More Signal, Less Noise
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
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NETSURFER DIGEST
More Signal, Less Noise |
Volume 11, Issue 17 Tuesday, May 03, 2005
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NETSURFER LINKS
 BREAKING SURF
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BREAKING SURF Apple has formally released the new version of its OS X operating system. The standout new feature for users is the Spotlight search technology, which brings Google-like search capability to your Mac's hard drives and may forever change how you manage information on your machine. Apple is also promoting the new Dashboard widgets, which are small applications you can easily create or use (Apple has about 50 available for download), and Automator, which lets you script virtually any OS X application. The new operating system has many changes of interest to developers, including a new graphics foundation and enhanced software-development tools and compiler. Apple's OS X Tiger page has a list of the 200-plus changes in this revision. Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and David Pogue of the New York Times have written columns about Tiger. John Siracusa at Ars Technica has a detailed and technical look under the hood, but focuses far too much on his pet topic of metadata technology - not casual reading.Apple: http://www.apple.com/macosx/ Dashboard Widgets: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/dashboard/ WSJ: http://ptech.wsj.com/ptech.html Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/28/technology/circuits/28pogue.html Ars Technica Review: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars Every online discussion involving Apple will eventually devolve into an argument about whether Macs are more expensive than Windows boxes (we shall henceforth call this "Arthur's Macintosh Maxim"). After the reading a couple of these debates, these discussions grow tedious in the extreme. While we can't say that Leland Scott's is the definitive treatment of the subject - and neither would Scott, we suspect - it is probably the most in-depth article and subsequent discussion about whether modern Macs are in fact more expensive than the alternative. Scott uses Dell as his PC pricing foil, and points out that the company's creative and constantly variable pricing makes such comparisons difficult. This is the key to this kind of Mac versus Windows price debate. The only time you can really compare prices fairly is for like commodities. Not only are Macs and Windows machines seldom directly comparable in computing terms, they are entirely not compatible in terms of perceived value for any given user. Which is exactly why Dell can get away with its constantly variable pricing and why these kinds of arguments are ultimately pointless. http://www.classic45s.com/blog/2005/04/of-course-macs-are-more-expensive_24.html Report on Iraq Slaying of Italian Agent Trivially Declassified The Pentagon last week released its report on the death in Iraq of Italian agent Nicola Calipari. He had rescued kidnapped Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, and their car was approaching a roadblock when US troops shot at it. The incident became a cause celebre in Italy and the object of much speculation that this was in some way a targeted killing. The Pentagon classified sections of the report with blacked out words, but whoever put the thing together wasn't aware that you can easily remove this kind of censorship in PDF files by simply copying and pasting the text. The entire unclassified report is now available on the Web from Corriere della Sera, an Italian news site. The Microsoft Word document provides insight into both the tragic incident and US military procedures for investigating things like this. The BBC has details on the document "hack" while Wikipedia covers the circumstances of the shooting.Corriere della Sera: http://www.corriere.it/Media/Documenti/Unclassified.doc BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4504589.stm Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicola_Calipari Charles Duelfer, head of the CIA's Iraq Survey Group which undertook to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, has completed the assessment with the publication of "Addendums (sic) to the Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD". These 92 pages conclude the 1,500-page report, most of which was published last autumn. You can choose to peruse the content, old and new, via PDF or HTML. While no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) have been found in Iraq, one conclusion the addenda draw is that "Saddam's programs created a pool of experts now available to develop and produce weapons and many will be seeking work." MSNBC features a short look at the subject. "Comprehensive Report": http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/ MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7634313/ Wired kicks off an in-depth look at George Lucas and his work with an interview that focuses on some of the factors that influenced his journey to "Star Wars". Where does Lucas go from here, with six Star Wars films in the can? He seems to lean toward indie films, as Lucas notes he's earned the freedom to make excellent films that nobody wants to see. The other two articles in Wired's trilogy are a Flash timeline that maps how Star Wars changed the world and a look at how Lucas is folding his stealthy Skywalker Ranch effects factory into a new $350-million center at the Presidio in San Francisco. The new Letterman Digital Arts Center (named after the hospital on site, not the talk-show host) center will feature a 350-seat theater to screen digital files at 2,048-pixel resolution, a data center to house 14,000 processors, and much more. It will unite the effects wizards of Industrial Light & Magic, LucasArts gaming, and Lucasfilm movie production on one campus. The Star Wars timeline is pretty, but it takes forever to load, and it's not as illuminating as you might hope. http://wired.com/wired/archive/13.05/ Stewart Brand's Environmental Heresies Stewart Brand, of "Whole Earth Catalog" fame, is challenging environmentalists to change their attitudes to four bastions of environmental orthodoxy: population growth; urbanization; genetic modification (GM); and nuclear energy. It wouldn't be the first time that today's heresy became tomorrow's mainstream idea, he points out in Technology Review, and cites how conventional wisdom has reversed over wild fires. He sees two often opposing influences driving environmentalism: science and romanticism. The more numerous romantics are motivated by love of nature and antagonism toward big business. In contrast, scientists seek to understand nature and can act as viruses that infect environmentalist causes with new ideas. New evidence of a rapidly leveling global population growth curve and increasing urbanization suggest to Brand that attitudes must change. He urges a similar transformation regarding GM food and nuclear power. He syas the knee-jerk reaction against GM organisms is unjustified scientifically and ignores the major good it can bring. He sees nuclear power as a godsend in the face of climate change. His provocative demands make a tall order, and he'll be taken to task by many environmentalists. Still, the facts seem to be on his side. Slashdot has a vigorous discussion thread.Technology Review: http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/05/issue/feature_earth.asp Slashdot: http://science.slashdot.org/science/05/04/25/1158205.shtml How do you attract the attention of time travelers? Well, you could cause a world-shattering event sure to draw the attention of potential future (and past?) time travelers. It's the obvious idea, but it has certain logistical difficulties. The next best idea is to host a convention of time travelers. Think about it - there really only has to be one such gathering in all of history and the future. Theoretically, attendees could visit as many times as they wanted, barring unforeseen time-machine problems and causality violations, of course. The hard part is making sure all time travelers know about it. If time travelers exist, and they've gotten word, they'd show up at the convention (possibly many times), right? So thought MIT student Amal Dorai, who has organized the Time Travel Convention, which will take place May 7, 2005, 10:00 pm EDT (08 May 2005 02:00:00 UTC) in MIT's East Campus Courtyard, coordinates 42:21:36.025 N, 71:05:16.332 W. Dorai encourages you to spread the word forward through time by any means necessary. http://web.mit.edu/adorai/timetraveler/ In an intriguing interview, psychologist John Gottman talks about the mathematics of relationships. He and Bob Levenson discovered in a eureka moment that they could accurately predict the progress of a relationship by observing a couple's behavior and briefly interviewing them. More recently, Gottman has worked with mathematician James Murray to quantify this observational approach to relationships. Gottman focuses not on individuals but on what happens between them - the dynamic interface a couple creates as they interact. He aims to first understand the process, then to use that knowledge to predict long-term outcomes and to intervene, if desirable. He currently faces two main problems. One is violence between couples, why it happens and what, if anything, can be done. The second is a baby. Studies show that most parents suffer a dramatic drop in relationship satisfaction in the years after having a child. Gottman claims that this can be changed by intervention that could create healthier emotional environments for babies. His enthusiasm for the utility of the knowledge he's developed is infectious. And after all, who couldn't use a little help in a relationship from time to time? http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gottman05/gottman05_index.html National Academies' Guidelines for Embryonic Stem-Cell Research Before 9/11, the most important issue facing President George W. Bush was whether the US government should fund research using human embryonic stem cells. Bush determined that the US would only support research using existing stem-cell lines; scientists who used new embryos to create stem cells for research would forfeit all federal funding. Yet while the US government might not fund such work, private corporations and university researchers are still engaging in such work with private funding. What rules should they follow? What research should they avoid? The National Academies (NA) - Uncle Sam's advisors on science, medicine, and engineering - decided to create guidelines for embryonic stem-cell research since the government won't. The NA decided, for example, that researchers should not attempt to create human minds in animal bodies, nor should they do any research with primates for the foreseeable future. What's amazing about this report is how what was once fiction is within the range of the possible. Science fiction will turn out to be the most successful oracle of all. The NA has a press release and the National Academies Press (NAP) has the HTML report. The New York Times has more.NA: http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309096537?OpenDocument NAP: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309096537/html/ Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/27/health/27stem.html Firefox at 50 Million, Prizes, and Cultlike Devotion As the Firefox download counter approached the 50 million mark, the SpreadFirefox team asked users to do something cool and unusual to evangelize the browser to the world. The sweetener was the team's offer of an unspecified unique gift. Now that the counter has passed the milestone, SpreadFirefox has revealed the gift to be 50 limited-edition commemorative coins. The team hasn't awarded all of the coins yet, so you still have a chance to get that Firefox tattoo - though you won't be original with that. Another special prize awaits the person who had the 50 millionth download, but at press time the winner was not yet announced. You can read user-submitted stories and see some of the unusual items they created to spread Firefox cult on the SpreadFirefox site.http://www.spreadfirefox.com/fifty.html Guild Wars, released this week, is a massively multiplayer online game. It features the typical swords-and-sorcery theme, but Guild Wars is not your typical online game - in fact, it may just revolutionize how such games are designed, run, and sold. Most similar online games, like World of Warcraft or Everquest, charge a fixed monthly fee. There is no monthly fee for Guild Wars. The game plans to pull in revenue by charging for regular expansion packs that will grow the game world and advance the storyline. Guild Wars also addresses the social problems that plague such games - for example, advanced players who harass newcomers. The game controls that sort of intimidation with a technical solution: once a group of players embarks on a quest, that group is isolated from other players in the game world. The developers of the game have years of experience designing successful games, and in Guild Wars they have put together what is easily the most advanced and well planned multiplayer experience to date. IGN has an older article which explains how they do it. Guild Wars: http://www.guildwars.com/ IGN: http://pc.ign.com/articles/534/534454p1.html Larry Page's University of Michigan Speech Google co-founder Larry Page recently gave a graduation speech to the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. Computer science graduate Adam Herscher did the geeky thing and recorded Page's whole speech with his Windows Mobile phone. The audio quality of the resulting MP3s is not that great, but they are perfectly understandable. Page talks about dropping out of Stanford to start Google, space travel, and venture capital. By the time you visit, a text transcript of his speech may be available.http://adamjh.blogspot.com/2005/05/graduation.html A Fine Look at the Google Print Library Project Google Print's digital-library initiative inspires awe. To digitize the contents of five research libraries and make it available online - what's not to like? The initiative is the subject of this thoughtful Technology Review article on the Google Print Library Project's present and future. Putting books online won't make library visits a thing of the past, but it will change how we use libraries and how we value knowledge in monetary and cultural terms.http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/05/issue/feature_library.asp Snail-Based Data Transfer Beats Broadband Following the successful demonstration in Norway of high-speed data transfer by pigeons, Israeli experimenters at an Internet camp set out to beat the speed of avian bandwidth with a giant snail of all things. Who'd have thought? After all, "snail's pace" and "snail mail" are derogatory phrases, not testimonials to blinding speed. However, the SNAP (SNAil based data transfer Protocol) set-up achieved data transfers of 37,000 kbps, which beats that cable or DSL modem by a country mile. Telling you how it was done would spoil the fun, but one look at the picture of the giant snail harnessed to its "Ben Hur"-style chariot will give the game away. The ingenious experiment and hilarious write-up, complete with snail laws derived from the work, form an amusing testimony to the fun side of science. The link below goes to a blog with the announcement; you can read of the actual experiment on a PDF linked there.http://www.notes.co.il/benbasat/10991.asp Movie studios have been releasing trailers for this summer's blockbusters at a furious rate, and rather than trickle them out to you piecemeal we figured we should just point you at some canonical online collection. Probably the easiest collection to use is hosted by Apple, which allows you to view them on the Web or in iTunes. Right now you can see trailers for "Batman Begins", "Fantastic Four", "Serenity", "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride", and, yes, "Herbie, Fully Loaded". This last one has us shaking our head in sadness, since the original "Herbie the Love Bug" was a surprisingly dark and atmospheric movie. No, really. http://www.apple.com/trailers/ Video Hubs May Be Next Big Thing Have some great footage you want to share with the world? Online hubs for video are increasing in number online and might do for home video what peer-to-peer file sharing has done for music. The Online Journalism Review (OJR) has a superb introduction to the topic that includes a comparison of the various sites available and their policies towards what's acceptable content. The Open Media Network (OMN) has a press release about their attempt to make a non-profit video clearinghouse. Mike Homer, of Netscape fame, is OMN's founder and his site is going to have digital-rights management built in. OMN is in beta, but worth a look.ORJ: http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050426glaser/ OMN: http://www.omn.org/index.htm OMN press release: http://www.omn.org/press/ Bureau of Justice Statistics Releases 2004 Prison Stats As of mid-year 2004, US prisons and jails held over 2.1 million prisoners. The jails and prisons contained 123 female inmates per 100,000 women, compared to 1,348 male inmates per 100,000 men. A total of 2,477 state prisoners were less than 18 years old. Blacks were twice as likely as Hispanics and five times as likely as whites to be in jail. These and many other fascinating insights await you inside "Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004", the latest thriller from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics.http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/pjim04.htm ONLINE CULTURE If the leak of Paris Hilton's phonecam pictures whetted your appetite for pictures of people you don't know, this photo-grabbing site could be just your ticket. The site displays photos randomly snatched from LiveJournal blogs. The pictures range in nature from mundane to adult, but there's something addictive to this, and you are likely to find yourself hitting the reload or refresh key again and again. The link below is a mirror to the original LJImages page, which is permanently down, although if you want to do this yourself on your own Web pages, the source code is freely available.Mirror: http://mirror.routed.net/SA/lj.php Source code: http://adcott.net/ljimages/src.html ONLINE TRAVEL One of the aims of the Soviet Union's various five-year plans for the economy was to reconstruct Moscow, the capital of world communism, with a series of massive structures that would embody communism's utopian ideology. This English-language site from Russia illustrates the most outstanding examples of the "socialist-realism" school of architecture that would supply the monuments. The plans, fortunately, were never finished, although they were begun. Look, for example, at the hideous but never-completed Palace of Soviets and its 100-meter high statue of Lenin, constructed on the site of the demolished Church of Christ the Savior, which today is being rebuilt. The descriptions that accompany the graphics are peppered with phrases like "oppressive grandeur" and "buoyant pomposity", and modern Moscovites can be thankful that these monstrosities exist only in plans, online, or in books. These constructions would have meant the loss of much of the historical heritage of the city. The site is a worthy lesson to architects and city planners on the dangers of putting ideology above aesthetics.http://www.muar.ru/ve/2003/moscow/01e.htm Yugoslavia's Strange Love Affair with Mexico At the end of the 1940s, Yugoslavia's relationship with the Soviet Union was so strained that it nearly erupted into outright hostilities. Yugoslavians turned their backs on Soviet movies and music and looked elsewhere for entertainment. They found it in the most unlikely of sources. Mexican movies, with their revolutionary themes and ideals, fired the Slavic imagination, and before long Yugoslavians were donning sombreros and forming mariachi bands, which they called "Meksikanski ansambl". Don't believe us? The Yu-Mex site has scans of dozens of old record covers and even some (poor-quality) MP3 files of the bizarre Yu-Mex music. The lyrics of these songs were something else: - "Carbine you old gun, tell about your glorious days, all heroes remember you, many of them carrying the wound you gave them. If somebody wanted my hot blood, I would shed it gladly!" Ole!http://friends.s5.net/mazzini/ovitki/default.html This is an idea as cool as it is simple and well implemented. You control a set of exposures taken over the course of one day in one of five Italian locations. Tarry at a time and place, or move on as you wish. With only five locations available and relatively few shots per hour, the site leaves you salivating for more. http://www.theircircularlife.it/# ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT As part of their animation curriculum, students at the Digital Animation and Visual Effects (DAVE) School spend three months creating a short animated film. The class of December 2004 did a stunning job with their Lego animation project, "Batman: New Times". It helps that the class managed to assemble an all-star cast to voice their snap-on take on the caped crusader, snagging Dick Van Dyke as Commissioner Gordon, Mark Hamill as the Joker, and (a real coup, this) Adam West as Batman. Star talent aside, this short oozes professionalism. Gotham's nighttime cityscape is exquisitely realized and atmospherically lit, and while the figures are a little blocky in their movements (what do you expect?), the film exhibits some first-rate animation, especially in the car chase. For a school project this is just amazing, and we are no doubt seeing the work of some of the big names in the future of animation.http://www.daveschool.com/BATMAN/ An amateur cast and three years of work have produced this original 47-minute Star Wars movie, complete with professional-looking special effects and a female goth Darth Vader type. The acting is terrible, but the production values and special effects are as good as anything George Lucas put up on screen, and make this a must-see for Star Wars fans. http://www.panicstruckpro.com/revelations/revelations_movie.html The first thing you notice when you drop into the Gallery of Computation is the sound: a loud, hollow thunk. It doesn't come from your computer; it's the sound generated by the sudden impact of your jaw on your desk. The gallery displays art that has been drawn by computer code - not randomly, but code specifically designed by the artist to produce semi-random, complex images. The nifty reverse-mouse floating titles save time once you figure them out, but the more laid-back among us may prefer the Thumbnail Index. It's easy to bring up a table of contents, links to the programmer, and ordering information if you find yourself particularly taken with a piece of the fractal work on show here - just click on one of the four boxes near the bottom of the screen. Source code is provided for some of the work. Brief explanations of the associated technique and principles are also provided. We suggest you pack a lunch before visiting. http://www.complexification.net/ What Comic Artists Drew as Kids The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MOCCA) presents the Now Then online exhibition. Featuring artwork from present and past professional comic artists, this exhibition looks back at the pros' early scribblings. You probably haven't heard of most of the featured artists, but don't let that stop you. Simply click the stroll through navigational drop-down menu or buttons to check out all the artists featured. Even if the drawing skills lagged early on, sometimes the humor was already keen - see Tony Millionaire's early landscape. After you're done perusing the exhibition, why not stick around to browse the rest of the MOCCA site. You'll find information on upcoming events, features, and a photo gallery.http://www.moccany.org/nowthen/ Ashes and Snow and Elephants and People You can find some of the most breathtaking images ever taken of Asian elephants and people at Ashes and Snow, and that's just the start. This work must be seen - and even then, it won't be believed. There's an online store and the other usual stuff, but the draw here is in the images. Masterful work.http://www.ashesandsnow.org/index2.html People and Statues around the World Sometimes the only intentional art we encounter in daily life is a statue of some historic figure set back from road or in a park. Such statues generate a surprising emotion in local inhabitants. You only have to look at the remarkable array of outfits provided for the statue of a small pissing boy in Brussels by various benefactors, or the revulsion with which ex-dictators' statues are removed by revolutionary mob or invaders. That passion for stone and steel has a fun outlet in the Stand By Your Statue site. Visitors are encouraged to take photos of themselves by their favorite works of sculpture, and to send them in. We enjoyed the stuffed monkey toy imitating the heroic posture of the founder of Adelaide and a man holding hands with a giant statue on Crete. Have a think, where would you pose?http://standbyyourstatue.blogspot.com/ BOOKS & E-ZINES
http://www.whatdoesthatmean.com/ Guess the Next Word in the News Think you know the news? Think you're better than the talking heads on TV? Think you can predict the next turn in world events? What about the next word in a news story? Get on down to Prognosticate for a novel spin on news. The aspiring newshound - that's you - chooses a tempting story by news topic (business, science, entertainment, etc.) to work with, selects a level of difficulty, and reads until the story comes to an abrupt halt. Your challenge then is to guess the next word. It may sound simple, but it isn't. Each story asks you for 20 next words and even the hints are of only limited assistance. Even at the simple level, we found this a struggle. Try it out, but be prepared to be beaten. At least it gets you to read the news.http://www.prognosticate.com/ The Interconnected Universe of all SF The concept is straightforward: "In his classic 'biographies' of fictional characters... Philip Jose Farmer introduced the Wold Newton family, a collection of heroes and villains whose family tree includes Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu, Philip Marlowe, and James Bond." The Wold Newton Universe site also seems straightforward, at first. It starts out as an advertisement for a book that purports to collect all available information on Farmer's Wold Newton family, but it quickly turns into a surprisingly pleasant melange of links to Web sites for real and fictional characters who have some tacit linkage to Farmer's own SF novels. Spend enough time going through these links and you'll find links to both Star Trek's fictional Captain Kirk and the very real Betty Page. Some links are broken, but there is plenty here to keep SF and dimestore detective-novel fans busy for hours.http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Pulp.htm Browse Sadvertising before Madison Avenue finds the blogger and locks him up or stuffs a Clio down his throat. The author claims to be an ex-corporate executive with 20 years in the marketing business. Running his own agency now, he's trying to break free of bad advertising practices, bad for a number of reasons. He has become enthralled with footwear from Adbusters, the self-proclaimed "antipreneurs" of marketing (see Blackspot Sneaker). He thinks the Adbusters brand "sucks six ways to sundown", and notes that Adbusters probably knows that and doesn't care, but predicts that Adbusters' sort of anti-corporate campaign is an indication that a consumer backlash against megacorporations is on its way. Responsibility and function will win out over style and flash. Is Sadvertising's author helping to advance the rebellion, or just trowelling salve on his conscience? Sadvertising: http://sadvertising.blogspot.com/ Blackspot Sneaker: http://adbusters.org/metas/corpo/blackspotsneaker/home.html You may be familiar with charity Web sites like Hunger Site, which encourages visitors to click daily so that it can earn cash from sponsors and advertisers for good causes. There's a new one that any parent, writer, or reader will love - the Literacy Site. It already donates new books to children from low-income American families, but the organization is now aiming to do it a million times. Most of us can remember the stories we read as children, the images that informed our growing imaginations, and how they provided joy. Kids should have books to read - it's that simple. Take five minutes, do some good today. http://www.theliteracysite.com/ Vote for Freedom of Expression Blog Awards Reporters Without Borders is looking for Internet voters to select the winners of its first ever Freedom Blog Awards. To read all 58 nominees, you'll need to be able to read eight languages, including Italian, Arabic, and Farsi. In fact, 21 of them are in Farsi. Actually, some of the non-English sites are available in English as an option. Another downside of trying to be a fair judge is that you have to wade through some depressing stories, often in poignant but stilted English writing. This should, however, bring attention to the sorry state of Internet freedom and it also will give you a clearer idea of how fragile the allegedly free Internet can be. This isn't a bad place to start if you're searching for blogs that present alternative political viewpoints.http://www.globenet.org/rsf/voteblog.php?lang=en SURFING SCIENCE Hans Bethe Makes Quantum Physics Simple (Sorta) Hans Bethe, the recently late (Mar. 5, 2005) Nobel Prize-winning quantum physicist, presented three lectures to some friends and neighbors around five years ago on the topic which this Web site adopts as a title: Quantum Physics Made Relatively Simple. He was 93 years old at the time. The lectures have been encoded into QuickTime movies, and the legend continues. Arriving as a refugee from Nazi Germany in 1935, Bethe landed at Cornell University. Physics has never been the same since.http://bethe.cornell.edu/ Everybody's heard of the placebo effect: you take nothing but a sugar pill or perhaps a saline injection, and the pain or illness you've been living with abates. It's all in your head, conventional wisdom explains. Well, maybe not. A researcher has demonstrated that if a patient in a trial receives placebos and naloxone, the placebo effect doesn't happen. Naloxone is a powerful drug that blocks the binding sites to which morphine and other opiates attach, thus nullifying their effects. It seems, then, that the placebo effect is somehow biochemically mediated. Nobody knows the how nor the why, but the brain just may affect the body's biochemistry. New Scientist covers this and a dozen other unexplainable mysteries of science. The article's way too short. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/space/mg18524911.600 SOFTWARE It may not seem like it anymore, but in theory one of the tasks that software producers need to do before releasing any piece of software is to create some sort of manual and often a tutorial for users. The Wink application lets you create tutorials that will walk users through your program's features. It's freeware, but has many features that would cost you serious money in comparable commercial software. The best way to understand what it does and how it does it is to take the Wink tutorial about how Wink works on the Wink Web site. Wink versions work on Windows and Linux only.http://www.debugmode.com/wink/ |
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