BREAKING SURF
| Don't Leave Home without Your Keitai |
| Social Software and the Politics of Groups |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| Another Icy Nightmare for Orthopedic Surgeons |
| Mozilla 1.3.1 Released, 10 Years After Mosaic |
| An Animated Tour through the Linux Kernel |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
|
|
|
BREAKING SURF
In a piece that's rife with pungent phrases, Doc Searls and David Weinberger point out that the Internet isn't something slippery or elusive, and doesn't require averted eyes to view best, like faint stars. Nope, it's simple stuff really, purity itself. It's a world of ends, with you at one end and the rest of the world at theirs. And you can do pretty near any danged thing you want at your end, and so can others at theirs. It's democratic, empowering, and liberating. Searls and Weinberger make ten points that are must reading for media moguls, lawmakers, judges, politicians, DMCA promulgators, and anyone with even the slightest unwise impulse to do something about it. The key to avoiding repetitive mistake syndrome is this: nobody owns it, anybody can use it, anybody can improve it. The truth of this is disarmingly simple, but revolutionary. It may be obvious but it needs to be said, and here it's well said. A lively discussion about the piece can be found on QuickTopic.World of Ends: http://worldofends.com/
Discussion: http://www.quicktopic.com/19/D/gvZLPUTT8g93c.html
The winners of the 2003 Weblog Awards, known as the Bloggies, have been announced, and you'll have hours of fun browsing through the weblogs that the blogging community has deemed the best of the year. Awards were given in 30 categories. Beyond the standard categories, Bloggies went to winners of fun things such as Best Meme (Googlism), Best Non-Weblog Content of a Weblog Site (Davezilla.com), and - our favorite - Best Tagline of a Weblog Site (Electric Bugaloo: "Still cool, like the other side of the pillow"). That last one is a bit of a puzzler; clearly, "ThinkDink is what happens when you send a sea otter to do a chimp's job" should have won that category. Meanwhile, the less said about the Anti-Bloggies the better. Just go visit and have fun.
Bloggies: http://www.fairvue.com/?feature=awards2003
Anti-Bloggies: http://www.antibloggies.com/
Court to Look Again at Content vs. Host in CDA Case
The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is going to take a new look at the Communications Decency Act (CDA). Last year, a lower court handled a lawsuit brought by an actress against Metrosplash, the company that runs the Matchmaker dating site. She sued after somebody posted a fake personal ad in her name with her address and a pile of allegedly false statements. She lost the case for reasons of fame and intent, but the judge ruled that Matchmaker could be considered a content creator because it provides multiple-choice and essay questions to help its posters create ads. Net access providers are not susceptible to CDA regulations; content creators are. If the appeals court upholds the finding, ISPs and sites from AOL and Amazon on down will be forced to rethink their commitments to the development of the online economy. AOL and eBay submitted a brief on their perspective to the court. This one's worth watching for the potentially huge impact. CNET has the story.http://news.com.com/2009-1023-991264.html
US Court Rejects FBI Child Porn Evidence
Operation Candyman was the FBI's biggest bust of online child-porn purveyors and users. Or so we were told. Judges have now thrown out much of the evidence used to indict individuals because the search warrants were obtained under false pretenses. It turns out that the FBI engaged in nothing so much as an overzealous witch hunt in which the guilty and innocent were lumped together. As the judges observed, child pornography is a serious crime, but it doesn't mean that one abandons the Constitution. A majority of people on the Candyman list (a Yahoo group) chose not to receive any e-mail from the list, a fact that the FBI failed to reveal during the acquisition of search warrants. Claims of child porn distributed through e-mail were central to the search warrants. Sadly, the only people who continue to suffer are the children.http://news.com.com/2100-1025-991652.html
Controlling Nuclear Warheads and Materials
Have a look at "Controlling Nuclear Warheads and Materials", a major new report on nuclear proliferation commissioned by an organization called the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a private organization set up by former media mogul Ted Turner and chaired by former senator Sam Nunn. The gist of the report is that controlling the proliferation of existing nuclear material is an effective method of preventing nuclear terrorism, but that not nearly enough is being done on an international level to do so. Given the current geopolitical situation, which is at least partly driven by fears of nuclear terror, the report is certainly timely - surely not an accident. The NTI site has a great deal of supporting material for both the report and related subjects.http://www.nti.org/e_research/cnwm/overview/cnwm_home.asp
Americans Flocking to UK Online Media for Iraq News
DotJournalism, a UK journalism site, provides some statistics that seem to indicate that Americans are more frequently visiting foreign media - i.e. British - Web sites. The threat of war with Iraq and the global nature of the story are driving American visitors to Web sites such as the BBC and Guardian Unlimited. DotJournalism speculates that the traffic is moving to European sites at least in part because of the generally xenophobic media coverage of the issue in US media. A spokesman for BBC Online says that traffic is up 10%-20% and that e-mail seems to indicate many American visitors are seeking a more balanced view of the news than that provided by media at home.http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story576.html
Iraq. If that one word summons up much feeling in you, try visiting the UN to get all the information you may be missing in the media. The official UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) site offers complete texts of all the documents the commission releases. Some of it is boring, some of it is downright fascinating. You read, you decide. After perusing the primary sources, check out the UN's Iraq news page.
UNMOVIC documents: http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/documents/docslist.htm
UN: http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusRel.asp?infocusID=50
Perhaps it is their bestselling musical stardom, perhaps it's their somewhat out-of-date reputation for raising hell wherever they go, but the Beastie Boys are getting a lot of notice for releasing an anti-war song on the Web. The song, "In A World Gone Mad...", criticizes President Bush and Saddam Hussein's "mid-life crisis war". We bring you the link because pro or con, a lot of people likely will be flaming back and forth about this song.
http://www.beastieboys.com/
Feedster, a Search Engine for RSS Feeds
Feedster is an experimental search engine that indexes and archives RSS feeds, which are the metadata that describe the current contents of a Web site. With the growth in the use of RSS feeds on news and weblog sites, the idea of a search engine devoted to this type of data makes sense. Feedster's FAQ makes a good case for why such a specialized search engine is a better alternative to something general like Google. The project is experimental, so don't expect lots of functionality just yet, but judging from the amount of interest in the idea expressed by the online community it should be improving at a fast clip.http://www.feedster.com/
The Internet Book List (IBL) was recently started by a hobbyist to index books the way the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) indexes movies. There's a lot of material here - a ton of books are listed, some with reviews. Some critics have pointed out that the IBL is just re-treading ground already covered by Amazon, but Amazon doesn't have every book ever printed. Others point out that there are many, many more books than movies in existence, and that what may be feasible for the IMDb is much more difficult to achieve with books. As you might expect from a geek enterprise, the IBL leans more toward the SF/fantasy genres at the moment. Anybody can submit books and help build this virtual card catalogue. Check it out.
http://www.iblist.com/
It has been three years since NASDAQ peaked and the dotcom bubble began to deflate. The Los Angeles Times has an excellent series of articles on the current state of Silicon Valley and its hopes for the future. The articles are especially informative when they discuss the state of venture capital and entrepreneurship in the valley, as well as the optimism of the survivors. It is well worth reading, if only as anthropology.
http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/magazine/la-tm-svintro9mar09.story
Portland, Ore. Considers Universal WiFi
A recent survey noted that Portland, Ore., is the most unwired place in the US. In other words, WiFi is ubiquitous - and for the most part, it's free. There are parts of the town where you can walk along with your WiFi device, connecting to the Net at node after node, at speeds faster than the usual cable or DSL broadband speeds. Being at the top of the unwired list isn't necessarily good enough for some folks, however, and there's a movement afoot to take advantage of the city's huge optical-fiber infrastructure to add more nodes - enough nodes, in fact, to generate a cloud of free-access WiFi throughout the metroplex. It's an audacious scheme, particularly when you consider the dismal state economy. Nonetheless, some think it's a do-able thing, fairly quickly. Read a take on it in the Oregonian.http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/1047387410208050.xml
Afghanistan Activates .Af Domain
After many years of Taliban rule and essentially no Internet access, Afghanistan is finally getting its own national top-level domain, ..af. The Afghan Ministry of Communications worked with ICANN and the UN Development Program (UNDP) to register the domain, obtained a couple of donated servers from Sun, and trained staff to administer the domain. The UNDP will host the domain-name servers in New York while the Afghans get up to speed on managing this kind of infrastructure. The UNDP press release has some good background on how the domain came to be and on other information technology initiatives the organization is promoting in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, two domains are available in .af, one belonging to the UNDP and the other to the Afghan Ministry of Communications, still under construction at press time.UNDP: http://www.undp.org.af/
Press release: http://www.undp.org/afghanistan/archive/2003/10mar03.html
Afghan Ministry of Communications: http://www.moc.gov.af/
Contest to Redesign W3C Home Page Showcases Web Design Trends
Last December, the standards-setting World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced a new design for their home page. A group of graphic designers disapproved of the new design developed by "super-geeks, not consumer-oriented designers" and decided to do something about it. They came up with the WThRemix contest, which solicited new designs for the W3C site. You can judge the 25 contest entries for yourself in a great opportunity to check out the state of current fashion in Web design. Perhaps not surprisingly, many of them have that spare look that is so much in evidence on non-mainstream media sites and in blogs. It's a great source of ideas for your own web design. Winners will be announced Mar. 17.WThRemix: http://w3mix.web-graphics.com/
Entries: http://w3mix.web-graphics.com/entries.php
W3C: http://www.w3.org/
Report Human-Rights Abuses from Your Desktop
Superficially, Martus seems like a great idea: software from a human-rights organization can be installed on Internet-connected workstations so that people can securely report abuses of human rights. Fine enough, but the source code can be downloaded, and thus hacked. Suddenly, secure reporting doesn't seem so secure. The software is only available for Windows, which gives a nifty chuckle considering Microsoft's approach to consumer rights. Then there's a reference at the site to "truth commissions". We don't know exactly what that means, but the term, buried among other jargon, gives us pause. Who sits on the commissions, and why? Greetings, Mr. Orwell. Or may we call you George?http://www.martus.org/
Bogus PayPal E-Mail Making the Rounds
If you've been paying attention, you know that e-mail scams are on the rise. A recent flood of bogus messages purportedly from PayPal have looked unusually convincing, prompting eBay and PayPal to warn customers not to respond. CNET has a brief report. Your best bet is to always disregard any e-mail that asks for personal information, credit card numbers, or bank information.http://news.com.com/2100-1018-991639.html
The New Pentium M/Centrino Based Laptops
If you're in the market for a new laptop, you may wish to check out this CNET review of several models featuring the just released Intel Pentium M processor. The big draw behind the new chip is its extremely efficient power handling. One of the tested notebooks, the IBM Thinkpad T40, managed to last seven hours with a beefed-up battery. All of the machines feature good performance and sophisticated wireless options, part of the new push by Intel to embed wireless capabilities in a wide range of computers and other devices. The savvy Slashdotters still seem to prefer the Apple laptops, however. Apple's G3 and G4 CPUs are more energy-efficient than Intel's CPUs, a natural advantage that really shines in a power-limited environment such as mobile computing. Intel has a web page explaining its Pentium M and Centrino technology.CNET: http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-1027-8-20926222-1.html
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/articles/03/03/12/1418201.shtml
Intel: http://www.intel.com/products/mobiletechnology/demo/business.htm
Larry Wall continues his series of musings about the design of the next version of the Perl programming language. Fair warning: this tract about subroutines and how to invoke them is so esoteric that only hardcore software semanticists will truly love it. Is it just us or does it seem that 99% of everyday programmers will never use 99% of the features planned for Perl 6? That may be perfectly all right, but at some point the law of diminishing returns should kick in for all that extra code.
http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2003/03/07/apocalypse6.html
Loebner Responds to "Artificial Stupidity" Salon Articles
Hugh Loebner responds to the entertaining Salon articles about the artificial intelligence Loebner Prize and the soap opera around the contest. Since we reported on the articles, it seems only fair that we point you to Loebner's response in Salon also.Salon: http://www.salon.com/tech/letters/2003/03/07/loebner/index.html
NSD 9.09: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v09/nsd.09.09.html#BS18
ONLINE CULTURE
Don't Leave Home without Your Keitai
For Japanese youth, leaving home without their keitai (cell phone) is just about the worst thing that can happen. Without wireless connectivity to spread news and make arrangements on the fly, a modern Japanese social life is just about impossible. Mizuko Ito and her colleagues at Keio University are studying the ethnographic parameters of the wireless telephony phenomenon in Japan. In this Japan Media Review article, she vividly describes how the technology is changing the way young people live. Keitai e-mail is rapidly replacing voice telephony as the main way teens and young adults communicate with each other. And there's a strict etiquette about it: e-mail first, phone later. Pay phones are disappearing and most young people know few home phone numbers. Parents complain they no longer know what is going on. It's an interesting study of the always-on social group. As the studies proceed, the students involved are posting to the Keitai Log, a weblog of random related thoughts.Japan Media Review: http://www.ojr.org/japan/wireless/1043770650.php
Keitai Log: http://www.ojr.org/japan/wireless/1043770157.php
Social Software and the Politics of Groups
Last week, we reported on a thoughtful piece by Joel Spolsky, who wrote about how software architecture impacts the course of online discussion. This week, Clay Shirky took on many of the same issues in a more theoretical way. Shirky's key metaphor is that of a membrane between the group and the rest of the world. He cites examples such as the Slashdot moderation system, the Wikipedia collaborative model, and MetaFilter's barriers to entry during membership surges. But the core of Shirky's piece is a set of questions he poses but which nobody has addressed very well. How can we test a good group experience? What kind of barriers work best? How can immediate group feedback change group dynamics? Can a monetary reward system be integrated into a discussion system? Shirky poses fruitful questions for further research. Incidentally, bonus points to Shirky for mentioning the pioneering Plato system.NSD 9.09: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v09/nsd.09.09.html#OC2
Shirky: http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_politics.html
Plato: http://www.physics.uiuc.edu/General_Info/History/PLATO.htm
|
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: Netsurfer Books: http://www.netsurf.com/nsb/ Netsurfer Library: http://www.netsurf.com/nsl/ |
Google Hacks
Spying With Maps: Surveillance Technologies and the Future of Privacy
A Shortcut Through Time: The Path to a Quantum Computer
A Word A Day: A Romp Through Some of the Most Unusual and Intriguing Words in EnglishSURFING SITES
The Houston Chronicle has an archive of all its stories pertaining to the Columbia shuttle disaster. The featured reprints are in PDF format, but much of the other material is accessible as text. As the Houston area is home to Johnson Space Center and has been called NASA's hometown, you can imagine just how hard such events hit the community the Chronicle serves. From news to editorials, the hometown take on the tragedy is available here. Don't try to take it all in at once; it's too much to digest in one sitting. For dessert, visit Kuro5hin, for a first-hand account of one person's encounter with the beginning and end of Columbia.Chronicle: http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/special/03/columbia/print/index.html
Kuro5hin: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/2/1/1964/63607
The Folks Who Won the Great Patriotic War
We're sure we'd find many who would debate us, but the fact is that the USSR did more than any other country to break Nazi Germany's control of Europe. A site called I Remember is dedicated to the memory of those in the Soviet Union who fought World War II, and it features some amazing content. You probably didn't know that the Red Army trained many girls to be snipers, and sent these girls to the front lines. Read the reminiscences of two of these girls, who provide different yet convergent perspectives on being trained to shoot, being sent to the front, facing the act of killing another human, and desensitization. Many other stories can be found here, as well, from tankers, pilots, infantry, and others. Stop by this site, and war comes to life.http://www.iremember.ru/index_e.htm
Most people have heard of the Rorschach test, but few have ever seen a real Rorschach inkblot. This is because the ten blots are top secret. Psychologists want to keep the blots a secret from the general public so that reactions to the blots will be spontaneous. The Rorschach test is, however, subject to controversy over its accuracy, and this Web site has no compunction about revealing the secret. It displays the blots, and tells you the supposedly correct/incorrect answers and the ensuing interpretations. An additional tip is that turning the cards during a test is not only fine but expected; not turning the card will lose you points in the initiative department. The site suggests that if you need to take a Rorschach test that you avoid being emotional or making irrelevant comments as the psychologist will interpret these as signs of brain damage. There's also a link to take the test online if the warnings do not deter you.
http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/rorschach.htm
A more or less recent MIT study (see NSD 9.02) confirms that as computers have proliferated, so has the cluelessness of computer users. Out of 158 used disk drives purchased for examination, a whopping 12 were actually properly sanitized. The others yielded many gigs of personal financial data, credit card numbers, medical records, and more. As a result of this revelation, the folks at Drive Slagging determined that the only reliable way to destroy your data is to destroy the platters that hold the data. They show you how to slag your drives - with pictures, even. We should probably mention that this process would likely diminish the resale value of your used disk over on eBay, and we had to disagree with their end-comment, where they claim that slagging is a foolproof method to prevent data recovery. Nothing is foolproof; there are just too many fools out there.
NSD 9.02: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v09/nsd.09.02.html#BS6
Drive Slagging: http://driveslag.eecue.com/articles/index.php?artid=1
The old Atari 2600 may not strike most of us as a target ripe for comedic exploitation, but don't tell that to the Van Gogh-Goghs, who put together this slapstick tribute to the venerable gaming console. The comedy is highlighted by a list of the Best Atari 2600 Games You Never Heard of, which features such lost gems as Ms. Paul's Fish Stick Hunter and Peabo Bryson's Cow Tipper, complete with screen shots. If that doesn't tickle your inner geek, maybe you'll get a chuckle out of Bad Career Moves of the Video Game Stars which gleefully informs us, amid other shocking revelations, that the right ping-pong paddle from the Atari classic, Pong, was addicted to heroine. Ahem. Q*Bert Erotic Fan Fiction, anyone? Like Atari's epochal creation, the stuff here also somehow manages to be entertaining.
http://www.vgg.com/2600/
Cooking for Losers - Uh, by Losers
The words on this site will sound incredibly familiar to some and will initiate others into the delights of loser cuisine. It's a blog for the culinarily inept, and - as you might expect - canned tuna, cheese, and noodles figure heavily in the recipes on offer. Occasionally something a little more adventurous is suggested, such as the grilled marinated asparagus, though the site wisely cautions against cooking this while high. After all, there is the delicious grilled cheese for stoners, whose last instruction is "giggle like a fool." Asparagus aside, most of the recipes err on the side of food-as-fast-fuel for the busy blogger who has better things to do with his or her precious time than cook, such as drink, get high, and surf the Net, for example. Are you a cooking loser? Submit your own culinary triumphs and become a guest loser.http://cookingloser.blogspot.com/
Everything You Need to Know about American Supermarkets
To say David Gwynn has an interest in grocery stores would be a massive understatement. The man has floorplans of 1958 Safeway stores on his site. That's past interest, and verges on obsession. His site, Did You Bring Bottles, focuses on the golden era of supermarkets from the 1920s to the 1970s. He admits to doing his investigation by personal preference, and, with the amount of detail he throws into each chain's history section, that's certainly understandable. For instance, did you know that Piggly Wiggly had the first implementation of the patent for the self-service market?http://www.groceteria.net/
The Anthropology Department at the California Academy of Sciences has developed an online version of their exhibit, the History of Eating Utensils. It focuses on the basics: how did humans adopt the use of some of the most popular items in a table setting? Forks apparently came into vogue for eating "sweet, sticky foods or for food (like mulberries) which was likely to stain the fingers." Makes you wonder why nobody's developed an eating utensil for Cheetos. Especially interesting is the section on portable cutlery, which highlights trends such as the popularity of folding utensils during the US Civil War. If you find yourself not sated with the items in the online exhibit, investigate the collection database for yet more eating oddities such as the sugar cracker or the wooden "cannibal" fork. Well, if salad forks are for eating salad and dessert forks are for eating dessert....
http://www.calacademy.org/research/anthropology/utensil/
If you've never seen HBO's "Mr. Show", the critically acclaimed mid '90s sketch comedy series from Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, you: a) are probably not alone; and b) should take our advice and check out the first two seasons on DVD immediately. It ranks right up there with Monty Python and the Kids in the Hall as one of the most inventive comedies of the last 50 years. If you still need some cajoling, however, you might want to visit Odenkirk and Cross's official site to get a taste of their bizarre genius, especially if your only exposure to them is as members of a barbershop quartet on "Newsradio". At the site, fans can keep up with the dynamic duo's stage appearances and various side projects, like the (apparently now defunct) "Mr. Show" inspired movie "Run Ronnie Run". You can also peruse regular written features from "Mr. Show" alumni and the boys themselves (see David Cross's out of this world essays in David's Cigar Corner) and, of course, buy assorted "Mr. Show" related goodies.
http://www.bobanddavid.com/
The Internet plays hosts to some truly bizarre obsessions. Something which begins innocently, such as this site, suddenly becomes larger than its creator. Site designer Jerome Turner began with a simple idea of an online photo gallery to show his friends his beloved dogs. Today, Turner's site receives thousands of hits per day, and is gaining popularity as is evident from the hundreds of photos Turner has received to date. The photos you'll view here aren't just your run-of-the-mill pictures of dogs. These are photos of dogs in cars. From golden retrievers to miniature schnauzers and minivans to Corvettes, you'll find a varying display of dogs in various styles of automobiles. Turner provides frequent updates on the progress of the site and includes informative features such as "RSPCA Safety for Dogs in Cars". While this site is still in its puppyhood, there are plenty of photos to view. Dogs in Cars is well designed, easy to navigate, and a great distraction from a hectic workday.
http://www.dogsincars.co.uk/
What's a phoon? Good question. You know it when you see it, though. It's a pose that resembles a runner frozen midstride, and it's a perfect pose to strike in memorable surroundings when someone has a camera to capture it. Phooners from all over the world have sent their phoon-shots to this site and the result is staggering. We're not sure whether it's a testament to the resourcefulness of mankind or to our complete idiocy. It's certainly some sort of testament to site creator John Darrow's ability to solicit photographs of people striking this odd pose. There are hundreds of photographs from six continents, including a phooning on the penguin-guano-covered Half Moon Island in Antarctica. He has convinced California Highway Patrol and mounted police officers to phoon for him, and has received pictures from phooning airmen from the 109th Tactical Airlift Wing in Greenland. Have a look, you may be tempted to send in a phoon-shot of your own.
http://www.phoons.com/
The Cool Guy Files tells you all you need to know about cool guys - who they are, what they do, and most crucially, how you can be more like them. All the types of cool guy are covered, from the Lifeguard Guy (who knows that if you are COOL, you RULE) to the Fabio Guy who doesn't have to work at being cool: the hair and tight jeans do it for him. The site has the cool guy sayings totally nailed, with a cool phrase for any occasion, and the Cool Guy Things page covers those essential must-have items for achieving coolness: sunglasses (obviously) and a cool set of wheels such as a Porsche 911 with $$$4ME license plate. There's no substitute for seeing cool guys in action, however, and there are some slammin' pictures here of guys laying down some serious cool. The site's creator goes anonymously too, which in itself is pretty danged cool.
http://coolguyfiles.mperalta.com/
Unless you were one of the popular kids back in school, or unless you were a bully yourself, chances are you had to suffer the ignominy of the occasional run-in with a schoolyard browbeater. It's an eternal problem, of course, but nowadays, instead of simply dropping their lunch money and running for their lives, kids can find ways to stand up to their abusers with the help of sites like this one, a UK-based charity organization devoted to helping them (and their parents) cope with all manner of physical and verbal maltreatment. Here you'll find tips for bullied students from site visitors (one pro-active guest recommends learning martial arts), legal advice, and suggestions for teachers and parents on how to deal with the problem. You can also e-mail with your bullying questions if you can't find answers on-site. If you or your child is being bullied, the wealth of information here should provide some much needed guidance on how to cope.
http://www.bullying.co.uk/
As any fan of "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" knows, raising a barn was a major community event in the early years of American agriculture. It should surprise nobody that those same barns are now a popular topic for Web sites. Brightly painted wooden barns everywhere are being restored and preserved along with the stories of the farmers who built and used them. One such site is the Barn Journal, where you can learn about the efficient design of round and octagonal barns, buy an antique barn for yourself, and find out why particular states paint their barns in special colors. You can also read personal stories of barn-raisings and of one woman's obsession with photographing barns that thrifty farmers allowed to be painted with early tobacco advertising slogans in exchange for a pouch of tobacco.
http://www.thebarnjournal.org/
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
Another Icy Nightmare for Orthopedic Surgeons
Need a new thrill? The American Ski-Bike Association has the answer. Think riding a little ski bike would make you look like a wuss? Wait till you approach the official world speed record of 114 mph. If you're into snow, this stuff might be way cool.http://www.ski-bike.org/
SOFTWARE
Mozilla 1.3.1 Released, 10 Years After Mosaic
The new Mozilla release comes on the eve the 10 year anniversarry of the release of Mosaic, the first full blown Web browser and ancestor of Mozilla - check out the historic Usenet posting by Marc Andreessen & Eric Bina. Probably the most important new feature of this release is the spam filtering technology based on Bayesian classification. You can now train your Mozilla mail client to automatically recognize spam with very impressive accuracy. Other features include automatic image resizing, the ability to switch profiles on the fly, newsgroup filters, and the usual lot of performance, security, bug fix and standards complience enhancements. If you're running Mozilla, this is the version you should be running.Mozilla Release Notes: http://www.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla1.3/
Mosaic Post: http://www.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q1/0262.html
An Animated Tour through the Linux Kernel
The Linux source code is a pretty complex collection of linked code files. Just how complex can be appreciated in these animated MPEG movies which provide virtual flights through the file structure. Beyond the high coolness factor, the movies beautifully illustrate the increase in complexity between Linux kernel versions 1.2.0 and 2.4.0. You'll need a high-bandwidth connection to download these files, which range in size from 4 MB to 12 MB. The Web site has some details about how the movies were created and links to the tools which were used.http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.brisset/kernel3d/kernel3d.html