TOURBUS: Thursday, October 17, 1996

DRIVER: Patrick Crispin

TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP:
INDEXES


Hi, kids!  I want to apologize for my sending out this week's TOURBUS post
so late.  Your fearless bus driver recently had his braces tightened [for
the uninitiated, braces are a medieval torture device used by orthodontists
to inflict immense amounts of pain ... and, as an afterthought, braces are
also sometimes used to straighten teeth], so I have spent the last couple
of days curled into a ball, whimpering.  :(

My teeth still hurt a little, so I am going to make today's post a little
short.  Before we start the latest voyage of our little bus of Internet
happiness, though, I want to take a moment to thank the folks who are
making today's TOURBUS post possible:
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
     Authentic apparel from Timberland, Duck Head, Woolrich and
        Calvin Klein is available from Aardwulf Apparel at
+--------------------( http://www.aardwulf.com )---------------------+

Also, I think Alabama's squirrels must have sabotaged last week's TOURBUS
post.  The correct URL for the picture of a gray squirrel (the kind that
love Alabama's power lines) is http://www.io.com/~hmiller/graysqrl.jpg

Okay.  Enough intro.  Let's start touring!

Since I am a big fan of useless trivia, I have two really cool useless
trivia sites that I want to share with you ...

HARPER'S INDEX

Harper's magazine was founded in 1850, and it currently has a circulation
of about 215,000.  While some people may not agree with Harper's positions
on several issues, one of the things that Harper's is universally famous
for is its "Harper's Index," a collection of miscellaneous statistics and
figures.  For example, here are three entries from the October '96 Harper's
Index:


Number of Kenyan orphans Olympic runner Kipchoge Keino has
     adopted : 100

    
 Percentage of all gold refined last year worldwide that was made
     into jewelry : 76

    
 Number of countries whose GNP last year was less than the amount
     spent worldwide at Wal-Mart : 161


Okay, I'll admit that Harper's Index really isn't "essential" information.
It's still cool, though.  And thanks to the wonders of the Internet, you
can now find Harper's Index on the Net!  :)

If you have a Web browser, you can find the last three months of Harper's
Indexes at http://www.harpers.org/harpers-index/listing.html

By the way, the Indexes on this page are in chronological order, so you
have to go to the bottom of the page to read the most recent Harper's
Index.


THE INTERNET INDEX
The "Internet Index" is a lot like Harper's Index, but the Internet Index
only focuses on statistics and figures that apply to the Net.  For example,
here are a couple of statistics from the October '96 Internet Index:


     Number of US states with "wanted lists" of child support
     offenders on the Internet: 7

   
  Percentage of comics in the Boston Globe with Internet
     addresses: 63

     Percentage of the first 20 ads in the October '96 Scientific
     American with Web addresses: 75
     Percentage of the first 20 ads in the October '96 Scientific
     American with toll-free numbers: 70


Again, this is pretty much useless trivia.  But it is still cool.  :)

The Internet Index is the individual effort of Win Treese, and it is not
distributed as regularly as Harper's Index.  In fact, in the past 34 months
there have only been 15 Internet Indexes.  Fortunately, you can find all of
the old Internet Indexes on the Web at http://www.openmarket.com/intindex/

You can also subscribe and receive all future issues of the Internet Index
for *FREE* by sending an e-mail letter to internet-index-request@OpenMarket.com

with the command

     subscribe

in the body of your e-mail letter.

That's it for this week! :)

--------------------------------
TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE DAY
--------------------------------

RACEHORSES (noun) 1. available means  2: computable wealth
                  3: immediate and possible sources of revenue

Usage:  "Kin ya tell me where tha human racehourses office is?"
         or  "We must preserve our natural racehorses."

(Special thanks goes to John Chancey for today's wurd)

YOU CAN FIND ALL OF THE OLD SOUTHERN WORDS OF THE DAY ON THE SOUTHERN WORD
HOMEPAGE AT http://ua1vm.ua.edu/~crispen/word.html