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| A Close Look at Rocks and Bones |
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BREAKING SURF
Microsoft Patents Elements of CSS
George Olsen of the Web Standards Project noticed that Microsoft has just obtained a patent for some key concepts behind Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), the up and coming standard for managing page layout in Web browsers. Microsoft applied for the patent in 1995, just as the Net standard body, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), was drawing up specs for CSS with the participation of Microsoft representatives. The possibility of having supposedly open standards hobbled by licensing issues is untenable and alarming. Many knowledgeable souls have wondered why the patent office awarded the patent in the first place, given that the concepts have been in the public domain since the late 1980s at least. In a vaguely related story, W3C just released the first test suite for checking compliance with the proposed CSS standard.Patent: http://www.patents.ibm.com/patlist?icnt=US&patent_number=5860073
Details: http://www.webstandards.org/patent.txt
Test Suite: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Test/
Victoria's Secret Show Still Available for Viewing
Broadcast.com, who hosted the Victoria's Secret lingerie webcast, claims the show registered close to 1.5 million hits. When the Clinton videotape testimony was shown, only 1 million visitors showed up - the whole day. Those who missed watching blurry pictures of high-priced models decked out in gauze and fairy wings can find the webcast archived at the following URL.http://webevents.broadcast.com/victoriassecret/fashionshow99/
Pentium III Serial Number: Big Brother Inside
The latest Pentium III chips shipped by Intel have an embedded serial number which can be accessed and used by programs running on the processor. This has profound privacy and security implications for users of these chips. Specifically, this information could be used to track your identity on the Net, and, in a worst-case scenario, could let others monitor your computer usage. This is not idle paranoia: large mass-marketing companies are trying to do just that with cookie databases, and the more repressive regimes around the world could easily abuse this feature to control citizens. Accordingly, various privacy groups have banded together to advocate a boycott of Intel. This Web site extensively explains the issues involved. Visit and educate yourself.http://www.bigbrotherinside.com/
Our favorite daytime soap continues. CNN has Monica Lewinsky's video testimony transcribed into text with links to the testimonies of Vernon Jordan and Sidney Blumenthal.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/resources/1999/impeachment/video.transcripts/lewinsky.html
And the award goes to... Disney! The company's Go Network sent out e-mail containing unencoded user IDs and passwords to its subscribers. The direct e-mail campaign was meant to introduce users to Disney's daughter sites such as ESPN.com. Unfortunately, with the user ID and password anybody could learn a user's address, phone number, and even run up credit card bills on the Web sites (though credit card numbers themselves were apparently not at risk). CNet has the story.
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,32016,00.html
Estee Lauder Sues Excite over Sale of Search Keywords
This is one to watch. The cosmetics company Estee Lauder sued Excite because Excite sold targeted advertising space on the search results page for the keywords "Estee Lauder" to retailer Fragrance Counter. Estee Lauder claims a trademark on their name and is going after the search engine. Unless this suit dies an ugly death, search engines now risk being caught up in ugly trademark disputes between unrelated companies just because they have deep pockets. One search engine which is probably particularly vulnerable is GoTo.com, whose profits are partly based on auctioning off search keywords to the highest bidder.Este Lauder: http://www.elcompanies.com/default.htm
Excite: http://www.excite.com/
Fragrance Counter: http://www.fragrancecounter.com/
GoTo.com: http://www.goto.com/
New Net Survey Shows Dumbing Down of Net Denizens
The laws of mass numbers are apparently transforming the demographics of Net users to more closely resemble the seething mass of ordinary people. This new survey by the Pew Research Center notes that online newcomers are "more middle-brow, less work-oriented". On average, newbies are older and have lower incomes and less education than Net users of past years. This site has all the numbers.http://www.people-press.org/tech98sum.htm
Buried among this batch, we have a take on the iMac, a dumb pun from RageBoy, and an admittedly well deserved kick in the teeth from Andy Wang of Impression. Win some, lose some.
http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/letters/letter.05.04.html
ONLINE CULTURE
This item had us thoroughly tickled. The online auction company eBay, whose stock has been doing loop-de-loops lately, won the coveted Coolest Shopping Site of the Year award. But eBay was apparently too cool to actually be present and accept the award at the ceremony in New York. Enter zine writer Todd Levin, who despite his mental fog noticed the award appearance faux pas and leapt on stage to accept the ten inches of hard lucite: "I just acted astonished and started swearing my head off," Todd said. It gets better. Last Monday, Todd put the award up for auction on the hapless eBay site itself for an insulting $1.59. Last we heard, the bids were up to an eye-popping $5000. Why isn't this man working for Netsurfer?Story: http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/17705.html
Levin: http://www.smug.com/current/bumpugly.html
Auction: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=62692227
Coolest: http://www.coolsiteoftheday.com/csoty/
March 31 marks the first anniversary of Netscape's release of Navigator source code and the birth of Mozilla.org, a Netscape group devoted to public use of that code. The event redefined how major software companies view their intellectual property in the Internet age and in many ways validated the commercial opportunities of the open source movement. Paul Festa of CNet has written a good in-depth article about the history of Mozilla.org and its ups and downs over the last year. It's a fine summary of a significant chunk of recent Internet history.
Article: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,31941,00.html
Mozilla: http://www.mozilla.org/
The Prehistory of E-Zine Publishing: Origins of John Labovitz's E-Zine List
Five years is forever in Internet years, yet that's how long John Labovitz's E-Zine List has been in existence. The list, around in one form or another since August 1993, is one of the best online resources for finding interesting electronic magazines. The seeds of the list were planted when a curious 16-year-old John managed to talk his way into the MIT AI Lab computer network. His quest to spread the word about issues of his own print zine led to a posting on the alt.zines newsgroup which gave birth to the list. John eloquently tells the whole story in a recent issue of the Art Bin (see NSDs 1.28 and 3.40). The article also lists some of the e-zines which survived the transition from the Usenet/BBS medium to the Web - the cradle of NSD's own concept in 1993. The article deserves to be archived since it documents what might otherwise become undeservedly ephemeral Net history.E-Zine List: http://www.meer.net/~johnl/e-zine-list/
Article: http://www.art-bin.com/art/alabovitz.html
Art Bin: http://www.art-bin.com/aaehome.html
This section of the How We Want To Live Tomorrow project focuses on global digitization and teems with high-brow European intellectualism (not that there's anything wrong with that). The pages postulate that right now only members of the higher rungs on the socio-economic ladder think they belong to the global village while the rest of us continue to identify primarily with our physical location (not that there's anything wrong with that). The site cites three locations - North America, Europe, and Asia - as cauldrons of fundamental change. Big surprise, eh? Anyway, the site hopes to bring residents of the big three together to discuss how they want to live in the future. It comes together as an intellectual discussion on global change, with a well-stocked Web reference section as a backdrop.
http://www.hoechst-forum.uni-muenchen.de/digital/
Are you a Dilbert? Do you have a pointy-haired boss with a small brain and a big attitude? If you work in IT, in ANY branch of IT, the tales of horror on the NetSlaves site will ring bells. Full of humor and highly amusing, the site also offers some very useful advice and a range of indispensable gadgets in the shop. We've already ordered the 24-Hour Survival Pack for the next issue of NSD....
http://www.disobey.com/netslaves/index.htm
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Photojournalism - the Story behind the Photos
This site provides the thousand words behind the photos you see in your local and daily newspapers. Professional press photographers write brief stories about their job and what they produce at the end of the day. Not surprisingly, the site uses photographs tastefully and minimally, and the excellent few it does post have stories attached. The quirk, or skill, in photojournalism is laying out all the elements of storytelling visually. Sometimes you might not immediately notice it, but the site compensates for that and peeks behind the front-page shots at the mechanics of photo composition and the costs and payoffs of the job.http://www.digitalstoryteller.com/YITL
Writing one e-zine yourself is difficult; writing five is ridiculous. Joe, a German artist, uses the art of the world to fill his newsholes (and some duplication of material doesn't hurt, either). Joe doesn't set himself up as an expert on art, but as a man who likes to look closely at paintings - so far, despite his ambitions, mostly mainstream Western European high art. His analyses of paintings such as Rembrandt's Bathsheba and Rubens's painting of his second wife in a fur focus on the physical, particularly the sexual, implications of the work. Joe also provides a gallery of his own mostly expressionist work, and offers to guidance to artists who send their work to him as part of an open discussion and workshop. He's drawing with colored chalk right in the middle of the virtual street and wants to talk art. Stop by to chat.
http://art-quarter.com/journals.html
You're Bound to Find a List of Film Bests You Like
Hollywood spawns zillions of top-ten and top-100 lists. Why? A list of great flicks may be the quickest - and sometimes the best - way to make sense of cinematic history. Greatest Films focuses on Hollywood and other American films, with a variety of "top" lists based on quality, box-office sales, memorable scenes, characters, publication (TV Guide, Premiere, etc.) and other mainstream criteria. We liked the substantial plot summaries, interwoven with background and commentary. It makes compelling fodder for trivia quizzes, party chat, and film classes. This site has so much material it makes you wonder if it will spin off a series of electronic games or a quiz show. Or both. What a black hole for the intellect! As a latterday Bacall might tell a hotwired Bogey, just put your fingers together and click.http://www.filmsite.org/
http://www.digitalstoryteller.com/YITL
The title of one of the songs linked at Narcopop, "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control", aptly describes the early history of MP3 media on the Net. Even those who'd refuse to break bread in the company of a record promoter, much less support one with purchases, generally consider musicians deserving of pay for their work. Narcopop lauds sites offering music published in the MP3 format with the copyright owner's consent - it stamps sites with a legal MP3 seal of approval - and its links keep you up to date with fast and furious developments in the open-standard audio delivery debate.
http://www.narcopop.com/eselector.html
Bandwagons and music go hand in hand. Lycos claims you can search over half a million music files in the MP3 format so feared by music publishers. We tried a search for "Nine Inch Nails" and gave up after leafing through 100 hits. It works and it works damn well. The Recording Association of America leaned on Lycos, which promptly sent out a statement that it would not link to "illegal sites" - whatever that means.
Lycos MP3: http://mp3.lycos.com/
Press Release: http://www.lycos.com/press/fandt.html
BOOKS & E-ZINES
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Items our staff likes and you might too. Click on the image or title to order at a hefty discount from Amazon.com and send a few pennies our way as well.
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Courtesans & Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens
The Reality Dysfunction: Emergencehttp://www.stephenking.com/
The people at 1stBooks would like you to believe that more and more writers are turning their backs on conventional publishing in favor of the vast, never-go-out-of-print, one-book-per-reader world of the Web. One doesn't have to go as far as that to recognize that immaterial books are even cheaper than the paperbacks that start to drop their pages before you've reached Chapter 12, and can thus present works that would otherwise not be accessible. The reasoning is more pressing to the author than the reader, who, after all, can scarcely complain that there are not enough books published in any given year to take up his time. Books do go out of print, get remaindered, and disappear with astonishing rapidity. It is odd that the place they may find to survive and seek immortality is the endlessly shifting bit and phosphor world of the computer screen.
http://www.1stbuys.com/1stbooks.htm
SURFING SCIENCE
The Essential Martian Baedeker
Worried that you don't know your mons from your tholus? Your cavus from your patera? To alleviate your embarrassment, the Planetary Studies Foundation (PSF) has set up a site containing over 1,400 named features on the surface of Mars. Search the database through the clever Java applet that you can prompt alphabetically or by type of feature. You'll get topographic detail, location, some information about the feature's name, and a list of Viking photographs of the feature you are interested in. The PSF also provides a list of aerological categories. "Aerological" is to Mars as "geological' is to Earth - these guys can get you speaking fluent Martian in no time. So now we know a mons is a large isolated mountain, a tholus a small one, usually dome shaped. Crisp, barebones, efficient - you won't find any flab here.http://www.planets.org/mars.htm
A Close Look at Rocks and Bones
Does igneous and metamorphic petrology sound as dry as dust? Not if you look at it through the eye of a Texan - to be exact, a Texan at the University of Texas. This collection of geology CT scans undoubtedly can prove useful to geologists and other rock-watchers, but even if you cannot tell your diamondiferous eclogite from a hole in the ground, visit and enjoy the beauty and mystery of rocks like you've never seen them before. And if you're not a rock jock, you might like the scans of creatures extant and extinct.http://www.ctlab.geo.utexas.edu/index.html
How Old Is That English Muffin?
Carbon dating lets archeologists determine the age of organic artifacts and remains less than 23,000 years old. The wise guys at the Official Insomniacs Home Page will play you a song about insomnia, and then give you a potted explanation of how carbon dating works. This includes a slightly wobbly explanation of isotopes (carbon 14 being the relevant radioactive isotope of carbon), a brief history of the process, and a few diagrams. And there you have it.http://www.teleport.com/~swc/carbon/radiocar.htm
Many primers explain the Net on the Net, but with ever-increasing numbers of Net users, new ones are always welcome. Internet Information Technologies, a plain-text educational site, covers much of what we need to know about: operating systems; Net protocols; mark-up and programming buzzwords; security issues; and other fundamentals of electronic life. If you're a teacher, you may want to add this site to your reading list for classes in communication. Those who want more than a summary can follow well-chosen links at the end of each short chapter. At times, the prose is a bit rough. We wish someone would teach the gearhead authors the difference between "its" and "it's," because the contraction is so often used incorrectly our teeth started to grind. Fortunately, their expertise and common sense about technical matters help you overlook such annoyances.
http://www.yyz.net/iit/
Happy Birthday, US Public Health Service
The US Public Health Service (PHS) celebrated its 200th anniversary in 1998 with a solid, if retro, Web site. Its exhibits include a gallery of 165 black-and-white photographs of PHS employees in service to the public, with explanatory text. Some are "official moments" but most of the photos seem more like a scrapbook. We found a great informational resource, "Plagues and Politics", a 20-minute RealPlayer video overview of the PHS, in the On-Line Videos section. Think PBS, and you'll get the picture. There are also a free screensaver and links to related sites. Not bad for such an old geezer.http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/phs200/
SOFTWARE
Aladdin has released a new version of StuffIt Expander, possibly the most ubiquitous freeware in the Mac universe. StuffIt 5.1 is supposed to be faster, and it now will decode .zip and .uu encoded files. You Windows types will be glad you kept reading past that first sentence, since Aladdin has also released a new StuffIt Expander beta for your platform, good through February.http://www.aladdinsys.com/expander/
O'Reilly 1999 Open Source Conference
O'Reilly, the technical book publisher, has staunchly championed the Open Source movement. It is sponsoring a number of related conferences this year that are of interest to hackers everywhere. If you're into Linux, Perl, Apache, FreeBSD, and the like, you'll want to check out O'Reilly's conferences Web site, and plan on attending the 1999 O'Reilly Open Source conference August 21-24.http://conferences.oreilly.com/
HP Laser Printer Configuration Software for Linux
Here's another sign that Linux is starting to get the respect it deserves. Hewlett-Packard has just released a Linux version of their network printer configuration tool. You can use it to attach an Ethernet-capable HP printer to your Linux network.http://www.hp.com/net_printing/Jet_Admin/webjetadmin.html
CORRECTIONS
As happens occasionally, one of the sites we covered had some domain issues after we proofed the copy and before we finished the mailing. Some readers trying to visit MacSurf's Sherlock library may have found themselves at VallejoNet's page. VallejoNet hosts - er, hosted MacSurf but because of confusion between MacSurf.com and MacSurf.net, it pulled the latter. The site's new URL, below, will be available real soon now.http://isp.macwebhosting.com/