| A Pox on Internet Scams |
| Out-Drudging Matt |
| Video Camera Shoots Hot Stuff |
| GeoCities' Diminishing Accessibility |
| Art So Bad, It's Good |
| The Getty Museum's Commitment to Arts Education |
| Library of Congress Variety Theater Collection |
| Blooper Oopers! |
| Film Site in UK |
| Netsurfer Book Recommendations |
| Sapphire: a Good Little Magazine |
| Cast a Net Broad and Wide |
| Sort of a Media Digest |
| Free Computer Books |
| Telecommunications |
| Breaking Medical News and a Whole Lot More |
| Is There a Doctor in the House? |
| Real-Time Lunar Data Direct from NASA |
| Unearthing the Celts |
| A Truly Great Pig |
| Mayo! May-ay-ay-o! Web Site Come an' de URL Change |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
BREAKING SURF
The pictures are familiar by now - ruined buildings, bloody survivors, covered stretchers carried from the wreckage. Experts are combing through the rubble, and the story is just beginning. For evolving online coverage, turn to Yahoo's headline links, which include stories from African news outlets. Discussions on Usenet primarily take place in the soc.culture.kenya newsgroup. You'll find a smattering of related postings in the alt.culture.tanzania newsgroup.http://headlines.yahoo.com/Full_Coverage/World/US_Embassies_Bombed_in_Africa/
Eudora Pro Hit with Security Bug, Patch Available
Right on the heels of a security problem with e-mail software from Microsoft and Netscape comes a similar bug affecting the third major e-mail package, Eudora. Hostile programs included as attachments in e-mail messages can afflict both Eudora Pro 4.0 and 4.0.1 for Windows. You can download a patch or a free beta version of Eudora Pro 4.1 which, like all the Mac versions of Eudora, do not have this security problem. The relevant information and links can be found on this page.http://eudora.qualcomm.com/security.html
Back Orifice Provides Rear Entry to Windows
A new tool in the hacker's arsenal has prompted a security advisory from Microsoft. The Back Orifice program can allow a remote user to control and monitor a Windows machine. Presumably, a user would have to be tricked into installing and running this program, but that's not particularly hard to do to naive users. Think of it as a super virus with the user as the means of infection. A attacker can remotely control an infected computer, record all keystrokes and images, upload and download files at will, and redirect all this info to remote Net sites. Back Orifice isn't completely foolproof, however. Aside from tricking the user, the attacker must know the user's IP number and be able to connect to the computer - something easily foiled by a good firewall. Read the Microsoft security advisory for details and cruise by Cult of the Dead Cow for the program in question.Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/ms98-010.htm
Back Orifice: http://www.cultdeadcow.com/
Steve Fossett Balloons over the Southern Oceans
It looks like Steve Fossett has one-upped his competition in the race to circumnavigate the world in a balloon. Until now, all attempts at a round-the-globe flight have taken place in the northern hemisphere, at least partly for safety reasons - most of the northern path is over land. Steve is risking a flight in the south, flying over some of the most violent oceans on the planet. Not coincidentally, this has allowed him to get underway at least six months before the northern jet streams become a highway in the sky for his competition. Clever. Visitors can browse extensive information at this well laid out site, including a ground track map, meteorological data from the balloon, and mission logs from Mission Control.http://solospirit.wustl.edu/
Muammar Gadhafi Gives Fidel Castro Human Rights Award
We laughed so hard we fell off our chairs. Apparently, the Gadhafi Humanitarian Award, and the $250,000 prize, will be handed over at an August 30 ceremony. Fidel hasn't confirmed he will attend, so take that into account before you buy your tickets. News junkies will recall that the prize made serious news last year when Nelson Mandela won it and traveled to Libya to accept it despite quite a bit of criticism. In case there's any doubt, the Libyan news agency quoted by Reuters says "The decision to award the 1998 prize to the great militant (Castro)... was a clear declaration... to resist and fight American imperialism." Naturally. Those with serious interest in Libya can start netsurfing through the thorough Libya Resources on the Internet page.http://members.aol.com/LibyaPage/index.htm
Raise the Titanic, at Least a Chunk of It
RMS Titanic, the salvage company with exclusive rights to the Titanic wreck, this week raised a section of the ship's hull as part of its most recent expedition to the site. The recovered section contains the porthole of the cabin said to belong to Walter and Mahala Douglas of Minnesota. Walter didn't survive the voyage; Mahala did. The Discovery Channel, a sponsor of the expedition, offers live webcams, virtual reality environments and animations, and other fun stuff from the North Atlantic at its Web site. The site will offer a live webcast August 16 at 10:00 PM (EDT), immediately following a live TV broadcast from the expedition.Discovery: http://www.discovery.com/stories/science/titanic/titanic.html
RMS: http://www.titanic-online.com/expedition98/index.htm
Heart Stopping Action Live From the Operating Room
Where, oh where will it end? The same folks who brought you the recent live birth online intend to broadcast open heart surgery via the Net. America's Health Network obviously knows what racks up those hits on their Web site. The lucky stiff - er, patient has yet to be chosen. You'll need either Real Player or Microsoft Media Player to watch the action on August 19. Lightweight cardiac health content surrounds the show details at this site.http://www.ahn.com/liveevents/openheart/
I Mac, You Mac, We All Scream for iMac
Apple's hot little iMac only becomes available at 12:01 a.m. this Saturday, yet 150,000 people have already ordered one of the Bondi blue beauties. In a marketing scheme ripped straight from the pages of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", Apple honcho Steve Jobs plans to place five "golden tickets" in five iMac boxes. Finders of the tickets get a free Mac of their choice for each of the next five years. Macworld has established the iMacworld Web site for anyone who wants or needs a closer look and the iMac NewsPage takes an aggressive pro-iMac stance. The MacTimes Network gathers Mac, and iMac, news from across the Web.Golden tickets: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,25189,00.html
iMacworld: http://www.imacworld.com/
iMac NewsPage: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Hills/6639/
MacTimes: http://www.mactimes.com/
Top 50 Fastest Growing Web Sites
This report from Media Metrix shows that sites which offer personal services such as home pages, chat, and e-mail are the fastest growing sites on the Web. Topping the list of fastest growing sites during the first half of 1998 is angelfire.com, which offers mostly home pages amid the usual attempt at playing the portal game. Xoom.com, also a Web space domain, came next, followed by preferences.com which signs you up for commercial mailings.Report: http://www.mediametrix.com/corp/press/press_mm67.htm
Angelfire: http://www.angelfire.com/
Xoom: http://xoom.com/home/
Preferences: http://www.preferences.com/
ONLINE CULTURE
As con games, Internet scams may soon rival the indulgences of the Renaissance Roman Catholic Church. Not just schnooks get ripped off - how about the overworked small business owner who hires a consultant to register a domain name and gets socked with a $1,000 bill? At the ScamBusters site, learn how much it should really cost (more like $75) and read the guidelines for hiring Web consultants and designers. Find out how to fight back if you do get burned. Stay hip to the latest credit card fraud and Ponzi schemes. The Top Five Scams of 1998 makes for a fascinating chronicle of free-market perversion. And every smart netsurfer should bookmark the computer virus hoax and anti-virus protection sites. Never mind what they say. You never know where that disc has been.http://www.scambusters.org/
In a major tactical error, online journalist/gossipmonger Matt Drudge didn't keep up the payments on the domain name drudge.com. Rogers Cadenhead and Jonathan Bourne did, and they've whipped up a lovely parody of the infamous scribbler's site called the Drudge Retort. It copies perfectly the real Drudge site's look, except for the sickly yellow background that just begs the sobriquet of "yellow journalism". If you're allergic to the Bill/Monica story, you'll run screaming for the hills, but the content entertains in a tongue in the roof of your mouth sort of way. Mike Brunker of MSNBC interviewed Rogers and Jonathan, who let loose comedic vitriol about Drudge's "Brady Bunch" style of journalism.
Retort: http://drudge.com/
Report: http://drudgereport.com/
MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com/news/186322.asp
It's no secret that the Internet is rife with every sexual kink known to man, woman, assorted life forms, and not a few inanimate objects. One popular category is voyeurism. This story only obliquely touches that, but we doubt not that the subject will in due course be exploited online. Sony, the foremost champion of advanced consumer technology, has released a Handycam video recorder with infrared (IR) technology that allows users to record in the dark. In a grand demonstration of unintended consequences, said video camera can in daylight quite handily peer through light clothing to the endowments underneath. Sony has begun selling a modified version which cannot use the IR capability in light, but there are already close to a million out there that can. Does anyone want to bet on how long it will take for IR voyeur pics to show up on the Net? Read the entirely too serious CNet story for details.
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,25226,00.html
GeoCities' Diminishing Accessibility
When Tim Berners-Lee invented the WWW, he intended it to be the ultimate in accessible information dissemination. As plain old HTML has been augmented by bells, whistles, and little animated e-mail icons, a large segment of the online population has become excluded from accessing it. This open letter posted to GeoCities' chairman David Bohnett points this out and emphasizes that the marketing and promotional features compulsory for all GeoCities site owners are completely inaccessible to screen readers for the blind. You'll find responses and updates of the ongoing crusade behind links at the top of the page.http://208.142.243.103/letter.html
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Art is a matter of personal taste, to a large degree. Pictures one person hates, another will love and covet. Some works of art, however, transcend this mundane level of appreciation - pieces of original, painstakingly executed, full color awfulness. Shudder at the sheer awfulness of the Orange Maiden, the haunting nastiness of Binge, and the incredible ineptness of Bettydaviseyes. This collection is so painful, you won't be able to tear yourself away - sort of like electrocution.http://www.badart.com/
The Getty Museum's Commitment to Arts Education
Art comprises less than five percent of the video/multimedia market. Knowing commercial producers don't sink big budgets into minuscule markets, the J. Paul Getty Institute for the Arts has taken the initiative in new media for arts education. In the hands of scholars and artists from the Getty, UCLA, and the University of Chicago, virtual reality - its roots in military and games applications - now blossoms in humanities education. Use QuickTime VR to take a virtual reality tour of the ancient Forum of Trajan, painstakingly reconstructed in remarkable detail. (The Forum, built in the second century, was a huge, sumptuous, enclosed public monument in Rome.) Trajan is only one of the features at the Getty site. Teachers will appreciate the free lesson plans and information about professional continuing education.http://www.artsednet.getty.edu/
Library of Congress Variety Theater Collection
Vaudeville, burlesque, extravaganza, revues, and minstrel shows made up entertainment at the turn of the century, the professional homes of the forms and stars that shaped early movies, radio, and television. The Library of Congress hosts a generous exhibit on the American variety stage from 1870 to 1920, including a history of these marginally respectable arts of the time, with photos, playbills, English and Yiddish play scripts, and vintage film clips. The formula for setting the order in which acts appeared and the progression of styles as variety shows developed particularly intrigued us. Houdini and Ziegfeld were the only names we recognized immediately, but there are lots more to check out. Most files in the film archive are very large, but entirely worth the price of admission. Where else will you see the Gordon sisters boxing or contortionist Latina's dislocation act?http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/vshtml/vsforms.html
Because deep down inside we're all nasty little beasts, there's nothing more fun than schadenfreude (i.e. laughing at someone else's goof-ups) and that's probably why stale TV shows like "America's Funniest Home Videos" and "Candid Camera" keep rolling through the cable pipe. The Oops! Movie Secrets and Mistakes site gives us all a chance to feel superior to a selection of overpaid producers in Tinseltown. From "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" to "The Wizard of Oz" (did you know Judy Garland's hair changes length throughout the film?), there's a wealth of guffaws. If you're good at spotting bloopers, you can submit your own choice bloopers, too.
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Studio/6643/oops.html
With titles like "The Girl with Brains in Her Feet", "Clubbed to Death" and "Bring me the Head of Mavis", how could the this Web page fail to supply you with ideas for amusing evenings in front of the big screen? With details on hundreds of films, as well as the chance to search out your favorite director or actor, this site will provide you with all the basics for becoming a square-eyed monster. While based in the UK, the site looks at film from a global standpoint.
http://www.empireonline.co.uk/
BOOKS & E-ZINES
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Netsurfer Book Recommendations Books our staff likes and you might too. Click on the cover or title to order the books at a hefty discount from Amazon.com and send a few pennies our way as well.
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The Fortunate Fall
Diaspora: A Novel
Cracking DES: Secrets of Encryption Research, Wiretap Politics & ChipSapphire: a Good Little Magazine
Sapphire does what any good literary magazine should do: it pulls you in and keeps you engrossed until you realize you'd planned to do something practical with that last hour. And it might well leave you with that curious after-effect that often comes from reading good writing: you might walk around for an hour or so paying more attention to everything and everyone around you. The premiere issue has short, amusing first-person pieces, a fascinating look at the savage history of Balkan warfare, fine fiction, poetry, and book reviews.http://www.sapphiremag.com/
Those searching through news sources, magazines and journals for particular information may find NewsTrawler, a meta-search agent that scans the Web in parallel for speedier results, invaluable. You can access summaries for free or pay a fee for full-text retrievals. The list of searchable sources amazed us, though you should tailor it down for more targeted results.
http://www.newstrawler.com/
This motley collection of fascinating material includes a comic strip called "The Adventures of Waterbong"; CNN (Continuing Nutty News), which features stories like the lottery winner sued for a portion of the prize by a neighbor who claimed to have used voodoo to help her win; Dooley's Diary, a literate opinion column; and Bottom Dollar, a Net search for the best prices of any product you specify. A veritable casserole of delights awaits you.
http://clix.net/5thwnew/
Everyone loves a freebie, and KnowWare has many, in the form of computer books. You'll need Adobe's free Acrobat Reader to view the books, which come as PDF files. But once you have that, you can acquire such treasures as "Get going with Word", "Make friends with your PC", and "Start with Excel 5". Not exactly material for the New York Times best-seller list, but it can be useful and it is free.
http://www.knowware.dk/
Telecom News Megazine (sic) gathers headlines from various other European publications and combines them with reviews and opinions into an online compendium. A bit frame and cookie heavy and with a surprising number of broken links, it nonetheless has some interesting facts about the telecom and related industries in Europe.
http://www.telecom-news.com/
SURFING SCIENCE
Breaking Medical News and a Whole Lot More
Consumer health sites are hot, especially those with breaking news. Here comes 48 Hours, an English site that "will help you react to general health related articles that have appeared within the press within the last 48 hours." If you find abstracts of peer-reviewed articles in professional journals too dry, you'll appreciate the abstracts of articles in mainstream pubs such as the New York Times, Men's Health, and Consumer's Digest. Many abstracts link to the parent publication's Web site but not always to the relevant article. We liked the pulldown list of abnormalities at the top of the home page. How many medical sites have a canned search on barium enema, dandruff, diaper rash, heat exhaustion, or trichomoniasis? The Health Library Database (an anomaly amid all the news) dates back to the 1980s. Registered users can participate in chats.http://www.48hours.net/
Is There a Doctor in the House?
Former US Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop lends his name and expertise to Dr. Kppo.com - Healthcare Information Resources, an outstanding Web site for those seeking health-related information. You can browse health site reviews, a virtual pharmacy, and health news. If you prefer interactivity, you can take part in health chats or the "ask the doctor" feature. You can also search the entire site. Worth bookmarking, though you'll need to register to use some of the features.http://www.drkoop.com/
Real-Time Lunar Data Direct from NASA
This cool site presents possibly the most complete store of information about Earth's natural satellite. You can begin with up-to-date information about the Lunar Prospector mission and its instruments and discoveries, including the discovery of water ice at both lunar poles, track the spacecraft's health and position, and view a VRML presentation of the Moon, but do not miss the site's specialty - live data from five Lunar Prospector instruments. You'll also find a lunar atlas and geology sections.http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/
The Heuneburg Museum site exhibits the archaeology of a Celtic town, Heuneburg on the upper Danube. Although scientists have found evidence for civilization in the area from the Neolithic period onwards, the main occupation of Heuneburg dates to the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. For the past 120 years, archaeologists have been exploring the evolution of the prehistoric community. Visitors to the real museum can literally walk through history on the Archaeological Hiking Trail, a virtual representation of which the museum has made available for websurfers.
http://www.dhm.de/museen/heuneburg/indexe.html
CORRECTIONS
Once upon a time, there was a funny pig joke. Sometime later, a snotty e-zine editor used that pig joke in the 1996 Halloween special issue. Sometime even later than that, the guy who posted the joke on the Web graduated and took his joke to a new Web site. The end.http://www.crosswinds.net/melbourne/~khai/laughs/great-pig.html
Mayo! May-ay-ay-o! Web Site Come an' de URL Change
We've covered the impressive Mayo Health Oasis in NSD 2.09 and 3.08. Hopefully, the third time's the charm. It has moved to a third URL. You'll find links to medical topics and an impressive variety and depth of medical resources.http://www.mayohealth.org/