CJ Online Extras
For a variety of reasons, some of the editorial materials on-hand don't make it into the pages of the magazine. That's what websites are for!
by Wm. Auckerman
Funny, isn't it? people who used to run around town, ranting and raving about the end of the world, were locked up and given crayons to draw with. Now they are given HTML authoring tools and allowed to roam the Web.
"Laugh as we may at the ever-growing number of bizarre websites, they are being accepted as reliable sources of information by an increasing number of people. Freedom of speech notwithstanding, we could one day find ourselves wishing we had done something early on to counteract the trend toward fantasy-over-fact on the Information Superhighway. If a driver is hallucinating, he shouldn't be on the road."
So opines Thomas Caldwell in "Pick a Reality - Any Unreality," a look at the bizarre world of cyberspace where people can transform their favorite fantasies into a shared "reality." And, appropriately enough, you'll find the article not here in the magazine, but in the "Online Extras" section of the Computing Japan website.
What is "Online Extras"? Sometimes, an article doesn't quite match the magazine's editorial benchmarks, but is still worth reading. Or the focus may be too narrow, and of interest to only a small percentage of readers (even though it would be of great interest to those). Often, an article or interview gets condensed because of space restrictions. And sometimes, an otherwise good article just gets squeezed out of an issue, but can grow stale waiting for another open slot. Starting from the April issue, we'll make these "didn't quite fit" articles available on our website, http://www. cjmag.co.jp. Some of the pieces will be immediately available for public viewing. Others will go first into our Subscribers-Only section, then be opened to the public (just like the online version of the paper magazine) after a three-month delay. The "Online Extras" for this month include:
- "Building A Frame-Based Japanese Flashcard Applet."[S] This Java tutorial is editor Steven Myers' long-delayed follow-up to the interactive kanji-study game applet in his September '96 "Brewing Java in Japan" article. (Long-delayed because Steve finished it four months ago, but we haven't had room to print it yet.)
- "The Devil's Software Glossary." [P] Terms like "shareware" and "middleware" don't begin to capture the full flavor of modern software. You've probably used swearware, griddleware, and kneeware applications, but didn't know what to call them. Now, thanks to this bit of April "foolishness," you will.
- "Pick a Reality - Any Unreality." [P] Fantasies can be pleasurable, and shared fantasies often inspire or spark creativity. But when fantasy is passed off as reality to unsuspecting Web surfers by perverse site creators who have their own private agendas....
- "Breaking Out of the Western Shell" - Extended interview.[S] Over 2,000 words got chopped from the printed version of this month's Manuel De Pena interview. The missing parts are here in Online Extras.
- [P] = open to the public;
- [S] = initially in the Subscribers-Only section; open to the public after three months.
