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| Surveillance Camera Plays |
| Tattoos through History |
| World's Fairs, Architecture, and Coffee Cup Lids |
| The British Film Institute's Top 100 |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| Moreover News |
| A Dash of Culture and a Spark of Tech |
| For Scholars of Emily Dickinson |
| Cambridge International Dictionaries |
| Whalespotting |
| The Albatross of Woods Hole |
| A Site Filled with Pustulating Goodness |
| American English Spoken Here |
| New Bind 8.2.2 p3 Released, Vixie Steps Down, Bind 9 Features |
| Samba 2.06 |
| Sorry, Maggy |
| Asian Mix Up |
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Want quick access to breaking news stories? Need some in-depth coverage and analysis about an event? Or just looking for a fast summary? Search no further than the latimes.com. A recently redesigned latimes.com Web site features a split-screen format for simpler navigation, quicker access to breaking news coverage, and one of the Web's richest sources of news and information -- updated every two minutes, 24 hours a day. With more than 50,000 pages of content, latimes.com is one of the leading sources for national and international news on the Internet. |
BREAKING SURF
EgyptAir 990 Crash: Flight Recorders
By press time, two flight recorders had been recovered from the wreck of EgyptAir flight 990 and the investigation had almost turned into a criminal probe conducted by the FBI. The disaster seems to have been either a deliberate sabotage or a dramatic suicide or both, a horror scenario worthy of a modern Edgar Allan Poe. The incident prompted us to look around for more information about those vital forensic tools, the flight recorders. The Aviation Safety Network (ASN) has extensive links to information on flight recorder technology and use, including transcripts and sound files from several crashes - though not yet EgyptAir 990. As you listen to any given last words, you're reminded that even as the Net brings us closer to each other, it also brings us closer to the macabre and hereto largely hidden aspects of human tragedy. Yahoo, as usual, has full coverage of the developing investigation.ASN: http://aviation-safety.net/cvr/cvr_site.htm
Yahoo: http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/Full_Coverage/World/Egyptair_Crash/
The 800-pound gorilla of trade shows squats in Las Vegas. Kind of an appropriate image considering the architecture there. At press time, the big news bits were Microsoft's new Web appliances and Corel's Linux bundle. The corresponding keynotes by Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds also got some good press. Not coincidentally, the Linux Business Expo is running concurrently with Comdex. Good live coverage can be had from CNet, ZDNet, and the Comdex Web page. Compare, contrast, and contemplate.
CNet: http://home.cnet.com/specialreports/0-6014-7-1436799.html
ZDnet: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/special/comdexfall99.html
Comdex: http://www.zdevents.com/comdex/fall99/
Linux Expo: http://www.zdevents.com/comdex/fall99/
All they wanted to do was to watch DVD movies on their Linux boxes. Sure, you could plug a DVD drive into your Linux box, but without the drivers to read the DVD encryption, you couldn't watch the movies. So, taking advantage of blatant weaknesses in the encoding algorithm and of the carelessness of one manufacturer, the programmers wrote DeCSS, a utility which reads DVD disks and converts the movies to the open MPEG standard. To follow the story, start with news of the original crack on Wired. A follow-up covers the inevitable lawyers' swoop as they ask one of the crackers to take down DeCSS from his Web site. Technically inclined readers will want to visit Frank Stevenson's scholarly and quite mathematical analysis of the DVD encryption algorithm's weaknesses. Finally, the DVD Forum, the official arbiter of DVD standards, has more technical information then we could possibly digest.
Crack: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,32265,00.html
Lawyers: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,32449,00.html
Frank: http://crypto.gq.nu/
DVD Forum: http://www.dvdforum.org/index.htm
RealInterestingTimes for RealNetworks
RealNetworks' privacy nightmare continues now that lawyers have scented weakness. When the New York Times reported that the company's practice of assigning unique IDs to users and collecting information about them was inconsistent with its published policy, RealNetworks quickly corrected the situation, but not soon enough to prevent at least two lawsuits. The two class-action challenges, the first seeking a $500 million payoff, claim RealNetworks violated California and federal privacy and business practice laws. RealNetworks, of course, considers the lawsuits "completely meritless". We expect lawyers will also salivate over the Streambox Ripper, which cracks the encryption used to control the distribution of RealAudio files and lets users save them as MP3s or Windows Media. That nice Streambox company even lets you download a trial version. Wired has the story.Lawsuits: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1435099.html
Streambox: http://www.streambox.com/products/Ripper/index.asp
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,32420,00.html
Extrasolar Planet Detected by Direct Photometry
This is a big deal in astronomical circles because it's the first optical detection of a planet orbiting another star. Astronomers had previously inferred the presence of a large planet orbiting close to the star magically named HD209458, about 153 light years away in the constellation Pegasus, from the wobble in the star's motion. Some calculated the planet's orbit and predicted when it would pass in front of the star. Astronomer Greg Henry turned several telescopes on the star during a predicted occultation and managed to detect a 1.7% drop in brightness due to the shadow of the planet. This enabled astronomers to determine the mass and density of the planet, which turns out to be about 63% as massive as Jupiter and with a radius about 60% larger then Jupiter. Basically, it's a big ball of gas, bloated because the planet orbits close to the star whose radiation heats up and expands the planet's atmosphere. The press release has details and other links.http://www.urel.berkeley.edu/urel_1/CampusNews/PressReleases/releases/11-12-1999a.html
A Bunch of Proposed Standards Move up the W3C Approval Ladder
The latest meeting of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) resulted in action on a number of new Web standards. The Web Accessibility Initiative advanced to a penultimate step to being an official recommendation. The Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P; yeah, it confuses us too) is waiting out a long last call period and more comment before also becoming a recommendation. The W3C has posted a new draft of XML schemas, used to interpret XML documents, and a new working draft of Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL), a markup language for handling animation. It's a lot to swallow, but CNet has a good capsule summary of all, placed in the context of recent legal and other developments. It's easier to find all the right links from that article than from the official W3C home page.W3C: http://www.w3.org/
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1436711.html
Explorer Browser Gaining Market Share At Expense of Netscape Navigator
Zona Research polled 236 "IT professionals" to find out what browsers they use. Sixty-four percent say they use Explorer, while 36% use Netscape Navigator. Last year, the ratio was 40% Explorer vs. 60% Navigator.http://www.zonaresearch.com/info/press/99-nov08.htm
Throwing itself on the mercies of Web economics, the venerable Encyclopaedia Britannica has transformed itself into a Web portal. The clean, virtually commercial-free site allows free access to the entire encyclopedia, selected news and features, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, and a deep, well-organized selection of "world's best sites" brandishing stars (from one to five) and informative annotations. The hyperlinked encyclopedia entries lead to articles containing related information. There's a search feature of course, with simple and sophisticated options, and a great list of other reference sites. Note that the site will politely rebuff surfers with older browsers. Overall, the well thought out site has the kind of quality you'd expect from Britannica, but we can't help wondering what it might have accomplished had the site come online a few years ago.
http://www.britannica.com/
ONLINE CULTURE
Future of Computing: The Final Exam
Marc Stiegler teaches a special advanced class on the Future of Computing. At the end of the class, he gives a final exam to his students. The questions asked on the test are so insightful that Marc's friends suggested that all legislators who create laws regulating the online frontier should be forced to answer them. We agree - in fact, we urge all our readers to read the test and at least think about the questions that it poses and the world they want to live in. You may not know all the answers without taking Marc's class, but knowing the questions you'll have a deeper appreciation for what's at stake when the legislature is in session and no person's life, liberty, or property is safe. A must read document.http://www.skyhunter.com/marcs/finalexam.html
Mitch Kapor, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, coined that phrase to express the idea that the topology of networks determines the political principles under which they will operate. Thus, hierarchical one-to-many networks promote authoritarian organizations while many-to-many networks promote more cooperative organizations. Mark Lemley and Lawrence Lessig gave this some thought and realized the principle applied to the proposed merger of cable giants AT&T and MediaOne, who together control over 80% of the residential broadband market in the US. Out of this came a petition to the FCC to deny the merger. The petition itself is less interesting than the concept, but can be found here in its full bureaucratic glory. Of more interest are the editorial pieces which discuss the ideas embodied in the phrase, as well as several scholarly papers about open access. Thoughtful memes with which we are happy to infect our readers.
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/works/lessig/MB.html
What do you get when you poll the readers of a glossy magazine about the best restaurant city in the US? You get Philadelphia. "I almost choked," remembers Tim Zagat, of the famous Zagat restaurant guides. Mark Gimein assures himself immortality by christening this the "Philadelphia Effect" in his great piece about consumer rating systems in Salon magazine. The point being that by running such a consumer poll you may get less information about the quality of the subject than you do about the nature of those who vote in the poll. Maybe Philadelphians, for example, just aren't particularly demanding - thus easily impressed - diners. All of this is a long way to go to make you think about the nature of online rating sites, notably Deja.com, which allows you to rate just about everything under the sun. Kudos to Mark for recognizing a quirky twist to this particular corner of online culture.
Zagat: http://www.zagat.com/
Effect: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/11/10/consumer_reviews/index.html
Vet net-heads know the importance of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), free documents that often serve as the poor nerd's help desk. The Internet FAQ Consortium maintains the Internet FAQ Archives, a Web-based collection of Usenet FAQs that you can search by a number of criteria. The collection represents about 1,700 Usenet newsgroups. This site comes in two flavors, hypertext and plain ("FTP-mirrored") text, and both archives are easy to use. The plentiful RFCs (Requests for Comments) will interest Internet engineers, technical writers, and researchers curious about the often dry, recondite nitty-gritty of Net standards.
http://www.faqs.org/
If you thought you'd never encounter names like Bukharin or Bakunin again, you were wrong. An extended riff on digerati as dictators of the plugged-in proletariat even takes the lumbering Stalin for a few turns on the ideological dance floor. Is memetics the Lysenkoism of our time? Wired as Pravda hits the mark. In sum, this essay compares modern net culture and trends with the heyday of Uncle Josef. Best viewed in genuine proletarian Courier non-proportional font, for authenticity.
http://www.nettime.org/nettime.w3archive/199909/msg00046.html
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
On their home page, the Surveillance Camera Players declare up front that they are "completely distrustful of all government." In protest, these actors perform scenes from plays and documentaries for a captive audience, one that must watch them through video monitors: security guards, police, school administrators, salespeople. Curiously, we found no interviews with, or reviews by, members of the audience. The Players' patchwork site includes position papers, scripts, summaries of the group's performances, and photographs. This eclectic New York-based group seems to prefer subways for its political proscenium. Those who fear Big Brother may sympathize with their motives. We expect other opportunists to capitalize on the intrusive aspects of security to become on-the-scene reporters, comedians, and perhaps even legends of in-your-face advertising.http://www.panix.com/~notbored/the-scp.html
But mom, ancient Egyptian royalty were lumpy with 'em. Moses even had tattoos. Well, some scholars think so, anyway. This site not only gives a zillion historic citations with which to bolster your pro-tattoo argument - if you're stupid enough to ask your mother in the first place - it's just plain lovely to look at. Tattoo artist Steven Gilbert has compiled great illustrations and historical summaries of traditions from around the world, dating to ancient times.
http://tattoos.com/jane/steve/toc.htm
World's Fairs, Architecture, and Coffee Cup Lids
It is permissible to worry about a design firm that devotes a substantial part of its site to designs for a prospective World's Fair, an extravagant 19th-century phenomenon whose gee-whiz inertia carried it a decade or so past the middle of this century before grinding to a halt. But perhaps Y2K will reset our mental clocks to the right time period. Specht Harpman, the firm in question, also provides a bopping page of an under-appreciated designed item, the disposable coffee cup lid, and some more conventional projects, like houses people actually live in, with interesting accounts of design constraints. The site has a nice design itself, vaguely '50s high-style retro.http://www.spechtharpman.com/
The British Film Institute's Top 100
As the next century approaches, top-x (where x is an integer) lists abound, especially in entertainment. The British Film Institute's Top 100 includes titles of British films familiar even to Hollywood buffs: Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Chariots of Fire find slots in the top 20. How many beyond the shores, though, would guess that Brief Encounter, Kind Hearts and Coronets, and Get Carter also occupy that top 20? American and other jaws will likely drop as their owners peruse the entire tasteful, well-balanced selection (we can't argue with Trainspotting in tenth place). A few relative rankings that surprised our Midwestern reviewer: Whisky Galore! (24) beat out Doctor Zhivago (27); Zulu (31) topped Gandhi (34); and Shakespeare in Love (49) beat the pants off Goldfinger (70), A Clockwork Orange (81), and Carry On Up The Khyber (99). You do remember the Carry On series, don't you? If not, get thee to the site before the French retaliate!http://www.bfi.org.uk/bfi100/
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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 our affiliates Amazon.com and Beyond.com, and send a few pennies our way as well.
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Zero Gravity: Riding Venture Capital from High-Tech Start-up to
Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House
Fight Club: Original Motion Picture Score
Warcraft II Battle.Net Edition for Mac/Win
BOOKS & E-ZINES
Overwhelmed by news? Moreover harvests online news from 1,500 e-zines and newspapers with, in its own words, "a business information engine which generates custom news feeds from a wide range of sources.". At first glance, Moreover may seem like Yahoo and other portals that let you customize a page to focus on news highlights of personal interest, but it boasts an editorial team grounded in business journalism and over 170 categories. In all the categories we explored, the variety of sources was impressively superior to common fare at some popular Web directories. For many, the best part will be that you can include Moreover newsfeeds in your own site for free. Outstanding, and it's still in beta.http://www.moreover.com/
A Dash of Culture and a Spark of Tech
If you crave substance with your morning surf, you'll feel right at home at Spark-Online. Kristopher Krug, editor-in-chief, has fashioned a monthly magazine that promises, and delivers, a critical exploration of our electronic consciousness. The magazine covers a wide array of timely topics, including culture, technology, and new media. The second issue, just coded, features articles on the Real Y2K Bug (what to do on New Year's Eve) and the world of the digital transition, and an overview of the real and imaginary world of e-commerce.http://www.spark-online.com/
For Scholars of Emily Dickinson
The Dickinson Electronic Archives, run by the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, try to put the work of Emily Dickinson in context with letters and work written by members of her family and modern criticism. The section on modern poetic responses to Dickinson particularly captivated us. The Writings by Emily Dickinson section apparently includes images of the poet's manuscripts, which would be fascinating if they were accessible to normal mortals, but alas, you have to have a password to get to them.http://128.143.200.11/dickinson/
Cambridge International Dictionaries
English is a pretty popular language almost everywhere around the world. More people in China than in the United States speak English, and the Cambridge University Press allows for that. It has broken this dictionary site into three parts for ease of use: American English, international English, and idiomatic words. You can't browse pages looking for big, exotic words, but you can enter specific words (like "idiomatic") and search for their meanings.http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk/elt/dictionary
SURFING SCIENCE
The Mystic Aquarium's beautiful Web site is awash with aquatic images, facts and figures. Currently, they also feature a story of two whales found stranded and dehydrated on a Cape Cod beach. After aquarium staff carefully nursed the two juvenile pilot whales back to health, they released the patients with satellite tags attached. You can watch video clips of every stage, including some great footage of the two whales "talking" to each other, and the site updates the tracking results on a regular basis. This is a wonderful opportunity for a ring-side seat at a real water show.http://www.mysticaquarium.org/
The good ship Albatross IV - presumably not named by a Coleridge fan - tracks ocean resources out of Woods Hole, Mass. You can find out where it is, where it's going, weather at its location, and a lot of information about fish, both commercially valuable and merely interesting.
http://www.wh.whoi.edu/albatross4/
A Site Filled with Pustulating Goodness
So you have acne. You don't know if it's bad enough to go to a dermatologist yet, and you don't want the cool kids to catch you reading about your pimples in the school library. Where do you turn? Pimple Portal, a site sponsored by the makers of Retin-A Micro, has resources to help you create a better lifestyle for your skin and deal with the Zit That Ate Your Face. From acne control tips to an Ask the Expert section where dermatologists and make-up artists give advice, the site is hip and informative at the same time, a combination hard to come by. If you have Shockwave installed, play Face Invaders and shoot a tube of the highly touted Retin-A at the evil beasties.http://www.pimpleportal.com/
Americans never say, "See you later." They say, "See ya lay-der." But how're you supposed to know a "t" is pronounced as "d" if you're learning from books? Spoken American English gives a handy list of contractions and tips on how to speak like a native. 'N' y' do wann' talk bedd'r, no?
http://fbox.vt.edu:10021/B/bholmber/American.htm
SOFTWARE
New Bind 8.2.2 p3 Released, Vixie Steps Down, Bind 9 Features
This interests mostly sysadmins who use the venerable Bind program to provide the DNS services that glue the Net together. Everybody should upgrade to this latest version which adds new features and fixes many bugs, most notably several serious security problems. On a related note, Paul Vixie is stepping down as the maintainer and architect of Bind. Sendmail.net has the story and considerable details about the new, rewritten Bind version 9. It's an important heads up for all sysadmins who will have to deal with what looks like a well thought out rewrite of critical infrastructure software.Bind: http://www.isc.org/products/BIND/
Sendmail: http://www.sendmail.net/?CssUID=&CssServer=&SessionName=&feed=interview000lisa01
Another important piece of software of interest to sysadmins has a new release version. Samba lets you easily share files between Windows and Unix machines. The new release has the usual assortment of new features and bug and security fixes.
http://us1.samba.org/samba/samba.html
CORRECTIONS
In the last NSD, we cited Magdalena Donea's site for continued excellence. We, on the other hand, are just a bunch of boobs who manage to cobble something together every week or so. Here's the URL we should have used.http://kia.net/maggy/
In our Halloween issue, we claimed that the site with the images of pickled people had explanations in Thai text. In fact, the text was Japanese. To us, it just looked like random ASCII characters, but people who know the difference let us know.
http://www.kt.rim.or.jp/~khaosan/geka.html