Fun_People Archive
30 Jan
Free associations from Netsurfer Digest

Date: Mon, 30 Jan 95 12:52:08 PST
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Free associations from Netsurfer Digest

Forwarded-by: editor-bounce@netsurf.com
Excerpted-from: Netsurfer Digest  Vol. 01, #08


     FRENCH MINISTRY OF CULTURE PUTS NEW CAVE PAINTINGS ONLINE

     France's Ministry of Culture, apparently hip to technology, already
     has high-resolution gifs of four of the most impressive of last
     month's newly-unearthed Combe d'Arc cave paintings online. Experts
     have judged the paintings already examined to be at least equal in
     quality to the world-famous ones at Lascaux, and the new larger cave
     may prove to hold a larger number of paintings, as well. The new
     paintings include a stunning group of four horses, a hyena, many
     aurochs, and two tigers, which are rarely found in cave paintings.
     Check them out at "http://www.culture.fr/gvpda.htm". No, "htm" isn't a
     typo.

[From unopened cave to your screen in just a month!  The dissemination of
archaeological discoveries was not always so quick (can you say "dead sea
scrolls?")  -psl]


     SOFTWARE BRINGS HISTORIC HANDWRITING TO LIFE

     The SCRIPTA project aims to ease access to palaeography, the study of
     the history of handwriting, with interactive software. Through visual
     analysis of historic manuscripts, users will become familiar with five
     writing styles used in Europe from the second century BCE to the 15th
     century ACE. Analysis of calligraphy is also stressed. The free
     Windows software, in Italian mind you, is available at the Web site,
     which translates a small portion of its Italian text for us
     anglophones. "http://www.univ.trieste.it/scripta/scripta.html"


     COMPUTER GLOSSARY UPDATED

     The latest issue of "BABEL: A Glossary of Computer Oriented
     Abbreviations and Acronyms" is available via a number of routes. Here
     are a couple: Send E-Mail to "listserv@vm.temple.edu" with the message
     "GET BABEL95A TXT" "ftp://ftp.temple.edu/pub/info/help-
     net/babel95a.txt"


     HONG KONG BUSINESS DIRECTORY

     In case you were wondering, the URL for the WWW Hong Kong Business
     Directory is "http://FarEast.Com/HongKong/directory.html"


     COMPUTER MUSIC SOFTWARE GALORE

     The International Computer Music Association has taken it upon itself
     to be a central warehouse for computer music software.
     "ftp://dartmouth.edu/pub/ICMA-Library"
     "http://coos.dartmouth.edu/~rsn/icma/icma.html"


     SPAM WARS IN NEWS.ADMIN.POLICY

     We goofed on the newsgroup name in our item "Spam vs. Cancelbot" in
     issue #07. We told you alt.internet.services, but the real newsgroup
     is news.admin.policy. The threads continue to live so you can still
     visit and read about how spams are being battled by beleaguered
     sysadmins. While there, also check out the recent threads dealing with
     the Church of Scientology's attempts to ban newsgroups related to
     them. Futile, but entertaining. The EFF wrote a morally sterling but
     ineffectual open letter to the Church, and a copy has been posted for
     your edification.

© 1995 Peter Langston