Friday, January 31, 2003


 
Okay, it's been a long enough holiday to suitably appreciate the turning of the year and now it's time to get going again . . .
posted by Mark 1:10 PM


 
In response to requests (and no, I'm not making this up; I got requests. Two of them.) here are a few interesting links for all you (2) sci-fi fans out there:

Iain M. Banks gives us A Few Notes About The Culture
William Gibson describes how his obsession finally ensnared him in the internet
Neal Stephenson holds forth about his passion for command line interfaces among other things
Bruce Sterling has a "frank chat" with some cops
Cory Doctorow gives you a free copy of his entire book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

If you like this sort of thing let me know, there's a lot of it about and I'm sure I can find you more.
posted by Mark 1:06 PM


 
What happens in the first millionth of a second when you set off an atomic bomb? This.
posted by Mark 12:34 PM


 
Normally I would expect the latest miracle in miniaturisation to come from Japan, but these tiny cows are grown in Iowa. Damn they're cute. I wonder if this site explains how this was made?
posted by Mark 12:28 PM


 
The Voynich Manuscript is considered to be 'The Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World'. To this day this medieval book resists all efforts at translation. No-one is sure when it was written, and there is no other example of the language in which it is written. Anywhere. It uses an alphabet variously reckoned to have from nineteen to twenty-eight letters and could equally be either an ingenious hoax or an unbreakable cipher. There is lots of fascinating information about this odd document here and there are pages to examine online at this rather under-designed site.
posted by Mark 12:05 PM


 
You must be bored or you wouldn't be here, so why not try turning off the computer, grabbing a loop of string and amusing yourself making string figures. No, hang on a minute, that can't be right - if you turn off the computer you won't be able to read the instructions. Ah well, I'm sure you can work something out.
posted by Mark 11:32 AM


 
Living Jewels is a fantastic collection of photographs of beetles. No, honestly, some of these creatures are beautiful and strange, and the photography is superb. Required Warning: The linked site contains graphic images of antennae and hairy legs.
posted by Mark 11:23 AM


 
If you are viewing this page in Microsoft Internet Explorer, you probably need to know about the latest nasty program that is trying to hijack your machine through it. Sounds really nasty, doesn't it? Anyway, at least now you are warned.
posted by Mark 11:02 AM


 
I watched the Bush "State of the Union" speech the other day, and apart from the odd moments that terrified horrified or enraged me, I was bored stiff. Kurt Vonnegut's comments on the speech however, held my attention easily (this might be related to the fact that it's a hell of a lot shorter). What a guy!
posted by Mark 10:52 AM


Saturday, January 04, 2003


 
In honour of The Old Trucker getting an internet thingy sorted, here are a few useful things everyone should know how to find...

Currency Converter for all your shopping needs.

Online Units Conversion from everything to everything else as far as I can tell.

World Time Server is handy in case you get curious as to what time it somewhere foreign.

Acronym Finder is where you go to look up all those bizarre collections of letters they use on the news programs.

AltaVista Translate will do you a vaguely right translation of quite a few languages - handy for non-english websites.

Internet Movie Database is the place to go for film info - it's amazing how complete this is.

Allmusic Guide is another huge database, this time for music (did you guess?).

The Librarians' Index to the Internet is a fantastic directory if you get bored with random Google searches.

The Internet Traffic Report is fairly pointless for me (as I'm not sure what it's all about really), but it looks very impressive.

Have a nice New Year everyone.
posted by Mark 7:47 PM