BREAKING SURF
| We Can't Resist Ellen Feiss Any Longer |
| Saddam Hussein's E-Mail |
| Mileposts of the Web Past |
| Advances in Blog Backlinking Technology |
| UK Maps and Aerial Photos |
| Find Your Ideal US Hometown |
| Galapagos and Ecuador Travel Pics |
| Underground Culture in San Francisco |
| Ninjai, the Little Ninja |
| The Art of Viewing Japanese Art |
| Bathing in Hitler's Bathtub |
| Is There a Future for "Futurama"? |
| Bodypainting Gallery |
| Do-It-Yourself Life Masks |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| Cosmic Shock Waves Become Music |
| Theodore Gray's Sodium Party |
| Foot Health |
| Robo-Dome Searches the Skies |
| Yahoo Chooses PHP |
| Freenet 0.5 Released |
| The Subaru Telescope Is NOT in Japan |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
BREAKING SURF
US Election Background: Big Money Donors
On the eve of next week's important US mid-term elections, we thought we'd bring you a Web site that would contribute to your status as an informed voter. In trying to figure out which content to bring to your attention, we faced a huge number of choices; the political machines in the US have embraced the Web with wild abandon. We settled on Opensecrets.org, which deals with the lubricant of politics: money. The site covers who is giving how much to which political causes. Its latest feature is a listing of the top 100 donors since 1989. The first four on the list are associations of state employees ($30 million), educators ($21 million), realtors ($20 million) and trial lawyers ($20 million). The first corporation comes in at number five on the list, and not surprisingly it is tobacco giant Phillip Morris ($19 million). Opensecrets.org has many details, including data on individual corporate contributions such as those from Microsoft. Americans, check it out, then make sure to vote next week.Opensecrets.org: http://www.opensecrets.org/
Top donors: http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/index.asp
Microsoft: http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.asp?ID=D000000115&Name=Microsoft+Corp
More on First Remote Transatlantic "Handshake"
The story of the virtual transatlantic handshake briefly made the mainstream media this week. Scientists on either side of the Atlantic used the high bandwidth of Internet2 to jointly push around boxes and feel their texture. Despite the headlines, there was no actual handshake. The hardware was actually an elaborate stylus which provided force feedback to the researchers, who had to move it slowly so as not to tax the high-speed but barely adequate link. The MIT Touch Lab, University College in London, and the University of Southern California collaborated on three demonstrations. The Seattle Times has more information than the wire stories, while the MIT Touch Lab site has a great deal of technical information on the haptic research. Want to bet against the porn industry being the impetus behind adopting this technology?Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/134565746_shake300.html
MIT Touch Lab: http://touchlab.mit.edu/index.html
October Net DDoS Assault Highly Overpublicized
If you read about the Oct. 21-22 cyberattack on the Internet, you probably read an overblown account. Many news outlets reported that a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack took down most of the Internet's 13 main servers, and that the mighty Internet was a few moments away from crashing down around our ears. Hogwash. The attacks did hamper the operation of nine of those 13 servers, but the servers were only domain name servers, meaning they hold the code of which IP address numbers translate to which alphanumeric domain names. Losing that sounds serious, but every ISP keeps its own copy on hand, and only occasionally updates its own list from the master 13. If you have a phone book at home, it doesn't matter if operator information goes down for a few hours. Nevertheless, the FBI is investigating the attack. Wired and CNET have some of the more sober reporting.Wired: http://wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55957,00.html
CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1001-963005.html
Nothing is more personal than your blog, with the possible exception of hygiene. Blogger, one of the more popular blog-hosting sites, suffered a crack attack Oct. 25. The attacker messed with the system, stole accounts, and disabled users' access to their blogs. Although Blogger quickly closed the breach and deployed a back-up, yet again we have learned that we cannot take security for granted. A constant battle is waged between those who design and manage important sites and those who maliciously seek to destroy them. CNET has the story and blogger Anil Dash offers his own perspective. Blogger has a status page.
Blogger: http://www.blogger.com/
CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1001-963375.html
Discussion: http://www.dashes.com/anil/index.php?archives/003780.php
Blogger status: http://status.blogger.com/
Microsoft Rolls Out MSN 8.0 ISP Service
Microsoft has released version 8 of their MSN Internet Service Provider bundle, which consists of three different services: dial-up access for $21.95 per month; broadband for $39.95 per month; and the software-only bundle for $9.95 per month. That last option probably has you scratching your head as you wonder why, if you already have Internet service, you would want to pay an additional $10 a month for Microsoft software and content? The answer is that you get plenty of parental controls, an online bill-payment service, online photo editing, a revamped e-mail client with enhanced (although apparently ineffective) spam filtering, and an updated MSN Messenger instant messaging client. The service is co-branded with Disney, and subscribers get free access to a Disney kids' network called Blast and premium sports content from ESPN. It's an alternative to AOL, but if you've already got an ISP you probably don't need it. CNET has a review.MSN: http://join.msn.com/
CNET: http://www.cnet.com/internet/0-3762-8-20576873-1.html
Twenty years later, die-hard audiophiles still collect vinyl LPs and buy high-end turntables, but the CD represents a revolution that most of us pretty much take for granted now. Although it ratcheted up the price of recorded music, the CD has so many advantages that its rapid adoption was almost guaranteed. Chief among the advantages is the absence of unwanted surface noise from needles and dusty record grooves - the pops and crackles that characterize so many recordings. As well, greater practical dynamic range, the absence of wear, increased album length, and random access all gave the CD a huge step up on easily damaged vinyl. Conductor titan Herbert von Karajan said that compared to CDs, everything else is gaslight. Within five years, LPs had been reduced to pricey, slim selections sold by specialty music retailers. The CD was the product of an effective collaboration between the inventive genius of Dutch giant Philips and Japan's Sony. On each slim disk lie almost three miles of spiral track containing some 2 billion shallow pits that store music digitally. Just how that's done and how the disks are made are fascinating stories, related by USByte.com.
USByte.com: http://www.usbyte.com/common/compact_disk.htm
A recent Slashdot post has resurrected the debate about the design of superworms, which are capable of quickly infecting a huge portion of Internet hosts. Some estimates suggest such a program could infect millions of computers within minutes. The Slashdot item pointed to a paper by Brandon Wiley, who had proposed a theoretical worm he called Curious Yellow. This new superworm would coordinate its attack on vulnerable hosts by communicating with other copies of itself. This contrasts with the so-called Warhol superworms, which simply prescan networks for crackable hosts before launching attacks, each instance of the superworm operating independently. The Curious Yellow paper makes reference to the Warhol superworm paper but does not give a link - so we did (that's why you read NSD, right?). Linux Journal has an interview with Wiley in which he discusses possible strategies of defense against such superworms.
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/25/1413220
Curious Yellow: http://blanu.net/curious_yellow.html
Warhol Superworms: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/warhol.html
Linux Journal: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6069
Slashdot has posted news of a virtual postcard from Friend Greetings, which is owned by Permissioned Media, that requires downloading software to read. Doing so brings up an end user license agreement (EULA) that no one in their right mind would agree to, but who reads EULAs? This particular piece of corporate legal nastiness gives the company permission to send a copy of the postcard to all those in your Outlook address list, thus propagating the thing like a virus. It also states that you allow the company to install additional software in your machine whenever these sleaze merchants get the urge. We can all do without this kind of malevolent techno drivel but it does suggest that we ought to pay a little more attention to EULAs. Other Slashdot posters wonder if a contract is legally enforceable if it contains illegal or unethical components. The debate is good for a great gnashing of teeth and flurry of postings but the best precaution is simply to know what it is you agree to.
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/10/25/1636215.shtml
Google is not above censoring itself in response to local laws and specific requests. Much of this self-censorship is done quietly and unobtrusively, which isn't always necessarily a good thing. Hence, Harvard Law School investigators have done some snooping to reveal the extent of the search engine's exclusions. Comparing the 2.5-billion-page main index with Google's French and Dutch versions, the authors show that 113 sites are absent from those regional versions. Most of the blocked sites are anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi, or anti-abortion. The size and popularity of Google make it an obvious target for national censors and organizations with an axe to grind, but blocking access pits it squarely against those who argue that freedom ultimately depends on the unfettered availability of news and views, facts and fables. Google itself isn't particularly cooperative in revealing what it's not showing, but the Harvard report has a link to a list of the filtered sites. The authors would also like help in removing the veil of secrecy from such corporate decisions and info on any attempts to bring pressure to bear to block particular sites. ZDNet has the story and reports the details.
Report: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/google
ZDNet: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t278-s2124386,00.html
So, What's Happening with the Anthrax Investigation?
Soon after Sept. 11, 2001, anthrax entered American popular consciousness. Who was behind the attacks? Why have there been no arrests? Just what took place? If you want to know the state of public knowledge about these unsolved crimes, check out this informative and disturbing site maintained by an amateur detective. The links are solid, but there have been no arrests and the site inadvertently makes you realize how fragile our security might be.http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/
Adult Web Sites Face Expensive New Credit Card Processing Restrictions
The huge number of online porn sites live and die by their ability to process credit cards. They either have their own merchant accounts or they rely on third-party credit card processors which in turn deal with the major card companies. Visa reportedly accounts for 70% of online adult transactions (we can see the ad camapign now: "Sex City will take any kind of fetish, but they won't take American Express."). The adult industry is prone to credit-card fraud and unethical salesmanship and the card companies are seeking to eliminate these problems. Recently, Visa started imposing very high fees on the adult merchants it deems at high risk for fraud, and placed restrictions on the automatic rebilling of cards. The new policies will likely drive many of the smaller porn operations out of business. Visa won't mind - it hopes the high fees will leave much of the adult industry in more law abiding hands. YNOT News, a news portal for the online adult industry, offers three relevant stories that provide interesting insights into the online adult business.YNOT News 1: http://www.ynotmasters.com/news/ynews/issues/101002/page2.html
YNOT News 2: http://www.ynotmasters.com/news/ynews/issues/101002/page3.html
YNOT News 3: http://www.ynotmasters.com/news/ynews/issues/101002/page9.html
Spain Passes Restrictive E-Commerce Law
Spain went nuts and enacted a strict new law Oct. 12 that competes directly with those in places like Saudi Arabia for accolades as the most restrictive in the world. Any Web site in Spain that engages in commerce must register with the Spanish government. So far, webmasters of at least 300 sites have taken their pages down rather than register. The government says that the law arises from European Union directives, but a whole lot of folks don't see it that way. With penalties ranging into fines of over half a million US dollars, who would? Spain claims that the reaction to its new law is hasty and overreactive. Sure, and the check's in the mail, and all that. Wired has the initial story, and it will be well worth following.http://wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56021,00.html
Galileo, the NASA space probe whose voyage to Jupiter began before the advent of the IBM PC, is on target for its final flyby of a Jovian satellite, Amalthea, a tiny inner moon. Galileo has already absorbed far more radiation than it was designed to withstand and during this flyby will come within 150,000 miles of the giant planet's cloudtops. The pictures will no doubt be spectacular as Galileo heads for its final rendezvous with Jupiter. NASA has a countdown to the flyby and Astrobiology Magazine has some background on the moon - and just the title of that site should tell you why this is so interesting.
Galileo: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/
Countdown: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/countdown/
Astrobiology Magazine: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article270.html
Humans have influence over 83% of the Earth's surface. Preserving and protecting the remaining 17% of wilderness is now humanity's obligation, says the Wildlife Conservation Society. Its article and the links it provides are fascinating in their mapping of human impact, but also on the way that humans have affected the planet as inhabitants. At the same time, the maps are stark reminders of how little wilderness actually remains.
http://wcs.org/humanfootprint/
Screenshots and Movie Previews of Starcraft Ghost
Starcraft is one of the all-time bestselling computer games. Fans have been waiting a long time for an update to the SF real-time strategy game. They got their wish recently - well, sort of. Blizzard announced the coming of Starcraft Ghost, a follow-up that will be available for multiple gaming consoles but not for personal computers. What's more, the game will be a first-person tactical game, very different from the original Starcraft wargame. Hardcore fans of the original are somewhat disappointed, but you can't fault Blizzard for catering to the huge console-game market, and by all accounts the quality of the game will meet the exacting Blizzard standards. The company has just released screen shots, artwork, and movies of Starcraft Ghost, which are nothing if not top-notch eye candy.http://www.blizzard.com/ghost/
eBay Clampdown on Recorded CDs Bites Too Hard
The DMCA has tripped up a guy who was just trying to market his band's music. eBay's zealous employees swept through its auction site on a hunt for illegal material. Since the guy was selling his band's material on recordable CD, the eBay crusaders decided it must be pirated. eBay's attitude is garnering it a lot of attitude in return, and has musicians looking seriously at other venues - places like CD Baby out of Portland, Ore. This little CD site stocks some of the best indie music, and the owner sends about $40,000 out to bands every week. If the music industry and companies like eBay want to slit their own throats, others are happy to provide the knife. See Wired for one take on it.CD Baby: http://www.cdbaby.com/
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,55926,00.html
ONLINE CULTURE
We Can't Resist Ellen Feiss Any Longer
"I'm Ellen Feiss, and I'm a student?" This Apple switch ad has the Net abuzz. A lot of people seem to think she's high while doing the ad. She sort of slurs her speech, and her eyes have this funny look to them. Wired had an amusing story on the phenomenon in August, and we considered covering the story then, but a late development has pushed this over the edge for us. A Dutch group called MacFreak held an Ellen Feiss look-alike contest at a recent gathering. Dude, all these imposters look so baked. Whether you're a Macolyte or a Wintel purist, you're going to love the material here. This kid's, like... a minor Net celebrity?Wired 1: http://wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,54333,00.html
MacFreak: http://feiss.macfreak.org/
Wired 2: http://wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,55998,00.html
Feiss: http://ellenfeiss.net/
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has a Web site, and the site has an e-mail address on it. According to Wired, the e-mail software used by the Web site has known security holes, but one hacker didn't even bother to exploit them as he made a simple guess of the password to gain access to the e-mail account. Wired tactfully does not mention who did the guessing. So what kind of email is sent to the leader of Iraq? Aside from the usual spam and virus-infested messages, there was a number of offers of assistance to Saddam, some from American addresses. One e-mail offered advice about chemical weapons, another about hiding from the CIA, and yet another had the CEO of an American wireless company offering to do business with Iraq, clearly in violation of US law and UN trade sanctions. Similar e-mails came from the UK and Brazil. Other e-mail more predictably expressed opposition to Hussein. Wired's story has more information about the content of the mailto:press@uruklink.net mailbox.
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,55967,00.html
Hussein: http://www.uruklink.net/iraq/epage1.htm
Want to see how far the Web has come? Curious what we were doing online while you were growing up in the '90s? The Internet Archive Wayback Machine offers a tribute "the websites that shaped the character of the net in the early years: irreverent, Star Trek obsessed, visionary." What were you up to Nov. 19, 1996? We were browsing a user survey at the Internet Movie Database, one with 40 questions! Wow, people had a lot of patience back then! And for what? A chance to get a few unspecified goodies, not even a few measly online casino chips! We hoped for better luck at the Trojan Room Coffee Machine. Sheesh! The webcam was pathetic. Hope clicks eternal, however. A link at the Well circa Jan. 8, 1997, gave us a "Robots.txt Retrieval Exclusion" error message. Ah, well! By now, of course, we were eager to return to the present. E-commerce. Dating. Streaming. Real cyberspace, which come to think of it includes an e-zine that's been around since 1994. Indeed and indeed! Vive la difference!
Pioneers: http://web.archive.org/collections/pioneers.html
NSD, Circa Nov 1996: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v02/nsd.96.11.12.html
Advances in Blog Backlinking Technology
A certain subset of the blogging community is obsessed with linking to each other's weblogs, in effect carrying on conversations between their diaries. It's a terribly awkward way to carry on an online discussion - that problem was solved long ago by bulletin boards - but as a blog cultural phenomenon, it is worthy of note. Mark Pilgrim, the creator of "dive into mark", one of the more widely read blogs, has come up with a piece of software that makes such blog comingling even easier. If you refer to Mark's blog in your online diary, his Python script grabs that page, extracts the paragraph with the reference, and pasts it into his own weblog in a section he calls Further Reading. It's a lot easier to understand when you see an example, as in this announcement of upgrades to the linkbackparser.py script. Blog technology marches on.Update: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2002/10/11.html#further_reading_upgrades
Linkbackparser: http://diveintomark.org/projects/misc/linkbackparser.py.txt
ONLINE TRAVEL
It's easy to see why this Web site is one of the top-ten-visited sites in the UK. It provides street-level maps of the UK, Europe, and the US, road maps, travel directions, and SMS weather alerts. It also links to partners that provide holiday accommodation, train tickets, and restaurant booking. It's fun to look up your hometown and find there's one with the same name at the other end of the planet. You can zoom in on the maps and use a compass-button to navigate around, but be warned that the site does not cover minor roads or small villages. The door-to-door travel directions only apply to the UK currently, with Europe on the way. The site also sells black-and-white prints of historic photographs of the British Isles and personalized aerial shots of England and parts of Wales, which would be an ideal gift for nostalgic residents and emigrants alike.http://www.multimap.com/
If you have five minutes to spare while you plan to relocate within the USA or you're simply curious to see if you're living in Perfectville, USA, this Web site could help you. There is an eight-screen multiple-choice quiz that covers all aspects of finding a suitable hometown, from questions on schooling, culture, and transport to queries on crime, religion, and your budget for buying or renting a home. They even throw in the occasional witty question just to check that you're paying attention. After you complete your current details and avoid the advertising bumph, wait for a couple of moments while the site compares your answers against its research on possible locations. Our Netsurfer ended up with Little Rock, Ark. as a best match, but Honolulu was in the top five. Oh, it's a hard life. Now, how do you pack a surfboard?
http://www.findyourspot.com/
Galapagos and Ecuador Travel Pics
The Galapagos Islands are a renowned destination for wildlife enthusiasts worldwide, and this photo gallery will bring you there via your computer screen. There are eight categories of shots, mainly of the local birdlife and animals, including underwater shots of penguins, sea turtles, and sea lions. The photographs of the Ecuadoran buildings and people are equally compelling, partly due to the excellent use of natural light in many of the impromptu portraits. Often, the images of everyday items are the most appealing: an array of spirit masks, the equator painted on a road, and colorful beans in a sack at the market. Disappointingly, the titles provided are short if there at all. More description would be useful for unfamiliar subjects. Each image can be easily sent as a free e-postcard thanks to the tool provided on site.http://webbery.com/ecuador/
Underground Culture in San Francisco
If you're planning a visit to the San Francisco area, be sure to check out Laughing Squid, an informative resource of independent underground art and culture. Features include the Squid List, a daily events announcement list, and the Tentacle List, a searchable directory of artists and performers. This site provides a quick peek at many cultural events and attractions. You'll find information on film and video, music, visual art, and other hidden gems within San Francisco. Even if you're not planning a visit soon, you'll find something on this Web site to pique your curiosity. Take some time to browse, and don't leave out the giant squid fact guide and squid art.http://www.laughingsquid.org/
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
"Who am I? Where did I come from? Who are these demons, and why do they relentlessly cross my path? I seek these answers on my travels." So begins the arduous quest for self-knowledge of Ninjai, the little ninja boy. It's hard to believe it, but these Flash animated adventures are the work of a collective of people around the world, with a variety of day jobs (window cleaners, car salesmen, etc.) and a common interest in martial arts and stunt work. The production values of this Ninjai Gang are stunning, with the backgrounds in particular taking the breath away - a shaft of sunlight illuminating the morning mist in a mountain valley in Chapter 8 deserves a mention for stand-out beauty. The dialogue ranges from poignant and enigmatic stuff about the moral neutrality of violence to laugh-out-loud funny (Demon: Aaaaagh! You cut off my foot! Ninjai: My apologies. I meant to cut off your head.) If a beautifully constructed moral quest with visually stunning artwork and haunting music doesn't do it for you, you could just watch it for the kick-ass swordplay. It takes a while to download all nine chapters without broadband, but it's still well worth it.http://www.ninjai.com/
The Art of Viewing Japanese Art
We were once at a boring party in a nondescript suburban ranch house, and as we checked out the art on the walls, we realized that the Japanese prints on the wall were not reproductions but original masterpieces of Japanese printmaking, apparently "liberated" during World War II. We only wish this online resource had been available to us when we returned home with the images fresh in the memory. Viewing Japanese Prints is a widely ranging resource focused on Japanese printmaking of all eras. There are many in-depth, well-illustrated articles on individual artists. The level of writing is academic, but still readable. For the viewer new to Japanese prints, a number of general articles introduce general styles and concepts. For the expert, there is a wealth of information on analyzing particular prints for authenticity, wear, dyes, and fading. Japanese printmaking is one of the world's most highly developed art forms, and this site will help you to appreciate its beauty.http://spectacle.berkeley.edu/~fiorillo/
Imagine witnessing the liberation of Dachau and then being billeted in Hitler's Munich apartment. That's exactly what happened to Lee Miller and David Scherman during their stint as official photographers during World War II. Miller was an American pioneer photographer, surrealist artist who helped to invent the free spirit of Paris in the 1920s, war photojournalist, and friend of Picasso. The pair took many photographs in the apartment but the one that this Web site explains is the shot of Miller "occupying" Hitler's bathtub. The photograph, which reveals a surprisingly ordinary bathroom, was carefully composed to reflect the photogs' reaction to what they had seen in the camps. Even while Miller bathed, ordinary life intruded as an impatient soldier banged on the door, towel and soap in hand. Miller, whose photography and life continue to inspire women photographers today, never spoke of her war experiences during the rest of her life.
Hitler's Bathtub : http://www.eiu.edu/~modernity/rose.html
More on Miller: http://www.vjgroup.org/leemiller.htm
Is There a Future for "Futurama"?
Fans of "Futurama", unite! You'll find everything you need to or have ever wanted to know about this unashamedly abused cartoon. It's truly a wealth of Futurama facts and information that any fan will appreciate. View character bios, the episode guide (including ones never aired for the whim of Fox planners), and fan artwork, just to name a few of the many available resources. The site is easy to navigate and well designed; you'll feel like you've been virtually sucked into the world of Fry, Bender, and Leela. Not a fan of Futurama, but know someone who is? With the gift-giving season just around the corner, why not check out the merchandise section for some interesting and fun products. First aired in 1999, this cartoon finally won an Emmy, and has now been cancelled. The creators of this site are petitioning Fox to get it back on the air. Maybe they ought to call it "Anna Nicole's Fear Bacholerette Party" or something.http://www.gotfuturama.com/
If you're not familiar with the art of body painting, you hang around the wrong bars. Here's an opportunity for a closer look. The themes of the bodypainting photo shoots presented here include fantasy (duh), gothic, and tribal designs. Most of these works were created by Bryan Crump a.k.a. Neoquark, who has been a bodypainter for four years. Designs by Neoquark include the Crimson Sprite series, Butterfly Fairy series, and the Tribal Pinup series. Based out of Los Angeles, he'll take commissions for work at parties and for photo shoots, movies, and character creations. If you've ever wondered what it's like to have your body adorned with beautifully painted designs, you know what to do.
http://www.silverartifice.com/
Looking for that perfect piece for above the mantle? We have just the item for you. Create your very own life mask in the comfort of your home! This Web site provides the knowledge and resources to get you started. Create a mold with a non-toxic vegetable compound, available through the Web site. In less than five minutes, you can have an exact likeness of your face. There's little mess involved when using this product, and it's relatively inexpensive. The life mask kit comes with face mold, casting powder, clay stopper, mold powder, and complete instructions.
http://www.pointsnorth.net/lifemask/
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.
For more selections, check out the Netsurfer Library at http://www.netsurf.com/nsl/ |
Koyaanisqatsi/Powaqqatsi - 2 Pack
Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
"Live From New York": An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by its Stars, Writers and Guests
Dilbert and the Way of the WeaselSURFING SCIENCE
Cosmic Shock Waves Become Music
NASA has long encouraged artistic expression inspired by its scientific and exploratory missions. The latest attempt to integrate the fields of art and science is based on plasma shock waves recorded by Cassini, Galileo, and even the distant, venerable Voyagers. Physicist Don Gurnett converted the waves into sounds, and his tapes were used by composer Terry Riley in a ten-movement composition called "Sun Rings" for the acclaimed (and prolifically recorded) Kronos quartet. A NASA briefing has links to excerpts of Gurnett's sounds but not, alas, to the composition, which had its world premiere Oct. 26. The sounds are eerie, appropriately unearthly, and fascinating - good for Halloween or playing loud with the lights off. As for the music, the titles of some of the movements - Beebopterismo, Planet Elf Sindoori, and Earth Whistlers, e.g. - hint at what you're in for if you take in a Kronos performance. The plasma shock waves themselves have various causes. Those recorded by Cassini are the result of the continuous bow shock wave created as the solar wind collides with Jupiter's magnetosphere. This truly is the music of the spheres.http://www.nasa.gov./releases/2002/02_207.html
I'm a dull-gray metal soft enough to cut with a knife. Throw me in water and I explode. What am I? Every chemistry student knows the answer, and so does Theodore Gray, winner of a 2002 Ig Nobel for his wooden periodic table table. Gray recently held a party to celebrate the explosive properties of the soft metal. Sodium reacts with water to produce sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas. The heat of the reaction is enough to detonate the hydrogen in air, with sometimes spectacular results, as his videos and still pictures show. With people, snacks, sodium (three and a half pounds, bought through eBay), and the star of the show, the Sodium Release-o-tron, the event produced bangs, sizzles, smoke, fire, and a whiff of danger. Setting out to provide a comprehensive online reference to the art of sodium explosions he has at least illustrated the amusing side of science. If you fancy doing something like this yourself, at least read Gray's safety notes and follow his precautions. Sodium isn't really something to fool around with.
http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Stories/011.2/
Foot.com would like to sell you special shoes and foot-care products, but it also provides articles and features on foot care that, if carefully followed, might allow folks with foot problems (virtually everyone) to cure themselves. Of course, many of the products offered will help speed the healing process. The articles are well selected and useful. They avoid being blatant sales pitches or hysterical warnings of a sort all too easy to find online. This really is a good site for sore feet.
http://www.foot.com/
Many if not most comets have been discovered by amateur astronomers searching the night for tell-tale traces of interplanetary travelers. You too can be one of these interplanetary explorers, but you don't have to do it in the cold. Technical Innovations makes tools for amateur astronomers. Its Robo-Dome product is a fully computerized telescope dome for the backyard astronomer. The dome is large enough for the telescope alone - not the astronomer - and is designed to be used in conjunction with video imaging systems. The company also has larger domes up to 15 feet in diameter, suitable for more serious applications. Technical Innovations also offers observatory automation systems that control nearly all aspects of dome and telescope operation, critical for any astronomical photography. You might not find these products in your holiday stocking, but if you are of a technical disposition you should check this stuff out for the geek factor alone.
http://homedome.com/
SOFTWARE
Few Web sites have high-performance requirements like Yahoo does. Its 74 online properties serve over 1.5 billion page views per day from more than 4,500 servers in 16 locations around the world. Until recently, Yahoo's Web sites had a back-end written in a proprietary server-side language maintained by over 600 developers in 8.1 million lines of C/C++ code and 3.0 million lines of Perl. Recently, the company started switching over to PHP to gain the benefits of a Web-centric language that's easy to maintain and update. Yahoo engineer Michael Radwin has put together a presentation about the project. He talks about the criteria Yahoo used for picking a server-side language, why it chose PHP, and the lessons learned in the decision process. Yahoo is not switching wholesale to PHP since it must still support a lot of legacy code, but that language is becoming a significant part of their operations. You can read the talk slides on the Web or in a PDF file.Web: http://public.yahoo.com/~radwin/talks/yahoo-phpcon2002.htm
PDF: http://public.yahoo.com/~radwin/talks/yahoo-phpcon2002.pdf
This is the first new stable release of Freenet code in 14 months, almost an eternity in Internet time. As you may recall, Freenet software is the foundation of an anonymous, censorship-resistant peer-to-peer publishing network. This version of the code has numerous enhancements, most of them technical and aimed at increasing the security, stability, and functionality of the Freenet back end. Users will probably be most drawn to the growing network of third-party tools which make creating, sharing, and retrieving content through Freenet easier. This release is not yet production-quality code, but it's certainly usable by people willing to do some tinkering in the interest of cyber-liberty.
Freenet: http://freenetproject.org/
Tools: http://freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Main/Tools
CORRECTIONS
The Subaru Telescope Is NOT in Japan
In NSD 8.41, we wrote that it was. Don Mitchell tells us it's near the top of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii, along with a number of other state-of-the-art telescopes. And all of them can see Uranus. And if they can't, they should.