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| "What Did You Learn In School Today, Sally?" "Scarification." |
| Humans, Machines, and Art |
| NeoKino Online Films |
| The Wonderful World of Dance |
| Great Feats of Engineering |
| Quaint Home Science Experiments |
| What's an Apocalyptic Number? |
| The Animated History of Alphabets |
| Geoff Fox, Renaissance Weatherman |
| Mundane Behaviorology |
| TrustedBSD Project Aims to Add DOD Security to FreeBSD |
| The Sorry |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
BREAKING SURF
A dinosaur fossil discovered in 1993 near Buffalo, South Dakota, has yielded a find so rare, it wasn't even on most paleo-lovers' wish lists. Willo, the fossil, is an exceptionally well preserved 66-million-year-old Thescelosaurus, a pony-sized, 700 lb. herbivore. Buried within its remains lie the remnants of the beast's heart. Computerized tomography - better known as CT scans - has revealed tantalizing evidence. The heart appears to have four chambers, like mammals and birds (reptiles have three), which adds another brick to the wall of evidence that supports endothermy in dinosaurs. In addition to the heart, Willo's preserved soft tissue includes tendons and cartilage around the ribs and spine, and there's optimistic speculation that more soft organs have shown up in the CT scans. Readers with patience or a good connection can see 3-D reconstructions.http://www.dinoheart.org/
Marc Andreessen's New Business
Unless you've been living under a rock for a few years, you probably know that Marc Andreessen cofounded Netscape. Now, a year and a half after America Online bought Netscape, Marc has left to start another company called Loudcloud. The company's Web site just went up, and tells us that it's basically a data center outsourcing firm. They promise to run your Web farm, e-mail, e-commerce software, and custom applications for you, with the usual big-business "trust us, we'll do it right" marketing message. We'll see.http://www.loudcloud.com/
Court Rules MP3.com Violates Copyright with CD Title Database
A US federal judge hearing the lawsuit RIAA brought against MP3.com has just ruled that MP3.com is liable for copyright infringement. The RIAA initiated the lawsuit after MP3.com launched My.MP3.com, basically a service consisting of a huge music database. Users can stream music from the database over the Internet, providing they first prove that they own the CD they want to play. The ruling just ends Round One in what's likely to stretch into a protracted legal fight, and for now My.MP3.com is still online. Offline, MP3.com's stock plummeted, down 40% to about $6 at press time. Late last year, the stock had been trading at better than $60.Ruling: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,35933,00.html
My.MP3.com: http://my.mp3.com/
The Napster program lets people trade music files over networks. Several organizations have sued Napster, but the legal battle has taken a new twist. Rap singer Dr. Dre, in addition to suing Napster, has also filed a preliminary lawsuit against students to be named later who use Napster to trade his songs. CNet summarizes the legal situation so far.
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1760313.html
Napster: http://www.napster.com/
The New York Times (NYT) broke this philosophically intriguing story about the best selling computer game "The Sims". The game is basically a simulation of everyday real life - surely a goal of computer geeks everywhere. Game designer Will Wright decided to surreptitiously release a simulated virus to spread among the simulated people of the game. The simulated virus lives in a simulated pet guinea pig which players can download and plug into the game - causing the simulated people to simulate illness and possibly death. How wonderfully provocative! On one hand, viruses have a place in a simulation of real life. On the other, the players didn't know their Sims could catch simulated illnesses, so this piece of code could be considered a real virus causing real damage - the destruction of a painstakingly evolved simulated character. Could the author, the game's creator, be accused of breaking any proposed anti-virus law? Lots of good details in the NYT article.
NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/04/circuits/articles/27sims.html NSD NSD
The Sims: http://www.thesims.com/index.phtml
Buy it: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000040OEI/netsurferdigest
Phil Katz Dead: Creator of PKZIP, a Workhorse of BBS Culture
This sad item for online veterans notes the passing of Phil Katz, creator of the now standard Zip file compression software. Phil's PKZIP program was one of the first successful freeware programs, spreading like wildfire in the BBS culture of the 1980s where it helped to conserve scarce bandwidth. Sadly, Katz died at 37, apparently of an alcohol overdose. Try the BBS Corner if you want to find out more about BBSes, or if you're past a certain age and overcome by nostalgia.Death: http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/pkzip000422.html
PKZIP: http://www.pkware.com/
BBS Corner: http://www.thedirectory.org/diamond/bbslists.htm
International organizations routinely declare various special days to promote causes. In most cases, you seldom hear about such events and they seldom produce any lasting effect. This is indeed one of those days. UNESCO declared May 3 to be Press Freedom Day with the intent "to inform the public of violations of the right to freedom of expression and as a reminder that many journalists brave death or jail to bring people their daily news." You might ask yourself why we even bother to call attention to one of these non-event events. We certainly don't expect to change your life by telling you about Press Freedom Day, or even to make much difference in promoting the cause of free expression in the world. But if this item makes you think for a few seconds about how lucky you are to be reading this e-zine, the quintessence of our free expression, then we figure the few bytes we devote to it are not wasted.
http://www.unesco.org/press-freedom-day/
ONLINE CULTURE
A Witty Personal Account of Net Dating
Ever sent a message to a Web-based romance connection site? It could be less intimate than you think. One woman's attempt to find friends on the Web led her to trawl through hundreds of messages, some genuine, some sexy, some completely crackers. She has posted many of the most interesting messages for all to see, such as the reply she received from one guy she calls the Fluid Master 2000, whose concept of erotica seems inspired by animals mauling each other in nature documentaries yet declares, "Women are like a sensual, delicate, rare and very special flower." There are also the saps, the repeat offenders (who just don't give up), and the plainly icky. You can't help feeling a bit sorry for some of them - especially considering the running commentary - but some of these Romeo wannabes are so dreadful, you feel shamefaced for ever writing romantic poems or trying to send a loved one a birthday card - it's so embarrassing out of context.http://www.waytoopersonal.com/
Virtual Reality Leaking into Real Economy
EverQuest is a popular online multiplayer game where for $10 a month players run around in a typical fantasy world, interacting with other players and generally enjoying the magical powers they lack in real life. Real life, however, has the odd habit of intruding even into a virtual world - or is it vice versa? It takes game time - in EverQuest and similar games such as Asheron's Call - to build up powers and acquire valuable items, like a magic sword or good armor. Some players don't want to wait, and others have figured out that they can make money - in some cases thousands of dollars - catering to the impatient by auctioning off their virtual loot for real cash on eBay. Game owner Sony responded by banning such sales and eBay says they'll not participate in the sale of copyrighted property, even if it is virtual. Gamecenter has the story. Electric Games extensively reviews the game. We'd be incompetent capitalists if we didn't also provide a link where you can buy the software.EverQuest: http://www.everquest.com/
Gamecenter: http://www.gamecenter.com/News/Item/0,3,0-3986,00.html
Electric Games: http://www.electricgames.com/reviews/e/everquest.html
Buy: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00001ZT3X/netsurferdigest
Spam, Spam, Spam, Virgin, Spam
Salon Magazine ran a week-long set of feature articles dedicated to spam last week, a series worth reading for anybody annoyed or obsessed with this type of Net pollution. "Tasty Spam" talks about how legit companies are using e-mail to reach their customers. "Damn Spam!" looks at what happens when you actually want more information about the spammed products. Surprisingly, often nobody answers. "Virgin Spam" was a simple experiment - set up a throwaway mailbox and start signing up for mailing lists and posting online. How much spam will you get and how fast will it arrive? Read the article to find out. Another article talked about spam and the law, and the series finished considering the physical spam of junk mail handled by the Post Office. Good stuff, worth reading.http://www.salon.com/tech/special/spam_package/index.html
Should Public Policy Support Open-Source Software?
That's the question posed online by American Prospect magazine. Several fairly well known Net personalities, notably Eric Raymond and Lawrence Lessig, weigh in with opinions. The worthy debate touches on a little-discussed aspect of the open source movement: the role of governments and other regulatory bodies. Certainly, there is a strong bias to keep government out of open source efforts, but some compelling arguments suggest that active government support of open source projects and policies has some merit. If you've got some time and have an interest in open source policy, you'll find this debate worth reading.http://www.prospect.org/controversy/open_source/
Debate on Open vs. Closed Source Security
An erroneous report of a back-door security hole in Microsoft's Web server prompted Eric Raymond, famous proponent of open source software, to pen a blistering attack on the insecurity of closed source software. Keep in mind that Eric wrote this not knowing that the reports were inaccurate - there is no bug. Still, his point that open source software is inherently more secure remains valid. The article prompted a response from Elias Levy, moderator of the highly regarded BUGTRAQ mailing list and Chief Technology Officer of SecurityFocus.com. Elias noted that the security of open source software is not a black and white issue. In his article, he argues that "the reality is far more complex and nuanced" and provides numerous arguments that illustrate the complexity of the situation. It makes good reading for those interested in the philosophy of programming and software security.Attack: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/04/15/1958201&mode=nested
Eric: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/
Elias: http://www.securityfocus.com/commentary/19
Bug Debunked: http://www.ntbugtraq.com/default.asp?pid=36&sid=1&A2=ind0004&L=ntbugtraq&F=&S=&P=3354
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
"What Did You Learn In School Today, Sally?" "Scarification."
The American Museum of Natural History has created an online complement to Body Art: Marks of Identity, an exhibit running until the end of May in New York City. It traces the origins of marking the body through different cultures and religions. This is more than just tattoos and piercings; they cover body shaping (such as foot binding) and body painting as well. Unlike some body art sites, this one will not make you squeamish, unless you're faint of heart and read the glossary too closely. Online visitors can take advantage of exhibition highlights and a virtual tour, which requires the iPix plugin. The museum's outreach program also produces educational programming for the exhibit, including background information and activities for the classroom.http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/bodyart/
Art, technology, and coolness collide, mystify, and mesh at Garnet Hertz's conceptLAB, a site devoted to documenting human interaction with Internet technology. The earliest project, Information Superstation, started in 1993; the latest, Coredump, is a work in progress. Hertz designed most for art galleries. We can best describe a few, such as Desktop and its weird, cluttered windows, as curiosities. Others are more ambitious: Coredump, for example, is a machine operated by Web users that draws on the floor of an art gallery. OK, this is probably a curiosity, too, but you can picture the potential. The overriding theme seems to be control by remote users of gadgets such as webcams, motors, robots, and TV in digital space. If you had to categorize conceptLAB, you might call it urban cerebral.
http://conceptlab.com/
The most common venues for independent and low-budget films are small film houses in some cities, film nights at colleges and universities, and various film festivals. NeoKino Films has endeavored to create an alternative outlet for these bodies of work with online video streaming and without corporate sponsors. In many ways, this distinction can free a site to be more open to different styles, independent of conflicts of interest. Before downloading the admittedly massive files, you can read about each film queued to be broadcast and look at stills taken from the production. Once you've watched a film, you can even discuss general film work and the films that are due to be played from the NeoKino pages on the message boards. Take the time to watch a few, and you'll find that you don't need to rent a tape to see a good show.
http://www.neokino.com/
Artslynx editor Richard Finkelstein has put a lot of time and effort into researching and qualifying sites related to the field of dance. The result is the Artslynx International Dance Resources, a comprehensive assembly of link libraries. Each of these shelves collects information on a variety of topics. A dance enthusiast can look for jobs in the field, look at magazines and journals about dance, or learn about different kinds of ballet. Specialized Web sites are many and frequent, but finding those with well developed organization and an intuitive layout is often difficult. Artslynx offers resources for people around the world, even the rare few who may not have taken dance class in school when they were young.
http://www.artslynx.org/dance/index.htm
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 our affiliate Amazon.com, and send a few pennies our way as well.
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Wanderlust: A History of Walking
Minds, Machines and the Multiverse: The Quest for the Quantum Computer
Flash Web Design
The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition - Annual Web Site Subscriptionhttp://www.trussel.com/f_books.htm
January's Book Reviews, Profiles, and Interviews
This comes from the review of "The Gates of Alamo" by Stephen Harrigan: "It manages to wring tension from the 1836 Alamo assault, even when we all know that the outpost's posturing protectors are toast" - you know that January Magazine's reviewers write with an eye for entertainment and more than a dollop of good humor. Stylish and well organized, January explores a variety of genres and offers features on writers. The details in the reviews shows a real enthusiasm for reading, and what seems like a genuine love of the writing process, with explorations of alternative options for readers interested in certain aspects of books (such as women in detective novels) and a look behind the murky writing scene in spunky investigative style.http://www.januarymagazine.com/
Bluff Stuff Gruff Enough, not Fluff
The folks at Bluff Magazine have fashioned an "alternative content 'zine" that features a sparkling array of poetry, satire, comic strips, journals, and any other work that is "willing to be crude, silly and wonderful." In other words, smart and hip, published "monthly, about as often as we pay our rent, and in about as timely a fashion." Go ahead and call their bluff.http://www.bluffmag.com/
As the sun casts its rays down, you sit on a hillside that faces down upon a broad water reservoir, your legs curled comfortably beneath you. Wild grass blows soothingly in the wind and far below the water reflects the sky with a shiny finish. From above you comes the sound of beating wings as a majestic bald eagle soars by. Robert Winkler has crafted his own descriptions of this sort of adventure into a collection of columns intended for Internet readers. His writing lets you pay attention to parts of the world that too often go by unnoticed. It shows how to take the time to draw your eyes away from day-to-day life, and instead focus on what else takes place around you.
http://pages.cthome.net/rwinkler/
Short Stories from a Long Life
In the world of online programming, "Would my parents be able to figure it out?" is the usability catchphrase. Let's hope Irv Valenta's children, or perhaps great-grandchildren, aren't holding the rest of us to his standards. This 88-year-old man began writing when he was 65, and he's already put a handful of his touching, heartfelt stories online for the world to read. From lessons learned while fixing a bathroom faucet to those learned while toting a bolt of fabric, Irv has had quite a life. He also has a knack for expressing himself. Go visit his site when you have a spare moment to learn something from someone who's most likely your elder. And if you don't go, it won't be our fault you missed out on the secret to happiness.http://community.webtv.net/heartsings/TheShortStoriesof/
Independent News and Views from the UK
The Independent has never quite resembled any other British newspaper, which partly explains why its circulation has wobbled precariously and why the great and the good of the intellectual set rally round to keep it on the shelves. The people behind the paper have now decided to tune the Web site specifically for an American audience. Despite that, the online content remains remarkably similar to that of the paper Independent, not that this is a bad thing. You'll find a strong section covering the US election which should stimulate some healthy discussions, and readers can be exposed to one of Britain's finest journalists, Robert Fisk. Broaden some horizons and take a look.http://www.independenceavenue.com/
SURFING SCIENCE
Wondering just how to rank the engineering feats of the 20th century?, The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) calls them, from first to sixth: electrification, automobile, airplane, water supply and distribution, electronics, and radio and television. The NAE must have reasons for putting these ahead of air conditioning and refrigeration, highways, and high-performance materials. We respect their decisions even if they hold refrigeration in lower esteem than computers and telephones. Their tributes to the top 20 are elegant almost to the point of self-effacement. For each achievement, you have to click the History or Timeline link tucked away in the lower right-hand corner of the screen to get to a summary page. The scope of human accomplishment is so large and challenging, however, that we consider this site an intellectual and artistic achievement in itself.http://www.greatachievements.org/
Quaint Home Science Experiments
Thought mucking around with home-made explosives was a phenomenon the Net is responsible for? Well, ye olde match-head rocket has been around a long time and is none the worse for wear. With a collection of old science experiments, this site helps the motivated create generally lesser havoc with such unsinister household items as drawing pins, string, and a door lintel. Give up climbing a tree to measure its height and use a cool homemade hypsometer instead. Grow a delightful mold garden to amuse your friends. Our favorite was the mild-mannered celery stick in dyed water, but then we're getting on a bit. Follow the sensible safety advice based on the theory that "for the most part, the projects on this site are fairly safe."http://freeweb.pdq.net/headstrong/control.htm
For that matter, what do you really know about random numbers or apodization functions? The answers are all here, presented elegantly and usably. This Web site claims to be the Web's most extensive mathematical resource with 8,974 entries, 153,958 cross-references, 3,639 figures, 62 animated graphics, and 917 Java applets, more or less. Nothing we've ever seen contradicts that claim. This Web site goes way beyond utilitarian and educational (and it is all that) - it's plain fun to explore worlds you never dreamed existed.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/
The Animated History of Alphabets
Watch language develop right before your eyes. The Evolution of Alphabets uses animated GIFs to show the development of the Cuneiform, Phoenician, Greek, Arabic, Square Aramaic/Hebrew, Modern Cyrillic, and Latin character sets. The Latin character set is particularly well done, but you'll have to be watching it at a high resolution to get the full effect. The animations are not looped; if you want to see it again, hit reload on your browser.http://www.wam.umd.edu/~rfradkin/alphapage.html
Geoff Fox, Renaissance Weatherman
A poet can make words bloom like a flower and a musician can offer notes with a flair for the dramatic. Geoff Fox, a weatherman and science reporter, has taken a similar approach to creativity in his own Web site. Travel far above the Earth's atmosphere to see the flow of clouds over India, or see wizards predict where the rain will fall tomorrow. Answers to rare and remarkable riddles await you: what's it like looking out from the eye of a hurricane - 10,000 feet above the ground? Can you distract yourself from gambling in Las Vegas by trying to learn to play golf? Would flying upside down with the Blue Angels nominate you for an Emmy? Dubbed a "Renaissance Weatherman" (by us, 123 words ago) , Geoff Fox will help you learn a little, smile a lot, and in the end realize that some Web authors can make the sun shine through the thick cloudy cover of the Web's seemingly endless content.http://www.geofffox.com/
Assuming the Journal of Mundane Behavior (JMB) is serious - we had our doubts at "'I'm sick of shaving every morning': or, The Cultural Manifestations of 'Male' Facial Presentation" - some of the issues here are ironically pretty interesting, from sudden intimacy in a Japanese elevator to the fact that particular places are tied to certain activities and are thus institutionalized and restricted. Whether your reaction is "huh?" or "ooooh!", this little hot spot of discussion is worth a look because it at least makes you use your dictionary. "The history of mediocrity, the sociology of the boring and the anthropology of the familiar are neglected fields" and JMB attempts to address this oversight.
http://www.mundanebehavior.org/
SOFTWARE
TrustedBSD Project Aims to Add DOD Security to FreeBSD
The popular FreeBSD branch of open source Unix operating systems has a new security focused project. The TrustedBSD Extensions project will add system extensions to FreeBSD to help it meet the Department of Defense (DOD) Orange Book B1 security standard. If you don't know what that means, you probably don't need it, but you may be curious anyway. Kernel.org has a good page about the Orange Book and the other security standards in the so-called rainbow series.TrustedBSD: http://www.trustedbsd.org/
Orange Book: http://www.it.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/security/Orange-Linux/refs/Orange.html
CORRECTIONS
Sometimes - i.e. now - we get lazy and print a reader's comment verbatim. Sometimes - unlike now - the reader gives us a name so we can credit him/her. "A minor point. In the April 19 NSD is a reference to 'the Ukraine.' That's the old Soviet way of putting it. The official name of the independent country is now plain 'Ukraine', which is how most Ukrainians prefer to see it." Thanks, anonymous stranger.