__ net surf __
__ Of Psycho(therapist)s and Oracles: Webbed Advice Never Tasted So Good __
With psychotherapy rates hovering around a hundred bucks for that 50 minute hour, many of frail mental health have pursued alternate routes to professional counseling. Cybercouches are no exception: the treatment options that abound on the Net are mind-boggling. Online advisers come in more shapes and sizes than do the kinds of kids who eat Armour hot dogs.
Webbed advisers fall into one of two categories: those who supply instantaneous solutions and those who reply at their leisure. The first type are more often oracles than quick thinkers. These include Joe's Magic 9 Ball, The Magic Infinity Ball, The Mystic 9-Ball, and the World Wide Web Ouija. When I asked the Mystical Smoking Head of "Bob" (www.resort.com/~banshee/Misc/8ball/index.html) whether I should color my hair, he replied, confoundingly, "Better not tell you now." Dissatisfied, I went to Ask Deep Thought (www.cvp.com/deepthought/), which promises "a deeply enlightened answer and a biorhythmic chart reading." I typed, "Should I color my hair?" The reply: "The Judgment: The Clinging. Perseverance furthers. It brings success. Care of the cow brings good fortune." Which was nice, but it didn't really solve my problem.
I was most satisfied with the counsel I received from Psychic Chicken (www.cjnetworks.com/admark/chicken.html), who is not an instant oracle and replied by email: "I don't recommend coloring yer hair because it tends to break the crayons and don't ya just hate little stubby crayons?"
'Course, if you're looking for advice from someone you can trust a familiar if squiggly face, say you can ask Dr. Katz, TV's most animated psychotherapist. At the Comedy Central site (www.comcentral.com/katz/katz2.htm), Dr. Katz dispenses wisdom multiple-choice style, with an autodiagnosis form. When Dr. Katz asked how I felt, I chose: "How would you like me to feel?" He asked, "How long have you felt this way?" and it was a toss-up between "Ever since I got my modem" and "All of the above." The options for describing my childhood ranged from "Dark green" to "Tastes like chicken"; I selected "Underpaid." His analysis: "I find sometimes the best way to deal with problems is not to dwell on them, and release them, let them go. Say out loud 10 times, 'I don't have a problem, I don't have a problem,' and eventually the problem will disappear. Other versions of this mantra can work as well: 'No problem, no problem, no problem,' or 'Away fiend dilemma, away,' or 'Ooout, ooout, ooooout.'"
There are just as many crackpot therapists on the Web as there are in real life. Only difference is that these guys don't feign professionalism. Ask Beepo (www.dca.net/~rwaters/askbeepo.html) boasts: "Need advice? He's got it. Not great advice, but what do you expect for free?" Then there's Mr. Bad Advice (www.echonyc.com/~spingo/Mr.BA/), who told me that he is qualified to dispense advice because he was born and raised in Brooklyn. And, of course, there's geek advice. A brilliant (or so he tells me) operating-system designer, Melvyn (access.advr.com/~geekchic/) recently got a letter from a woman inquiring about the appropriateness of the pocket protector as fashion accessory. Her boyfriend had objected to her wearing it at a formal dinner. Naturally, Melvyn advised her to dump the jerk.
Come to think of it, these rash, flash judgments by goons who prefer not to waste time on their patients' particularities, opting instead for a prefab analysis, remind me of a certain Viennese doctorŠ.
Erika Milvy (erika@well.com)
__ Networked Consciousness __
In this era of burgeoning networked hypermedia, we draw closer to realizing the boundlessness of the unified mind. On the Web, we connect and are connected. We swim in imagination and bring the noosphere alive with collective consciousness. Netters eager to meld with such illuminative cyberspatial connections will find a deep whirlpool of possibility at www.noosphere.com/. Here, A Space Without a Goal acts as an intuition pump for the Electronic Frontier Foundation Consciousness archive. Dense with thought patterns for an evolving universe, the archive is an instantaneous, headlong rush into the meaningful essence of what all this webbing is truly about.
__ Hotlinks to Hot Licks __
CDLink may be the ultimate in liner notes. The interactive love child of the CD and the CD-ROM player, the Voyager Company's new shareware lets Web surfers access album reviews and essays with links that let the authors illustrate their points. By popping an audio CD in your CD-ROM drive and going to the corresponding site on the Voyager page, you can read Lewis Porter's take on John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme." One link in a piece on X's Los Angeles and Wild Gift brings you John Doe's "smooth voice" and a little crackle from Exene Cervenka's "tortured soul."
The selection of nearly 50 titles ranging from The Beatles to Bon Jovi, Miles Davis to Deee-Lite is diverse enough to match at least one disc in your private collection. And by using CD-ROM audio instead of the pokier Web sound applications, you don't have to wait 15 minutes for a 30-second sound bite. CDLink to voyagerco.com/cdlink/cdlink.html.
__ Step Right Up __
Where art thou, Tom Waits? The hipster's hipster who's spotted less than Elvis (but who's just about as cool) may not tour much these days, but that doesn't mean that those indoctrinated in the ways of Waits have picked up their bats and balls and gone home. With the recent release of the tribute album Step Right Up: The Songs of Tom Waits, Waits fever will soon be at its highest pitch in years. So what has the world's most iconoclastic songwriter/poet/raconteur been up to since last you spotted him in a Jim Jarmusch flick? To find out, step right up to the Tom Waits Digest, www.nwu.edu/waits/, a digital shot in the arm for the Waits lover in need of a fix. What's in it for you, you ask? There's plenty of info and links to newspaper and magazine articles about the artist's life and work, as well as news on the latest Waits sightings and nascent projects. Better still is a list of lyrics to scores of songs, including a "dictionary" that decodes some of his language. (Who knew that the "Big Black Maria" of which Waits speaks in Rain Dogs derives from a black woman named Maria who owned a crash pad and busted lodgers who misbehaved in it?) This site won't win any awards for design or organization, mind you: it's a pretty down-home, scruffy spot that somehow has its charms. Web imitates Waits. He wouldn't want it any other way.
__ Telescoping Space __
In cyberspace, the Hubble Space Telescope is proving itself an important touchstone for instantaneous collective learning at www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR.html. Here, the Space Telescope Science Institute offers lots of Hubble pictures with background science for all starry-eyed virtual voyagers. Exploring the available material offers a chance to become more intimate with not only the neighboring planets of our solar system but the cosmic tapestry of the universe itself. Witness the birth and death of stars as you measure the distance to the most remote galaxy, probe clouds of intergalactic dust, and peer at the dark, mysterious void of a black hole.
If you haven't already followed one of the Net's many links to this incredible resource, don't waste another nanosecond. And while you're there, gaze on the embryonic stars in the Eagle Nebula. The faces found in the pillars of dense interstellar gas are nothing less than haunting.
__ Media on Media __
Once upon a time, network broadcasting had style and grace. Not the shows, necessarily, but the studios in which they were made. The radio facilities NBC opened atop Chicago's Merchandise Mart back in 1930 were not only the most technologically advanced of their day they also reflected a fashionable art deco elegance and helped make the city a broadcasting hub.
Don Ameche, Gary Moore, and Myron "Mike" Wallace worked in these creative nerve centers, which produced Amos and Andy and other classics. In the TV era, figures from Dave Garroway to Shelly Long went before the studios' cameras.
Rich Samuels was a reporter for affiliate WMAQ-TV when the network finally moved to a nearby skyscraper in 1989. Now reporting for the local PBS station, Samuels has created a virtual tour of the Mart facilities, reconstructed from historical documents and photos. Drop by www.mcs.net /~richsam/home.html to check out the golden age of broadcasting or just to see Hugh Downs with a mustache. But as Samuels warns, "Proceed quietly. It's very likely that a network broadcast is originating from one or more of the studios!"
__ We've Got Spirit (Web) __
If the pornography and get-rich-quick schemes riddling the Net are getting you down, elevate yourself by floating over to the Spirit-WWW at zeta.cs.adfa.oz.au/Spirit.html. You won't find the Web's inner child, but you will be blessed with a wide assortment of collected articles, essays, and images dedicated to higher consciousness. Whether you're seeking the truth (with a capital T) about astrology, channeling, UFO sightings, or yoga, the Spirit-WWW contains pages and pages of HTML-converted texts, lessons, pictures, movies, and information. It's a lucid, out-of body, metaphysical experience with a dash of karma and cabala thrown in for good measure. Peace.
__ There's No Excuse __
O. J. is free and Marcia Clark is our newest legal millionaire, but despite the consciousness raised by the Trial of the Century, millions of women are still being abused and killed by their partners each year. To keep up with an issue that's unfortunately going to be with us long after the last I-was-a-Simpson-trial-juror book deal is inked, check out the Family Violence Prevention Fund's interactive Web site at www.fvpf.org/fund/. This beautifully designed spot offers easy access to action alerts, statistics, and information about domestic violence. A project of the people who have made "There's no excuse for domestic violence" the friends-don't-let-friends-drive-drunk slogan of the '90s, the site includes a quiz that tests the user's knowledge of domestic violence, its impact, its cost, and the most effective ways to combat the problem. Also just a click away: a number of interactive windows, including The Facts about domestic violence and Celebrity Watch.
__ For Page Turners __
While you may not be surfing, er, shopping for eggs or cheese on the Internet any time soon, you can get a head start on the 21st century at Book Stacks Unlimited Inc. Located at www.books.com/, Book Stacks Unlimited houses almost 400,000 titles available for purchase either online or via snail mail. If the convenience and selection alone aren't enough to entice you, there's more! Recent releases, the latest best-seller lists, and critical and interactive reviews await you on the shelves. Authors can frequently be found in the Book Cafe, a forum for discussing their work and yours (should you be interested in participating in an open workshop). Extensive help is available (although you'll need Netscape 2.0 to enjoy the Frames Format), and the site is updated daily.
__ Cross-Referenced __
Get the feeling that the Web is a cross between the smoke and mirrors of a seasoned con artist and a global game of high-stakes craps? Seek refuge in The Electric Library (www.elibrary.com/), self-described as the Web's most comprehensive one-stop digital archive. Supposedly, it holds a repository with a searchable collection of 900 magazines, 150 newspapers, 2,000 books, and more than 18,000 photographs. Not enough for you? This "complete reference library on the Internet" also houses multiple encyclopedias, almanacs, and dictionaries. To test the site, I did a search on Kasensero, presumed to be the epicenter of HIV (see The Hot Zone, page 44). Four hits came back from a radio broadcast, a magazine article, and two newspapers pieces. I tried a similar search on Alta Vista and got one hit a complete story from Le Monde. (It looks like the library intends to charge for its services soon: the site references a price button.)
___ / \ | | |. .| | ``` | | | | | | | | | ___ | | ___ / \| |/ \ | | | | __ | | | |/ \ | | | | | | | | | | / \ | | | | | | | | \ / \ / | | | |
Censor THIS, Clinton!
Random ASCII Art o' the Month
__ Thanks to the Wired 4.05 Surf Team __
Joel Brown joelb@twinpines.chi.il.us
John Makulowich john@trainer.com
John Reul johnreul@aol.com
Brent Sampson brents@rmii.com
Larry Smith larrys@igc.apc.org
Mary Elizabeth Williams marybeth@well.com
