| The Technology of Anonymous Web Publishing |
| XML: Not the Cockney Band, the Web Dialect |
| State/Provincial Internet Infrastructures |
| Distant Intimacy in Japanese Art |
| Women and Gender in Ancient Egypt |
| Hopcus Pocus |
| If a Payphone Rings in the Forest, Does Anybody Answer It? |
| Film at 11 |
| Show Biz Bucks |
| NSD Looks at Books |
| Of Dead Trees and Live Online Books |
| Garrison Keillor in Salon Magazine |
| Weird Science |
| The Record of Apollo |
| Quantum Mechanical Home Projects |
| The Museum of the Rockies |
| When Is a Fossil Not a Fossil? |
| The Tech Museum in San Jose |
| Weekly Science Updates E-Zine |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
BREAKING SURF
No sooner do you bottle up one war in the Balkans than another pops up. The roots of this latest conflict rest as firmly in the nationalistic aggression of the Serbian leadership as they do in the inevitable ebb and flow of demographics. Mix in religious conflict and an ancient culture of hatred and you have a recipe for unending violence. The BBC has excellent coverage of the breaking story as well as a good compilation of material on the history of this conflict since 1389.http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/special_report/1998/kosovo/default.htm
Netscape released the latest version of their browser/package this week, for all major platforms. One important change is the incorporation of a search feature in the URL input box, called Smart Browsing. Type a phrase where you would normally type a URL and you'll be taken to a Netscape search engine. Another major change improves the handling of IMAP and LDAP e-mail protocols. It will be easier for people who travel with their laptops to manage their mailboxes. The press release has details. Strictly speaking, we never found the software on the site, but we're it'll pop up soon. Netscape also unveiled a beta version of Netcenter. Give it a look and tell them what you think.
Communicator: http://home.netscape.com/communicator/v4.5/index.html
Press Release: http://home.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease634.html?cp=nws06flh1
Netcenter: http://home.netscape.com/beta.html?cp=hmp06tbet
Design: http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/EE/CSER/UOSAT/IJSSE/issue1/cjilla/cjilla.html
Subsumptive: http://www.pcisys.net/~mork/usats.htm
Schoolnet: http://www.schoolnet.ca/collections/satellites/english/engineer/
Soccer is easy. Robot soccer is hard. Gather a few mates, toss in a ball, put a few hooligans in the stands and you have a soccer match. That's why it's the most popular game in the world. But getting robots to bat a ball around a "stadium" takes some serious hardware, brainpower, and a large capacity for frustration. Maybe that's why robot soccer is not about to explode into sudden popularity in the Third World. Nevertheless, while the world watches the World Cup, robot soccer will have its own World Cup competition in Paris, July 2-9. Three sizes of robots and virtual robots (i.e. algorithms) will compete. As any teenaged hacker will tell you, there's a certain thrill in forcing an inanimate object do all the stuff you hated doing in gym class.
http://www.robocup.v.kinotrope.co.jp/02.html
What's Brown, Sounds Like a Bell, and Is 65 Million Years Old?
Dung. Specifically, tyrannosaur dung. Premier coprolitologist Karen Chin announced that fossilized excrement measuring 17 inches long and 6 inches across discovered in Saskatchewan could only have come from a tyrannosaur. The most exciting thing about this find is the prevalence of crushed bone, indicating the dinosaur crushed its food either with teeth or gizzard stones. The high percentage of bone in the coprolite (fossilized dung) seems to indicate that the tyrannosaur had extremely effective digestive juices that dissolved most of the soft tissue. Several media outlets have crappy stories. NPR's is RealAudio; ABC has a picture of the fossil. By the way, no known T. rex ever made it anywhere near 60 feet long - 45 feet is closer to the max.Infobeat: http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2554670642-d56
NPR: http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/980618.me.07.ram
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/TECH/science/9806/17/dino.dung.ap/
ABC: http://www.abcnews.com:80/sections/science/DailyNews/coprolite980617.html
Vogue, Bon Appetit, The New Yorker, Wired - Wired?
Conde Nast, publishers of some of the glossiest glossy magazines on the newsstand, just completed the purchase of Wired, the magazine. Wired Ventures, the company, will continue to operate the online portion of its business as a separate entity. HotWired editor Steve Silberman's latest column eulogizes the Wired conglomerate-that-never-was, portraying it as a prescient prodigy continually beat at its own game. CNNFN explains the division in more detail.Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/news/wiredview/story/13005.html
CNNFN: http://cnnfn.com/hotstories/deals/9805/08/wired/index.htm
We don't like unnecessary hype. We've so far avoided commenting on Mark McGwire's chances at breaking Roger Maris's single season home run record early in the season. Well, it's only two-thirds of the way into June, and McGwire already has more homers through the month than anyone else, so it's time for some serious bandwagon-jumping. The Sporting News has a site called McGwire Mania where visitors can enter a contest to guess the total distance of McGwire's homers this season, view a tracker that summarizes each blast, and follow a pace chart comparing him to Roger Maris and Ruth. The obligatory photos, stats, and text round out the site.
http://www.sportingnews.com/mcgwire/
ONLINE CULTURE
The Technology of Anonymous Web Publishing
Anonymous publishing has a long and distinguished tradition as a medium of dissent. Revolutionaries printed anonymous pamphlets in America, WWII France had "voice of the resistance" radio, and "samizdat" publications surfaced in Cold War communist Russia. In the words of a recent Supreme Court decision, "Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority." Unfortunately, the World Wide Web is poorly suited for such applications. Every file is associated with a specific server and every server is owned by a specific person who can be pressured to censor content. Ian Goldberg and David Wagner proposed a sophisticated solution for anonymous Web publishing as part of a class project. This paper outlines a plan for a network of "rewebbers" similar in nature to the current network of anonymous remailers. The paper also contains a number of good references to other sources on the technology of privacy.http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/cs268/taz-www/rewebber.html
XML: Not the Cockney Band, the Web Dialect
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a developing Web language. While compatible with HTML, it differs somewhat. XML doesn't make text, pictures and links simply sit on a Web page. A Microserf describes it as "a language for creating markup languages that describe data." XML addresses how information relates to other information - a syntax of interactivity. Proponents say it should help all computer applications to relate to the Web (or to other information systems), eliminating the need for a browser. The idea may be a little hard to understand at first, but we recommend you try. This site explains it thoroughly. Even if you don't give an X-pletive about XML, don't miss the host Web Developer's Virtual Library, a grand resource for tutorials and just about anything else you could want pertaining to Internet design and implementation.http://WDVL.Internet.com/Authoring/Languages/XML/Intro/
State/Provincial Internet Infrastructures
The States Inventory Project's online clearinghouse tracks how US states and Canadian provinces are planning, regulating, deploying, and using their information infrastructures. You can easily navigate through the collected information by state/province, category, or keyword. You can access all of the information for a state at once if you have a fast link and fast computer, or you can simply view the high level categories of information for each state.http://www.states.org/
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Distant Intimacy in Japanese Art
Japanese culture celebrates women's roles and men's need of them, but not in ways that most westerners understand. Historically, rank, wealth, gender, duty, and sex were so complex, men and women were sometimes loved to death, quite literally, and the romance of unrequited love seemed the objective. "The gods of heaven are irrational. So I may die and never meet you, whom I love so much." Here love prescribes death and chivalry prescribes abandonment. The introduction's writing is a tad precious, but get through its loftiness and you have a sense of the contradictions that made women and men in Japan such subtle cultural combatants through the centuries. The commentary settles down, though, in generous notes that accompany every woodblock print. Quotations from Japanese literature set the tone for each section. Do click on the thumbnails; it's the only way to get to the annotation.http://www.lib.virginia.edu/dic/bayly/
Women and Gender in Ancient Egypt
More than exhibition, the Kelsey Museum tries to make a cogent critique of its own work and of archeology in general. It acknowledges that the explicit archeological record generally sheds light on the privileged classes. The found objects of archeology, though - the remains of unextraordinary dwellings and burials - "offer unfiltered evidence for non-elites", as the Kelsey puts it. The museum looks at artifacts of Egyptian sexuality, which generally relate to fertility though erotic and humorous artifacts are common enough. Of course, ancient Egyptian girls and women may not have appreciated this aspect of their culture; marriage to brothers was not reserved for the elite, and high maternal mortality rates depressed the life expectancy for women to 22-25 years at birth. Overviews are detailed in this exhibit, but annotations on the artifacts themselves are scant.http://www.umich.edu/~kelseydb/Exhibits/WomenandGender/intro.html
Despite some tedious initial navigation - the images are unannounced image maps - this site contains some exceptional design talent. Artist Tracy Hopcus has posted some of her work which includes posters that shout with life and vitality and book covers crafted with style and finesse. We also enjoyed the amusing and colourful Toy of the Week. The use of color in this site is audacious - all the wrong ones put together yield exactly the right pleasing effect. Tracy, a real talent with a good sense of fun, has created a pleasant site for a splash of color and life on a dull day.
http://home.earthlink.net/~asinine9/
If a Payphone Rings in the Forest, Does Anybody Answer It?
Mark A. Thomas's Payphone Project, a listing by area code of payphone numbers and a few stories surrounding said devices, has been getting some press lately. The New York Times explains that "pay phones are about connecting, telling stories, expecting the unexpected," - pretty much the same description you'd hear about the Internet from newcomers with the fiber-optic sparkle still in their eyes. Yet the payphone provides a more concrete and discrete way to experience that feeling. Pick a phone number from this site and you'll know the person on the other end is going to be in Mesilla Park, N. Mex., outside a laundromat, or outside a Shell station in Biloxi, Miss. You'll either find the whole idea completely inane or deeply sublime.http://www.sorabji.com/livewire/payphones/
TV news photographers created this Web site for TV news photographers. It's a meeting place for news folks and TV news photogs with a lot of info and a little irreverence. Interestingly, it falls into the bad graphics trap of using a black background, making the text difficult to read. We don't mind that much, though, because the content is cool whether or not you're involved in the business of electronic journalism. This is your plebian chance to eavesdrop on talk about the workday world of TV news photogs from around the country. Should you happen to be one, and an unemployed one at that, you'll appreciate the job listings for those with experience.
http://members.aol.com/Photogslou/index.html
Rejoice, film fans. The Box Office Guru shares your enthusiasm, if the depth of news and data that comprise this Web site count for anything. There's a database, for example, that contains box office data on more than 1,500 films released since 1989. You can also read features on the fate of the latest flicks.
http://www.boxofficeguru.com/
BOOKS & E-ZINES
It's been a while, and we know you're starved for reading recommendations. This issue, we help you expand your horizons. Learn all about Windows 98 in the aptly named "Using Windows 98" or find a course in just about anything using "Petersons Guide to Distance Learning Programs 1998".http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/books/book.04.18.html
Of Dead Trees and Live Online Books
This witty Web site was crafted by an author of a "dead tree" computer book. You'll learn the tribulations of becoming a real, live published author - and, perhaps, mourn the loss of trees that go into producing such projects. Some facts, some theories, and a heck of a lot of humor from a superior Web scribe.http://photo.net/wtr/dead-trees/story.html
Garrison Keillor in Salon Magazine
Some may enjoy Keillor more as Salon Q and A columnist Mr. Blue than as a public radio star. Here's his answer to a reader who asked why he became a writer: "Mr. Blue became a writer when he was 14 years old in order to express deep inexpressible feelings that he later learned were common as dirt, part of what is called adolescence, but by the time he discovered that he had nothing original to say whatsoever, he was enjoying the act of writing so much, he couldn't bear to stop, and he has continued ever since, through periods of staleness and dullardry and mufflement, enduring tepid reviews ('a workmanlike book that certainly will be of interest to those who are interested in this sort of thing') and the disinterest of awards committees and the misery of book tours."http://www.salonmagazine.com/col/keil/
SURFING SCIENCE
Culled from 42 years of award-winning weekly journalism sworn to the rectitude of peer-reviewed scientific method, these goofy experiments and stuff that really happened will thrill and entertain you. For example, one report reveals that in 1976, German Olympic swimmers had 1.8 litres of air pumped into their colons (the well known cream rises, air floats principle). Less goofy stuff includes the heartbreak of honeybees who suffer rejection home at the hive, fly recklessly, and die young - all because they can't appropriately manage their need to forage fermented flower nectar. And what could be more pathetic than a university-sponsored sex education class for Australian Merino rams who, when let loose in a paddock full of dew-eyed ewes, haven't a clue what to do. Not all comedy, not quite tragedy, it's Bizarre Stories from New Scientist magazine.http://weird.newscientist.com/
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http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/frame.html
Quantum Mechanical Home Projects
Are you passionate about physics? Fred Tonch is, and he's created a Web site filled with interest for amateur scientists. As well as the carefully written chronologies of science and nuclear physics, you'll find accounts and photos of Fred's experiments with particle accelerators and rail guns, a gallery of great scientists, and the first three chapters of Fred's book on quantum mechanics. The whole site has strong overtones of a future Nobel prize winner - or an enthusiastic amateur. The exciting thing about science is that the two are often one and the same. Remember, you met Fred here first....http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Lab/3785/
The Museum of the Rockies, at Montana State University in Bozeman, lies in a remote area rich in natural and human history. This site, still under construction, allows both the general public and research scientists to access the collections of historical photos, textiles, and especially its catalogue of fossils with detailed photos of all the specimens. Of particular interest might be a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton with the most complete arms ever found. Future plans for the site include activities for children and 3-D images.
http://museum.montana.edu/
When Is a Fossil Not a Fossil?
The geoscience department of Emory University has put up a brief, useful educational site that will take advantage of your fascination with dinosaurs to teach you about more subtle evidence of ancient life, like tracks left in mud, eggs, toothmarks, and other trace fossils. Considering the recent dino dung in the news, you might want to check out the coprolite page.http://www.emory.edu/GEOSCIENCE/HTML/Dinotraces.htm
San Jose's Tech Museum of Innovation has an extensive site with a robot zoo of mechanically modelled animals, clever exhibits on color perception, earthquakes, DNA, and the Hubble satellite, and a unique section featuring interviews with high-tech leaders from Silicon Valley. Many sections include teacher's guides including lessons and games and pre-visit activities. We bet Bay Area teachers will use this site heavily.
http://www.thetech.org/
A weekly electronic publication, the Cyberspace Museum's Sciencescan Update lets you in on new knowledge in the fields of the natural sciences and exploration technology and informs you of current activities at museums. The full complement available at the Cyberspace Museum consists of the Exhibit Hall, Paleontology Places, Space Places, Sciencescan Updates, and Museum Bookstore along with a free mailing list. Good information that left us wanting more.
http://www.cyberspacemuseum.com/news.html