-------- MANTEX NEWSLETTER -------- Number 94 - July 2004 - ISSN 1470-1863 Search Tools - Art - Literature - Graphics 0----- 'Google: The Missing Manual' - new book Google is the most popular search engine in the world. It's used by 2.5 million people every day. And yet there's no users' manual. O'Reilly has stepped in to fill the gap with a guide which explains all the features hidden behind Google's famous minimalist home page. Sarah Milstein and Rael Dornfest show you how to get better results, how to interpret them, and how to look into Google's many hidden power tools. They're all f-r-e-e, and in fact when you've finished adding toolbars and Google whirling gizmos to your desktop, you might even want to make money by placing Google ads on your own site. Full review, how to do power searching, and how to get cozy and profitable with Google at - http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/milstein.htm 0----- Pub Quiz - Question #1 What spice is produced from crocus flowers? 0----- Weird facts #1 If you keep a goldfish in a dark room, it eventually turns white. [Try it!] 0----- Literature and Books - web links I came across a couple of sites which will be of interest to book lovers and those with a taste for contemporary literature. The BBC site includes items linked to its features on radio and TV, but it also has tips on writing, a strong children's section, and even an interesting essay on gay presentations buried deep in its drama pages. http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/books/ The Guardian - known as the Grauniad because of its famous misprints - leans heavily on the essays and reviews featured in its weekend arts supplement. But it has an impressive archive of materials on writers, best-seller lists, quizzes, and more. http://books.guardian.co.uk/ 0----- Pub Quiz - Question #2 Which wine region produces Nuits-Saint-George? 0----- Weird Facts #2 Nearly fifty percent of all bank robberies take place on Friday. [Something for the weekend?] 0----- 'Digital Art' - new book This is another super-hip survey of the latest strands in contemporary art from Thames and Hudson. It's in their cheap and cheerful 'World of Art' series which are well-produced and generously illustrated. Christiane Paul does very well with all the current strands of digital art - multi-media installations, web-based art, digital imaging, interactive video, robots, software art, and even very technical media such as browser and database art. She covers an impressively wide range, including lots of fringe and experimental art 'projects' - and to give her credit, she's very non-judgemental about it all. Full review and details at - http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/paul.htm 0----- Pub Quiz - Question #3 What is the capital of Georgia [former USSR]? 0----- Weird Facts #3 Elvis Presley died of a drug overdose, whilst on the toilet. [So *that's* how he left the building!] 0----- Reverse Dictionary - online resource This is a novel concept. Instead of looking up the meaning of a word, you *enter* the meaning or the concept you have in mind. Then the reverse dictionary finds any words which match that description. I tried it out by entering "a book which contains the meanings of words" - and sure enough, it came up with 'dictionary' as number one choice. Then I tried it with one of my favourite obscure terms: "rumbling of gas in the stomach". Full marks - it produced 'borborygmus' - the right answer. Neat! http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml 0----- Pub Quiz - Question #4 What is the US name for a courgette? 0----- Weird Facts #4 A flea can jump 350 times its own body length. [From a standing start too.] 0----- 'Graphics: 1870--2000' - new book This is a pocket-book history of advertising and graphic design in the last hundred years or more. It's written by the former director of the Musée de la Publicité in Paris. Every page is beautifully illustrated with fresh and elegant examples. Review at - http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/weill.htm 0----- Pub Quiz - Question #5 What is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet? 0----- Weird Facts #5 Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. [Ho! Ho!] 0----- Art - Music - Film - Books There's a rather stylish Blog-style site at the BBC called Collective* - where you are invited to post your own reviews and comments on recent cultural events. It offers f-r-e-e downloads of new independent music, Flash animated cartoons, and links to digital video, programme previews, and lots of other goodies. The conversational threads currently running through the bulletin board discussions include "PJ Harvey - What a Waste" and adulation for the Edward Hopper exhibition at the Tate Modern. Lots of talk about loneliness and fully justified acclaim for his lighting effects; but not many people spot that Hopper couldn't paint the human figure for toffee. http://www.bbc.co.uk/collective/ 0----- Pub Quiz - Question #6 What is an oenophile? 0----- Weird Facts #6 Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool - but only in tropical fish stores. [Yer whaat!?] 0----- Alfred Hitchcock - Online Exhibition Hitchcock fans (and I am one of them) will enjoy the display of materials at the University of Exeter site. It doesn't include details of *all* the classics - but there's some interesting memorabilia, including film stills, movie posters, souvenir programmes, and the jackets of novels on which his films were based. The exhibition is particularly strong on Hitchcock's early years in London, and includes details of some of his films I had never even heard of before. http://www.ex.ac.uk/bill.douglas/Hitchcock/hitchcock.html 0----- Pub Quiz Question #7 In which year did the French Revolution begin? 0----- Weird Facts #7 The electric chair was invented by a dentist. [This isn't going to hurt?] 0----- 'Information Architecture' - an IA Wiki What's a Wiki? (I hear you ask) Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly. Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself. Like many simple concepts, 'open editing' has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by non-technical users. http://www.iawiki.net/IAwiki 0----- Pub Quiz Question #8 Who wrote 'The Case of Comrade Tulayev'? 0----- Weird Facts #8 A human being loses an average of 40 to 100 strands of hair a day. [Maybe *that's* why you're going bald?] 0----- 'Hackers and Painters' - new book Paul Graham is a successful programmer who also likes art. He established ViaWeb, a site which allowed you to build your own online eCommerce business. It was bought by Yahoo.com This is a series of essays reflecting on the process, taking in the spirit of hacking; the world of eCommerce; open sources; American capitalism; and the future of programming languages. Sophisticated - yes. Esoteric - sometimes. Provocative - definitely. And well written too. http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/graham-4.htm 0----- Pub Quiz Question #9 Where are the metatarsal bones? 0----- Weird Facts #9 The Atlantic Ocean is saltier than the Pacific Ocean. 0----- The Russian Novel - guidance notes II The second set of our guidance notes on the Russian novel are now available. Authors include Yevgeny Zamyatin, Andrei Biely, Vladimir Nabokov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Boris Pasternack, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/rus-20c.htm 0----- Pub Quiz Question #10 Who composed 'Le cathedral engloutie'? 0----- Weird facts #10 The average person is about a quarter of an inch taller at night. 0----- Reader's Query Subscriber Ruth Lipshaw writes from Stanmore in Middlesex to ask: Please could you explain why my Oxford Pocket Dictionary (January 1996) has the definition of 'Orphan' as "child whose parents are dead", yet the Collins Dictionary has the definition "child, one or both of whose parents are dead". That is a rather large discrepancy between one parent or both being dead to describe the definition. Comments are invited. 0----- Quotable quotes - Writers on Writers When James Joyce's great novel "Ulysses" was first published in 1922, it wasn't exactly a smash hit with his contemporaries. "An illiterate, underbred book, it seems to me; the book of a self-taught working man, and we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking and ultimately nauseating." Yes, don't we all. That was Virginia Woolf. D.H.Lawrence accused Joyce of "deliberate, journalistic dirty-mindedness" and described Molly Bloom's soliloquy as "the dirtiest, most indecent, obscene thing ever written". Bet you can't wait to read it now. For E.M.Forster, the novel was "a dogged attempt to cover the universe with mud". But Forster gave up writing novels two years later. 0----- Feedback + Corrections Tony Fisher writes from Nottingham University: "'weird fact 5' has it that Australia is a continent. Not everyone would agree with that. Australasia (continent) is often taken to be Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. And to stretch it further, Oceania contains the three countries mentioned previously plus lots of islands in Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia. Not so much a weird fact, as a debatable one!" 0----- PUB QUIZ - ANSWERS What spice is produced from crocus flowers? ANSWER: Saffron Which wine region produces Nuits-Saint-George? ANSWER: Burgundy What is the capital of Georgia [former USSR]? ANSWER: Tbilisi What is the US name for a courgette? ANSWER: Zucchini What is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet? ANSWER: Zeta What is an oenophile? ANSWER: A lover of wine In which year did the French Revolution begin? ANSWER: 1789 Who wrote 'The Case of Comrade Tulayev'? ANSWER: Victor Serge Where are the metatarsal bones? ANSWER: The foot Who composed 'Le cathedral engloutie'? ANSWER: Claude Debussy 0----- COMING SOON 'Quite Literally' 'Spidering Hacks' 'Getting Published' 'How to Make Money Scriptwriting' 'The Art + Science of Screenwriting' 'The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research' 'How to Survive Your Viva' 'The Renaissance Computer' 'The Short Story' (c) Copyright 2004, MANTEX All Rights Reserved PO Box 100 Tel +44 0161 432 5811 Manchester Fax +44 0161 443 2766 M20 6GZ UK www.mantex.co.uk If you like this newsletter, PLEASE FORWARD IT to friends and colleagues. New subscribers should register at the following address -- http://www.mantex.co.uk/newslet.htm BACK ISSUES featuring news items, reviews, and product details at - http://www.mantex.co.uk/news/archive.htm Please retain the copyright and list-joining information. It may be posted, in its entirety or partially, to newsgroups or mailing lists, so long as the copyright and list-joining information remains. If you have any requests, observations, or items you would like to be included in our next issues, just mail us at -- news@mantex.co.uk You receive the MANTEX newsletter because you subscribed to it. If you wish to leave the list, go to -- http://www.mantex.co.uk/newslet.htm News-94-July-2004 ISSN 1470-1863 The British Library