Ask the Webmaster (our FAQ)
- Congratulations! I've just put a link to www.improbable.com on my links page. Now you can include a link back to my site.
- Er... no
thanks. If your site fits sharewair guidelines (or you would like to
do a HotAIR project) we would be thrilled to link to you, even without
the backlink. We currently have links from about 3,000 other
sites. Backlinks to all of them would be impractical.
- Are you guys for real?
- Yes, The Annals of Improbable
Research is a real magazine, published six times a year. If you
mean is the research real, much of it is, and some of it is not. You
would have to ask the researchers. Reprints and references from other
(?) academic journals are real (at least their editors thought so).
- What happened to the "Studmuffins of Science"?
- HotAIR used to
link to the home page for the Studmuffins of Science calendar, a
project of scientist and AIR staff member Karen Hopkin. Karen gave up
the domain name in 1997, and it was shortly thereafter taken over by a
porn site. AIR regrets any embarassment this may cause to sites that
still link to the studmuffins URL. There is, however, nothing we can
do about the situation.
- Where are the flying logos?
- During the lifetime of any
communication tool, there is a point when the technology itself is so
neato-cool that much of the available output is concerned with exploring
its capabilities. The first stereo recordings included marching bands
traveling around the room. The first IMAX movies invariably threw the
audience off some cliff or other. HotAIR would like to believe
itself to be an example of the mature use of the Web. Our goal is to
serve the information, not showcase the medium.
Our commitment to voluntary simplicity/functional realism was originally inspired by a commitment to our readers at the low end of the connectivity spectrum - we have a large K-12 and international audience, and a personal interest in supporting screen readers and non-graphic interfaces. Lately, we've discovered that this strategy is serving the high end as well. Folks now tell us that HotAIR is one of the few sites that works well on their palm pilots and web-linked cell phones.
- What happened to "the secret formula for guk"?
- The secret
formula for guk can still be found at
www.polymers.com/polylink/guk.html and at
www.polymers.com/dotcom/pdcmag/slime.html. We dont' link to it because in
addition to containing the secret formula for guk (and a very
kid-oriented explanation of the chemistry involved), the page now
includes a detailed description of how the formula for K-Y Jelly was
used to prosecute a criminal case. We don't think the description is
appropriate for kids, and we don't think the guk formula is of
interest in the "adults only" section. PDC (the folks who host the
page) are suffering from what media researchers call a schizophrenic
audience definition, but who are we to argue with the pros?
- Your hack of the Windows '95 logo on your poster gallery is really cool!
- Actually, we had that thumbnail gif before Windows
'95 came out. But I think we stole it from the same place.
- How do I become a satelite master/AIR volunteer?
- First, check our Want Ads. Then, drop me a line at airmaster@improbable.com.
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