BREAKING SURF
| Netsurfer Could Use Another Binary-Stained Wretch |
| Google Zeitgeist and Yahoo's Popular Searches 2003 |
| My So-Called Blog |
| Watching the Press Watchers |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| Hella-Cool Desktop Toys |
| The Paradigm of Deconstruction - Bull or Not? |
| Bar Trek |
| Worst Resume Ever |
| How Lego Is Made |
| Crafts Forums |
| Better Baking |
| Online Kingmaker |
| Dropping 4,000 Superballs at Once |
| Really Hard Racing Game |
| Mozilla 1.6 Released |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
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BREAKING SURF
Mars Rover Blog, and the Technology behind the Pictures
We just can't get enough of Martian mania. By now, you know all about NASA's official Mars Exploration Rover Mission Web site, but that's hardly the last word on the operations of the distant gadget. Frankly, sometimes those press releases get a bit tedious. If you're looking for fast, digestible, day-by-day coverage of the mission, let us point you to the unofficial Mars Rover Mission Blog. It's run by James Roberts, an Australian who can teach the folks at NASA something about minute-by-minute online coverage of a mission in classically readable weblog fashion. We can't be too hard on NASA, since its site is packed with material and we suspect the folks there are way too busy to spew out blogs by the minute. As long as we're talking about the rovers, Space.com has a great article which explains the hardware and software behind the rover cameras.NASA: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html
Mars Rover Mission Blog: http://www.jamesr.net/mars/
Space.com: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/pancam_techwed_040114.html
New T-Shirt-Worthy Map of the Universe
Princeton researchers have produced a map of the entire observable universe, unique in the way that it uses scale to map real scientific data. Technically, the map is a conformal projection of the universe based on the logarithm map of the complex plane. That sounds complicated, but one look at it and you'll get the idea immediately. The map is a long strip, with the center of the Earth at one end and the Big Bang at the other. Everything between is pictured on a logarithmic scale of space-time, so that about half the map contains the Solar System and the rest shows our galaxy, local clusters, great walls of galaxies and so on in distance and time to the Big Bang. This map takes advantage of diverse sources of scientific data, stuff like the positions of artificial satellites, positions of asteroid and Kuiper belt objects, the location of Voyager spacecraft, positions of nearby stars, and recent data on the distribution of galaxies all the way out to the observable horizon. The effort to produce the map was surprisingly technical, as evidenced by the equation-heavy scientific paper that details the data and how they were manipulated. Yes, you will be able to get the map on a T-shirt soon.Map: http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~mjuric/universe/
Paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0310571
Bounding the Global War on Terrorism
That's the title of a controversial new paper published by the US Army's Strategic Studies Institute. The controversy centers on criticism of the current war on terrorism. The author, Jeffrey Record, opines that the war on terrorism "lacks strategic clarity, embraces unrealistic objectives, and may not be sustainable over the long haul." A prominent disclaimer on the paper informs that the paper does not reflect the official policy or position of the US military. Nevertheless, the fact that it was published in a prominent military journal is notable and probably reflects a certain contrarian point of view within the carefully non-political US military establishment. The paper is certainly a challenge to the military component of current US geopolitical strategy, and explicitly means to promote "the national security debate over the aims and course of the war on terrorism." Worth reading.http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/2003/bounding/bounding.htm
"There is some bit of wisdom, some rule of nature, some law-like pattern, either grand or small, that you've noticed in the universe that might as well be named after you." What would it be? The question was posed on the Edge Foundation Web site, and a many of what may be called the modern intelligentsia were asked to supply the answer. The site gathered answers from people as diverse as Bruce Sterling, Michael Nesmith (did you know his mom invented Liquid Paper?), and a handful of Dysons - the list goes on and on, with 164 entries in all. Entertaining? You bet. Thought provoking? Sometimes, but just as often rather goofy and fun - consider Taylor's Law: There are no laws of human behavior. (And since nobody asked us, here is Arthur's Law of Pockets: "Whatever you want to extract from your pants pocket will always be at the bottom." Corrollary: "You are wearing tight jeans at the time.")
http://www.edge.org/q2004/q04_print.html
In Politics, a Few Sites Dominate
In June, the FCC relaxed media ownership rules that had been in effect since the 1940s, arguing that digital media and especially the Internet provide assured access to a wide range of political viewpoints and information. Research into information access in the fields of physics and information science, however, had by the time of that decision already shown that a few sites dominate the information space in terms of use. Researchers at Princeton have now shown that the same holds true for political sites, exposing a flaw in the FCC's reasoning. Because widespread access to information of all stripes is perceived to be an essential foundation for a robust democracy, the FCC's decision and the truth about information diversity matter a great deal. The Princeton team used Yahoo and Google to demonstrate the huge gulf between an ability to find something - retrievability - and visibility. Just because you can find a site doesn't mean you will visit it. In practice, heavily linked-to sites appear higher in search results, leading users to congregate at a few intensely popular sites as they largely ignore others. There is, it seems, only so much attention to go around. The Princeton researchers used an innovative technique that avoids the drawbacks of sampling. The details are absorbing and the results worrying, at least if you're any kind of Internet idealist. There's also a new word to master, Googlearchy, which describes the phenomenon.http://www.princeton.edu/~mhindman/googlearchy--hindman.pdf
Nearly Half of Kazaa Files Infected with Malicious Code
With the ongoing popularity of file-sharing, it stands to reason that the activity would attract a degree of attention from those persons with whom you'd rather not associate. Still, it's a shock to discover, as Bruce Hughes did recently, that 45% of executable files available through Kazaa are contaminated with viruses or Trojan horses. Other research shows that the specific viruses that circulate in Kazaa files increased in number from nine to 21 last year. Hughes, who's director of research at the security firm TruSecure, points out that only executable files are a problem so far; music, image, and movie files are still safe, but Hughes worries that it's only a matter of time before someone finds a way to infect those downloads also. In the meantime, the discovery makes it all the more important to keep virus definitions current and to exercise care in using file-sharing programs. Wired has the details.http://wired.com/news/business/0,1367,61852,00.html
Download Music at Ten Cents a Pop, for Now
MusicRebellion is under the radar in the world of selling music downloads, but it is trying out a new sales model that's worth attention. The site sells music with a floating price point. For a short time, the company has a promotion: it is offering songs for an initial price of a low ten cents a pop. As demand for a song rises, however, so does the price MusicRebellion charges for it. While the idea of demand-based pricing has been kicked around forever, MusicRebellion appears to be one of the first companies ballsy enough to try it. MusicRebellion still has to pony up the royalty fees for the labels, so when the money it has set aside to help it weather the ten-cent thrillride runs out, it will raise prices to its standard basement price of 50 cents per tune. For now, you can get cool tracks legally and cheap - and the faster you are, the less you'll have to pay. CNET has more.MusicRebellion: http://www.musicrebellion.com/
CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5137790.html
Bloggers Help Iranian Move from Jail to the Netherlands
A young Iranian journalist/blogger is crediting the blogosphere with getting him out of jail after a three-week stay. Following his recent move from Iran to the Netherlands, Sina Motallebi spoke with Online Journalism Review (OJR) about his experience. Interestingly, the top three languages that bloggers use are English, French, and Persian - at least according to Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. It appears as though pressure from bloggers translated into more conventional media attention, which pressured Iran into deciding that its best move was to get the guy out of jail and out of the country. OJR supplies a great look at the Internet as a unifying tool, and the kinds of results that can be achieved in some cases.http://www.ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1073610866.php
It's not exactly easy being a heavy metal musician in Iran, the Christian Science Monitor tells us. Rock guitarist Nurick Misikian knows well just how hard it is. For over two decades, he's played his green-blue Fender exclusively in his studio and at private parties. Now, at last, he's hoping to give his first public performance with his new band, Shanti. Although Iran's Islamic authorities have relaxed somewhat the rules governing the playing of music, the only sure way to avoid trouble with public performances is to toe the conservative line. That's the approach taken by Seyyed Alireza Assar, who leads a popular band. Assar sticks closely to patriotic and religious themes and thus manages to pass muster with Hizbollahi, an Islamic organization that enforces public morality. From Iran also comes an intriguing online musical popularity contest called the TehranAvenue Music Open. It offers 42 tracks at the Web site. To vote, you must download at least five tracks. The site will announce the three most popular selections and present comments by professionals on all selections. The music is gutsy, most of it rock or metal with some rap and reggae.
Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1001/p01s04-wome.html
TehranAvenue Music Open: http://www.tehran360.com/tamo/
Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the former Iraqi information minister who gained cult status and the "Comical Ali" nickname for the outrageous statements he made as American forces converged on Baghdad, has secured a job on television. Wish as we may, he won't be starring with bespectacled former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz in a show about nothing called "al-Sahaf". No, sadly, al-Sahaf will have to rein in his comedic talents in his appearances on Abu Dhabi TV as an expert news commentator on Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Alas....
http://media.guardian.co.uk/marketingandpr/story/0,7494,1122088,00.html
As the bumper sticker says, one nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day. In a powerful and well documented article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS), Lynn Eden argues that the US government has consistently understated the damage created by a nuclear attack. Her main point is that the government has almost always understated the role of fire in destruction as it has concentrated on blast damage almost entirely. As the world learned in World War II, a fire storm is an incredibly effective means of destruction. Curtis LeMay, who led the US fire-bombing campaign against Japan, as the first commander of Strategic Air Command had a fire marshal on his advisory staff. He realized after Hiroshima and Nagasaki that atomic and more advanced weaponry would create vast firestorms dwarfing those seen spawned by explosives at Dresden and Tokyo. Eden's article is taken from her new book "Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation", which explores this topic in fascinating detail. On a related note, you can read a thoughtful Slashdot discussion of the 1979 Progressive magazine case in which the US government fought to prevent the publication of an article on how to construct a hydrogen bomb. Twenty-five years later, it's easy to find that article, and almost certainly others like it, online.
BAS: http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2004/jf04/jf04eden.html
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/21/187249
Whole World on Fire: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0801435781/netsurferdigest
Photoshop and Other Software Try to Forestall Counterfeiters
So, you got a great scanner and printer for Christmas? And a copy of Photoshop? You might have decided to stick a $20 bill into the scanner and see what you could do. After all, everyone could use some extra cash. But you couldn't open up the scanned image of the $20 with Photoshop or print it with your new printer. CNET reports on how software and hardware firms have quietly negotiated with a set of national banks to make it difficult to use their products to produce counterfeit currency. If earlier versions of Photoshop allowed everyone to become a potential counterfeiter, the latest upgrade tries to make certain that there won't be any casual criminality. Maybe it would be better to put all that new computer power to use for good rather than criminal ends. It's a great example of Larry Lessig's argument that code is law. Sort of. Wired reports on how easy it is to circumvent these built-in safeguards.CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1012-5138816.html
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,61890,00.html
ADMINISTRIVIA
Netsurfer Could Use Another Binary-Stained Wretch
NSD could use a writer or two. Too many of our staff are off frittering away their valuable working time on babies, vacations, and a variety of mental disorders. We'll need you to write a half-dozen or so entertaining yet information-packed reviews each week or two. Yes, we do pay. No, it won't pay for your therapy - but it might earn you enough for a plane ticket or two each year. If you're interested, send a plain-text resume, outlining your previous writing or journalism experience if any (no, it's not required), to mailto:writers@netsurf.com and don't call us, we'll call you. We'll sort through the hordes of submissions and let you know what the next step is in a couple of weeks or so.ONLINE CULTURE
Google Zeitgeist and Yahoo's Popular Searches 2003
Each year, Google analyses the most popular search terms entered in its search sites worldwide. The results allow us to glimpse the international cultural trends of the year. Despite stories such as the SARS outbreak, the loss of Columbia crash, and the invasion of Iraq, the top four Google queries all came from the world of entertainment, with "Britney Spears" leading the pack - and she hasn't even done any nude pics, yet. The top news search was "Iraq", in sixth place, and the top sports search was "David Beckham" - assuming he belongs to the sports camp rather than the celebrity camp. Other details may be more revealing. The most popular food-related search term in Japan for 2003 was "McDonald's", which may indicate that sushi is on the way out. There must be a sizable population of li'l Brits online as Winnie the Pooh is the third most popular query at the UK Google. Yahoo offers similar stats from its records. You can find the top five ways to incorrectly spell Arnold Schwarzenegger's surname and read the top ten rumor searches - yes, "Harry Potter" wins over "Joe Millionaire" and "Prince Charles".Google: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html
Yahoo: http://search.yahoo.com/top2003
The title of this article is a reference to "My So-Called Life", the mid-1990s TV show that dealt with the angst of being a teenager. The New York Times borrowed the show's title for its own lengthy feature all about the contemporary blog life of teenagers. If you've followed the evolution of the weblog phenomenon, you kind of know what to expect. Emily Nussbaum writes about all the usual phenomena of blogging: the endless posts about trivial matters; the obsessive linking; the cliques; the confessions. Except in this case, it's all overlain with the angst of being a teenager - which, come to think of it, is much like the angst of being a serious blogger. We're not here to make fun of the article, but to praise it. This is a fine snapshot of the surprisingly large role blogging plays in the lives of modern wired teenagers. The real-life cliques of friends and all their myriad teenage interactions have been transplanted lock, stock, and barrel into the online world. Except now, it's all mostly out in public where everyone can see it, for better or for worse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/magazine/11BLOG.html
About 2,000 years ago, give or take, Juvenal wrote down the eternally applicable question "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Who will guard the guards?) These days, the blogger community has taken it upon itself to watch the watchers. A group of bloggers has undertaken to follow coverage of the American election campaign. Each participating blogger adopts a journalist who is covering the 2004 Presidential election. Said blogger collects and follows his designated journalist's entire output and then... - well, therein hangs the tale. The suggestion for bloggers to track individual reporters cropped up in the waning days of 2003 and immediately set off a vigorous cross-blog discussion about what exactly can be done with that kind of data. Suggestions include everything from having bloggers providing "context" to a reporter's reporting, to outright rating them on the veracity of their reports. The whole thing led to a crop of new blogs dedicated to following specific reporters. PressThink has put together a thread on the subject, of great interest to fans of political coverage everywhere.
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2004/01/10/reporter_adopt.html
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Sojourner: An Insider's View of the Mars Pathfinder Mission
Playboy Book of Science Fiction
Surviving the Extremes: A Doctor's Journey to the Limits of Human Endurance
Postfix: The Definitive GuideSURFING SITES
Media Lab Europe (MLE) has invented Desktop Subversibles for your computer. The tools are free to install and will run on several flavors of Mac OS and Windows. Desktop Subversibles records and assesses your daily computer activity and then creates something from it. The ClipIt tool is a networked application that allows other users to see the contents of your clipboard. (You may want to consider the security risk involved before running that one....) MouseMiles is way cool. It records the mileage your mouse has traveled on your monitor, then forwards that distance to a central server. The distance recorded by your MouseMiles and every other copy of MouseMiles is converted in real time to move a model train around a track. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way you can watch it move online. Another toy, MouseTraces, draws a line graph of your mouse's movement on another person's desktop, and vice versa. The Clicks app totals your and all Clicks users' mouse clicks, but each user is also assigned a unique tone which is played in the MLE offices as an indicator of computer activity on a global scale.http://www.coin-operated.com/ds/
The Paradigm of Deconstruction - Bull or Not?
Alas, the two cultures are still with us. In 1959, C.P. Snow's "The Two Cultures" lecture analyzed the demarcation between those who know the second law of thermodynamics and those who do not. Today, a cultural gulf still exists between the two. Perhaps to compensate, non-science researchers sometimes speak in a dense jargon that is easily parodied. "How to Deconstruct Almost Anything" is one engineer's encounter with postmodern literary theory of the 1990s. Unlike Alan Sokal and his Social Text parody, this author, Chip Morningstar, wants to find out if there really is anything behind the deconstruction of texts. He concludes that deconstruction is a definite, refined process that you can use to analyze texts. The value of the approach he is less certain about. Just because he gets a result, Morningstar postulates, doesn't mean that the result is worth anything. What might be a nice thesis has turned into an entire field of study, and the jargon that has grown out of it has built an isolating wall between the academicians and reality. The Two Cultures site has some reviews of Snow's work.Sokal: http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/
How to Deconstruct Almost Anything: http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/people/PVR/decon.html
Two Cultures: http://academics.vmi.edu/gen_ed/Two_Cultures.html
What's your local bar like? Do you have to pick your way through vomit and used hypodermics to get to a toilet that you'd rather piss next to than in? Is that drunk, face-down on the bar and immobile for the last hour, actually dead rather than passed out? If so, then you might want to nominate your hangout for SleazyBars.com. There are currently over 100 entries on some of the sleaziest bars from all around the world, each with a rating and a colorful description. As the site points out, sleazy bars are usually rough, but not necessarily violent, and the welcome you get in them can often be as warm as the watered-down beer you're served. Best of all, these bars are generally great for people-watching, and the site certainly provides a piquant slice of life. Our reporter, himself no stranger to some of the worst dives around, found it hard to pick a favorite bar here, but rather liked the sound of the Modern Green Bar in Nairobi, whose doors have been open 24/7 to drunks and hookers without a break since 1968.
http://www.sleazybars.com/
This resume was apparently handed in during the summer of 1992 as a job application for a bar. The recipient has posted it online as he simply cannot believe that anybody would hire the author of this ten-page masterpiece of paranoia. This could provide a perfect baseline for any employer thinking that they have just received the worst resume in the history of mankind. In fact, it should be framed in every human resources office in the land. Even the resume's first page is a classic as the reason for leaving previous position is "unlawful interference by the FBI", yet the further you read, the more bizarre the story becomes. The jobseeker even drops the pretense of seeking a job and delves into hand-writing his accusations and paranoid fantasies. This man truly believes every conspiracy theory on the planet and has even invented a few of his own. Perhaps he should've tried to get a job as a conspiracy thriller-writer?
http://www.drunkbastard.net/resume.htm
The usual question for Lego-lovers is "what can you make with Lego?" but this site, the Making of a Brick, answers the question "how is Lego made?" with an excellent online presentation. Each facet of the operation has its own page with mouseover maps that prompt short video clips. Some sections can be a little slow to load without broadband but the Sims-style interface combined with the videos of the process should prove educational to any Lego fanatic. Did you know that they heat the plastic to 232 Celcius/450 Fahrenheit or that in keeping with the Lego way of life, robot trucks are used to transport the bricks around the factory? With facts like that and the inspiration of this site it is only a matter of time before an enterprising fan decides to create the Lego factory itself from bricks.
http://www.popandco.com/archive/moab/
Do you or someone you know pine over discarded junk, bold fabrics, one-inch buttons, or hot glue? Can you look at a pile of bottle caps and see refrigerator magnets? If you're passionate about crafts or do-it-yourself projects, this online forum will inspire, motivate, and engage you. Members of the Craftster.org forums post their crafty projects and in turn fellow crafters are invited to comment on the undertaking, as well as add their own suggestions and experience in working with similar projects. The several forums each focus on a particular genre: clothing; trinkets; knitting and needlework, etc. You can even review projects by location, so that you may meet other like-minded craft enthusiasts in your area. Whether you consider yourself an expert craftsperson or a novice, this online portal will present you with many great craft ideas that will surely keep you busy throughout the entire year.
http://www.craftster.org/
Visit BetterBaking.com to tantalize your taste buds with tried-and-true baking recipes created and gathered by professional baker and writer Marcy Goldman. This online magazine showcases new recipes each month, along with helpful advice and tips. Guests to the site will discover a handful of free recipes to try out, but if you're looking for a specific recipe, you'll need to register to gain access to the site archives. A yearly subscription will cost you $35, but you can also subscribe for a month for only $5. While you have to pay for complete access, visitors will be pleased at the wealth of free information available here. Some of the free recipes for the month of January include Omega Bran Muffins, Blueberry Baby Cakes, and Vermont Cheddar Cheese Bread. In addition you can access the Free BB Classics such as Classic Pizza Dough and French Country Bread.
http://www.betterbaking.com/
Once upon a time, there was a wargame published by that motherlode of wargames, Avalon Hill. The game was called Kingmaker. Instead of moving informational counters in a hexagonally gridded battlefield executing keen tactics, Kingmaker players move heraldic counters through the uniquely divided English (and Welsh, and Cornish, and even a bit of French) countryside, avoiding plague and executing royal heirs. Kingmaker follows the War of the Roses and simulates the 15th-century bloodthirstiness and political intrigue so well, the game has become a benchmark in wargamer nerd history. In 1993, Avalon Hill released a computerized version of the game, but it came out too early - it is a MS-DOS game and its limitations tell, although the actual gameplay translates well. Kingmaker has always capably handled play-by-mail campaigns, and in a similar vein Alistair Alderson has built an online interface to host games. You will want your own copy of the game once his Online Kingmaker leaves the current testing phase, but this is one worth keeping an eye on. Dozens of potential kingmakers have already signed up.
http://www.onlinekingmaker.co.uk/
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
Dropping 4,000 Superballs at Once
Ever have a hankering to drop, oh, say, a few thousand Superballs a couple of stories down the middle of a building? The members of the Gravity and Chaos Club at Western Washington University (motto: "Using gravity to create chaos since 2003") did. Best of all, when they carried out the fantasy, they filmed it.http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~chaos/
One or two players can compete in Rural Racer, a devilishly hard Shockwave racing game that brings back memories of racing on ice on the Atari 2600 system. Supposedly, winning the first eight-lap race sends you to the next level, but we're too spazzy to get past even the first race.
http://www.miniclip.com/ruralracer.htm
SOFTWARE
Everybody's favorite alternative browser has just had a point release. This time, most of the new features are in the mail client, including frequently requested separate Recipient and Sender columns in the mail-thread pane. The other notable new feature is the addition of Ask Jeeves searching. Several other mail-related user-interface and functionality tweaks have been released, along with the usual bunch of bug fixes. As usual, the release notes have the scoop.Release Notes: http://www.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla1.6/
Download: http://www.mozilla.org/download.html