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*                                                            * 
*                         CYBERSPACE                         * 
*         A biweekly column on net culture appearing         * 
*                in the Toronto Sunday Sun                   * 
*                                                            * 
* Copyright 2000 Karl Mamer                                  * 
* Free for online distribution                               * 
* All Rights Reserved                                        * 
* Direct comments and questions to:                          * 
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Leah's Picks

My friend Leah in Edmonton is endlessly emailing me cool sites. 
Now lots of people email me "cool" sites, but like those rarely 
amusing jokes people pass around or virus-laden EXE files of 
cartoon Elves mooning Santa, I usually just delete them after 
doing a quick visual scan for the phrase "free food". Leah, 
however, has a talent for finding wacky sites. Her role in the 
production of this column goes uncredited. Lots of times she 
uncovers a site that gets me thinking about a column idea. 
Other times I just chortled and bookmark the site for future 
reference. 

I thought it high time to give her some recognition and share 
some of the neater sites she's been sending me over the past 
couple years.


The Case Files of the Fake Detective
www.lairofluxlucre.com/detective/

Okay. I have to warn you there's nudity at this site. In the 
six years I've been writing this column, I don't think I've 
ever intentionally mentioned a site with nudity but I'm going 
to make an exception. So bear with me. Ever since the invention 
of the Internet, scanners, Photoshop, and Gillian Anderson, 
people have been taking the heads of celebrities, sticking them 
on the bodies of porn stars, and then posting them to net.news. 
Oddly enough, there are some people who actually fall for it. 
The Fake Detective site exposes faked celebrity nudes ranging 
from Tori Amos to Catherine Zeta-Jones. Even Pam "Mork & Mindy" 
Dawber is not left visually unmolested. Really, the government 
shouldn't be going after Microsoft, it should be going after 
these lamers.

The Big Mac Index
www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/focus/bigmac.html

The Economist magazine for a few years has used the Big Mac 
Index to compare, tongue and cheek of course, the relative 
purchasing power of major currencies. The premise is both 
simple and brilliant. A Big Mac is made from the same 
ingredients with the same amount of labor everywhere in the 
world. The more Big Macs you can buy with your national 
currency, the higher your purchasing power. It's a great point 
of reference when you hear a story like people in Tzatzikistan 
are living on $100 a month. If they can buy a 1000 Big Macs a 
month and you can only afford 900 Big Macs, maybe they're not 
so bad off after all.

The Smoking Gun
www.thesmokinggun.com

The Smoking Gun digs up dirt on celebrities in the form of 
court records and other public documents. The site's creators 
make the documents available as GIF files. There are a lot of 
amusing things here like Bill Gates' mug photos from a 1977 
traffic violation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The traffic 
violation is unspecified and one can only wonder what kind of 
traffic violation requires a mug shot. Some of the material 
here is disturbing. For example, you can read Diana Plato's 
autopsy report.

Aviation Safety Network Cockpit Voice Recordings
aviation-safety.net/cvr/

The Aviation Safety Network site has a number of transcripts of 
cockpit voice recordings moments before disaster. Some of the 
material here is chilling. For example, there's a transcript of 
the last thirty minutes of Korean Air Flight 007, the Boeing 
747 that was shot out of the skies when it crossed into Soviet 
airspace in 1983. One moment the pilots are talking about 
vacation plans and the next moment the pilot is telling his 
fellow crew mates to stub out their cigarettes for an emergency 
descent and then silence.

Zing
www.zing.com

I love when people show me their photo albums. Sometimes it's 
fun to see what your friends looked like when they were young 
and in better shape. Sometimes it's nice to find out you're not 
the only one who goes to interesting places like Hawaii or 
Paris and brings back mostly photos of parking lots. Zing lets 
people create online photo albums and lets viewers search for 
albums based on keywords. 

Nom en hieroglyphes
webperso.iut.univ-paris8.fr/~rosmord//nomhiero.html

Have you ever wondered what your name would look like in 
Egyptian hieroglyphics? Me neither, but this site in France 
(the page is bilingual) will convert your name into 
hieroglyphics suitable for displaying on your web page or your 
sarcophagus.

Sodaconstructor
Sodaplay.com/constructor/index.htm

Sodaconstructor is for people who always wanted to see their 
mechano set creations come to life. You construct wire frame 
creatures, set values for gravity and friction, and watch your 
creations prance about. Their movement is so lifelike, it's 
eerie to watch. It's also visually addictive like the Hamster 
Dance (www.hamsterdance.com) page. When you get bored, you can 
do things like vary the gravity. It's pitiful to see your proud 
creature suddenly become airborne as you drop the gravity to 
zero and then land helplessly on its back when you crank up the 
G forces.

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