Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 23:43:35 -0600
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Sender: The Internet TourBus - A virtual tour of cyberspace
Comments: Resent-From: crispen@netsquirrel.com
Comments: Originally-From: Patrick Douglas Crispen
From: Patrick Douglas Crispen
Subject: TOURBUS -- 18 NOV 1999 -- BRITANNICA.COM / CORRECTIONS
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\________________________________________________________|______|____|
/ \ / \ / \
\___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/
TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP(S):
Britannica.com / Corrections
TODAY'S TOURBUS ADDRESS(ES):
http://www.britannica.com/
Howdy, y'all, and greetings from the chilly city of Tuscaloosa,
Alabama!
TOURBUS is made possible by the kind support of our sponsors. I thank
the folks at "Flying Noodle," "Allenbeys.com," and "Tahni DeskMate"
for making today's post possible. As always, please visit our
wonderful sponsors and thank them for keeping the bus rolling!
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On with the show ...
----------
Britannica
----------
Britannica needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the ebb;
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the Web.
[With apologies to the descendants of Thomas Campbell]
After several false starts, the entire Encyclopedia Britannica is
now available on the Web ... for FREE! ... at
http://www.britannica.com/ .
Longtime TOURBUS riders will remember that Britannica used to offer a
free service called the "Britannica Internet Guide," a searchable
guide to the highest quality Web sites. To create this guide,
Britannica's editors reviewed millions of Web sites and then linked to
only those sites that excelled in the following areas:
- Depth, accuracy, completeness, and utility of information;
- Quality and effectiveness of presentation;
- Credentials and authority of the author or publisher;
- Elegance of design and ease of navigation;
- Frequency of revision; and
- Quality of graphics or multimedia.
Britannica's standards were so strenuous that of the millions of Web
pages their editors reviewed, only 125,000 were deemed worthy of
inclusion in the Britannica Internet Guide.
The new Britannica.com site takes the Britannica Internet Guide and
adds a bunch of new stuff to it. Key in a search term at
Britannica.com and you will be able to search through ALL of the
following:
- The complete, updated Encyclopedia Britannica, the oldest and
largest general reference in the English language.
- Selected articles from more than 70 of the world's top
magazines--including Newsweek, Discover, and The
Economist (that London newspaper for "dismal scientists" like
me!).
- The Books in Print database, which gives you access to over two
million bibliographic records.
- The Britannica Internet Guide, which we talked about a few
moments ago.
Wait. It gets better. *ALL* of these databases can be accessed
through one simple search! For example, if you go to Britannica.com
and search for Kim Philby (the infamous Soviet double agent), you'll
find:
- An Encyclopedia Britannica article on Mr. Philby (with links to
articles on Mr. Burgess, Mr. MacLean, and others)
- A Britannica Internet Guide link to one of the best Web sites
in the world that discusses Mr. Philby (in this case, a page at
C-SPAN page about the book "Treason in Blood")
- Magazine articles about Mr. Philby. How you phrase your search
term really determines what magazine articles Britannica will
find. For example, if you search for Kim Philby (without the
quotes), one of the magazine articles Britannica finds is an
Entertainment Weekly profile of Kim Basinger (I KNEW IT! SHE'S
A SPY!). Putting your search terms in quotes -- "Kim Philby"
-- solves this 'problem.'
- A list of related books about Mr. Philby (well, books that have
the name "Philby" in their titles).
Cool, huh?
You can also explore the Britannica.com site by category. Just look
for the powder blue navigation bar on the left-hand side of the site's
homepage. Move your mouse over one of the categories and another menu
will appear, giving you the opportunity to browse through
- News & Features;
- The Best Web Sites (from the Britannica Internet Guide); and
- Encyclopedia Britannica articles
related to that particular category. The "onmouseover" menu system
takes a little getting used to, but if you can navigate your way
through Yahoo!, you'll have no problems navigating your way through
Britannica.com.
Folks, I haven't been this excited about a Web site in a long time.
In a sea of misinformation and garbage, it is refreshing to find a
high-quality, educational site that everyone can use. I predicted
this a few weeks ago when I spoke to the teachers at Hall Kent
Elementary School in Birmingham, and I will say it again here:
Britannica.com is going to become the center of online educational
world.
-----------
CORRECTIONS
-----------
I wish I could say the same thing about TOURBUS. :P
Last week I mentioned that there is an "open door" in Windows that
exposes your PC to outside attack. What I should have said is that
Windows itself is an open door that exposes your PC to outside attack.
I regret the error. :)
On a more serious (and strange) note, in my 22 October 1999 post about
Kelsey Brooke Jones, the 5 year old child reportedly missing from
"Southern Minnesota," I expressed my doubts that Miss Jones even
exists. I was mistaken.
Kelsey Brooke Jones does indeed exist, and she was missing for
approximately two hours on October 11th. According to the Charlotte
News and Observer (NANDO),
An officer went to the apartment where Kelsey lived. He recorded
the information for a missing child report. But before filing a
report, he canvassed the neighborhood, checking in with friends
of the 5-year-old. The officer found her around 9 p.m. at a
friend's house watching television ...
Before Kelsey was found, her mother had hastily crafted an e-
mail, including a photo attachment, and sent it to people she
knew, asking them to pass it on to at least five more people.
[A link to this entire article can be found at
http://urbanlegends.about.com -- I'd post the URL, but it is over
100 characters long, and our bus is only 70 characters wide.]
Now for the confusing part. As Barbara Mikkelson astutely observes,
no one knows what prompted the mother to send out an updating email on
14 October 1999 saying that after a DAY of being missing, Kelsey had
been rescued by the police from a mentally handicapped man who had
abducted her from a public library that her preschool class had been
visiting. Clearly, this is not true. [You can read all of
Barbara Mikkelson's article on the Kelsey Brooke Jones hoax at
http://www.snopes.com/spoons/faxlore/kelsey.htm ].
Anyway, I was incorrect when I expressed my doubts about Kelsey Brooke
Jones' existence. While she is certainly not missing, she does exist.
I apologize.
TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP(S):
Britannica.com / Corrections
TODAY'S TOURBUS ADDRESS(ES):
http://www.britannica.com/
---------------------------------
TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE WEEK
---------------------------------
GRUDGE (phrase). A shelter or repair shop for automotive vehicles
Usage: "Bubba parked my pickup in the grudge."
[Special thanks to Howard Waller for today's wurd]
You can find all of the old Southern Words of the day at
http://netsquirrel.com/crispen/word.html
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