Web Site Reviews (Last Updated: October 16 2000 CST 22:58)
newsbytes.com
Oct. 16, 00-10:55AM CST
This is a roundup of new and updated resources and services on the global Internet, including: Useless And Pointless Knowledge, Dot-Com; McCartney Goes All Art-y Online; Keeping Up With Napster; You've Got Fertility; and, Elk Hunting By Proxy.
Useless And Pointless Knowledge, Dot-Com
Caruso and Roy Orbison were the only tenors this century capable of hitting E over high C. Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy, they can be housebroken and they always have four babies at a time - always in same-sex groups. Dueling is legal in Paraguay - as long as both parties are registered blood donors. This is the kind of vitally worthless information that can only be gotten off the Internet, but it used to take a lot more effort. Now there is one site out there where you can skim - to borrow Bob Dylan's phrase - "your useless and pointless knowledge" until your eyeballs whither. That's at Uselessfacts.net, a compendium of fragmentary intelligence that could make anyone a millionaire, if only they could get that seat in front of Regis. There's too many stupid facts available on the site not to repeat a couple more, so here goes: One in every four Americans has appeared on television ... 60.2 percent of the US television audience watched the final episode of M*A*S*H in 1983 ... Alan Thicke, the father in the show "Growing Pains," wrote the theme songs for the "Facts of Life" and "Different Strokes" ... And mailing an entire building has been illegal in the U.S. since 1916, when a man mailed a 40,000-ton brick house across Utah to avoid high freight rates. Beautiful stuff, although accuracy may be an issue. Didn't both Carl and Brian Wilson hit that E above high C in their separate recordings of "Surf's Up" with the Beach Boys? Hmm.... World Wide Web: uselessfacts.net
McCartney Goes All Art-y Online
Like more than a few idle rich rock stars - including John Mellencamp, for instance - Sir Paul McCartney has been putting a lot of effort into painting since he first picked up the brush in 1982 when he turned 40. On Thursday, the cute Beatle is set to lead fans on a behind-the-scenes cyber tour of his latest art exhibition. McCartney's artwork is showing at Bristol's Arnolfini Gallery and a 40-minute cyber tour of that exhibit will be shown Thursday at chat.yahoo.com; McCartney will chat live with the Internet audience for 40 minutes afterward. "For many years I painted in private and I didn't really talk about it to anyone outside of my family," McCartney was quoted by the Associated Press as saying last week. "Now I'm interested in showing my paintings to anyone who is curious about them, partly to learn what people think." Interested fans may send in questions in advance to mccartney.yahoo.com, or during the chat. World Wide Web: mccartney.yahoo.com
Keeping Up With Napster
FindLaw, an online legal site, is making it easy to keep up with the Napster case, providing what it bills as "the latest and most comprehensive Internet coverage" about the company's legal troubles, including up-to-date legal opinions and virtual viewpoints. Record industry groups are suing Napster in federal court for allowing its 20 million members to easily share copies of music files over the Internet, a case that could permanently affect the way copyright protections work. Napster's side believes the Audio Home Recording Act, enacted by the US Congress in response to CD users taping music onto cassettes, pertains. But record companies disagree - arguing that the Napster service enables massive infringement of music copyrights. "The case is landmark in that peer-to-peer Web sites are popping up for users to swap all kinds of digital entertainment files online whether it be family photos, music videos, or clips from old films," the company said in a press release. "FindLaw aims to stay on top of this issue and provide a variety of resources related to it." World Wide Web: napster.findlaw.com
You've Got Fertility
We've heard about that fabled German efficiency, but how about this? The Reuters news agency reports that a German company is offering a new service for the modern professional woman who lacks time but who still wants to get pregnant. It consists of regular mobile phone calls telling the would-be mom when she is most fertile. According to Reuters, women who register on the Web site "www.zappybaby.de" will be sent mobile phone messages free of charge. One example: "Achtung! The five best days for love are starting." That's nice, admittedly, but somehow, as verse, it just can't quite compete with Cole Porter. The service starts on Oct. 18. World Wide Web: zappybaby.de
Elk Hunting By Proxy
The Swedes must really love their elk hunting. A newspaper in Sweden is offering its Net-loving countrymen a chance to go elk hunting - using their computer screens. Reuters says the online newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet, has a digital camera set up somewhere in a Swedish forest, and is delivering snapshots to its Web site roughly every minute. Surfers who spot an elk in a photo fill in a form attached to the site, giving the date and time and the first 10 who see the beasts are rewarded with a fresh elk steak, or perhaps some other game food. The catch: viewers must refresh the window to get the updated photos. This is not the newspaper's first foray into virtual game slaying. The site held a similar contest last year and saw hit count rise by 20 percent as a result. World Wide Web: svd.se
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