Category: Just Shelley

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Just Shelley

New York, New York

It isn’t Fall without trees changing color, birds flying south for the Winter, and being in New York to speak at the Internet World conference — this time as part of the Webmaster Forum.

However, this time, I stayed in New York for a few days. What an adventure.

New York Cabbies

The cab that took me from Penn Station to my hotel was driven by a gentleman from Haiti who happened to have strong religious beliefs. I know he was religious because he kept playing religious tapes, and would slam on the brakes occasionally in order to jot something down in a notebook he kept by his seat. I knew he was Haitian as he would alternate this behavior with Haitian utterances under his breath as he literally tore through that town, determined to get me to my hotel at all due speed.

I didn’t know one could drive between cars in car lanes in New York. I also didn’t know that one could drive 60MPH down Park Avenue in the middle of the day. I do now. I also received a lesson in the finer points of car horn blasting in New York.

There’s the light tatoo on the horn that says “Yo!”. There’s the more emphatic tatooing that seems to say “Yo! Stupid!”.

There’s the single tap that just lets folks know you’re in the vicinity and to watch out. Compare this with the heavy hand on the horn that will get even the most diehard New Yorker’s attention. If the horn blower is a cab driver, people seem to understand that the cabby is just letting someone know that they are invading the driver’s personal territory, whatever that may be.

I also know that pedestrians in New York don’t walk in front of the cabs without looking at the driver’s face, first. How does this driver define territory…

Cab rides are a way to experience New York, but I can’t experience a new town or city from a car — I just don’t like cars. So, I decided to walk to Central Park. On foot. No cabs.

Walking to Central Park

I started my walk on Madison Avenue — established home of advertising agencies everywhere.

Madison Avenue doesn’t have the crowds other streets do in New York, thought there are a large number of gray and black suited people, all with cellphones glued to their ears (call them New York earrings).

The buildings along the way reminded me of some of the canyons I used to explore in Arizona, except those canyons were created by water flows over a millenium of time. New York canyons are built on man’s desire to one up nature. I did notice, though, when I crossed over to Fifth Avenue that the human tide is remarkably similar to a moving river. Woe to you going against that tide of affluent and determined shoppers.

(I particularly treasure a moment when two older, well dressed women walking behind me suddenly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and murmured “Armani” in one breath. I consider this to be a quintessential New York moment.)

The Park

Central Park is a surpise after all the opulence of the surrounding stores and the shadows cast by the towering buildings elsewhere in downtown New York.

Part of the Park was closed off for renovation, but I walked every last bit of those sections that were open. And it was a long walk.

First, let me state categorically that I cannot BELIEVE that anyone would jog in the Park after dark. The place is full of nooks and crannies, dark corners, and bushes. Charming by day, sinister by night. A horse carriage ride, yes — but not a lonely stroll through the footpaths. I’d rather play tag with a grizzley. It would be safer.

Central Park is pretty, but the trees look a little tired, and more than a bit dusty. However, the bushes and lawns are very pretty, as are the little specialized areas such as the Dairy farm.

I found an old fashioned carousel and thought about taking a ride, but dignity intruded — dammit.

My favorite sections of the Park were rocky outcroppings with bits of mica scattered about, sparkling in the noon day sun. Something like the windows at Tiffany’s and Cartier’s I passed on the way, only I could touch the rocks at Central Park and not get arrested.

I actually saw a black squirrel; I’ve not seen one of that coloration before. I don’t have my books to check to see if this is a natural variation, or a protective adaption based on New York city smog. (I know, meow, meow — but Boston is a whole lot greener.)

I walked through some bushes at one point and found a group of people silently standing around a mosaic embedded in the cement. All the mosaic had on it was the single word “imagine” — I was in Strawberry Fields, the John Lennon memorial.

One word, and I stopped dead in my tracks. One moment, with a lifetime of memories, flooding in, all because of that one word.

Back from the Park

I was getting tired at this point, so back to the hotel.

Towards the end of my walk, I stood out in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, an incredible edifice of which New Yorkers take considerable pride. If you’ve been to New York, you know what it’s like to come upon the Cathedral after blocks and blocks of modern glass and steel.

I have to admit that when I first looked at St. Patrick’s, I thought of how much further we would be as a people if only we expended as much energy and resources on education as we did and still do on religion.

We could have cured cancer by now, eliminated all smog and pollution, perhaps be walking on some distant planet around some distant sun.

Then I walked into St. Patrick’s. I literally stopped in the middle of the Vestibule, overwhelmed by the absolute rightness of the interior of the church. The vaulted ceilings, the stained glass windows, the slight smoky air from thousands of votive candles lit by the faithful.

It then came to me that without faith — or perhaps human spirit — we wouldn’t even try to cure cancer, or walk on the moon, much less planets surrounding distant stars. And we wouldn’t have beauty such as that.

Maybe we didn’t do so bad with our time and our resources in the past, after all.

New York, New York

My last stop on my walk was Rockerfeller Center, located a couple of blocks from the hotel. As I approached the Center, I could hear the strains of the Sinatra song, “New York, New York” filling the air. I kid you not — there had just been an ice show at the center, which finished by playing New York’s anthem song.

I couldn’t end my walking tour of New York on a better note than that.

Categories
Just Shelley

Every Person’s Math

Ask folks what class they feared the most in high school and college, and I bet you’ll find that “math”, generally, or “calculus”, specifically, is the answer you’ll get more often than any other. Yet math is really nothing more than a) the ability to apply specific equations and get consistent results, and then b) to apply those results to better understand the world around us. So, I think its time to take a look through the Internet and see what we can learn…about math.

Basic Math: If a train left New York and another left Boston…

Most of us know basic math. It’s the math we use when we shop: we pick up half a dozen eggs, we buy 4 steaks, we supply cash for totals and get change back. Its also the math we use at home: we measure out 1 cup of flour, we shape dough into a circle to make a pie, we time how long the pie has baked, and we cut a board in such a way that it fits into a slot on the floor. How about at work, do we use this math at work? You bet: we ask for two packets of sugar for our coffee, the delivery person drops off a gross of pens, we send mail using two day express delivery and know that the mail will be delivered in two days or less.

Basic math is that math that surrounds us and that we use in our everyday world. It is the math that allows us to time events by understanding units of measurement about time, such as hours, minutes, and seconds. It is the same math that then gives us the tools to measure these units and express this measurement as a factor of time elapsed: he ran the marathon in 6 hours, 23 minutes, 3 seconds.

Additionally, basic math is that math we use when quantifying objects, such as 2 apples, 3 people, 4 cats. It is also the math we use with currency and with temperature — though units of measurement can differ here — and with our payroll stubs and income tax.

Basic math consists of addition and subtraction, multiplication, and division, and we can’t forget the most infamous of them all: fractions. It is arithmetic.

Basic math is the math we learn first, and the one that requires us to learn the most and take the largest leap of faith. After all, in algebra we may understand that 2x – y = 3 is a solvable equation, but it is really based on our belief that the number “2” does represent two objects; that two numbers can be multiplied and the result will always be the same; that you can add two numbers and consistently get a third; and that you can then subtract one of the original numbers from the new total, and derive the other original number. 

3 + 4 = 7

what will you get if you take 4 away from 7?

Look at that! Your first number quiz.

 

So, did you get the correct answer? If you’re not sure, you might want to ask Dr. Math to help you find the answer . How about a different way of learning math? You might want to check out The Clock (Modular) Arithmetic Page for a little learning about math, in the round. Want to have a little fun with math? Then check out the Math Forum Elementary Problem of the week — see if you can keep up with the kids.

Of course, once we learned basic math, it was time to get into other types of math such as algebra, covered next.

Algebra and the ultimate question: Why?

So what is algebra and why do we need to learn it? Well, something like arithmetic is good when dealing with math of known quantities and objects such as adding two apples together, or measuring a cup of flour. But what if you need to solve an equation involving the addition of 2 quantities of an object, and you only have one of the quantities and the result?

Remember our little math game in the last section:

3 + 4 = 7

what will you get if you take 4 away from 7?

 

Well, let’s rephrase this question and formalize it into an equation. Instead of saying “if you take 4 away from 7”, say “if you take a number away from 7 you’ll get 4”, and rephrase it again to say “if you add a number to x, you’ll get 7”. Drawing this as an equation, you get:

x + 4 = 7

Algebra is involved with solving the equation for the unknown variable, in this case, x, using a set of rules and procedures to accomplish the task.

For our equation, we first need to isolate the variable, or the unknown value. We can do this by using basic math to eliminate the known value from both sides of the equation:

x + 4 - 4 = 7 - 4

x = 3

Isolating the unknown is the same as solving for the unknown.

See, you just did algebra! That wasn’t so bad, was it?

To summarize, algebra is the ability to solve equations containing one or more unknown variables. The solution is found by applying known procedures such as isolating the unknown variable and combining like terms. Algebra then uses these same rules for more complex equations such as finding ratios, multiplying fractions, graphing results on a coordinate plane, and exponents. Before you click away again, let’s look at each of these and see that there is nothing scary or weird with any of them.

First if all, you use ratios anytime you figure out your odds of winning the lottery (1 in a kagillion), or you read about something such as the “ratio” of women to men of those responding to a survey, for instance, the ratio was 3:5, or 3 women out of 5 respondents were women. If we look at this as an equation, we would have:

x + 3 = 5

x + 3 - 3 = 5 - 3

x = 2

there are 2 men for every 5 respondents

How about graphing? Well, I used to love to graph. I loved the graph sheets, I loved getting my ruler and my pencil and drawing out a nice clean line. Didn’t have a clue why I was doing it, but it sure was fun.

You know graphing: on a number line graph all numbers less than 8. You end up with:

Now, what is there about this that isn’t fun?

Of course, once we mastered graphing on a linear line, the next step is to try graphing within a coordinate system. This is a graph where the X values are plotted along a horizontal line and the Y values are plotted along a vertical line. The Y-axis intersects the X-axis at the point where X is zero, and the X-axis intersects the Y-axis at Y’s 0 point. Then, individual points on the graph are plotted at the point where the X value and Y values intersect. So, if you have an X value of 3 and a Y value of 3, your point will exist in the upper right of the system. If you have many points, such as those drawn for an equation and using different values of X or Y in the equation, you can connect the points and you actually have a line. From this you can determine not only what values are from an equation for given values of X or Y, you can determine what all values of X or Y will be. Why? It’s in the graph!

So, we know that basic arithmetic isn’t scary, and algebra can be fun, are you ready to try something a little stronger? Say, Geometry?

If you want to know about algebra, have I got some sites for you. First up is Math for Morons Like Us. Don’t let the name chase you away, this really is an impressive site providing an overview of pre-algebra, algebra, geometry, and calculus. Math for Morons was created for the ThinkQuest program. ThinkQuest is a competition held every year where students or adults who are teachers or studying to be teachers can create Web sites, all based on knowledge and education. There some pretty impressive Web sites from this project. For instance, another Web Site is Volcanoes Online, created by students from all over the World.

Now, doesn’t all this sound like fun? Well, to make it even more fun, James Brennan from Boise State University has created an interactive Java applet called the Graph Applet. Try it out.

Geometry

Well, you’re probably pretty comfortable with addition and subtraction and even equations, about now. Time to up the ante and take a look at geometry.

First of all, to ease your anxiety, and to keep you from clicking out of the page, geometry is not only fun, it is really based on the same mathematical foundation you worked with in the basic math and algebra sections. Now, those sections weren’t so bad, and this one doesn’t need to be either.

So, what is geometry? Well, it has to do with shapes. All kinds of shapes, from lines to circles to triangles to spheres to what have you. Geometry gives you the tools to do such things as find the volume of a sphere or to find the circumference of a circle.

You don’t think you need this kind of stuff? Well, sure you do.

For instance my husband and I walk around a water reservoir behind our place that has a diameter of about .4 miles. We were curious about the actual distance we traveled so we dusted off our geometry and found the formula for finding a circumference of a circle given the circle’s radius:

   C = 2(PI)r

Well, a diameter of a circle is twice the size of the radius, so the radius of the lake would be .2 miles. Plugging this in for r, and remembering that the value of PI is 3.14159 — five decimal places is more than enough, we ain’t building a rocket here – we would have:

  C = 2(PI)r
  C = 2(PI).2
  
  C = 2 x 3.14159 x .2
  C = 1.25663

Hey, 1.25 miles! A nice little jaunt.

Geometry is very big in the computer animation business. Did you like A Bug’s Life or Antz? Well, geometry is a basic tool used in creating these types of animations. Geometry also forms the basis for work accomplished with VRML — Virtual Reality Modeling Language.

If you like Geometry, then you might want to look more closely at trigonometry, covered next.

Where to begin when it comes to learning about Geometry. You can go back to Math for Morons Like Us, which has excellent coverage of Geometry in addition to Algebra. You can also go to the Geometry Home Page, which has some very nice tutorials. There’s also the Geometry Center, with documents, multimedia, and software about geometry. This site led me to another site, called Science U, which has its own Geometry Center. Science U has several interactive demos and games, related to geometry and astronomy. Site also has an online store with some unusual items for sale. There aren’t many places where you can create your own fractal design and then have it made into a T-shirt.

Wait, there’s even more sites. I mentioned the use of geometry with computer animation and VRML. Only fair to mention some sites for these topics. First of all, the grandmother of VRML sites is The VRML Repository. Two other essential links are VRML Consortium, and The VRML Specification. And you can’t mention VRML without reference to the SGI VRML page.

For computer animation, try out The Shape Modeling and Computer Graphics page, from the University of Aizu in Japan. Webreference, a favorite of mine, has a nice site called the 3D Animation Workshop. And the king of computer animation is, of course, Pixar.

Oh, and don’t forget the Antz and A Bug’s Life official Web pages.

Trigonometry

Okay, you had some fun looking at all the pretty computer generated animations and graphics. Let’s get back to the real reason you’re here: to learn more about math. Right?

First, trigonometry — or “trig” as it is affectionately known — is based on angles. It is this, which distinguishes trig from the rest of geometry.

Why learn more about trig? Well, if you are interested in astronomy, you should be aware that it is trig, and the trigonometric tables, that provided the basis for early star charting. Engineering is dependent on trigonometry. When you see surveyors along the road at construction sites, what do you think they are using to plan the work? Why, trigonometry, of course.

Consider a building. Can you measure how tall it is? You could climb to the top of the building and drop a line of rope down from the roof until it touches the ground and then you could measure the rope. However, this doesn’t sound like a very efficient method, and what if you are trying to measure a mountain peek, or a balloon in the air?

A better approach would be to use our friend, the right triangle, and the trigonometric functions.

First, a right triangle is one which has one 90o angle. The angle opposite the right triangle, along the horizontal axis is written as q, and is called theta. The side of the triangle opposite and adjacent to q are known as, respectively, the opposite and adjacent sides. The side opposite the right angle is known as the hypotenuse, as shown in the figure below.

The trigonometric functions, based on the graphic, are:

  • sin q = opposite / hypotenuse
  • cos q = adjacent / hypotenuse
  • tan q = opposite / adjacent
  • csc q = hypotenuse / opposite
  • sec q = hypotenuse / adjacent
  • cot q = adjacent / opposite

Now, considering the right angle and the trigonometric functions, how can we measure that building? Well, you start with a protractor, a small plastic semi-circular or circular disk that allows you to measure angles. You walk 100 feet from the building and then measure the angle from yourself to the top of the building using the protractor. Let’s say this angle is 60o.

At this time you have some known values. You know that q is 60o, and you know that the adjacent side is 100 feet. Now, to get the value for the opposite side, we’ll use the trigonometric formula to compute the tan or tangent of the angle: 

tan q = opposite / adjacent

tan 60o = opposite / 100 feet

tan 60o = 1.73

1.73 * 100 feet = opposite / 100 feet * 100 feet

opposite = 173 feet (approximately)

There you go, you found the height of the building all by yourself, with a cheap plastic tool and no long rope. Pretty darn good — and all thanks to trig.

Well, now that you have found that trig is fun, time for pulling in the big guns. Time for calculus.

I just can’t believe how many Web sites there are on math, including trig. First of all, check out the Free-ed Net, specifically the section on Trigonometry. Free-ed Net is a very hot Web site focusing on free educational resources on the Net, and in the Trig section, they list some nice trig resources. First of all is S.O.S. Mathematics, which provides an overview of Trig, and provides a table of trigonometric identities. Then there is the Math Abundance Trigonometry Introduction, which is very extensive. Very.

Sorry, I’m back. I was sidetracked by Net-Ed’s Astronomy section. Where was I? Oh, yes, trig resources. A great trig resource page is at Study Web’s Math page. I can guarantee that if you go through all the resources they list, you will be a math wiz. Angles, are your friends.

Do you want to order a protractor of your very own? Then check out k-12source.com which has most school supplies for sale. Check out the engineering and drafting supplies.

Oh, and if you want to know how to measure the height of a rocket, check out the University of Nebraska page on measuring a rocket’s height, from the N.E.R.D.S (Nebraska Educators Really Doing Science) project.

Bring on the tanks: Calculus

Well, you’ve made it this far so you deserve a real treat: Calculus!

What is calculus about? Well, first of all it takes what you know with the other math types, and goes a bit farther, or nearer as the case may be. The Excite online encyclopedia, InfoPlease has the following definition for calculus:

"branch of mathematics that studies continuously changing quantities. 
The calculus is characterized by the use of infinite processes, involving passage 
to a limit the notion of tending toward, or approaching, an ultimate value. 
The English physicist Isaac Newton and the German mathematician G. W. Leibniz, 
working independently, developed the calculus during the 17th cent. The calculus 
and its basic tools of differentiation and integration serve as the foundation 
for the larger branch of mathematics known as analysis. The methods of calculus 
are essential to modern physics and to most other branches of modern science and
 engineering."

Calculus isn’t just one subject, it’s many. There is differential calculus, integral calculus, there is statistics, and probability, and so on. However, it is also about the world around us. It is not an exercise in seeing how many equations one can stuff into a sophmore’s brain before it explodes.

For instance, could you see needing to know the volume of a sphere? Sure you could. How does one measure the volume of a sphere?

Well, going with empirical method, you could fill the sphere with water and measure how many cups of water fit into the sphere. But, this technique is kind of wet, possibly messy, perhaps not very scientific, or even accurate. Wouldn’t you really rather use a formula?

Borrowing from integral calculus, the formula for calculating the volume of a sphere is:

V = 4(PI)r3/3

So, given the sphere’s radius, you can now find its volume. You can find its surface, too, with the following formula:

S = 4(PI)r2

I won’t lie to you and say that all calculus is this easy. I still think parts of calculus are a joke perpetuated by math majors on the rest of us (“let’s string them along…see when they break”), but calculus can be met face to face at the least, and even mastered (gasp) at the most.

Now, I think that’s enough for me to say on calculus. I’ve forgotten way too much on this subject and if I say anthing more, I’ll embarrass myself. Time to follow this article’s links … and learn a little math.

Well, I have to go back to Math for Morons like us for their coverage of pre-calc and calculus. Boy, I wish they would change the name. But they aren’t alone with the names, as another good site on Calculus is Help with Calculus for Idiots (like me).

The best reference page with listings on calculus is StudyWeb’s Calculus page. Another great resource on Calculus is Calculus Net.

An example of calculus applied to mechanics is nicely illustrated at Calculus and its Applications to Mechanics. A fun site is a page full of Calculus Java applets where you can change values and observe results for calculus equations.

You can calculate the volume of most shapes with the ABE Volume Calculator page. You can find the calculations used at Calculations for Volume.

Flame on.

Categories
Web Writing

Dynamic Web Publishing Unleashed: Chapter 37 – the Future of Web Publishing

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

IN THIS CHAPTER

  • The Chaos of Change
  • The Current Technology Platform
  • A Summary Review of the Technologies Covered in the Book–Where Will They Be in a Year?
  • Client Scripting and CSS1 Positioning

With an industry that seems to go through a new revolutionary change at least four times a year, it’s hard to predict where Web publishing will be in four months, much less the next couple of years. However, taking a look at existing technologies and their state and at some new technologies can give us a peek through the door to the future, even though the crack we are peeking through might be pretty small.

First, many of the technologies covered in this book existed two years ago and will continue to be around two years from now. That means Java, which was introduced in 1995, HTML, the scripting techniques, and the basic Web page, which will continue to consist mainly of text and an occasional image. It’s hard to say if some new and incredibly different Web page development technique or tool will appear in the next two years, but regardless, people will also continue to use what is available now. In fact, the technologies introduced this year, such as Dynamic HTML and CSS1, will begin to become more familiar in 1998, and only begin to become mainstream technology in mid- to late 1998.

Web servers don’t seem to increase in technical capability exponentially the way Web page technology does. The real key to server technology is fast, reliable, and secure Web content access. The servers will become faster, hopefully more reliable, and the security should grow to meet the increasing demands placed on these servers to support commercial transactions. Additionally, there are new methods–particularly in the realm of commerce–that will work with existing server technology. Those are discussed in this chapter.

There are new technologies that have barely begun being explored this year. Channels and push technology started out with a bang and nearly ended with a whimper. Web consumers just didn’t buy into the new technology. However, with the built-in channel capability Netscape Navigator and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer have now, and with simpler channel development processes, channels can be considered down, but not out.

The real key to the future rests with standards as much as with implementation. The Document Object Model (DOM) working group of the W3C should present a first working draft of DOM by the end of 1997. DOM covers which HTML elements are exposed, and to an extent, in what way these same elements are exposed, what standard properties and events are, and how these elements relate to each other. If HTML doesn’t meet your needs, just wait–XML describes how to extend any markup language, to create an element such as <BUTCHER> or <BAKER> or, yes, even <CANDLESTICK_MAKER>. This chapter closes with a review of the new technologies currently under review and design.

The Chaos of Change

Sometimes you might feel you have to spend 24 hours a day just to keep up with the technology being released. Needless to say, this is both frustrating and discouraging, all at the same time.

Web development does seem, most of the time, as if it undergoes a revolution in technology every three months; many times one specific aspect of the technology undergoes a change only about once per year. However, preceding the release of the changed technology is a period when the technology is being reviewed, or the product is being beta-tested, or some form of pre-release activity is occurring. Then, the release of the standard or technology or product occurs, and there is a period of comparing it with its older version, or with other products. Then, you have to spend some time learning how the new technology works, how to migrate older pages or applications, or checking to see if existing pages or applications break with the new release. Finally, just when you think you are starting to become comfortable with the new or modified technology, the company or organization announces the new release of whatever the product or standard is.

Consider also that Web development is made up of several different technologies, including browsers, standards, embedded object technology, and server technology. Putting all of these aspects in one category–“Web Development”–and considering the multiple-phase delivery of most Web technology, provides what seems to be continuous change.

As an example, in 1997 it probably seemed as if a new browser were being released every quarter. Well, what actually happened is that there were minor bug fix releases of Netscape Navigator 3.x and Internet Explorer 3.x in the year’s beginning, and Netscape also released several different beta versions of Navigator 4.0 before it actually released Navigator 4.0. After the release, there have been several enhancement and bug fix releases of Navigator 4.0.

Microsoft also released two major beta releases of Internet Explorer and released the final version about the time this book went to editing. There will likely be enhancement and bug fix releases for IE 4.0 before the year is out.

Add the international releases with these other releases, and you have a browser release on the average of about every three weeks, not months.

Also consider that browser manufacturers themselves are at the mercy of the release of new standards or new versions of existing standards. The year 1997 saw the beginning of the DOM effort, a new version of the HTML specification, HTML 4.0, the rise in interest in XML, the passage of the ECMA standard for scripting, ECMAScript, and the recommendation of CSS1 for Web page presentation. And these are only some of the standards that impact browsers.

So, how do the browser manufacturers cope with the changing standards? The same way you can cope with all of the other changing technology: First, you define your Web development and Web client platforms. You determine what technologies make up each, including versions, and concentrate on these technologies, complete the effort you determine to complete with the defined platform, and then, and only then, begin to plan your next Web platforms.

The Current Technology Platform

For many companies and individual users, the current technology platform consists of Netscape Navigator 3.x or Internet Explorer 3.x for the browser, Apache 1.2, Netscape Enterprise Server 2.0 or 3.0, O’Reilly’s WebSite Pro, or Microsoft’s Internet Information Server 2.0 or 3.0.

Most Web pages contain a combination of text and images, and most of the images are static. Many sites use some form of scripting for page interaction, most likely a form of JavaScript. HTML tables are used to handle the layout of HTML elements, as shown in Figure 37.1.

As you can see from the figure, you can actually create a fairly organized page using HTML tables. The page also uses the font element to color the sidebar text white; the color attributes of the table header and contents are used to set the header to red and the contents to yellow.

Animation in a page occurs through the use of Java applets, animated GIFs, Netscape style plug-ins, or ActiveX controls.

The version of Java used with most applets is based on the first release of the JDK–JDK 1.0.

Server-side applications are used to create dynamic Web pages, to present database information, or to process information returned from the Web page reader.

A Summary Review of the Technologies Covered in the Book–Where Will They Be in a Year?

A good rule of thumb when working with content for multiple versions of a tool is to support the currently released product in addition to one previous release. Based on this, you can count on supporting pages that work with Netscape Navigator 3.x and 4.x, and Internet Explorer 3.x and 4.x. As both browser companies begin the rounds of creating version 5.0 of their respective products, the business world will be cautiously upgrading pages to work with the new 4.0 technologies, particularly CSS1, HTML 4.0, and Dynamic HTML. By the time they have made the move to 4.0 technology, the 5.0 release of the browsers should be close to hitting the street.

The browser companies themselves probably follow a similar reasoning in that they support a specific number of versions of a standard, such as HTML, before they begin to drop deprecated content from earlier releases of HTML.

Standards organizations rarely release more than one recommended version of a standard each year. Sometimes they might go longer than a year before a new release, rarely less than a year.

Based on this, the technology you read about in this book should be viable for two years after publication of the book, which takes the Web into the year 2000.

The following sections look at each of the discussed technologies, with an eye on where each is likely to be on the eve of 2000.

HTML 4.0, CSS1

To start with the basics, the foundation of Web publishing is HTML, and this technology was explored in the first part of the book. Additionally, the first part of the book also looked at Cascading Style Sheets (CSS1) and Dynamic HTML. Dynamic HTML’s future is covered in the next section.

As this book goes to press, HTML 4.0 is the version of HTML currently under draft review. This version provides for increased form and table support, deprecates several existing elements, and adds a few new element types and several new attributes, such as intrinsic events.

HTML 4.0 should become a recommended specification at the end of 1997. Currently, Microsoft has incorporated the HTML 4.0 draft specifications into the first release of IE 4.0, and Netscape has promised to adhere to the standard after it becomes a recommendation. Based on this, any changes to the HTML 4.0 draft will probably result in a minor revision release for IE 4.0. However, the HTML 4.0 changes for Netscape Navigator will probably be extensive enough for the company to incorporate these changes in the next release of Navigator, version 5.0. Following the Navigator 4.0 release schedule, you should begin to see the early beta releases of Navigator 5.0 in the spring of 1998.

No new activity is occurring with the CSS1 standard at this time, at least not in its impact on Web page presentation. Additional style sheet specifications are underway for speech synthesizers (ACSS, which is Aural Cascading Style Sheets), and a printing extension is underway for CSS, allowing for accurate page printing. This is in addition to the CSS-P, or Cascading Style Sheet Positioning.

At this time, tools that process, generate, or incorporate CSS1 in some form include HoTMetaL Pro 4.0 from SoftQuad (http://www.softquad.com), Microsoft’s FrontPage 98, Xanthus Internet Writer (http://www.xanthus.se/), Symposia Doc+ 3.0 from GRIF (http://www.grif.fr/prod/symposia/docplus.html), PageSpinner for the Mac (http://www.algonet.se/~optima/pagespinner.html), and others.

In the next year or two, Web pages will begin to incorporate CSS1 and HTML 4.0, though Netscape Navigator 3.x has a base of users wide enough to prevent most companies from using only CSS1 and HTML 4.0 to create Web pages. However, both of the major browser vendors have promised support of these standards, and many of the Web generation’s tools will integrate them into the new versions of their tools. As these new tools are appearing as beta releases now, they should all be released as products in 1998. By the year 1999, most companies that want to control the presentation of their Web pages should be using at least some form of CSS1, and begin the process of removing deprecated HTML elements from their pages.

You can keep up with the standards for HTML at http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-html40/. The standard for CSS1 can be found at http://www.w3.org/Style/.

Dynamic HTML and DOM

In 1997, with the release of version 4 of their browsers, both Netscape and Microsoft provided support for the first time for Dynamic HTML. Dynamic HTML is the dynamic modification and positioning of HTML elements after a Web page loads.

Dynamic HTML is a great concept and badly needed for Web development. With this new technology you can layer HTML elements, hide them, change their colors, their sizes, even change the elements’ contents. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Netscape and Microsoft have implemented different versions of Dynamic HTML–differences that are a little awkward to work with at best, and conflicting at worst.

Neither Netscape nor Microsoft has implemented broken versions of Dynamic HTML. When Netscape published Navigator 3.0 and exposed HTML images to scripting access, there was a great deal of discussion about Microsoft’s “broken” implementation of JavaScript 1.1, the version of JavaScript also published with Navigator 3.0. However, Internet Explorer 3.x was not broken, but the browser did not implement the same scripting object model as Navigator 3.x. Now, with IE 4.0 and Navigator 4.x, the scripting object models are even more disparate, making it difficult to create Dynamic HTML effects that work equally well with both browsers.

The solution to this problem could be found with the Document Object Model standardization effort currently underway with the W3C.

According to the W3C, the DOM defines an interface that exposes content, structure, and document style to processing, regardless of either the language used or the platform on which the DOM application resides. The functionality of Internet Explorer 3.0 and Netscape Navigator 3.0 is defined by the W3C to be level “zero” of the standard. You might assume it is that functionality that both of these browsers support, which means they would not include images.

At this time, the DOM working group has produced a requirements document, which includes items such as those in the following list:

  • All document content, elements, and element attributes are programmatically accessible and can be manipulated. This means that you can use script to alter the color of header text, or dynamically alter the margins of the document.
  • All document content can be queried, with built-in functions such as get first or get next.
  • Elements can be removed or added dynamically.
  • All elements can generate events, and user interactions can be trapped and handled within the event model.
  • Style sheets can be dynamically added or removed from a page, and style sheet rules can be added, deleted, or modified.

This list is just a sampling of the requirements for the DOM specification, but it is enough to see that when the DOM specification becomes a recommendation, the days of the static and unchanging Web page will soon be over.

To see more about DOM, check out the DOM working page at http://www.w3.org/ MarkUp/DOM/.

Client Scripting and CSS1 Positioning

Excluding the objects exposed to scripting access as members of each browser’s scripting object model, there aren’t that many differences between Netscape’s implementation of JavaScript and Microsoft’s implementation of JavaScript.

Scripting will continue to be used in the years to come, and, hopefully, the language will not get too complicated, or the ease of use of scripting languages will begin to diminish.

Again, the major impact on scripting occurs with the elements that become exposed by the DOM effort. However, this is not a guarantee that the same script block written for Netscape’s Navigator will work with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Consider each browser’s implementation of dynamic CSS1 positioning. First, both companies support CSS1 positioning, a draft recommendation actually created by both companies. This standard provides style sheet attributes that control an element’s width, height, z-order (the element’s position in the stack if elements are layered), the location of the left side and top side of the element. The standard also provides an attribute to control the visibility of the object and the clipping area.

Figure 37.2 shows how well CSS1 positioning works by showing a Web page using this technology, opened in both IE 4.0 and Navigator 4.0. Note how the text aligns directly on top of the image (yes, the text and images are separate elements), and that the images are aligned in a vertical line along the left side of the page, without using an HTML table for layout control.

The example in Figure 37.2 is discussed in Chapter 8, “Advanced Layout and Positioning with Style Sheets,” and is located in the file images3.htm at this book’s Companion Web Site.

Using CSS1 positioning to control the layout of text and images.

If statically positioning elements using CSS1 positioning works equally well with both browsers, dynamic positioning does not. Both browsers create the same effects but use different techniques. Considering that standards usually define an effect or behavior but don’t necessarily define a specific technique, you probably won’t be seeing consistent scripting of HTML elements in the next couple of years.

Java

As this is being written, Sun is on the verge of releasing JDK 1.2, Netscape just created a minor release to cover most of the classes released with the JDK 1.1, and Microsoft also supports JDK 1.1 in its release of IE 4.0.

The use of JavaBeans–Java components that can be packaged, distributed, and used and reused in applications–is among the technologies supported with JDK 1.1. It’s a very good idea and one that has already achieved popularity among Java developers.

However, not all is positive in Java’s future, particularly when used with browsers. The browser companies are usually one version release behind the current Java class releases. That is not a problem. What is a problem is a situation that may make creating cross-browser applets virtually impossible.

The difficulties with the original release of Java had to do with the Advanced Windowing Toolkit or AWT classes. For the most part, interface development in Java was difficult and lacked sophistication. To resolve this, both Microsoft and Netscape began work with interface classes, called Application Framework Classes (AFC) by Microsoft and Interface Framework Classes (IFC) by Netscape.

Netscape joined Sun and combined Sun’s current efforts with its own IFC library to create the basis for the Java Framework Classes (JFC), due to be released with JDK 1.2. However, Microsoft had also spent considerable time with its own framework classes. At this time, the end result is Netscape and Sun supporting one set of classes and Microsoft supporting another.

To add to the problem, Sun also submitted Java to ISO (the International Standards Organization), to become a standardized language. They also asked to be designated a Publicly Available Submitter (PAS), or the group responsible for developing and maintaining the specification. At this time, the ISO working group, JTC 1, has voted against the Sun recommendation, with comments. Sun’s response, in effect, is that they will pull the language from ISO and treat it as a de jure standard, meaning that the company will retain control.

This is not a situation that is guaranteed to increase business confidence in the language. Add this to the difficulty of creating applets using any kind of framework, having the applet work with both IE and Navigator, and the increased sophistication of Dynamic HTML, and you may be in for a future decline of Java use for applets.

ActiveX

The new and exciting technology addition to ActiveX is DirectAnimation, DirectX technology extended for use with Java applets, controls, or scripting.

Being able to create ActiveX controls fairly easily using a variety of tools should lead to an increased popularity of these controls with companies whose intranets use Internet Explorer. The downside with the technology is that it is proprietary.

However, Microsoft also released several new filters that were originally ActiveX controls, but then were built in as style attributes. These controls can change the transparency of a Web page element, have a line of text become wavy, or add pinlights to a page. This technology is so fun and simple to use that the demand may likely be to add these to the DOM once it is released.

With this technology you can create rollover effects for menu images without the extra download of the rollover effect image.

CGI and Server-Side Applications

Server-side applicability is already at a point where most companies’ programming needs are met. CGI is still an effective server application technique and still works with most Web servers. If your company uses Internet Information Server, Active Server Pages is still a viable application option, just as LiveWire is for Netscape’s Enterprise Server.

One change you may see more of is the use of CORBA/COM technology and distributed processing, with Web servers acting as one hub within a distributed network. Browsers might become “interface containers” rather than Web page processing tools. With the increased sophistication of Dynamic HTML, it won’t be long before you might be creating a Web page as the front end for a company application, in addition to using tools such as Visual Basic or PowerBuilder.

VRML

VRML is a wonderful idea that’s still looking for that killer application to take it out of the artist’s realm and plunk it directly into business.

Consider VRML’s concept, which is that you send a simple text file to a VRML-capable reader, which then renders the text contents into incredible, interactive 3D “worlds.” This is Internet technology at its best, as you have seen already with HTML, and will probably see with XML.

With VRML 2.0, the living world specification and the capability to integrate Web page scripting and VRML worlds, you are going to see more of this technology in use, for store catalogs, Web site maps, educational tools, and yes, even to play games and have a little fun.

XML and Channels

Neither XML nor channel technology, which are related, has found a niche yet, but with the release of CDF technology from Microsoft and Netcaster from Netscape, this should change.

The concept of push technology started with a bang at PointCast’s release, and almost disappeared without even a whimper–a case of too much hype and not enough efficient technology. In addition, the channel content just wasn’t there.

The entry of Netscape and Microsoft into the channel technology can only boost the use of this technology. Already, there is an increased number of companies providing channels. Add in those companies that are using the Marimba Castanet technology, and you should see an increased number of channels from diverse Web sites in the next year.

XML is the Extended Markup Language standard that basically adds the concept of extending Web page HTML to include new objects–objects related to the company’s business, based on some topic, or even packaged for reuse.

Microsoft and Marimba have proposed the use of CDF (Channel Definition Format) with the use of XML for use with channel technology. Apple has used a precursor of XML to create 3D Web site maps that are generated automatically; your reader can traverse to determine which page to access.

You can read more about XML at the W3C site at http://www.w3.org/XML/. You can read more about Microsoft and Netscape’s implementation at their respective sites or in Chapter 34, “XML.”

Summary

Where will you be in the future of Web development? Not all that far from where you are now. New technologies seem as if they are popping up all the time–but they need time to get absorbed into the mainstream of Web sites.

One technique to begin incorporating the new technologies is to create a special set of pages for your Web site–not your main pages, but those that can demonstrate a product or idea and use the new technologies. A set of pages for the Web site shown in Figures 37.3, Figure 37.4, and Figure 37.5 are viewable only by Netscape Navigator 4.0 and Internet Explorer 4.0; these are additional pages to a Web site, but the sites themselves use mostly mainstream technology, meaning some use of CSS1, scripting, some CSS1 positioning, HTML tables, and just plain text.

The Web pages use Dynamic HTML to hide and display content, as well as hide and display the menu. The page also uses CSS1 positioning to lay out the HTML elements.

The technologies discussed in this book are effective today, and will be effective into the year 2000. Best of all, they won’t break on New Year’s Day, 2000.

Categories
Web Writing

Books at Amazon

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Dynamic HTML Power Guide authored by Shelley Powers, published in January, 1998. 1/19/98 – Finally, at long last, this book is in the bookstores!“Dynamic HTML” book provides over 100 examples covering both Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 and Netscape Navigator 4.0 Dynamic HTML. This includes an explanation and demonstration of the style specification standard CSS1, and provides an overview of both VBScript and JavaScript 1.2, to assist in understanding examples written with both scripting languages. The book also has separate sections providing comprehensive coverage and demonstrations of the IE 4.0 and Navigator 4.0 scripting object models.

The end of the book features a section containing complex cross-browser examples such as an online presentation, magazine, game, and catalog page.

What cross-browser techniques will you learn? How to layer content, use layers and DIV blocks together, hide and show content, two different techniques for drag and drop, event capturing, clipping, element movement, and yes, even how to replace content in a page AFTER the page has been loaded. This is in addition to how to maintain DHTML “state”, and how to create cross-browser scripting objects that take care of browser differences.

The book also has fun with each individual browser. Using forms and layers together. Hiding and showing form “hints”. Learn how to emulate the IE shadow and alpha visual filters in Navigator. Play with drag and drop art. Have some fun with Microsoft’s visual and transition filters. Hide and show content, or change the style attribute for content.

The book has been tested against the delivered IE 4.0 product, and Navigator 4.4, on Windows95 and NT.

Book is for an intermediate/advanced audience.
Dynamic Web Publishing Unleashed co-authored by Shelley Powers, published in December, 1997 by SAMS.Book is an overview of Web-based technologies including HTML 4.0, DHTML, CSS1, Scripting, Java 1.1, Channels, server-side techniques and more. If you are new to Web, or have only worked with one or two Web technologies this book can help you “catch up” with the seemingly endless components of Web development. The book follows more of a reference format, meaning that each section can be read in any order. The book also follows the philosophy of “less talk, more code”.

The Channels and VRML chapters, and my commentary chapter on the future of the Web technologies, are online at SAMS at http://www.mcp.com/sites/1-57521/1-57521-363-x/.

Note that there is some confusion at various online bookstores about the size of the book. It is a little over 800 pages in length, not including the online chapters. Also note that this book is not by the same author as Web Publishing Unleashed, follows a different format, and contains new content.
Perl from the Ground Up, by Osborne McGraw-Hill, due to be published in 1997.I wrote the chapters on Object-Oriented Perl, and Perl and the Internet-based libraries. The book promises to be a good overall discussion of Perl that does not require any previous Perl experience.
Java Unleashed 1.1 – published by SAMS, 1997.I wrote the chapters on the SQL classes, and Java Databases. This book provides a good, overall, coverage of the JDK 1.1, including coverage of RMI, JDBC, threads, JAR, networking, sockets, applets, and much more.
Maximum Java 1.1 – published by SAMS, 1997.I wrote the chapters on Managing Media, Finding and Using Resources, and the Java Commerce API. This is a book that covers advanced Java topics such as the Java and VRML 2.0, Reflection and Introspection, factory objects, serialization and persistence and other. This book takes off from where others end.
PowerBuilder 5 How To, co-authored by Shelley Powers, published in 1996 by Waite Group Press.Book is fairly large and answers some of the most common PB 5.0 questions, using the Waite Group Press “Question and Answer” format popular with the “How To” series. In addition, this was the first book on the shelves that provided examples for using the DataWindow plug-ins.

I am particularly proud of the section I wrote on creating the different types of applications, demonstrating that PB applications do not need to be MDI (multiple document interface) apps, only.
Using Perl 5 for Web Programming, co-authored by Shelley Powers, published by Que, 1996.This is an Amazon Bookstore bestseller. I particularly like the company newsletter example I created for this book.
Categories
Critters Writing

A Tale of 2 Monsters Part 4: Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

There are many creatures that live in our myths and our minds, but the most famous is probably Scotland’s Nessie, or the Loch Ness Monster. But first, let me digress and talk about another lake monster, one a little closer to home: Lake Champlain’s Champ.

We used to live on a farm on the shore of Lake Champlain in Vermont. You might know Lake Champlain as home of, among other things, Champ, the Lake Champlain Monster.

Between our home and our next door neighbor’s home was a large and dense stand of old trees and brush.

One night, and I’ll never forget it, I and my husband listened to the sound of crashing from the woods as huge limbs were torn from trees at least 30 feet in height. No other sound penetrated the night, not a breath of wind, not a yip from one of the local foxes, no cars, no trucks, nothing — just the sound of smashed brush and crashing trees.

The sound continued long into the night and the next morning, the stand of trees was decimated.

 

Yes, I did live on the Lake Champlain islands in 1997-1998, and the incident I mentioned did occur — during the great ice storm of January, 1998, when the weight of the ice decimated many of the trees on the island.

Now, fess up — I bet you thought I was going to describe an incident involving Champ, the Lake Champlain monster, didn’t you? However, it is just acts of nature such as this that can sometimes generate tales of monsters, especially when one is searching for these same monsters.

However, sometimes, there just isn’t an explanation for what someone sees, or hears, or believes. It is then that some monsters enter the ranks of the legendary, monsters such as Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster.

Nessie: Origins of a Legend

 

During the Twentieth century, several photos of Nessie have been published, and in one very well known case, been proven to be a forgery. Numerous eye witness accounts of Nessie have been chronicled, and drawings made of eye witness accounts, such as those shown in this page, but there has never actual physical verification that Nessie exists.

Nessie’s beginnings, though, go back to an earlier time. According to folk lore, and a PBS Nova special on the monster2, the Scottish Highlands has had legends of a strange water-based creature since the Romans first entered the territory over 1500 years ago.

The Romans met up with the Picts in Scotland. The Picts were a pretty feisty group of people that liked to among other things, carve realistic images of animals, including the water-based creature mentioned in the last paragraph. Though it isn’t that unusual for primitive tribes to create stylized images of animals, the Picts concentrated only on images of real world animals. Well, if this was true, what was the water-based beast they represented? It is from simple roots that legends can spring.

The first “modern recording” of the Loch Ness Monster was made by a Saint Columbia, who wrote about saving a swimming man from a large creature by invoking the name of God, an incident occurring in the 500’s.

Of course, it wasn’t that unusual for the early Christians to weave themselves and their beliefs into folk legends and practices of areas they hoped to convert.

Nessie Sightings

Though Nessie achieved most of its fame based on sightings in the 1900’s, there are also eye witness accounts of seeing a the creature of Loch Ness in the 17th through the 19th century3, where it was also known as a water-kelpie or water horse, though without the frequency of this century’s sightings.

However, it was in 1933 that a sighting occurred that put Loch Ness on the map, and Nessie in the news. In 1933, a Mr. Spicer and his wife were driving by Loch Ness when they saw a creature crossing the road, a creature unlike any they had ever seen before. They described the beast as having a long neck followed a large, ponderous body, and they watched it until it left the road and entered the water.

The Spicer sighting was only the first of a plethora of sightings of Nessie, and it seemed the world just couldn’t get its fill of hearing stories about this mythical water beast. According to the Legend of Nessie site6, over 32 sightings occurred in the 1930’s alone.

What accounts for such a sudden surge in Nessie sightings? Well, one main reason is that roads were built around the Loch, increasing exposure of the lake to many more people. Another probable cause is that the idea of Nessie was planted in people’s minds. Where before a person may have seen a stick floating in the water, they may now see a tail. Where before a wave is only a natural movement of water, it now becomes the wake of a creature hidden from sight.

Perhaps it is also a matter a person seeing something that they can’t explain and where before they dismissed the sight as a stick or the natural movement of water, now they consider another source for what they are seeing: Nessie5.

The larger number of sightings of Nessie continued until the advent of World War II turned people’s minds to other monsters, in other places.

Century’s Greatest Hoax?

Many if not most of the Loch Ness sightings are from folks reporting what they genuinely see, and genuinely believe they are seeing. However, you can’t have the interest in something such as Nessie without attracting hoaxes, and the Loch Ness Monster had its share.

One of the first hoaxes was the finding of large and unusual footprints, discovered by a big game hunter of the time, Marmaduke Wetherell. He found large footprints, freshly made, in December of 1933, made casts of the prints and sent them off to the Natural Museum in London.

Well, there was a whole lot of excitement about the first physical “evidence” of the Loch Ness Monster. However, the excitement didn’t last long: the January following the finding of the prints, scientists announced that not only were the prints not that of an unknown beast, they were the prints of a hippopotamus foot, and a stuffed hippo foot, at that.

The footprint hoax definitely cooled interest in the Loch, at least from the basis of serious study. But it wasn’t the most famous hoax that came from Loch Ness. This dubious honor belongs to a photo taken by a Dr. Robert Kenneth Wilson in 1934.

This photo shows what looks like a sea serpent with a small head on a long neck, and resembling known images of a prehistoric dinosaur known as the plesiosaur.

The photo was examined and was determined to be genuine, not the result of camera trickery, and investigation of the creature in comparison to the wave sizes put the creature’s neck to be a couple of feet in length. All well and good, except that the “creature” in the photo was nothing more than a fake serpent neck attached to the back of a toy submarine.

How was the information about the faking of the photo discovered? One of the people that was involved with the hoax made a death bed confession in 1994 to that effect. And the person who was responsible for the hoax? None other than our friend, Marmaduke Wetherell.

After the debacle of the fake serpent footprint, Wetherell contacted his stepson, Christian Spurling, about creating the fake monster and setting up the hoax. With the help of Spurling, Wetherell’s son Ian, and two friends, Colonel Wilson and Maurice Chambers. the latter with Dr. Wilson at the famous sighting, the hoax was on.

Why did Wetherell do this? A possible reason could be revenge after the embarrassment he received because of the fake footprint. However, once the photo was published by the Daily Mail, and once the world reacted so strongly to the photo, all involved probably felt it wouldn’t be too good an idea to come forward with a confession about what they had done, even if this was the intention.

Loch Ness researcher Allister Boyd helped to uncover the hoax when he had discovered a story published years before by Ian Wetherell confessing to the hoax—a story that had been originally ignored. Boyd and fellow researcher David Martin contacted the last living representative of the hoax, Spurling, who confessed that he had helped fake the photo10.

Despite the two uncovered hoaxes, folks still believe in Nessie and every year people go to considerable lengths to try to find physical evidence of the Loch Ness Monster.

Current Research Efforts and Findings

In the 1970’s, Dr. Robert Rines from the Academy of Applied Science in Boston, Massachusetts, began to use sonar to attempt to obtain images of the Loch Ness Monster. He and his crew did obtain images of what they say are the flipper and head and upper body of a creature that they believe can only be the Loch Ness Monster11.

In addition to the work performed by Dr. Rines, other folks have dedicated their lives to finding physical proof of Nessie, folks such as Tim Dinsdale, who literally spent his life looking for proof of Nessie.

Another research project is being conducted by Dan Scott Taylor and is known as the Nessa Project12. The Nessa Project is based on the search for Nessie using a small 4-person submarine. Taylor used a smaller submarine, the Viperfish, to search for Nessie in the 1960’s—though without success and with many mechanical problems (though he believes that he was turned around on the bottom once by Nessie passing). Taylor hopes to try again as soon as he has funding for his new, homemade submarine, the “Nessa”.

Not all those who research the Loch Ness Monster are seeking actual proof of the existence of the creature. For instance, as mentioned earlier, Allister Boyd helped to debunk the Nessie photo hoax, even though he says he has witnessed an actual appearance of Nessie and seeks proof of the monster’s existence. Another more cautious researcher is Richard Carter, who also investigates the existence of Nessie, but also investigates the “evidence” of sightings, to see which is genuine, which hopeful thinking and bad camera shots13.

Of the research against the existence of Nessie, two areas that form the focus of this research is that the lake could not support enough of the Loch Ness creatures to form a viable population without much more evidence of their existence; and that there is not enough food within the lake to support any such population of larger creatures. Another scientific fact that makes the Loch a difficult home for a creature that could possibly be the last remnant of the dinosaur age, the plesiosaur, is that Loch Ness was a glacier until a scant 10,000 years ago — long after the dinosaurs were extinct14.

However, the searches still continue, the hunt is still on.

A Tale of Two Monsters: Summary

The Tale of Two Monsters takes a look at two legendary beasts, one proven to physically exist, the other still considered myth. We’ve covered how legends can arise, and how these same legends have influenced our currently popular form of storytelling: the movies.

The series also looked at cryptozoology or the study of animals without physical verification and that are discovered first through legends, tales, and folklore. In the last two sections of the series, we got a chance to meet the two stars of the series: the giant squid and Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster.

You may be asking whether I personally believe in the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. I would hope that I’m an open minded person, but the existence of the giant squid leads me to doubt the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, and it’s this relationship that tied these two creatures together for me and led to the articles you are reading.

As you saw in Part 3 of this article, the giant squid is a large creature, most likely up to a maximum of 60 feet in length, inhabiting the deepest depths of the oceans. To approach the surface is basically a death sentence for these creatures, yet we have physical evidence of the giant squid, including several well preserved examples in museums such as the Smithsonian.

Consider this: the Loch Ness Monster is not as large as the giant squid, but is much bulkier and would be much heavier. It’s supposedly located in a body of water that is much, much, much smaller than the ocean. The Loch Ness monster is also an air breather, meaning that it must surface to breath, unlike the giant squid—to reiterate, surfacing for the giant squid is death. Yet, we have physical evidence of the giant squid, and nothing more than faint, fuzzy images and highly scattered (yes, scattered) eye witness accounts of Nessie. I can’t help but believe that we would have physical evidence, hard evidence, of Nessie by now if it existed.

Regardless of my personal viewpoint, I respect the beliefs of others and I respect the beliefs of those who feel that Nessie does exist. There is no harm in this belief, no one suffers because of it. Something such as the Skeptic’s Dictionary can scorn this belief15, but those who tear down beliefs with such joy are not scientists—they are most likely nothing more than frustrated believers themselves who had their own beliefs shattered and now obtain considerable satisfaction is destroying the beliefs of others.

I started Part 4 of this article with a description of an incident that happened when I lived on the shores of Lake Champlain. I talked about how “normal” events can achieve significance when they occur out of context, or when our expectations are set— I believe in something therefore when something unexplained happens, the unexplained takes shape rather than staying as something unexplained, and therefore easily dismissed.

Scientifically, I may doubt the existence of Champ16, the Lake Champlain equivalent of Nessie, yet there is a part of me that wonders…

This is the part of me that peers into the darkness when I cross the lake on the ferry. This is the part of me that turns towards the lake when I hear an odd sound in the pattern of the waves. This is the part of me that looks to the lake during the full moon, with just a slight bit of expectation and curiosity. Not a lot, just a slight bit. This is the part of me that gives me soul.