|
Home Paid Subscription Trial Sub/Unsub Netsurfer Science E-Zine Netsurfer Education E-Zine Netsurfer Books E-Zine Netsurfer Library E-Zine Netsurfer Robotics E-Zine Netsurfer Focus E-Zine |
| War Driving Passe - Try War Flying |
| Date the Men of Silicon Valley |
| Virtually Visit Race Rocks Islets |
| Great Lakes Schooner Life |
| A Diner a Day Keeps Fast Food Away |
| Mixed Media Jewelry and Sculpture |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| Ignore the Embargoed News behind the Curtain! |
| Dungeons and Dragons, the Collector's Resource |
| The World's First SMS Poetry Magazine |
| Custom Erotica |
| Attention, Kleinkind! |
| Tool Use in Crows |
| Hellacool USDA Agricultural Research Service News |
| The Merck Vet Manual |
| The Severan Marble Plan Archeological Puzzle |
| Netscape 7.0 Released |
| Mozilla 1.1 Released |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
BREAKING SURF
UN World Summit on Sustainable Development
The UN World Summit on Sustainable Development is a major international environmental gathering, featuring not only a host of non-governmental organizations but many heads of state and other national representatives. The complex and wide-ranging agenda addresses just about any environmental issue you care to name. You can read up on the summit's Web site. The Yahoo Full Coverage section has breaking news, while WorldWire has extensive and excellent coverage with an overtly environmentalist spin. Also worth noting is the effort to make the summit a low impact event for the host city, Johannesburg. The Greening the Summit site offers details on how the meeting is doing its bit to keep things friendly to the environment.Summit: http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/
Yahoo: http://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&in=world&cat=united_nations
WorldWire: http://www.worldwire.org/fullcoverage.asp?FCTopicID=Earth+Summit
Greening the Summit: http://www.greeningthewssd.com/
Homeland Security: Ductile vs. Brittle
Bruce Schneier says it well in this lengthy and thoughtful article from the Atlantic Monthly: "The most critical aspect of a security measure is not how well it works but how well it fails." Schneier, a well known crypto and security expert, says that security is not necessarily found in stronger methods of protection, but rather in many well compartmentalized methods which together can fail safely. A ductile system is better than a brittle one that will fail catastrophically. The article examines Schneier's ideas with respect to homeland security and the many inherently brittle approaches currently promoted for enhancing it. Well worth reading. Along the same lines, a paper by MIT researchers looks at the Computer Assisted Passenger Security (CAPS) system, used by the FAA to identify potential terrorists through profiling. They conclude that CAPS is actually less secure than systems that employ random searches.Schneier: http://www.counterpane.com/schneier.html
Atlantic Monthly: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/09/mann.htm
CAPS: http://swissnet.ai.mit.edu/6805/student-papers/spring02-papers/caps.htm
CNN's al Qa'eda Terror-Testing Tapes
If only President Bush could get tapes of Saddam Hussein killing a dog, an American war with Iraq would be popular and immediate. If you've only heard about the al Qa'eda video tapes that CNN procured, here's an opportunity to watch them and read commentary. Some of the tapes, especially of the chemical weapons testing on animals, are disturbing, not only because the animals are needlessly killed but because the people in the tapes seem so unconcerned about their actions and only express interest in the effectiveness of their tools. With the first anniversary of last year's attacks fast approaching, these tapes remind us just who we are fighting.http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2002/terror.tapes/index.html
The US military increasingly depends upon satellites during military operations, but spacecraft are vulnerable and space is an undefended frontier. US military planners, always practical, are focusing on the control of space to secure their ability to operate in space while denying access to enemy nations. The Pentagon's wish list includes keener-eyed spy satellites, a more powerful military GPS, an orbital aircraft, and the oft-mentioned missile defense system. Not everyone thinks these plans are wise, however. Charles Pena, a senior defense analyst with the Cato Institute, thinks weaponizing space might make the US more vulnerable rather than less, at least in the long term. Former astronaut Sally Ride worries about the likely increase in space debris that battle in space would produce. Popular Science provides a series of fascinating, down-to-Earth articles on the military's next frontier.
New War in Space: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviation/article/0,12543,334743,00.html
Pena: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviation/article/0,12543,334746,00.html
Space junk: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviation/article/0,12543,334588,00.html
Real estate agent Tara Sue Grubb has decided to run for Congress in North Carolina. She's up against incumbent Republican Howard Coble, who is fiercely opposed to peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks and is supporting a bill that would legally let copyright owners hack into your personal computer to remove or disable pirated material at their whim. As a Libertarian candidate, Grubb is probably not a shoo-in, to say the least, but it's refreshing to see someone campaign so feistily. She's using her newly established weblog to spread the word and solicit campaign funds (personal funds only please, no sleazy corporate contributions, thank you). As she says, "It's more than just another election. It's a force." Wired has the story and Grubb's blog reveals a glimpse of the candidate, in more ways than one.
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,54693,00.html
Grubb: http://grubbforcongress.manilasites.com/
Is blogging really all that important? Newsweek recently claimed there were half a million blogs in cyberspace, but the number seems vastly inflated - and the term remains amorphously defined. While Blogger and Userland seem to be adding thousands of free blogware users each month, no one has come up with a way to determine who's actually using the stuff to post daily musings. With blogware providers such as Moveable Type not asking for any data at all prior to a download, there's no way to determine how many folks are regular practitioners, how many are occasional contributors, and how many just downloaded the software because it might be cool to play with some day. In brief, blogs are the cool thing right now, but nobody can really tell how cool. Wired has an interesting take on all this.
http://wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,54740,00.html
For two-and-a-half years, Andrew Marlatt has been producing hilarious satirical newswire-like releases, making his SatireWire one of the true humor gems of the Net. This week, Marlatt called it quits, citing "creative differences". He's not kidding, and says that the site is becoming a chore to produce and that he's basically running out of fresh ideas. The site will remain open with a full archive of Marlatt's wit, and with occasional pitches for his new book "Economy of Errors".
http://www.satirewire.com/news/aug02/hasta.shtml
FuckedCompany Caves under Trademark Complaints
The ISP of FuckedCompany, the popular rumor mill of corporate failure, recently took down the Web site after Ford Motor threatened the host with legal action over the site's alleged trademark infringements. Ford had politely warned FuckedCompany's Phil Kaplan about the alleged infringement - Kaplan had parodied Ford's "Ford, where quality is job 1" slogan as "Ford, where finding a job is job 1" - and didn't appreciate Kaplan's wiseacre response. The outage (offage?) lasted two days, at which point Kaplan yielded. Kaplan has also decided to shutter Yahotties due to complaints from the Associated Press, whose content showed up on the site. Kaplan has also changed the name of his popular Amazon sales scan site from Amazonscan to Junglescan. CNET has the news.FuckedCompany.com: http://www.fuckedcompany.com/
CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-955447.html
Yahotties: http://www.yahotties.com/
Junglescan: http://www.junglescan.com/
Hacker Filmed by NBC Crew Breaking into NBC Website, Story Pulled
Adrian Lamo, who is reasonably well known in hacker circles as a generally ethical hacker, recently demoed his skills to a news crew from NBC. He sat down at a computer terminal in a local Kinko's copy shop and demonstrated for the camera lax security at some telecom company. When asked if he would be hacking NBC, he took the suggestion to heart and within about five minutes managed to get into the network's private message system. The hot story was rushed to NBC Nightly News, but network lawyers reportedly spiked the story. The lawyers said they were concerned that filming the infiltration might have been construed as complicity in committing a computer crime. SecurityFocus has the story.http://online.securityfocus.com/news/595
How Net Traffic Jams Resemble Earthquakes
Recent research indicates that the ebb and flow of traffic on the Internet is mathematically similar to the pattern of earthquakes. The structure of Net nodes is analogous to the interactive structure of faults in the Earth - both are complex systems poised on the edge of criticality. As nodes interact, they affect the timing of network traffic much like faults in the ground affect the generation of earthquakes. This relationship is known as Omori's law. Paradoxically, the presence of these Internet quakes is a good thing, because it indicates a system that can robustly withstand random errors, breakdowns, and attacks. The researchers are careful to point out that although the two systems exhibit certain mathematical similarities, this does not mean that they are exactly alike. The Technology Research News (TRN) article has the big picture. The Omori's law paper has the latest research, while the Gutenberg-Richter law paper has some earlier work along the same lines.TRN: http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2002/082102/Net_traffic_mimics_earthquakes_082102.html
Omori's law: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cond-mat/pdf/0206/0206453.pdf
Gutenberg-Richter law: http://arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0207302
New Emergency Wireless Network Planned
The events of Sept. 11, 2001 brought a number of issues crashing into our collective consciousness. Standing out among these issues was the fact that, while arguably among the best in the world, US telecommunications failed pretty miserably under the stress and left various emergency services informationally stranded. In response, a number of US agencies and infotech corporations are working to create an emergency wireless network. This network, in case of a similar overload, will route communication around the choke-points that crippled coordinated responses to the 9/11 disasters. Plainly ticked off by the communications failures, the US Congress authorized an initial budget of $20 million for the project. The system, designated CapWIN, will run on computers, PDAs, and cell phones, across the boundaries of any agency. ZDNet has the story.http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-954809.html
Ziff-Davis Pays Users $500 Each for Security Glitch
The cost of careless e-commerce security just went up. Last November, online "good samaritans" discovered that Ziff-Davis had an unprotected file on one of its magazine Web sites, a file that contained customer names, addresses, and even credit card numbers. The attorneys general of three states went after Ziff-Davis and this week reached a settlement agreement with the company. Fifty of Ziff-Davis's customers, those whose credit card numbers were exposed, will get $500 checks. The company will also pay $100,000 to cover the states' expenses for the investigation. Note that Ziff-Davis is paying fines basically only for failing to follow standard industry security practices. This should be strong incentive to any e-commerce Web site to take such basic precautions. Wired has more.Settlement: http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2002/aug/aug28a_02.html
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54817,00.html
Success and Failure Fighting Spam in Court
We hate spam. You hate spam. Before we start to sound any more like Barney, let's ask the question: what can we do about it? A number of anti-spam activists have begun attacking spammers with the courts: 26 American states have enacted laws that either restrict or ban unsolicited commercial e-mail, although the laws vary greatly. While you might win a few hundred dollars from a spammer in a small claims court, you can lose your shorts if you file for greater damages in higher courts. A CNET piece focuses upon such legal filings.http://news.com.com/2100-1023-954960.html
BT Foiled in Hyperlink Fee Grab
In 1989, British Telecom (BT) was granted a US patent that it filed and forgot about - until recently, when it dusted off the patent and decided that it owned the rights to hyperlink technology. BT asked 17 ISPs, including AOL and Prodigy, if they wouldn't mind coughing up licensing fees. When all instead coughed up lungs, BT took early-Net-adopter Prodigy to court as a test case. In an unusual summary judgment, US federal judge Colleen McMahon has dismissed BT's claim. BT's patent covers a system that allows text sent from a central computer to a terminal to include hidden data, like the code used in hyperlinks The Judge ruled that the Internet is a different beast from the single central computer envisioned in the patent - essentially, the patent doesn't apply because the Internet is based on a peer-to-peer model. We guess BT will just have to go back to making money the old-fashioned way - from grubby old telephone service. Read the Wired synopsis or the judgment or both.Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,54721,00.html
Judgment: http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/courtweb/pdf/D02NYSC/02-07733.PDF
Will Wright, the designer of such games as SimCity and the Sims has given a great interview to the online journal Game Studies. His discussion of how people play his games and the data he has to prove his observations piqued our interest. Gaming for Wright is as much an exercise in sociology as it is in programming. Sims players can see how their version of the game ranks with others. It's a very good read.
http://gamestudies.org/0102/pearce/
Wired reports that the RIAA Web site was creatively hacked this week. The hackers reportedly left several MP3s and some amusing headlines in their wake. A copy of the hacked home page is available at Wintermute.
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,54812,00.html
RIAA: http://www.riaa.org/
Wintermute: http://wintermute.student.umd.edu/
Any US residents who need a new messenger bag and possess an extremely good knowledge of movie facts or trivia can head over to Google to enter its contest. Answer the questions and become eligible for a Timbuk2 messenger bag with the Google insignia. Get ready to click.
http://www.google.com/googlequiz.html
Just a quick note to remind you that the August issues of Netsurfer Books and Netsurfer Robotics are online. Many cool books in NSB as usual, while the Robotics issue has a special focus on underwater robots.
NSB 04.04: http://www.netsurf.com/nsb/sub/v04/nsb.04.04.html
NSR 01.10: http://www.netsurf.com/nsr/nsr.01.10.html
ONLINE CULTURE
War Driving Passe - Try War Flying
The art of discovering 802.11b networks has taken to the skies. Over the last year, war driving - cruising around in a car to detect unsecure wireless networks - has become a fairly mundane activity. Anybody can do it and many do, often finding networks with wide-open access due to poor security. What works in a car works equally well in an airplane. The first known instance of war flying took place in Australia. Three war fliers took to the skies in a Grumman Tiger four-seater and flew over Perth. They picked up close to 100 wireless networks. The feat was repeated by a group who flew over the San Diego area and managed to detect 437 wireless access points. The second group's account has some statistics and a neat map plot. The next obvious step is war orbiting. Don't laugh - a sufficiently sensitive radio intelligence satellite can pick up faint wireless emissions from orbit and eavesdrop on network traffic with relative ease.Perth: http://www.e3.com.au/stories.php?story=02/08/18/7667279
San Diego: http://arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/3q02/warflying-1.html
Date the Men of Silicon Valley
Any man in Silicon Valley too busy coding to find a woman but with enough time to submit a profile and check his e-mail can join Men of the Silicon Valley. After reviewing several profiles, we can attest that the candidates appear to match the "educated, intelligent, and ambitious" billing, but that they are also represented as high-earners made us wonder about the dotcom fallout and gold-digging women. The short profiles self-describe dorky, stressed males with hobbies like playing computer games and photography. A high proportion of those approaching age 30 admitted that time was reminding them that career does not always come first. Men of the Silicon Valley is basically a dating agency for a niche market but given the IT spin, some downloadable video clips of the candidates would be a good addition. This is one for the lonely geek in your life.http://www.menofthesiliconvalley.com/
ONLINE TRAVEL
Virtually Visit Race Rocks Islets
To physically visit an endangered ecosystem may destroy it, so to protect the marine ecology of Race Rocks Islets near Vancouver Island, B.C. you can visit them virtually, instead. These islands have been a government-protected marine ecosystem since 2000, but local marine biology students have created this virtual window onto the rocks. The site devotes space to the human history of the region, such as the lighthouse station, but the focus is on marine life from plankton to elephant seals to whales. The daily log by the research students living there is compelling reading in a Robinson Crusoe style. The weather report makes you feel like you're on the premises and the descriptions of events like the territorial battles between young gulls and their elders, geese leaving for new fishing grounds, and the visits of tagged mammals (sea lion 62 sounds friendly) is more intimate than the average nature documentary. You can even view the live action on the four webcams.http://www.racerocks.com/
This educational site is more about the age of schooners on the Great Lakes (early 1900s) than about the boats themselves. It aims primarily at students and contains well written essays about Sleeping Bear Point Lifesaving Station by high-schoolers from Leland, Mich., who used documents provided by local residents and museums as part of their research. The dramatic tales of daring rescues from sinking schooners share quarters with the more mundane details of the surfmen. These predecessors of the US Coast Guard lived in cramped lifesaving stations and braved the waves in their rowboats when they observed ships in difficulty, sort of like a turn-of-the-century "Baywatch" team. The stories are liberally supported by old and contemporary photographs of the area. Unfortunately, despite the elegantly designed compass navigation tool, we couldn't find the promised lesson on how to read the nautical chart.
http://www.schoolship.org/maritime/index.html
A Diner a Day Keeps Fast Food Away
Want to scarf down some good, old-fashioned grub as you motor across America? Or maybe you want to buy a diner? Start at By the Way Online, a nostalgic travel site - companion to the By the Way print magazine, by the way - that brings you "Fresh reports from the back roads and Main Streets". Publisher Randy Garbin offers news, commentary, and feature articles based, in part, on his experience of having eaten in at least 508 diners. That's a lot of chow consumed in converted railroad cars and other culinary icons of a largely bygone era. The site also hosts discussion among restaurateurs who share Garbin's passion for diners. In addition to profiles and other state-of-the-eatery fare, Garbin and fellow enthusiasts review books such as "Dinosaur Bar-B-Que: An American Roadhouse" and "Diners, Bowling Alleys and Trailer Parks: Chasing the American Dream in Postwar Consumer Culture". It's easy to imagine realtors, scriptwriters, and vacation planners doing some quick research here, although it's apparent that some towns would prefer to forget diners altogether.http://www.btwmagazine.com/
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Mixed Media Jewelry and Sculpture
Jeweler, sculptor, and mixed-media artist Enid Kaplan brings her intriguing artwork to the Web. Created by combining metals with stones, woods, plastics, shells, bones, watch parts, and photos, the art explores "the myth realm of consciousness". From healing amulets to wall reliefs, visitors can order one-of-a-kind works for home or office. Prices range from a mere $80 to a whopping $30,000. In addition, this Web site offers information on Kaplan's publications, lectures, and workshops. If you're searching for a unique piece for that special someone, you're guaranteed to find something on this site. Even if it sounds too frou-frou or New Age to you, check out the sculpture and ignore the description - it's worth it.http://www.enidkaplan.com/
BOOKS & E-ZINES
|
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.
 For more selections, check out the Netsurfer Library at http://www.netsurf.com/nsl/ |
Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation
The Traveling Vampire Show
The Whole Foods Market Cookbook
Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Classroom in a BookIgnore the Embargoed News behind the Curtain!
Although designed with news professionals in mind, Newswise has goodies in here for others as well. The particularly useful QuickBrowse buttons in the News Libraries lead to a fast overview of the latest breaking stories. The News Libraries are catalogues of press releases from participating publications and institutions, divided into four broad categories. A recent perusal of them revealed an overview by a Michigan State University professor, an internationally recognized expert on identity theft issues, on identity theft and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. We also uncovered that - surprise! - HIV-positive men who drink are more likely to have unprotected sex than those who stay sober. Thank goodness for the Annals of Behavioral Medicine. Although the subject matter varies widely, the format of the news service is consistent: a brief description of the topic and its source are provided, along with contact information for reporters who wish to follow up. Not only is the material itself timely and interesting, the Web site offers a peek behind the scenes in the news industry.http://www.newswise.com/
Dungeons and Dragons, the Collector's Resource
The Acaeum calls itself the Dungeons & Dragons Knowledge Compendium, but that is not precise. It's not so much the D&D/AD&D knowledge this site compends, but the collectable value of the hundreds of different D&D books, character sheets, modules, and other unearthed arcana. The level of detail is amazing. Each item has its own information page that shows all of its many variations, editions, and identifying characteristics. Each item is priced according to grade. There are links to collecting resources, including places to buy and sell. If you have any old D&D stuff stored in your dungeon, crawl down and drag it up to your computer. You could be sitting on a pile of gold pieces....http://www.acaeum.com/
The World's First SMS Poetry Magazine
Onesixty spotlights poems composed specifically for the mobile phone messaging environment, all of which must consist of 160 or fewer characters. The e-zine chronicles the work of telecom bards, and offers 16 poems in issue two. There is an undeniable appeal to the idea. Sitting on the subway or in some boring mass meeting with nothing but your cell phone for entertainment, you have the choice of calling some outrageously expensive phone sex service or composing some clever Short Message Service (SMS) poetry. Economic considerations alone would lead you to the more aesthetic choice - surely an example of capitalism in the service of art. In the end, the whole concept is perhaps best summed up by poet Gregory Heath: "From the dark/a moth smashes/into the window". Ain't that the truth.http://www.centrifugalforces.co.uk/onesixty/
If erotica and porn are proof of anything, it's that imagination is often not enough. Humans constantly seek to enhance their erotic sensibilities, often by way of literature or artwork. In the past, this often meant seeking out works in the hope of finding an artist whose skills matched your own desires. Custom Erotica Source short-circuits this process. You can specify exactly what fantasy you want and a qualified Custom Erotica Source writer or illustrator will bring it to life for you. Prices start at $25 for a 200-word quickie and go to $450 for a 20-page book, all genuinely suitable as gifts. Erotic illustrations are available for an additional fee. The site comes complete with a statement of philosophy by its founder, the erotically named Sage Vivant. Samples of the writing are also available.
http://www.customeroticasource.com/
LEO stands for Link Everything Online. While that may sound like the mantra of a broadband executive or the cry of stockholders enraged by corporate concealment, it's the title of a superb German-English dictionary with almost 312,000 entries maintained by Technical University of Munich. At least, we think that's the correct English translation. We submitted the name of the host, Informatik der Technischen Universitat Munchen, and got 28 results, including "He went on a two-day visit to Munich." Well! Nun! Even the best dictionaries leave something to be desired. Here, fortunately, you can always use an asterisk as a wildcard. LEO gives you many other options, including options for tolerance of certain special characters. Everywhere, it seems, there are links to supplemental aids, such as a forum, dictionary of German inflection, and variants. Many users of simpler, less capable dictionaries will find LEO intimidating, much as English and German are themselves. Bilingual users, especially writers and researchers of World War II armor, will likely find LEO useful. Viel Gluck!
http://dict.leo.org/
SURFING SCIENCE
You may have read about that New Caledonian crow recently shown to be producing tools to get at food - and if not, here's a CNN article for ya. Also here for you is the Web site of the research group that documented the discovery, which comes with some cool movies. The Behavioural Ecology Research Group (BERG) investigates animal decision-making; primarily focusing upon crows and European starlings as subjects. The group has pumped out 61 papers since 1990, but the one that made a recent splash described how Betty, a female New Caledonian crow, spontaneously formed a straight piece of wire into a hook to retrieve a small bucket of food from a vertical tube. The action indicates a level of intelligence that many primates fail to exhibit. The BERG site is pretty much devoted to this story; the other areas seem to function primarily as a repository for references to the papers published by members of the group. The main content is available on the Tool Use page. If you have QuickTime and an inclination to look at these birds doing their thing, flit on over.CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/08/09/crow.betty/index.html
BERG: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~kgroup/index.html
Hellacool USDA Agricultural Research Service News
"Hi-Tech Camera 'Tastes' Apples to Ensure Quality" and "Tracking Movement of Cattle with Satellites" are two of the conversational tidbits you can pick up at ARS News and Information, the news and magazine archive of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), chief research agency of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). For example, the August issue of Agricultural Research Magazine has an article on food-inspection robots (they can check out 180 chickens per minute), killer wasps that help control flies (you want some around the house, right?), and those radio-tagged cattle. "Not only do the GPS units track where the cattle roam," we learn, "they also monitor head movements, thus indicating whether the cattle are eating, sleeping, or just walking." Holy cow! Are your kids next? The Sci4Kids section shows how sound waves make apples change shape, tells you how to "make your own 3-D box photo of a female broad mite" (Yes, finally!), and has other neat stuff. So does the Image Gallery - to wit, the caption of image K8575-22: "Fire ants will do anything to resist attack by the tiny phorid fly.... A highly specific natural enemy, the female pierces a fire ant's head and releases an enzyme that later decapitates it." Cool!http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/index.html
A good veterinarian is a walking encyclopedia. Anyone who doubts this, including pet owners who want to do their own research, should take a gander at the Merck Veterinary Manual. Your appreciation of the vastitude and complexity of veterinary medicine will grow. Pharmaceutical makers Merck and Merial maintain this huge online database with textbook precision, except where links to videos are broken. The table of contents lists 23 major categories. The Digestive System category alone has 57 sub-categories, such as Bloat in Ruminants and Acute Intestinal Obstructions in Large Animals. Compendious detail may make you wonder how some food ever makes it to market, or how pets survive parasites, poison, or neglect. Conversion tables and other reference guides provide data not available on many consumer sites. Due to the enormity of its coverage, the Merck Veterinary Manual seems to be affected by something akin to grain overload: its Java pages are not the fastest in the world. Output may prove sluggish. Still, if you own or work with animals, you may want to bookmark this manual in case of emergency or for rainy days. Read up on everything from circulatory systems to zoonoses. It may help you with diagnosis or treatment.
http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp
The Severan Marble Plan Archeological Puzzle
The ultimate challenge for a jigsaw puzzle addict would be the Severan Marble Plan. It was a huge map, 60 feet by 43 feet in size, that detailed every architectural feature in ancient Rome, from large public monuments to staircases, at a scale of 1:240. The map was oriented with southeast at the top and it showed no geographical or political boundaries. It is thought to have been a decorative but largely accurate map which hung in the imperial equivalent of the planning office. About 15% of the map survives, but broken into 1,186 pieces - and archeologists continue to excavate more. The Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project details recent attempts by archeologists and computer scientists to solve this jigsaw puzzle using computer 3-D shape-matching algorithms to search for matches among the fractured surfaces of the fragments. It is planning to add a fully searchable database of each fragment with digital images as the work progresses.http://formaurbis.stanford.edu/index.html
SOFTWARE
One of the bigger changes in the latest update to the Netscape browser is the integration of both AOL Instant Messanger (AIM) and AOL's other messaging product ICQ into the software package. In previous editions both were optional components you could skip installing - both have problematic security histories. In this edition, AIM and ICQ are incorporated into the whole Netscape package. Other new features are the integration of the new Netscape Radio service providing streaming music content, the addition of the popular (as in Mozilla) tabbed browsing interface, many advanced configuration options, and the usual crop of performance and stability enhancements. Is does seem to be an improvement on Netscape 6 and a good alternative to Explorer. It is certainly worthwile if you have lots of friends who communicate with AIM or ICQ. Compare and contrast to Mozilla 1.1 (see below).http://www.netscape.com/browsers/
The lizard continues its relentless march towards world domination. The latest release of the open-source browser has the usual improvements in performance, stability, and standards support. Other notable features include new icon artwork, and more intelligent autocompletion in the location bar. For security, you can now disable plug-in and image downloading in the Mail and News readers and display HTML e-mail as plain text. These new capabilities prevent spammers from automatically trolling for your address and running code on your machine. The extensive release notes have full details. Mozilla is available for Win32, Mac, Linux, AIX, HPUX and OS/2 platforms. Compare and contrast to Netscape 7.0 (see above).
Release Notes: http://www.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla1.1/
Download: http://mozilla.org/releases/