop the page. Now, as vile as the spam backbone idea may be, its proponents have a right to express it on a Web page. Alas, a rampaging mob of simplistic dictatorial bumpkins has left jackboot-prints all over a fundamental liberty. Is it not the most unpalatable speech that is in need of the greatest protection? Ponder that while you read accounts of the incident.CNet: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,18233,00.html
Yahoo: http://www.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/Issues_and_Causes/Civil_Rights/Censorship/Censorship_and_the_Net/
The Net's Sub-cache-ious Memory
Maintained by an ISP, a proxy server essentially serves as a cache of Web pages on which individual browsers can draw, similar to the cache your own browser probably keeps on your own hard drive. This speeds up downloads and reduces Net traffic, with one caveat: if you use a cached copy of a page, you may not be loading the latest refinement. Russell Tewksbury brings to our attention more serious potential problems. Cached pages may skew the reporting of page hits and cost publishers ad revenue. Search engines may list outdated cached pages rather than the original work. Excite, Infoseek, and Alta Vista have all been found to report cached pages in reply to searches. Data modification, to use a euphemism, is a third problem. Read all about it here. It's worth it.http://www.goforit.com/cache/
ART ONLINE
Part of a much larger site exploring Chinese culture in Taiwan, these pages link Chinese calligraphy figuratively and literally to other oriental arts. Comparing it to dance, theatre, and even to medicine, these pages delve into Chinese writing's form, composition, and the origins of its graphic radicals. Although it lacks specific detail, the site's cheerful assurance that the tens of thousands of Chinese characters actually arise from a relatively small inventory of basic radicals makes its suggestion seem quite plausible that, even if we never speak Mandarin, it's entirely possible to read it. Warning: Despite the subject, the calligraphy pages include a link to pages describing Japanese World War II atrocities. Approach it with extreme caution. We don't learn from history by averting our eyes so we can't ignore them, but the fuzzy photographs record grisly, brutal acts.http://www.gio.gov.tw/info/culture/culture5.html
Saving Dinosaurs of the Silver Screen
Paintings, sculpture, and other great works of art deteriorate. So do films. THE US Congress created the National Film Preservation Foundation to protect noncommercial films from decay and thereby preserve some of America's cinematic heritage. Many endangered films are "orphan films," which have no owners to protect them: newsreels, silent films, experimental works, films no longer under copyright protection, some home movies, and noncommercial documentaries and features. Now and then, clips from these oldies may make their way into the mainstream - one reason, maybe, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has pledged $250,000 to the Foundation. Read all about these restorative and preservative plans at the Foundation's frugal but politically correct official site.http://www.filmpreservation.org/
ProGrafik's Post-Modern Art and Cutting Edge Design
Slick and stylish, German design house ProGrafik hosts an international exhibit of digital art, painting, photography, and erotica, and for good measure throws in a few contemplations on the principles of Web design. We didn't check out all the exhibits; the curator claims more than 500. But, even if in general our reviewer thinks a little postmodernism goes a long way, she recommends what she saw. Serious work by serious artists, it's bold and thoughtful and - thank you, thank you, thank you - not given to the self-indulgence or easy commercialism of many postmodernists. ProGrafik's own design is no less serious and sophisticated - VRML and leading edge - so Web novices may find navigation a bit of a challenge; still, the exhibits are worth the learning curve.http://www.prografik.com/art/
Remember your childhood kitchen? Specifically, the fridge? That spot where all your art, horrible or wonderful, derivative or inspired, was hung to remind the family of your artistic talent every time someone needed the butter? The Global Children's Art Gallery is that refrigerator, magnified 100 times. Just think, while browsing the pages you could be gazing at the work of the next Michelangelo or, more likely from the looks of it, the next Jackson Pollock.
http://www.naturalchild.com/gallery/
BOOKS & E-ZINES
AudioNet Launches Extensive Book Related Audio Site
AudioNet just announced the launch of a site with a selection of live and on-demand audio programming for book-lovers. Called AudioBooks, the site is a slick collection of interesting book-related content. Choose from an extensive schedule of author interviews, chat facilities, travelogues, and book readings ranging from "Dracula" to "Successful Job Offer Negotiation". In a bizarre topological twist of intellect you can even listen to Cliff Notes summaries of great books, thus being twice removed from the act of actually reading them. Sure, it defeats the whole point of reading "Moll Flanders", but it does have a certain philosophical irony about it. A slick commercial effort and a great bookmark for anyone into books.http://www.audionet.com/books/
Do Your Online Research at the LibrarySpot
There's a reference desk right up front, special stacks for parents, students, teachers, and business leaders, and a reading room, but not a single "quiet please" sign to be found. Welcome to LibrarySpot, a virtual library resource center for, as they put it, "just about anyone exploring the Web for valuable research information". We agree. The site is not only a collection of online resources in different areas, but also raises interesting philosophical questions such as the role of the library in a democratic information society, where often enough those with the most toys do win. Stashed away in the Helpful Tips, the guided tour is one of the most valuable sections, bringing up sample questions and teaching researchers how to go about answering them. Just remember that if you stick you gum to the bottom of the carrel here, you're gonna be prying it off your computer desk in the morning.http://www.libraryspot.com/
Enter the Real World after College
Enter magazine purports to be a post-college introduction to the world but frankly it seems to provide good all-round information for anyone between the ages of 15 and 122. You'll learn how to run a successful business, how to take advantage of a 401(k) retirement fund, and how to handle your parents' divorce. Features include chat groups and excellent recipes for vegetarians, chili fans, and snack freaks. Don't forget to ponder the existence of the spork.http://www.entermag.com/features/
Every hour or so, News Index catalogues news stories from over 150 publications around the world. The free service offers an option for automated search results via e-mail. Quite often, you'll find different versions of the same story in accounts from different news sources. The site indexes many of the major news sources and includes several smaller independent publications. With no direct association with any of the news organizations, the site attempts to present all sides of a story.
http://www.newsindex.com/
News junkies rejoice. The Paperboy is online, tossing an amazing array of online newspapers onto your virtual doorstep. The site is nicely arranged, with a "Top Drawer" section of publications, as well as listings organized by country. From the Bangkok Post to the Moscow Times, you can finally get your news fix.
http://www.thepaperboy.com/
Read some revised historical fiction as our heroes attempt to prevent aliens and the US Government from changing the outcome of historic events. Through a number of messages from the future, four college freshmen attempt to alert present-day Internet surfers to the dangers of having history altered by time-traveling government agents, famous deceased personages, and aliens. The occasionally sophomoric writing and bizarre plots won't prevent SF fans from developing a certain fascination with the work.
http://www.islandnet.com/~rhb/Future_Page.html
SURFING SCIENCE
Clean and crisp, lean of text, and objective in tone, this little site takes us through those elements of Mayan life that could today be called science, but were then more pervasively cultural or religious. Unlike some of their Meso-American neighbors, the Maya had a written language. Text based on lectures by Dawn Jenkins laments the conquest, religious zeal, and book burning that reduced Mayan libraries to just the five codices known today. The Maya also had a mathematical system - base 20, not 10 - and designer Michiel Berger explains it and provides a neat little Java applet that converts a number into the Mayan equivalent. Similarly, another applet converts a Gregorian date to Mayan. Cosmology takes up most of the pages, though, with details of Mayan understanding of the cycles and significance of Venus, the sun, the moon, and the Milky Way.http://www.astro.uva.nl/michielb/maya/astro.html
Tufts University's Nutrition Navigator evaluates and lists the best of the many sites that provide nutritional information via the Web. You can view lists of sites broken down by categories like men, women, parents, health professionals, educators, etc. The brief blurb about each site gives a quick sense of how a site is best used. If you click for the longer commentary, written by professional nutritionists, you get data on a site's accuracy and depth of knowledge as well as its intended audience and particular strengths. As more information floods onto the Web, more of these meta-sites will be needed to avoid frustration and wastes of time. This is an excellent example of something between a search engine and a content provider.
http://navigator.tufts.edu/
You know how Superman flies - it's a superpower, right? Well, no - we're sure you all know that it's an effects technique called blue screen, but do you know exactly how it works? We know where you can find out. Gayle Olson, the guide for the Mining Company's Science/Nature for Kids site, pulls together resources that make science compelling to people of all ages. She puts links in packages on different themes (like science fiction or flight) with explanatory context and an evaluative eye so that the visitor knows at a glance the intended audience and whether or not it might be useful in answering a particularly tricky science question.
http://kidscience.miningco.com/
Darling of media hype, El Nino has wreaked worldwide havoc on farmers, cities, and NSD editors for longer than most TV viewers might think. This San Diego Source site discusses in simple terms the many effects this climatological phenomenon has on business and the general public. The newspaper's resident oceanographer, Christina Johnson, answers questions in the "Ask An Expert" section, a text-only forum where questions explore the effects of El Nino on such to-die-for items as Dutch chocolate, Brownie Girl Scouts, and Caribbean cruises. This section seems popular with kids writing reports for school. Of course, you'll find related links and for local visitors, a San Diego weather report. This site illustrates how print media can use the Web to best address a topic of global importance.
http://www.elnino.com/
NASA Looks at Visionary Interstellar Travel
This site explains the challenges, prospects, and limitations of interstellar travel with today's technology and science. We also get a look at what may be possible in the future and the breakthroughs that will be required before we visit other star systems. Analogies to familiar science fiction are used to simplify concepts such as "warp drive". The site describes in simple terms theoretically possible scenarios and areas where new breakthroughs in theory will be required.http://www.lerc.nasa.gov/WWW/PAO/warp.htm
Bodywise's simple, fast-loading, fast-reading site gets updated monthly with in-depth articles on health for the whole family, notes on recent breakthroughs, book reviews, and a listing of links that have passed a review team's muster. Before you leave, take the quiz on one of the month's featured articles to see how fit your brain is.
http://www.bodywise.net/
ADMINISTRIVIA
Netsurfer Science Looking for Writers
Living up to our business motto, "explode or die", we're starting up another e-zine called Netsurfer Science. It's gonna be a lot like NSD's Surfing Science section. Who are we kidding, it will be exactly like the Surfing Science section, only more so. We're looking for writers with a reliable capability to deliver five to ten witty science-related digest articles per week without going mentally non-linear. You don't have to be a PhD but you should be able to write with reasonable lucidity about cool scientific stuff, even if you don't entirely grok it. A quiet yet abiding faith in the divinity of Bill Nye and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew doesn't hurt. We do pay, sort of - about enough to buy you and your ravishing lab assistant a nutritionally incorrect meal every now and again. Interested writers should send a plain ASCII/text resume, two sample science articles (like in our Surfing Science section) and a Yes/No vote on whether the Universe has enough matter to be open or closed. Send your scribblings to mailto:sci-editor@netsurf.com