Wednesday, November 18, 1998

Surfing the Web

By Doug Williamson / Business Editor

This week's column is a true hodgepodge.

We go from meteors to movies and from Furby to Cape Cod.

- The Leonid meteor shower is in the news this week. Here are four sites where you can get all the information.

NASA's "Leonid '98 Meteor Outburst Mission Homepage" is one of the best. News, history and images may be found at http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/leonid/.

There are no images at the Royal Greenwich Observatory's site - http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/RGO/leaflets/solar(underscore)system/leonids.html - but the text fully explains what's going on.

Illinois astronomy enthusiast Gary W. Kronk has one of the better Leonid sites on the Internet. You'll find it at http://medicine.wustl.edu/(tilde)kronkg/index.html.

The busiest site is Live! Leonids 98. You can go up in an airplane over Japan and see the meteor shower live, if you can get connected online at http://www.leonids.net/live/.

- Here's a fun site - http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Studio/6643/oops.html. That's the home for "Oops! Movie Secrets and Mistakes," a page full of all those little things that happen in movies that aren't exactly the way they should be. Examples: "During the chase scene at the end of the movie (The Blues Brothers), the Blues Brothers switch from driving through Chicago, to Milwaukee, and back to Chicago in a matter of moments."

"As Scarlet runs through the street of Atlanta (in Gone with the Wind), you can see and electric light. The movie takes place during the Civil War era when gas lights were used."

n For the nature lovers among our readers, there's http://www.naturesongs.com/. This site has recordings of bird sounds from both North America and down in Costa Rica. It also features other animals, humans, insects and the like. A pretty intriguing site.

- A new meta-search engine has emerged on the Internet. Proseek gives you the option to employ 30 different search engines, up to four at a time. You can display the results as separate windows, gathered all together or in four frames on the same screen. I found it to be convenient and comprehensive. Try it out at http://www.proseek.net/.

- This week's foggy conditions in the Big Country drove me to "The Cape Cod Lighthouse Homepage" at http://www.capecod.net/(tilde)gbenoit/home.htm. You can tour the lighthouses of Cape Cod, see images of them and read their history.

- 4,000. Yes, there's a site with scanned images of 4,000 pieces of paper money from just about every nation in the world. You could spend hours looking at all the different currencies at http://aes.iupui.edu/rwise/.

- I have never heard of <I>The United States Government Manual<I>. However, I found it on the Internet, and it is a valuable resource. It has names, numbers, addresses, Internet addresses and explanations of duties for every government department and agency. You can tap into the information at http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/browse-gm.html. I've bookmarked this site.

n Furby's the hot toy/doll/animal these days. Showing absolutely no respect for Furby, someone has performed an autopsy on it. Enjoy looking at the annoying, furry thing's guts at http://www.phobe.com/furby/.

Doug Williamson can be reached at 676-6707 or williamsond@abinews.com.