Shocked by the web
Shocked by the Web
Yesterday I love these places, and still I do
The GNU and the Free Software Foundation Free software means that it can be freely copied, modified and distributed, and that you can even try to make a profit by redistributing it or selling it. The only restriction it imposes is that you can't restrict others to do the same (i.e., copy it, modify it and redistribute it), so you can't hide the source code. It's based on the premise that software has no owners, the same way neither has science; your output is my input --that's the way progress is made of. What a radical different approach to software this is, compared to what we're used to --proprietary software who forbids us to make a simple copy and pass it to a friend in need; powerful organizations cracking down on individuals who dare to share their programs with others; secret code which make impossible to set to the task of improving it or customizing it... and so on. Visit the site to learn more about the philosophical issues about free software, and to learn how copyleft opposes copyright, or what's the GNU General Public License, or how the proprietary software industry tries to criminalize the sharing of information. All essays are clearly and intelligently written.
Snoopy . The best place I know about Charlie Brown and his ineffable friends. Learn about every member of the gang: Snoopy, the factual dreamer; Peppermint Patty, the school dreamer, with Marcie in the desk behind waking her up to the cry of 'Sir'; Woodstock, that endearing little bird; and Lucy, Franklin, Linus, Sally, Schroeder, Pig Pen and Rerun. In their profiles, you can see the strip in which they first appeared, along with other outstanding moments (don't miss the first time Linus wears his security blank, or when Snoopy quits walking on his four legs). Also, the Timeline section highlights the most important moments in the history of the Peanuts, beginning with the inaugural comic strip, appeared on October 2, 1950, which can be seen online! Last but not least, the site it's updated daily with the current day's strip. Get intimate with the Peanuts, while we Charlie Brown's devotees prepare to celebrate his 50 years making us laugh every day. Thanks a lot, Mr. Schulz!
The Signposts Timeline . Which consists of ' future predictions, forecasts, and speculations for the coming Third Millennium '. J.R. Mooneyham foresees, between 2018 and 2049, an accelerated environmental decline, increased religious conflict, a wholesale plunge into Virtual Reality by citizens in the developed nations, and the entry of robotics into the consumer mainstream. A little further, in the 2184-2272 span, the landmarks of the era will be human-like androids, nanotechnology, lightspeed transport and the terraforming of Venus. From 2272 on, the line between imagination and reality will definitely blur, with faster-than-light communications and the transition of citizen from biological to nanotechnology forms. An amazing and acutely distressing website.
The Slot: A Spot for Copy Editors . 'My name is Bill, and I’m a copy editor. Welcome to my disease '. And his disease is mine, too —that of the language style. I remember buying dictionaries just for the pleasure to read the introductory pages, those were the editor used to explain the conventions she had adopted and another related questions of style. If you love those typically ridicule passionate linguistic controversies (and Bill Walsh himself would scorn this long concatenation of adjectives) come here. Get a fever while trying to ascertain the right way to write Gone With the Wind (or should it be Gone with the Wind ?).
30 Years of Windows: A Retrospective . Back to 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart 'demonstrates his oNLine System (NLS) at the Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco. This system uses a bizarre pointing device he had devised —he calls it a mouse — along with a keyboard'. Don't miss this opportunity of catching up the history of computers as we know them — graphical and windowed. Just don't assume things have always been this way. On the contrary, learn how the right guys in the right moment with the right technology and a good deal of luck, decision and intelligence have contributed to make it so. Another great piece from the people at CNET.
Mercury Center Comics . From the San Jose Mercury News , all the comic strips you can think of, alphabetically ordered and fully colored!. Don't doubt it a minute and register with the site —it's free. Once registered you have no limits to enjoy your favorite strips. I'm a devoted fan of Charlie Brown , but also likeGarfield a lot, as well as Annie and Popeye . You can retrieve the comics daily or, even better, weekly —my Sundays are funnier now that I have a week-old collection of great comic strips every Sunday morning in my desktop.
Paul Krugman's Webpage. Do you feel like some economy for a change? The dismal science explained to us laymen the way Krugman thinks it and tries to understand it. Not a bad offer from the guy who wrote an article in 1994 (yes, four years ago) with such a silly title as The myth of Asia's miracle. May I recommend you White collars turn blue? This article was written for a special centennial issue of the New York Times magazine. The instructions were to write it as if it were in an issue 100 years in the future, looking back at the past century. Please trust me: nothing bores me more than an ordinary economics reading —if I put a link to the Krugman's writings is because they're extraordinary.
Street Tech. If you're a gadget lover, and want to know how ordinary people like or dislike that printer you're interested in or that other digital camera you've read in the magazines it's what you really need, visit the Street Tech, which is 'an attempt at being truly honest about technology: beyond the hype' as their motto goes. 'Is the technology really useful? Is it worth the money? Will it improve the productivity of the user, or simply add to an already complex and often frustrating high-tech work environment?'And don't miss the review of the PaperPDA(aka notepad), which fairly impressively 'it needs no batteries, no special lighting conditions, no software and hardware upgrades and it cost about US$4'. A useful and well-thought site.
(This link has stopped working. I'll keep it for some days just in case it's only a temporary error).
Who doesn't like talking about himself? But who dares do it openly and honestly even about those matters usually considered private and taboo? And who is able to make one own's life interesting to the others? —Andy is, because he isn't the ordinary type. Take a walk on the wild side with Andy's factual account of his sexual likings and practices. Not for the fainthearted, though.
One Digital Day. Or photographers in seek of the microchip all over the world. This is a nice digital photo collection of people using electronic gadgets, one or other way. Times are a'changing, and you can take these pictures as a proof. See the shadow of the farmer in Urbana, Illinois to trade weather reports and local farm prices in his computer. Or take a look at the cyberoom of Masakazu Kobayashi, 27, in Tokyo, Japan (did you get to think the untidiness of your own room couldn't be surpassed?). Some young students at the top of a hill somewhere in Wales, UK, use email to transmit their classmates at school their wind measurements. And in Bangalore, India, computer code-writers take a break for tea in the street. All snapshots are unusual and attractive.
The Last Word. What is fire made out? If the sun is a star like any other, why is it yellow, not white? When lightning strikes the water, does it kill the fish? Why do humans cook food? Do any other animals do anything like this? From the pages of New Scientist, a clever and interesting collection of more than 450 everyday science questions and answers, both submitted by curious and competent readers. So, if you've always wanted to know why some people are more prone to mosquito bites than others, or have an alternative burning question which have not been already asked, or feel you're capable of answering other people's doubts, don't hesitate: click to the Last Word. (By the way, why do sounds like scratching a blackboard make some people cringe?).
6 Million Human Beings. A funny, interactive and technology-savvy exhibition from the Musée de l'Hommein Paris about world population. You're asked to enter your gender, age and location, then you're shown the most prominent demographic facts about people living in the world in relation with your own background. Get to know, for example, how many people were in Earth when you were born. Or how many babies you as a woman could have in your lifetime, and what will cause your not having all of them. Learn about birth control and population growth explosion as well. And put your kids on the screen if you have children —they'll learn while having fun.
Dennis Kunkel's Image Gallery. See the world through the lens of a microscope (light or electron). Get scared by discovering the rich fauna of micro-organisms living in your kitchen cutting board, or in the kitchen sponge. See what a dust particle is made up, or get surprised at the beauty of a cockroach head. Also see smoke particles, human blood cells, sperm, caffeine and much more.
Ozzie's Place of Wonder (it used to be at http://members.aol.com/OZzisme/Snooze.html, but this link doesn't work any more). If you're lucky with the background (it changes every week) you'll be able to read what Ozzie has to say —otherwise you'll have to wait for a week!. But she has a fine sense of humor, is a 100% Mac hater, wants all the newbies killed (me too) and is a proud Darianite. What more could you wish?
Shelly's WebPage. She's only 13 —and I think she understands cyberspace far better than most of us! Click to see the dancing baby, or the astonishing tiger jumping across the screen. And don't forget to sign her guestbook!
ZoneZero Digital Photography. If only for the #5 left Alessandra Sanguinetti's photo, the visit to this site it would already be worth. But ZoneZero is much more than that perfect image of the glamorous happiness. Many of the photo collections presented here are very good, and some particular photographs are great. I'm still browsing the different collections, so if you find any you especially like please tell me and I'll go straight to it. I also love Antonio Turok's Ant Hill, Anna LeVine's Ladys, and again Sanguinetti's #2 right. And the pictures take almost no time to load!
The 1st Annual Web Innovators Awards. Do we realize that behind the lines (the computers in this case) there are real people working hard and brilliantly to make the Web, and to make it work? This is a CNET's selection of "21 individuals responsible for 18 Web business, design, technology, and development innovations that have helped shape the Web and changed the rules for site developers". I find it amazing, to see their faces and learn about their age (they're incredibly young), where they live (California, California and California), what they most dislike about the Web, and what their favourites sites are. Click to know, between others, Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript (thanks, Brendan!); Mike Godwin of Electronic Frontier Foundation ("The CDA is not really about protecting children, it's about silencing adults"); Rob Glaser, founder of RealMedia (without RealVideo, the Web wouldn't be the same); Aliza Sherman, president of Cybergrrl; and Chris Jones, who burnt out his whole team of programmers by making them work 100 hours a week to produce the Internet Explorer 4.0! Don't miss this opportunity to get at them.
Y?. "Consider yourself a volunteer in a unique experiment to create a new way of finding out how and why people are different from each other. This forum, the first of its kind, is designed to give you a way to askpeople from other ethnic or cultural backgrounds the questions you've always been too embarrassed or uncomfortable to ask them. If you have the courage to ask, we'll evaluate your question, consider it for posting and try to get someone from that background to answer [...] You'll also have a chance to answerquestions related to your own demographic background". These are the introductory words of Phillip J. Milano to his website. I've just added the emphasis in order to highlight what this place is about: to overcome prejudice by the revolutionary way of honestly asking, and honestly answering, questions to each other —any questions.
A Web of Online Dictionaries. All the dictionaries you may ever need. An incredible useful site to look up for that elusive word you can't find in your miserable home dictionary. Everything from multiple dictionary search engines to thesauri and other vocabulary aids; multilingual dictionaries and specialized English dictionaries (the arts, biography, biology and medicine, computing, economics and finance, dialectology and history, law and politics, mathematics and science, military technology, philosophy and rhetoric, psychology, religion, trade and professions, etc.). A really impressive website.
USNews Photographic Essay. Capturing life behind bars is the objective of photographer Andrew Lichtenstein, and although the photos are scanty, they're good, accurate and striking. I especially like "Teardrop tattoo" —in the prison where it was taken, "the tattoos usually are intended to honor a loved one who died while the prisoner was locked up". Go and see it!
Arab View. Arab View is a collection of articles written in English by leading journalists and editors in the Middle East. Westerners usually don't have too many chances to directly read the Arab point of view regarding life and conflicts in that hot spot of our planet. Now we have, and perhaps you'll be surprised at them. Also, for a more news-centered site, there is the Middle East Times, a weekly source for news and independent analysis of politics, culture, arts and religion in the Middle East. Although the Egyptian censure strips off from its printed version anything about reporting on human rights abuses, or criticizing the president and the military, and even discussing unorthodox interpretations of Islam, nobody can prevent them to collect all the censored articles and publish them worldwide on its website. Isn't the Net a space of radical freedom?
Learn2. Someone has said this is the most useful site on the web, and I find it difficult not to agree. Hundreds of friendly tutorials, richly illustrated and suitably organized by themes. Does your mayonnaise jar resist every attempt to be opened? Don't you know where to connect that loose cable in your stereo equipment? Does your keyboard need cleaning? Don't you know that scratched music CD of yours can be easily repaired? It there's an URL worth being put in your favorites list, it's this!
The Global Ideas Bank. Click if you want to read about hundreds of social, non-technological ideas, submitted by people who just think theirs are possible and innovative solutions to the most varied problems surrounding us. You can contribute your own ideas, of course, and also rank the other people's ones. I'm especially fond of the "mental strip poker" idea, but think it horrible the one that proposes mothers sitting beside their naughty boys at school! A really funny and most interesting site.
Do you want to know what sites I love today? Click here.
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